Transitioning between ‘Outside’ and ‘Inside’ Knowledge in an Online University EMI Chemistry Course

Abstract

Abstract Recent studies in applied linguistics research have focused on how teachers draw on ‘outside’ knowledge relating to students’ everyday life for the purpose of teaching subject matter content. This study focuses on such practices in the context of English-medium instruction (EMI) higher education in an online undergraduate chemistry module. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the study combines multimodal Conversation Analysis (CA) and the Autonomy dimension of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to examine how one lecturer shifts between ‘inside’ knowledge of chemistry and ‘outside’ knowledge for a range of different purposes. Multimodal CA is used to carry out micro-analyses of epistemics and identity-related positioning in interaction, while LCT ‘autonomy codes’ are used to trace knowledge-building trajectories in which knowledge is positioned inside or outside the target topic and is used for different purposes. The analyses highlight how the lecturer skilfully deployed a range of semiotic resources in transitioning between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ knowledge, and how these resources were leveraged for the building of disciplinary knowledge. Implications of this interdisciplinary approach for research and practice in university EMI contexts are discussed.