Abstract
Understanding discourse as the linguistic moment of a social practice entails that studying discourse involves studying the nature of the social practice and the social structures within which it functions as well as studying communicative interactions. Issues of equity inevitably arise because discourse involves the production and maintenance of relationships and worldviews. This chapter suggests that more substantial attention at the level of social structure would enhance our understanding of the reasons underpinning particular classroom practices and text level characteristics as well as our ability to address the question of who is advantaged or disadvantaged by particular forms of discursive and pedagogic practice. Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse is proposed as one approach to make connections between interactions, practices and social structure. Discussion of pedagogy in multilingual classrooms highlights the ways that language practices contribute to the exercise of power.
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Notes
- 1.
The term linguistic needs to be interpreted very broadly to include at least visual and kinetic modes such as diagrams, graphs, gestures, etc. as well as language (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001). Certainly, in mathematics, such diverse and specialised modes play a major part in allowing the construction of mathematical meanings.
- 2.
Even in forms of pedagogy that enable students to investigate with relative freedom, to determine the direction of their investigation and, hence, the specific mathematical knowledge they encounter, the teacher’s level of expertise in the subject domain as a whole, as well as her institutional position, continue to give her a privileged position in relation to the ‘new’ knowledge brought to the classroom by the student. She is likely to have the competence to integrate such knowledge into her existing schema and hence to maintain her ability to evaluate the student’s competence. She is also able, because of her institutional position, to rule whether this knowledge is to be considered relevant or legitimate within her classroom.
- 3.
It is worth noting that this dilemma is not confined to contexts such as that of South Africa where the political power of language is obvious, due to its historical role as a site of struggle among the multiple communities in that country. In the United States, for example, debates about the status of African American Language face similar tensions among identity, epistemological access and power (see, for example, DeBose 2007), while programmes providing bilingual education for Spanish speakers are currently under legal and legislative threat.
- 4.
The term ‘non-standard’ clearly privileges high-status forms of language. In English-speaking countries, ‘standard English’, as spoken by the hegemonic group (at least in formal situations) and promulgated in national media and education systems, is taken to be ‘correct’ and desirable while other varieties, spoken by less-privileged groups, are perceived as lacking. Linguists have long established that non-standard varieties have their own coherent lexico-grammatical systems, yet their speakers are still accused of being careless or ignorant. The labelling of some varieties of language as non-standard is an exercise of power by dominant social groups.
- 5.
I do not wish to get involved in debates about what constitutes a separate language, a language variety or a dialect.
- 6.
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=106941, accessed 13 July 2010.
- 7.
See, for example, Morgan and Watson (2002) in which Anne Watson and I discuss the consequences for equity raised by two studies of teachers’ assessment practices.
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Morgan, C. (2012). Studying Discourse Implies Studying Equity. In: Herbel-Eisenmann, B., Choppin, J., Wagner, D., Pimm, D. (eds) Equity in Discourse for Mathematics Education. Mathematics Education Library, vol 55. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2813-4_11
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