Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) is a framework revealing the “rules of the game” (Maton, 2014a) or “legitimation codes” essential to achievement in educational environments. It seeks to uncover if the codes facilitate or restrict knowledge-building.
The framework of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) comprises five dimensions that apply organising principles. In this paper, only one of those dimensions is explored: Semantics.
Semantics looks at semantic structures in social fields. It is divided into semantic gravity and semantic density. Semantic gravity was first introduced in Maton (2009, 2011) and more fully elaborated in Maton (2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2016). It is becoming more widespread in a variety of academic contexts (Clarence, 2016; Clarence & McKenna, 2017; Deng, 2018; Maton & Doran, 2017) and has been used to teach various subjects such as Journalism (Kilpert & Shay, 2013), Nursing (McNamara, 2010), English (Macken-Horarik, 2011), History (Macnaught, Maton, Martin, & Matruglio, 2013; Matruglio, Maton, & Martin, 2013), Physics (Georgiou et al., 2014), Biology (Macnaught et al., 2013) and Chemistry (Blackie, 2014). Semantic Gravity is further elaborated in section 2.2.
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BROOKE, Mark, 2019. Using semantic gravity profiling to develop critical reflection. Reflective Practice. 2 November 2019. Vol. 20, no. 6, p. 808–821. DOI 10.1080/14623943.2019.1682986. BROOKE, Mark, 2020. Applying semantic gravity wave profiles to develop undergraduate students’ academic literacy. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. 11 September 2020. Vol. 43, no. 3, p. 228–246. DOI 10.1075/aral.19012.bro. Abstract This study draws on Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), particularly semantic gravity waving, as a strategy for academic literacies practitioners to conceptualise how knowledge in their field might be organised and presented. Students can be guided to notice meanings related to context-dependency at the discourse and lexico-grammatical levels through the presentation of semantic gravity waving profiles. For this study, semantic gravity waving profiles have been found useful for explaining the rationale of a genre pedagogy approach, the structure of an Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion (IMRD) genre, and teaching both lexical coherence for a theoretical framework section, and accurate use of determiners with non-count abstract nouns such as “research”. Therefore, semantic gravity profiling seems to provide explanatory power as a pedagogical tool in the classroom. Findings from a mixed method survey with sixty students as well as extracts from student texts before and after semantic gravity waving profile pedagogical interventions are provided.