Navigating context in EMI computing education: semantic gravity and presence in classroom discourse

This study examines how English-medium instruction (EMI) lecturers in computing education manage context dependence by tying disciplinary meanings to specific situations or abstracting them into general principles. Adopting an integrative interdisciplinary approach, we draw on Legitimation Code Theory’s semantic gravity to trace shifts between abstraction and contextualisation, and Systemic Functional Linguistics’ presence to analyse the linguistic resources enacting these shifts. Video data from two Spanish university lecturers teaching computing topics in EMI courses were analysed across phases of explanation, demonstration, and feedback. The analysis reveals that effective EMI teaching shows strategic orchestration of both dimensions. Strong alignment anchors understanding in shared activity, while productive misalignment, where abstract conceptual content is embedded in high-presence, action-oriented dialogue, enhances accessibility by grounding theoretical principles within situated interaction. The study extends research on semantic waves in computing education by revealing how lecturers linguistically enact the unpacking and repacking of disciplinary knowledge through deictic reference, grammatical metaphor, and metadiscursive signalling. For EMI teacher education, this study offers practical applications: semantic gravity profiling for lesson planning, explicit signalling as teachable practice, and diagnostic frameworks for improving explanations of disciplinary content.