Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities 3030979326, 9783030979324

Citation preview

Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities

Robert James Gray

Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities

Robert James Gray

Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities

Robert James Gray Isik University Istanbul, Turkey

ISBN 978-3-030-97932-4    ISBN 978-3-030-97933-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97933-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Alex Linch / shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Selcen

Foreword

This book represents an attempt to bring the areas of genre, identity and multimodality into a single study of students at an EMI university. My research was initially guided by intuition that these areas were linked and later by the work of those who had mapped out parts of the same territory. I then needed to ground the links in a particular area of classroom practice—but which one? After giving a couple of talks on the subject, the answer presented itself, so to speak. Classroom presentations are a prototypically multimodal form of academic communication, are distinctively organised as genres and involve the performance of identity. While the first two of these lenses have been applied to academic presentations by researchers, the last is, perhaps surprisingly, much rarer, and to my knowledge, all three had not been combined into a single study of educational discourse before. I was also motivated to look at classroom presentations because they are challenging (particularly for EFL students) and essential to the assessment of learning on most university courses. The central concept that lines up each perspective (genre, multimodality and identity) into what is intended to be a coherent vision of social practice in educational contexts is that of genre practices. Genre practices are the means by which genres are formed and reproduced; they also constitute the multimodal register of presentations and produce the vii

viii Foreword

role-related identities of those who take them up. A genre practices perspective narrows the gap between analyses of communicative action on the one hand and social actors on the other by viewing both in terms of the same, purpose-driven social processes. The notion of identity alignment, used to explain how presenters manage different aspects of their student selves when speaking, may also be of interest to readers. Finally, the book offers guidance for planning and teaching undergraduate presentations in English that draws on the findings of the research. I would like to acknowledge the following people for their practical assistance and helpful feedback on earlier drafts: the anonymous reviewers of my initial proposal and first draft; my thesis supervisors, Trevor Grimshaw, Gail Forey and Jim McKinley; my colleagues Seher Bozok, Jane Kilner, and particularly, Nüket Ayaşlı, who kindly provided me with access to her classes; the students for being exemplary research participants throughout the project; and my family and friends for their patience and support. Isik University Istanbul, Turkey

Robert James Gray

Acknowledgments

I’d also like to thank the editing team of Cathy Scott, Dhanalakshmi Muralidharan, Lakshmi Radhakrishnan, Vipinkumar Mani and Shikhar Tripathi for their patience and for their constructive suggestions on the book.

ix

Contents

1 Introduction  1 1.1 Why Classroom Presentations?   1 1.2 Defining Presentations   8 1.3 Key Terms   9 Social Practices  10 1.4 The Theoretical Framework  15 Chapter Summaries  17 References 18 2 The Research Setting 23 2.1 Introduction  23 The National Context   23 2.2 Education in Turkey  25 Recent Developments in Turkish Educational Policy   25 Language Policy and EMI Universities   26 Language and Epistemic Identities in EMI Education   27 2.3 The Institutional Context: Yeşil University  30 Overview of the University   30 Structure of the English Programme at Yeşil University  30 2.4 The Class Context  32 The Classroom  32 xi

xii Contents

2.5 The English for Psychology Course  33 Participants  33 2.6 Discussion  35 References 36 3 The  Classroom Presentation Genre 39 3.1 Genre Analysis: Background  39 3.2 Organisation of the Classroom Presentation Genre  43 3.3 Multimodality: Background  45 3.4 Patterns of Multimodality in the Classroom Presentations  49 Similarities in Multimodal Communication   49 Variation in Multimodal Communication Between Different Sections  50 Contribution of Multimodal Modes to Realizing Rhetorical Moves in the Presentations   54 Enhancing the Effectiveness of Speech   54 Reducing the Effectiveness of Speech   55 Compensating for Ineffective Speech   56 Substituting for Missing Speech   57 3.5 Discussion  58 References 60 4 A  Framework for Analysing Student Identity 63 4.1 Student Identity: Background  63 4.2 Student Identity: A Framework  68 4.3 Definining (Core) Aspects of Student Identity  71 Language and Epistemic Identity   71 Language and Institutional Identity   73 Language and Peer Identity   75 Epistemic and Institutional Identity   76 Epistemic and Peer Identity   77 Institutional and Peer Identity   79 4.4 Non-defining (Contextual) Aspects of Student Identity  80 Personal Identity  80 Network Identity  81 General Identity  81

 Contents 

xiii

4.5 Core and Contextual Identity  83 Contextual influences on Language identity   83 Contextual Influences on Epistemic Identity   86 Contextual Influences on Institutional Identity   87 Contextual Influences on Peer Identity   89 4.6 Discussion  89 References 91 5 Student  Identity: Presentations and Intersections 95 5.1 Introduction  95 5.2 Identity Talk About Classroom Presentations  98 Language Identity in Talk About Presentations   98 Epistemic Identity in Talk About Presentations  100 Institutional Identity in Talk About Presentations  102 Peer Identity in Talk About Presentations  104 Peripheral Identity in Talk About Presentations  106 5.3 Intersecting Identities in Student Narratives 107 Özlem 108 Müge 110 Serhat 114 Burak 116 5.4 Discussion 119 References122 6 Core  Student Identity in Classroom Presentations125 6.1 Introduction 125 6.2 Language Identity 127 Language Identity in Speech  127 Language Identity in Writing  130 Language Identity in Nonverbal Embodied Modes  132 6.3 Epistemic Identity 136 Epistemic Identity in Speech  136 Epistemic Identity in Writing  140 Epistemic Identity in Image  141 Epistemic Identity in Nonverbal Embodied Modes  143

xiv Contents

6.4 Institutional Identity 147 Institutional Identity in Speech  148 Institutional Identity in Writing and Image  150 Institutional Identity in Nonverbal Embodied Modes  151 6.5 Peer Identity 154 Peer Identity in Speech  155 Peer Identity in Writing and Image  159 Peer Identity in Nonverbal Embodied Modes  160 6.6 Discussion 163 References163 7 Identity  Alignment in Classroom Presentations165 7.1 Introduction 165 Commentary 1: Burak  170 Commentary 2: Bilal  175 Commentary 3: Serhat  180 Commentary 4a: Özlem  187 Commentary 4b: Özlem  192 7.2 Discussion 197 References200 8 Discussion and Conclusion203 8.1 Introduction 203 8.2 Implications for Pedagogy 204 Pedagogical Framings for Classroom Presentations  205 EMI, Presentations and Student Identity  207 Recommendations for Improving Speaking  209 Recommendations for Improving Classroom Presentations 210 8.3 Integrating Genre and Identity in the Teaching of Presentations213 8.4 Research Limitations and Recommendations 215 8.5 Conclusion 217 References218

 Contents 

xv

Appendix: Transcription Conventions225 Index227

Abbreviations

ADHD AKP BERA CA CAF CARS CAT CEFR CLIL EAP ECTS EFL EGAP EMI ESOL ESP FL GPA HE ICLHE IELTS IMRAD IS

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party) British Educational Research Association. Conversation Analysis Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency of language Create A Research Space Communication Accommodation Theory Common European Frame of Reference for Languages Content and Language Integrated Learning English for Academic Purposes European Credit Transfer Scheme English as a Foreign Language English for General Academic Purposes English as a Medium of Instruction English for Speakers of Other Languages English for Specific Purposes Foreign Language Grade Point Average Higher Education Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education International English Language Testing System Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion Interactional Sociolinguistics xvii

xviii Abbreviations

L1/L2 First/Second language LPP Legitimate Peripheral Participation LS Language Socialization MCA Membership Categorization Analysis MDA Mediated Discourse Analysis MMIA Multimodal Discourse Analysis NR New Rhetoric OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development P1/P2/P3 1ST/2ND/3RD presentations given by students Q&A Question & Answer SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics TESL Teaching English as a Second Language UCLA University of California Los Angeles WPM Words per minute YÖK Yükseköğretim Kurulu (Council of Higher Education)

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2

Fig. 3.3

Fig. 3.4

Fig. 3.5

Theoretical framework 15 The Yeşil University classroom 32 Excerpt from a multimodal transcript using ELAN software48 Modes enhancing the effectiveness of speech. (a) Bilal, Explanation, Move 2b, Adding detail about the topic; (b) Serhat, Closing Remarks, Move 2b, Inviting questions or comments55 Actions reducing the effectiveness of speech. (a) Sinem, Introduction, Move 2b, Defining key topic terms; (b) Hazal, Q&A, Move 2b, Asking and responding to a question or comment; (c) Hazal, Q&A, Move 2b, Asking and responding to a question or comment56 Actions compensating for ineffective speech. (a) Burak, closing remarks, move 2c, Indicating references; (b) Sergen, closing remarks, move 1c, Making a recommendation57 Actions substituting for missing speech. (a) Burak, introduction, move 1b, Stating the names of speakers; (b) Sinem, introduction, move 2a, Stating the topic58

xix

xx 

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2

List of Figures

A framework for student identity 69 Summary of core student identity positions, from interviews72 Fig. 4.3 Non-defining or contextual aspects of student identity 82 Fig. 4.4 Core-contextual identity positionings 84 Fig. 5.1 Student identity related to academic presentations (interview data) 99 Fig. 6.1 Examples of direct and indirect language identity in slide text 131 Fig. 6.2 Effects of nonverbal embodied modes of action on language expertise 133 Fig. 6.3 An emblematic gesture contributing to language heritage133 Fig. 6.4 Example of beat gesture foregrounding spoken dysfluency134 Fig. 6.5 Examples of gesture foregrounding level of spoken language expertise 135 Fig. 6.6 Affordances of written text foregrounding epistemic status141 Fig. 6.7 Examples of epistemic identity realised in slide images 142 Fig. 6.8 Gesture increasing salience of epistemic positioning in speech 143 Fig. 6.9 Knowledge of concept produced via metaphoric gesture 146 Figs. 6.10a and b Institutional compliance in slides: Müge (a) and Sinem (b) 151 Fig. 6.11 Institutional compliance in slides foregrounded by actions in multiple modes 152 Fig. 6.12 Nonverbal modes producing compliant institutional identity positioning 154 Fig. 6.13 Nonverbal embodied modes and peer identity: Burak & Özlem 161 Fig. 6.14 Nonverbal embodied modes and peer identity 162 Fig. 7.1 Heuristic modal density circles depicting identities at different levels of awareness (after Norris, 2004, 2011). (a) Family identity at background of attention and (b) student identity at foreground of attention 167 Fig. 7.2 Burak, Introduction Move 2e plus slide 1, presentation 1 171

  List of Figures 

Fig. 7.3 Fig. 7.4 Fig. 7.5 Fig. 7.6 Fig. 7.7 Fig. 7.8 Fig. 7.9 Fig. 7.10 Fig. 7.11 Fig. 8.1

Alignment of student identities, Introduction, Move 2e Bilal, Explanation, Move 1b Alignment of student identities: Bilal, Explanation, Move 1b Serhat, Q&A, Move 2b Alignment of student identities: Serhat, Q&A, Move 2b Özlem, Q&A, Move 2b Alignment of student identity, Q&A, Move 2b Özlem, Q&A, Move 2b Alignment of student identity (2): Özlem, Q&A, Move 2b Syllabus and teaching framework for classroom presentation instruction. (Adapted from Callaghan & Rothery, 1988, in Hyon, 1996)

xxi

173 176 178 182 185 188 190 193 194 213

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Sections, moves and steps in classroom presentations 41 Table 3.2 Multimodal communication in undergraduate classroom presentations46 Table 6.1 Language identity practices in classroom presentations 127 Table 6.2 Epistemic identity practices in classroom presentations 137 Table 6.3 Examples of epistemic positioning in speech 138 Table 6.4 Summary of Burak’s style at the closing remarks section 144 Table 6.5 Institutional identity practices in classroom presentations 147 Table 6.6 Peer identity practices in classroom presentations 155 Table 6.7 Examples of implied peer identity positionings in speech 157

xxiii

1 Introduction

1.1 Why Classroom Presentations? Obviously apprehensive, the next student hovers behind the large desk at the front of the room. She leans towards the screen, concentrating intently. To her left, a large projector screen jolts into life, displaying a title, image and her name in much smaller letters at its foot. The audience isn’t particularly large: scattered across several rigid rows of seats, it appears largely disconnected from the activity ahead. The teacher, seated towards the back of the room near the window, twiddles her pen between thumb and forefinger. Two classmates are whispering; the faces of many more are lit by the glow of their mobile phones. Their eyes flit intermittently towards the presenter as she looks in the teacher’s direction, nods and begins. The presentation itself? Like many others, its hold on the audience’s attention is rather tenuous. This may be because the words, intoned in the same, flat fashion, can’t be easily distinguished, or because the presenter is not looking at her classmates at all, instead fixing her gaze resolutely on the teacher. Perhaps the speech and slides resemble each other so closely that the audience can simply glance at each new slide to scan its © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. J. Gray, Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97933-1_1

1

2 

R. J. Gray

content, or possibly the listeners can’t understand the string of fairly technical vocabulary delivered in a rapid mumble, and feel no need to try. The speaker’s eyes may never veer from her pre-prepared script; perhaps she rarely ventures out from behind the comforting shield of the teacher’s desk. It immediately becomes clear this presenter is not communicating in her first language. In fact, no-one in the room is an English speaker by birth, although some of these undergraduates have learned English to an impressive extent. But the use of their own language has been banned from the classroom by common consent, so they struggle on. After ten slides containing images in various positions and a few too many bullet points, the presentation ends. Realizing this, the audience breaks out into a half-hearted round of applause. The teacher smiles thinly, makes writing motions on the form in front of her and thanks the student. “And who’s next?” While the precise details vary, unsuccessful classroom presentations in tertiary settings where English is the medium of instruction are a wearyingly familiar experience for teachers and students alike. The recent retreat to online presenting during the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to have compounded the issue. Presenting on an internet platform is demanding in its own way, but emphasises quite different modes of communication to its in-person equivalent. Rather than relying on their spoken and written language and, to varying extents, “bracketing off” their audiences, face-to-face presenters must martial these two modes of communication and their entire bodies in full view of peers and teachers—an altogether different challenge. Although the differences between virtual and real-world academic talks are a matter for empirical study and not addressed in depth by this book, it seems clear that students returning to the classroom will find the activity of presenting even more demanding following their enforced absence. This matters because student presentations can have many diverse and powerful effects on learning. With the right groundwork and in favourable conditions, they can be highly motivating. They aid student self-­ reflection and lead to greater engagement with course material (Murphy & Barry, 2016). Writing slides and scripts amplifies the benefits of delivering presentations (Tardy, 2005) and participating in classroom talks

1 Introduction 

3

helps students socialise into the language and practices of disciplinary communities (Kobayashi, 2016). From the perspective of language or ESP teachers in particular, presentation tasks are ideally suited to learning English in an integrated and meaningful way. Classroom presentations are also widely used to assess students across all disciplinary areas at university. In comparison with written assessments, they offer the advantage of greater inclusivity, since many students who struggle with the task of making marks on a printed page respond far better to the opportunity to show what they know orally. They also resemble authentic employment practices more closely, lending them a level of external validity that essay-type summative assessments cannot achieve (Huxham et al., 2012) However, perhaps their greatest advantage is their resistance to that scourge of twenty-first-century education—plagiarism. While it is certainly possible to have one’s talk prepared at some cost by one of the many companies specialising in such services, or even for free by a competent friend, the illusion of knowledgeability this bestows is hard to sustain in real-time performances. This is simply because authentic knowledge in presentations is produced by the body using all its communicative affordances—eyes, hands, facial expression, intonation, posture, even movements of the feet—and as such, is hard to fake under the glare of the classroom lights and an experienced teacher’s gaze. A further reason to study presentations is their importance to the career aims of students. The presentation is a highly valued member of what Swales (2004) referred to as the “genre sets” of advanced academic and professional discourse communities. The ability to walk an audience through the latest research or business initiative is key to claiming full membership of such communities. In the globalised fields of academia and commerce, a successful conference talk or business pitch is dependent on the presenter’s knowledge and performance of particular genres. The centrality of presentation skills for EAP learners is recognised in the CEFR language-learning framework, which includes presenting as an essential competence from levels A1 to C2 (Council of Europe, 2001). When classroom presentations matter this much, their dismal ineffectiveness in many university classes is concerning. There are, of course, common-sense reasons for the difficulties many students encounter.

4 

R. J. Gray

Public speaking is difficult enough at the best of times: presenting technical information in front of one’s peers, however disengaged they may appear, increases this difficulty considerably; the challenge intensifies by several magnitudes when another language is required. Other causes are less immediately visible but may be embedded in wider contexts of language policy, funding or institutional approaches to second language provision. Given these issues, it is reasonable to expect that a substantial amount of research attention and classroom time might be directed towards helping instructors and students manage the demands involved. In this respect, however, the picture is mixed at best. While one recent survey of ten guidebooks has recently identified a number of major principles for delivering effective academic presentations (Zareva, 2020), others note that the literature offers only a “fragmented picture of effective learning environment characteristics that foster oral presentation competence” (Van Ginkel et al., 2015, p. 63). What appears to be the lack of a coherent evidential base lends weight to several researchers’ claims that guidance on how to present—let alone explicit instruction—is seldom provided to students (Barrett & Liu, 2016; Zareva, 2009). Whether the reasons for this neglect stem from crowded syllabi or unmet training needs, it results in a classroom activity that is demotivating for students and demoralising for their teachers (Bekker & Clark, 2018). Certainly, the inadequacy of presentation teaching at university leaves many graduates ill-equipped to handle oral communication in the workplace (Bhattacharyya, 2014; Chan, 2011). Research has repeatedly shown that such issues particularly impact L2 speakers in EMI contexts, who are much more likely than their L1-native counterparts to struggle with linguistic and cultural unfamiliarity (Duff, 2002; Zareva, 2009, 2020; Kibler et al., 2014). One recent corpus study of graduate presentations has addressed this issue to some extent by helpfully detailing the lexical patterns used by L1 speakers (Zareva, 2020). However, the particular challenges of L2 presentations remain under-­ researched: Barrett & Liu’s systematic review of second language presentations noted that academic papers addressing this group were “relatively scarce” (Barrett & Liu, 2016). Moreover, the investigations that have been done tends to overlook EMI contexts lying beyond the “inner circle” of English learning and teaching. Of the 40 papers on presentations

1 Introduction 

5

that my initial literature search unearthed, only six were based on research in expanding-circle settings. Thus, largely neglected by researchers and insufficiently supported by subject lecturers in particular, many students seek support from other sources to help them present: “how-to” manuals, often containing disparate lists of useful tips; books that divide knowledge about presentations into discrete areas; simple lists of useful phrases; sympathetic internet experts. A fine example of the first resource type is Anholt’s “Dazzle Em with Style” (Anholt, 2010), which is aimed at novice science presenters and contains some excellent advice across its 62 sub-topics, expressed by punchy, aphoristic headings such as “The Dangers of PowerPoint” and (somewhat more cryptically) “Simplicity is classy”. Representing the 2nd type is a more on-point title, “Academic Presentations” (Smith, 2018). This book helps its target audience of EAP students in Western universities by allocating several chapters devoted to the perfect presentation: “Preparation and Planning”, “Structure”, “Language”, “Visual Aids” and “Body language”, culminating in the final “Delivery”of the talk. If unwilling or unable to access these more thorough materials, undergraduates can turn to internet sources offering lists of useful phrases for their talks (teachers may provide these lists, too). The sites are many in number and typically provide lengthy lists of signposting phrases which fulfil particular functions in the presentation. These often take the form of sentence heads, such as “My purpose/objective/aim today is…”, which students are expected to slot into the appropriate point in their talks. Guidance on how to unite each head with a suitable body of discourse, or perhaps on its prosodic features, is occasionally provided. Finally, some students seek inspiration from presenters on the internet. They may attempt to emulate a dauntingly impressive TED speaker: readily available on YouTube are meta-talks such as Waknell’s “The 3 (sic) Magic Ingredients of Amazing Presentations”, (Waknel, 2019) which takes any watching Alice down a veritable rabbit hole of a presentation about presenting a presentation about presenting! Whatever their virtues, these approaches share a common problem. This is not simply because they overlook the issue of how novice, nonnative EMI undergraduates should negotiate the often dense metacommunicative contents of presentations. No—the major drawback of each

6 

R. J. Gray

example above is both the tendency to isolate each skill, language item and communicative act from the other in itemised lists but also—and more fundamentally—separate the speaker from what they are actually saying or doing during presentations. They exemplify what the influential Academic Literacies movement terms the “study skills model” (Lea & Street, 2006). This approach to language learning breaks down skills and language into their constituent parts (sub-skills, grammatical structures, etc.). After these smaller chunks have been transmitted and internalised, learners are expected to reassemble and transfer them to different contexts of use. While the study skills model gives learners a solid grounding in the surface forms and component skills of language learning, it has several major disadvantages. First, it encourages a deficit approach to language learning, in which learners are first presumed ignorant of each language form or component skill before being granted the opportunity to prove their knowledge corresponds to the requirements of cost-effective, standardised tests. Second, it overlooks the fact that language is always shaped by its contexts of use, which vary in ways that an exclusive focus on universal aspects such as, say, a particular verb tense or phrase for greeting audiences cannot capture. Relatedly, and most significantly for this book, the study skills model overlooks the fact that language (and communication more broadly) cannot be severed from the purposes and identities of those who use it. In order to meet the identified need for in-depth research into L2 classroom presentations, this book draws on three alternatives to the study skills model’s apparent disregard for context, speaker and the array of modes available for communication. Genre theory is a well-worn approach to EAP which presents language in social terms as contextually-­ sensitive communicative actions and representations proceeding through conventionalised stages to achieve shared, socially-recognisable purposes (Martin, 1992; Swales, 1990, 2004). Genre teaching aims to help learners see how these patterns relate to social contexts and then produce them independently, adapting them to their needs and the demands of the context. The field of identity studies and language bloomed slightly later in the 1990s with the ground-breaking work of researchers such Rampton

1 Introduction 

7

(1990, 1995), and Norton (2000) all of whom examined the impact of immediate and broader sociocultural contexts on learners’ access to the goods of education (see Chapter 4). Norton critiqued the failure of previous SLA research to address the impact of social context on ESL acquisition, deploying the sociocultural insights of Lave and Wenger (1991) to examine (particularly) immigrant women’s experiences of second-­ language learning in Canada. Earlier, the same author had emphasised that theories of communication must account for the identities of interacting subjects: “Every time language learners speak, they are not only exchanging information with their interlocutors; they are also constantly organizing and reorganizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to the social world.” (Norton, 1997, p411).

