A systemic functional analysis of multisemiotic biology texts 1

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION The present study investigates the nature of the linguistic and visual semiotic resources deployed in selected tertiary biology textbooks written in English It also aims to explore how such multimodal analyses may contribute to teaching academic English to non-native university or college students of science and engineering, in particular the development of academic reading skills in English To frame this research, this chapter discusses the nature and use of textbooks in science education (Section 1.1) and reviews some selected approaches to the description of English used in scientific and technological settings (Section 1.2) The chapter concludes by outlining the scope and organization of the dissertation (Section 1.3) 1.1 Nature and Use of Textbooks in Science Education As one of the means of imparting knowledge from one generation to another, textbooks play a crucially important role in the socialization and educational processes of almost all members of modern society They are so important that many governments of today invest heavily in the commission, publication, distribution and evaluation of school textbooks, especially those for primary and secondary school pupils In the strict sense of the term, “a textbook is a book that presents a body of knowledge in an organized and usually simplified manner for purposes of learning The textbook is frequently the most important teaching tool because it can determine not only what will be taught but also how it will be taught” (Langenbach 1999: 563) Although television, videotapes, films and, in particular, computers are rivaling printed materials of communication, “textbooks remain major resources in schools and colleges” (1999: 563) Although science education, especially in the industrialized countries, draws heavily on the readily available and highly diversified laboratory facilities where students are encouraged to perform hands-on inquiry-oriented activities in and outside the science class, “recent studies … estimate that as much as 75% of classroom instruction and 90% of the homework time is structured around text materials In the science classroom, the textbook dominates the curriculum” (Spiegel and Barufaldi 1994: 913) “Some researchers reported that the status of school science could be summarized with one word: textbooks” (Chiang-Soong and Yager 1993: 340)1 Specifically, in the first place, a science textbook introduces the students to the world of science It teaches them how to observe and analyze what happens around them and thus fosters an interest in and a proper attitude towards science This is particularly true if the textbooks are printed and used in series, for example, secondary school science series and junior college or senior high school chemistry, biology and physics series As Johns (1997: 46) observes, “[i]n many classrooms the textbook is the chief reading source, the single window into the values and practices of a discipline This is particularly the case in science and technology” Secondly, a science textbook familiarizes students with “specialized vocabulary, the complicated sentence structure, and the difficult concepts that characterize higher level science writing” (DiGisi and Willet 1995: 123) It also exposes students to non-linguistic materials, for example, pictures, diagrams, and mathematical symbolism According to Molitor, Ballstaedt and Mandl (1989: 5-6), ever since Johann Amos Comenius’s first picture textbook Orbis sensualium pictus in 1658, “graphicness has remained a central concept in pedagogy and didactics Illustrations have become an indispensable component in teaching material and other expository texts” By reading the textbooks, the students thus learn how to decipher the message contained in the non-linguistic material as well as in the linguistic text Finally, a science textbook, if properly used, can provide students with instruction and practice in understanding science expository writing It provides examples or models of expository writing by which the students may improve their writing skills While science textbooks are written and taught in a number of languages, in this study I shall be concerned with introductory tertiary science textbooks written in the English language Such a focus on English textbooks rather than on textbooks in other languages is primarily motivated by the growing demands from the increasing number of non-native speakers of English around the world to read English scientific texts In the next section I briefly describe the importance of the English language in international scientific and technological undertakings and survey some approaches to the description of written scientific English 1.2 Approaches to the Description of Written Scientific English: A Review Since the end of the Second World War, the English language has been playing an increasingly important role in international scientific and technological communication The number and importance of English-medium journals, books and research papers continues to increase Baldauf (1986: 221), in a study of 338 articles published between 1978 and 1982 in four leading journals devoted to cross-cultural psychology2, has found that “[t]hree hundred and twenty seven, or 97%, of the studies were in English, that “all but one of these articles had an English language abstract (the exception contained no abstract)”, and that out of the 8,489 citations provided for these 338 articles, 97% were in English It is not just in cross-cultural psychology that English reigns, but also in other disciplines (though in various degrees) Graddol (1997: 9) notes that “English is now the international currency of science and technology … the global language of experiment and discovery” Citing Graddol (1997), Flowerdew and Peacock (2001: 10) further observe that “[t]he international language of research and academic publication is English and anyone who wishes to have ready access to this material needs to know the language” With the advent of the computer-mediated communication in the 21st century, the English language is well on its way towards a global lingua franca Given the increasing importance of the English language to the international scientific and technological undertaking and the role of science and technology in modern societies, it comes as no surprise that research into the linguistic characteristics of English for Science and Technology (hereafter EST) has been a particularly growing area of study Linguists, language teachers, and science educators, under the influence of various schools of thought, have been attempting to discover the features of English used in scientific and technological settings In the remainder of this section I review some of the approaches to the description of written scientific English3 1.2.1 Register Analysis Much of the early effort at the description of EST was influenced by the notion of register As Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens (1964: 87) note, “[l]anguage varies as its function varies; it differs in different situations The name given to a variety of a language distinguished according to use is ‘register’” (see Section 2.3 for a fuller description of the register theory) At the same time, a register displays distinctive lexicogrammatical features That is to say, a register is defined both semantically by reference to the context of situation and formally by reference to the lexicogrammatical characteristics Scientific English is a functional variety, which serves to construct and transmit to and for a particular audience through a particular channel the knowledge accumulated in science and technology Linguists in the 1960s aimed to document the lexicogrammatical features of scientific English One of the earliest large-scale systematic studies of the grammatical features of scientific English was carried out at University College London in 1964-1967 under the direction of M A K Halliday (see Huddleston et al (1968) for the final report of the research project; see also Huddleston (1971) for “a substantially revised version” (p vii) of his contribution to the 1968 report) This research was heavily influenced by the then emerging systemic framework (for a brief account of Halliday’s systemicfunctional linguistics (hereafter SFL), see Chapter Two) By reference to the register variables of the field of discourse, the style of discourse (later to be known as “the tenor of discourse” in Halliday (in Halliday and Hasan 1989 [1985]: 12)) and the mode of discourse, the researchers selected 5,000 words from each of the 27 texts belonging to specialist journals, undergraduate textbooks and popular science works in biology, chemistry and physics The grammatical items in the systems of TRANSITIVITY, ATTRIBUTION, MOOD and so forth were studied and how frequently they occur determined From this information the quantitative profiles were provided Register analysis, or rather its frequency analysis component, has been useful in indicating what lexical items or syntactic structures are more frequent in a certain variety of English The frequency analysis of the grammatical features has developed in SFL into probability study of terms in a system (Halliday 1991; 1992; Halliday and James 1993; Matthiessen 1999; and Nesbitt and Plum 1988) Halliday (1991: 42) notes that “[f]requency in text is the instantiation of probability in the system A linguistic system is inherently probabilistic in nature” More recently, Halliday (2003: 23-24) elaborates, …these quantitative features are not empty curiosities They are an inherent part of the meaning potential of a language An important aspect of the meaning of negative is that it is significantly less likely than positive; it takes up considerably more grammatical energy, so to speak The frequencies that we observe in a large corpus represent the systemic probabilities of the language; and the full representation of a system network ought to include the probability attached to each option in each of the principal systems (…) We have not yet got the evidence to this; but until it can be done, grammars will not have come of age As far as English language, and especially EST, teaching and learning are concerned, the results of frequency analysis can be used to help determine what items should be given more priority in a certain teaching syllabus As computers are increasingly used for linguistic analysis, frequency analysis will continue to have its place in the research community In retrospect, the early studies of EST had certain limitations First, the theoretical frameworks underlying the analyses were at the embryonic stages Systemic grammar, for instance, had just begun to take shape and “[s]erious work on registers is even more recent in origin”, wrote Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens (1964: 98) Second, linked to the first limitation, Huddleston et al (1968) did not attempt to account for the statistics resulting from frequency analysis; they did not relate it to the context of situation and context of culture in which the lexicogrammatical items occur Thirdly, practically no attention was paid to the non-linguistic materials in the corpus, the exception being the discussion of mathematical symbolisms used in the texts analyzed (Huddleston et al 1968: 682-685, Appendix C) In addition, the researchers were preoccupied with the description of the formal features of EST, rarely taking into consideration how the results they