Multimodal textbook design : analyzing the construction of the discourses of pharmacology
The aim of the research is to contribute to a pedagogy of Multiliteracies in the context of Health Sciences. A Multiliteracies approach sees text in terms of a process of 'redesigning' meaning from a range of available resources. These include multimodal semiotic resources such as visual and verbal modes, as well as particular discursive and social practices that the text draws upon. The study originates from a disagreement over which Pharmacology textbook fourth year medical students should use. The founding argument is that a Pharmacology textbook can be seen as constructing the discourses of the 'prescribing physician' As such, it simultaneously constructs and bears imprints of particular ideologies, discursive formations and social relations which are relevant in the field of medicine and science, as well as those from private and public life-worlds. As a teacher, I am interested in how the textbooks' ideologies contribute to or contest that of the new problem-based medical curriculum. I also analyze the respective designs in terms of their accessibility and suitability specifically for undergraduate medical students. The theoretical framework is provided by Fairclough's notion of 'orders of discourse' together with Halliday's metafunctional view of text, and is operationalized through a social semiotic analysis of sections of two textbooks. The textbooks analyzed are 'Pharmacology' by Rang et al ('Rang'), and 'the Oxford Textbook of Clinical Pharmacology and Drug therapy' ('Oxford'). I focus on the grammatical system of transitivity to construct the respective textbooks' views of social reality, and I use an analysis of modality in the texts to construct the social relations between writers, readers and the subject of Pharmacology. The analytical 'toolkit' includes verbal as well as visual semiotic resources within a framework of textual coherence. The study concludes that while Rang constructs social relations and identities that resonate with a contemporary society, its interest in Pharmacology is scientific rather than clinical. Furthermore, its design features may limit access specifically for undergraduate medical students. Oxford, on the other hand, is dominated by the discourses of clinical medicine and medical education. It constructs the subject of Pharmacology in terms of therapy or 'process', rather than in terms of drugs or 'products', and in this sense may be more suitable as a 'tutor'. However, it does not prepare the student for critical engagement with the changing social realities and relations of power in a post-Fordist society. The value of the study is two-fold. Firstly, it reiterates the importance of critical reflection on the various aspects of a curriculum. This includes reflection on alignment between the ideologies of textbooks and that of the new curriculum, and between curricular objectives, activities and assessment practices. Secondly, it has led to the operationalizing of a metalanguage of design, specifically in a Health Sciences context. This metalanguage may be used not l ' only for improving the communicative value of students' assignments, but also to expand their cultural perspectives through critical engagement with aspects of social identities and relations.
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