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This paper revisits the register variable field in systemic functional linguistics (SFL), in relation to the concept of 'semantic density' in Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Re-interpretations of the specialized meaning construing disciplinarity are proposed, from the perspective of the ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions--highlighting technicality, iconization and aggregation respectively. The term 'mass' is suggested as a cover term for these resources. The paper contributes to an ongoing dialogue between SFL and LCT in relation to research on secondary school history and biology discourse in Australian schools, an increasingly productive exercise in transdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an introduction to how systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) offer complementary insights into education, focusing on key ideas that brought the theories into dialogue over the past decade. It begins with a review of SFL work on field, which foregrounds the role of forms of knowledge in education. It then discusses how SFL scholars engaged with and understood Bernstein's notions of 'knowledge structures' for modelling intellectual fields. This engagement raised a series of questions that were a basis for dialogue with LCT, which extends and integrates Bernstein's framework. The paper introduces key concepts from two dimensions of LCT --Specialization and Semantics-- enacted in papers in this special issue. It then briefly summarizes two major research projects into education that enact these concepts alongside SFL and provide a context to the papers of this special issue, before introducing how these papers illustrate the growing and fruitful transdisciplinary dialogue between SFL and LCT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]