Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

IaplicatioDS / 176

the stressed, the marked,the fully no≡lnallzed, the foregrounded.
<Bruner ,1985*⅛1).

In other words, there is an historical and social dimension which is
constitutive of discourse: it is what enables the subjects to 'make sense¹
of it, to understand. Valkerdine (1982) gives an example of how inter-
subjectivity in discourse can be extended to thought processes and
subsequent activity.

It can be argued that teachers in situations of rapid change, or whenever
asked to introduce innovation in their practice, have first to interpret
the 'new' ⅛ function of the 'given', in order to understand it, to give
meaning* to the new:

'These meanings are located in, and understood in terms of, actual
social practices, represented in speech as discourse. It is by
analysing the form and content of discourse, the processes of
selection and combination.....that we can account for the

origins and processes of reasoning. (Valkerdine,1982:153).

In the community where the teacher lives, changing social practices at
all levels promote new kinds of situations, and consequent 'discourses'.
But as a professional, the teacher is also part of an environment of

colleagues, principals, administrators and trainers. As Intersubjectivity
is important  for discourse at Interpersonal  level,  so  it is at

institutional  level, for example between teachers  on  one  side and

education theorists and planners on the other: breakdowns in
communication are due to assumptions that turn out to be   not fully

shared, and repair is possible by further questioning.

Vhat has to be questioned, however, are fundamental roles that all those
Involved will find hard to reconsider: the teacher that of leading
community figure (shopkeeper), the curriculum planner that of
disseminator of theories (middleman) and the researcher that of producer
of theories (manufacturer for the foreign market). The local and
international division of labour has to be taken into account
(Altbach,1984; Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas,1986).

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