The third area is multimodality. Sharing the above authors’ concern with social justice but also aware of the representational potential of new electronic media, the New London Group (Cazden et al., 1996) presented its groundbreaking and stimulating manifesto for teaching and learning, which it called multiliteracies. This helped set the agenda for the numerous studies of language learning and multimodality that followed. A fine example of the diverse scope of multimodal research is available in Jewitt’s edited collection (2009), which includes useful primers on multimodal theory and empirical studies of different modes. The second two strands (identity and multimodality) are powerfully intertwined in the work of Sigrid Norris (2011, 2020). Norris argues that social identity “elements” of various sorts can be read off by closely observing actions in various modes of communication: speech and writing, of course, but also gesture, gaze and the all-encompassing mode of “background”, among others. Through Multimodal Interaction Analysis, Norris (2011) explains how multiple elements of identity are enacted simultaneously using both the body’s affordances and features of the site of interaction (see Chapter 5). Norris’s rigor and ingenuity in developing a comprehensive robust theory of multimodality and identity (as well as the methodological toolkit needed to apply it) is a key influence on this book. Her approach is combined with theories of positioning (e.g.,

8 

R. J. Gray

Davies & Harré, 1990), as well as genre theory, as detailed in later chapters. This book’s central claim is that every academic presentation (and potentially other classroom activities) is simultaneously both a series of localised practices that can be abstracted into an organizational scheme (genre) and a presentation of aspects of the student self (identity). This implies that knowledge of presentations requires both the communicative forms of presentations and their shaping effects on the presenter’s identity as a student to be observed and interpreted by researchers. My main aims are (1) to produce a deeper understanding of classroom presentations which takes both multimodality and identity into account to inform relevant pedagogies and thus improve the performances of L2 undergraduate presenters in EMI settings, and (2) to develop a framework for understanding and researching student identities which can be applied to other classroom genres.

1.2 Defining Presentations It’s safe to venture that everyone involved in education knows what a presentation is, at some level. In their far-reaching review of the available literature, Barrett and Liu (2016, p. 1224) referred to the presentation as an “oral monologue”, denoting “academic presentations, dissertation, and thesis proposals, or any event where someone has to speak for a given length of time on a topic without interruption”. Similarly, the academic presentation is characterised by “a monologic mode of oral delivery, narrative structure and informational character” according to Zareva (2009, p. 56). Meanwhile, Fortanet (2005) classifies student presentations in the subset of spoken academic discourse she describes as “classroom genres”. Yet defining academic talks in these terms seems to underplay what is actually going on. For instance, such definitions appear to overlook other ways of communicating besides speech. Admittedly, the recent pandemic may have exposed some unfortunate teachers and students to the experience of a disembodied voice articulating knowledge at disturbing length over a black screen in an authentically “oral monologue”. However, most online presentations would normally include meanings made via images

1 Introduction 

9

and text as well as speech, at a minimum, with classroom presentations consisting of these three plus the multiple communicative affordances of the body. Any adequate definition of presentations would thus need to mention the other ways that meaning is communicated besides spoken language. Another issue with the definitions above is their assertion that presentations are “monologic” or “uninterrupted” when they are often far from either. The apologetically late audience member (usually a student), the burst of a labourer’s drill, the malfunctioning classroom equipment—all are familiar experiences. Less facetiously, what of the Q&A section that closes many presentations when time and/or motivation allows? Is this decidedly non-monologic aspect of classroom talks to be excluded from our analyses? On a further level of abstraction, there is a strong case for regarding presentations, like other discursive forms, as entirely dialogical, in the Bakhtinian sense. From this perspective, Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2003) views every utterance as engaging, to varying extents, with what has been or would be said on the same subject. The words uttered by student presenters are therefore in constantly shifting dialogic engagement with (among others) audiences, contributors to the subject of the talk and the terms of the classroom task, even if only one voice can be heard in the room. All this suggests that the meaning of the academic presentation extends a long way beyond its informational, monologic and oral properties.

1.3 Key Terms Reaching a more nuanced definition of presentations requires some theoretical groundwork, however. To that end, the following sections introduce some key terms used in the book and touch on their interpretations in the fields of sociology and applied linguistics. The terms are then presented in the overarching framework that informed this research, and on these foundations, the classroom presentation is redefined, with the new definition informing the subsequent presentation of the research.

10 

R. J. Gray

Social Practices Practices may be entire activities (e.g., ‘the practice of presenting’) as well as the single, simple actions that Ron Scollon pithily described as “actions with a history” (Scollon, 2002, p73). In presentations, an example of the latter might be the deictic or pointing gesture used by speakers wishing to highlight a specific part of a slide. Practices are routinized, widely shared and often occur without prior reflection (presenters everywhere point at slides, usually without thinking about it first). Practices shape and are shaped by materials, and the exact configuration of meanings that occur when they are combined differs slightly on each iteration (Reckwitz, 2002). The diversity that occurs when multiple actions are combined explains why presenters who take up some practices in more or less the same way (e.g., “maintaining eye contact with the audience” or “introducing a new slide”) can nonetheless produce performances that differ markedly when their uptake of other practices diverges. Social practices are interlaced with discourses that function representatively as “socially constructed knowledges of some aspect of reality” (Van Leeuwen, 2005, p. 94) and constitutively as “practices which systematically form the objects of which they speak” (Foucault, 1972, p. 54). In Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA), discourses are conceptualised as circulating through social practices and carrying the power to transform the meanings of actions and the identities of those performing them (Scollon, 2002). For instance, the discourses circulating around a presenter’s deictic gesture and which contribute to it as a genre practice could include those related to the slide content, or the use of technology in presenting, the regulation of audience attention, etc. This view of discourse and practice as interdependent aspects of social action resembles that of Pennycook (2010, p112), who speaks of discursive practices as “those types of social practices involved in the linguistic construction of knowledge”. A more specific distinction is drawn by Ivanič (2009), who identifies three different uses of the related term “literacy practices”. The first of these refers to what is accomplished with texts rather than simply their linguistic/semiotic features; the second denotes any practice which is textually-mediated; and the third points to

1 Introduction 

11

the “small-scale ‘micro’ practices” shared across multiple domains, a use similar to Scollon’s sense of the term (Ivanič, 2009, p. 100), as well as to Schatzki’s (1996) original theorisation of “dispersed practices” occurring across different areas of everyday life. With MDA, Scollon ingeniously opened up the vast complexity attached to a single practice via the nexus of practice, an open-ended, sprawling web of related discursive and non-discursive practices to which the single, materially-mediated action taken in a particular time and space belongs (Scollon, 2002). This book acknowledges Scollon’s focus on interlinked practices as the context in which human lives hang together and identities are produced. However, the emphasis in this book is on how observable actions (including but not limited to speech) taken by multiple practitioners simultaneously contribute to producing a specific genre of activity and the role-related identities of those involved. This approach does not exclude the broader field of practice and discourse but insists on its observable relevance to practitioners engaged in meeting their immediate communicative purposes. The book also shares with Scollon’s former student Sigrid Norris the assumption that materially-mediated actions should be at the centre of analysis (Norris, 2004, 2011) but diverges by regarding the observable spatio-temporal repetition, routinization and meaningfulness of these actions across multiple presentations as sufficient to qualify them as practices. That is to say, the actions of presenters and the representations they use imply an understanding of the action’s wider usages and knowledge of its meanings, without which the action itself would not be possible. Genre (see below) coordinates such single, simple practices by representing them as part of larger social activities.

Genre The word “genre” derives from the Ancient Greek génos, meaning “race”, “stock”, “kin” as well as “type” and “sort”. This root hints at the term’s relevance to issues of identity as well as to the forms of communication it denotes in language and literacy studies. Whereas practice theory emphasises the primacy of “out-there” socio-material activity, genre is a term

12 

R. J. Gray

more associated with the schematic representation of particular, conventionalised social processes. Definitions of genre variously emphasise the contexts, communities and linguistic forms in which texts sharing some regularities are produced. Genre can be viewed simply as a form of situational ‘framing’ or a conventionalised set of expectations about an activity (Kress, 2009; Rampton et al., 2014); as abstract, socially-recognised ways of using language (Hyland, 2015) or the system of social processes which coordinates communication in a particular culture (Martin, 1992). Genre in this book is defined broadly as shared communicative conventions which contribute to the orderliness of social action, thereby enabling particular purposes to be met. The conventions coordinate and are expressed in the recurrent, materially-mediated actions taken in speech, writing, gesture, gaze, etc., and they can be represented in language. Simple actions such as deictic gestures and introducing new slides which recur across multiple presentations and entail an overarching, often unreflective knowledge of their conventionalised purpose(s) are termed genre practices. This term links the established, recurrent actions that occur at each step of a talk to the wider activity, i.e. the classroom presentation, in which they take place.

Multimodality As already mentioned, the recurrent actions of classroom presentations transpire in many different communicative modes besides speech. But what exactly is a mode? One auspiciously broad definition was provided by Kress (2009), who described modes as socially-shaped, systematised resources for making meaning within a cultural context. Norris, taking a sociocultural view on mode as mediated action, points out that a mode is not an objectively bounded entity, but “always and only a heuristic unit…the precise definition of a mode should be useful to the analysis” (Norris, 2004, p11). So, nested within the main modes used in presentations, such as speech, gesture or image, are smaller ones; in the case of speech, these would include pitch, timbre and loudness, among others. While it is possible to consider single modes in isolation, two key tenets of multimodal research are first that meanings are routinely made by

1 Introduction 

13

many modes at the same time and second that the significance of particular modes within these ensembles should be investigated rather than assumed (Lyons, 2015). Multimodal studies tend to draw on the traditions of either social semiotics or pragmatics. Because the framework for this study was informed by both traditions, it is worth sketching the differences between them. Social semiotics has extended the SFL model of language as a functionally-­organised, stratified system of resources for making meaning to all modes of communication (O’Halloran, 2006). It emphasises the materiality and cultural conventions that underlie individually-motivated uses of sign systems to communicate, whether humans are physically co-­ present or not. On the other hand, the approach taken by pragmatics is less concerned with a grammaticised reading of signs, looking instead at how communicative action is achieved by speakers’ use of processes such as deixis, speech acts and turn-taking. Whereas a key principle of social semiotic multimodality is that no single mode should be automatically privileged in the analysis, action-­ oriented traditions such as Conversation Analysis (CA) initially treated other modes as “paralinguistic context” (Deppermann & Streeck, 2018). Nevertheless, various nonverbal embodied actions such as gaze (Goodwin, 1980; Kendon, 1967), gesture (Kendon & Key, 2011; McNeill, 2000), posture (Schegloff, 1998) and proxemics (Hall, 1966) featured in landmark studies of communicative action. These authors’ findings (e.g., McNeill’s classification of gesture types) were used when coding the multimodal data presented in this book. The differences in underlying assumptions such as the “cultural textualism” (Reckwitz, 2002) of social semiotics versus the “action orientation” of pragmatics have restricted cross-fertilization between the two traditions. However, Norris’s acknowledgement that speakers draw on communicative systems in their social actions (Norris, 2009) was a notable exception, and several researchers of academic presentations from the SFL side have utilized insights from theorists working in pragmatics (e.g., Hood & Forey, 2005; Valeiras-Jurado & Ruiz-Madrid, 2019). Such eclecticism, if principled, offers a way of grasping the complexity of communication within classroom talks and is also consistent with the assumptions of practice theory.

14 

R. J. Gray

Identity Although its status as the ultimate in interdisciplinary concepts has perhaps receded slightly over the past decade, identity remains a key focal point for research in the social sciences. Here, the word is used to refer to the socially constituted self, a phrase which needs a little unpacking. The constructivist roots of social identity theory lie in Mead’s and Vygotsky’s developmental accounts (Riley, 2007). In Vygotsky’s socioculturalism, self-development derives from sign-and-tool-mediated participation in social activity. Both society and the individual identity act on and shape one another dialectically in a continuous process of inner and outer transformation. For Mead, individual development was an emergent property of social interaction. Identity emerges from the dialectical relationship between the individual “I” and the socially-shaped “me” constructed through symbolically-mediated interaction, by which individuals develop the ability to see themselves through another’s eyes (Burkitt, 2008). Identity work consists of integrating multiple sources of identity (social roles) into the sense of a continuous self over time (Hametner & Joerchel, 2009). The dazzling diversity of approaches to studying identity should not blind us to the assumptions they share. First, identity is widely regarded as multiple rather than unitary and is seen as relationally produced. Depending on one’s theoretical predilection, identities are constituted at the intersections of practices (Schatzki, 1996) discourses (Ivanič, 1998), narratives (Davies & Harré, 1990), categories (Sacks et al., 1978), social groups (Tajfel et al., 1979), communities (Wenger, 1999) or roles (Stets & Burke, 2000), among others. People’s exposure to many instances of these constructs in everyday life is the reason why identity is conceptualised as a plurality rather than a single, invariant core. Identity is also an emergent, dynamic and frequently self-conflictive process. In other words, it is a constant becoming, in which the drive towards self-continuity and consistency is set against the continually repositioned self that emerges through participation in practices. This formulation emphasises that identity is not a stable property of the individual but a sociocultural process that unfolds moment by moment

1 Introduction 

15

(Blackledge & Creese, 2016), in turn pointing to the need for research methods that are fine-tuned enough to track the process as it occurs in real time. Third, identity is produced at different levels of awareness: in Goffman’s terms, persons can consciously, agentively and strategically perform public selves while also “giving off” elements of their identities with no awareness whatsoever (Goffman, 1978). These latter elements can be retrieved by others present at the scene even as the person appears oblivious to the impressions they make. Finally, identities are not only negotiated during interaction but also produced as individuals carry out activities in their environments using the affordances of the body, cultural tools and physical settings. So, even though little verbal negotiation of meanings occurs in the “monologic” stages of most presentations, identities are still produced continuously in relation to other subjects as well as non-human objects like the computer or projector screen that are also present in the room.

1.4 The Theoretical Framework Having introduced my four key terms, the links between them are now indicated with reference to the theoretical framework displayed in Fig. 1.1. The dotted lines around each box show that the terms within are Social practices

Multimodal action

Genre, e.g., the classroom presentation

Fig. 1.1  Theoretical framework

Genre practices

Identity Role

16 

R. J. Gray

interpretive, and the double-headed arrows represent the shaping influence of each on the others. The overarching concept in the framework is that of social practices. As described in the previous section, social practices are historically-formed, recurrent shared actions or patterns of materially-­shaped, meaningful activity, transpiring within or across cultures and taken up at different levels of awareness by multiple actors (Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 1996). Social practices encompass all other elements in the framework, whose meanings are dependent on the interpretive background or web of meaning that practices provide (Nicolini, 2012). Social practices are reproduced via a range of different linguistic and non-linguistic actions in multiple modes. Over time, emergent networks of practices form social institutions such as education and the family, and are organised in ways that ensure the multiple purposes of these institutions are met (Deppermann, 2015; Schatzki, 1996). Genres are usually tacit representations of the conventional processes involved in reaching particular institutionalised purposes. Meanwhile, genre practices are the sets of recurrent, symbolically, historically, culturally and materially shaped means through which these purposes are met by individual “carriers”, i.e., social actors. Pedagogic interventions aim to make representations of institutionalised processes and purposes (i.e., genres) more explicit for students who lack experience of them (Swales, 1990). At the same time, individual actors develop and produce their personal and social identities by participating in countless social practices, many of which are institutionalised genre practices. These form the background against which participants interpret self and other, usually tacitly, in terms of their resemblances to prototypical exemplars (Wittgenstein, 1958). The interpreted categories vary in their specificity, duration, salience and prototypicality, but the more durable and prominent of them, realised through sets of genre practices which fulfil social purposes linked to the category, are conventionally known as social roles (Goffman, 1974). However, because practitioners always bring along experiences and expectations from other areas of practice, iterations of the role vary in their protypicality to produce individualised identities (Norris, 2011; Zimmerman, 1998), such as the student identity that emerges during classroom presentations.

1 Introduction 

17

The framework above shows that, through their materially-shaped, multimodal actions, people draw on and display their knowledge of genre at the same time they produce their role-related identities. While this book focuses only on a single genre and role, there is every reason to expect the same process to apply elsewhere in the domain of education— and possibly in other areas of social practice, too. However, the framework itself needs to be fleshed out with data on the research contexts, the genre, its practices and organization, and the students’ role-centred identities. These will be described one by one in order to show how they were combined during the observed presentations. Before taking the first steps along this road, I’d like to expand on the original, narrow definition from earlier in the chapter. The classroom presentation can now be redefined as a genre realised in socially and materially-shaped, meaningful actions carried out in multiple communicative modes, with the primary aim of enacting disciplinary knowledge through language, typically before an audience of peers and a teacher, and in an institutional setting. In truth, to use a metaphor from chemistry, this definition is more the seed of a theory around which the research presented in Chaps. 4–7 is intended to crystallise. The results of this study will, I hope, reflect some of the needs of researchers, instructors and their students who must negotiate the presentations that are given in academic settings.

Chapter Summaries Chapter 2 critically examines the key theories of genre, multimodality and identity used in this book and surveys how they have been understood in relation to academic presentations. Chapter 3 describes the methods and results obtained from the genre analysis. The steps that were achieved multimodally are identified, and four processes by which actions in other communicative modes influenced the effectiveness of speech are explained. Chapter 4 begins by surveying developments in identity theory and how these have been applied to researching student identity. Reiterating the importance of identity to learning, the chapter argues that prioritizing the student role rather than simply asserting the significance of

18 

R. J. Gray

broader social categories to learners may be more relevant to students and teachers alike. The methods used to collect and analyse the identity data are described in this chapter. Chapter 5 presents a model of student identity consisting of core (language, subject, institution, peers) and outer or peripheral aspects. The ways that students positioned themselves around these aspects during the interviews are described and illustrated. Chapter 6 returns to presentations and how different core and outer aspects of identity were produced during them. The methods by which data were gathered and analysed in this study are described in this chapter. The multimodal construction of the core aspects of student identity during presentations is then described in detail. Chapter 7 continues by exploring the process of identity alignment, a term which explains how learners produced their identities as EMI students during the presentations. In-depth examples from the presentations are described with accompanying diagrams and video transcripts. Chapter 8 discusses the implications and limitations of the research in terms of presentations and identity theory, EMI policy, pedagogy and future research.

References Anholt, R. R. H. (2010). Dazzle’em with style: The art of oral scientific presentation. Elsevier. Barrett, N. E., & Liu, G. Z. (2016). Global trends and research aims for English academic oral presentations: Changes, challenges, and opportunities for learning technology. Review of Educational Research, 86(4), 1227–1271. Bekker, S., & Clark, A. M. (2018). Improving qualitative research findings presentations: Insights from genre theory. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17(1), 1609406918786335. Bhattacharyya, E. (2014). Walk the talk: Technical oral presentations of engineers in the 21st century. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 123, 344–352. Blackledge, A., & Creese, A. (2016). A linguistic ethnography of identity: Adopting a heteroglossic frame. In The Routledge handbook of language and identity (pp. 298–314). Routledge.

