Function of Language in Learning and Knowledge Construction

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show empirically, albeit in an indirect manner, some aspects related to language development and knowledge construction, in the frame of the relations between thought and language proposed by contemporary philosophy and by systemic functional linguistics (SFL). To do this, we compare two versions of the same two texts, produced by university students as part of an explicit genre-based learning process, and argue for an evolution of their cognition. Different stances of contemporary philosophy, socio-historic psychology and cognitive studies are revised as part of the conceptual framework, along with the language-based pedagogy proposed within systemic-functional linguistics. Based on this theoretical revision, two teaching-learning experiences informed by this genre-based pedagogy and SFL discourse analysis methodology are presented. These experiences offer some achievements in the direction of the goal of the paper. We propose that students evolve in the construction of knowledge and, hence, in the development of thought, through the development of their writing competences, achieved by the application of genre-based teaching for written discourse. Therefore, based on the experience and the theoretical base proposed, evidence is provided for the hypothesis of cognition of the world as a human faculty constituted by the development of language.

Keywords

• language; learning
• knowledge construction
• tertiary education