Making the Implicit Visible: (Re)Construction of the School Scientific Lexicon
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| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Teachers and pupils co-construct a distinct language community: they use language to share certain inner space which they know and in which they move and live (Vankova, 2007). Yet, this space changes slightly with each new subject matter which the pupils learn. Consequently, pupils have to internalise new lexicon through which they can perceive the language reality of the given subject (Lakoff, Johnson, 2002). This internalisation then enables them to become fluent speakers of the school scientific lexicon. I realise that language material (in the sense of “technical” vocabulary) is not the only important matter in the process of socialisation into school scientific lexicon. What is equally important is the way of using of the lexicon in the given subject (Mercer, 1996, 34). Hence, this paper primarily examines (re)construction of the school scientific lexicon because it is a vital part of the school scientific language. The usage of language is a natural and automatic process. Even movement in the space of a language is automatic and usually unreflected, which is in accordance with Gadamer’s principle of self-forgetting (1999, 43, Vankova, 2007). Yet, gaining a glance of the unreflected nature of language use is particularly important for better understanding of classroom processes. This is because teachers often evaluate pupils on their usage of the scientific language of their subject. At times, this is the only criterion used to find out whether a pupil improved or not in the given subject (Lemke, 1989, 6). The paper answers the following questions: How does the process of (re)construction of the school scientific lexicon take place? How does the process influence classroom communication? The paper is based on qualitative research close to ethnographic design. The data was gathered by participant observation and audio-recording of forty Czech language lessons in five different lower secondary school classes. Analytical methods inspired by Hymes’s theory of speech acts were used to identify specific educational episodes, which were then analyzed with interactive analysis methods. |
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