Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in English. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [337-354]. Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ99192.

The study investigates the social stratification of albinos in Tanzania. This is done by conducting a case study in Babati and decoding and generalising the attitudes in a national context. This is combined with a litterateur study which has been made analysing the attitudes towards albinos in the media. The study has used a critical as well as continental discourse analysis and decoded the data by using the theories of social constructivism and of stigma. Semi-structured interviews as well as a litterateur study was conducted. The result proved that the albinos in Tanzania are stigmatised in the society and that people treat them based on myths and preconceptions. This stratification sometimes goes as far as to murders and mutations of albinos. The respondents as well as the media and government refer to the lack of education as the main cause behind the killings of albinos. A combination of the myths about albinos and the lack of education is the reasons that are accurate when analysing the reasons behind the ongoing murders.

A critical feminist discursive approach was used to explore how and to what ends women organized their talk about female genitals. Exploration and interpretation of how the eight women in this research used talk to orient their constructed positions for female genitals, within the dyad conversational sessions, was informed by the analytic concepts of interpretative repertoires, subject positioning and ideological dilemmas. Findings indicated that these women repeatedly drew on socially available information (e.g., fictional and non-fictional literature, media, family and friend, empirical research) regarding female genitals during their dyad discussions. Shared components in the womens accounts were organized into two opposing interpretative repertoires consistent with those identified in a selection of reviewed textual resources: powerful female genital repertoire and powerless female genital repertoire. The participants drew on both these repertoires when arguing and defending multiple, and often contradictory, subject positions on this topic. Although the women discursively demonstrated a strong pull toward a position that aligned with the powerful repertoire, their powerful subject positions were tenuous. This tenuousness may have been due to the sensitive nature of this topic, the rhetorical demands of the research conversations, and/or the untenability of an extremist position in either of the powerful or powerless female genital repertoires. Further, these women did not construct any new information in their talk regarding female genitals, thus suggesting that the female genital repertoires are discursively pervasive and constraining. This research contributes to our knowledge of talk regarding female genitals by illustrating how and to what ends women choose to organize, interpret and exclusively use existing discourses on this topic.

Ideas of what constitutes a good doctor underlie decisions about medical student selection, as well as curriculum design and the structure of medical education at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels of training. Factors at play include knowledge paradigms (what does a good doctor need to know), identity paradigms (who can become a good doctor) and notions about the relationship of doctors to society (the social responsibility or social accountability of the good doctor). As with any social phenomenon, constructs of the good doctor are historically derived and socially negotiated. Ideas about the good doctor tend to be considered as ‘truths’ in any era, with little attention to or understanding of the assumptions that underpin any particular formulation. In this thesis, I explore and dissect the dominant constructs of the good doctor in North American medical education between 1910 and 2010. Drawing upon Foucauldian critical discourse analysis, I focus particular attention on discursive shifts in the conception of the good doctor over the past century. This analysis reveals a series of discursive shifts in the framing of the good doctor in medical education between 1910-2010. Abraham Flexner promoted the construct of the good doctor as a scientist physician who was also a man of character. In the post-Flexnerian transformation of medical education, science became curricular content while the discourse of character remained. In the late 1950s a sudden discursive shift occurred, from the character of the good doctor to characteristics. With this shift, the student was dissected as an object of study. Further discursive shifts incorporated discourses of performance and production into constructs of the good doctor as roles-competent. This research explores the implications and consequences of these various discursive framings of the good doctor.

Ideas of what constitutes a good doctor underlie decisions about medical student selection, as well as curriculum design and the structure of medical education at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels of training. Factors at play include knowledge paradigms (what does a good doctor need to know), identity paradigms (who can become a good doctor) and notions about the relationship of doctors to society (the social responsibility or social accountability of the good doctor). As with any social phenomenon, constructs of the good doctor are historically derived and socially negotiated. Ideas about the good doctor tend to be considered as ‘truths’ in any era, with little attention to or understanding of the assumptions that underpin any particular formulation. In this thesis, I explore and dissect the dominant constructs of the good doctor in North American medical education between 1910 and 2010. Drawing upon Foucauldian critical discourse analysis, I focus particular attention on discursive shifts in the conception of the good doctor over the past century. This analysis reveals a series of discursive shifts in the framing of the good doctor in medical education between 1910-2010. Abraham Flexner promoted the construct of the good doctor as a scientist physician who was also a man of character. In the post-Flexnerian transformation of medical education, science became curricular content while the discourse of character remained. In the late 1950s a sudden discursive shift occurred, from the character of the good doctor to characteristics. With this shift, the student was dissected as an object of study. Further discursive shifts incorporated discourses of performance and production into constructs of the good doctor as roles-competent. This research explores the implications and consequences of these various discursive framings of the good doctor.

