Task representation in German as a foreign language: A systemic functional analysis of Norwegian students’ written responses

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to understand in detail how different learners respond to writing tasks and what consequences their individual choices have on language use. The texts were composed by Norwegian upper secondary school students of German as a foreign language (GFL). In total, seven written responses to two writing prompts were described and juxtaposed based on a meaning-orientated perspective, with a focus on the learners’ choices along ideational, interpersonal and textual dimensions. Even though the learners responded in similar ways to each of the tasks, the findings also showed considerable variation in how particular meaning dimensions were realised by the different writers. The current study speaks to the importance of taking account of learners’ task representations in writing tasks and activities in secondary school FL learning.