Chapter 2: Theoretical considerations and literature review
2.4 New Literacy Studies (NLS)
2.4.1 Gee‟s theory of Discourse
Gee‟s (1990, 2001, 2005) notion of Discourse has been very influential in NLS work and is of great relevance to this study. By „discourse‟ (with a lower case „d‟), Gee refers to “language-in- use” (2005, p.7) or “stretches of language” (2005, p.26). When this language-in-use is integrated with “non-language stuff” in enacting particular activities and identities, the term „Discourse‟ (with
an uppercase „D‟) is used to signal these “ways of being in the world” (Gee, 2005, p.7). From this perspective, Discourses involve more than language (although they always include language) and can be thought of as „identity kits‟ (Gee, 2001) or as “socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting and interacting, in the „right‟ places and at the
„right‟ times with the „right‟ objects (associations that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or „social network‟)” (Gee, 2005, p.26).29 Therefore, successfully acquiring a Discourse means that one is able to „pull off‟ a particular identity (Gee, 2005). The questions of how this can be achieved then arises.
Gee views literacy as “mastery or fluent control over a secondary discourse” (1990, p.153).30 Because it is “no one‟s mother tongue” (Mgqwashu, 2001, p.62), academic discourse is an example of a secondary Discourse. Becoming academically literate in a discipline thus involves taking on its Discourse. Gee (1996, p.138) states that Discourses can be taken on through acquisition (modeling, trial and error) and/or learning (“conscious knowledge gained through teaching”) and that “we are better at performing what we acquire, but we consciously know more about what we have learned” (1996, p.139). This implies that we need to provide students with pedagogic environments that enable both acquisition and learning, so as to facilitate the potential for maximising both performance and knowledge (Thomson, 2008). One of the concerns of this study is to explore the extent to which such provision is the case in the discipline of Marketing at UKZN.
In conceptualising literacy more broadly than as the use of language, Gee‟s notion of Discourse enables a move away from deficit models towards an understanding of students as “outsiders to the discourses of academia” who need access to “the „ways of being‟ in the disciplines” (Smit, 2010, p.3). Instead of problematising students, the attention shifts (as is the case in this study) towards exploring practices in the disciplines and how these may serve to facilitate or deny outsiders access to the disciplinary Discourse (and thus epistemological access). It also enables the understanding that helping students to gain access to disciplinary Discourses is a
„mainstream‟ issue and that mainstream lecturers have an important part to play in this process.
According to Morrow, “teaching...is the practice of enabling epistemological access” (2007, p.2).
In accordance with the understanding of Discourse outlined above, this study does not confine its attention to academic writing (which is often the focus of studies in the area of academic literacy
29 Later in this chapter, I show how Breier (2004a) extends Gee‟s notion of Discourse as „ways of being‟ by incorporating knowledge and power dimensions.
30 A secondary discourse refers to any discourse that is not the „home‟ or „primary‟ discourse (Boughey, 2002).
and epistemological access), but considers more broadly the „ways of being‟ in the discipline of Marketing. This broader view of literacy as enabling participation in disciplinary ways of being is akin to Bernstein‟s „regulative discourse‟ and Morrow‟s „epistemological access‟ (Smit, 2010).
Discourse communities
Academic disciplines (such as Marketing) can be seen as Discourse communities into which students are socialised (Gee, 2005).
Goodier and Parkinson agree that taking on the academic literacy practices of a particular discipline may be viewed as “entry into a new discourse community, where the content is intimately bound up with how to read, write and speak about the discipline” (2005, p.66).
However, although discursive practices are the starting point for the „Discourse community‟
concept, not all social practices are discursive in nature (Fairclough, 1992). In addition to shared language and discourse, academic Discourse communities share “practices of thinking, research and learning, which are expressed in the processes of changing, producing, disseminating and sharing knowledge” (Pogner, 2005, p.5).
Through their interaction, the members of a Discourse community construct, reproduce and alter the community‟s expectations, norms and conventions; these in turn constrain and enable members‟ options (Pogner, 2005) in line with what is considered to be accepted in the community. Thus, as Discourse communities, academic disciplines are not „immutable‟ or
„unchangeable‟ (Baldwin, 2010, drawing on Moje, 2008).
As Gee‟s (2005) explanation of Discourse indicates, in order to be accepted as legitimate members of a Discourse community (such as the discipline of Marketing), students‟ „ways of being‟ must be seen (by community insiders, such as Marketing lecturers) to be „socially acceptable‟ or „right‟. In other words, the “key to Discourses is „recognition‟” (Gee, 2005, p.27).
Slonimsky and Shalem (2006) also point to the role that curricula and pedagogic practices have to play in facilitating students‟ membership of academic communities.
In terms of this study, Gee‟s theory of Discourse raises the following questions:
What is the Discourse of the discipline of Marketing?;
What impacts upon what is recognised by Marketing students and lecturers as
„acceptable‟ or „legitimate‟ in this Discourse?;
To what extent do educational practices in the discipline of Marketing at UKZN facilitate students‟ acquisition and learning of the disciplinary Discourse?
However, Discourse theory alone cannot address these questions. A limitation of NLS and Gee‟s theory for this study could be said to be the lack of focus on the knowledge dimension. Breier, however, extends the notion of Discourse offered by Gee, drawing on Bernstein and Foucault to incorporate knowledge and power dimensions. She provides a definition of discourse as
“disciplinary content as well as ways of being and power relations with which a particular discipline is associated” (2004a, p.8). Collins argues that Gee‟s understanding of „literacy-as- discourse‟ requires “the vision of the field-differentiated institutional dynamics, symbolic resources mediating the cultural and economic, and subject-forming socialisation found in the sociological projects of Bernstein and Bourdieu” (2000, p.72). The relevance of the work of Bourdieu and Bernstein to this study is therefore quite clear and will be discussed in Sections 2.6.1 and 2.6.2 respectively.
Furthermore, work conducted under the banner of NLS, such as Gee‟s theory of Discourse, is broadly concerned with issues of meaning as they arise in a wide range of contexts. As Stephens (2000) has pointed out, such research tends to give much attention to the literacy practices of everyday life. Street agrees that much NLS work focuses on “everyday meanings and uses of literacy in specific cultural contexts” (2005, p.417). However, this study is located in an educational context, and more specifically in a particular academic discipline. Thus, although NLS and Gee‟s theory have also been used to frame work undertaken in educational settings (and have been useful for me in developing an understanding of literacy as more than the use of language, but rather as the ability to participate in the Discourses or „ways of being‟ associated with particular groups in particular contexts), for the specific purposes of this study I need to explore literature and theory that more narrowly focuses on literacy in academic, and particularly disciplinary, communities and contexts.
In relation to Figure 2.3, NLS and Gee‟s work can be said to be located primarily in the first (outermost) layer, whereas this study focuses primarily on the third layer. Additionally, Becher (1989) points to the fragmentation within disciplines, stating that most disciplines comprise a range of „sub-specialisms‟ which may differ greatly in terms of their methods and approaches – and thus, in relation to this study, in terms of their required literacies.
Figure 2.3: Layers of literacy
In the next section, I discuss work on academic literacies generally (level 2) before honing in on academic literacies in the context of specific disciplines (levels 3 and 4).