A semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks.
Nominal technical terms (NTTs), as crucial builders for disciplinary knowledge, can cause difficulties for students. However, previous studies have rarely associated NTTs with disciplinary knowledge construction. Apart from that, scholars of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) have mainly focused on...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2024-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312040 |
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| _version_ | 1846163605805858816 |
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| author | Rurong Le Sheng Yu Xianhe Zhang |
| author_facet | Rurong Le Sheng Yu Xianhe Zhang |
| author_sort | Rurong Le |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Nominal technical terms (NTTs), as crucial builders for disciplinary knowledge, can cause difficulties for students. However, previous studies have rarely associated NTTs with disciplinary knowledge construction. Apart from that, scholars of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) have mainly focused on making wordlists for one specific discipline based on corpora rather than on meanings. Moreover, the current categorization of technical terms cannot reveal their role in constructing disciplinary knowledge. Against this backdrop, we carried out a corpus-based study to classify NTTs in secondary school biology textbooks and to unveil the knowledge constructed by different types of those NTTs. As a result, we found that NTTs in those textbooks could fall into five major categories: Thing, Activity, Semiotic, Place, and Time. We also found intra-disciplinary differences in NTT distributions. The lexicogrammatical analysis indicates that the five types of NTTs can construct different knowledge. With the findings, we put forward implications for teaching biology in secondary schools. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-3c4d34232a0e46cb81f6440105dee90d |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-3c4d34232a0e46cb81f6440105dee90d2024-11-19T05:31:45ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032024-01-011911e031204010.1371/journal.pone.0312040A semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks.Rurong LeSheng YuXianhe ZhangNominal technical terms (NTTs), as crucial builders for disciplinary knowledge, can cause difficulties for students. However, previous studies have rarely associated NTTs with disciplinary knowledge construction. Apart from that, scholars of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) have mainly focused on making wordlists for one specific discipline based on corpora rather than on meanings. Moreover, the current categorization of technical terms cannot reveal their role in constructing disciplinary knowledge. Against this backdrop, we carried out a corpus-based study to classify NTTs in secondary school biology textbooks and to unveil the knowledge constructed by different types of those NTTs. As a result, we found that NTTs in those textbooks could fall into five major categories: Thing, Activity, Semiotic, Place, and Time. We also found intra-disciplinary differences in NTT distributions. The lexicogrammatical analysis indicates that the five types of NTTs can construct different knowledge. With the findings, we put forward implications for teaching biology in secondary schools.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312040 |
| spellingShingle | Rurong Le Sheng Yu Xianhe Zhang A semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks. PLoS ONE |
| title | A semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks. |
| title_full | A semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks. |
| title_fullStr | A semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks. |
| title_full_unstemmed | A semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks. |
| title_short | A semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks. |
| title_sort | semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312040 |
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