1 Introduction 

19

Burkitt, I. (2008). Social selves: Theories of self and society (2nd ed.). Sage. Cazden, C., Cope, B., Fairclough, N., Gee, J., Kalantzis, M., Kress, G., Luke, A., Luke, C., Michaels, S., & Nakata, M. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92. Chan, V. (2011). Teaching oral communication in undergraduate science: Are we doing enough and doing it right? Journal of Learning Design, 4(3), 71–79. Council of Europe. Council for Cultural Co-operation. Education Committee. Modern Languages Division. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Davies, B., & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20(1), 43–63. Deppermann, A. (2015). Positioning 19. The Handbook of Narrative Analysis, 369, 1. Deppermann, A., & Streeck, J. (2018). The body in interaction. Time in Embodied Interaction: Synchronicity and Sequentiality of Multimodal Resources, 293, 1. Duff, P. A. (2002). The discursive co-construction of knowledge, identity, and difference: An ethnography of communication in the high school mainstream. Applied Linguistics, 23(3), 289–322. Fortanet, I. (2005). Honoris causa speeches: An approach to structure. Discourse Studies, 7(1), 31–51. Foucault, Michel. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge (AMS Smith, Trans.). New York: Pantheon. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press. Goffman, E. (1978). The presentation of self in everyday life (Vol. 21). Harmondsworth. Goodwin, C. (1980). Restarts, pauses, and the achievement of a state of mutual gaze at turn-beginning. Sociological Inquiry, 50(3–4), 272–302. Hall, E. T. (1966). The hidden dimension (Vol. 609). Doubleday. Hametner, K., & Joerchel, A. (2009). Reflexive and non-reflexive identity perceptions: Finding a balance. Psychology & Society, 2(1), 22–28. Hood, S., & Forey, G. (2005). Introducing a conference paper: Getting interpersonal with your audience. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4(4), 291–306. Huxham, M., Campbell, F., & Westwood, J. (2012). Oral versus written assessments: A test of student performance and attitudes. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 37(1), 125–136.

20 

R. J. Gray

Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing and identity (Vol. 10). John Benjamins. Ivanič, R. (2009). Bringing literacy studies into research on learning across the curriculum. In The future of literacy studies (pp. 100–122). Palgrave Macmillan. Jewitt, C. (2009). Different approaches to multimodality. In C. Jewitt (Ed.), Routledge handbook of multimodal analysis (pp. 28–39). Routledge. Kendon, A. (1967). Some functions of gaze-direction in social interaction. Acta Psychologica, 26, 22–63. Kendon, A., & Key, M. R. (2011). Gesticulation and speech: Two aspects of the process of utterance. In The relationship of verbal and nonverbal communication (pp. 207–228). De Gruyter Mouton. Kress, G. (2009). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Routledge. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (2006). The “academic literacies” model: Theory and applications. Theory Into Practice, 45(4), 368–377. Lyons, A. (2015). 18 Multimodality. Research methods in intercultural communication: A practical guide, 268, 1. Martin, J. R. (1992). English text: System and structure. John Benjamins Publishing. Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. (2003). The language of evaluation (Vol. 2). Palgrave Macmillan. McNeill, D. (Ed.). (2000). Language and gesture (Vol. 2). Cambridge University Press. Murphy, K., & Barry, S. (2016). Feed-forward: Students gaining more from assessment via deeper engagement in video-recorded presentations. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(2), 213–227. Nicolini, D. (2012). Practice theory, work, and organization: An introduction. OUP Oxford. Norris, S. (2004). Analyzing multimodal interaction: A methodological framework. Routledge. Norris, S. (2009). Modal density and modal configurations: Multimodal actions. In C. Jewitt (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of multimodal analysis (pp. 78–90). Norris, S. (2011). Identity in (inter) action: Introducing multimodal (inter) action analysis (Vol. 4). Walter de Gruyter. Norris, S. (2020). Multimodal theory and methodology: For the analysis of (inter) action and identity. Routledge. Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Pearson.

1 Introduction 

21

O’Halloran, K. L. (Ed.). (2006). Multimodal discourse analysis: Systemic-­ functional perspectives. Bloomsbury Publishing. Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. Routledge. Rampton, B. (1990). Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance. ELT Journal, 44(2), 97–101. Rampton, B. (1995). Language crossing and the problematisation of ethnicity and socialisation. Pragmatics, 5(4), 485–513. Rampton, B., Maybin, J., & Roberts, C. (2014). Methodological foundations in linguistic ethnography. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies, 102. Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a theory of social practices: A development in culturalist theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory, 5(2), 243–263. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1978). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. In Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 7–55). Academic. Schatzki, T. R. (1996). Social practices: A Wittgensteinian approach to human activity and the social. Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E. A. (1998). Body torque. Social Research, 1, 535–596. Scollon, R. (2002). Mediated discourse: The nexus of practice. Routledge. Smith, S. (2018). Academic presentations. Evident Press. Stets, J. E., & Burke, P. J. (2000). Identity theory and social identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 224–237. Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge University Press. Swales, J. (2004). Research genres: Explorations and applications. Ernst Klett Sprachen. Tajfel, H., Turner, J. C., Austin, W. G., & Worchel, S. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. Organizational Identity: A Reader, 56(65), 16. Tardy, C. M. (2005). Expressions of disciplinarity and individuality in a multimodal genre. Computers and Composition, 22(3), 319–336. Valeiras-Jurado, J., & Ruiz-Madrid, N. (2019). Multimodal enactment of characters in conference presentations. Discourse Studies, 21(5), 561–583. Van Ginkel, S., Gulikers, J., Harm, B., & Mulder, B. (2015). Towards a set of design principles for developing oral presentation competence: A synthesis of research in higher education. Educational Research Review, 14, 62–80. Van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. Psychology Press. Waknel, Phil. “The 3 Magic Ingredients of Amazing Presentations”. Filmed November 2019, Saclay. TED Video 14.35. https://www.ted.com/talks/ phil_waknell_the_3_magic_ingredients_of_amazing_presentations/ transcript?language=en.

22 

R. J. Gray

Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical investigations. Basil Blackwell. Zareva, A. (2009). Informational packaging, level of formality, and the use of circumstance adverbials in L1 and L2 student academic presentations. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 8(1), 55–68. Zareva, A. (2020). Speech accommodation in student presentations. Springer International Publishing. Zimmerman, Don H. (1998) Identity, context and interaction. In C. Antaki & S. Widdicombe (Eds.), Identities in talk (pp. 87–106). Sage Publications Ltd.

2 The Research Setting

2.1 Introduction While the research contexts presented in this chapter appear as progressively more specific and local layers of culture, they did not contain the setting as much as circulate through the presentations and interviews, shaping individual participants’ actions and their social identities at varying levels of salience. The contexts of qualitative research are worth considering because they enrich the  interpretation of data and make the findings more transferable to other settings. Accordingly, this chapter moves through the national cultural context of Turkey, progressively narrowing its focus onto the HE and EAP sectors of the country’s education system and zooming further into the institutional and class contexts before ending with brief descriptions of each participant.

The National Context Following centuries of Ottoman caliphate rule, the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 by the forces of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on one-­ nation, statist and laicist principles, subsequently incorporated into the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. J. Gray, Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97933-1_2

23

24 

R. J. Gray

political philosophy of Kemalism. After  the 1980 military coup, the country became increasingly integrated into the global economy, first under secular administrations and latterly under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its leader, Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan. AKP ideology is “an amalgam of Islamic conservatism and neoliberalism” (Yücesan-Özdemir & Özdemir, 2012, p. 11) whose neo-Ottoman narratives and practices in many spheres of life have replaced some of those under which the Republic was established (White, 2014). The tension between Kemalist secularism and neo-Ottoman Islamist ideologies is often portrayed as a clash of two incompatible worldviews (Daniel and Karrell, 2016, p.145). However, as White points out, “neither term—secular or Muslim—does justice to the variety of possible positions and their sometimes surprising combinations” (White, 2014, p.10). In fact, it may be more productive to distinguish between (1) fully secular “Engaged cosmopolitans” linked to the most privileged social positions, who embrace, consume and participate in global culture, (2) “Engaged provincialists” (more religious, more middle class in terms of income and education, and more suspicious of global culture); and (3) a “disengaged” cluster, underprivileged and more likely to be religious, who display neutrality, ignorance or indifference to the effects of globalisation (Rankin et al., 2014). Another nuanced analysis of sociopolitical beliefs has also delineated three groups: (1) “Western Liberalists”, who are pro-EU, liberal, support minority rights, and are the most diverse and politically weakest group; (2) Kemalist “Republican Nationalists”, whose previous hegemony, enshrined in institutions such as the Constitutional Court and the Military, has now been supplanted by the final group, (3) “Ottoman Islamists”—interventionist, conservative and pious defenders of majority Sunni Islam rights, (Hintz, 2017). It is important to point out that the affiliations entailed by such categories are nonetheless locally negotiated by actors as they take up their everyday practices. A recent British Council report on Turkish youth finds strong evidence suggesting that political identities, while deeply held, are also held back in most peer interactions, negating their potential for triggering conflict and displaying mutual tolerance and respect for individual differences (British Council, 2016). Web-based affinity groups (Gee, 2001) are an

2  The Research Setting 

25

important way for individuals to encounter and negotiate diversity among their peers (British Council, 2016). Family beliefs are particularly important to the identities of young Turkish people, 80% of whom were found to place maximum trust in their parents, compared to 32% and only 11% of respondents who relied on their friends and teachers most, respectively (British Council, 2016). This report suggests that peer relationships among Turkish youth are likely to be outwardly apolitical, mediated strongly by family values and marked by mutual tolerance and respect. However, the findings given in Chapters 6 and 7 of this book only partly confirmed this optimistic interpretation.

2.2 Education in Turkey Recent Developments in Turkish Educational Policy The AKP’s acceleration of liberalising economic reforms has been reflected in the recent, rapid marketization and expansion of Turkey’s educational sector (Selvi, 2014). The reverence for education that accompanied the country’s earlier modernisation has been reshaped under neoliberalist discourses into widespread credentialism, further supporting growth in the sector (Ergin et al., 2019). Meanwhile, competition for falling numbers of domestic students exists under a centralised regime of quality assurance for government funding (Ecklund et  al., 2016). The Gezi protests of 2012 led to an increasingly authoritarian stance towards higher education professionals and institutions viewed as unaligned with the Government’s aims, exemplified in the case of the sacking of signatories to the ‘Academics For Peace’ petition opposing the State’s treatment of Turkey’s large Kurdish minority (see Butler, 2017), along with concrete measures such as removing the right of universities to choose their own rectors, which further reduced their autonomy and sparked further protests in 2021. Under such pressures, it may be assumed that institutions, teachers and students are likely to be positioned in more overtly categorical ways, as pro-government institutions or traditional secularists, for example, increasing the possibility of conflict. Indeed, contradicting the British Council survey, one survey found that discrimination at an unnamed

26 

R. J. Gray

university in Istanbul was widespread and centred on ideological affiliation, ethnicity, gender, age, class, sexual orientation and personal style (Töker-Gökçe, 2013). These observations cohere with Palfreyman’s earlier research finding that Turkish and non-Turkish teachers of English routinely positioned their students as lazy, incapable or irresponsible cultural others (Palfreyman, 2005). Such studies show the need to consider how wider social structures may influence student identities, even when these are backgrounded in interactions. A recent, major change across Turkish education has been the official introduction of constructivist pedagogies to replace transmission-based models of learning. Constructivism supports the development of key “soft skills” such as critical thinking, communication and entrepreneurship, enabling Turkey’s workforce of the future to respond to rapidly changing global markets (İnal et al., 2014). This too has impacted educational norms and hence identities, with students shifting from passive recipients to active constructors of knowledge and the teacher from an authoritative source to a facilitator of learning. It has influenced classroom practices and remoulded teachers’ professional selves, perhaps precipitating what has been described as a “spiritual crisis” among members of the profession (Ertürk, 2012, p. 240).

Language Policy and EMI Universities Turkey’s post-1980 entry into global markets of goods and services was marked in universities by the 1984 Higher Education Act, which empowered all university departments to choose their linguistic medium of instruction and inaugurated Turkey’s first private university, Bilkent. A second wave of private universities, which included the pseudonymous setting of the current research, Yeşil University, was then established in the mid-to-late 1990s (Kırkgöz, 2009). The number of universities offering programmes with English as the medium of instruction (EMI) more than doubled between 2001 and 2015, from 75 to 176 (West et al, 2015), some of which have since closed under competitive pressures in a stagnant economy. Turkey’s economic liberalisation and earlier enthusiasm for EU membership underlay the drive to participate in supra-national educational frameworks such as the Bologna Process

2  The Research Setting 

27

and Erasmus. This motivated the growth of EMI degree courses in Turkey, if not necessarily their quality (Onursal-Beşgül, 2016). Despite the rapid growth of its EMI programmes, Turkey has been relatively slow to respond to the global trend towards  internationalisation in the HE sector, initially resulting in a major imbalance between outflows of Turkish scholars and incoming students. While internationalisation has undoubtedly accelerated in the last five years, with the proportion of international students rising from 0.8% in 2010 to 2.24% in 2018 (YÖK, 2020), this remains far lower than the double-figure percentages of many other OECD nations (OECD, 2020). Furthermore, prior to the Syrian conflict and the AKP’s broader pivot towards the Middle East, most of these students originated from countries with longstanding “pan-Turkic” cultural ties (Kamal, 2017). One reason for the initially slow rate of internationalization may be the  relatively low levels of quality assurance in Turkish higher education compared to other countries (Ilieva et al., 2017), with many institutions hesitant to  adopt Bologna Process accreditation mechanisms (Kamal, 2017). Under Turkey’s Higher Education Council (Yüksek Öğretim Kurumu; YÖK) regulations, all universities offering EMI courses are required to provide a preparatory year of English language education. Students whose EMI courses exceed 30% of the total credit value of their qualification must pass these preparatory schools’ final exams before beginning their faculty classes, and must take English classes in their freshman year (West et al, 2015). However, EMI universities are not required to provide English language support beyond the first year of undergraduate study. This widespread model of EMI provision works on the assumption that students reach the necessary level of English first, then apply their knowledge to the faculty course content (Dearden & Macaro, 2016).

Language and Epistemic Identities in EMI Education Dominant in Turkey, the EMI approach makes two highly questionable assumptions: that language is merely the conduit for course content, and that all participants will have gained and be able to apply English language skills to the content of faculty courses (Cenoz et al., 2014). This contrasts with alternative approaches such as content and language

28 

R. J. Gray

integrated learning (CLIL) or its tertiary equivalent Integrating content and language in higher education (ICLHE), or even genre pedagogies which combine language and subject matter as a matter of course (Coffin & Donohue, 2014; Llinares & Dalton-Puffer, 2015; Schmidt-­ Unterberger, 2018). These alternatives are rarely practised in university settings in Turkey, where language support tends to be delivered separately from faculty classes (West et al., 2015; Dearden & Macaro, 2016), increasing the likelihood of failure among students who have not reached the English level required to cope (Soruç and Griffiths, 2018). Quite possibly, the EMI model is sustained in spite of its flaws because it resonates with the widespread fear that English represents a threat to Turkishness and learning in a foreign language obstructs educational progress (Selvi, 2014; Sert, 2008). So, separating English language provision from the transmission of disciplines ensures it can be framed less threateningly, as a pragmatic necessity subordinate to the main task of learning the subject—an important consideration within the wider context of change summarised above.  Separating English and disciplinary learning also allows the professional identities of subject and language specialists to be more easily maintained and defended, increasing their commitment to maintaining the status quo. How, then, might EMI impact the identities of students? Dividing English from content learning reifies the ways that students identify with English-speaking and national cultures. Some research into university language learner identity in Turkey suggests that learners tend to compartmentalise their international/global and national identities, often marginalising the significance of the first of these (Atay & Ece, 2009). Similarly, English is widely seen by students as an instrument to improve employment prospects within national and international labour markets, rather than as promoting  short-term academic achievement (Bektas-­ Cetinkaya, 2012; Koseoğlu, 2013). While internationalisation is now a key aspect of Turkish higher educational policy, the monocultural Yeşil University classes I observed contrasted deeply with their more diverse equivalents in the West. When I observed the Yeşil classes, national culture was so taken for granted within interactions that it was often invisible to students, who were almost

2  The Research Setting 

29

entirely unexposed to the cultural practices and Englishes of other countries at the university. I found EMI fundamentally mismatched with the practical reality of teaching to classes entirely composed of Turkish L1 speakers. Unsurprisingly, one in-depth study has established that the response of most lecturers to classes comprising predominantly Turkish students is to foreground the learning of epistemic content and use the students’ L1 almost entirely in some cases (Karakas, 2016). In terms of identity, such pragmatic compromises mean that the opportunity for students to gain more expertise in and experience affinity with English is subordinated to the development of disciplinary alignment and credibility as knowers of their subjects. There is currently insufficient data on how presentations are used to assess undergraduate students in Turkish universities. If, however, minimal English support is provided to students on these courses, the role of the preparatory year in developing students’ expertise as speakers becomes crucial. Yet one large-scale study found that opportunities to integrate speaking into prep school lessons were routinely missed and the separation of prep school from disciplinary classes meant that students had little experience of spoken genres relevant to their main courses (British Council, 2015). In any case, owing to the continuing influence of transmission pedagogy, underfunding of English classes at primary and secondary level and the lack of assessment of the skill in university entrance exams, speaking is many students’ weakest area (Vale et al., 2013; Oral, 2013). This has a knock-on effect on the presentations they are expected to give later in their degree programmes. Data from a survey of psychology programmes in Turkey (Arik & Arik, 2018) confirm these findings. While 40% of the 79 available programmes were nominally English-medium, 10–15% of assignments (presentations and essays) were completed in Turkish, indicating the type of pragmatic compromise made by lecturers who prioritise learners’ mastery of the course content. Only 8.5% of 117 student respondents believed that Turkish should be excluded entirely from their classes. The researchers recommended using English and Turkish during the freshman year to help students identify with their discipline early in their degrees (Arik & Arik, 2018), an approach which is likely to lead to better outcomes in terms of linguistic achievement in as well as in the subject studied (Crisfield, 2018).

30 

R. J. Gray

2.3 The Institutional Context: Yeşil University Overview of the University The main Yeşil University campus is located some 70 km from the centre of Istanbul. It contains three main academic buildings, several halls of residence accommodating approximately 1400 students, and various recreational facilities. Yeşil is a second-wave foundation university established in the mid-1990s, though the foundation itself has a much longer history of involvement in primary and secondary schooling and counts the founder of the Turkish Republic among its former pupils. Its close association with Atatürk immediately positions Yeşil, in Hintz’s terms (2017) as a prototypical “Republican Nationalist” university with an accordingly secular and conservative reputation. However, unlike many private foundation universities set up by wealthy industrialists across the country, Yeşil’s primary business is education. The university is mid-ranking (QS, 2021), and relatively small by Turkish standards. Yeşil offers four-year degrees structured on the US model, with students progressing to specialised areas of study via the completion of ECTS credit-bearing, compulsory and optional modules. Many students exceed the minimum of four courses per semester to accelerate their progress and reduce their expenditures. Relatively recently, Yeşil has had to adapt to challenges in HE sector by increasing its offer of scholarships to students, initially expanding its range of Turkish Medium of Instruction (TMI) courses, and now recruiting large numbers of international students (these only constituted 1% of total student numbers in 2016, a figure comparable to many other Turkish universities). Nonetheless, all these measures have increased student diversity in its class, regional, ethnic and national aspects, and are likely to further alter peer and institutional interrelationships.

Structure of the English Programme at Yeşil University In this section, the English language programme at Yeşil University is briefly described. My purpose is to show how the identities of students

2  The Research Setting 

31

in the interviews and observations were shaped by institutional factors, themselves embedded in the national context. The university’s English language provision consists of a pre-faculty preparatory year, two compulsory courses during the first year of the degree, and ESP courses for students majoring in some areas. Students  completed a freestanding preparatory year of 336 hours across 28 weeks, and/or demonstrate an overall level of CEFR-B1 before commencing faculty classes. A mixture of EFL and EGAP textbooks were used in the Prep School. Although some assessed presentations formed a part of the Prep School programme, there were no final speaking exams at the point the data were collected. In the Freshman year and as per YÖK guidelines, freestanding English 101 and 102 classes were taken by most students. These were separate from faculty programmes and focussed on reproducible academic skills such as skimming, summarising and process writing, bringing them closest to the study skills model briefly discussed in Chapter 1. Students could continue with their faculty classes without passing English 101 or 102 in the first year. This flexibility was consistent with the linguistic homogeneity of most classes, the fact that the English load was lower for some subjects (as indicated by departmental variation in the English level required for admission) and the widespread use of less demanding assessment types such as multiple choice or short response questions by faculty teachers. In English 101 and 102, oral genres such as debates and presentations were only reviewed briefly as sets of skills in class, despite comprising 20–25% of the assessment profile of both courses. Several 14-week, 42-hour ESP programmes were available to sophomores majoring in the areas of psychology, international relations and business. However, the syllabi of these courses, unlike the earlier phases of Yeşil’s English programme, were planned in collaboration with the corresponding academic departments. Unlike many other Turkish institutions (West et  al., 2015), ESP courses at Yeşil were credit-bearing, which appears to motivate higher levels of student participation.

