Cognitive Discourse Functions: an interdisciplinary construct for language and content integration

Cognitive Discourse Functions: an interdisciplinary construct for language and content integration
Christiane Dalton-Puffer, University of Vienna
Designing and implementing a truly integrated pedagogical approach in contexts where second languages and content subjects are learned simultaneously is difficult. One particular challenge is the fact that content subject pedagogies and language pedagogies form their own largely independent universes of discourse, both in the daily life of educational institutions and in the world of academic research. In search of potential bridging concepts, I have proposed a construct of Cognitive Discourse Functions (CDFs; Dalton-Puffer 2013, 2016) which seeks to relate learning goals and competences defined by content subjects like science or history to the verbalizations required from teachers and learners as they work towards these goals during classroom interaction, in test situations or work on assignments. My presentation will recap the CDF construct with its seven core functions: Categorize, Define, Describe, Evaluate, Explain, Explore, Report, and connections with the discourses of education and applied linguistics. Examples from empirical studies applying CDFs in the analysis of European CLIL classrooms will illustrate its applicability as well as the methodological and theoretical problems arising in its operationalization.
Reading:
Dalton-Puffer, C. (2013). A construct of cognitive discourse functions for conceptualising content-language integration in CLIL and multilingual education. European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 216-253.
Link to the Reading: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

Dalton-Puffer, C & Silvia Bauer Marschalinger. (2019). Cognitive Discourse Functions meet Historical Competences: Towards an integrated pedagogy in CLIL history education. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Education, 7(1), 30-60.
Link to the Reading: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

Dr. Christiane DALTON-PUFFER is Professor in English Linguistics in the Department of English and Center for Teacher Education, University of Vienna, Austria. She is a leading scholar in the field of educational linguistics and content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and co-edits with Angel M. Y. Lin the Routledge Series in Language and Content Integrated Teaching & Plurilingual Education.

The ‘Translanguaging & Trans-Semiotizing Research Group’ Channel aims at building a Community of Practice (CoP) of both emergent and experienced scholars for academic exchange on Translanguaging and Trans-semiotising research and pedagogies. It serves as a bridge between theory and practice, an interactive platform for intellectual dialogues across different generations and diverse contexts, a space for imagination, criticality and creativity, and an innovative Public Pedagogy forum for 21st Century students, teachers and researchers.