Intertextuality and Hybrid Discourses: The Infusion of Pop Culture in Educational Discourse

Abstract

This article examines the intertextuality or discursive hybridity associated with spontaneous references to pop culture in teacher-led discussions in two Canadian high school humanities courses with students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The paper analyzes the linguistic, social, cognitive and affective features of pop-culture-infused talk that make it a complex form of linguistic and cultural play as well as meaning-making and identity work in educational settings. The means by which pop culture references are woven into surrounding texts are examined, together with the rationale for this discursive hybridity. The potential benefits and difficulties associated with these discourse patterns for English language learners in particular are then discussed. The analysis suggests that the hybrid discourse involving the interweaving of non-academic and more academic texts, or the “colonization” of the latter by the former [N. Fairclough (Ed.), Critical Language Awareness, Longman, Harlow, Essex, 1992a] served, on the one hand, to engage local, fully English-proficient students and, on the other hand, to marginalize newcomers, potentially preventing the latter from participating more fully in classroom speech events. As such, the pop culture discourse represented an unequally accessible “third space” for the class, which was a site of tension and ambivalence—but also pleasure—for immigrant newcomers, in particular.