The purpose of this study was to provide a functional linguistic based description of teacher writing comments in secondary ELA classrooms. Based within a case study methodology, this study used analytical tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) in order to discover the various meanings that teachers make through their commenting practices. The findings of the study show that teacher comments focus on the content of the student writing, but also, significantly, help teachers to discursively realize various teacher identities. It was also found that teacher comments tended to either be concrete in their reference to a particular error in the text, or abstract in mentioning a particular theoretical understanding about writing, and comments rarely linked the concrete to the abstract. The implication of these findings suggest that teachers and students may benefit from a shared metalanguage that would allow them to explicitly link abstract notions of correctness in writing to particular, concrete places in the student text.
","abstract_html":"<p>The purpose of this study was to provide a functional linguistic based description of teacher writing comments in secondary ELA classrooms. Based within a case study methodology, this study used analytical tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) in order to discover the various meanings that teachers make through their commenting practices. The findings of the study show that teacher comments focus on the content of the student writing, but also, significantly, help teachers to discursively realize various teacher identities. It was also found that teacher comments tended to either be concrete in their reference to a particular error in the text, or abstract in mentioning a particular theoretical understanding about writing, and comments rarely linked the concrete to the abstract. The implication of these findings suggest that teachers and students may benefit from a shared metalanguage that would allow them to explicitly link abstract notions of correctness in writing to particular, concrete places in the student text.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Angus, Ryan"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Curriculum & Instruction","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Luciana C. de Oliveira","Janet Alsup","Tony Silva","Ruth Harman"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2014,"date_issued":"2014-10-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2014-10-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:53:22Z","subjects":["Curriculum and Instruction","Linguistics","Secondary Education and Teaching"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/225","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Luciana C. de Oliveira","Janet Alsup","Tony Silva","Ruth Harman"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Angus, Ryan"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Curriculum & Instruction"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Curriculum and Instruction","Linguistics","Secondary Education and Teaching"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/225"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["The purpose of this study was to provide a functional linguistic based description of teacher writing comments in secondary ELA classrooms. Based within a case study methodology, this study used analytical tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) in order to discover the various meanings that teachers make through their commenting practices. The findings of the study show that teacher comments focus on the content of the student writing, but also, significantly, help teachers to discursively realize various teacher identities. It was also found that teacher comments tended to either be concrete in their reference to a particular error in the text, or abstract in mentioning a particular theoretical understanding about writing, and comments rarely linked the concrete to the abstract. The implication of these findings suggest that teachers and students may benefit from a shared metalanguage that would allow them to explicitly link abstract notions of correctness in writing to particular, concrete places in the student text.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["A sociosemantic examination of secondary English teacher written feedback"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Luciana C. de Oliveira","Janet Alsup","Tony Silva","Ruth Harman"],"dc:creator":["Angus, Ryan"],"dc:description.abstract":["The purpose of this study was to provide a functional linguistic based description of teacher writing comments in secondary ELA classrooms. Based within a case study methodology, this study used analytical tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) in order to discover the various meanings that teachers make through their commenting practices. The findings of the study show that teacher comments focus on the content of the student writing, but also, significantly, help teachers to discursively realize various teacher identities. It was also found that teacher comments tended to either be concrete in their reference to a particular error in the text, or abstract in mentioning a particular theoretical understanding about writing, and comments rarely linked the concrete to the abstract. The implication of these findings suggest that teachers and students may benefit from a shared metalanguage that would allow them to explicitly link abstract notions of correctness in writing to particular, concrete places in the student text.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/225"],"dc:subject":["Curriculum and Instruction","Linguistics","Secondary Education and Teaching"],"dc:title":["A sociosemantic examination of secondary English teacher written feedback"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Curriculum & Instruction"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:53:22Z"}