Department of Education, Unit Catalogue 2007/08 |
ED60279 Language, culture and education |
| Level: Doctoral |
| Modular: no specific semester |
| Assessment: CW 100% |
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The unit is intended for educators and researchers working in educational settings. By analysing culture and language in depth, participants should gain a better understanding of the environments in which they operate and also of other professional and/or research environments they encounter. Aims: The unit aims to provide a critical understanding of: * philosophical perspectives on language and discourse * analysis of language and discourse * analysis of culture * the relationship of language and culture * the interfacing of language and culture in different educational environments, including classrooms * the cultural politics of international language education Learning Outcomes: As a result of the development of such a critical understanding, participants will be able to: * use appropriate research methods to describe and analyse education as cultural and linguistic practice * critically evaluate linguistic and cultural assumptions underpinning educational policy and practice * identify linguistic and cultural variables affecting educational policy and practice Assignment: Students will be expected to complete one written assignment of 8 000 words which will normally take one of the following forms: * a contextualised case-study focussing particularly on language and culture in an educational setting, including a critical engagement with the relevant research literature; * a critique of any particular relationship between language and culture, which includes critical engagement with the relevant research literature and some evidence base from experience in an educational setting. Content: The Nature of Language * Changing assumptions about the nature of language: Saussurean and post-Saussurean linguistics; semiotics, structuralism and poststructuralism * Language and dialogue: internal dialogue and social interaction * Language and identity: how discourse communities identify themselves by language behaviours; inclusion/exclusion, access and language as group semiotics * Education as language games: Wittgenstein, Lyotard, Foucault and genre theory The Nature of Culture * Semiotics and the analysis of education as cultural practice * Languages and cultures: how lexis can embody world views (Whorf, Wierzbicka) and how language is validated differently in different cultures * Culture and dialogue: cross-cultural understanding and misunderstanding * Cultural hegemony and resistance in education: critical theory in education Language and Culture * The interface between language and culture: how language polices culture; Habermas and the cultural implications of linguistic interaction * Literacies: the proliferation of 'literacies' in education; functional, cultural and critical literacy * Narrative and life-history research: personal narrative and reconstructed experience; research approaches and problems * The language and culture of academic subjects: genre and ground rules; the Two Cultures debate The Cultural Politics of Language Education * The globalization of language teaching * Discourses of international language education * The linguistic and ideological struggles which take place in relation to foreign/second languages and the teaching of foreign/second languages * English language education as a form of neo-colonialism: discourses of resistance and appropriation. |