BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE FOR STUDY
4.4. Language used in Science and language needed for Science
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Showalter’s (1974 cited in Rubba and Anderson, 1978: 450) definition of a scientifically literate person comprises seven dimensions. Contained in this definition are references to the cognitive, ideological and social implications of being scientifically literate:
i. understands the nature of scientific knowledge;
ii. accurately applies appropriate science concepts, principles, laws, and theories interacting with his universe;
iii. uses processes of science in solving problems, making decisions, and furthering his own understanding of the universe;
iv. interacts with the various aspects of his universe in a way that is consistent with the values that underlie science;
v. understands and appreciates the joint enterprises of science and technology and the interrelationship of these with each and with other aspects of society;
vi. has developed a richer, more satisfying, more exciting view of the universe as a result of his science education and continues to extend this education throughout his life and;
vii. has developed numerous manipulative skills associated with science and technology (450).
To be scientifically literate means participating in, learning, using and applying the language of science which not only differs from the language used in social conversations, but also the language used across various other academic disciplines. This study aims to gauge answers in respect of moulding the scientifically literate FP student via critical research question 1.
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in teaching the content of the science curriculum, and the values that often go with it, science education, sometimes unwittingly, also perpetuates a certain harmful mystique of science (author’s emphasis). That mystique tends to make science seem dogmatic, authoritarian, impersonal, and even inhuman to many students. It also portrays science as being much more difficult than it is, and scientists as being geniuses that students cannot identify with. It alienates students from science (xi).
This picture of science is likely to be even more daunting for students who have to read and write science in a non-native language, and it is not uncommon that this language (the LoLT) is students’ second or additional language. Critical research question 3 is used in this study to give an indication of the measures taken to help students to acquire discipline- specific literacies for science.
Since “science seeks to portray itself as a source of objective knowledge” (Wellington and Osborne, 2001: 65), it removes itself from narrative, personal, subjective and emotional forms of writing. It shuns the use of figurative language such as idioms and personification. Commenting on the language of science, Lemke (1990) refers to it as a style that avoids colloquial forms, uses unfamiliar technical terms (e.g. mitosis and meiosis) and familiar words (e.g. energy, force and power) in unfamiliar contexts.
Students in pursuit of HE studies are exposed to academic language which involves the use of academic vocabulary that is common to academic discourse (e.g. interpret and theory) and technical vocabulary which is useful within specialized fields of study, but which varies across disciplines. However, academic writing is also interspersed with everyday language. As this study explores the link between science content and discipline-specific literacies, an explanation of the register applicable to science and the vocabulary and grammar usage in conveying knowledge in science is particularly relevant. This study shows through critical research question 2 if any of any perceived challenges with the use of the discipline-specific literacies are a consequence of the ability to use the register of science.
4.4.1 Register
Science has its own particular register. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), in SFL, register refers to the ‘clustering of semantic features according to situation types” (68).
Mohan and Slater (2006) explain that registers are typically associated with particular
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social contexts and are described in terms of three main variables that influence the way language is used: field, tenor, and mode. Field is concerned with the activity being pursued or the subject matter the activity revolves around. Tenor refers to the social roles and relationships between the people involved, and mode is the medium and role of language in the situation. These three variables relate to three key areas of meaning in language (305).
“When linguists identify a “scientific register,” then, they not only describe a style of language but also the practices, interactional patterns, and means of communication associated with scientific contexts” (Bawarshi and Reiff, 2010: 30). Issues relating to SFL and scientific register and the way in which these are to be explored in this study have been discussed in Chapter 3 of this dissertation. Biber (2006) describes register as “situationally- defined varieties” (11), including the speaker’s purpose in communication, the topic, the relationship between speaker and hearer, spoken or written mode, and the production circumstances (Biber et al. 2002b: 10). Registers can be described at any level of generality. For example, methodology sections in chemistry research articles are a highly specialized register (Biber et al. 2002b: 10).
