Transparent Discourse Research Articles

Eliminação adiada: o ocaso das classes populares no interior da escola e a ocultação da (má) qualidade do ensino

Neste estudo faz-se uma crítica às formas de implementar políticas de avaliação baseadas em "responsabilização", em curso no MEC-INEP, bem como se propõe uma forma alternativa de lidar com o problema, baseada em "qualidade negociada" com envolvimento bilateral do Estado e da escola. Propõem-se elementos iniciais para uma política de Estado no campo da avaliação e localiza-se o processo de avaliação institucional da escola como o elo entre a avaliação externa de sistema e a escola e seus profissionais. Alerta-se para o fato de que as políticas de responsabilização unilaterais conduzirão à configuração de escolas para pobres e escolas para ricos, bem como se alerta para o risco de que os sistemas de avaliação externa centralizados na Federação ocultem, em indicadores estatísticos como o IDEB, as dificuldades que as classes populares estão tendo para aprender no interior da escola, legitimando estratégias que somente conduzem ao adiamento da exclusão destas - apesar do discurso da transparência e responsabilidade.

Globalization, Ideology, and Narratives of the East Asian Financial Crisis

In his paper, Globalization, Ideology, and Narratives of the East Asian Financial Crisis, Ezra Yoo-Hyeok Lee analyzes the narratives of the East Asian financial in 1997-98, arguing that it took place in the course of restructuring the world economy so that the first world would keep its hegemonic power. The East Asian financial crisis spread rapidly to the rest of the globe and in this urgent situation, the IMF: International Monetary Fund played its now typical role as a savior of the world. Before the financial crisis, the East Asian economy was considered to be an exemplary model from which Western countries could learn. But after the financial crisis, in the course of saving East Asian countries, the IMF produced a completely different discourse that was readily accepted in the West. The IMF claimed that the lack of the transparency and cronyism of the East Asian economy were the main causes of the financial crisis in the region. The IMF then began to restructure the East Asian economy that had already been structured over the last three decades according to the Western standard without considering carefully enough the impact on the lived experience of East Asian people. Lee examines how the IMF constructs a new Orientalism in order to rationalize its harsh cure for the East Asian financial crisis and attempts to unmask the doubleness of the Western economy, particularly the American economy, by analyzing how the discourse of transparency is applied differently to its own economic problems, as, for instance, in the case of Enron. Ezra Yoo-Hyeok Lee, Globalization, Ideology, and Narratives of the East Asian Financial Crisis page 2 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 7.3 (2005):

The discourse of selfhood: students negotiating their academic identities in a writing centre

Graduate students often have to negotiate their academic identities because of the manner in which they are positioned in the academy, and because of the ‘discourse of transparency' that often surrounds their academic writing. I argue that the Writing Centre is the best place that these students can use as ‘rehearsal space' to develop an alternative ‘discourse of selfhood' while negotiating their academic writing identities. This article reflects on a research project investigating how students negotiate academic identities in a faculty writing centre. The research attempts to answer such questions as what processes are involved in the negotiation of an own identity within an academic discourse community? How do students establish authority over the content of their work in their academic writing? A group of nine multicultural and multilingual Masters in Education students were observed in their interaction with Writing Centre tutors. They have been interviewed about their participation in the activities of the Writing Centre, and the written texts that they have composed while attending the Centre have all been sources of data. The interview data have been analyzed in accordance with the principles of Narrative Analysis . The data emanating from the interaction with tutors have been analyzed in terms of the principles of Mediated Discourse Analysis ; and the students' written work has been analyzed in terms of an Appraisal System , identifying the specific ways in which writers establish authority in, through and over their own writing. What is clear from the narratives is the fact that students identify in almost periphrastic mode with certain elements in grand narratives. They do not model their narratives on archetypal ones, but rather ‘cut and paste' their own academic identities on to the general structure of a narrative. The mediated discourse analysis revealed that the students have an enormous range of actions that they perform, which, alongside interaction with the tutors, constitute a range of practices, forming a nexus of practice with an academic discourse community. In terms of the appraisal system it was noticeable that student writing is a very significant indicator of the degree to which these students adopt a specific and powerful attitudinal stance, inviting or deflecting dialogue with the reader, as well as adopting or refuting intertextual positionings. Key Words: writing centre research, academic writing, authorial identities Journal for Language Teaching Vol.38(2) 2004: 216-228

