LINGUIST List 23.55 Wed Jan 04 2012 Diss: Discourse Analysis/Socioling: Szabó: 'Learning, Following and...' Editor for this issue: Xiyan Wang <xiyanlinguistlist.org> To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.cfm. Directory         1.     Tamás Péter Szabó , Learning, Following and Disseminating Language Rules as a Topic in the Metalinguistic Knowledge of Students and Their Teachers Message 1: Learning, Following and Disseminating Language Rules as a Topic in the Metalinguistic Knowledge of Students and Their Teachers Date: 02-Jan-2012 From: Tamás Péter Szabó <sztpnytud.hu> Subject: Learning, Following and Disseminating Language Rules as a Topic in the Metalinguistic Knowledge of Students and Their Teachers E-mail this message to a friend Institution: Eötvös Loránd University Program: Hungarian Linguistics Programme Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2011 Author: Tamás Péter Szabó Dissertation Title: Learning, Following and Disseminating Language Rules as a Topic in the Metalinguistic Knowledge of Students and Their Teachers Dissertation URL: http://sztp.hu/tezis-angol-20110307-egybe.pdf Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis                             Sociolinguistics Subject Language(s): Hungarian (hun) Dissertation Director: Jenő Kiss Dissertation Abstract: Hungarian is a standard language culture (cf. Milroy 2001). Other-initiated repair - the reformulation and evaluation of the utterances of the conversational partner - plays an important role in standard language cultures. Formal training takes aim at disseminating standard language use. Taking these issues into consideration, the dissertation focuses on other-repair by the analysis of metalanguage. Analysing other-repair within the theoretical framework of language ideologies and discursive social psychology is rather new in the context of Hungarian sociolinguistics. This can be regarded as an innovation of the dissertation. The data collection was carried out in 2009 in elementary and secondary schools. Students of year 1-4, 7 and 11 and their teachers of Hungarian language and literature were investigated. Methods of data collection: (1) questionnaires (N = 1195), (2) classroom observation (N = 61 lessons), (3) semi-structured research interviews (N = 133 interviewees; 47.7 hours of recorded speech; 346,500 transcribed words). The dissertation examines metalinguistic discourses and the emergence of ideologies in the context of formal education. In the dissertation metalanguage is conceptualized as a socially constructed, (self )reflective discourse on language as a system or as a communication practice (cf. Laihonen 2008). The analysis of other-repair in classroom discourse concluded that teachers often use other-repair as a means of the reconstruction of three dominant positions: (1) more competent speaker, (2) primary knower and (3) discourse manager. If repair was completed by a metalinguistic explanation or an explicit evaluation, it was analysed as a secondary legitimizing act of the repair (the primary legitimation comes from the position of the teacher guaranteed by the hierarchical structure of school system). The same was the case in the research interviews when one of the informants repaired the speech of another and he or she explained what he or she did. A more complex analysis was possible in the case of the interview data. Argumentation techniques and the basis of argumentation varied in a wide range. Arguments were often altered (in cases, argument 1, 2 and 3 were presented subsequently, by the same speaker, in the same turn). The ideology construction was a dynamic process in which the quotation of other persons (Aro 2009) and reference to other discourses was common. In such a construction activity, the interviewer played an important role. The analysis of agency concluded that in ideology construction and ideology learning, quoting and the assimilation of other people's voice both have special impact (cf. Aro 2009; Karasavvidis et al. 2000). Analysing questionnaire data, the dissertation argued that answering a question in formal training context means only that the informant has practice in the discourse initiated in the questionnaire. This can be projected to formal training processes. During the formation years students practise techniques of deconstruction and reconstruction of ideologies by reading, listening and repeating - later assimilating - metadiscursive texts or text fragments. The only thing an answer in an exam shows is that if the student has (or has not) practice in the de- or reconstruction of the given ideology, or rather if he or she continues the construction of an ideology initiated by the teacher. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 04-Jan-2012       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.