The construction of the role of the teachers in academic articles on ICT and education

The academic literature in the field of ICT in educational contexts is partly responsible for construing the role of teachers in new educational scenarios. This study explored a corpus of the Introduction and Discussion/Conclusion sections of ten academic articles discussing ICT in classrooms. An analysis of material clauses showed that "teachers" tend to be construed: as beneficiary or goal; in the passive voice; by modal meanings of need and obligation; or by negative polarity. The same corpus was further explored using tools of Appraisal analysis which revealed that ICT is appraised positively and construed as desirable and necessary for teachers. Conversely, positive attitude markers are associated with teachers typically to indicate qualities that teachers lack. The following realizations of graduation were frequently used to flag attitudinal meanings: (a) intensified proposals by means of modals or metaphorical realizations of modulation; (b) quantification of the entity teachers; (c) indication of low degrees of fulfilment; and (d) strengthening of propositions by means of high certainty modal meanings. These results expand our previous observations that teachers are represented as lacking the skills, competences or attitudes to use technology, which is in turn construed as offering undisputable benefits in education.