This study examines Dialect Awareness as an instructional practice when used to teach Spanish Heritage Language (HL) learners at a university located on the U.S.-Mexico border. The author employs bidialectalism as a theoretical perspective, recognizing the important role that U.S. Border Spanish plays in constructing ethnolinguistic identity. A mixed-methods research framework was used that included a pre-post survey instrument, focus group interviews, and classroom observations to examine HL student confidence toward learning a prestige language variety and attitudes toward speaking U.S. Border Spanish. Discourse analysis was employed to examine the discursive practices of the DA classroom. Quantitative survey results showed that students developed a number of significant attitudinal changes after taking a course infused with Dialect Awareness. Triangulated qualitative findings confirmed that student attitudes had changed after one semester. The author proposes an agenda for future application of Dialect Awareness in Spanish Heritage Language classrooms.

In this thesis, the“NewModerates” communications strategy used by The Moderate Party and the representation of social practices and social conditions by Alliance for Sweden-coalition in the 2006 and 2010 Swedish election campaigns are analyzed.The campaigns are placed in the context of current research on modern political communication and analyzed through Fairclough´s Critical Discourse Analysis framework.The results indicate that The Moderate Party wanted to encourage voters to reassess their opinion of the party through the “NewModerates”-strategy, by indicating considerable changes in their policies.Official guidelines for which discursive and social practices should be utilized in party communication to achieve these goals were issued.The Moderate Party positioned themselves against The Social Democratic Party, partially by referring to themselves as the “new worker’s party” of Sweden.

Doing and learning science are social activities that require certain language, activities, and values. Both constitute what Gee (2005) calls Discourses. The language of learning science varies with the learning context (Lemke, 2001,1990). Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1990) and Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000) endorse inquiry science learning. In the United States, most science learning is teacher-centered; inquiry science learning is rare (NRC, 2000). This study focused on 12 high school students from two suburban high schools, their three faculty mentors, and two engineering mentors during an extracurricular robotics activity with FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). FRC employed student-centered inquiry focus to teach science principles integrating technology. Research questions were (a) How do science teachers and their students enact Discourses as they teach and learn science? and (b) How does the pedagogical approach of a learning activity facilitate the Discourses that are enacted by students and teachers as they learn and teach science? Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study examined participants’ language during robotic activities to determine how language used in learning science shaped the learning and vice versa. Data sources included video-recordings of participant language and semi-structured interviews with study participants. Transcribed recordings were coded initially using Gee’s (2005) linguistic Building Tasks as a priori codes. CDA was applied to code transcripts, to construct Discourses enacted by the participants, and to determine how context facilitated their enactment. Findings indicated that, for the students, FRC facilitated elements of Science Discourse. Wild About Robotics (W.A.R.) team became, through FRC, part of a community similar to scientists’ community that promoted knowledge and sound practices, disseminated information, supported research and development and encouraged interaction of its members. The public school science classroom in the U.S. is inimical to inquiry learning because of practices and policies associated with the epistemological stance that spawned the standards and/or testing movement and No Child Left Behind (Baez & Boyles, 2009). The findings of this study provided concrete ideas to accommodate the recommendations by NRC (1996) and NSES (2000) for creating contexts that might lead to inquiry science learning for meaningful student engagement.

This study investigates the underlying factors of what connects gender and social status with environmental exploitation in the Tunisian society. It starts from an Ecofeminist theoretical basis, which explores the male domination over women and the natural environment. Furthermore, it uses a top-down and a bottom-up approach to test the hypothesis of the study. The top-down approach relies on Dryzek’s discourse analysis while the bottom-up approach is based on empirical data and Schwartz’s seven cultural value orientation theory. Through the discourse analysis elements of a Sustainable Development environmental discourse were identified. Moreover, Schwartz’s culture value orientation theory showed that even though Tunisian women live in harmony with nature, because the society emphasizes values such as embeddedness and hierarchy, the culture is not likely to promote equality. Thus, the hypothesis of the study was fulfilled, i.e. there is a relationship between the subordination of the Tunisian woman and the degradation of the environment.

A critical feminist discursive approach was used to explore how and to what ends women organized their talk about female genitals. Exploration and interpretation of how the eight women in this research used talk to orient their constructed positions for female genitals, within the dyad conversational sessions, was informed by the analytic concepts of interpretative repertoires, subject positioning and ideological dilemmas. Findings indicated that these women repeatedly drew on socially available information (e.g., fictional and non-fictional literature, media, family and friend, empirical research) regarding female genitals during their dyad discussions. Shared components in the womens accounts were organized into two opposing interpretative repertoires consistent with those identified in a selection of reviewed textual resources: powerful female genital repertoire and powerless female genital repertoire. The participants drew on both these repertoires when arguing and defending multiple, and often contradictory, subject positions on this topic. Although the women discursively demonstrated a strong pull toward a position that aligned with the powerful repertoire, their powerful subject positions were tenuous. This tenuousness may have been due to the sensitive nature of this topic, the rhetorical demands of the research conversations, and/or the untenability of an extremist position in either of the powerful or powerless female genital repertoires. Further, these women did not construct any new information in their talk regarding female genitals, thus suggesting that the female genital repertoires are discursively pervasive and constraining. This research contributes to our knowledge of talk regarding female genitals by illustrating how and to what ends women choose to organize, interpret and exclusively use existing discourses on this topic.