Production of elaborated argumentative discourse: The role of cooperativeness

The analysis of argumentative discourse produced by 68 students aged 10–17 reveals two facets: argumentative discourse involves both dialogal and argumentative operations. When the dialogue goal calls for the speakers to reach a compromise on a debate topic, they are prompted to negotiate the discourse object: negotiation on content of the exchanges (argumentative cooperativeness which presupposes an articulation of each partner’s arguments with the other partner’) and on the level of the formal argumentative markers of negotiation. The key finding is that dialogal and argumentative operations are functionally linked: the percentage of markers of utterance involvement, axiological forms and modalizations is much higher in argumentative cooperative discourse as compared to discourse where cooperativeness is only dialogal (in which the speakers merely regulate turn taking and maintain thematic continuity). Furthermore, the differentiation in frequency of use of negotiation markers as a function of type of cooperativeness increases with age. Argumentative dialogue thus emerges as a complex form of language behavior which brings interconnected language operations into play.     

Collaborative writing as a bridge from peer discourse to individual argumentative writing

Reading and Writing - Converging evidence indicates that argumentative thinking and writing are promoted by peer discourse. Here it is proposed that collaborative writing can serve as a bridge from...     

Rethinking work. Time,space and discourse

In this paper, we survey the contemporary movement away from traditional educational forms to the new discourses and practices associated with the term “lifelong learning”. We relate this movement to the sense of crisis which seems to be present in the post‐compulsory and higher education sectors. We locate it in the technological, economic and cultural changes which characterise the postmodern condition and the questioning of the grand narratives which have sustained education in modernity. We examine how these changes are effecting education in terms of trends such as vocationalisation, marketisation, the commodification of knowledge, the individualising of learning and the challenging of the monopoly position of universities. We ask what “education” means when it is not a bounded field and what “learning” means in the more loosely bounded spaces of lifelong learning. We argue that the current situation is both exciting and troubling for educators requiring a redefinition of roles and purposes in a context which is complex and contradictory.     

Beyond space and across time: non-finalized dialogue about science and religion discourse

This commentary dialogues with three articles that analyze the same database about science and religion discourse produced 17 years ago. Dialogues in these three articles and this commentary across space and time allow us to develop new and different understandings of the same database and situation. As part of this commentary, I discuss topics approached in the three articles including the collective nature of discourses, emotion, and constructivist view on learning. I draw on three essential concepts of the dialogical nature of utterance, the emotional-volitional tone and internally persuasive discourse informed by Bakhtin’s dialogism. In particular, I conclude that Bakhtin’s dialogism not only invites us to understand science learning discourse in a more holistic way but also encourages us to open up dialogues between science and religion that often are considered to be two hostile opponents.     

Producing global citizens for the future: space,discourse and curricular reform

This article inquires into discourses of globalisation as they are put to use to accelerate higher education’s seemingly ready acquiescence to the demands of the market. We maintain that globalisation operates as a way to reason about space that produces images and narratives of universities, knowledge and students. We focus our analysis on curriculum reform as a way universities materialise the seemingly abstract economic logic of the so-called ‘knowledge society’ at the level of student-citizens, who are to be educated to become economic globalisation’s next agents. In order to locate curriculum’s productive role within university respatialisation, we offer a discourse analysis of the circulation of ideas about globalisation and higher education through intergovernmental and national documents, which take material form in a US state university system’s attempted curricular reform of its general education core. We inquire into the ways space, as a rationality, acts to create systems of reasoning about institutions, knowledges and subjects that furthers the production of a neoliberal global imaginary.     

Writing flexibility in argumentative essays: a multidimensional analysis

Reading and Writing - The assessment of argumentative writing generally includes analyses of the specific linguistic and rhetorical features contained in the individual essays produced by students....     

Reading argumentative texts: comprehension and evaluation goals and outcomes

The study is situated at the interface between reading comprehension and critical thinking research. Its purpose was to examine the influence of reading goals and argument quality on the comprehension and critical evaluation of argumentative texts. Young adult readers read to comprehend or evaluate texts on two different controversial issues. Argument quality was varied across text versions on the basis of the hasty generalization fallacy. Text versions varied with respect to the quality of the arguments included, but not in terms of argument content. Measures of comprehension included main claim recall, overall recall and inferences in recall. Text evaluation was measured with a rating task. The sample’s familiarity with the text topics was low, and prior beliefs were relatively neutral. The results indicated that an evaluation goal had a consistent positive effect on main claim and text recall when compared to comprehension goal. Argument quality, however, had no main or interactive effects on text evaluation. The findings indicate that reading to evaluate argumentative text facilitates the representation of its content and critical argument elements, such as the claim it promotes. However, this representation is not sufficient for analyzing and critically evaluating the text’s argument line. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to current efforts to promote critical-analytic thinking skills in the context of reading and writing.     

The development of referential communication: speaking to different listeners

Referential communication can be conceptualized as consisting of substantive knowledge, enabling skills, and procedural rule knowledge. One type of procedural rule is to tailor a message to the needs of one's listener. 2 studies investigated whether children vary the amount of information in a message (contrastive or redundant) as a function of either sharing a previous experience with that listener or the age of the listener. First- (M = 6-8), fourth- (M = 9-9), and fifth- (M = 10-8) grade speakers played a referential communication game with a fictitious listener. All children were more likely to give redundant messages to listeners with whom they had no common shared experience or to strangers than to listeners with whom they had shared a previous experience. Only the older children, however, varied the type of redundant messages in keeping with the needs of the listeners. Furthermore, the older children were more likely to vary how much information they included in their messages as a function of the listener's age. Discussion focuses on the need to consider the acquisition of communicative competence as the acquisition of specific skills within the context of specific tasks.     

