6.5 Conclusion

Science is, in the words of Osborne (2002), "a complex interplay of phenomena, data, theories, beliefs, values, motivation and social context both constituted by, and reflected in, its discourse" (p. 206). This means that the language that codifies and communicates science is not neutral; it reflects the motivation, belief, interest, value, and worldview of the people who use it. As instantiations of socially regulated discourses, science texts, like other disciplinary texts, are imbued with institutional, disciplinary, and individual values (Martin & Veel, 1998). In order to gain access to both content and ideology in science, a focus on the language that constructs them is necessary. As Janks (2010) pointed out, critical reading is not possible without discourse analysis, and discourse analysis is not possible without attention to language. An understanding of how lexical, grammatical, and discursive resources are used to craft meaning gives students power to see not just what authors mean but also how they mean; moreover, it enables them to be more strategic in designing texts that suit their interest and purpose. This functional focus on language is made possible through the analytical tools provided by SFL. As an SFL-informed pedagogical heuristic, 5Es gives teachers a tangible, contextualized way of engaging students in text exploration, offering linguistically-informed strategies that help students develop critical language awareness and advanced literacy at the same time they are building content knowledge and developing disciplinary habits of mind. It answers recent calls by both science and literacy scholars (e.g., Fang & Schleppegrell, 2008; Lee, Quinn & Valdes, 2013) to render the linguistic maneuvers of disciplinary meaning-making visible.(https://www.daowen.com)