obtained could be turned into practical and useful input into language teaching or other fields of study 1.2.2 Rhetorical-Communicative Approach In this approach to EST, the focus of attention shifted from the grammatical and lexical properties to the communicative properties of the language In the words of Widdowson (1979: 57), this approach “tells us what the [lexicogrammatical] forms count as communication, how they express elements of discourse” As the heading “rhetorical-communicative” coined by Swales (1985: 72) suggests, there are two sub-categories in this broad approach: the communicative, upheld by Allen and Widdowson (1974, in Swales 1985: 73-87) (among others), and the rhetorical, practiced by the University of Washington (Seattle) EST Program comprising Selinker, Trimble and others (e.g Trimble 1985) Allen and Widdowson (1974, in Swales 1985: 75) claimed that the frequency analysis of the formal features of EST is equivalent to treating “scientific discourse merely as exemplification of the language system” and that “[it] does little or nothing to indicate what kind of communication it is” They suggest, therefore, that an English course at tertiary level should aim at developing two kinds of ability in the students: The first is the ability to recognize how sentences are used in the performance of acts of communication, the ability to understand the rhetorical functioning of language in use The second is the ability to recognize and manipulate the formal devices which are used to combine sentences to create continuous passages of prose (in Swales 1985: 74) The conceptualization of the “Washington” approach to EST arose from the members’ first-hand experience of teaching EST to non-native undergraduate engineering students at the University of Washington (Seattle) starting in 1967 Their teaching and research spanning 18 years is summarized in Trimble (1985) The “Washington” school divides the total discourse (for instance, a research article) into four interrelated rhetorical levels By “rhetoric” and the derivative “rhetorical”, Trimble (1985: 10) refers to the EST writer’s process of “choosing and organizing information for a specific set of purposes and a specific set of readers” Level A is “[t]he objectives of the total discourse”, for example, “Detailing an experiment”, “Making a recommendation” Level B is “[t]he general rhetorical functions that develop the objectives of Level A”, for example, “Stating purpose”, “Reporting past research” Level C is “[t]he specific rhetorical functions that develop the general rhetorical functions of Level B”, for example, “Description”, “Definition”, “Classification” And Level D is “[t]he rhetorical techniques that provide relationships within and between the rhetorical units of Level C”, for example, “Orders”, “Patterns” (Trimble 1985: 11) As far as teaching reading skills is concerned, Trimble (1985: 13) has found that Levels C and D deserve special attention Trimble (1985) also discusses the rhetorical-grammatical relationships and lexical problems in EST discourse Of particular interest, Trimble (1985: 102-113) also draws attention to the visual-verbal relationships in EST Register analysis and rhetorical-communicative approach may be taken as congruent with and complementary to each other Both recognize the importance of the language system: Widdowson’s “usage”, “text” and the Washington school’s attention to lexis and grammar in EST on the one hand, and Halliday’s lexicogrammar on the other, point to a similar (if not the same) direction Both attach importance to the role social context plays in language activities: Widdowson’s communicative value, “use”, discourse, and communicative schemata, the Washington school’s rhetoric, on the one hand, and Halliday’s context of situation and context of culture on the other At the same time, the two approaches differ in their theoretical orientations First, register analysis is based on a theory of language and context, i.e the systemic theory, which stresses “the complete interconnectedness of the linguistic and the social” (Christie and Unsworth 2000: 3), whereas the rhetorical-communicative approach does not commit itself to a particular view of the lexicogrammar The lexis and the syntactic structures that the rhetorical-communicative approach attempts to attach some communicative value to are not themselves shown to relate to each other and form a system For instance, in a study of the rhetorical functions of the passive as opposed to we plus an active verb in two astrophysics journal papers, Tarone, Dwyer, Gillette and Icke (1998: 113) propose that “we indicates the author’s procedural choice, while the passive indicates an established or standard procedure”, but they failed to recognize that the rhetorical “force” of a particular language form derives from a selection from the system, in this case the system of THEME (Halliday 1994) Secondly, register analysis in the 1960s placed the investigation of the social context on the research agenda, which was later included in works such as Halliday (1978) The rhetorical-communicative approach, on the other hand, has not tried to map the “use” and its relation with “usage” A summary of the overlap and complementariness between the two major approaches to EST is given in Table 1.1 Register analysis Rhetorical-communicative Importance of language items Yes (the system) Yes (usage) Importance of social context Yes (register; context of situation and context of culture) Yes (communicative schemata) Language as meaning potential Yes (system network) No Approach Area of comparison Relationship between text Yes (Realization) and context No Table 1.1 A comparison of two approaches to EST Key: “Yes” means that a particular approach adheres to the basic notion shown in the