4.4.2 Defining Vocabulary Usage in Science
Science uses specific vocabulary and grammar to “describe complex ideas, higher-order thinking processes, and abstract concepts” (Zwiers, 2008: 20). The language of science is unambiguous and precise. This means that the reader is exposed to “a large number of scientific terms, each with their own precise meaning outside familiar context clues, all embedded in an extremely complicated sentence structure” (Bulman, 1986: 21) The words used in scientific discourse need to be learnt within particular contexts; and since the words used in science are accurate, precise and objective; memorising a string of highly specialized scientific terms and concepts serves very little purpose. Word choice in science discourse is diverse. The language of science is made up of technical words and non- technical words.
Non-technical vocabulary refers to terms that have one or many meanings in everyday language but which have a precise and sometimes different meaning in a scientific context (Cassels and Johnstone, 1985). Examples of non-technical words are principal, random, excess, relative, illustrate, negligible and tabulate. Studies conducted by Cassels and
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Johnstone (1985) deemed these words as being most troublesome and indicated that it is these non-technical words that resulted in students’ misunderstanding of science. Non- technical words used within the sciences can pose as obstacles for students who learn science in a second or additional language. In addition, common to the discipline of science are the use of metalinguistic and metacognitive words (Wilson, 1999).
“Metalinguistic verbs are words which take the place of the verb to ‘say’ (e.g. define, describe and explain) while metacognitive verbs are words which take the place of the verb to ‘think’ (e.g. predict, calculate and deduce)” (Wilson, 1999: 1069). In support of this, research by Clark (1997) found that for learners in Grade 9 in South Africa, it was the use of non-technical and familiar words used in science to be most problematic to second language learners of science.
Learning science involves two types of patterning: creating taxonomies of new technical terms that differ from everyday understandings, and creating logical sequences of reasoning, such as cause–effect relations (Halliday, 1998). Since science is a highly specialized discipline that cannot be explained using everyday language, the reliance on technical words that are context- and discipline-specific is crucial. This means that within the broad discipline of science, there are technical words, terminology and concepts that have specific meanings in, for example, the disciplines of biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics. Technical words typify the language of a discipline. Examples of commonly used words across science are reaction, equation, volume, hypothesis and theory. Science disciplines feature technical terms which replace common every day words, for example mammalia in place of mammals or sodium chloride in place of salt. As expressed earlier in this paragraph, there are technical words used in science that are specific to academic disciplines, such as chromosome in biology; anion in chemistry; hypotenuse in mathematics; and torque in physics. These technical words in science are best conveyed when used in a scientific explanation – either orally or as a written text. Biber (2006) points out that most of these highly technical words do not have commonplace synonyms because they refer to entities, characteristics, or concepts that are not normally discussed in normal everyday conversations. He contrasts the use of specialized discourses in the sciences with that of humanities and social science textbooks which are more likely to deal with aspects of everyday life, discussing people, events and social behaviour from new perspectives.
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Included in the vocabulary of science discipline are familiar words that students confront and even use in everyday interactions and normal inter-personal conversations, however, such words, for example, power, energy and frequency have different meanings in new contexts such as science classrooms and textbooks. Moji and Grayson (1996) have isolated examples of concepts (e.g. power and force) which have specific meanings in science but translate into a single term in the African languages isiZulu and seSotho. “Science terms, to some extent, are metaphors”, for example a field in the context of science is not really a reference to a playing field (Wellington and Osborne, 2001: 5). As conveyed by Parkinson et al. (2007), it is thus the use of everyday words in the context of science that creates barriers to understanding science.
In scientific register, complex phrases are created by combining more than one concept (e.g. least common multiple) and words are derived from Greek and Latin (e.g. parabola, denominator and coefficient). Common to the science disciplines is the use of two or more words to differentiate between things which are different in themselves, but belong to the same general topic (e.g. converge and diverge; sequence and series; interpolation and extrapolation). Bulman (1986) cites “polysyllabic words such as orthorhombic, phosphorous and diaphragm used in science which are difficult to spell and pronounce”
(21).
