Recovering Language in Higher Education

“Bernstein (1979: 300-1) challenged educators “to understand systematically how to create a concept which can authenticate the child’s experience and give him or her those powerful representations of thought that he or she is going to need to change the world outside.” This powerful, conscientious and self-conscious monograph by Monbec and Ding draws on Bourdieu, Social Semiotics and Ethics to engage directly with his challenge – filling the black hole of knowledge blindness in education with wisdom every teacher needs to know.”
- Jim Martin , Professor in Linguistics (Personal Chair), University of Sydney, Australia

This volume provides an original theoretical and practical discussion around language ontology, social theory, ethics, and pedagogy to enhance socially committed teaching and scholarship in Higher Education. The authors focus on language and literacy and English for Academic Purposes provisions in HE and bring together social semiotics (Systemic Functional Semiotics) and Bourdieu’s Field Theory to illuminate the norms and orthodoxies which shape practices in these fields. Part 1 aims to ‘break the illusio’ around language ontology, ethics and pedagogy which hinder social justice aspirations. Part 2 proposes ways to recover meaning and move forward, through deliberate ethical considerations, and a detailed and expanded knowledgebase for language educators. The volume will be of interest to anyone involved in language and literacy in Higher Education.

Laetitia Monbec is a Lecturer and the Director of Scholarship in the Language Centre at the University of Leeds, UK. She has taught academic literacies and EAP in a range of disciplines, colour semiotics in Design, and published on Systemic Functional Semiotics/Genre approaches to EAP, academic literacy in Nursing, and critical thinking.

Alex Ding is Professor of English for Academic Purposes at the University of Leeds, UK,  where he co-leads the MA in Teaching English for Academic Purposes. He is co-author of The English for Academic Purposes Practitioner: Operating on the Edge of Academia and recently co-edited Social Theory for English for Academic Purposes and Practitioner Agency and Identity in English for Academic Purposes .