Towards an effective use of language to explain light in the museum

Abstract

Museum educators play a key role in explaining science in a museum. Verbal language is primarily used to communicate scientific concepts, but the way language shapes the explanations provided has not been investigated. This qualitative study focuses on the explanations about light provided by three museum educators to eighth grade students (13-14 years old), during unstructured visits to a science museum. The visits were audio-recorded and field notes were taken. The museum educators' language was analyzed at a microlevel, through the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics and Conceptual Metaphor theory.The results of this analysis coupled with a multidimensional framework for analyzing explanations allowed an understanding on what is explained and how it is explained in the museum by museum educators. Findings show that explanations were descriptive and causal, structured by the use of hybrid lexicon and by conceptual metaphors, whose quality depends on the structural similarity between domains.Furthermore, the explanations based on geometric optics were qualitative and with low level of precision, complexity, and abstractness.

What Science Communication for Equitable Communication? From Conceptualizations to Reconceptualizations and Practices

“…In this particular case, visitors may feel they do not command the language of science and therefore are not able to contribute to a dialogue. Afonso, Afonso and Rodrigues (2019), Archer et al. (2016), Dawson (2014, 2018), Rahm and Ash (2008) have argued that museum educators are, therefore, important agents in creating these opportunities.…”

“Talking Science” to “Discourse Strategies”: Perspective Shifting from “Knowing” to “Doing” the Language of ScienceTang, K. S. (2021). Discourse strategies for science teaching and learning: Research and practice. New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 9780367344245. 212 Pages, 34 B/W illustrations

“…When students are provided opportunities to discuss their experience and background knowledge, their understanding of photosynthesis may evolve when interacting with diverse and new ideas. Therefore, language is a resource or an epistemic tool to foster students to develop and model a robust understanding of scientific knowledge (Afonso et al, 2019;Larsson & Jakobsson, 2020;Meier et al, 2020). Language is not just used to express or check ideas.…”