‘Can We See It?’: Contextualizing ‘Deforestation’ from an English-Medium Science Textbook for a Primary School Level

Ahmad Sugianto

doi:10.20884/1.jes.2021.2.2.5072

Abstract

Understanding an English-medium science textbook is possibly challenging for some students. It is, for example, due to the language used. To deal with this issue, construing the use of the other mode, such as visual images, along with the verbal text is regarded useful. Thereby, the construal of multimodality in an English-medium science textbook becomes crucial. Albeit a myriad of inspections on multimodality exists, but to the best of the writer’s knowledge, such investigation with respect to an English-medium science textbook, particularly at a primary school level, was found to be limited. Therefore, this study aimed to scrutinize the verbal text and visual image presented in a science textbook used for a primary school level which is presented in English. To that end, a descriptive research design was employed. In this regard, a systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) within the trinocular metafunctions encompassing ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions was utilized. The systemic functional linguistics theory, the grammar of visual design, intersemiotic complementarity, and logico-semantics were the frameworks employed to analyze the artefact, the English-medium science textbook. The findings revealed that the visual image and verbal text interact with one another within the three metafunctions. Given the interaction between the two modes, the present study suggests that both teachers and students are required to take into considerations and be aware of the potential or roles of images along with the verbal text, i.e. the images are not merely accessories, but instead, these are able to assist the comprehension of the science materials learned.

Highlights

Construing an English-medium science textbook might be challenging for students since there are some barriers that might come up, for instance, due to the medium or language it is used
In terms of the ideational meanings, the participants and the circumstance used and included in the verbal text were closely related to the participants and circumstances of the visual image
The interaction between the two modes with respect to logico-semantics is regarded as exposition in which the message or information found in the verbal text restate the message or information found in the visual image each other, and vice versa

Summary

Introduction

Construing an English-medium science textbook might be challenging for students since there are some barriers that might come up, for instance, due to the medium or language it is used. The English language is one of the languages commonly used both in the academic setting (Crystal, 2003) and in the general setting or daily lives by many people around the world (Baker & Ishikawa, 2021) This condition has resulted in a novel pedagogical approach known as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). This approach, as the proponents assert (for instance, Cenoz, Genesee, and Gorter (2014) and Lasagabaster and Sierra (2009)), constitutes an approach that provides the opportunity for learners to learn the content (subject) and acquire the target language or foreign language simultaneously It is, on the one hand, considered to have positive effects on students’ academic outcomes; on the other hand, some challenges are likely to appear, if it is implemented to the students who have a low English proficiency and an insufficient preparation as well as a monolingual mindset as a result of maintaining their local language (Bigelow & Collins, 2019). Understanding multimodality in such a textbook is worth scrutinizing

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Conclusion