Chemical formalisms : Toward a Semiotic Typology
Journal article
Yu, Zhigang and Doran, Yaegan. (2024). Chemical formalisms : Toward a Semiotic Typology. Semiotica: journal of the international association for semiotic studies. pp. 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2022-0110
Authors | Yu, Zhigang and Doran, Yaegan |
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Abstract | Chemistry is a highly technical field that relies heavily on a range of symbolic and imagic formalisms. These formalisms conceptualize specific chemical knowledge into semiotic resources that are rarely used elsewhere in most other academic fields or contexts. To develop an understanding of semiosis in highly technical fields such as chemistry, key questions include what this range of formalisms do and why they occur. These are key questions not only for our understanding of semiosis, but also if we wish to develop integrated literacy programs that can support students to marshal the multimodal discourse of chemistry. This paper explores these questions by examining how three key chemical formalisms organize their meaning: symbolic formalisms known as chemical formulas and chemical equations, and an imagic formalism known as structural formulas. Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics and using a corpus of formalisms from secondary school chemistry, these formalisms are explored in terms of their overarching grammatical organization and the content meanings they realize through the concept of “field.” This is used to compare and contrast each formalism in terms of a semiotic typology so as to understand how they work and what meanings they realize. By exploring chemical formalisms in this way, this paper establishes a means of seeing the similarities and differences in meaning-making across formalisms and explaining why different formalisms occur. This then begins to provide a base upon which applied programs can interpret the literacy needs of chemistry. |
Keywords | chemical formalisms; systemic functional linguistics; functional semiotic typology; field; structure |
Year | 01 Jan 2024 |
Journal | Semiotica: journal of the international association for semiotic studies |
Journal citation | pp. 1-29 |
Publisher | De Gruyter |
ISSN | 1613-3692 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2022-0110 |
Web address (URL) | https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2022-0110/html |
Open access | Open access |
Research or scholarly | Research |
Page range | 1-29 |
Publisher's version | License File Access Level Open |
Output status | Published |
Publication dates | |
Online | 17 Jun 2024 |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 27 May 2024 |
Deposited | 04 Jul 2024 |
Additional information | © 2024 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. |
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. | |
Place of publication | Germany |
https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/90qvw/chemical-formalisms-toward-a-semiotic-typology
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Publisher's version
OA_Doran_2024_Chemical_formalisms_toward_a_semiotic_typology.pdf | |
License: CC BY 4.0 | |
File access level: Open |
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