area of comparison “No” means that it does not What is included in the bracket is the area or areas in the approach that elaborates the basic notion From the Table we can appreciate a need for the two approaches to complement each other The systemic approach has a potential of investigating EST in considerable detail and with considerable insight, as in Halliday and Martin (1993) and Martin and Veel (1998) But at a particular stage of research, it may not yet be able to provide an immediate answer to some practical problem arising, for instance, from 10 Wellington and Osborne (2001: 23) point out “non-technical words (often taken for granted) can be at least as problematic as the technical, specialist terms of science Equally, the logical connectives used to link sentences and ideas can present a barrier to the reading and understanding of science” Besides vocabulary difficulties, Bulman (1985: 22- 23) draws our attention to unfamiliar sentence structures, types and forms of verbs and lack of motivating factors in science texts that may baffle the pupils To gauge the difficulty level of a particular science text, researchers have devised various readability formulae including the Flesch formula and the FRY readability graph (Wellington and Osborne 2001: 142-143) In addition, Strube (1989) discusses the notion of style in physics textbooks He claims that there are four rules that govern the language of physics textbooks The first rule is that “the author as an individual must be distinct from the prose written; his or her personal beliefs, attitudes, attitudes, idiosyncrasies, and personal speaking voice must be absent” “A second rule demands that the writer be as precise – that is, unambiguous – as possible” The third rule is that the discourse takes place “within a narrow, specified context” The fourth rule is “that of limited syntax” and suggests that “only a limited range of sentence types will predominate in a given type of textbook” (1989: 294; original emphasis) According to Strube, in analyzing science textbooks, we should consider “the writer’s view of science as a discipline, and the effect of that view on the rhetorical style of the textbook” “In particular, the type of reasoning or argument allowed is determined by the established methods that give validity within science as a discipline” (1989: 294) Unlike linguists who have begun to realize the importance of non-linguistic resources in science, scientists and science educators have long attached great importance to the non-linguistic elements in their work This is obvious in the 14 abundance of diagrams, photographs, tables and graphs that appear in the textbooks, research papers, technical manuals and the like These non-linguistic resources have been used to make meaning unmeanable by linguistic resources alone Stephen Jay Gould (1987: 18), a foremost writer on paleontology and evolution, writes: Scholars are trained to analyze words But primates are visual animals, and the key to concepts and their history often lies in iconography Scientific illustrations are not frills or summaries; they are foci for modes of thought As is clear from this brief review, research into science texts has made considerable progress since the early 1960s However, there are still many questions yet to be answered as regards the multisemiotic science textbooks In particular, research on textbooks written for college or university students has been sparse As Hyland (2000: 104) points out, “[u]niversity textbooks are something of a neglected genre; little is known about their rhetorical structure, their relationship to other genres, or the ways in which they vary across disciplines” Notable exceptions to this observation include a number of recent studies, for example, Hyland’s (2000) corpusbased study of metadiscourse in textbooks in a number of disciplines, Love’s (1991 and 1993) investigations on geology textbooks and Love’s (2002) examination of an introductory sociology textbook The present study will thus contribute to this growing field of research 15 1.3 The Scope of the Dissertation 1.3.1 Texts Selected for Analysis: Methodological Issues Given the main purposes of the study, i.e investigating the multimodal construction of scientific knowledge and social identity in the science textbook and hence helping the non-native science and engineering students to read textbooks in English, the chief approach adopted is systemic-functional analysis of published written textbooks in current use in English-speaking countries For convenience of selection I chose textbooks in current use in Singapore post-secondary educational institutions and presumably elsewhere, judging from the places of publication, that is, UK, USA And due to the complexity of multimodal analysis, three texts only were selected and analyzed (see below for details of the textbooks and excerpts) This text analysis is accompanied by consultation with the subject instructors teaching two of the textbooks analyzed here and by observation of the classroom teaching This took place from July 2001 to November 2001 in the case of Essential Cell Biology: An Introduction to the Molecular Biology of the Cell and from January 2002 to April 2002 in the case of Organic and Biochemistry: Connecting Chemistry to Your Life Hyland (2000: 138) notes that, in studying the nature of the social interaction in scientific texts, the analyst may need three types of data: “a corpus of representative texts”, “interview transcripts from disciplinary informants” and “expert self-reports” My preference, however, has been directed towards the textual analysis due to the main goals of this project Consultation with specialist informants has therefore been sought through email or face to face interview only when the need arises to clarify