The First SYFLAT Research Methodology Webinar 2025/2025
The Program
Session 1: 09:30-10:00 am | Dr. B. Kanchana Mala
Title: English Language Learning – Challenges and Coping Strategies of Tamil
Medium Students: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective
Session 2: 10:00-10:30 am | Dr. C. Shahin Banu
Title: Sentence Construction Errors among ESL Learners: A Systemic
Functional Linguistics Perspective
Session 3: 10:30-11:00 am | Dr. G. Saratha Lakshmi
Title: Consonant Cluster Acquisition in English by Tamil Speakers: A
Contrastive Phonological and SFL Analysis
Session 4: 11:00-11:30 am | Dr. M. Saraswathy
Title: From Reading to Expression: An SFL Perspective on How Books Shape
Vocabulary Skills and Word Use
Session 5: 11:30-12:00 am | Dr. N. Vadivu
Title: Pronunciation Challenges in Students’ Spoken English: An Analysis
through the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Framework
(Affiliation: Sona College of Technology, Salem, India)
Abstracts
Dr. B. Kanchana Mala: English Language Learning – Challenges and Coping Strategies of Tamil Medium Students: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective
English proficiency plays a crucial role in India’s educational and employment sectors, yet Tamil-medium learners often face significant disadvantages compared to their English-medium peers. This study explores the linguistic, pedagogical, psychological, and socio-cultural challenges Tamil-medium students encounter in acquiring English, alongside the strategies they adopt to overcome these barriers. Using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as the analytical lens, the research examines how students’ struggles and coping mechanisms can be understood in terms of language’s three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. Data will be collected through interviews, classroom observations, and student writing samples, and analyzed using clause-level SFL tools. Findings are expected to reveal how phonological and syntactic differences, limited communicative practice, low confidence, and restricted access to resources hinder language acquisition, while strategies such as code-switching, media exposure, rote memorization, and peer collaboration provide partial support. Through SFL analysis, these challenges and strategies are reframed as meaning-making processes rather than isolated errors. The study further proposes pedagogical interventions, including bilingual scaffolding, task-based learning, and explicit teaching of text organization, to better support Tamil-medium learners. By integrating grammar and meaning through SFL, this research contributes to more equitable and effective ESL pedagogy in multilingual contexts.
Dr. C. Shahin Banu: Sentence Construction Errors among ESL Learners: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective
This study investigates sentence construction errors among ESL learners through the lens of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). While students often rely on prescriptive grammar rules, they frequently overlook how sentences function as meaning-making resources, leading to recurrent errors. Drawing on Halliday and Matthiessen’s SFL framework, the research examines errors across the three metafunctions of language: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. Writing and spoken samples will be collected from learners and analyzed at the clause level using SFL tools of transitivity, mood, and theme. Errors will be categorized not only structurally but also functionally—for instance, misused processes and participants (ideational), incorrect mood and modality (interpersonal), and disrupted theme-rheme progression or cohesion (textual). The analysis will demonstrate how these misrealizations distort intended meaning and affect communication. Beyond error identification, the study proposes pedagogical strategies informed by functional grammar, such as theme-rheme exercises, mood analysis activities, and transitivity-based tasks. By reframing sentence construction errors as choices that disrupt meaning rather than as mere grammatical mistakes, the research contributes to more effective, meaning-oriented approaches to ESL instruction.
Dr. G. Saratha Lakshmi: Consonant Cluster Acquisition in English by Tamil Speakers: A Contrastive Phonological and SFL Analysis
The structural differences between Tamil and English phonological systems create significant challenges for Tamil speakers learning English. One of the most prominent difficulties arises from consonant clusters, particularly at word-initial and word-final positions. Tamil, a Dravidian language, has highly restricted cluster structures, permitting only a few medial clusters and almost never allowing complex clusters at the beginning or end of words.English, in contrast, permits a wide range of consonant sequences. This study examines the phonological difficulties faced by Tamil speakers in producing English consonant clusters using a structural linguistic approach. Data from recorded pronunciations of Tamil-speaking learners were analyzed for error patterns such as epenthesis (vowel insertion), deletion, and substitution. The findings reveal that structural constraints in Tamil directly influence cluster simplification strategies, leading to forms such as [iskuːl] for “school” and [milku] for “milk.” By situating these findings within a Systemic Functional Linguistics framework, the study shows how cluster simplification strategies reflect learners’ efforts to maintain ideational meaning, while simultaneously influencing interpersonal intelligibility and textual rhythm in spoken English. The study highlights the value of contrastive phonological analysis for predicting learner difficulties and proposes pedagogical implications for improving English pronunciation among Tamil speakers.
Dr. M. Saraswathy: From Reading to Expression: An SFL Perspective on How Books Shape Vocabulary Skills and Word Use
Reading plays a critical role in language development, providing learners with rich exposure to vocabulary and diverse linguistic structures. This study investigates how reading books shapes vocabulary skills and word use, framed within the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL views language as a resource for making meaning, emphasizing the interplay of three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. By adopting this lens, the research explores how reading contributes to vocabulary expansion while also enhancing learners’ ability to select words that construct meaning, express relationships, and organize discourse effectively. The study employs a mixed-methods design, combining vocabulary assessments with discourse analysis of learners’ written texts. Findings are expected to demonstrate that extensive reading not only increases lexical variety but also strengthens learners’ capacity to make functional word choices aligned with context and purpose. Ultimately, this research underscores the pedagogical value of reading as a meaning-making practice, supporting vocabulary development and expressive competence through the integrated framework of SFL.
Dr. N. Vadivu: Pronunciation Challenges in Students’ Spoken English: An Analysis through the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Framework
This study investigates the pronunciation difficulties faced by students in spoken English, analyzed through the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Pronunciation is not only the accurate production of sounds but also a key resource for meaning making within Halliday’s three meta functions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. Many learners experience challenges with both segmental features (such as vowel and consonant substitution) and suprasegmental features (including stress, rhythm, and intonation), largely influenced by their first language. These difficulties often distort meaning, weaken interpersonal rapport, and disrupt discourse coherence, thereby reducing communicative competence. To explore these issues, the study employed a qualitative descriptive design with 30 undergraduate English language learners selected through purposive sampling. Data were gathered through a spoken task, where participants narrated a short story and engaged in role-play dialogues, and through semi-structured interviews capturing learners’ perceptions of their challenges. The spoken data were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using phonological analysis to identify recurring pronunciation errors. These errors were then interpreted through the SFL framework to assess their impact on meaning-making across the three meta functions of language. The interview data were thematically coded to triangulate findings and reveal learners’ coping strategies. The results are expected to highlight how pronunciation difficulties extend beyond sound-level errors to affect students’ functional use of language. The study ultimately seeks to offer pedagogical insights that support learners in developing pronunciation as a resource for effective communication in spoken English.
