Abstract
This chapter reports on findings from classroom communication in secondary chemistry teaching and learning. The data was analyzed qualitatively regarding the use of metaphors and analogies in relation to atoms and ion formation, with an intention to shed light on students’ scientific understanding as well as on their enculturation into the disciplinary discourse. Theoretically we draw on social semiotics, which allows analyses of language use in its widest sense, comprised of verbal language, images, action, gestures, and more. In our data, we identified common disciplinary metaphors in science, as well as metaphors connected to everyday life. Through the analyses based on systemic functional linguistics (SFL), we also identified anthropomorphic metaphors, with particles, atoms, and ions being humanized with intentions and feelings. Linguistic choices signaling metaphoric language were mainly noted in relation to quite obvious metaphors whereas no such signals or explanations were noted in connection to anthropomorphic metaphors. The study has implications for the design of classroom practices, including the use of discussions to enhance a more reflective use and understanding of the gains and losses around metaphors.
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Notes
- 1.
The discussion around “gains and losses” is informed by the concept of semiotic affordance, introduced by Gibson (1977) and later used in social semiotic perspectives of multimodality (e.g., Kress, 2009; Danielsson, 2016). In short, affordance concerns the meaning making potential of a resource in a specific communicative situation.
- 2.
Finland-Swedish is a variety of Swedish spoken in Finland. Apart from Finnish, Swedish is an official language in Finland and it is the first language of around 5% of the population. In areas with a high proportion of Swedish speakers, some schools use Swedish as the language of instruction.
- 3.
The fact that nucleus and seed is the same word (kärna) in Swedish makes the Swedish term more obviously metaphoric than the English nucleus, which is probably perceived as nonmetaphoric for most English speakers.
- 4.
This is a word game that works in Swedish, since Swedish full means both “drunk” and “full.”
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Danielsson, K., Löfgren, R., Pettersson, A. (2018). Gains and Losses: Metaphors in Chemistry Classrooms. In: Tang, KS., Danielsson, K. (eds) Global Developments in Literacy Research for Science Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69197-8_14
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