certain points, and classroom observation has been completed in the form of 16 observation notes and of collection of worksheets and lecture notes without tape recording or video recording what happens in the classroom The purpose of the research and the nature of the student population which the research attempts to serve have dictated largely what types of texts were selected As noted earlier, I am attempting to improve the reading proficiency of science and engineering university students who study English as a foreign language For students from P R China, this means I am targeting that group of students who, in addition to the six years of high school English learning, have also completed their first two years of university general academic English learning and presumably have passed the Nationwide College English Test – Band The nationwide A Teaching Syllabus of College English (hereafter TSCE) (1999: 8) requires that these students continue to read “Subject-Based English” (hereafter SBE), where the contact hours should be no less than 100, offered in three semesters (semesters 5-7, i.e Year to Year 4) The TSCE (1999: 5) sets out the following objectives for the development of the students’ reading ability after completion of the SBE: The students should be able to read with ease textbooks, reference books and other literature in English in their relevant specialties, be able to grasp the main idea and identify major facts and relevant details The reading should be at a rate of 100-120 words per minute As for the essential literature the students should be able to understand correctly, catch the gist and analyze it logically and critically and arrive at sound conclusions The speed for such reading should be 70 words per minute (my translation) The texts the Chinese students are required to read for SBE should preferably be about a specific subject area, for example, biology, chemistry and physics, and be roughly at a junior college or first- or second-year university level in English speaking countries (but not higher) in terms of the subject area content That is, the texts 17 selected for Chinese students to read for their SBE course are those that have been written for English speaking students roughly at the same age and at a slightly lower level in terms of knowledge structure There are several reasons for the selection of texts of such a level First, the Chinese students are required to have a recognition vocabulary of only 4,200 - 5,500 words upon completion of their first two years’ general academic English learning (TSCE 1999: 2-3) Such a small vocabulary store is not adequate for the fluent reading of specialist texts Grabe (2002 [1995]: 280) points out that “students in English L1 academic contexts learn an average of 40,000 words by the end of secondary school, and learn approximately 3,000 new words each year in school” Such a huge gap in terms of the amount of recognition vocabulary store between native and non-native university or college students should be taken into account when deciding upon the level of the textbook Secondly, Chinese students usually not have access to English textbooks of their specialties in these two years, and so this exposure (at Year and Year 4) will be their first experience in such materials These books therefore should not be too difficult from the start in terms of the subject content In addition, not all the topics in the English speaking country A level textbooks, which are strongly influenced by the UK A level syllabuses in countries like Singapore, are equally fully treated in Chinese senior high school (i.e junior college) education and vice versa For example, the GCE A Level Examination Syllabuses Biology (2002: 12) and the textbooks that it has some influence upon (for example, Taylor et al 1997: 77-115) require that the candidates have a more detailed understanding of the biological molecules (such as carbohydrates, lipids and proteins) than the Chinese Senior High School Biology Textbook (1996: 8-16) and the syllabus it follows In other words, this in-depth study of the biological molecules is not required until the Chinese student is at Year of his or her university life – that is, 18 only if he or she chooses to major in chemistry and biology and attends courses given in the Chinese language by specialist instructors The selection of A level or first- or second-year introductory textbooks in English for the Chinese Year and Year science and engineering students will give them an opportunity to expand their knowledge and skill in coping with the variety of English and other semiotic resources employed in the English science textbooks and appreciate the differences and similarities in terms of subject content – that is, provided the subject content is not too difficult If advanced level textbooks for Year and Year English speaking students were used in classes for their Chinese counterparts (that is, also Year and Year 4), the latter would not be able to digest them: first because they are difficult in terms of content and, more important, because they are difficult (or at least unfamiliar) in terms of the language and other semiotic resources employed In other words, the SBE is still an exercise aiming at providing a transition from learning English for the sake of learning to using English to solve problems in their actual study or research Table 1.2 gives a summary of the three texts selected In selecting specific textbooks for analysis, I sought the recommendation of subject instructors at the National University of Singapore (Texts and in Table 1.2) and a junior college Head of Department of Science in Singapore (Text 3) and also consulted the GCE A Level Examination Syllabuses Biology4 (2002: 33) The two introductory university texts are those