Exploration of dialogical constructions of meaning: Some teachers and children talking.
Item
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Title
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Exploration of dialogical constructions of meaning: Some teachers and children talking.
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Identifier
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AAI9325066
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identifier
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9325066
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Creator
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Arieux, Marianne.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Joseph Glick
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Date
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1993
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Developmental | Education, Educational Psychology | Education, Sociology of
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Abstract
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School age children's communicative meaning development was explored in a quasi-experimental, cross-sectional study. Vgotsky's (1987) insights into development, Werner and Kaplan's (1984) model of symbol development and Bakhtin's (1984, 1986) semiotic analysis of speech were woven into an argument for examining communicative meaning as a dialogical process. Children's verbal interactions in two discourse contexts, talk with a good friend and with their teachers, were studied. The interaction of discourses from two disparate contexts was expected to effect change in meanings with children's appropriation of the authorial voice of the teacher measured by double voicing, heteroglossia.;The sample consisted of 31 same gender 3rd and 4th grade dyads with their 2nd and 5th grade classroom peers (i.e., bridge classes) from 5 classes in two inner city public schools. The majority of the children were African-american and/or Latino (71%). Children's dialogical meanings were elicited as talk about a video text in three 15 minutes with a good friend before and after an intervening phase, talk with their teachers in a classroom activity. The final (post intervention) dyadic discourse phase was transformed into a carnivalized version of the initial dyadic phase by giving children props with instructions to be funny in order to provide maximum contextual support for double-voiced discourse.;Talk was examined for amount of time, mode of talking (dialogue genres), interpretations of the skits, and intertextual referencing of the teacher's talk. In the dyadic phases, children were found to construct rich dialogues; variations of children's friendship talk genre were uncovered. Talk in the class activities met the criteria for classroom discussion genre. Dialogical meaning development was exhibited by children's new interpretations (68%) embedded in dialogue genre changes; and evidence of intertextuality in the final dyadic talk of 17 dyads. A developmental trend was observed for the level of complexity in intertextuality: 2nd-3rd graders mostly imported, 4th graders transformed, and 5th graders were observed to caricature their teacher's discourse. Within grade class differences for the younger grades only and gender differences are discussed. Hypotheses for future study of children's appropriation of the voice of the adult were generated.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
