The multiple modes of ideological becoming: an analysis of kindergarteners’ appropriation of school language and literacy discourses

ABSTRACT

This study explores Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of ideological becoming (IB) in a bilingual (Korean and English) kindergarten classroom. For Bakhtin, IB is the process of appropriating authoritative discourse as one’s own dialogic interactions. In our study, we view the literacy and language discourses of schooling as one type of authoritative discourse that students appropriate as their own in the process of IB. Additionally, Bakhtin’s focus on language is extended in our study to include other modes of communication, such sounds, symbols, gestures, drawings, and artifacts that children use to make meaning with each other. The study found that students’ appropriation of the authoritative discourse of schooling relied on multimodal forms of communication as part and parcel to the process of IB. Thus, this study illuminates how oral languages (in this case, Korean or English or the informal patois combining the two) provide only one mode in the complex process of internalizing authoritative discourse; the multiple modes of IB surpass a language-centric view. Students’ creative adaptations of other’s voices as their own through multimodal channels of communication may not always include oral or written language.

KEYWORDS:

• Bakhtin
• ideological becoming (IB)
• multimodal forms
• kindergarten
• authoritative discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.