32 

R. J. Gray

2.4 The Class Context The Classroom Strip-lit, with large windows overlooking the surrounding forests, the classroom held a maximum of 55 students; individual seats were fixed into five rows of benches divided into three banks, and a raised platform with a desk, chair but no fixed computer on its left extended the width of the room. A whiteboard approximately four metres wide was attached to the front wall, with a retractable projector screen furled above it. The walls were white and empty, with the only decoration a framed photograph of Atatürk above the whiteboard (Fig. 2.1). In discursive terms, the room materialised ideologies constructing Republican Turkey as modernist, secular, and humanist: secular nationhood in the photograph; transmission pedagogy in the authority and freedom conferred by the large,

Fig. 2.1  The Yeşil University classroom

2  The Research Setting 

33

raised stage enabling teachers to communicate content down to their audience; computing technology as an optional tool rather than a fundamental co-provider of content.

2.5 The English for Psychology Course English for Psychology was a one-year, two-part ESP programme whose syllabus was based on an ESP psychology coursebook for students working at CEFR B1+/IELTS 5. While the book contained material on academic discussions, it excluded presentation skills. The class, comprised of 32 students, met twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The syllabus included three presentation tasks in addition to the coursebook material: a short presentation on mental disorders, scheduled for the 7th week of the course; a talk about an influential psychology theorist for the 12th week and a report of findings from a topic-based literature review for Week 14. Clear guidance was provided on the organisation and grading of the presentations, which were delivered and assessed in class time. The first two presentations could be delivered by groups of students; the last had to be given individually.

Participants The English for Psychology class teacher, Nüket Hanım, was a female Turkish instructor with 40 years’ EAP experience, who had designed and taught the course since its inception in 2011. The students who participated in the study were from her classes. Bilal was aged 20 and a male second-year student from a small city in central Anatolia. He was on a partial scholarship and had taken the prep school year. He was interested in theatre and aimed to study abroad in the future. Burak, a male sophomore student, was 21 years old at the point the data was gathered. He was from a working-class district of Istanbul and was on a full scholarship. He had already attained a high enough level of English to pass directly into psychology classes but chose to take the prep school year. He was working in a voluntary capacity both abroad

34 

R. J. Gray

and in Istanbul, and planned to work and study abroad in the future. He had previously been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Engin was a male junior-year student, aged 21 and from the small town near the university. Unable to speak English when he began, he had taken the prep school year and subsequently spent one semester in the U.S. on a work and travel programme. A highly skilled footballer, Engin was keen to complete his degree in a short time and study psychology abroad. Hazal was a 20-year-old female student on a full scholarship. She came from the nearby town but had previously studied in Istanbul. Her English level had been sufficient for her to move directly into faculty classes without enrolling in the prep school. Hazal was teaching children and planned to become an academic. Müge was female, aged 25, in her fifth and final year of study, and from the capital city, Ankara. Her family background was more religiously conservative than other students. She had taken the prep school year and was the only participant to repeat the course. She had recently got married. Özlem was a female sophomore student identifying as ethnically Kurdish, aged 20 and from a small city in the east of Turkey. She identified as ethnically Kurdish and was on a full scholarship at the university. She taught English and Maths, had presented abroad and planned to study abroad in the future. Serhat, a 22-year-old male, was in his junior year and from Istanbul. He had attended the prep school but had subsequently been to the U.S. on two separate work and travel programmes for a total of eighteen months. He planned to study Cognitive Psychology at UCLA. Sinem was a female student from Istanbul, 22 years old and in her 3rd year at the university having studied on an Erasmus exchange during the previous year’s spring semester. She had attended the prep school and had entered an inter-collegiate public speaking competition in the previous semester. She was arranging an internship in London and planned to study for a Master’s degree abroad.

2  The Research Setting 

35

2.6 Discussion This chapter has shown that the alignment of Turkish students with their domestic institutions of study is mediated by discourses of marketization and competing versions of nationalism. As a result, students may assume a more critical, consumerist perspective on their institution and its political affiliations. Second, and despite the relatively recent introduction of constructivist approaches to learning, many undergraduates are likely to be disposed by their experiences of teaching, learning and assessment to view learning instrumentally, rather than align themselves closely with disciplinary practices. Finally, the current approach to EMI at many of Turkey’s universities is likely to limit students’ development both of expertise in and affinity for the English language, as well as impact the degree to which they can engage and identify with their areas of study. Yeşil University’s history and political affiliation identified it as a “Republican Nationalist” institution, aligned with Kemalist and laicist principles. The backgrounds of many students and staff of the university were also likely to be aligned with these principles, which were more likely to be taken for granted and thus less salient during interactions. The separation of English programmes from faculty subject provision across the university was likely to limit both students’ expertise in and affiliation for English, as well as their disciplinary identifications. Yeşil students could choose to complete their degrees more rapidly, but the lack of embedded language support imposed a downward pressure on programmes and assessments to adjust to many students’ language proficiency, potentially resulting in a “grade-making” approach to teaching and learning. Finally, the relative inattention to speaking skills in the English programme at the point the research was conducted may have exacerbated students’ difficulties with presentations. As detailed in Chapter 5, similar points to these were independently made during interviews, and distanced some participants from positively  identifying with their institution of study.

36 

R. J. Gray

References Arik, B. T., & Arik, E. (2018). English-medium instruction in Turkish higher education: The current state of English in psychology departments. Journal of English as an International Language, 13(1), 20–36. Atay, D., & Ece, A. (2009). Multiple identities as reflected in English-language education: The Turkish perspective. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 8(1), 21–34. Bektas-Cetinkaya, Y. (2012). Turkish university Students’ motivation to learn English: Integration into international community. Hacettepe University Journal of Education, 43, 130–140. British Council. 2015. The state of English in Higher Education in Turkey. [Online]. Available from: https://www.britishcouncil.org.tr/sites/default/ files/he_baseline_study_book_web_-­_son.pdf. [25.04.2020]. British Council. 2016. Next Generation Turkey. [Online]. Available from: https:// www.britishcouncil.org.tr/sites/default/files/h068_01_next_generation_turkey_report_final_en.pdf [25.04.2020]. Butler, J. (2017). Academic freedom and the critical task of the university. Globalizations, 14(6), 857–861. Cenoz, J., Genesee, F., & Gorter, D. (2014). Critical analysis of CLIL: Taking stock and looking forward. Applied Linguistics, 35(3), 243–262. Coffin, C., & Donohue, J. (2014). A language as social semiotic based approach to teaching and learning in higher education. John Wiley & Sons Inc. Crisfield, E. 2018. Use OF L1 in EMI: Understanding why and moving to how. [Online]. Available from: https://oupeltglobalblog.com/2019/02/05/use-­of-­ l1-­in-­emi-­understanding-­why-­and-­moving-­to-­how/. Last accessed: 07.08.20. Dearden, J., & Macaro, E. (2016). Higher education teachers’ attitudes towards English medium instruction: A three-country comparison. Studies in second language learning and teaching, 6(3), 455–486. Ergin, M., Rankin, B., & Gökşen, F. (2019). Education and symbolic violence in contemporary Turkey. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 40(1), 128–142. Ertürk, E. (2012). Transformation of the teaching profession in Turkey. In Neoliberal transformation of education in Turkey (pp.  233–244). Palgrave Macmillan. Hintz, L. (2017). The new Turkey and its discontents. International Journal of Turkish Studies, 23(1/2), 182–184.

2  The Research Setting 

37

İnal, K., Akkaymak, G., & Yıldırım, D. (2014). The constructivist curriculum reform in Turkey in 2004–in fact what is constructed? Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS), 12(2), 1. Kamal, K. (2017). Education in Turkey. World Education News & Reviews [online]. https://wenr.wes.org/2017/04/education-in-turkey. Karakas, A. (2016). Turkish lecturers’ views on the place of mother tongue in the teaching of content courses through English medium. Asian Englishes, 18(3), 242–257. Kırkgöz, Y. (2009). Students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of foreign language instruction in an English-medium university in Turkey. Teaching in Higher Education, 14(1), 81–93. Llinares, A., & Dalton-Puffer, C. (2015). The role of different tasks in CLIL students’ use of evaluative language. System, 54, 69–79. OECD. (2020). Education Policy Outlook: Turkey. Available from: https:// www.oecd.org/education/policy-­outlook/country-­profile-­Turkey-­2020.pdf Onursal-Beşgül, Ö. (2016). Policy transfer and discursive de-Europeanisation: Higher education from Bologna to Turkey. South European Society and Politics, 21(1), 91–103. Oral, Y. (2013). “The right things are what I expect them to do”: Negotiation of power relations in an English classroom. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 12(2), 96–115. Palfreyman, D. (2005). Othering in an English language program. TESOL Quarterly, 39(2), 211–233. QS. 2021. Top Universities: …. University [Online]. Available from: https:// www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/ 2021. Rankin, B., Ergin, M., & Gökşen, F. (2014). A cultural map of Turkey. Cultural Sociology, 8(2), 159–179. Schmidt-Unterberger, B. (2018). The English-medium paradigm: A conceptualisation of English-medium teaching in higher education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(5), 527–539. Selvi, A.  F. (2014). The medium-of-instruction debate in Turkey: Oscillating between national ideas and bilingual ideals. Current Issues in Language Planning, 15(2), 133–152. Sert, N. (2008). The language of instruction dilemma in the Turkish context. System, 36(2), 156–171.

38 

R. J. Gray

Töker-Gökçe, A. (2013). University students’ perception of discrimination on campus in Turkey. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 35(1), 72–84. White, J. (2014). Muslim Nationalism and the new Turks: updated edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. YÖK. (2020). Turkey ranked in top 10 in Higher Education. Available from: https://www.yok.gov.tr/en/Sayfalar/news/2020/target-­o riented-­ internationalization.aspx Yücesan-Özdemir, G., & Özdemir, A. M. (2012). The political economy of education in Turkey: State, labor, and capital under AKP rule. In K.  Inal & G.  Akkaymak (Eds.), Neoliberal transformation of education in Turkey (pp. 3–16). Palgrave Macmillan.

3 The Classroom Presentation Genre

3.1 Genre Analysis: Background To investigate how students produced their identities in presentations by participating in genre practices, the first step was to establish how the genre itself was organised. A modified ESP approach (Swales, 1990, 2003) fitted well because its balanced treatment of text and context was congruent with the observations and interviews used to gather the identity data. ESP has a long-established pedagogic interest in academic genres. Although it more commonplace in studies of written genres, there are some precedents for its use in the analysis of oral academic discourse, both as a primary focus (Shalom, 1993; Rowley-Jolivet and Carter-­ Thomas, 2005; Hu and Liu, 2018) and as a background to studies of multimodal register at particular sections of presentations (e.g., Ruiz-­ Madrid and Fortanet-Gomez, 2016; Zareva, 2013; 2020). In ESP, the genre’s overall purposes coordinate its unfolding through rhetorical moves and even smaller steps which are in turn realised by different language forms (Swales, 1990). Individual texts can be validated as belonging to a particular genre by expert members of what Swales referred to as a “discourse community” (Swales, 1990, chapter 2), which is

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. J. Gray, Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97933-1_3

39

40 

R. J. Gray

identified via definitional criteria including commonality of public goals realised by one or more genres, a specific set of lexis which might be perceived as jargon to outsiders, and direct communication among members of differing experience. However, the concept of discourse community is somewhat problematic, not least because it tends to foreground the homogeneity of its members while overlooking their multiple and possibly conflicting purposes (Bowles, 2012). There is also the difficulty of defining its boundaries (or that of any other community, for that matter). For instance, in an educational context, should the community be defined as a single class, all classes across a course, an entire institution, or all practitioners of a particular subject or discipline? Clearly, the social context in which genres are produced must be understood in order to analyse the genre’s purposes and link these to their realisation in communicative forms, but this does not require the theoretical apparatus of a community to be applied. So my approach to analysing the genre diverged from ESP by conceiving of undergraduate classroom presentations in terms of a broad set or nexus of materially-shaped practices, which vary in their generic prototypicality. This enabled the schematic organisation of the genre’s purposes at particular sections, moves and steps to be extrapolated from close observation of the situated practices themselves, as well as from interviews with practitioners and analysis of documents. It also circumvented the need to posit the existence of a community, whose connotations of boundedness and stability might have been misleading. This modified ESP approach facilitates a more dynamic conception of genre, including “non-expert” practices which overlap with, but do not belong to those of the community as defined above. Moreover, it  accounts for diversity within the genre, including the appearance of social practices and practitioners from elsewhere, the impact of material mediation and the influence of other discursive voices on performances. The data for the genre analysis were gathered from various sources, including interviews, task sheets and recordings of the presentations themselves. Overall, 30 presentations of between six and nineteen minutes and containing an average of ten slides were videoed using a tripod-­ mounted recorder, and the speech was transcribed. This produced a

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

41

corpus of around 24,000 words which was small enough to be manually coded and tagged. “Top-down” contextual data consisting of interview data, task instructions/rubric, and relevant literature (e.g., Swales, 1990; Tardy, 2005; Hood & Forey, 2005; Hu & Liu, 2018) informed the coding process. I then developed a matrix of the sections, moves and steps taken by each presenter across their presentations, which is presented below in Table 3.1.

Table 3.1  Sections, moves and steps in classroom presentations 1. Introduction 2. Explanation Move 1: Initiating a connection to the Move 1: Displaying descriptive audience. knowledge of the research topic. Move 2: Orienting to the topic. Move 2: Managing the transition between speakers (optional). Step Example Step Example language language 1a. Greeting the OK morning 1a. Defining key You can see… audience everyone topic term(s) I am going to Hi everyone explain… 1b. Stating the I’m… 1b. Adding detail Let me clarify this name(s) of My name’s… about the topic subject more. speaker(s) (obligatory) According to … I will give some infos about these. 2a. Stating the topic I’m going to 2a. Handing over to Now it’s …’s (obligatory) talk about… the next speaker turn… Today I wanna Now …. will come talk to you and explain the about… last one. 2b. Defining key I want to check 2b. Taking over Thank you … topic term(s) just these key from the previous Thanks words speaker X is a (disorder) that… 2c. Asking a Have you ever Repeated step (all Example topic-related felt like sections) language question someone’s watching you all the time? (continued)

42 

R. J. Gray

Table 3.1 (continued) 2d. Previewing the presentation

2d. Justifying the choice of topic

My outline is firstly I will talk about… and then… and finally… My motivation is … I want to address this topic because…

Changing a slide (all sections, order varies, optional in speech)

OK you can pass Next slide Geçebelir miyim (Can I pass?)

3. Closing remarks Move 1: Summarising the Explanation (optional). Move 2: Concluding the monologue.

4. Question and answer (optional) Move 1: Acknowledging the presenter’s work. Move 2: Discussing aspects of the research topic. Move 3: Concluding the Q&A. Step Example Step Example language language 1a. Referring back As we present… 1a. Thanking the Thank you. to the Explanation As you can presenter see… (Teacher) Like I said… 1b. Making an I thought he 1b. Appraising the That’s a very overall evaluation was right monologic phase comprehensive It’s an (Teacher/ peers) study that you important part ran. of learning Very nice job. process 1c. Making a Researchers 2a Inviting Do you have a recommendation should questions or comment to consider the comments make? effects of… (Teacher, Any questions? Try a little step presenter) by step (continued)

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

43

Table 3.1 (continued) 2a. Thanking the audience (obligatory)

2b. Inviting questions or comments

2c. Indicating references

Thank you for 2b. Asking and your attention responding to a Thanks for question or listening comment. (Presenter / teacher / peers -obligatory) 3a. Acknowledging If you guys any the presenter’s questions…I work (teacher) can answer it Do you have any question? That’s my references These are my references

Which articles did you use? Can you think of some advice? I think that… Yeah I notice this OK Thank you very much Thank you for this beautiful presentation

3.2 Organisation of the Classroom Presentation Genre Overall, four sections labelled the Introduction, Explanation, Closing remarks and Q&A were identified (see Table 3.1). The sole optional section was the Q&A, which was not required in the first two presentation tasks. This section was also the only one containing moves that could be made by audience members. While the introduction was the shortest section, the seven steps it contained made it the most rhetorically varied of the four. Moves 1a–c emphasised the interpersonal functions of the introduction, whereas the same moves (1a–c) in the closing remarks oriented it to the display of topic knowledge as well as relating to the audience. The explanation’s purpose was to display declarative knowledge of the topic, while the Q&A was distinguished by its dialogicity, contrasting with the monologic speech of the previous three sections; indeed, this difference has led researchers such as Querol-Julian and Fortanet-Gomez (2012) and Polo (2018) to classify the Q&A as an entirely separate genre. However, following Jurado (2015), who includes the Q&A within the genre of conference presentations, and Bernard-Mechó (2017) who takes

44 

R. J. Gray

a similar view of university lectures, I incorporated it as a separate section within the same classroom genre. Although it was optional in the presentations I observed, it appeared frequently (even in the first and second task responses). Furthermore, its overarching purpose presupposes its connection to a prior, extended piece of discourse (i.e., the monologic sections), which was another good reason to include it in the analysis. Important as the spoken language was to communication, a multimodal perspective on the classroom presentations made the resulting genre description more accurate. Accounting for other modes meant that the boundaries of sections could be drawn more definitively. For example, it initially seemed counterintuitive to locate Move 2e, Inviting Questions, in the “monologic” phase of the presentations rather than the Q&A. However, the video data revealed that this move occurred most frequently before presenters returned to the computer, before progression to the references slide or ahead of the audience’s applause—all definitive markers of the closing remarks section. By including a multimodal view, it was also possible to see that six steps could be taken using modes other than speech: Stating the name of speaker(s) and Stating the topic in the Introduction; Handing over to the next speaker and Taking over from the previous speaker in the Explanation; Indicating References in the closing remarks, and the floating step of Changing a slide, ubiquitous in all sections apart from the Q&A. Several essential features of the classroom presentation genre might elude a speech-only analysis. For instance, Changing a slide was rarely enacted in speech, but recurred frequently and is clearly a prototypical feature of classroom presentations. Similarly, the 2nd move of the explanation, Transitioning to/from co-presenters was usually made nonverbally in most presentations. Finally, analysing speech only would suggest that the concluding move of the Q&A consisted solely of thanking and sometimes praising the presenter. However, nonverbal actions such as students walking off the dais, removing their laptops and in one case, performing a brief curtsey marked the end of presentations just as clearly. These examples illustrate the importance of considering other modes besides speech when looking at presentations (or other genres)—but which modes should be included in the analysis?

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

45

3.3 Multimodality: Background Although several modes of communication (speech, writing, gesture and gaze) were obvious candidates, others emerged somewhat messily from multiple viewings of the presentations to eventually include posture, location and movement (of the feet [see Lim, 2009]), plus slide images. The choice of which modes to analyse was also informed by three previous studies of presentations: Rendle-Short’s book-length CA study of an academic lecture (2006), and two SFL-based studies of the multimodal register of academic presentation (Morell, 2015; Forey and Feng, 2016), all of which specify the modes to follow when researching presentations. Like earlier multimodal researchers such as Norris (2011) and Morell (2015), I used McNeill’s classification (2005) of gesture into iconic, metaphoric, beat and deictic forms. The first of these represents concrete entities, while the second is used to designate abstract entities and processes. Beat gestures are small movements of the hands or fingers, coordinated with the semantic peaks of an utterance and sometimes also occurring during dysfluent speech. Deictics are pointing gestures that refer to or identify parts of the contexts of speech (McNeill, 2005; Hood, 2011). To these can be added emblems, instantly recognisable gestures (not all offensive) which require no additional speech to be interpreted by members of a culture (2004). Finally, the codes I developed (see Table 3.2) drew on Lim’s (2019) description of unintentionally communicative hand actions, such as object handling and self-touch. The resting or “home” positions of the hands (Rendle-Short, 2006) were coded as “closed rests” and “open rests” in which hands were clasped or separated, respectively. Gaze has been treated by CA researchers as a resource for next-speaker selection, (Kendrick & Holler, 2017), but this is clearly not its main function in extended oral discourse. Instead, used with other modes, it may construct what Goffman (1981) terms a “shared participation framework” which indicates how the communicative situation is framed by those present and the stances taken on spoken content. The duration, frequency and directness of gaze were positively related to speakers’ affiliation and involvement with listeners in Kendon (1967) and Burgoon and Le Poire (1999). More recently, Jording et al. (2018) proposed a “social gaze space” for (inter)actions, which recognises the potential significance of object- as well as subject-oriented gaze directions.