4.4.3 Grammar in Science
Although science is perceived as being experimental, practical or operational, the language in science texts is dense and conceptual and is conveyed in an authoritative manner. Reid and Hodson (1987) comment that “the writing of science is expository, turgid and more information oriented” (87). A feature common in scientific texts is increased lexical density which makes reading more difficult. Science uses its own unique specialized lexicon, semantics and grammatical structure to construe scientific knowledge and values.
The grammatical features that dictate how scientific texts present knowledge are nominalisation, lexical density grammatical metaphor, causal and reasoning verbs, logical connectives and passive verb usage. (GM has been adequately explored in Chapter 3). The critical research questions relate to discipline-specific literacies in science and thus the nature of science discourse. Consequently, responses to critical research question 2 intend
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to show whether any of the perceived challenges that arise are a consequence of any of the grammatical features of scientific texts, especially nominalisation and lexical density.
4.4.3.1 Using Nouns and Nominalisation which contribute to Lexical Density
Unlike spoken communication, the language of science has a greater reliance on the use of nouns rather than verbs. This is illustrated in the sample paragraph below cited by Biber (2006) from an ecology textbook which distinguishes the greater use of nouns (in bold) as opposed to the use of verbs (underlined):
Wildlife photography represents the nonconsumptive use of wildlife, which is the use, without removal or alteration, of natural resources. For much of this century, the management of wildlife for the hunter has been emphasized by wildlife managers. In recent years, however, management for nonconsumptive uses such as wildlife photography and birdwatching has received more attention (48).
“In the paragraph sample above there are three main clauses (Wildlife photography represents ...; management has been emphasized …; wildlife photography has received ...) and one dependent clause (use of wildlife, which is ...). The primary function of the verbs is to connect long and complex noun phrases, which convey most of the information in the paragraph (e.g. the management of wildlife for the hunter, management for nonconsumptive uses such as wildlife photography ...)” (Biber, 2006: 49). Such complex linguistic styles in science make reading of the texts harder to access. Examples of the expression of science information as indicated in the example cited above illustrate that when events are represented as nouns rather than verbs, texts not only become more compact and dense, but more difficult and inaccessible. These impact on the way second language speakers decode, deconstruct and comprehend, process and eventually produce scientific texts.
It is through nominalisation that “actions, events and qualities are construed as nouns, and thus represented as objects” (Halliday and Martin, 1993: 52). Nominalisation which features prominently in science language makes actions or processes (verbs) become concepts (nouns) or noun phrases. An example of a sentence containing a scientific fact in which an action (e.g. to recover) is construed as a noun (recovery) is conveyed by Parkinson and Adendorff (2004): “In the first stage of the recovery of magnesium, limestone (CaCO3) is heated at high temperatures” (381). Nominalisation has a tendency to make sentences more complex, especially since several abstract ideas are packed into
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one single sentence. Through nominalisation, verbs change from actions to concepts, making sentences harder to grasp, for example: the use of nominalisation changes the following simple sentence: “If you reduce the length of the string you will increase the speed of the pendulum” to “The reduction in the length of the string will produce an increase in the speed of the pendulum” (Bulman, 1986: 23). In the examples of nominalisation cited, changing the verbs recover and reduce respectively to recovery and reduction, are examples of grammatical metaphors used in the language of science.
“A grammatical metaphor (GM) is a substitution of one grammatical class, or one grammatical structure, by another” (Halliday and Martin, 1993: 79). As a mechanism used to “describe processes of knowledge construction and reproduction” … and “a characteristic of scientific writing and thought” (Massoud and Kuipers, 2008: 214-215), nominalisation in the context of science is used to depict cumulative knowledge as in the following example:
1. The water decomposed.
2. The decomposition of water involved forming new molecules.
(Massoud and Kuipers, 2008: 215).
For students to engage with science, they need to become familiar with the way in which nominalisation features in science texts and practice. Even though nominalisation enables the writer to write concisely, thus satisfying the discourse community of science, it creates lexically dense texts that can be challenging to students’ comprehension of them, more especially for students for whom the language of academic texts is not their native language.
