Semantic Waves & Linguistic Snails: Teaching Science With Legitimation Code Theory and Systemic Functional Linguistics

Description

This paper reports on an educational research and development project in progress. The project aims to make science lessons in the Danish middle-year grades (4-6) more accessible to all students by increasing science-teachers’ awareness of the linguistic challenges second language learners in particular (can) encounter in science lessons and materials. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate teacher-development and strategies for making ‘science knowledge’ visible to all students by integrating meaningful language work in science lessons. The project takes its point of departure in an understanding of students' learning where linguistic interactions are seen as crucial for accessing scientific understandings. In the paper we introduce an analytical approach using semantic waves from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Observations and transcriptions of conversations from 4th grade science lessons provide data for semantic gravity analysis, which leads to discussions of how awareness of semantic waves can encourage teachers to integrate language activities in science lessons in order to scaffold their students’ science understandings and participation.

Period	28 Aug 2023 → 1 Sept 2023
Event title	THE 15TH CONFERENCE OF THE EUROPEAN SCIENCE EDUCATION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION (ESERA): THE 15TH CONFERENCE OF THE EUROPEAN SCIENCE EDUCATION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION
Event type	Conference
Conference number	15
Location	Cappadocia, TurkeyShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International