The performance of academic identity as pedagogical model and guide in/through lecture discourse

Abstract

This article argues that lecture discourse has the capacity to support students in their transition into modes of social critique and that the lecturer, through an enactment of an academic identity in lecture discourse, plays a crucial role as both model and guide. Certain crucial phases and sub-phases of lectures are used to model an engagement with individual and everyday experience as grounds for analysis and critique. A close examination of phase structures illustrates how an academic's identity is used as a model within a pedagogical process wherein the academic shifts from the anecdotal to the theorised and critical through the process of recontextualisation.

Keywords:

• lecture
• discourse
• pedagogy
• recontextualisation

Notes

1. There are of course others aspects of the lecture event and its discourse not explored in this article, most notably students and the use of body movement. Both of these are being explored in the project and will be reported on in subsequent papers.

2. My use of pedagogue resists the often-pejorative use of the term to suggest didacticism and uses the term to actively embrace the teaching academic's roles as a teacher – one who provides opportunities for learning.

3. Thirty six hours of lectures were recorded across three units in an undergraduate Cultural Studies programme. Lectures were transcribed and analysed using the method described herein. The portion of text used in this article is representative the kind of discourse found across all three units.

4. ‘Moneypenny’ is a lecturer in Cultural Studies, teaching a unit on emotions and culture.

5. Analytical attention should and will be paid to the use of other semiotics (body movement, gaze, etc.) in the performance the lecture genre as part of the MOCUP. There is insufficient room for such an analysis in this article.