My research explores the complexities of the connections between language, knowledge, and values and is driven by the need to understand how these connections differ according to discipline. I focus particularly on the construction of interpersonal stance in student writing, disciplinary differences in student literacy practices, the knowledge practices and values underpinning school subjects and educational linguistics generally. I completed a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Technology, Sydney (2014), in which I explored the differential literacy demands of high stakes writing in senior secondary humanities subjects and for which I was awarded a Highly Commended award in the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association inaugural Doctoral Thesis Award, recognising impact within the field of Literacy Teaching and Learning in Australia.
My publications and research draws on complementary theories of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory to explore the nature of literacy practices in schooling. They engage with topics such as the nature of classroom discourse, conditions which enable cumulative knowledge building, disciplinarity and the demands of writing in the disciplines. Throughout all these publications I maintain a strong commitment to making the demands for success in schooling clear so they can be communicated to students and teachers and so that pedagogies which provide the most scope for learning for all students, including disadvantaged and minority students, may be developed.
<p>My research responds to the need to understand differential successes that students have in reading and writing for learning and high-stakes assessments as they progress through the years of schooling. I am particularly concerned with understanding differences in literacy practices in different subjects or disciplines and with helping to support teachers to teach students, with the ultimate goal of improving literacy and academic outcomes for students. I have a field-weighted citation impact of 5.30 indicating a strong influence in the fields of literacy education and applied linguistics. This impact is largely a result of interdisciplinary work investigating pedagogy supportive of cumulative knowledge-building and literacy development in the secondary school context.</p><p></p><p></p>
<p>My research responds to the need to understand differential successes that students have in reading and writing for learning and high-stakes assessments as they progress through the years of schooling. I am particularly concerned with understanding differences in literacy practices in different subjects or disciplines and with helping to support teachers to teach students, with the ultimate goal of improving literacy and academic outcomes for students. I have a field-weighted citation impact of 5.30 indicating a strong influence in the fields of literacy education and applied linguistics. This impact is largely a result of interdisciplinary work investigating pedagogy supportive of cumulative knowledge-building and literacy development in the secondary school context.</p><p>From 2009-2012 I was part of a major ARC-funded literacy project called Disciplinarity, Knowledge and Schooling DP0988123. This research project involved an iterative and responsive design-based literacy teaching intervention, in which researchers from the fields of Linguistics and Sociology of Education worked alongside teachers in the co-design of pedagogy and teaching resources. The intervention had a lasting impact, resulting in sustained changes in the teachers’ approaches to teaching writing. One very experienced high school teacher in particular, commented on how much she valued learning how to teach writing in her discipline:</p><p>I had learned how to teach reading but I’d never learned how to teach writing. Never, at all… I always thought about reading. I don’t know that I’d ever really concentrated on writing. I would correct writing. I would always teach a lesson in year 11 or two on essay writing, but kinda just jumping in. ‘Ok this is how to write an essay’ and then always give them an essay to write. But never breaking it down. Never modelling it together. So for me, it’s made me very conscious of that area.</p><p>Aside from behaviour change and teacher reports of increased student grades and confidence in writing, the project also had unforeseen theoretical benefits. The project was ground-breaking in that it lead to a greater understanding of some of the practices which lead to cumulative knowledge-building. These results were published in a special edition of the Journal Linguistics and Education (Macnaught, Maton, Martin, & Matruglio, 2013; Martin, 2013; Maton, 2013; Matruglio, Maton, & Martin, 2013) and have been widely cited in fields of Education, Sociology of Education and Applied Linguistics. The project also led to the advancement of theory in both Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) Theory and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). In particular, the interaction between SFL and LCT investigating the same knowledge problem led to the formulation of the notion of <em>semantic waves</em> and the <em>semantic scale</em> in LCT (Maton, 2013) and a reformulation of current linguistic understandings of contextual dependency in the concept of <em>presence</em> (Martin & Matruglio, 2013) and condensation of meaning in the concept of <em>mass</em> (Martin, 2017). Publications from this project are still emerging and the theoretical advancements are leading to further scholarship and empirical studies in diverse areas, including interdisciplinary learning, school pedagogy, vocational education, rehabilitation of prisoners and academic learning (see http://legitimationcodetheory.com/home/practice-and-impact/).