Writing argumentative text: A developmental study of the acquisition of supporting structures

The development of argumentative writing is studied here by examining the structural organization of argumentative texts. It is assumed that the ability to construct supporting relationships, that is, a conclusion statement supported by argument statements, is acquired gradually with age. The following stages of acquisition are postulated: (1) a preargumentation stage, where at first no explicit position is stated, and then an explicit position is stated but is not supported by an argument; (2) a minimal argumentation stage, where a position is explicitly taken and supported by one argument; and (3) an elaborated argumentation stage, where at least two unrelated supporting arguments are used, and then two related arguments are used. Two corpora were gathered under similar conditions: collective debate in the classroom, followed by individual essays written on the chosen topic. The first corpus was produced by 147 children aged 7 to 14, and a group of 34 college students. The second corpus included the protocols of 92 children aged 11 to 16 the essays were graded for the presence or absence of each structural level, and then classified at the highest structural level exhibited. The resulting classification largely confirmed the hypothesized order for the stages of argumentative development. The minimal argumentative structure (standpoint + one supporting argument) was mastered by nearly 90% of the 7 and 8 year-olds. The most elaborate structural level in our model (two related arguments) was attained later: less than one out of four 7–8 year olds versus three out of four beyond age 14. Techniques involving more complex argumentative relations such as refutations and counterarguments, or restriction of one argument by another, are mastered even later and seem to be strongly linked to the nature of the issues under debate. Three main conclusions can be drawn from these results: precocious argumentative skills exist in children before age 11 or 12, argumentative discourse complexity continues to increase up to age 14 and beyond, and the characteristics of the referential domain of argumentation have an impact on this structural elaboration process.     

Discursive geographies in science: space, identity, and scientific discourse among indigenous women in higher education

Despite completing undergraduate degrees in the life sciences, few Indigenous women choose to pursue careers in scientific research. To help us understand how American Indian students engage with science, this ethnographic research describes (1) how four Navajo women identified with science, and (2) the narratives they offered when we discussed their experiences with scientific discourse. Using intensive case studies to describe the experiences of these women, my research focused on their final year of undergraduate study in the life sciences at a university in southwestern US. I point to the processes by which the participants align themselves with ideas, practices, groups, or people in science. As each participant recounted her experiences with scientific discourse, they recreated for me a discursive geography of their lives on the reservation, at home, at community colleges (in some cases), and on the university campus. In the construction and analysis of the narratives for this research, mapping this geography was critical to understanding each participant’s discursive relationship with science. In these discursive spaces, I observed productive “locations of possibility” in which students and their instructors: valued connected knowing; acknowledged each other’s history, culture, and knowledge; began to speak to each other subject-to-subject; and challenged normative views of schooling. I argue that this space, as a location of possibility, has the power to transform the crushing impersonalized schooling that often characterizes “rigorous” scientific programs in a research institution.

Collective reading of multiple texts in argumentative activities

The paper focuses on principles for the design of school activities involving the collective reading of multiple texts. We show that the collective reading of multiple texts has been practiced in rare occasions in Western history. Scrutiny of the reasons for the persistence and the decline of this practice in different societies suggests that it may have powerful implications on our society and that we should be aware both of the opportunities it opens and of the dangers it hides. We articulate the theoretical tenets for an appropriate design of the collective reading of multiple texts. We then describe a new experimental study based on collective reading of multiple texts, and show how this reading impinged on further argumentative activities.     

Ethics: A discourse of power

In conclusion, moral and ethical criteria generated by normalized reality, steers and directs what we who practice in the field of educational technology do. The challenge for us is to see and to understand our field as a construct within a particular tradition at a particular point in time. As national boundaries dissolve, time is reformatted, and distance (space) becomes almost non-existent, the challenge is to understand and honor different ethical perspectives, while at the same time search for a truth which values and transcends the individual and the community, to reach a common good.     

议论文写作教学策略之“活用”

议论文写作在我国的语文教学中扮演者极为重要的角色,它不仅仅能够让学生们在日积月累的写作过程中,不断锻炼自己的抽象逻辑思维能力和思辨能力,还可以让学生的议论能力得到大幅度的提高。但是,从我国学生整体的写作水平来看,学生们在议论文写作上仍旧令人堪忧,无论是学生自身的写作能力还是对议论文写作的态度都存在着严重的问题。本文从我国当前议论文写作教学的现状入手,深入分析了造成议论文写作现状的原因,从而对如何加强学生在议论文写作过程中"活用"能力提出了相关建议,希望能为我国的议论文写作教学起到一定指导作用。     

Empowering discourse: discourse analysis as method and practice in the sociology classroom

Collaborative learning and critical pedagogy are widely recognized as ‘empowering’ pedagogies for higher education. Yet, the practical implementation of both has a mixed record. The question, then, is: How could collaborative and critical pedagogies be empowered themselves? This paper makes a primarily theoretical case for discourse analysis (DA) as a form of classroom practice that provides a structured framework for collaborative and critical pedagogies in higher education, with a special reference to sociology classroom practice. I develop a tripartite scheme for building a framework for sociological imagination that is, first, sensitive to the discursive aspects of social reality (learning about DA). Second, I illustrate the use of DA as pedagogical tool and classroom practice (learning with DA). Third, I discuss how discourse analytical ideas can be used in evaluating classroom interaction and how these reflexive insights can be used to enhance student empowerment (learning through DA).     

话语标记语Well在英语听力语篇中的功能

本文探讨了话语标记语well在英语听力语篇中的多元功能,突出话语标记语well在听力理解中的实际作用。