Translanguaging and linguistically and culturally responsive teaching are widely used as pedagogical fundamentals in linguistically diverse schools (e.g., García & Kleyn 2016; Heikkola et al. 2022). Nevertheless, the relationship between language, power and society is often neglected when applying new (language) pedagogical approaches. To understand more deeply social inequalities in the development of literacy, and in education in general, both discourse analytic and sociolinguistic concepts and tools are needed.
In this paper, I combine nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon 2004) and critical sociolinguistic methods (Heller et al. 2018) to investigate students' agency in disciplinary literacy practices at lower secondary school physics lessons. I seek to answer two research questions: 1) how the status and use of different linguistic resources is negotiated at school, and 2) how students' multilingual agency is performed in interaction. The presentation is based on ongoing longitudinal research investigating social and linguistic practices in Finnish basic education context. The data consists of texts written by the students, students' responses to a survey, interviews of students and teachers, ethnographic fieldwork and video-recorded lessons. In analyzing video data, verbal and embodied actions, and the ecology of the space is taken into account (cf. Mondada 2018).
By analyzing video data from physics classroom activities, I demonstrate how agency is fundamentally a social phenomenon which is reconstructed and transformed in and through discursive practices (Miller 2014, 4). In the nexus of social action, the focus is on the key discourses on interaction order, discourses in place and historical bodies (Scollon & Scollon 2004, 19). This circumference of discourses also shapes the trajectories of agency.
The analysis shows that students' engagement in classroom interaction and literacy learning is challenged by the social and linguistic practices used in the classroom, for example in to which extent non-verbal resources are paid attention to. To carry out more socially just education, students' voices have to be carefully taken into account and classroom practices should be discussed critically. Therefore, the elements of critical research methods are needed to complement the framework of nexus analysis.
References:
García, O. & T. Kleyn 2016. Translanguaging Theory in Education. In García, O. & T. Kleyn (eds.) Translanguaging with Multilingual Students: Learning from Classroom Moments. New York: Routledge.
Heikkola, L. M., Alisaari, J., Vigren, H. & N. Commins 2022. Requirements Meet Reality: Finnish Teachers' Practices in Linguistically Diverse Classrooms. Journal of Language, Identity & Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1991801.
Heller, M., Pietikäinen, S. & J. Pujolar 2018. Critical Sociolinguistic Research Methods: Studying Language Issues That Matter. New York: Routledge.
Miller, E. R. 2014. The Language of Adult Immigrants: Agency in the Making. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Mondada, L. 2018. Multiple Temporalities of Language and Body in Interaction: Challenges for Transcribing Multimodality. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(1), 85–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2018.1413878.
Scollon, R. & S. W. Scollon 2004. Nexus analysis: discourse and the emerging internet. London: Routledge.