</p><p>I am now applying my expertise in several new research collaborations in diverse areas of literacy development. I am working with Dr Amanda Baker on critical academic literacy development, combing linguistic and teacher cognition theories to investigate literacy development and academic preparedness among international students enrolled in postgraduate coursework programs. I am also the senior secondary literacy specialist in the TRANSLIT research team, led by Associate Professor Pauline Jones, investigating transition points in literacy development from pre-schooling to secondary schooling contexts. This project has led to several publications (Mantei & Kervin, 2018; Matruglio & Vale, 2018), and three monographs reporting research outcomes are currently in preparation. A further new avenue of research is a recently initiated project investigating creativity and disciplinary dialogue with Associate Professor Pauline Jones, Associate Professor Christine Edwards Groves, Professor Peter Freebody and Dr Helen Georgiou. In all this work, the aim is better to understand the nature of disciplinary literacy, the constraints and affordances in its development, and pedagogy and teacher knowledge about language which facilitates literacy learning, in order that all students might successfully master the levels of literacy they require for educational success.</p><p> </p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>Macnaught, L., Maton, K., Martin, J. R., & Matruglio, E. (2013). Jointly constructing semantic waves: Implications for teacher training. <em>Linguistics and Education, 24</em>(1), 50-63.</p><p>Mantei, J., & Kervin, L. (2018). Examining literacy demands for children during teacher-led episodes of reading aloud across the transition from Preschool to Kindergarten. <em>Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, The</em>(2), 82.</p><p>Martin, J. R. (2013). Embedded Literacy: knowledge as meaning. <em>Linguistics and Education, 24</em>, 23-37.</p><p>Martin, J. R. (2017). Revisiting field: Specialized knowledge in secondary school science and humanities discourse.<em> SFL</em>, 111-148. doi:10.7764/onomazein.sfl.05</p><p>Martin, J. R., & Matruglio, E. (2013). Revisiting mode: context in/dependency in Ancient History classroom discourse. In L. Zhanzi (Ed.), <em>Studies in Functional Linguistics and Discourse Analysis</em> (Vol. 5). Beijing: Higher Education Press.</p><p>Maton, K. (2013). Making Semantic Waves: A key to cumulative knowledge-building. <em>Linguistics and Education, 24</em>(1), 8-22.</p><p>Matruglio, E., Maton, K., & Martin, J. R. (2013). Time travel: the role of temporality in enabling semantic waves on secondary school teaching. <em>Linguistics and Education, 24</em>(1), 38-49.</p><p>Matruglio, E., & Vale, E. (2018). Transformation of text in the english classroom: Does ‘context’ really matter? <em>Literacy</em>. doi:10.1111/lit.12167</p>
Ph.D.
in Education,
Humanities Humanity: Construing the social in HSC Modern and Ancient History, Society and Culture, and Community and Family Studies 2014
My research explores the complexities of the connections between language, knowledge, and values and is driven by the need to understand how these connections differ according to discipline. I focus particularly on the construction of interpersonal stance in student writing, disciplinary differences in student literacy practices, the knowledge practices and values underpinning school subjects and educational linguistics generally. I completed a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Technology, Sydney (2014), in which I explored the differential literacy demands of high stakes writing in senior secondary humanities subjects and for which I was awarded a Highly Commended award in the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association inaugural Doctoral Thesis Award, recognising impact within the field of Literacy Teaching and Learning in Australia.
My publications and research draws on complementary theories of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory to explore the nature of literacy practices in schooling. They engage with topics such as the nature of classroom discourse, conditions which enable cumulative knowledge building, disciplinarity and the demands of writing in the disciplines. Throughout all these publications I maintain a strong commitment to making the demands for success in schooling clear so they can be communicated to students and teachers and so that pedagogies which provide the most scope for learning for all students, including disadvantaged and minority students, may be developed.
