ABSTRACT
In school contexts, students come to new knowledge through language. The dense and abstract language characteristic of the texts of advanced literacy construes the specialized and abstract knowledge that students are expected to develop as they move into secondary school and higher education. This chapter demonstrates the register features of school-based tasks such as expository essays, and of science, history, and other disciplines, is functional for their purposes. These features enable the language of schooling to make the disciplinary meanings through which knowledge is shared and developed. A greater awareness of the linguistic basis of this meaning making can broaden participation in the many contexts of learning that is realized in the language of schooling. The linguistic challenges of schooling come from the specialized ways that language construes experience and social roles simultaneously in the densely structured texts of various subject areas. Recognizing the meanings in the grammatical choices reveals the basis for valuing certain ways of using language.
