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Science, culture, and the emergence of language
Author(s) -
Roth WolffMichael,
Lawless Daniel
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
science education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.209
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1098-237X
pISSN - 0036-8326
DOI - 10.1002/sce.10008
Subject(s) - salient , deixis , philosophy of science , gesture , sociology , natural (archaeology) , perception , science education , focus (optics) , linguistics , epistemology , psychology , pedagogy , history , philosophy , physics , archaeology , optics
Abstract A major achievement in the sociology and philosophy of science over the past two decades has been the recognition that science is a form of culture with its own creeds, language, material practices, perceptions, theories, and beliefs. Learning science then amounts to participation (from more peripheral to central ways) in the particular practices of this culture. We argue here that there are some fundamental, heretofore neglected, ways in which newcomers come to perceive and talk about natural phenomena. Beginning with “muddled” talk and supported by deictic and iconic gestures, learners isolate salient objects and events which are, in increasing ways, represented in linguistic forms. More abstract forms of communication (writing, abstract symbols) are competently used only later in the emerging communicative patterns. As such, there lies tremendous potential in science activities that focus on observational and theoretical language in the presence of the relevant phenomena. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 86: 368–385, 2002; Published online in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/sce.10008