Making Mechanisms: How Academic Language Mediates the Formation of Dynamic Concepts

Abstract

Science learning requires students to transition from their everyday language to academic language (AL), particularly to understand and internalize new mechanisms, which are constituted (brought into being) through new techn ical terms. Understanding AL requires turning the inert description of the mechanism in the textbook into a manipulable concept in the student mind. This complex process is mediated through teacher narratives, which scaffold the complex concept integration involved in AL, through metaphors, analogies, gestures and other enactive strategies. We present a preliminary analysis of this complex AL learning process, drawing on the embodied simulation theory of language, and classroom data on biology learning. We then discuss some application possibilities of this theoretical approach.