Knowledge and agency: a study of 'metaphenomenal discourse' in textbooks from three disciplines

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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/64527

Title: Knowledge and agency: a study of 'metaphenomenal discourse' in textbooks from three disciplines
Author(s): Moore, Tim
Abstract: This paper investigates variation in knowledge construction in three disciplines---sociology, economics and physics---by drawing on Halliday's notion of 'metaphenomenon'. Specifically, the study analysed the frequency and type of agentive elements (participants and processes) in textbooks to find out the extent to which knowledge in these disciplines is attributed to individual scholars, schools of thought, conventional wisdoms and the like, as opposed to being realised in a non-attributed canonical form. The findings suggest that with respect to the feature of metaphenomenon, economics textbook discourse is arguably more akin to that of physics than its social science counterpart, sociology. The implications of the findings---both pedagogical and ideological---are discussed.
Publication type: Journal article
Source: English for Specific Purposes, Vol. 21, no. 4 (2002), pp. 347-366
Publication year: 2002
FOR Code(s): 130103 Higher Education
Keyword(s): Disciplines; Discourse; Metaphenomenon; Knowledge; Textbooks
Publisher: Elsevier Science Ltd.
ISSN: 0889-4906
Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(01)00030-8
Peer reviewed