Student Writing in Higher Education: contemporary confusion, traditional concerns

In this paper, we focus on the 'problem' of student writing in higher education. We set out to explore this problem from two perspectives: first, from the perspective of 'non-traditional' student-writers as they attempt to engage in academic writing and, second, from the perspective of a cultural-historical tradition of scientific rationality. A common frame of reference for these perspectives we see as a 'discourse of transparency', whereby language is treated as ideally transparent and autonomous. We illustrate how this discourse of transparency is currently enacted and historically situated. We argue that current academic practices need to be located within a broader historical and epistemological framework both in order to reach a deeper understanding about what's involved in student writing and in order to inform meaningful pedagogies.

Student Writing in Higher Education: Contemporary confusion, traditional concerns

In this paper, we focus on the 'problem' of student writing in higher education. We set out to explore this problem from two perspectives: first, from the perspective of 'non-traditional' student-writers as they attempt to engage in academic writing and, second, from the perspective of a cultural-historical tradition of scientific rationality. A common frame of reference for these perspectives we see as a 'discourse of transparency', whereby language is treated as ideally transparent and autonomous. We illustrate how this discourse of transparency is currently enacted and historically situated. We argue that current academic practices need to be located within a broader historical and epistemological framework both in order to reach a deeper understanding about what's involved in student writing and in order to inform meaningful pedagogies.

The Translator as Textual Critic and the Potential of Transparent Discourse

The analysis of ‘The Vision’, H. F. Cary’s rewriting (1888) of Dante’s ‘Comedy’, focuses on the problem of the translator being confronted with different editions of a source text. Cary chooses to take on the function of textual critic: he does not adhere to a single edition but makes his choices from a number of versions by different editors. Significantly, Dante’s translator foregrounds his acts of textual criticism: he presents the reader with various (often equally plausible) alternatives in his explanatory footnotes, thereby casting serious doubts on the belief that he – or any other translator for that matter – can be absolutely ‘faithful’. Not only do Cary’s choices as a textual critic emphasize the elusive nature of textual meaning, but they also introduce a dissociative element in his translation project: by achieving readability in the text proper Cary complies with the expectation of the reading public that he will recover the original meaning; on the other hand, he takes great pains to flout such expectation in the footnotes by suggesting that the task of ‘faithfully’ representing the source text is a chimera, given its fragmented state. The implications of the analysis in relation to current debates in translation studies are considered in detail, especially in relation to Venuti’s failure to appreciate the potential inherent in transparent/fluent rewritings.

Bodies and signs: Inscriptions of femininity in John Coetzee and Wilma Stockenström

Summary What is the relation between sign and body in French feminism, as proposed by, for example, Helene Cixous and Julia Kristeva? Even in ostensibly feminist discourses, the body has been read as the fixed reference of any utterance, but French feminism forces us to consider the body ‐ and specifically the female body ‐ itself as always and already a sign: source of all metaphors in Cixous, a stubborn residue after signification in Kristeva. It is possible then, to read inscriptions of femininity in avant‐garde texts, regardless of the actual gender of their authors. John Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country and Wilma Stockenstrom's The Expedition to the Baobab Tree are exemplary explorations of a textual femininity that is inscribed in silences, gaps, or pure sounds, elements that are marginal to any authoritative, transparent discourse. The feminine is another language within the language of representation and symbolisation: both In the Heart of the Country and The Expedition to the Baobab Tree for...