Lecturers' discourses about the interplay between language and learning

Abstract

A discourse-analysis of what lecturers say about student learning is used to discuss some of their dominant understandings of this process. In this article, the two discourses that are discussed reflect lecturers' beliefs about the interplay between language and learning. Lecturers' discourses do not only reflect their classroom methodology, but also shape it by positioning them in certain ways. Dominant discourses reinforce dominant forces until beliefs become naturalised and made to seem 'common sense'. As such this research is concerned with issues of ideology and power as reflected and reinforced by lecturers' discourses. The article thus also begins to question how these discourses operationalise in the teaching and learning of the classroom.


South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.18(2) 2004: 278-287