This intense use of nouns in science language brings out a linguistic feature that is prominent in science, referred to as lexical density. Lexical density is the measure of the density of information in a text, depending on how tightly the content words have been packed into the grammatical structure of the text (Halliday and Martin 1993: 76). It can be measured by the number of lexically dense words per clause. Lexical density is higher in formal and planned language such as academic language but it is not uncommon to find the lexical density of science texts to be considerably higher and therefore more difficult to read.
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The following examples extracted from Halliday and Martin (1993) are an indication of tightly packed lexical clauses: “(1) A parallelogram is a four-sided figure with its opposite sides parallel (which has a lexical density that measures six); and, (2) The conical space rendering of conical strings’ gravitational properties applies only to straight strings (which has a lexical density that measures ten)” (76). A distinct feature of science content is the use of a string of lexically dense words such as ‘conical space rendering’ that has no grammatical words between them.
Wellington and Osborne (2001) outline the point that scientific texts contain a large number of explanations e.g. an explanation of how stars are formed. “Explanations are accounts that focus on the processes ... they have [high] proportion of action verbs; these actions are organized in a logical causal sequence” (70). This necessitates the use of logical connectives such as therefore, in addition, essentially and because as a way of ensuring that texts are presented in a logical and coherent way. Gardner (1977) defines logical connectives as “words or phrases which serve as links between sentences, or between propositions within a sentence, or between a proposition and a concept to form a more complex proposition” (v). Gardner (1977) differentiates between “logical connectives indicating inference (e.g. consequently and thus); comparisons and contrasts (e.g.
alternatively and unlike); generalizations (e.g. often and in general) or logical connectives as additives (e.g. in addition and furthermore) or apposition terms (e.g. namely and for instance). The way science texts are composed means that a student needs to process both the technical words used in science as well as the non-technical words, included within which are the logical connectives. The perceived difficulty apparent in the use of logical connectives is the fact that not all of them belong to one grammatical category: connectives can be co-ordinators (e.g. and; but; or) or adverbials (e.g. hence, exactly)” (11).
Students require linguistic competence to comprehend the specialized concepts in science and the grammatical patterns used to convey such concepts. Students require linguistic cues to negotiate meaning of the “context-reduced communication” (Cummins, 1984b) prominent in scientific texts which are cognitively demanding. This requires reliance on Cummins’ (1984b) CALP. As with academic texts in general, science texts contain complex vocabulary, grammatical and discourse features.
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Scientific research is inclined to be supported by evidence/s, proofs, statistics and data. In science, information is typically presented accurately and objectively, as well as in an assertive tone (Schleppegrell, 2001). In order to do so, the author must distance himself or herself from the text by refraining from using:
1. first person references (e.g. I am writing.);
2. references to his/her mental processes (e.g. I think; I suppose);
3. discourse fillers for monitoring information flow (e.g. you know; well);
4. direct quotes (e.g. He says,“I am tired.”); and,
5. vagueness and hedges (e.g. sort of; stuff like that) (Chafe, 1982).
Therefore, in science, the genre of report writing is conveyed objectively via the use of passive verbs. The passive voice is commonly used in scientific writing to create an objective, impersonal science text, mainly used to explain the method or procedure of conducting an experiment. One of the elements peculiar to science is genre pedagogy (Hyland, 2002) (which has been discussed in the previous Chapter). This study also explores the nature of genre writing, the tools used to teach it and any accompanying difficulties that emerge in relation to it.
Being authoritative, the language of science differs tremendously from everyday conversational language. Due to lack of familiarity with the type of reading and writing commanded in the sciences, students can experience difficulty engaging with the scientific language and can display poor competence at scientific writing. Therefore, being a serious discipline that uses a non-familiar writing style that relies on specific register, sentence and grammatical structures, science language can present challenges in reading and writing.
This study, after having fathomed the discipline-specific literacies required in science (by means of critical research question 1); uses critical research question 2 to indicate the perceived challenges associated with the language of science and discipline-specific literacies in science and finally; through the inclusion of critical research question 3, shows the type of support measures used by the DSs to address to help foundation students registered to study modules in the FP with the acquisition of them.