used in classes Text is the major reading material for second-year biology majors for the module of Cell Biology (BL 2262) at the National University of Singapore, and Text is used by first-year students for the general education module GEM 1516K at the same university Excerpts were selected on the basis of conceptual unity, either whole chapters or whole sections For example, if the topic “atomic 19 Level Title Text for Year Essential Cell Biology: An Introduction to the Molecular Biology of the Cell Text for Year Organic and Biochemistry: Connecting Chemistry to Your Life Text for A Level Biological Science 2: Systems, Maintenance and Change (3rd edition) Authors B Alberts et al I Blei and G Odian D J Taylor, et al Date of publication Publisher Page numbers Topic 1998 Garland Publishing, Inc 549-560 and 567 Cell cycle and mitosis 2000 W.H Freeman and Company 302-329 Carbohydrates 1997 Cambridge University Press 776-807 Continuity of life Table 1.2 Texts selected structure” is selected, then that section or chapter dealing with the topic is selected for analysis I avoided, however, the first few introductory chapters of the textbooks, because they tend to review the presumed background knowledge for the respective course For example, the first two chapters of Essential Cell Biology serve as a review of and introduction to the basic (and presumed) concepts in biology and chemistry and are not typical of the normal reading required of the student taking the course That is, in addition to the conceptual unity criterion, excerpts selected should also be representative of the normal reading required of the students5 Below I briefly describe 20 the three texts A sample page from each of the three texts is presented in Figures 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 Text The excerpt is from Chapter 17 “Cell Division” of Essential Cell Biology (henceforth ECB), and consists of Section “Overview of the Cell Cycle”, Section “Mitosis” and the “Essential Concepts” summary covering these two sections on page 567 The topic was only briefly discussed in the module of BL2262 because the lecturer assumed that the students “may have learned it a long time ago” (October 22, 2001) In addition, four video clips about the stages of the cell cycle were shown to the class The reason for such a selection is that the two sections are conceptually connected Section “Overview of the Cell Cycle” gives an introductory account of the four phases of the eucaryotic cell cycle, i.e G1 (G = gap), S (S = synthesis), G2, and M (mitosis + cytokinesis) and Section describes the events in mitosis, where the nucleus of a eucaryotic cell divides into two Clauses dealing with cytokinesis were excluded The materials analyzed include linguistic running text, “Essential Concepts”, caption to the figures, and illustrations Although the textbook is published in one volume, it does not stand alone because the instructor has access to a package of resources which includes: (1) ECB Interactive, a CD-ROM, which “is a visual and aural tool that takes students beyond the printed page The CD-ROM in no way replaces the text; it simply enhances and extends it by providing an extra ‘dimension’ in a way that only multimedia is able to do”6; (2) Art of Essential Cell Biology, a CD-ROM, which “[c]ontains all the figures, legends, panels and tables from the book enabling instructors to put together individualized presentations in just a few minutes”; (3) Transparency Set, “[a] set of 21 Figure 1.1 A sample page from Text 22 CARBOHYDRATES 303 1O.2 MONOSACCHARIDES Monosaccharides have one of the following structures: structural formula for aldose structural formula for ketose [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] Classification and Nomenclature Monosaccharide names classify the compounds in two ways simultaneously, by [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] Example 10.1 Classifying monosaccharides [word…] [word…] Rules for naming monosaccharides structural formula structural formula [word…] structural formula Solution [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] structural formula [word…] Figure 1.2 A sketch of a sample page from Text 23 (5) Transfer the root tips to a test[word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] 23.3 Method Mitosis The events occurring with the nucleus (1) Place a pin through a clove of [word…] [word…] [word…] (2) [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] 23.3.1 Centrioles and spindle formation [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] [word…] Centrioles are organelles situated in [word…] [word…] [word…] 779 Figure 1.3 A sketch of a sample page from Text 24 154 transparencies of the most important illustrations from the book”; (4) Essential Cell Biology Test Bank, which “provides over 500 questions of varying type and difficulty that instructors can use for quick term-time tests or adapt for formal examinations; and (5) Classwire, which “allows you to create your own online teaching and learning environment centered around Essential Cell Biology” The instructor at the National University of Singapore also recommends that interested students consult Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts et al (1994) It is also clear, however, that ECB is the centre of the package and forms the main study material of the course ECB is written for “first- or second-year undergraduates with little background in biology” (p v) It is designed as a “general account of cell biology” and focuses on “the properties that are common to most eucaryotic cells and that are necessary to an understanding of how any individual cell lives and reproduces itself” (p v) It emphasizes “central concepts over facts” (p v) This book contains nineteen chapters Each chapter