46 

R. J. Gray

Table 3.2  Multimodal communication in undergraduate classroom presentations Section Speech Speech rate (wpm) Error rate/words Lexical density Appraisal/words Engagement/words Writing Error rate/words Lexical density Appraisal/words Engagement/words Image Slides with images Figurative images Gaze (% of total time) Screen Teacher Peers Computer Notes Elsewhere Gesture (% of total time) Beat Deictic Metaphoric Iconic/emblem Closed rest Open rest Other/offscreen Posture (%of total time) Centre Centre-left Centre-right Left Right Location (% of total time) Behind desk Btwn desk and screen Right of screen Left of screen In front of screen Btwn screen and left wall

Introduction Explanation Closing remarks Q&A 135 1:26 0.65 1:29 1:64

119 1:21 0.51 1:12 1:69

115 1:15 0.61 1:14 1:30

140 1:17 0.55 1:16 1:39

1:10 0.91 1:24 1:19

1:21 0.9 1:14 1:52

1:21 0.86 1:30 1:107

– 0.75 1:68 1:60

40% 86%

93% 88%

44% 63%

40% 50%

27 23 10 13 – 27

36 22 5 4 16 17

38 28 6 7 1 20

10 49 11 7 – 23

19 16 6 – 40 14 5

23 21 18 – 20 5 13

18 11 18 5 24 4 20

13 12 27 2 28 6 12

41 28 10 17 4

31 22 20 8 19

24 25 22 11 6

57 23 14 1 4

26 52 8 – 1 13

4 43 15 4 9 16

12 43 14 2 12 16

32 38 6 4 9 10 (continued)

47

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre  Table 3.2 (continued) Section

Introduction Explanation Closing remarks Q&A

Movement (% of total time) No foot movement 54 Foot movement 46

50 50

54 46

80 20

Hall’s foundational work on cultural variation in proxemics found that physical distancing displays social distance and solidarity (Hudson, 1996) and that movement between zones of proximity reframes interactions as more or less formal/intimate, or signifies territorial claims (Burgoon & Le Poire, 1999; Goodwin, 2000). Thus, presenters’ location and movements in relation to audience members can be interpreted as displaying their alignment and involvement with them. An open posture conveys greater intimacy, openness, similarity to and equality with recipients (Burgoon, 1991). The role of the trunk/torso in orienting to multiple, simultaneous courses of action and expressing stance is highlighted by Schlegoff’s (1998) discussion of “body torque”. Torqued postures embody tension between competing interactive claims, projecting possible courses of action (Schlegoff, 1998). For analysing images, Bertin’s differentiation between the “monosemic” images of charts and diagrams and “polysemic” figurative images comprised of photographs and pictures is useful (Bertin, in Jolivet, 2002). Whereas the meaning of monosemic images such as mathematical formulae is relatively unitary and objective, polysemic images are contextdependent and contain more room for subjective interpretation (Eilam, 2012). Bertin’s framework thus offers a useful means of understanding whether speakers’ selection of images foregrounds their technical knowledge of a subject, or their engagement of the audience via the display of more interpretable images (see Jolivet, 2002). A comprehensive grammar of visual images was set out by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006), whose description of the interactive metafunction provided a useful vocabulary for interpreting presenters’ image choices as configuring different relationships to their audiences. Appraisal Theory (Martin and White, 2005; White, 2015) was used to code the spoken and written language. Appraisal grew out of earlier work in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and describes the communicative resources for positioning the originators and addressees of spoken

48 

R. J. Gray

and written texts according to the three subsystems of Attitude (used to evaluate emotion, behaviour and other phenomena), Graduation (to modulate the force and focus of meanings) and Engagement with other voices, which may be those of addressees (e.g., presentation audiences) or contributors to the discourse such as psychological theorists. Each of these is further subclassified to form a comprehensive framework of resources by which speakers and writers are able to take up particular stances as they communicate (see Martin & White, 2005). After establishing the organisation of speech in the presentations, I reviewed and purposively sampled the audio transcripts and videos to consider multimodal communication in each section. The process of transcribing multimodal data across eight separate modes was extremely time-consuming, even when utilising ELAN video transcription software (ELAN, 2018). Overall, 49 excerpts ranging from 18 to 142 seconds in length were transcribed, including at least one excerpt from every section of each presentation (Fig. 3.1). As mentioned above, Appraisal was used to code speech and writing, and basic measures of fluency, accuracy and language complexity were also carried out. The coding for gesture was based on McNeill (2005), Martinec (2004), Lim (2019) and RendellShort (2005), as described above. I coded the modes of gaze, posture, location and movement relative to different elements of the setting (see

Fig. 3.1  Excerpt from a multimodal transcript using ELAN software

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

49

Forey and Feng, 2016, for a similar approach to gaze and posture). Finally, the basic quantitative analysis of gesture, gaze, location, movement and posture made use of ELAN’s Annotation Statistics feature. This allowed each code (such as iconic gesture) in an excerpt to be calculated as a percentage of the total time for the corresponding mode. By averaging all these figures at each section, patterns of multimodal activity during the presentations could be identified and compared.

3.4 Patterns of Multimodality in the Classroom Presentations Similarities in Multimodal Communication Table 3.2 provides an overview of multimodal communicative practices across the four sections of the students’ presentations, based on the sampled excerpts. The main similarities between the uses of modes were as follows: First, the average lexical density of writing on slides (0.86) was greater than for speech (0.58) and contained fewer errors at all sections. Second, instances of Engagement occurred more frequently in speech than in writing. Third, figurative images featured far more widely than any other image type at all sections: 71% of the images used fell into this bracket. Gaze was directed mostly at teachers (31% of time time) or the screen (28%), with only 8% of the time spent looking at peers. Iconic and emblematic gestures were extremely infrequent and, in fact, entirely absent from the sampled introduction and explanation sections. Finally, in the mode of posture, the centre, centre-left and centre-right postures were held for 38%, 25% and 17% of the time across all presentations, respectively. How to interpret these similarities? In terms of the varying lexical densities of speech and writing, the results suggested that the slides anchored the speech of presenters by providing a context that was relatively pared-­down, factual and accurate. This confirms Jolivet’s assertion (2012) that speech in presentations functions primarily to elaborate on presentation slides. The extremely low gaze time directed to peers during the presentations is problematic, but was offset to a certain extent by the

50 

R. J. Gray

inclusive tenor generated by the widespread use of figurative images such as photographs (Jolivet, 2002; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). Finally, while the obvious preference for figurative images clearly demarcated the genre’s level of technicality in comparison to conference presentations (see Jurado, 2015), the fact that iconics and emblems appeared very rarely was equally indicative of the preesentation genre’s abstractness and formality next to more conversational spoken genres (Swales, 2004; Kibler et  al., 2014) where such gestures are used much more widely (Kendon, 2009).

 ariation in Multimodal Communication Between V Different Sections This part of the chapter progresses through the four main stages of the presentation, pausing occasionally to look at their features in more detail and starting with the introduction, which differed from other sections in several ways. The most lexically dense (0.65 type-token ratio) and accurate speech (1 lexical or grammatical error per 26 words) occurred during this section, possibly because it consisted of familiar steps such as greetings and previews, realisable in relatively simple language. There were fewer spoken stances compared to other parts of the presentation, reflecting the introduction’s rhetorical purposes of stating monologic facts about the speaker, the subject presented and its organization: these purposes required less stance-taking than those of the closing remarks or Q&A, for instance. However, although speech and writing demonstrated moderate involvement with the audience, there was much less use of image, positioning or gesture directed towards listeners at this stage. Only 40% of slides included figurative images such as photographs and cartoons, with students remaining behind the desk for longer (26% of the time) and clasping their hands in front of them more often (40%) than in other “monologic” sections. Burgoon and Le Poire (1999) identify such practices as displaying negative affect—an area which I subsequently investigated in the interviews. The explanation section introduced new demands on speakers’ language resources, evidenced by drops of 22% in average lexical density and

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

51

11% in speech rate at this section. For novice L2 presenters, the challenge of displaying adequate knowledge of their field may have impacted their spoken performance. Attempts to mitigate this challenge were visible in the sudden increase in the use of images, which appeared on nearly every slide in the explanation. The interpretive room afforded by these predominantly figurative images also helped to compensate for the generally monologic factual accounts and lack of spoken audience involvement. The descriptive statistics indicating an increase in the use of Appraisal resources are somewhat deceptive, since this resulted from students listing vocabulary used to judge human behaviour in several psychological trait theories, such as Serhat’s presentation on Sheldon. In one of Serhat’s slides, pictures of three celebrities who exemplified particular body types identified by Sheldon were displayed above lists of adjectives describing the corresponding type of personality. For instance, the Ectomorph type was illustrated with a photograph of the actor Johnny Depp, with the adjectives socially awkward, quiet, restrained, non-assertive and sensitive written underneath. It was common among the undergraduate presenters to include such technical or Latinate terms in their speech, without unpacking these. However, Serhat achieved uncommonly dialogic communicative effects through his use of culturally shared images and heteroglossic features, showing how monologic spoken descriptions could benefit from the use of figurative images and linguistic resources. Serhat acknowledged his audience via phrases such as let’s look at and as you know, used modals (such as tend to) in order to entertain alternatives, and attributed claims to other voices (according to his theory). Such relatively simple features of speech and image were able to transform the effectiveness of learners’ speech at this stage. (1) ::and let’s look at th::e personality traits that he linked with the that kind of body types, (2) the first one is the ectomorph, (3) according to his theory, the people who has ectomorph body type (4) they tend to ::erm become socially awkward, quiet, fragile, (5) restrained and non-assertive and sensitive/ (6) and my example is Johnny *Depp, (7) he is an actor as you know

52 

R. J. Gray

(8) but when the camera is shut down he become very socially awkward, quiet and fragile// (Serhat, presentation 2, Slide 5. Time: 0.44.8–1.06.7. Transcription conventions from Gumperz & Berenz, 1993)

Another interesting feature of the explanation was the way that patterns of gaze and gesture shifted in line with the purposes of the section. Emphasising the importance of displaying subject knowledge at this stage, a larger proportion of presenters’ gaze time (36%) was directed away from listeners and towards the streamlined content of the screen, accompanied by an increase in gestural deixis. These two features contributed to transferring some of the semiotic load off speech and onto the slide text, again underlining the challenge that displaying knowledge of a specialised academic area poses to the speaking resources of L2 undergraduates in EMI settings. Rather than leaving such learners to fret about the deficits in their spoken command of academic English, it is precisely these sorts of pragmatic combinations of modes that such learners should be made aware of and encouraged to use when communicating in their presentations. In the closing remarks, error rates (1:15) and fluency (115 wpm) attained their highest and lowest levels, respectively. This drop in performance may have reflected the difficulty students had with shifting between describing their topic, evaluating it and then concluding the “monologic” phase. Even highly successful students struggled with concluding their talks, indicating another area where teaching interventions might produce appreciable gains in performance. Of course, it may simply be that students began to relax and monitored their speech less intensively as their talks neared an end. Another notable feature of the closing remarks was the increased use of resources for Engagement, as space for heteroglossia expanded in line with the section’s varied rhetorical purposes. Students could engage with the audience by asking questions with inclusive pronouns such as “How can we overcome the social phobia?”, or bring different voices into the topic: “I said I wasn’t in the same point with Kohlberg”. It is argued later that the use of these resources helped to build identities of involvement with peers and greater credibility as subject specialists.

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

53

While the hybrid purposes of the closing remarks may have added to its complexity, this was not generally reflected in significant differences to patterns of actions in the nonverbal embodied modes, compared to the previous section. However, the average duration of deictic gestures dropped almost by half in comparison with the explanation, accompanied by a drastic fall in the percentage of slides which included images, to 44%. These results point to a shift away from slide-based semiosis to meaning-making that was based on speech, which struggled under the load. The Q&A section involved a shift towards a more obviously interactive tenor, one that required a demanding shift from planned to spontaneous speech. Despite this, spoken performances were strongest at this stage, with fluency highest of all, at 140 wpm on average. One explanation for this counter-intuitive finding may be the audience’s questions, which were both open-ended and often required speakers to display more everyday knowledge of their topics rather than demonstrate additional technical understandings. Examples of these questions included “What did you gain through all this study?” and “Do you agree with the conclusion?”. A second reason is linked to the observation that attention to slides was lowest during the Q&A for all but one of the speakers (Özlem). Just as presenters’ postures directly faced the audience for 57% of the time (comfortably the highest among the four sections), the amount of time they looked at the screen dropped to 10%, an equivalently low proportion. It therefore appeared that, undistracted by their slides, the speakers were able to fully attend to their interlocutors’ questions, which improved their spoken performance and levels of fluency, in particular. The slides displayed during the Q&A sections were usually reference lists. These had very limited relevance to the talk and could therefore be backgrounded. Replacing the speech-contextualizing functions of slides were metaphoric gestures, whose use rose dramatically to fill 27% of gesture time, a third more than any of the previous three sections. More concerning was the fact that 80% of the presenters’ gaze time was directed at the teacher—who actually asked a much smaller proportion of the questions than other students, suggesting that gaze, at least, was an underused resource for projecting involvement with peers in the audience. A last feature that distinguished the Q&A was simply that the location and

54 

R. J. Gray

movement of presenters varied much less as they generally remained still when addressed by the audience and rarely interacted with their slides.

 ontribution of Multimodal Modes to Realizing C Rhetorical Moves in the Presentations The focus of this chapter now shifts to examine the interaction of speech with other modes during the presentation. The processes involved were ubiquitous throughout the presentations, with a “speech-first” analysis indicating that nonverbal actions served to enhance, reduce or compensate for the effectiveness of spoken English in taking steps in the genre during the talks, or to substitute for speech when it was absent. Effectiveness, it is true, is a somewhat indeterminate concept, but can be judged by readers with a critical eye using the contextual information about the tasks, class levels and institutional expectations of students, etc. that were summarised in Chap. 1. Morell (2015) also uses the word when discussing conference presentations and regards its meaning as self-explanatory. What constitutes an effectively taken step in the genre is really a matter for situated interpretation; clearly, some of the examples below (see also Gray, 2021) would not be considered effective in the context of conference presentations, for instance. The following descriptions refer to the performative influences of other modes on the register effects achieved in speech.

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Speech Figure 3.2 illustrates how the efficacy of spoken steps in the genre could be boosted by presenters’ orchestration of other modes. In example (a), Burak’s introductory spoken phrase focused attention on the detail that he was about to supply about Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. At the same time, his gaze and posture shifted left, together with a forward step and open-palmed, deictic gesture towards the slide, where the main components of the theory were prominently displayed. Thus, Burak orchestrated nonverbal modes to bring the presentation topic (field) to

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

55

Fig. 3.2  Modes enhancing the effectiveness of speech. (a) Bilal, Explanation, Move 2b, Adding detail about the topic; (b) Serhat, Closing Remarks, Move 2b, Inviting questions or comments

prominence. In the second example, Serhat’s fluent and accurate speech realising the purpose of Move 2b was made more interpersonally effective by his centred, audience-facing posture and use of gaze to scan the audience, whose responses may also have been encouraged by his smiling expression.

Reducing the Effectiveness of Speech Figure 3.3 illustrates how the effectiveness of speech which successfully met steps in the genre could nevertheless be impaired by presenters’ use of other modes. In the example from Sinem’s introduction, the strong interpersonal force of her speech (“you can see actually”) was lowered by her use of gaze, gesture and location behind the desk, actions which all reduced her involvement with the audience. In the example from Hazal’s Q&A section, the presenter effectively reformulated the teacher’s initial question about her topic of the long-term effects of child abuse in order to seek clarification, meeting the purpose of Move 2a. However, Hazal’s

56 

R. J. Gray

Fig. 3.3  Actions reducing the effectiveness of speech. (a) Sinem, Introduction, Move 2b, Defining key topic terms; (b) Hazal, Q&A, Move 2b, Asking and responding to a question or comment; (c) Hazal, Q&A, Move 2b, Asking and responding to a question or comment

actions in (b) showed her attention was partly teacher-directed (centred posture, shifting gaze and spoken back-channelling) while her location, gaze and hand movements demonstrated equal dedication to shutting down her computer. Only when Hazal orchestrated all modes to augment the clarificatory function of her speech by standing still, looking at and centring her posture on the teacher could move 2a of the Q&A be accomplished successfully (“Ha!”). This process took some 50 seconds to finalise.

Compensating for Ineffective Speech Actions in additional modes played a vital role in ensuring moves from the genre were performed effectively when the efficacy of speech decreased. The examples illustrated in Fig. 3.4 clarify how this process worked. In the first, of these, Burak’s phrase “so yeah” was so vague that it could not be reliably tied to any step in the closing remarks. However, his actions in other modes which overlapped with the speech and continued after it included an audible hand-clap and hands clasped in a closed rest, a long backward step and a gaze shift to the screen. At this point, the slide was changed to display his references, meeting move 2c of this section. The

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

57

Fig. 3.4  Actions compensating for ineffective speech. (a) Burak, closing remarks, move 2c, Indicating references; (b) Sergen, closing remarks, move 1c, Making a recommendation

combination of other modes had compensated for the ineffectiveness of Burak’s speech. The second example differs from most others because only a single mode, that of gesture, was involved. During move 1c of his closing remarks (b), Sergen’s advised students that “as the fears and shyness decreases, confidence and positive feelings will decrease”. The final word of this common-sense assertion was clearly opposite to that intended, which the metaphoric movement of the hand upwards to signal the correct meaning (“increase”) confirmed, helping to repair the error.

Substituting for Missing Speech While actions in other modes could achieve entire steps in the absence of speech, this was rare and occurred mainly at the introduction or closing remarks rather than during the longer and more complex moves of the explanation and Q&A. One example is from Burak’s introduction to his group presentation, when his co-presenters’ names were not mentioned in speech but included on the title slide, which he foregrounded through shifting his posture and gaze left towards the board (see Fig. 3.5). The

58 

R. J. Gray

Fig. 3.5  Actions substituting for missing speech. (a) Burak, introduction, move 1b, Stating the names of speakers; (b) Sinem, introduction, move 2a, Stating the topic

combination of these embodied modes plus the slide text ensured that move 1b, Stating the name(s) of speaker(s) was met. In contrast, Sinem met move 2a, Stating the topic despite not mentioning it in speech or initially foregrounding the slide through bodily deixis. Instead, her use of design features such as contrast, capitalisation and font size increased the prominence of the heading sufficiently to achieve this step solely through the slide text.

3.5 Discussion The investigation into the classroom presentation genre confirmed that its sections could be distinguished not only on the basis of speech and its rhetorical purposes but also on the patterns of multimodal communication that simultaneously made a major contribution to meaning-making. Most clearly, the analysis showed that the Q&A section differed from the “monologic” phase of the presentations on the basis of metaphoric gesture, gaze patterns and centred posture as much as its dialogic speech, all of which contributed to producing a more “conversational” tenor. The analysis also demonstrated how nonverbal actions and slide design can provide crucial support to second-language presenters who may struggle to communicate through speech alone.

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

59

As Morell (2015) asserts, these additional modes should be taught systematically to students and treated as valid means of communicating during presentations; doing so may also reduce the anxiety that many L2 presenters feel when faced with this task. Indeed, the extent of presentation anxiety displayed by many speakers would probably elude a speech-­ only analysis but was abundantly clear when all modes were considered, confirming earlier research into the problem (e.g., (Kobayashi, 2016; Joughin, 2007). For some students, anxiety is a major factor in classroom presentations that pedagogic interventions might profitably address, and a possible approach to this is outlined in Chap. 8. The results presented in the previous section aligned with previous findings that gesture increases the interpersonal, evaluative or persuasive force of speech in presentations (Hood & Forey, 2005; Querol-Julian & Fortanet-Gomez, 2014; Jurado & Ruiz-Madrid, 2015). They also support the findings of multimodal discourse analysts that nonverbal modes can make interpersonal meanings in their own right as well as in conjunction with speech (Forey & Feng, 2016; Peng et al., 2017; Querol-­Julian & Fortanet-Gomez, 2012). The analysis also supports Lim’s finding (2019) from a SFL perspective that gesture makes meanings independently across the field and mode of extended oral discourse as well as its tenor. Nonverbal modes were deployed to take or contribute to steps in the absence of speech, but these instances were usually anchored in the slide text or images and tended to be brief. Finally, the four-part framework describing the effects of other modes on speech in the previous section may be more helpful than approaches that deal with nonverbal communication separately from speech. Integrated descriptions of communicative practices such as these are useful because they do not require learners to reassemble and apply disparate pieces of knowledge about presenting (cf the “study skills” approach) but make the combined effects of different modes more immediately visible. This description of the classroom presentation genre and aspects of its multimodal register in this chapter provides one layer of support for the descriptions of genre practices and identity production given in Chaps. 6, 7, and 8. The second layer is applied in the next two chapters, which use interview data to develop the description of student identity that was used to analyse the classroom presentations.

