Discourse uses of language - Diploma in Education · What is discourse? 0 “Discourses are ... 0 Classroom level ... An analysis of event descriptions in conversation. Journal of

Language

Language

Vehicle for ideas,

feelings, experiences

Social realities

Nature of the world

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

Halliday’s model of language function

Language

instrumental

personal

interactional

regulatoryrepresentational

heuristic

imaginative

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

Language use in Trinidad and Tobago

Language

Trinidadian English Creoles

Standard English

Tobagonian English Creoles

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

Language Proficiency Framework (Cummins, 1980)

Social language

Basic communication

skills

Participating in cultural activities

Playing simple games

Academic Language

Understanding concepts

Technical words

Reading and writing reports,

etc.

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

Discussion

0 What are the language demands in schools?

0 What is the role of teachers/administrators in helping students acquire the language needed for school success?

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

What is discourse?

0 “Discourses offer particular kinds of subject position and identity through which people come to view their relationships with different loci of power” (Clarke & Newman, 1997)

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

What is discourse?

0 “Discourses are understood as sets of related social practices composed of particular ways of using language, acting and interacting, believing, valuing, gesturing, using tools and other artefacts within certain (appropriate) contexts such as that one enacts or recognises a particular social identity or way of doing and being in the world” (Gee et al, 1996 as cited in Lankshear & Knobel, 2006, p. 196)

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

The nature of discourse

0 In-depth exploration of a topic

0 Language uses

0 ‘Discourse’- ways of being and doing

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

The nature of discourse

0 Texts, such as interviews, newspaper articles, television talk shows, official documents, Internet data, are “constructed in ways which make things happen and which bring social worlds into being” (Wetherell, 2001, p. 16)

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

Levels of discourse

0 Macro level

0 Community level

0 Immediate stakeholders

0 School level

0 Classroom level

0 Personal interaction

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

What language is in use?

Script Formulation (Edwards,1994)

• description• categorization

Representation

• reflection• generalization

Meaning-Making• confirmation• enactment

Script formulation

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

More language in use:Speech Act Theory

■ J.L. Austin (1962) proposed that we do things with words

■ John Searle, his student, elaborated his ideas into a formal theory of speech acts.

■ He proposed FIVE major speech acts, which he said we use to transact everyday business

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

Searle’s Speech Acts

■ Assertives [taken to be true]

■ Commissives [promises]

■ Declaratives [performatives]

■ Directives [imperatives]

■ Expressives [emotives]

Jaworowska’s (n.d.) explanation

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

Speech Acts in use

■ Write one statement you believe to be true about your students or school.

■ Write one promise your school or the education system makes to children every September. Where is the promise to be found?

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

Application

■ What speech acts are most prevalent in your classrooms?

■ When staff meets in your school, what are the predominant speech acts in use? How do these affect the tone of meetings?

■ If your school is extremely efficient at what it does, and has an excellent reputation, which speech acts do you find used relatively rarely? Within specific speech acts (such as assertives) what is it that is communicated?

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

What kinds of positions and identities do teachers assume relative to loci of power?

Level 1• Administration / Upper Management• Middle Management – HODs and Deans

Level 2• Teachers

Level 3• Parents

Level 4• Students

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

References

■ Edwards, D. (1994). Script formulations. An analysis of event descriptions in conversation. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 13, 211-247. [available using a Google search]

■ Searle, J.R. (1969). Speech Acts. An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [available from Main Library]

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh

0 3 Ways to speak English

0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9fmJ5xQ_mc&sns=fb

0 What makes a good teacher

0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHapv0Tv7vM

Prepared by Krishna Sieunarinesingh