Intersubjectivity and learning: a socio-semantic investigation of classroom discourse

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the shaping of pedagogic subjectivities through classroom talk. It addresses a number of research questions, namely: In what ways do forms of intersubjectivity created in classroom talk shape the learning for children in two socioeconomically disadvantaged classrooms? How do teachers’ variant readings of official curriculum documents impact on classroom practices? How might the role of the teacher in such classrooms be usefully understood and articulated? The research described in the thesis draws on socio-cultural approaches to language, learning and pedagogy. Systemic functional linguistics, which models cognition as meaning, provides the major theoretical position together with tools for close linguistic analysis (Halliday 1994, 1999). Vygotsky’s complementary view of learning as the consequence of joint activity in semioticised environments highlights the role of the mediating agent (1978). Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic relations provides a useful framework for understanding the circulation of cultural dynamics through locally situated pedagogic settings (1990, 1996, 2000). The research adopts a case study approach; data comprises talk produced during a complete curriculum cycle in each primary classroom as well as interviews, written texts and official curriculum documents. The analysis proceeds through phases; that is, it initially describes the curriculum macrogenres (Christie 2002) then moves to more detailed linguistic analyses of prototypical texts from each setting. Mood, speech function and appraisal (Eggins & Slade 1997, Martin & Rose 2003) are systems recognised in the SFL model as those which enact intersubjective relations. Close attention to their deployment in classroom interactions reveals much about how broad social roles are enacted, how the moral regulation of the learners is accomplished and how subtle differences in learning take place. The analysis reveals considerable difference in the educational knowledge under negotiation. In one classroom, learners are stranded in localised, everyday discourses; while in the other, learners are given access to more highly valued curriculum discourses. It is argued that the interactive practices which produce such difference result from teachers’ readings of the official curriculum; readings which are shaped by particular philosophical orientations to curriculum, together with features of the local settings and their relations to the official pedagogic field.