60 

R. J. Gray

References Bernad-Mechó, E. (2017). Metadiscourse and topic introductions in an academic lecture: A multimodal insight. Multimodal Communication, 6(1), 39–60. Bowles, H. (2012). Analyzing languages for specific purposes discourse. The Modern Language Journal, 96, 43–58. Burgoon, J. K. (1991). Relational message interpretations of touch, conversational distance, and posture. Journal of Nonverbal behavior, 15(4), 233–259. Burgoon, J. K., & Le Poire, B. A. (1999). Nonverbal cues and interpersonal judgments: Participant and observer perceptions of intimacy, dominance, composure, and formality. Communications Monographs, 66(2), 105–124. Eilam, B. (2012). Teaching, learning, and visual literacy: The dual role of visual representation. Cambridge University Press. ELAN, Version 5.3 (2018). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Language Archive. Available from https://archive.mpi.nl/tla/elan [25.05.2020]. Forey, G., & Feng, D. (2016). Interpersonal meaning and audience engagement in academic presentations: A multimodal discourse analysis perspective. In K. Hyland & P. Shaw (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of English for academic purposes (440–454). Oxford: Routledge. Gray, R. (2021). Multimodality in the classroom presentation genre: Findings from a study of Turkish psychology undergraduate talks. System, 99, 102522. Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. University of Pennsylvania Press. Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of pragmatics, 32(10), 1489–1522. Gumperz, J. J., & Berenz, N. (1993). Transcribing conversational exchanges. In J. Edwards & M. Lampert (Eds.), Talking data: Transcription and coding in discourse research 91–123. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis. Hood, S. (2011). Body language in face-toface teaching: A focus on textual and interpersonal meaning. Semiotic margins: Meaning in multimodalities, 31–52. Hood, S., & Forey, G. (2005). Introducing a conference paper: Getting interpersonal with your audience. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4(4), 291–306. Hu, G., & Liu, Y. (2018). Three minute thesis presentations as an academic genre: A cross-disciplinary study of genre moves. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 35, 16–30. Hudson, R. A. (1996). Sociolinguistics. Cambridge university press. Jolivet, E. (2002). Visual discourse in scientific conference papers: a genre-based study. English for Specific Purposes, 21, 19–40.

3  The Classroom Presentation Genre 

61

Jording, M., Hartz, A., Bente, G., Schulte-Rüther, M., & Vogeley, K. (2018). The “social gaze space”: A taxonomy for gaze-based communication in triadic interactions. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 226. Joughin, G. (2007). Student conceptions of oral presentations. Studies in Higher Education, 32(3), 323–336. Jurado, J. V. (2015). A multimodal approach to persuasion in conference presentations. In Multimodal Analysis in Academic Settings (pp. 118–140). Routledge. Jurado, J. V., & Ruiz-Madrid, M. N. (2015). A multimodal approach to product presentations. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 173, 252–258. Kendon, A. (1967). Some functions of gazedirection in social interaction. Acta Psychologica 26, 22–63. Kendon, A. (2009). Language’s matrix. Gesture, 9(3), 355. Kendrick, K. H., & Holler, J. (2017). Gaze direction signals response preference in conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 50(1), 12–32. Kibler, A. K., Salerno, A. S., & Palacios, N. (2014). “But Before I Go to My Next Step”: A Longitudinal Study of Adolescent English Language Learners’ Transitional Devices in Oral Presentations. TESOL Quarterly, 48(2), 222–251. Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge. Kobayashi, M. (2016). L2 academic discourse socialization through oral presentations: An undergraduate student’s learning trajectory in study abroad. Canadian Modern Language Review, 72(1), 95–121. Lim, F. V. (2009). Language, Gestures and Space in the Classroom of Dead Poets Society. In Y. Fang., & C. Wu (Eds.), Challenges to Systemic Functional Linguistics: Theory and Practice. Proceedings of the International Systemic Functional Congress 36, 165–172. Lim, V. F. (2019). Analysing the teachers’ use of gestures in the classroom: A Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis approach. Social Semiotics, 29(1), 83–111. Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The evaluation of language: Appraisal in English. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Martinec, R. (2004). Gestures that co-occur with speech as a systematic resource: the realization of experiential meanings in indexes. Social Semiotics, 14(2), 193–213. McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Morell, T. (2015). International conference paper presentations: A multimodal analysis to determine effectiveness. English for Specific Purposes, 37, 137–150. Norris, S. (2011). Identity in (Inter)action: Introducing Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter Mouton.

62 

R. J. Gray

Querol-Julián, M., & Fortanet-Gómez, I. (2012). Multimodal evaluation in academic discussion sessions: How do presenters act and react? English for Specific Purposes, 31(4), 271–283. Querol-Julián, M., & Fortanet-Gómez, I. (2014). Evaluation in discussion sessions of conference presentations: theoretical foundations for a multimodal analysis. Kalbotyra, 66, 77–98. Peng, J. E., Zhang, L., & Chen, Y. (2017). The mediation of multimodal affordances on willingness to communicate in the English as a foreign language classroom. Tesol Quarterly, 51(2), 302–331. Polo, F. J. F. (2018). Functions of “you” in conference presentations. English for Specific Purposes, 49, 14–25. Rendle-Short, J. (2006). The academic presentation: Situated talk in action. Ashgate. Rowley-Jolivet, E. (2012). Oralising text slides in scientific conference presentations: A multimodal corpus analysis. In Corpus-Informed research and learning in ESP (pp. 135–166). John Benjamins. Rowley-Jolivet, E., & Carter-Thomas, S. (2005). Genre awareness and rhetorical appropriacy: Manipulation of information structure by NS and NNS scientists in the international conference setting. English for Specific purposes, 24(1), 41–64. Ruiz-Madrid, M. N., & Fortanet-Gómez, I. (2016). A model for a multimodal analysis of asides in conference plenary lectures. E-Aesla, 2, 157–168. Shalom, C. (1993). Established and evolving spoken research process genres: Plenary lecture and poster session discussions at academic conferences. English for specific purposes, 12(1), 37–50. Schlegoff, E. (1998). Body torque. Social research, 65(3). Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge [England], Cambridge University Press. Swales, J. M. (2004). Research genres: Explorations and applications. Cambridge University Press. Tardy, C. M. (2005). Expressions of disciplinarity and individuality in a multimodal genre. Computers and Composition, 22(3),319–336. White, P. R. (2015). Appraisal theory. The international encyclopedia of language and social interaction, pp.1–7. Zareva, A. (2020). Speech Accommodation in Student Presentations. Palgrave Macmillan.

4 A Framework for Analysing Student Identity

4.1 Student Identity: Background In Goffman’s dramaturgical take on social behaviour, role was used flexibly to refer to social or network categories (described by Norris as identity elements) as well as interactional ones such as onlooker, eavesdropper, principal, etc. (Goffman, 1974, 1981). From a CA perspective, Zimmerman (1998) later linked these social, network and interactional categories to transportable, situational and discoursal identities, respectively. Role is defined by Goffman as “a specialised capacity or function” (1974, p. 129) whose broad meaning is shared in culturally recognised, commonsense ways. On the other hand, personal identity is the sense of oneself as a unified, temporally-extended entity able to perform many of these capacities or functions. When fulfilling any role, individuals always play a part or character, i.e., produce a “staged version” of themselves in relation to it. This distinction between role, identity and character would thus view students as “acting the part of presenter”. Goffman’s distinction between role and identity is useful, and this book follows him in differentiating between the two and not treating the student role as a single, self-­ explanatory function. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. J. Gray, Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97933-1_4

63

64 

R. J. Gray

Davies and Harré (1990) critiqued Goffman’s approach to role as a transcendentalist, abstract notion which their theory of positioning aimed to replace with subject positions in discourse. The “triangle” which underlies acts of positioning includes the repertoire of acts admissible within the local context of interaction, the rights and duties which are implied by these acts, and the culturally-recognised storylines, or discourses by which expectations for the interaction are managed and understandings displayed (Harré & Moghaddam, 2003, Kayı-Aydar, 2019). For instance, classroom presentations could combine acts such as introducing, changing slides and so on, and in acting thus, speakers claim the right to hold the floor as well as acknowledging their duties to perform the task required by the institution, to inform their peers  about their topic, etc. These actions acquire meaning through the discursive storylines which display each participant’s understanding of the events going on in the presentation, and their rights and duties in respect of it. Three orders of positioning were identified by Harré and Van Langenhove (1999). The 1st order consists of initial, unchallenged and usually tacit positions taken up in relation to self and other(s), which would characterise classroom presentations in their monologic phase. 2nd order positionings occur when these initial acts are contested and/or negotiated by interlocutors and would feature more in the Question & Answer / Discussion sections of performances of the genre. Finally, in the 3rd order, speakers refer to positionings which occurred in a different context entirely, repositioning themselves or others in the process. This type would occur in presenter anecdotes and is particularly common in narrative interviews (Kayı-Aydar, 2019). Thus, although positioning theory was initially developed for narrative interviews and analysis, the theory is evidently applicable to the study of identity during classroom presentations. It is important to recognise that discursively-constituted norms, duties and rights must pre-exist acts of positioning (however uniquely combined at a particular moment) in some sense as much as roles do, so the immanentist critique in the 1990 paper appears somewhat disingenuous from this perspective. Indeed, Goffman’s fruitful description (1983) of categoric (i.e., role-based) and personal forms of identity remains useful. If treated as related sets of non-unitary, emergent and normative aspects realised in

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

65

discourse (rather than predetermined functional categories), role can be combined with positioning theory to describe students’ words and actions, and the identities that result from them. The next step would be to determine which aspects of the role students are relating to in the positions they take up, and earlier research efforts are highly indicative in that regard. Language identities have been explored with differing emphases by Block (2009) and Rampton (1990, 1995, 2006). Block investigated how macro-social categories such as class, generation and gender intersected to produce the identities of second-language learners, finding that class was particularly significant to his EFL participants, although this and other categories were rarely represented in English by the class community he studied (Block, 2009). Rampton considered the multilingual identities of adolescents in terms of language crossing, through which participants negotiated their ethnic identity, peer-group membership and language identities (Rampton, 1995). However, Rampton’s 1990 framework affords a more fruitful and compact means of conceptualising EMI and EFL learners’ language identities in less diverse settings. Rampton (1990) regarded language identity as configured from expertise, affiliation and heritage. Expertise refers to the person’s linguistic proficiency, which varies according to the field of activity, while heritage and affiliation denote different forms of identification with social groups using the language: heritage with intragroup identification, and affiliation with intergroup identification (Rampton, 1990). Importantly, these elements of language identity are not stable but continuously negotiated in interaction. They enable analysis to move away from a deficit model to one that is much more comprehensive and acknowledges multiple factors impacting an individual’s language practices. I used Rampton’s framework to describe self-and other- ascriptions in the interviews and observations, where expertise could be more  objectively determined by measuring the complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) of speakers in relation to local expectations (Skehan, 2009). Other research into student identity considers how individuals relate to their peers, institutions and other communities. “Posh talk” at university was researched by Sian Preece in her book-length account of gender, class and ethnicity positions enacted by minority undergraduate students at “Millennium University” in London (Preece, 2009). “Posh Talk”

66 

R. J. Gray

highlights the ways that students’ wider social identities impact their relationship to their peers, discipline and institution of study. Drawing on Engstrom and Tinto (2008) Preece distinguished between disciplinary and institutional identification in a university setting. The former refers to adherence to the norms and values of academic practices, whereas the latter focuses on social integration, which “is related to successful encounters with fellow students and staff that help to develop a sense of belonging in, and identification with, the institution” (Preece, 2009, p.  4). Importantly, Preece claimed that beyond this opposition, adolescent and young adult peer identities sometimes conflicted with those of the academic community and the institutional authority of the teacher (Preece, 2009). Institutional and subject-mediated alignments were also distinguished by Rampton in his work on classroom genres (2006). He explicitly connected these genres to the role expectations of students, noting a separation of the students’ commitment to school knowledge from their limited alignment to the teacher’s authority during classes. Such role positionings are embedded in larger cultural movements, particularly the “conversationalisation” of public discourse (Rampton, 2006). Bonny Norton’s approach, like those of Rampton and Preece, avoided collapsing student identity into an “individual vs discipline” or “personal vs institutional” binary, instead considering how learners’ lives in multiple communities of practice outside the classroom explained their levels of achievement within it (Norton, 2000). By theorising differences in language learning trajectories in terms of learners’ capacity to invest different forms of social capital (in Bourdieu’s terms) across multiple communities of practice, Norton produced a critical social perspective on language learning rather than one relying on individual differences (Norton, 2013). Feminist and emancipatory in its approach, Norton’s work emphasises the relative importance of wider sociocultural conditions above individual cognitive capacities. While my approach separates the identities arising from  such conditions from the core student role, their influence is considerable, as the next chapter indicates. Academic Literacies and other emancipatory approaches maintain that students’ identification with a domain of knowledge can be cultivated by designing settings that bring alternative epistemologies to bear on existing disciplinary practices (Carlone, 2017; English, 2011; Lillis & Scott,

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

67

2007). Similarly, Van Horne and Bell (2017) noted the importance of students identifying—whether as producer, consumer or critic—with the subject they are studying. Nonetheless, disciplines are characterised by established ways of knowing, and students will be identified as more or less knowledgeable of the subject and therefore able to claim high epistemic status through the stances they take during classroom interaction, including presentations (Heritage, 2012). When the discipline of psychology itself is complex and multi-faceted enough to have faced its own ongoing “identity crisis” since its inception, the development of epistemic identities among psychology undergraduates is likely to be somewhat challenging (Caltabiano et  al., 2019). Nonetheless, the ability to claim credible knowledge requires students to demonstrate mastery of “an increasingly articulated, complex and intricate semantic structure of meanings” (Maton, 2014, p. 37), which can be realised in modes other than speech and writing. Overall, the research strongly indicates that students derive their situated identities in relation to the languages of study, their peers, their discipline and their institutions of study, as well as the personal and transportable identities (Zimmerman, 1998) they bring along to the educational setting. It is striking how influential the concept of communities of practice (Wenger, 1999) has been in theorising these different aspects of identity. However, as discussed in Chap. 3, “community” has connotations of boundedness, cooperation and familiarity between members which may not actually exist. That is to say, the notion of community reifies people whose lives temporarily hang together in shared arrays of social practices: Communities of practice are, in fact, communities of practitioners constantly positioning themselves within the ongoing practice…it is practice itself which performs community and not the other way around. (Nicolini, 2012, p. 94)

So, while acknowledging the broader developmental and pedagogic perspectives afforded by the notion of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991), the approach in this book  focussed on the

68 

R. J. Gray

meanings afforded by such “constant positioning” and how these built presenters’ identities as students during the interviews and presentations. Two or three interviews lasting 25–80  minutes each were held with each participant, using a pre-prepared topic guide. The first aim was to establish how the participants positioned themselves in relation to areas that had  been identified as potentially constitutive of student identity. The second was to understand specific moments of the observed presentations from the participants’ perspectives by playing back the videos with them. The interviews were transcribed in full using conventional orthography, reflecting the precedents in Harré (2012) and Kayı-Aydar (2019), as well as my interest in the products of the interviews rather than the processes by which they were negotiated. The data was thematically coded along the lines suggested by Braun and Clarke (2006) whose method explicitly acknowledges the fact that researchers approach data with well-formed theoretical conceptions of the phenomenon under investigation, as well as proceeding inductively through the empirical data. The broad initial categories were redefined, added to and subsumed into new themes in the course of what was a decidedly nonlinear coding process. I then wrote cross-sectional summaries of each theme for each student and then read across this data to identify the main features. The resulting data is presented in the remaining part of this chapter and the next.

4.2 Student Identity: A Framework Figure 4.1 shows the major aspects of student identity that emerged from the analysis of the interview data. Identities were produced as the students positioned themselves around the central functions of their roles as students. These abstracted core aspects of the role consisted of the language of instruction, the institution, peers at the university and the discipline of study. Positioning around these aspects formed a densely connected nexus at the centre of participants’ identities as students. The core aspects were also linked to other contextual peripheral aspects of the role, configuring each participant’s unique identity as a student.

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

69

Language

Discipline

Core identity

Institution

Peer

Contextual identity

(general/network/personal)

Fig. 4.1  A framework for student identity

Following Rampton (1990), language identity is discussed in terms of expertise, affiliation and heritage. Epistemic identity refers both to identification with the subject (discipline) studied and the extent to which the knowledge displayed of this is credible. Institutional identity describes allegiance, compliance with and resistance to institutional practices and their carriers, including teaching staff. Peer identity denotes varying levels of involvement and solidarity with other students. The interdependence of each central aspect of this framework is depicted by the four overlapping circles at the centre of Fig. 4.1. The overlaps and dotted lines indicate the porosity and interrelatedness of each aspect with the others and their connectedness to the non-defining, contextual aspects in the largest circle of the diagram. The continuous, dynamic process of connecting, disconnecting and realigning different aspects of the role-related self is fundamental to the process of identity production and development. The non-defining aspects such as daughter/son, gamer, woman, ethnic Turk, young person, wearer of glasses, person with a cold, etc., were highly diverse

70 

R. J. Gray

and differed in their significance to situated enactments of the student role. Their key shared feature, however, is that they are external to that role and do not define its functions, even when important to the related identities that are produced. For instance, a student might enact the identity of Netflix subscriber by participating in a range of situated practices such as  binge-watching series, discussing programmes face-to-face, contributing to online forums, etc. Some of these practices might well overlap with and influence how her identity as a student is enacted. However, the core, shared aspects— constantly reproduced in practices—of studying a subject via an institution alongside others and in a particular language would continue to define the student role  irrespective of the Netflix subscriber identity. Initially, I used the word peripheral to refer to the  non-defining  or contextual aspects, but the more neutral terms are also deployed, particularly  when the interview data demonstrated how much the students’ broader identities influenced  the meaning and enactment  of the core aspects for some individuals. Yet close observation of  student actions through the lens of Norris’s foreground-­background continuum of awareness (see Norris, 2011 and Chaps. 5 and 6 here) strongly indicated that the non-defining or contextual aspects of role-based identity produced during the presentation genre were usually backgrounded by participants and thus genuinely were peripheral during tasks. To represent the complexity of relational identity clearly, the aspects are presented here as paired clusters of positions around the core role aspects which emerged in the interviews. I found that the students’ interview responses positioned them in terms of more than one aspect at the same time. For instance, someone who criticised peers for not taking their degree seriously was both relating to (distancing from) classmates and implying his or her own commitment to the discipline of psychology. Single responses usually contained at least two such acts of positioning and often more, but it was not possible to represent these thematically across multiple participants. To address this issue and capture something of the complexity of individual student identities, the next chapter includes holistic accounts of how four participants produced their identities, based on the interview data.

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

71

4.3 Definining (Core) Aspects of Student Identity Language and Epistemic Identity The discussion here focusses on English identities and is expanded in Chaps. 6, 7, and 8 to include the participants’ identity positionings in relation to other languages (Turkish and, in one case, Kurdish). In relating language to their disciplines, Engin, Hazal and Müge ascribed value to English in terms of enabling them to access the disciplinary knowledge contained in psychology articles. Other students mentioned the importance of English to further study, either abroad or in Turkey. In making such ascriptions (often glossed as instrumental language learning motivation), the participants expressed a weak affiliation with English but a strong commitment to learning their discipline, an attitude reflecting instrumental motivation—see Ushioda, 2013) (Fig. 4.2). One interesting exception was Burak, who prioritised language learning above the development of disciplinary knowledge: In my opinion, knowing a language is much more important than the university education (…) because in my opinion (it) give(s) you another vision, and in my opinion, when you learn another language, you have a personality too…. (Burak, I1)

Burak’s response exemplified his strong affiliation with English (see Chap. 6), and also positioned him within wider humanist discourses of education that emphasise creativity, choice and autonomy (Veugelers, 2011). The second example was Sinem’s comment about learning to use statistical software. This provided another, contrasting exception to the instrumental positioning of language learning in relation to students’ epistemic identity:

72 

R. J. Gray

Language-epistemic cluster Epistemic credibility linked to language expertise. Affiliation with English co-constructs epistemic identification and credibility.

Peer-institutional cluster ster Allegiance or resistancee to institution linked to different involvements in peer relationships.

Language-institutional cluster Earlier institutional experiences positioned learners as allegiant (mostly) or resistant to Yeşil. Generally positive appraisals of prep school project committed English learner positioning.

Core identity positions Outer identity

(general/network/personal) (g ((ge geeneral/network/persona eneral/network/personall) l)

Epistemic-peer cluster Combines displays of involvement with peers with varying claims or orientations to epistemic status.

Language-peer cluster Combines various displays of peer involvement with claims or orientations to different levels of English expertise.

EEpistemic-institutional cluster Combines displays of alleigance/resistance to university with those of epistemic identification or credibility. Pragmatic stances on both aspects taken by some students.

