Classroom discourse in bilingual secondary science: language as medium or language as dialectic?

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how the nature of language is represented in science lessons taught through English, and is part of a project investigating the challenges of bilingual education in Hong Kong's junior secondary classes. Educational linguistics, particularly work drawing on systemic functional linguistics, sees language as text and as dialectic. This understanding of language is contrasted with more atheoretical conceptualisations such as language as vocabulary and language as medium. Recordings of the secondary one (Grade 7) science classes, along with interviews with teachers and students and also student questionnaires, were mined for instances where language was foregrounded, for example by explicit reference or by use of L1 Cantonese. These instances were then considered in terms of the conceptualisations of language, and were found to tend towards a language as vocabulary and language as medium orientation. Sample extracts are used to illustrate these points. The disadvantages of these interpretations of the nature of language are discussed, and related to what is currently understood of the role of language in learning science in bilingual settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Bilingual education
• classroom discourse
• systemic functional linguistics
• secondary science
• code-switching

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Elsa, James, Hannah and their students, and to Rebecca Lin Xiaoying for her help on this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Corinne Maxwell-Reid is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before joining CUHK she worked in Europe, the Middle East, Hong Kong and mainland China. Her research interests include written discourse, bilingual education, classroom language learning, and the use of systemic functional linguistics to investigate these areas.

ORCID

Corinne Maxwell-Reid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5871-9910

Notes

1 This paper uses the term ‘bilingual’, but the students involved do not necessarily only use two languages. See Context of study for more details.

2 The written Chinese represents Cantonese, the language spoken in Hong Kong.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China under [grant number CUHK24400714].