“You Would Talk to Teachers With Fancy Words and More Respect”: Adolescent Learners Reflecting Metalinguistically on the Academic Register

• In Event: Poster Session 3
  In Poster Session: Approaches to Fostering Reading Proficiency in Classroom Contexts

Abstract

While research suggests that middle graders gradually acquire the skill to produce the linguistic features of the academic register when writing, few studies have explored whether students are also acquiring the skill to reflect metalinguistically on this lexicogrammatical decision-making. To this end, we asked students in grades 5-8 to read two written texts (manipulated to contain either more features of the oral informal or academic register) and to reflect on the situational appropriateness of each (n=128). Our findings suggest that students in higher grades more often reflecting explicitly on the lexical, syntactic, and discourse differences between registers. Suggestive of a link between metalinguistic skill and register switching, students in upper grades demonstrated greater skill in matching texts with appropriate interlocutors.

Authors

• Emily Phillips Galloway, Harvard University

• Shireen Al-Adeimi, Harvard University

• Morgan Figa, Harvard University

• Chelsea Santilli, Boston University

• Paola Uccelli, Harvard University

• Christina L. Dobbs, Boston University