BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE FOR STUDY
3.2 Literacy as Discourse
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Conversely, it is the acquisition of literacies by students involved in the acquisition of scientific knowledge. It involves student engagement with scientific readings and writing, creating a space for the students to acquire practice in science meaning and discourse thereby enabling them to create for themselves a sense of identity and belonging in science.
The responses of the research participants to critical research question 1 contribute to an understanding of the way in which the acquisition of the discipline-specific literacies helps to create an identity in science.
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Gee (1990) distinguishes between the “use of discourse (with a lower case “d”) and Discourse (with upper case “D”); the former (discourse) is used in connected stretches of language that make sense, like conversations, stories, reports, arguments, essays while the latter (Discourse) is always more than just language; it is a saying-writing- doing-being- valuing-believing combinations” (142). Gee (1989; 1990) employs the upper-case "D" to indicate a larger, more encompassing view of discourses (thus, Discourses) as “identity toolkits that involve more than textual forms” (Hicks, 1997: 464).
Arising from this, Gee (1990) defines Discourse as a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, feeling, believing, valuing and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or ‘social network’, or to signal a socially meaningful role (143). Discourse, thus, does not only include ways of speaking, reading and writing, within particular contexts, but also ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking and believing that are acceptable within specific groups of people in particular contexts. “A Discourse is a sort of ‘identity kit’ which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular social role that others will recognize” (Gee, 1990: 142). These notions of discourse are relevant in this study as students need to acquire the appropriate discourse in science, to acquire an identity in science. They need to be able to read, write and talk the language of science so that they can become members of the community of science. This ties up with NLS, mainly the contextual nature of literacy practices and the fact that literacy is socially constructed.
Discourse is not separable from social practices. With regard to the issue of Discourse, Gee (1989) states that discourses govern how we talk, think, and interact as members of a culture. Gee (2001) elaborates on the interpretation of discourse, maintaining that “a discourse integrates ways of talking, listening, writing, reading, acting, interacting, believing, valuing, and feeling in the service of enacting meaningful socially situated identities and activities” (719).
Draper (2008) identifies the relevance of these definitions of discourse to content-area teachers who maybe striving in their attempts to help students to acquire new identities (71). This idea is further accented by Wenger (1998) who states that “it is in content-area classrooms where students are able to master or control a particular discourse; this is done
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by helping students to learn how to act appropriately and interact with the texts used to communicate and participate within disciplinary communities of practice” (127).
Gee (1999) distinguishes between “primary discourses and secondary discourses: primary discourses being the way of using language a child acquires in its first few years of life through primary socialization within the family; and, secondary discourses which are developed in association with and by having access to and practice with secondary institutions such as schools, workplaces, stores, government offices, businesses, and churches” (5). For Gee (1987), “the primary discourse is the oral mode which is developed in the primary process of enculturation” (5). He goes on to explain that “secondary discourse involves uses of language either written or oral or both that go beyond primary discourse” (Gee, 1999: 6). It is the challenges of the secondary discourse – in the way that it is used in science that this study explores.
3.2.1 Discourse Practices
According to Gee (1990), “discourse practices are always embedded in the particular world view of particular social groups: they are tied to a set of values and norms. In apprenticing to new social practices, a student becomes complicit with this set of values and norms: this world view. The student is acquiring a new identity, one that at various points may conflict with [his] initial enculturation37 and socialization, and with the identities connected to other social practices in which [he] engages” (67). This view of discourse practices by Gee (1990) highlights the link between language and literacy acquisition, as forms of socialization into mainstream ways of using language in speech and print and mainstream ways of taking meaning and making sense of experience. The view of literacy put forward by Gee (1999) as that which is “mastered through acquisition ... it requires exposure to models in natural, meaningful and functional settings” (6) is pertinent to this study. This is mainly because it explores the issue of discipline-specific literacies in science that students acquire within the FP.
37 “The socio-cultural view suggests learning is not necessarily an individual, isolated activity, but instead usually takes place in a historical, social and cultural context. The focus in this view is on the ‘internalisation and appropriation of cultural tools and knowledge’ (Luckett and Luckett, 2009: 470) through a process of enculturation or induction, whereby the learner accesses the Discourse of the discipline or community”
(Ellery, 2011: 1079).
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