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This book describes the discourse of biology from a systemic functional linguistic perspective. It offers a detailed description of resources based on text analysis. The description reveals co-textual patterns of language features, their expressions through grammatical resources, as well as their functions in the disciplinary context. The book also applies the description to analyse student texts in undergraduate biology, revealing characteristics of language and knowledge development. Although the discussion in this book focuses on the discourse of biology, both the language description and the descriptive principle can be used to inform the examination of knowledge in academic discourse in general, making this key reading for students and researchers in systemic functional linguistics, discourse analysis, English for academic purposes, applied linguistics, and science education.
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List of contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgements xiii
SECTION I
Motivation and Background 1
1 A Linguistic Perspective on Knowledge-Building 3
2 A Multistratal Perspective on Knowledge-Building 23
SECTION II
Describing Ideational Discourse Semantics 53
3 Entity 55
4 Dimensionality 80
5 Figure 91
6 Grammatical Metaphor 114
7 Sequence, Activity and Field 145
SECTION III
Knowledge-Building in Undergraduate Biology 163
8 A Static Perspective: Construing Taxonomy 165
9 A Dynamic Perspective: Construing Activities 194
Contents
viii Contents
SECTION IV
Conclusion 225
10 Describing Language, Describing Knowledge 227
Bibliography 241
Appendix A Data Texts and Their Subject Areas 253
Appendix B Sample Texts and Genre Analysis 255
Appendix C List of Symbols and Abbreviations 265
Appendix D Annotations 267
Index 268
About the author
Dr Jing Hao is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, following her previous postdoctoral position at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and her doctorate in linguistics at the University of Sydney. Her research explores knowledgebuilding through English and Mandarin Chinese and their interaction with other semiotic modes.
Summary
This volume challenges and extends previous approaches from systemic functional linguistics to understand the language of science and knowledge building from a linguistic perspective.
