Removing the veil: Developing critical reading skills through Systemic Functional Linguistics.

Abstract

This paper describes a study conducted with a group of undergraduate students to test the efficacy of instruction on Systemic Functional Linguistics to develop critical reading skills, more specifically the ability to identify the author’s position. Based on the concept of language as inextricably linked to ideology, the course trains students in concepts such as transitivity and lexis using an inductive approach. The comparison between the results of pre and post tests suggests the success of the methodology. The paper also advocates for the importance of the development of critical readers for the progress of the country