begins with a general introduction, and in the right-hand marginalia a list of section and sub-section headings is provided in light yellow shading to inform the reader what is to be covered in the chapter The introduction is followed by two to five sections Each section is divided into a number of sub-sections Each chapter concludes with “Essential Concepts”, which lists the major concepts covered in the chapter, “Key Terms”, and “Questions” A number of questions also appear in the right-hand marginalia at relevant points of the running text This book is profusely illustrated with approximately 800 full-colour illustrations in the 630-page text In contrast to many tertiary science textbooks 25 published in the 1980s, this book is in full-color As Crabbe (1998: 152) comments, “colour is used abundantly, both in actual micrographs and molecular models and in artists’ representations of pathways and mechanisms” Text The excerpt is made from Chapter 10 “Carbohydrates” of Organic and Biochemistry: Connecting Chemistry to Your Life (henceforth OaB), except for pages 299-300 which outline the scope of biochemistry and the structure of Part Three of the book, and pages 330-331 which are exercises to the chapter This selection is roughly one complete chapter The reason for the selection of the topic “carbohydrates” is that it is among the topics listed in the GCE A level syllabus In addition, this topic deploys the complete range of semiotic resources, in particular biochemical symbolisms OaB “is designed to be used in a one-semester course presenting organic and biochemistry It was written for students who intend to pursue careers as nurses, dieticians, physician’s assistants, physical therapists, or environmental scientists” (p xiii) Like ECB from which Text is selected, OaB is also supplemented with a visual CD-ROM and an interactive website Text This selection is from Chapter 23 “Continuity of Life” of Biological Science (henceforth BS) Unlike the other two textbooks, which were written for university or college students, BS was written in accordance with the current A level biology syllabuses in use in the UK and other countries BS “has become established as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative A level Biology texts” (p vi) I shall conclude this sub-section with a procedural note on the linguistic analysis The original linguistic texts of the biology textbooks were entered, clause by clause, into the computer as database files and analyzed using Systemics 1.0 software developed by Judd and O’Halloran (2002) The summary of the analysis reported in 26 Chapter Four was obtained using the “Search” function available in Systemics 1.0 The complete analyses of the clause-level experiential, interpersonal and textual meanings and of the interclausal logical meanings exist as database files Biotext 1, Biotext and Biotext 3, available from the author 1.3.2 Research Questions In approaching the biology texts from a systemic-functional perspective, several questions are pursued First, what linguistic resources are deployed in the construction and transmission of knowledge in biology? And in what social role is the reader positioned? That is, what particular cluster of selections in the interpersonal, ideational and textual metafunctions is used in the texts and what worldview does such a cluster project? Second, what visual resources in terms of the selections out of the systems of metafunctions are deployed? All three texts contain schematic drawings, tables, photographs, and so on What are the functions of these visual displays and what visual lexicogrammar is at work here? Third, how does each semiotic resource interact with the other(s) in the production of the overall effect, i.e what each semiotic resource contributes to what the reader responds to as a whole? And finally how can such a multimodal discourse analysis of science texts help non-native speakers of English cope with science texts in English? According to some recent survey (Luo et al 2001 and Liao and Qin 2000) many university students of science and engineering in the People’s Republic of China experience great difficulties in trying to read scientific English and benefit very little from the English for Specific 27 or Academic Purposes reading classes It is believed that by sensitizing the foreign or second language learners to the linguistic and multisemiotic features of science texts, teachers can improve their comprehension and writing skills 1.3.3 Organization of the Dissertation Chapter Two presents the theoretical framework for the analysis of the linguistic text Chapter Three proposes the frameworks for the analysis of visual display Chapter Four presents the results in the linguistic analysis and Chapter Five examines the visual selections made in the texts and discusses how the visual interacts with the linguistic text Drawing upon the preceding analyses, Chapter Six explores the implication of the research for teaching English for Specific Purposes to non-native university students, makes a number of recommendations as to how to improve teaching and learning and outlines a few areas that are in need of further research 28 ... briefly above, register analysis is apparently characterized by frequency analysis of particular 12 lexicogrammatical items But frequency analysis is only one part of register theory; another part of. .. (communicative schemata) Language as meaning potential Yes (system network) No Approach Area of comparison Relationship between text Yes (Realization) and context No Table 1. 1 A comparison of two approaches... investigating EST in considerable detail and with considerable insight, as in Halliday and Martin (19 93) and Martin and Veel (19 98) But at a particular stage of research, it may not yet be able