Fig. 4.2  Summary of core student identity positions, from interviews

SPSS (is) really hard for me (…) and (even if it’s in) English, it doesn’t matter if it’s… (it) could be in Turkish. It’s really hard for me anyway (laughs). (Sinem, I2, p. 2)

Sinem’s comment indicated that academic English expertise, while a necessary part of claiming credible disciplinary knowledge, may not be sufficient to manage the specialised conceptual systems encountered by undergraduates—such as that of statistics—whose separate languages with their own symbols, rules and endless possibilities for expression may themselves need to translated to be comprehensible. Unlike embedded approaches to language support, the EMI model of language provision is

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

73

unlikely to prepare students adequately to deal with such specialised languages.

Language and Institutional Identity The language-institutional positionings taken up during interviews were those in which participants’ evaluations of the university also positioned them in terms of expertise or affiliation in English. Participants’ appraisals of their earlier schools contributed to these positions in the language learning-institutional storylines and are also summarised here. Many participants judged that their primary and (to a lesser extent) secondary schooling had failed to build their English resources, particularly in the area of speaking. Whereas Sinem reported arriving at university knowing no English, Müge said she had not learned the language before Prep School despite having received instruction at secondary level. More critical still were Engin, who began learning at Prep School because he “did not get a good education” (Engin, I1) and particularly Bilal, who framed his low expertise in English as resulting from a systemic, national issue: “In government primary schools (…) English is not sufficient” (Bilal, I1). The inadequacy of primary and secondary schooling in English can also be inferred from Burak being “pushed” by his parents to attend language schools, which were also ineffective: “I didn’t get anything about them” (Burak I1). Unfortunately, the anecdotal evidence from these participants aligns closely with the damning finding from earlier large-scale research that the further Turkish students progress through the state school system, the worse they consider their English to be (British Council/TEPAV, 2013). Nevertheless, there were two contrasting cases. The first was that of Özlem, who construed her lack of learning English during high school not in terms of the institution failing to meet its duties but in terms of her own lack of interest in the language at that point. The second was Hazal’s account, which ascribed her entire development as an English learner to a single teacher who was “obsessed with teaching us” at her primary school; however (and in keeping with the survey finding above),

74 

R. J. Gray

she did not believe her English had improved since taking classes with this instructor: H: Since I was an elementary student, my English is the same I think. R: Oh really. H: Yeah. R: So did you (improve)? H: No developing. (Hazal, I1, p. 1, italics added for emphasis) Turning to the interface between the students’ self-images as language learners and their experience of English classes at Yeşil University, the picture is again complex. In general, the prep school was positively evaluated, with the few negative appraisals centring on its inattention to speaking skills. Comments ranged from “good but not 100% sufficient because we don’t have enough speaking course” (Özlem, I1, p.  1) to “OK for writing but speaking is a little bit difficult” (Müge, I1, p. 1). Burak was the only participant to combine a resistant institutional stance and assert his language expertise by negatively appraising the prep school, although it must be mentioned that he chose to attend despite having already passed the faculty entrance exams. In one year you can learn a lot of things and we didn’t learn anything (…). OK -I can understand English, but academic English is much more different and much more hard, and we didn’t learn anything about this in the Prep School. (Burak, I1, p. 2)

Burak had addressed this difficulty by working and studying abroad for three months, an approach also taken by Serhat and Engin, who both attributed their gains in English expertise (and in Serhat’s case a clear affiliation with the language) to their time spent abroad. The frequently positive effects of work and study programmes abroad on language learning have been widely researched (see the detailed review in Isabelli-García et al., 2018), so these findings were not unexpected. All students positioned themselves as highly allegiant to the class teacher, Nüket. As expected, their loyalty to her as a member of the institution was produced in terms of her contribution to their English expertise. For instance, Özlem stated:

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

75

She is not focus(sing) on (…) our grades. She just wanted to be, erm, flexible and cool (…). She just wanted you to (…) learn. (Özlem, I1, p. 5)

This attribution of a humanistic flexibility contrasts with Engin’s identification of specific areas such as psychology-related lexis which Nüket had helped to improve, a three-way positioning. On the other hand, Hazal constructed herself as an expert and committed English learner via a resistant institutional stance, claiming that “sometimes er some exercises make me kind of bored” (Hazal I1, p. 7). Sinem foregrounded her lack of expertise in pronunciation, attributing patience to Nüket as she helped her to enunciate the word schizophrenia. Overall, these comments supported my observations that the students were obviously comfortable with their instructor and focussed on learning.

Language and Peer Identity The participants’ judgements of peers also configured their own commitment and competence as learners of English. For instance, Özlem’s hedged critique of students unable to manage classes in English succinctly invoked the linguistic compartmentalism of the EMI discourse discussed in Chap. 1, while also highlighting her own commitment to the language for academic purposes: They have to speak in Turkish. Sometimes it’s not good because we come to study in English and if we don’t understand English, please switch to (the) Turkish department. (Özlem, I1)

Conversely, Hazal’s account of her switch from Turkish medium instruction to the EMI psychology programme identified her as an inexpert English speaker, just like her peers. I noticed that in our school English students were not speaking really good English too, but I think that I could. I thought that I could do it too. This is why I passed to English psychology. (Hazal, I1)

These students’ constructions of their language abilities in relation to peers resonated with my own observations of them as highly motivated

76 

R. J. Gray

and expert speakers in the class context. Equally, however, these interview comments distanced them from peers, with Özlem’s comment also aligning with official institutional policy.

Epistemic and Institutional Identity Nüket attributed her students’ frequent discussion of their professional and academic plans to a particularly positive departmental culture: They have already set their goals for the future—from the second year, they talk of their master’s programmes and which field of psychology they’re focussing on or trying to be involved in the future. (Nüket, Interview, p. 10)

My observations and experience with students across the faculties led me to concur with the teacher’s view. However, during interviews, participants displayed their credibility and commitment to psychology as an academic discipline via their often-critical judgements of the university. Nonetheless, two students in particular derived credibility as knowers of their subjects from the official recognition gained from Yeşil. The first of these was Özlem, who had won a trip overseas by being the department’s highest-achieving student and displayed a positive view when discussing the institution in general terms—but did not refrain from targeting more specific deficiencies. The second was Serhat, whose claims to epistemic credibility were underwritten by frequent reference to institutional recognition in the form of his GPA scores: My dream is doing my Master in the UCLA (…) the clinical psychology. That’s why I (am) working on my GPA right now to graduate. I (am) planning to have over 3.70, or something. (Serhat, I1)

Serhat’s identification with the discipline of psychology and the pattern of institutional allegiance he constructed over several interviews and presentations contrasted with specific positions taken by Özlem and Hazal, both of who implied their commitment to and knowledge of psychology in several criticisms of the institution, which they perceived as failing in its main duty to provide an effective education:

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

77

Six courses (are) I think, too much and not necessary (…). The courses are not difficult: you just write paper(s) and make presentation(s), so when you go the class you don’t need to work. Also (this is true) for the final exams or the mid-terms. (Özlem, I3)

Like Özlem, Hazal identified lecturers at the institution who did encourage a greater depth of learning. Nonetheless, Hazal’s foregrounding of the superficiality of psychology learning at Yeşil both distanced her from the institution and implicitly positioned her as a frustrated but credible knower of her subject: You see some slides, then there’s just information—not thinking. You know, just information: brief information, brief definitions, definition, definition, definition after definition; then you summarise it. You keep it in your mind, then after the exam you forget it. (Hazal, I1, p. 4)

Similar positions were claimed by Sinem, who criticised the inadequacy of laboratory facilities and Müge, who said that the university’s remote location had prevented her from attending conferences. Looking at the context of these comments, the ongoing marketization of Turkish HE has, among its other effects, incentivised institutions to offer students faster routes though their degrees—and many learners have seized these opportunities. Participants who took more courses—sometimes as many as eight per semester—tended to emphasise the need to maintain their GPA scores and get through their degrees, rather than focus on the quality or depth of their learning. Marketization undeniably impacted some participants’ claims to identification with and knowledge of their academic subjects, with Engin, Serhat and Müge all mentioning the difficulty of maintaining their grades on such a demanding schedule.

Epistemic and Peer Identity A cluster of epistemic-peer positionings combined participants’ identification with or capacity to learn psychology with their judgments of other students. The cluster positioned respondents in terms of involvement, power and support for their peers. The majority of participants claimed

78 

R. J. Gray

to have good relationships with peers in general while emphasising their own comparatively greater knowledge and/or diligence. For example, Hazal and Burak’s forcefully negative judgements juxtaposed the ignorance of peers with their own subject knowledge: When I will graduate there will be many students which (never) read anything in our school. Like, no Freud, no Adler, no Jung, no anything. (Hazal, I1) They don’t know what’s university exactly. They just came here… they just came here for the get a course, try to get a higher, you know, notes (grades) and graduate with the much better GPA. (Burak, I1, p. 7)

Elsewhere, participants positioned themselves as knowledgeable, yet involved with classmates. For instance, Serhat confidently positioned himself as supported by other students who encouraged him to maintain his high GPA score: The students, like, I’m telling them I didn’t study yet and they’re like, “You can do it. You can do it.” (Serhat, I3, p. 16)

There were fewer examples of students positioning themselves as less knowledgeable in some aspect of their discipline via their accounts of interactions with friends. Among them was Sinem, one of whose classmates had helped her to find an internship programme in London, and Bilal: B: My friend help me helped me and I scored better than she. Then this semester (…) in Statistics 2, I want(ed) … (I said) that “I want your help”. She said “No”. R: Oh really? [laughs] B: Yeah. I think that if I scored lower, (…) she would help me. (Bilal, I1, p. 15) Bilal’s account here was complex and contradictory, positioning him as involved with and less knowledgeable but smarter than one of his peers. The wider discursive position, which he repeated elsewhere in the

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

79

interviews, implied instrumental motivation and a grade-making approach in which students’ identification with their subject of study is shallower, emphasising the passing of exams as the main application of knowledge. The role of the Turkish educational system in producing students who value grade-making above in-depth learning should not be underestimated, since its persistent, overwhelming emphasis on summative rather than formative assessment at all levels (OECD, 2020) makes this discourse very difficult to resist.

Institutional and Peer Identity As the focus on individual students in Chap. 4 indicates, positionings in the interviews were multiple, simultaneous and frequently contradictory. It was particularly difficult to identify institutional-peer positionings, since the participants tended to speak about other students either in terms of their knowledge or language, or in personal or general senses with no reference to Yeşil’s “official” practices or authorities. However, it was possible to make several inferences about how some students constructed relations between the institution and peers. For some students, friendships produced a halo effect on the institution, a point perfectly expressed by Burak when discussing Nüket’s class: “I have got some friends. They are my really close friends. That’s why I like my class, too.” (Burak, I1). Bilal contrasted the quality of his “maybe (one) hundred per cent healthy relationship(s)” formed in the Prep School with his difficulty making friends on the degree programme when students were separated into different classes (Bilal, I1). Both of these comments implied positive judgements of the university and produced the speakers as closely involved with their peers. Conversely, Müge positioned the Prep School as an unpleasant experience involving close and constant proximity to other students and considered most of her friendships to have been formed with her departmental classmates. These examples of peer-institutional positionings were relatively uncommon in the interviews, but highlighted the role of institutional practices in providing the conditions in which peer relationships are able to flourish, promoting a sense of belonging (Rhee & Johnson, 2019) to

80 

R. J. Gray

the university. Such practices are diverse but could include the provision of extra-curricular activities, clubs and societies, as well as assigning study groups to strengthen students’ peer networks as far as possible (Brown, 2019).

4.4 Non-defining (Contextual) Aspects of Student Identity Non-defining, contextual or peripheral aspects of student identity each intersected in multiple ways with one another and with the core areas of language, subject knowledge, institution and peers. They were usually backgrounded in the presentational discourse of participants and are also peripheral to normative definitions of the student role, but provided a crucial layer of meaning to the identities produced in the interviews. The non-defining aspects are divided into general, network and personal forms of identity (adapting the framework of Norris, 2011). Personal identity incorporates positions relating to embodied emotional states and physical conditions. Network identity derives from relationships with family, friends, employment and affinity groups. Finally, general identity refers to positioning around large-scale, macro-sociological categories such as gender, class, ethnicity and nationality.

Personal Identity In interviews, participants often mentioned emotional states and bodily conditions, which were classed as either temporary, impacting their production of identity in presentations, or permanent. The permanent states/ conditions included health issues such as anxiety or ADHD, and physical impairments such as myopia, and were deeply embedded in the stories that the participants told about themselves (see Chap. 4). The temporary conditions were ailments identified by students as affecting their performances in presentations, including stress, colds, hangovers and insomnia; the temporary emotional states, such as confidence or boredom, were often tied into these factors and with other core aspects of the student

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

81

role at particular points in the presentations. The body is the locus of discursive practice  and both permanent and temporary bodily issues invariably factored into participants’ meaning-making during the presentations as well, although their influence was rarely overt.

Network Identity Network identity denotes the positionings taken up around links to family (including partners), friends outside the university, and work or affinity groups unrelated to psychology. These interacted with the primary role positionings in a range of different ways and to varying extents, and are also discussed in Chap. 5 in relation to individual students. During the interviews, only Özlem and Müge identified family relations as directly affecting their presentations. However, all participants incorporated their families/partners into their interview responses at different points and at varying levels of salience. The remaining categories were less prevalent in the interviews and extremely rare in the presentations. Few participants had worked or were in employment. Participants’ affinities refer to interests and hobbies practised beyond the classroom, which included teaching children, theatre and public speaking, football and reading.

General Identity General identity (Fig. 4.3) refers to identity positionings taken up around broader, macro-categorical formations such as national, global, ethnic and gender categories. These were usually not foregrounded by participants, either in the observations or the interviews, and intersected overtly with other identity positionings only occasionally during the interviews. Therefore, a description of the basic contents of this category is provided here. The first round of interviews was conducted at a time of considerable political upheaval centring on a national election, so I asked students about how they saw the future of Turkey at this point in order to understand their national identities better. Their responses positioned them as extremely concerned, politically engaged, almost entirely opposed to the

82 

R. J. Gray

General identity Gender

Network identity Family/friends Employment

Ethnicity

Affinity groups

Nationality Class

Personal identity Emotional states and bodily conditions

Fig. 4.3  Non-defining or contextual aspects of student identity

Ottoman Islamist view of the country, and in the majority of cases, keen to leave Turkey either temporarily or permanently. But for some individuals, this desire was accompanied by intense displays of loyalty for their homeland. For instance, Sinem commented: I want to work in Turkey and I want to live in Türkiye because it’s my country. I live in here; I born in here, but after 10 years, I don’t think so. I don’t think I can find the job in here and I don’t want (…) for example my child (to) grown up in Turkey, like this chaos. (Sinem, I1, p. 12)

While globalisation has meant that travelling overseas—despite recent Covid restrictions—is now viewed normatively as an expectation and even a right for many students, the participants’ experience of overseas work and study, as well as their future ambitions, appeared driven as much by the “push” away from dominant national discourses as much as the “pull” of the global. Although global and national identities were both enacted in the presentations and interviews, national framings of English, knowledge, institutions and peers usually invoked negative judgements. Conversely, students’ accounts of their experiences abroad aligned them with liberal humanist and neoliberal discourses framing

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

83

globalisation as offering the opportunity to learn, make money, meet people, be free, and so on, as the accounts of Burak and Serhat in Chap. 4 exemplify. All but one student were ethnically Turkish, and ethnicity was therefore not foregrounded in most of the interviews. However, for Özlem in particular and also Müge, ethnicity had significantly impacted their identities as students. Unsurprisingly in a highly patriarchal society, gender was a more prominent concern for female than male participants, with Hazal and Sinem’s self-identification as feminists informing their choice of presentation  topic (domestic violence and gender discrimination, respectively).

4.5 Core and Contextual Identity This section considers some of the ways that students’ personal, network and general identities intersected with the core aspects to position them in particular ways during the interviews (see Fig. 4.4)

Contextual influences on Language identity While the majority of language identity positionings were taken up around Yeşil or other institutions, peers or the subject of study, there were several points at which participants discussed learning processes or attitudes beyond these areas, and in doing so, positioned themselves in terms of their English proficiency, commitment to learning the language and affiliation with its users. One way this cluster of positions was achieved was through referring to learning beyond the classroom. Özlem’s agentive and highly successful approach to learning English was exemplified by her description of how she watched and imitated presenters on YouTube; in another example, Sinem stated she watched TV series to improve her pronunciation. The participants’ affinities for TV or social media infused but did not define their identities and students, positioning them as committed language learners.

84 

R. J. Gray

Language and contextual identity Combines expertise and affiliation with English with senses of family rights and duties (e.g., practising with family members) morally desirable actions (e.g., teaching children) and as affinity group members (e.g., film lovers). Rarely, languagenational/global positions. Peer and contextual identity Closer peer involvement projected through mention of positively framed free-time activities (affinities).

Corecontextual identity

Epistemic and contextual identity

Combines epistemic identifications with sense of familial duty. Idealistic motivations: a means to help self, others, family. Pragmatic: psychology as a means to income, transferability, future study abroad. Global identity + commitment to subject.

Institutional and contextual identity Combines displays of allegiance/resistance to institution with displays of family or relationship commitment, affinities, and global identity.

Fig. 4.4  Core-contextual identity positionings

Another nexus of positioning connected participants’ networks to their English learning. Mentioning family or partners enabled learners to construct themselves discursively both as good language learners and as individuals located within moral discourses of the rights, duties and experiences entailed by family ties. For instance, Burak remarked that he and his girlfriend “are talking together in English all the time” (Burak, I3). Müge’s remark about her husband’s help with performing her second presentation enabled her to claim that her English speech had improved: “Because I studied in my home with my husband, er, I was more good

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

85

to… to talking” (Müge, I2). Finally, several participants mentioned they had taught English to local and Syrian migrant children in their free time, which both positioned them as expert speakers and pointed to their sense of social responsibility as global citizens. The interviews rarely connected students’ language identities to their 1st-order positionings within macro-level social categories (general identity). Of these, the intersection between national and language identity was most prevalent. Burak’s discussion of his experience as a volunteer English teacher to disadvantaged students both foregrounded his expertise in the language and simultaneously contributed to the global and critical national positionings which he produced during the interviews. Referring to English language education, he commented: I think in my country people need this kind of education more than other countries. Not (…) for everybody but mostly more than European ones. That’s why I want to be part of that kind of things. (Burak, I3)

In another example, Müge’s affiliation with English also positioned her as a “global citizen”, happy and confident in communicating with a speaker from the far side of the world: One day I meet somebody which name is Robin from the Australia. (…) I feel so happy because he try to know me and ask about my life, and I also do it for him. (It showed) I can (talk to) somebody not only from my country, also other countries. It has benefits for me (in) all aspects of my life. (Müge, I2)

Such overt affiliation with English in terms of its speakers was relatively rare overall, with the majority of speakers usually talking about the language as an instrument to realise their subject-related goals. Here, however, Müge’s 1st-order subject position lay at the discursive juncture of instrumental and integrative motivation, the latter of which was defined by Gardner (2000)  as demonstrating open interest in a member of another language group. This was interesting, since Müge’s uptake of discursive practices in the interviews and presentations positioned her as closer to the “engaged provincialist” category—in Rankin et al.’s (2014)

86 

R. J. Gray

terms—than any other participant, and theoretically less outward-­ looking. This story also points to the importance of learners’ experiences beyond the classroom in shaping their language identities.

Contextual Influences on Epistemic Identity The participants’ accounts of their motivations for studying or practising psychology were generally unrelated to language, the institution of study or their peers, but connected instead to personal and network aspects of their identities as students. In accounting for their choice to study the subject, students simultaneously positioned themselves as variably committed to their subject and more broadly as moral actors in some sense. Many displayed strong identification with the discipline by emphasising that psychology was a personal calling, thereby positioning themselves morally within wider discourses of vocationalism which construct psychology as a helping profession. Sinem chose the subject due to her interest in helping people; Engin remarked that “I want to know the people’s problem and I want to solve them” (Engin, I1, p. 3). Meanwhile, Müge framed her decision to study psychology as a means to resolve family issues and to gain greater self-understanding. On the other hand, idealistically-framed purposes were sometimes combined with more pragmatic positions. In her responses, Özlem foregrounded her strategic choice between psychology and law which was settled by her wish to study in Istanbul and her awareness that psychology was more transferable to other countries, giving her the option of living abroad in the future, although she also wanted to understand the causes of people’s behaviour and to try and help them. Burak, whose comments during the interviews indicated less commitment to studying psychology specifically, nonetheless highlighted its potential for interdisciplinarity and transferability: I need to be learn a science which is er… can count in the whole of the world so that’s why I choose the psychology (…). I didn’t have any exact interest in psychology, but I’ve got interest in the multidisciplinary things and er science: that’s why (I chose) psychology. (Burak, I1)

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

87

Thus, students’ accounts of their choices to study the subject both calibrated their level of commitment to psychology and established subjectivities within wider discourses of moral choice and self-development in a globalised society. This interface between the epistemic and global aspects of identity was particularly evident in participants’ descriptions of their future plans for studying psychology. Most wished to pursue courses of study abroad, implicitly self-positioning as globally open citizens via expressions of their commitment to studying their subjects, although more overt expressions of students aligning themselves in this way (and explicitly producing resistant national-epistemic identities) were rare.

