عنوان

Multilingual talk, classroom textbooks and language values :

Number

TLets649330

Title Proper

Multilingual talk, classroom textbooks and language values :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

da Costa Cabral, Ildegrada

Title Proper by Another Author

a linguistic ethnographic study in Timor-Leste

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Birmingham

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

University of Birmingham

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

This thesis presents a multi-layered study of multilingual classroom discourse, with two teachers, in a primary school in Timor-Leste. The wider context for the study was a major shift in language-in-education policy - to the use of Portuguese and Tetum as media of instruction - on the independence of Timor-Leste in 2002. This is the first study in this context to use linguistic ethnography to investigate the ways in which teachers are navigating the policy shift and to analyse the links between multilingual classroom interaction and wider policy processes and language ideologies. Fieldwork for the study was conducted in 2012. It included classroom observation, note-taking, audio/video-recording of classroom interaction, interviews with teachers and with policymakers. The data analysis presented here centres on talk around Portuguese textbooks, in Tetum and Portuguese. The findings were as follows: (1.) teacher-pupil relationships were discursively co-constructed as strict and asymmetrical; (2.) code-switching practices evoked beliefs associated with hegemonic ideologies about bilingual education; and (3.) teachers mediated textbooks language and content by building bridges between textual knowledge and local knowledge. The study foregrounds teacher agency in language policy processes, but also makes connections with powerful political and academic discourses about language tied to nationhood and culture.

LB Theory and practice of education

LT Textbooks

P Philology. Linguistics

da Costa Cabral, Ildegrada

University of Birmingham

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y