Textbook, Chalkboard, Notebook: Resemiotization in a Mozambican Primary School
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Textbook, Chalkboard, Notebook: Resemiotization in a Mozambican Primary School David Ker (KRXDAV001) A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics. Faculty of the Humanities University of Cape Town 2015 COMPULSORY DECLARATION This work has not been previously submitted in whole or in part for the award of any degree. It is my own Universitywork. Each significant contributionof Cape to and quotationTown in this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed and has been cited and referenced. Signature: _______________________ Date: _________________________ The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town Abstract This ethnographic, sociolinguistic study describes the writing practices of teachers and students in a Portuguese-language primary school in Mozambique. In the classroom, teachers and students engage in a text-chain ritual in which the teacher copies a text from the textbook onto the chalkboard which is then copied by the students into their notebooks. Using the theoretical framework of social semiotics, this study situates classroom writing within a range of multimodal practices which scaffold the written texts. This study employs the notion of resemiotization in order to describe the ways in which signs are transformed as they move between different sites of display. This resemiotization is framed by educational ritual with the language of instruction, Portuguese, being a second language (hereafter ‘L2’) to most of the students. Because of the linguistic constraints of the L2, rote- copying practices predominate in the classroom. Copying allows lessons to move forward despite the comprehension difficulties of the students. The text-chain is shown to be simultaneously reductive and expansive. Subsequent links tend to be reduced representations of their originating signs even while these signs serve as the basis for expansive multimodal ensembles which include speech, drawing and gesture, as well as the use of the students’ home language. This study employs the notion of mimesis in order to account for the ways in which the resemiotization observed in the classroom is both imitative and creative. Each instance of writing imitates a previous link in the text-chain but also shows evidence of teachers and students creatively shaping their texts. In order to study these writing practices, more than 40 classroom lessons were observed during two research trips to Tete, Mozambique. This study used observation and photographic data-records to trace the movement of texts over the course of a lesson. Photographs of the chalkboard were taken as the chalkboard text grew and changed. In each classroom, six students were selected and their notebook writing photographed. The photographing of the chalkboard and notebooks allowed for the comparison of these texts as they were produced in the classroom. Additionally, teachers and educators were interviewed to provide insight on classroom writing practices. During these interviews, teachers were asked to describe their schooling experience and compare it with schooling today. Teachers and educators also provided background information on bilingual education and their use of a technique known as currículo local, ‘local curriculum’, in which teachers use local language and culture to create connections between classroom knowledge and students’ existing knowledge. This thesis draws attention to the complexity of writing practices in L2 classrooms. Writing is shown to be a term that covers a wide range of practices including rote copying, drawing, doodling, and pseudo-writing. These writing practices take place in an environment marked by linguistic and semiotic diversity. This thesis expands the use of the term resemiotization by looking in detail at the material and social processes that occur in the classroom. Additionally, this thesis draws attention to ritual as an organizing principle for resemiotizing processes in which institutional forces and authorized language influence and shape local practices. The use of the notion of mimesis allows this analysis to account for the ways in which resemiotization involves both imitation and creativity in a text-chain that exhibits signs of semiotic reduction while simultaneously facilitating instances of profuse multimodal communication. Acknowledgments I wish to acknowledge and thank the many people who made this thesis possible. This thesis is dedicated in loving memory to my mother, Janet, who always dreamed I would be an academic. Thank you to my parents, Steve and Carol, for their loving support on every step of my journey. To my mother-in-law, Ann, for everything. To my wife, Hilary, for tea breaks and copy-editing. Thank you to my children: Eleanor, Henry, Andrew, and Benjamin. You make me proud. Thank you to Mikael and Jeni for friendship and hospitality. Thank you to the members of SIL Mozambique for facilitating this research. A great big thank you to the many people who prayerfully supported me during the writing of this thesis. Thank you to Jesus for hope and strength. I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Ana Deumert, for her guidance and astute editing. I have learned so much thanks to her supervision. Thank you to my co-supervisor, Arlene Archer, for her expertise and encouragement. A big thank you to the Linguinees, the post- grad linguistic group at UCT, for camaraderie and patience with my wild ideas. Thank you to the South African Multimodality in Education (SAME) group for forcing me to answer the question, ‘So what?’ I am humbly indebted to the many Mozambican educators and teachers who so kindly allowed me to witness their engagement with the monumental challenge of educating the children of Mozambique. Thank you to the students who inspired me with their creativity in the classroom and their joy in the schoolyard. The map on page 3 appears courtesy of Wikimedia Foundation. I am grateful to SANPAD for funding a portion of my fieldwork in 2012. i Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................... i Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... iii Figures ...................................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. xi 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Overview of the research ............................................................................................ 1 1.2 Tete, Mozambique ....................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Research questions and rationale ............................................................................... 3 1.4 Thesis outline ............................................................................................................... 5 2 Theoretical framework ....................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Challenges of L2 education .......................................................................................... 7 2.1.1 Portuguese and multilingualism .......................................................................... 7 2.1.2 Addressing language issues for education in Mozambique .............................. 11 2.2 A social semiotic approach to classroom writing practices ....................................... 14 2.2.1 Multimodality, modes, and affordances............................................................ 15 2.2.2 ‘Language’ in a social semiotic analysis ............................................................. 16 2.3 Resemiotization: what happens when signs move ................................................... 17 2.3.1 Translations between different signs ................................................................ 17 2.3.2 Resemiotization ................................................................................................. 19 2.4 Extending the notion of resemiotization ................................................................... 21 2.4.1 Following the text-chain .................................................................................... 21 2.4.2 Ritual .................................................................................................................. 22 2.4.3 The mimetic nature of resemiotization ............................................................. 25 2.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 26 3 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 29 3.1 My personal background in Mozambique ................................................................