constructing social power through academic literacy

The Power of Literacy

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The limits of my language

mean the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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overview

introducing the research study concepts and definitions some texts in the academy the essay : practices and texts the language exercise: practices and texts opening for alternatives the power of literacy

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introducing the research

RQ:

Research:

Co-researchers:

Data:

Analytical frameworks:

how is social power enacted through academic literacy

qualitative

2nd year students languages

course generated & research generated

ethnographic content analysis

CDA: textual analysis

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The Power of Literacyconcepts and definitions

literacy practices

texts

social power

symbolic resources

General cultural ways of utilizing written language which people draw upon in their lives

Particular configurations of institutionally available literacy practices

Relations of difference created by unequal access to and control over symbolic resources

knowledge, discourse, self esteem; content, events & roles

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some texts in the academy

written textsessays, compositions, translations, notes, literature commentaries, analyses, seminar papers, term papers, language exercises, paragraphs, exam papers, letters, descriptions, ‘characterisations’

reading textsclassical fiction, poetry, biography/autobiography, quotations, lecture notes, grammar/linguistics studies, dictionary entries, literature in the area of psychology/pedagogy

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the essay : practices (I)representations of essays

talent, cocktail of ideas, space of freedom

what is knowledge and how is new knowledge created

expectations of the teacher

‘be explicit’, ‘argument’, ‘be creative, ‘be imaginative’

linguistically expressed in a way that does not support students to make sense of it - discourse of mystery

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the essay : practices (II)talk about literacy

task (very general, not inviting SS to draw on critical competences, talk towards text/essay bibliography, choice of topics), discussion (? pre, while, post presentation, feedback (written, oral, mark)

reduced, controlled by teacher, no new knowledge creation encouraged, recognition literacy encouraged

as move in interaction

roles of teachers and students: how much, whatmainly teacher, mainly control and assessment

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the essay: texts (I)definition

The most general definitions of the essay refer to texts in which a writer discusses ‘a topic’ and in doing so s/he expresses ‘a point of view on that topic’ (Ivanic, 1998: 114, Richards, Platt, Platt,

1992: 128-9).

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the essay: texts (I)purpose

instrumental (get marks, approval)/less communicative (own opinion, point of view)

task and theme

only literature, text mediated representations of the social world , ‘inside university’

structure and argument

show that no new knowledge is produced in most of the cases, but ‘teacher talk’ is restituted: Ts know what they say

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the essay: texts (III)identity and voice

SSs presence in the text not signaled, SS positioned as restituters, within literary studies, not as researchers

intertextuality

dialogue mostly with teacher written or teacher indicated texts

Layout and semiotic mode

monolithic, exclusively verbal, handwritten, etc

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findings

lack of alternatives student disempowerment attitude to knowledge/making: recognition lack of critical position lack of awareness of ‘outside university’

world/resources

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the essay: a different definition (I)

Analysis of essay rhetoric brings to light pathological forms of verbal restitution. The essay writer reinstates the professorial word through processes of levelling, reinterpretation and de-contextualisation which point not to a cultural apprenticeship at work, but to the logic of acculturation. The typical essay is characterised by a discourse of allusion and ellipsis. This presupposes student complicity in and through linguistic misunderstanding which today defines the teaching relationship.

(Bordieu, 1994)

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the essay: a different definition (II)‘Indeed, there is nothing that he requires of the language of students except that it ‘points to’ a possible discourse, the complete knowledge and comprehension of which lie with him alone. This applies to the thoughts of particular authors, as well as to his own ideas. Students adjust perfectly to this discourse which can be read from hints, because it is necessarily the lecturer, not the student, who is supposed to posses the balance of the words unsaid. ’I don’t understand what students write’, one academic admits. ’Or at least I get the feeling I shouldn’t understand. Of course I do know what they’re getting at because I know the last word in the story – it’s the same story I told them. The sloppy way they use technical terms is worrying, but we fill the gaps.’

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implications

when we think we teach reading and writing we do much more than that

we introduce our students to a way to approach and conceive knowledge

we tell them what constitutes knowledge and how knowledge is to be produced

we create opportunities for them to position themselves towards existing knowledge

we open or close ways of being and ways of thinking

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possible alternatives

project work?

other

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discussions questions

comments

Education

constructing social power through academic literacy