Learning as Social
Interaction:
Interdiscursivity in a Teacher
and Researcher Study
Group
A companion to Chapter 7 by
Cynthia Lewis and Jean Ketter
From the companion website for Rogers, R. (2011). An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education,
2nd edition. New York: Taylor and Francis at www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415874298
Using Critical Discourse Analysis
Research Question: How do book group participants
interact around texts to interrupt or sustain
“fixed”/stable discourse of liberal humanism?
Examined discussions of a teacher book group
focusing on young adult texts by people of color
over a four-year period.
Participant Observation role for researchers.
Fixed Discourse
A dominant discourse in our discussions was Liberal
Humanism (Color Blindness and Meritocracy)
– Whiteness is not a race; or whiteness is the
normative by which “others” are defined.
– Individual Effort Trumps Social Forces
(Williamson, 2004).
This discourse is stable because it “reproduces the
dominant cultural ideology” (Williamson, 2004).
Discourses of Critical Multiculturalism
Critical Multiculturalism counters the dominant
discourse:
– Social Forces/Institutional structures interfere with
individual choice and opportunity.
– Race is a social construction that “matters.”
– Whiteness is a race.
The researchers often brought this discourse into the
discussion.
Interdiscursivity and Learning
Fairclough’s theory:
Interdiscursivity leads to dialogue that can
destabilize a fixed discourse.
True dialogue has potential to create dynamic
rearticulations of otherwise stable discourses,
i.e. learning.
Hybridity in the Book Group
The book group in which we were participant observers
was a “hybrid” group.
Part book group, seminar, and professional
development.
Our theory: The hybridity had potential to create
destabilizing dialogic interchanges that could lead
to learning.
Theoretical Framing
Sociocultural theories of learning: Define learning as
always occurring in a social context dependent on
interaction and dialogue.
• Critical multiculturalism: Focus on institutional and
social practices that normalize whiteness and disguise
privilege as merit.
• Critical Theories of Language: Examine all
participants’ use of language to position themselves as
good teachers and to justify uses of multicultural
literature.
Critical Discourse Analysis
Fairclough (1989, 1992); Chouliaraki & Fairclough (1999)
We analyzed episodes that share themes at
three levels:
Discourse: Systematic cluster of themes,
statements, or ideologies that come into play in a
text.
Genre: Language tied to a particular activity.
Voice: The way language is used to present oneself
in relation to others or a text.
CDA: Discourse
Identified thematically related episodes for the recurring
“fixed” discourses that we had identified through
earlier research.
Examined same episodes for interdiscursivity where
fixed discourses were interrupted.
CDA: Genre
We cross-coded these episodes for generic norms for
interactions for the hybrid community of practice—
part book group, part academic class, and part
professional development.
This hybridity brought with it conflicting
expectations for turn taking, challenging
others, evaluating texts for their appropriateness,
etc.
CDA: Voice
We looked closely at the language each participant
used in reference to her identity and her position
within the group.
We examined how pronoun use, qualifiers, passive
voice, and register, for example, could signal the
speaker’s affiliation with others in the group and her
confidence in a claim.
Example of Analysis:
Discourse (blue); Genre (red); Voice (green)
Cynthia: It’s interesting what you said about the universality of it, too,
because I think that is so much there, and that’s why it’s such a good book
to use with kids. At the same time, it’s called “An Island like You” and I know
that’s a reference to the grandparents, but I think it’s also sort of a
claustrophobic sense of being apart from the rest of the world that so many
of the characters feel. The barrio is sort of a part of the rest of the world …
There’s this universality, but there’s also this incredible difference.
Example of Analysis:
Discourse (blue); Genre (red); Voice (green)
Denise: And the poem at the beginning says “alone in a crowd.”
And, you know, I think that’s something kind of like an island, I
mean you’re the only one who feels that way or the only one that
thinks that way or the only one who’s had that experience, and you
don’t connect with people.
Discourse: Systematic cluster of themes,
statements, ideologies that come into play in a text
Two themes in conflict:
Fixed Discourse: Whiteness is the universal “norm;” race does
not matter. Denise is arguing that the characters in the book
represent the universality of the human experience (of feeling that
you’re the only person having an experience when, in actuality, all
human beings have had the same experience.)
Challenging Discourse: Race, although a social construction,
does matter. Cynthia is arguing that the Puerto Rican people in the
barrio have an experience that is qualitatively different from the
experience of white people (the experience of being “other” and
that is determined by race and social class).
Genre: The language tied to a particular
activity (in this case, a book group)
The book group genre requires politeness and
precludes an open challenge or argument.
Cynthia politely begins her turn with the “It’s interesting …” to show
engagement.
To eschew authority, Cynthia introduces her disagreement with “at
the same time,” suggesting that the two discourses do not
conflict when they do.
Denise begins her turn “and” to imply agreement but is politely
countering Cynthia’s claim of difference.
Voice: The way we use language to present
ourselves in relation to a group or text
A focus on pronouns and repetition reveals how the
participants use language to position themselves as allied
with the others or separate from them.
• Cynthia uses “you” in her turn to signal disagreement with
Denise’s point about universality. She is separating herself
from the comment.
• Denise used “you” to persuade her listeners to identify
with the lone individual as she herself does (“you’re the only
one,” “you don’t connect”).
• Denise repeats “only one” to emphasize the experience
of “universal” loneliness.
Implications for Practice
CDA allowed us to analyze teacher talk in ways that
foregrounded the complexity of our social interactions
around the texts.
CDA also helped us resist binaries.
Even though we perceived these discourses as in
opposition, they were continually recycled, reappropriated and transformed in our discussions.
Rather than seeing the teachers as either racist or
enlightened, or resistant or open, we came to see them
(and ourselves) as complicated beings who could be
both simultaneously.
Suggested Readings
Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and
signifying practices. London: Sage.
Kanpol, B., & McLaren, P. (1995). Critical multiculturalism:
Uncommon voices in a common struggle. Westport: Bergin & Garvey.
May, S., & Sleeter, C. (Eds.). (2010). Critical multiculturalism: Theory
and praxis. New York: Routledge.
Shi-xu (1997). Cultural representations: Analyzing the discourse
about the Other. New York: Peter Lang Press.
Shi-xu (2005). A cultural approach to discourse. Houndmills and New
York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Solorzano, D., & Yosso, T. (2001). From racial stereotyping and
deficit discourse toward a critical race theory in teacher education.
Multicultural Education, 9(1), 2–8.