Centre for the Advancement of Science Teaching and Learning
Dublin City University, Faculty of Science & Health, Dublin 9
Conference Secretary: Eilish McLoughlin
ABSTRACT
International Conference
“Securing the foundations of Ireland’s knowledge-based economy:
Science and Mathematics Education for the new century”
www.dcu.ie/smec
Title:
Construing Meaning in Science: Language in a Secondary School Science
Class from a Linguistic Perspective
Authors:
Brian Donovan
Email Address of Corresponding Author: donovanb@tcd.ie
Abstract: (250 words)
This paper will look at how teachers and students talk in a secondary school science class. It will
provide a linguistic analysis of teachers teaching science content to students. The content area,
selected by teachers, was CO2, and the classes were second-year classrooms from City and County
Dublin. The language of teachers and students will be explored from lexicogrammatical (conflating
lexical items with syntax or grammar) and semantic perspectives which seek to explore how
meaning is made, or not made, within the classroom. The theoretical framework used is Systemic
Functional Linguistics (SFL), which has contributed three significant volumes to science education:
‘Talking Science: Language, Learning and Values’ (Lemke, 1990); ‘Writing Science: Literacy and
Discursive Power’ (Halliday and Martin, 1993); and ‘Reading Science: Critical and Functional
Perspectives on Discourses of Science’ (Martin and Veel, 1998). These three books seek to
explicate the role of language in science, generally, as well as in science education. This paper is
drawn on PhD research, and compares teachers’ and students’ ways of ‘saying’ and ‘learning’
science content, and proposes that science classes are actually language classes. Lemke notes that,
‘Learning science means learning to talk science’ (Lemke, 1990, 1). In an Irish context, however,
how much is actually known about the language of school science? Seeing science classes (and
other curricular areas) as language classes might provide a way of not only including more students
in actively learning science, but allow for extending the levels of science achieved by students.
References: Halliday, M.A.K. & Martin, J.R. Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power.
London: Falmer Press.
Lemke, J. (1990) Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex
Publishing Corporation.
Martin, J.R. & Veel, R. Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of
Science. London: Routledge.
Oral
X
Type of Presentation Preferred
Poster
Student Presentation
Yes
Signed _________________________________
Date__________________________
X
No
Please complete and return along with the registration form to Dr. Eilish McLoughlin, School of Physical Sciences, Dublin
City University, Dublin 9 (email: Eilish.McLoughlin@dcu.ie) before July 30th 2004.
Conference Chairs: Paul van Kampen & Tom McCloughlin
Conference secretary: Eilish McLoughlin, Eilish.McLoughlin@dcu.ie