ABSTRACT
Modes of pedagogy in higher education are currently undergoing rapid change, particularly with respect to the replacement of face-to-face ‘live’ lectures with online-only resources or ‘flipped classrooms’. Arguments in support of such moves vary from economic imperatives to lifestyle preferences to pedagogic benefits. However, the speed and extent of change has not as yet been supported by an adequate research base. There is an overreliance on small-scale opinion survey data in immediate teaching/learning contexts and very little exploration of the nature of pedagogic practices in different modes. Significantly lacking are attempts to tease apart the impact of technologies, modes of communication, pedagogic models and disciplinary knowledge structures in the building of knowledge. This study makes an initial contribution to this project in an exploratory analysis of the dynamic unfolding of meaning in the spoken discourse of a face-to-face lecture in Health Science. The approach is trans-disciplinary, drawing both on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Findings reveal ways in which meanings shift between the here and now of the shared sensible material space and elevated reflective perspectives on the field, and in doing so support the apprenticeship of students into the specialized, uncommon-sense knowledge of their field.
