Repertoires of three second language learners of mathematics: distal and situational sources of meaning

ABSTRACT

This article presents the results of an analysis of ethnographic data collected in three second language mathematics classrooms in Canada. The elementary school classes consisted of a group of indigenous students, a group of new immigrant students and a class in a French immersion programme. The focus of the analysis was on the sources of meaning students use in mathematics classrooms. The notion of sources of meaning is framed by a Bakhtinian perspective on language, in which they are examined in terms of discourses, voices and languages. For one student in each class, I describe a repertoire of sources of meaning and discuss similarities and differences relating to the sociolinguistic context of each class. Students’ repertoires are shown to include both situational and distal sources of meaning. The relationship between distal and situational sources of meaning reflects the stratified nature of mathematics classroom interaction.

KEYWORDS:

• language diversity
• second language learners
• mathematics classroom discourse
• Bakhtin
• language repertoires

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the schools, students and teachers for their generous participation, and to Elysée Cadet, Carrie Learned and several other research assistants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The data referred to in this article were collected as part of the project Mathematics in a Multilingual World (2008–2012), funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 410-2008-0544].