The language of climate change : a comparative multimodal analysis of primary school science textbooks in Hong Kong and Australia

Abstract

 This study aims to investigate and compare the representation of climate change within the multimodality of two sets of primary school science textbooks, from Australia (for first language learners) and from Hong Kong (for second language learners). The analytical framework adapted for this study, is a macro-level content analysis and a microlevel textual and image analysis using Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) and the Grammar of Visual Design (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). The content analysis was performed by using the IPCC’s AR5 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2014 and it is determined that 65% of the identified categories were seen in the Hong Kong textbooks and 43% in the Australian textbooks. The textual analysis using SFL’s ideational metafunction revealed that the Australian textbooks strongly represents the characteristics of the genre of science textbooks namely authoritativeness, informational density and abstraction, whereas the Hong Kong textbooks unexpectedly has more pronounced technicality. Furthermore the results revealed differences in the language used in ESL and L1 science textbooks. The image analysis revealed a stark difference between the textbooks, with the Hong Kong textbooks being visually-led containing 132 images and the Australian textbooks textually-led with only 34 images. In addition to these findings, different modes of representation such as typography, composition and modality revealed the complexity of multimodal texts and the layered meanings the text, images and modes create together.