<p>My research responds to the need to understand differential successes that students have in reading and writing for learning and high-stakes assessments as they progress through the years of schooling. I am particularly concerned with understanding differences in literacy practices in different subjects or disciplines and with helping to support teachers to teach students, with the ultimate goal of improving literacy and academic outcomes for students. I have a field-weighted citation impact of 5.30 indicating a strong influence in the fields of literacy education and applied linguistics. This impact is largely a result of interdisciplinary work investigating pedagogy supportive of cumulative knowledge-building and literacy development in the secondary school context.</p><p></p><p></p>
<p>My research responds to the need to understand differential successes that students have in reading and writing for learning and high-stakes assessments as they progress through the years of schooling. I am particularly concerned with understanding differences in literacy practices in different subjects or disciplines and with helping to support teachers to teach students, with the ultimate goal of improving literacy and academic outcomes for students. I have a field-weighted citation impact of 5.30 indicating a strong influence in the fields of literacy education and applied linguistics. This impact is largely a result of interdisciplinary work investigating pedagogy supportive of cumulative knowledge-building and literacy development in the secondary school context.</p><p>From 2009-2012 I was part of a major ARC-funded literacy project called Disciplinarity, Knowledge and Schooling DP0988123. This research project involved an iterative and responsive design-based literacy teaching intervention, in which researchers from the fields of Linguistics and Sociology of Education worked alongside teachers in the co-design of pedagogy and teaching resources. The intervention had a lasting impact, resulting in sustained changes in the teachers’ approaches to teaching writing. One very experienced high school teacher in particular, commented on how much she valued learning how to teach writing in her discipline:</p><p>I had learned how to teach reading but I’d never learned how to teach writing. Never, at all… I always thought about reading. I don’t know that I’d ever really concentrated on writing. I would correct writing. I would always teach a lesson in year 11 or two on essay writing, but kinda just jumping in. ‘Ok this is how to write an essay’ and then always give them an essay to write. But never breaking it down. Never modelling it together. So for me, it’s made me very conscious of that area.</p><p>Aside from behaviour change and teacher reports of increased student grades and confidence in writing, the project also had unforeseen theoretical benefits. The project was ground-breaking in that it lead to a greater understanding of some of the practices which lead to cumulative knowledge-building. These results were published in a special edition of the Journal Linguistics and Education (Macnaught, Maton, Martin, & Matruglio, 2013; Martin, 2013; Maton, 2013; Matruglio, Maton, & Martin, 2013) and have been widely cited in fields of Education, Sociology of Education and Applied Linguistics. The project also led to the advancement of theory in both Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) Theory and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). In particular, the interaction between SFL and LCT investigating the same knowledge problem led to the formulation of the notion of <em>semantic waves</em> and the <em>semantic scale</em> in LCT (Maton, 2013) and a reformulation of current linguistic understandings of contextual dependency in the concept of <em>presence</em> (Martin & Matruglio, 2013) and condensation of meaning in the concept of <em>mass</em> (Martin, 2017). Publications from this project are still emerging and the theoretical advancements are leading to further scholarship and empirical studies in diverse areas, including interdisciplinary learning, school pedagogy, vocational education, rehabilitation of prisoners and academic learning (see http://legitimationcodetheory.com/home/practice-and-impact/).</p><p>I am now applying my expertise in several new research collaborations in diverse areas of literacy development. I am working with Dr Amanda Baker on critical academic literacy development, combing linguistic and teacher cognition theories to investigate literacy development and academic preparedness among international students enrolled in postgraduate coursework programs. I am also the senior secondary literacy specialist in the TRANSLIT research team, led by Associate Professor Pauline Jones, investigating transition points in literacy development from pre-schooling to secondary schooling contexts. This project has led to several publications (Mantei & Kervin, 2018; Matruglio & Vale, 2018), and three monographs reporting research outcomes are currently in preparation. A further new avenue of research is a recently initiated project investigating creativity and disciplinary dialogue with Associate Professor Pauline Jones, Associate Professor Christine Edwards Groves, Professor Peter Freebody and Dr Helen Georgiou. In all this work, the aim is better to understand the nature of disciplinary literacy, the constraints and affordances in its development, and pedagogy and teacher knowledge about language which facilitates literacy learning, in order that all students might successfully master the levels of literacy they require for educational success.</p><p> </p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>Macnaught, L., Maton, K., Martin, J. R., & Matruglio, E. (2013). Jointly constructing semantic waves: Implications for teacher training. <em>Linguistics and Education, 24</em>(1), 50-63.</p><p>Mantei, J., & Kervin, L. (2018). Examining literacy demands for children during teacher-led episodes of reading aloud across the transition from Preschool to Kindergarten. <em>Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, The</em>(2), 82.</p><p>Martin, J. R. (2013). Embedded Literacy: knowledge as meaning. <em>Linguistics and Education, 24</em>, 23-37.</p><p>Martin, J. R. (2017). Revisiting field: Specialized knowledge in secondary school science and humanities discourse.<em> SFL</em>, 111-148. doi:10.7764/onomazein.sfl.05</p><p>Martin, J. R., & Matruglio, E. (2013). Revisiting mode: context in/dependency in Ancient History classroom discourse. In L. Zhanzi (Ed.), <em>Studies in Functional Linguistics and Discourse Analysis</em> (Vol. 5). Beijing: Higher Education Press.</p><p>Maton, K. (2013). Making Semantic Waves: A key to cumulative knowledge-building. <em>Linguistics and Education, 24</em>(1), 8-22.</p><p>Matruglio, E., Maton, K., & Martin, J. R. (2013). Time travel: the role of temporality in enabling semantic waves on secondary school teaching. <em>Linguistics and Education, 24</em>(1), 38-49.</p><p>Matruglio, E., & Vale, E. (2018). Transformation of text in the english classroom: Does ‘context’ really matter? <em>Literacy</em>. doi:10.1111/lit.12167</p>
Ph.D.
in Education,
Humanities Humanity: Construing the social in HSC Modern and Ancient History, Society and Culture, and Community and Family Studies 2014
