Knowledge Construction In Encyclopaedia Britannica Entries

Entries in Encyclopaedia Britannica record the authoritative and comprehensive explanations of human knowledge,offering a great deal of reliable standard information for readers to gain knowledge and check facts.Based on a critical review of the previous studies on knowledge and Encyclopaedia Britannica at home and abroad,this research carries out a study of knowledge construction in the entries in Encyclopaedia Britannica from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Bernstein's Sociology of Education,with an aim to bring implications for effective knowledge dissemination and language learning.This dissertation attempts to address the following four questions:(?)What are the characteristics of genres for knowledge classifying and assembling in entries in Encyclopaedia Britannica?(?)How is knowledge organized through diverse image-text relations in entries in Encyclopaedia Britannica?(?)How does nominalization affect nominal groups and the relevant linguistic selections in entries in Encyclopaedia Britannica to construct knowledge?(?)What are the differences of the strength of semantic density and semantic gravity between different knowledge fields and different level of Encyclopaedia Britannica?The major findings of this research include:First,the genre types of descriptive reports,sequential explanations,factorial explanations,consequential explanations and conditional explanations are preferred by the entries in natural sciences,while descriptive reports,historical recounts,and historical explanations are often used in the entries in humanities and social sciences.The genetic stages of Definition,Classification,Description,and Exemplification appear the most frequently in both natural sciences and humanities and social sciences.Biographical recounts are the genre type used by the entries presenting public figures.There are four features of genres in Encyclopaedia Britannica entries:genre mixing happens commonly;a genetic stage may downwards embed into another;a genetic stage has its hierarchy system;generic stages may queue in a diverse order.The main genetic pattern in Encyclopaedia Britannica entries is orbital,but it may develop into a tree and the genetic stages may overlap with each other,forming more complicated patterns.The special genetic pattern for entries presenting persons is a ring shape.Second,in Encyclopaedia Britannica entries,texts are dominant and images assist in a supporting place.The image-text relation types in the entries concentrate at three categories of status relation,which are Independent,Complementary and Image subordinate to text,and seven items of logic-semantic relation,which are Exposition,Text more general,Image more general,Extension,Temporal,Spatial and Causal.Third,the nominal groups in the definitions of Encyclopaedia Britannica entries extend mainly in three ways:Sub-modification,Cascaded Embedding and Nominal Group Complex.Nominalization contributes to the formality of Encyclopaedia Britannica entries,which constitute the linguistic characteristics of longer syntactic structures,intensive lexical items and dense type nominal groups in the advanced level.In the nominal groups in the definitions of Encyclopaedia Britannica entries in the advanced level,Thing is usually the core of a nominal group and acts as Head,but when Thing does not serve as Head,Deictic is the common alternative.Embedded Phrase is in the highest frequency of usage as a component Qualifier of nominal group.Fourth,through the analysis of linguistic variables,Power words and Power grammar,for investigating semantic density and semantic gravity,the research proves that in Encyclopaedia Britannica entries,knowledge with hierarchical knowledge structures is usually constructed through linguistic resources with stronger semantic density and weaker semantic gravity than that with horizontal knowledge structures.In the advanced level of Encyclopaedia Britannica,semantic density is stronger and semantic gravity is weaker than in the introductory level.The present research makes contributions to academic fields like genre,multimodality,grammatical metaphor,LCT's semantic density and semantic gravity,and interdisciplinary research,and has positive significance for encyclopaedia compilation,social education service,educational linguistics and relevant teaching activities.It is hoped that more researches may be done on the knowledge construction in Encyclopaedia Britannica entries in the future.