7.5　Summary

This chapter has presented the salient linguistic processes at the clause level, which represent disciplinary identities construction and changes featured in classroom discourse.The SFG analysis focuses on the registerial variables of field and tenor, which correspond to the ideational meaning and interpersonal meaning.The results provide a comprehensive description of grammatical resources through which the disciplinary identities are instantiated in the development of lexicogrammatical resources and re-construction of disciplinary knowledge.The results also provide insights into the ways in which the Chinese students perform and negotiate their own disciplinary roles similarly and differently at both individual and classroom levels.

The major findings about ideational meanings in the performance of grammatical units, grammatical intricacy and Thing types are summarised as follows.Subsection 7.4.2.1.1 calculates the number of grammatical units in terms of clause, word and Process types.At the classroom level, Year 1 produces the highest number of clauses, Year 4 produces the highest number of words, whereas Year 1 and Year 2 select more elliptical declarative clauses and minor clauses than Year 3 and Year 4 do.At the individual student level, Year 4 Chinese students use the highest average number of clauses and words, followed by Year 3, Year 2 and Year 1 ones.As shown in subsection 7.4.2.1.2, relational, material and mental clauses are most favoured in the four texts, whereas behavioural, verbal and existential are less used.

First, the relational clause is the most highly used, involving the subcategories of attributive and identifying processes.Year 1 uses the highest number of attributive processes to describe the different types of participants in clauses.On the other hand, Year 4 uses the highest number of identifying processes to interpret the symbolic understanding of participants, which indicates that the senior Chinese students are more competent in identifying the values of knowledge than the novice ones.Second, mental clauses are used with a certain high number in the four texts, with Year 1 being half that of the other three.In the meantime, Year 1 uses the highest percentage of material clauses.That is, Year 1 uses language to describe the outer world of experience in terms of what is happening and people doing, but not to construe these experiences into the inner world of consciousness.This implies that Year 1 Chinese students are less engaged in disciplinary learning experience in the field than the other three years, which limits their construction of membership in the context.

In subsection 7.4.2.2, the quantitative comparison of the density of clause complexes, clauses and words between the four texts reveals that senior year students are more competent than the junior ones in producing meaning enhancement through logogenetic development.This is further supported by the examination of the density of complexes at individual Chinese student level.Although both clause relations of projection and expansion are found in the four texts, Year 4 Chinese students produce more linguistic selections in dialogue exchanges to unfold disciplinary knowledge to grammatically construct and develop the sequences of events in texts.They tend to more successfully make linguistic selections and knowledge construction in different areas than those from the other three years.

Subsection 7.4.2.3 examines how far the students access and share semiotic experiences of disciplinary knowledge in the way of using technicality, categories of abstraction, and nominal groups with defining and classifying elements in relational processes.In the four texts, technicality and taxonomy do not play a major role, and the technical vocabulary of sub-classes, definitions and phenomena associated with the focused classroom themes is rarely mentioned.Abstractions are identified within three ranges in this chapter, that is, concrete things, abstract and metaphorical Thing, and nominal groups with defining and classifying elements.There is an increasingly high occurrence of the concrete things from Year 4 to Year 1, with Year 1 producing two times higher than Year 4.In contrast, there is an increasingly high frequency of the abstract and metaphoric Thing, and nominal groups with defining and classifying elements from Year 1 to Year 4.

On the one hand, the lack of technicality in taxonomy and abstractions may be largely due to the constructed convention of the seminar activities and the students’ insufficient understanding of the ways of unfolding disciplinary knowledge in the fields.Of course, the lack of reservoir of disciplinary knowledge always is a common issue.Therefore, it would be more comprehensive to explore what else is contributing to the phenomenon.This has actually been addressed in Chapter 6:the gap between the current globallocal culture and the previous Chinese educational culture.On the other hand, the increase of technical terms and abstractions from Year 1 to Year 4 testifies to the students’ growing understanding of how to conventionally re-instantiate disciplinary knowledge in classroom discourse.As discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, this also involves the enhanced sense of ideological understanding of the disciplinary conventions.

The major findings about interpersonal meanings in the negotiation of speech functions come from the synoptic and dynamic dimensions.At the synoptic analysis level, the results summarised from the total numbers of turns, speech function moves and clauses in the four texts show that there is an increased efficient production of speech function selections from Year 1 to Year 4.At the dynamic analysis level, four specific categories associating with speech roles are interpreted, opening speech roles, continuing speech roles, reacting speech roles and enacting speech roles, through Mood choices.Opening roles are the least adopted in the four texts, while reacting roles are the highest employed.There is an increased use of reacting moves from Year 4 to Year 1; at the same time there is a high occurrence of sustaining moves in the individual Year 4 Chinese student’s turn/turns.These results denote that the teacher’s guidance is needed more in the junior years than in the senior ones, to carry forward the reconstruction of disciplinary knowledge.However, a striking result is also found that Year 1 produces the highest number of Reacting:support:develop:extend moves in the four texts.By using these supporting moves to complete the exchange or open up the successive new discussion, the Year 1 Chinese students actively take a participant role in the classroom.

Continuing roles are adopted in the four texts, with an increased occurrence from Year 1 to Year 4.The prolong roles are the most highly adopted, whereas there are more rarely checking roles and few appending roles adopted respectively to check the other participants’ engagement in interaction and to sustain the continuing roles after intervention by the other participants.The highest frequency of intervention actually is found in Year 1 text, and most of them occur after the teacher’s attempt to scaffold the students’ interpretation of the theory or the concept.This again supports the previous findings that Year 1 Chinese students are marginal participants in the context due to the unfamiliar and insufficient discipline-related knowledge and English ability.However, it is also found that there is an increased use of appending and prolong sustaining moves from junior to senior years.This reinforces the previous results that these Chinese students develop the ability of producing complex linguistic structures and mobilising disciplinary knowledge, through routinised and familiarised participation in classroom discourse.

Subsection 7.4.3.5 examines the way in which the speech functions are enacted through Mood choices.It is revealed that individual Year 4 Chinese students use a higher number of lexicogrammatical selections realised through modalisation (i.e., frequency and probability) and modulation (i.e., obligation, inclination, capability) than those in the other three seminars.These interactive elements denote that Year 4 Chinese students take up more competent roles to negotiate the exchanged information.Another finding associated with mood elements is that most of the moves realised through Mood choices in the four texts are declarative types.This implies that most of these students tend to lack argument in their classroom discourse to support or challenge the others’ viewpoints, which supports the seminar tutors’ low satisfaction with the Chinese students’ classroom behaviour of critical arguing as mentioned in Chapter 5.