Learning as Social

Interaction:
Interdiscursivity in a Teacher
and Researcher Study
Group

A companion to Chapter 7 by
Cynthia Lewis and Jean Ketter

From the companion website for Rogers, R. (2011). An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education,
2nd edition. New York: Taylor and Francis at www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415874298
Using Critical Discourse Analysis

Research Question: How do book group

participants interact around texts to
interrupt or sustain “fixed”/stable
discourse of liberal humanism?

Examined discussions of a teacher book

group focusing on young adult texts by
people of color over a four-year period.

Participant Observation role for

researchers.
 Fixed Discourse

A dominant discourse in our discussions was

Liberal Humanism (Color Blindness and
Meritocracy)

– Whiteness is not a race; or whiteness is the

normative by which “others” are defined.

– Individual Effort Trumps Social Forces

(Williamson, 2004).

This discourse is stable because it “reproduces

the dominant cultural ideology” (Williamson,
2004).
 Discourses of Critical Multiculturalism

Critical Multiculturalism counters the dominant

discourse:

– Social Forces/Institutional structures

interfere with individual choice and
opportunity.

– Race is a social construction that

“matters.”

– Whiteness is a race.

The researchers often brought this discourse

into the discussion.
 Interdiscursivity and
Learning

Fairclough’s theory:

Interdiscursivity leads to dialogue

that can destabilize a fixed
discourse.

True dialogue has potential to

create dynamic rearticulations of
otherwise stable discourses, i.e.
learning.
 Hybridity in the Book Group

The book group in which we were

participant observers was a “hybrid”
group.

Part book group, seminar, and

professional development.

Our theory: The hybridity had

potential to create destabilizing
dialogic interchanges that could lead
to learning.
 Theoretical Framing

Sociocultural theories of learning: Define learning as

always occurring in a social context dependent on
interaction and dialogue.

• Critical multiculturalism: Focus on institutional and

social practices that normalize whiteness and
disguise privilege as merit.

• Critical Theories of Language: Examine all

participants’ use of language to position themselves
as good teachers and to justify uses of multicultural
literature.
 Critical Discourse Analysis
Fairclough (1989, 1992); Chouliaraki & Fairclough (1999)

We analyzed episodes that share themes

at three levels:

Discourse: Systematic cluster of themes,

statements, or ideologies that come into
play in a text.
Genre: Language tied to a particular
activity.
Voice: The way language is used to
present oneself in relation to others or
a text.
 CDA: Discourse

Identified thematically related episodes

for the recurring “fixed” discourses
that we had identified through earlier
research.

Examined same episodes for

interdiscursivity where fixed
discourses were interrupted.
 CDA: Genre

We cross-coded these episodes for

generic norms for interactions for the
hybrid community of practice—part book
group, part academic class, and part
professional development.

This hybridity brought with it

conflicting
expectations for turn taking,
challenging
others, evaluating texts for their
appropriateness, etc.
 CDA: Voice

We looked closely at the language each

participant used in reference to her
identity and her position within the
group.

We examined how pronoun use, qualifiers,

passive voice, and register, for
example, could signal the speaker’s
affiliation with others in the group
and her confidence in a claim.
 Example of Analysis:

Discourse (blue); Genre (red); Voice

(green)

Cynthia: It’s interesting what you said about the universality of it,

too, because I think that is so much there, and that’s why it’s such a

good book to use with kids. At the same time, it’s called “An Island

like You” and I know that’s a reference to the grandparents, but I

think it’s also sort of a claustrophobic sense of being apart from the

rest of the world that so many of the characters feel. The barrio is

sort of a part of the rest of the world … There’s this universality,

but there’s also this incredible difference.

 Example of Analysis:

Discourse (blue); Genre (red); Voice

(green)

Denise: And the poem at the beginning says “alone

in a crowd.” And, you know, I think that’s something

kind of like an island, I mean you’re the only one who

feels that way or the only one that thinks that way or

the only one who’s had that experience, and you don’t

connect with people.

Discourse: Systematic cluster of themes,
statements, ideologies that come into play in
a text

Two themes in conflict:

Fixed Discourse: Whiteness is the universal

“norm;” race does not matter. Denise is arguing that
the characters in the book represent the universality
of the human experience (of feeling that you’re the
only person having an experience when, in actuality,
all human beings have had the same experience.)

Challenging Discourse: Race, although a social

construction, does matter. Cynthia is arguing that the
Puerto Rican people in the barrio have an experience
that is qualitatively different from the experience of
white people (the experience of being “other” and that
is determined by race and social class).
Genre: The language tied to a
particular activity (in this case, a
book group)

The book group genre requires politeness and

precludes an open challenge or argument.

Cynthia politely begins her turn with the “It’s

interesting …” to show engagement.

To eschew authority, Cynthia introduces her

disagreement with “at the same time,” suggesting
that the two discourses do not conflict when they
do.

Denise begins her turn “and” to imply agreement but

is politely countering Cynthia’s claim of
difference.
Voice: The way we use language to present
ourselves in relation to a group or text

A focus on pronouns and repetition reveals how the

participants use language to position themselves
as allied with the others or separate from them.

• Cynthia uses “you” in her turn to signal

disagreement with Denise’s point about
universality. She is separating herself from the
comment.
• Denise used “you” to persuade her listeners to
identify with the lone individual as she herself
does (“you’re the only one,” “you don’t
connect”).
• Denise repeats “only one” to emphasize the
experience of “universal” loneliness.
 Implications for Practice

CDA allowed us to analyze teacher talk in

ways that foregrounded the complexity of
our social interactions around the texts.

CDA also helped us resist binaries.

Even though we perceived these discourses as
in opposition, they were continually
recycled, re-appropriated and transformed in
our discussions.

Rather than seeing the teachers as either

racist or enlightened, or resistant or open,
we came to see them (and ourselves) as
complicated beings who could be both
simultaneously.
 Suggested Readings
Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and
signifying practices. London: Sage.

Kanpol, B., & McLaren, P. (1995). Critical multiculturalism:

Uncommon voices in a common struggle. Westport: Bergin &
Garvey.

May, S., & Sleeter, C. (Eds.). (2010). Critical multiculturalism: Theory

and praxis. New York: Routledge.

Shi-xu (1997). Cultural representations: Analyzing the discourse

about the Other. New York: Peter Lang Press.

Shi-xu (2005). A cultural approach to discourse. Houndmills and New

York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Solorzano, D., & Yosso, T. (2001). From racial stereotyping and

deficit discourse toward a critical race theory in teacher education.
Multicultural Education, 9(1), 2–8.