Multimodal textbook design : analyzing the construction of the discourses of pharmacology
type: CreativeWork
description: 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 s…
abstract: 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 s…
author: Weiss, Rachel
language: eng
date published: 2008
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:39Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: School of Education

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19034