Contextual Influences on Institutional Identity While participants’ institutional positionings during interviews usually related to language, psychology, their classmates and their presentations, they were also linked to aspects of their network identities. For Engin and Hazal, Yeşil University was selected partly for reasons of convenience, as their families lived locally. For some non-local residents, however, the influence of family on choosing Yeşil was equally clear. During her interviews, Müge frequently positioned herself within the powerful Turkish “family first” discourse mentioned in Chap. 1, which also shaped her student identity more generally. Her account of her decision to choose the university both typified her lack of institutional allegiance (it was “the last one” she chose), and emphasised the importance she attached to familial duty and support: Er, it’s about my er score. I put the Yeşil University the last one (…). I have not enough point after the high school for the government university, so (my) father is support to me: “If you want it, I can help you about that.” And they (my parents) are good for my psychology. (Müge, I2)

Burak’s account of his decision to study at Yeşil achieved the same effect, both distancing him from the institution and positioning himself as a dutiful son within a family that valued fairness:

88 

R. J. Gray

It doesn’t my choice to come here, (…) but my family was like, “OK, you can go to Galatasaray, but…” er you know, “But the… you don’t want to study sociology or philosophy, so you want to study psychology, so you can go to Yeşil. It’s also a good one.” And I just listened (to) them, and I came here. (Burak, I1)

Students also produced institutional allegiances of various strengths by linking the location of Yeşil University to other parts of their personal lives. In mentioning the University’s remoteness from Istanbul and the natural environment of its campus, students categorized themselves in morally desirable terms as nature-lovers, friends, partners, theatre-goers, etc. Sinem’s enjoyment of peace and quiet aligned her with the institution in terms of its location, while Müge and Özlem’s personal circumstances were constructed in opposition to the remote Yeşil campus. For these latter students, the university’s location was a point of institutional resistance which simultaneously foregrounded their broader social identities as partners, friends and family members, since these relationships had been impacted by the long distances required to travel to and from the university. Müge remarked that, while she liked the environment of the campus, its location was far from ideal: R: It’s so far away isn’t it M: Aşırı derece (really really far) hate yani (it’s like) enough [laughs] I am kurtuluyorum nihayet (I’m free at last). (Müge, I3, p. 17) Comments which linked institutional to general identity were unusual. Sinem’s interview produced several examples, such as this comment about the insufficient numbers of international students at the university: Erasmus students (…) have different identity different cultures so I can make friendship with them, and they increase my er academic motivation. But not in here erm yes because in here not too many Erasmus students so I can’t meet them. (Sinem, I3, p. 20)

Unlike other students, who framed the opportunity to interact with international students at Yeşil in the instrumental terms of developing

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

89

their English expertise, Sinem’s comment displayed her interest in the identity and culture of other countries’ citizens, also connecting this to her “academic motivation” and a critical institutional positioning. Her comment thus interwove an affiliative global identity with the core aspects of her identity as a student.

Contextual Influences on Peer Identity Positions which linked the  peer and non-defining aspects of students’ identities were relatively uncommon in the interviews and were usually mentioned in relation to institutional practices. In terms of personal identity, references to off-campus hobbies such as football (Engin), theatre (Bilal) and teaching local schoolchildren (Özlem) implied relationships with peers engaged in the same clubs and societies, while also constructing the speaker in positive terms as athletic, creative, socially responsible, etc. Conversely, participants’ personal health conditions (Burak and Müge) and ethnicity (Özlem) could contribute to more distant peer positionings, as explained in the detailed individual accounts in Chap. 4. General identity positionings which appraised peers overtly via self-/other ascriptions of nationality, gender, class, etc. were vanishingly rare in the interviews of most participants, with Burak and Özlem the only students to do so in terms of nationality and ethnicity, respectively. While this results from the interview schedule to some extent, the invisibility of these categories also reflects the homogeneity of the Yeşil student body when the data was gathered, although this has since changed quite dramatically.

4.6 Discussion This chapter has considered how, during interviews, the participants’ identities as learners were relationally manifested in terms of various core and contextual aspects of the student role, as abstracted from the experiences they described. Participants’ comments pointed towards multiple, often simultaneous and contradictory conceptions of the rights,

90 

R. J. Gray

responsibilities and experiences involved in English, psychology, the institution of Yeşil University and their teachers, peers and friends, as well as the ways these were influenced by the personal, network and general facets of their identities. In order to make this overlapping complexity more manageable and meaningful, the aspects were presented as sets of paired identity positions. While acknowledging the difficulty of generalising across the vast and diverse factor patterns involved in this or any study of identity, several themes are worth recounting. Defining or core aspects of student identity refer to how the individual is positioned in terms of the language(s) used, the subject(s) and institution of study, and student peers. Non-defining or contextual aspects of student identity derive from areas of students’ lives which may deeply permeate positionings around  the role, but are ultimately  external to it. First of all, and almost without exception, a credible epistemic identity was experienced as closely linked to L2 expertise by participants, with English affiliation mediated by the subject of study. This confirmed Soruç and Griffiths’s (2018) findings that Turkish psychology students who were more proficient language users displayed more commitment to the discipline and projected disciplinary credibility through the epistemic strategies they mentioned. It also corroborated the results of Kırkgöz (2009), whose earlier study connected the “positive-­oriented perceptions” of Turkish undergraduates towards English with disciplinary identification expressed via their keenness to access up-to-­ date subject resources. Her participants reported that EMI limited their subject knowledge, and by extension, their credibility as disciplinary members. In contrast, most of my participants framed EMI study—whatever its difficulties—as paving the way to opportunities for further study abroad, thereby enacting global and (reading through the data), class identities. Yeşil’s English language programmes were, generally speaking, a source of positive institutional identity, with only a few criticisms of the prep school overlapping with those highlighted in the British Council report (2015). Second, participants’ accounts of choosing their degree subject were split between moral, altruistic reasons and more pragmatic ones. This split was maintained when students discussed their experiences of their degree programme. Some students positioned themselves as credible

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

91

disciplinary knowers via their often trenchant judgements of psychology teaching within the institution. This result confirmed that of Huang (2018), whose Taiwanese HE participants had high expectations of their EMI classes and were similarly disparaging of their teachers’ tendency to oversimplify content. It is important to emphasise that the Yeşil students’ critique did not centre on the language skills of lecturers—unlike, for instance, those in Konakahara et al. (2018)’s research— but on their perceived failure to foster deeper learning of psychology. Other participants took a more instrumental position on their studies by referencing institutional requirements for their GPA scores. Many participants demonstrated lower levels of allegiance to Yeşil via their discussion of aspects of their personal and network identities. Lastly, the university was aligned to as a site where strong relationships with fellow students were forged, and participants claimed to maintain good peer relationships in general. However, when comparing their approaches to language and subject knowledge with those of the mass of their peers, the involvement and solidarity projected was uneven at best, with several students distancing themselves considerably from peers in these areas. This is important, since language proficiency and epistemic credibility are undeniably a source of student othering that impacts both individuals’ sense of institutional belonging and engagement with/ achievement in their subjects, as multiple studies attest (e.g., Duff, 2002; Brown, 2019). This theme is further explored in the book’s concluding chapter. Having described how participants produced their role-related identities in terms of core and contextual aspects in the interviews, the next chapter investigates how students identified with the classroom presentation genre before looking at the cases of four individual students from a holistic perspective.

References Block, D. (2009). Second language identities. Bloomsbury Publishing. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.

92 

R. J. Gray

British Council. (2015). The state of English in Higher Education in Turkey. [Online]. Retrieved September 27, 2020, from https://www.britishcouncil. org.tr/sites/default/files/he_baseline_study_book_web_-­_son.pdf British Council/TEPAV. (2013). Turkey national needs assessment of state-school English language teaching. Report presented to Ministry of National Education. Retrieved September 27, 2020, from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/language-­improvement-­englishteachers Brown, M. (2019). The push and pull of social gravity: How peer relationships form around an undergraduate science lecture. The Review of Higher Education, 43(2), 603–632. Caltabiano, M. L., Adam, R. J., & Denham, R. (2019). Epistemic identity and undergraduate students’ understandings of psychology. International Journal of Education, 4(30), 299–314. Carlone, H. B. (2017). Disciplinary identity as analytic construct and design goal: Making learning sciences matter. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 26(3), 525–531. Davies, B., & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20(1), 43–63. Duff, P. A. (2002). The discursive co-construction of knowledge, identity, and difference: An ethnography of communication in the high school mainstream. Applied Linguistics, 23(3), 289–322. English, F. (2011). Student writing and genre: Reconfiguring academic knowledge. A&C Black. Engstrom, C., & Tinto, V. (2008). Access without support is not opportunity. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 40(1), 46–50. Gardner, R. C. (2000). Correlation, causation, motivation, and second language acquisition. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 41(1), 10. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press. Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. University of Pennsylvania Press. Harré, R. (2012). Positioning theory: Moral dimensions of social-cultural psychology. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 191–206). Oxford University Press. Harré, R. & Moghaddam, F. (Eds.). (2003). The self and others: Positioning individuals and groups in personal, political, and cultural contexts. Greenwood Publishing Group. Harré, R., & Van Langenhove, L. (1999). Positioning theory. In The discursive turn in social psychology (pp. 129–136). Oxford University Press.

4  A Framework for Analysing Student Identity 

93

Heritage, J. (2012). The epistemic engine: Sequence organization and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 30–52. Huang, Y.-P. (2018). Learner resistance to English-medium instruction practices: A qualitative case study. Teaching in Higher Education, 23(4), 435–449. Isabelli-García, C., Bown, J., Plews, J.  L., & Dewey, D.  P. (2018). Language learning and study abroad. Language Teaching, 51(4), 439–484. Kayı-Aydar, H. (2019). Positioning theory in applied linguistics: Research design and applications. Palgrave Macmillan. Kırkgöz, Y. (2009). Students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of foreign language instruction in an English-medium university in Turkey. Teaching in Higher Education, 14(1), 81–93. Konakahara, M., Murata, K., & Iino, M. (2018). ‘English’-medium instruction in a Japanese university: ‘Exploring students’ and lectures’ voices from an ELF perspective 1. In English-Medium Instruction from an English as a Lingua Franca Perspective (pp. 157–175). Routledge. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. Lillis, T., & Scott, M. (2007). Defining academic literacies research: Issues of epistemology, ideology and strategy. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4(1), 5–32. Maton, K. (2014). A TALL order? Legitimation Code Theory for academic language and learning. Journal of academic language and learning, 8(3), A34–A48. Nicolini, D. (2012). Practice theory, work, and organization: An introduction. Oxford University Press. Norris, S. (2011). Identity in (inter)action: Introducing multimodal (inter) action analysis (Vol. 4). Walter de Gruyter. Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Pearson. Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning. In Identity and Language Learning. Multilingual matters. OECD. (2020). Education Policy Outlook: Turkey. Available from: https://www. oecd.org/education/policy-outlook/country-profile-Turkey-2020.pdf Preece, S. (2009). Posh talk: Language and identity in higher education. Palgrave Macmillan. Rampton, B. (1990). Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance. ELT Journal, 44(2), 97–101. Rampton, B. (1995). Language crossing and the problematisation of ethnicity and socialisation. Pragmatics, 5(4), 485–513.

94 

R. J. Gray

Rampton, B. (2006). Language in late modernity: Interaction in an urban school (Vol. 22). Cambridge University Press. Rankin, B., Ergin, M., & Gökşen, F. (2014). A cultural map of Turkey. Cultural Sociology, 8(2), 159–179. Rhee, J., & Johnson, C. S. (2019). Progress on longitudinal study of the impact of growth mindset and belonging interventions in a freshman engineering class. 2019 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting. Skehan, P. (2009). Modelling second language performance: Integrating complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexis. Applied Linguistics, 30(4), 510–532. Soruç, A., & Griffiths, C. (2018). English as a medium of instruction: Students’ strategies. ELT Journal, 72(1), 38–48. Ushioda, E. (Ed.). (2013). International perspectives on motivation: Language learning and professional challenges. Springer. Van Horne, K., & Bell, P. (2017). Youth disciplinary identification during participation in contemporary project-based science investigations in school. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 26(3), 437–476. Veugelers, W. (Ed.). (2011). Education and humanism: Linking autonomy and humanity. Springer Science & Business Media. Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. Zimmerman, D. (1998). Identity, context and interaction. In C.  Antaki & S. Widdicombe (Eds.), Identities in talk (pp. 87–106). Sage.

5 Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections

5.1 Introduction Whereas identity in academic writing has been extensively researched (e.g., Ivanič, 1998; English, 2011; Hyland & Guinda, 2012; Hyland, 2015), the same cannot be said of presentations. This might raise eyebrows, given the importance of presenting to identity formation highlighted in Language Socialisation (LS) studies such as those of Morita (2000) and Zappa-Hollman (2007). Nevertheless, themes aligned with the core/peripheral identity framework can be extrapolated from identity research focussing on presentations. Perhaps the foundational account of identity in academic oral discourse is Goffman’s chapter “The Lecture” (Goffman, 1981). Goffman theorises that three different selves which he calls the animator, author and principal are produced during the lecture via different footings or stances, with the principal self more evident in the introduction, closing comments and question & answer sections of the presentation (ibid.). Goffman identified the presenter’s need to warrant their claims to institutionally-mandated authority by marshalling semantic and prosodic command of their topic. As principals, presenters may align with

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. J. Gray, Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97933-1_5

95

96 

R. J. Gray

their audiences through parenthetical remarks such as asides, apologies or digressions. Goffman also noted the importance of “high style” in language for projecting commitment to the situation and knowledge of the subject (ibid.). Overall, Goffman’s discussion indicates how extended academic discourse might produce the identities of speakers through different forms of speech in particular. However, he focusses on the single mode of speech and on the discourse roles of expert users of the lecture genre in the chapter, and his description does not disentangle the different functions of presenters’ language in relation to identity production. Zareva (2013) used corpus data to show how student identities were projected through the co-text of one aspect of the verbal language of academic presentations, that of the first-person singular pronoun. One important finding was that student presentations were dominated by written genre conventions, and another, that individual identity construction was subject to considerable disciplinary and institutional constraints, with personal and social identity roles only “glimpsed” during the presentations (Zareva, 2013). While Zareva’s theoretical assumptions about identity and the methodology deployed to research it diverge from my own, the second of these findings was consistently confirmed when I reviewed the presentation videos. Two longitudinal studies that take an LS perspective on classroom presentations are particularly relevant because they situate the talks in a detailed ethnographic context and identify distinct aspects of their participants’ identities as students. In the first, Morita highlighted the multiple ways that presenting contributed to the identity development of multilingual TESL graduates in a Canadian university (Morita, 2000). For instance, epistemic stances projected during presentations enabled students to position themselves as more or less expert than peers in terms of the disciplinary area. Presenters also deployed a range of semiotic resources to establish strong audience relations, and voiced identities developed through their participation in other communities of practice. Finally, they strategically mitigated the effects of their cultural “otherness” in various ways when preparing and performing their presentations (Morita, 2000).

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

97

Zappa-Hollman’s (2007) case studies of discourse socialisation through academic presentations focussed on the presentations of six EFL learners, again in Canada. She showed how, as linguistic, cultural and disciplinary novices, these students strategically eased the process of accommodating to the daunting task of presenting in English. Their strategies included choosing familiar and interesting topics, rehearsing, slowing their speech rate, engaging audiences by adapting behaviours observed in their professors’ lectures and choosing to be first to present. Such practices can be viewed as orienting student identities towards disciplinary and institutional conventions, as well as towards peers. However, while Zappa-­ Hollman describes some features of presentations in different disciplines and discusses their effects on her participants’ identities, no discourse-­ analytical data are provided to show exactly how these identities were produced during the talks themselves. This criticism can also be levelled at Morita’s earlier study and points to a gap which the current research aims to fill. Zareva combined Communication Accommodation Theory (e.g., Giles, 2016) with an analysis of 50 Humanities and Social Sciences postgraduate presentations to describe key lexical and collocational features of the spoken register of this genre and their interpersonal functions (Zareva, 2020). Presentational speech was found to be a hybrid of spoken and written language features, with its higher lexical density realised through the use of academic vocabulary and low-frequency, technical lexis more typical of writing. Significant to the area of identity were her findings that presenters aligned with audiences in two ways: via the “unmediated” repetition of high-frequency, everyday vocabulary and via the “mediated” use of repeated, technical, discipline-specific vocabulary. The frequent use of collocations also enabled presenters to accommodate their audiences’ communicative needs (Zareva, 2020). This research showed that peer solidarity was achieved directly by indexing what were aspects of their shared generational membership as well as more selective in-group status based on the membership of disciplines. Similar indicators were interpreted as aspects of peer identity in the study described in this book. The solitary paper connecting multimodality, identity and genre with presentations was Tardy’s examination of identities produced within the PowerPoint slides of four multilingual learners (Tardy, 2005). This paper

98 

R. J. Gray

demonstrated how the verbal and visual design of slides expressed the disciplinary alignments and individuality of four graduate student presenters. Aspects such as IMRD organisation, discipline-specific terms, visuals and templates projected disciplinary identity, while individual stance was expressed via a range of written and image-based design choices. The influence of disciplinary genre conventions in constraining and enabling identity production was also highlighted (Tardy, 2005). The research confirmed the importance of the aspects of disciplinary and personal identity. However, it did not cover performances of presentations and raises the question of whether framing presenters’ identities in binary, “individual vs discipline” terms is sufficiently  nuanced to capture all aspects of their manifestation.

5.2 Identity Talk About Classroom Presentations Figure 5.1 summarises how students produced their identities when discussing presentations. The following subsections describe these in detail, relating them to relevant literature and wider discourses.

Language Identity in Talk About Presentations One cluster of positions in the interviews linked classroom presentations to the development of participants’ English expertise. For instance, Sinem positioned herself as committed to the normative duty of learning the language of study by describing how presentations had helped to improve her pronunciation. Burak’s experience of presenting at high school had helped him to learn new vocabulary, emphasising how much of his development as an English learner had occurred before starting at Yeşil. Demonstrating the broad overlap between language and epistemic identity, some students reflected on the relationship between English medium presentations and the ability to convey knowledge. Bilal commented:

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

99

INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS

Compliance via presenting for and to the teacher. Presenters as apprentice teachers (identification). Compliance with exemplars, task instructions and T interventions. Constraints of classroom environment.

PERİPHERAL ASPECTS Negative & postive emotions during presentations. National/Feminist positionings.

EPISTEMIC ASPECT S Topic choice based on commitment, pragmatism, influencing credibility & identification. Presentations motivate development of topic knowledge.

PEER ASPECTS Topic choice shows peer solidarity. Semiosis in presentations designed to engage peers. Judgment of peer audiences, lack of involvement. Learning from others. Co-presentations enact friend aspect. Preparation & (rarely) audiences enact friendship.

LANGUAGE ASPECTS Participation develops English expertise. English limits complexity. Harder to explain concepts.

Fig. 5.1  Student identity related to academic presentations (interview data)

Nüket Hoca is Turkish and (the) class is Turkish (so) people don’t expect more details (from) English presentations: presentations are more basic. (Bilal, I2)

Engin noted that the task of explaining was made more difficult if the concepts being explained were unfamiliar. However, this was not framed as a language issue, but rather one that derived solely from the discipline (“it’s hard to talk in psychology”, rather than in English):

100 

R. J. Gray

If I know the concept very well, I can give good presentation—but if I’m not familiar with the concept, it’s hard to explain. It’s hard to talk in psychology. (Engin, I1, p. 1)

Both Bilal and Engin’s remarks were indicative of the consequences of the ESP/EMI framing of English as a separate instrument for delivering content, rather than an integral aspect of disciplinary study. The options for students are then to situate oneself comfortably within the widespread acceptance that EMI “naturally” compromises the complexity of content or to struggle to articulate this content in the second language to the best of one’s ability. The EMI approach shaped students’ epistemic identities, militating against disciplinary and linguistic identification in some cases while stimulating greater commitment in others.

Epistemic Identity in Talk About Presentations Several presenters’ accounts of presentation topics helped to configure the epistemic aspect of their identities. By claiming that she prepared for presentations by reading relevant articles, rather than rehearsing her performances, Hazal foregrounded her commitment to psychology as an academic discipline. On the other hand, Özlem, Burak and Engin’s topic for their second presentation was determined by its familiarity. Similarly, Bilal’s more direct pragmatism put his right to choose the topic before the duty to expand his disciplinary knowledge. He accounted for two of his three topic choices in terms of their simplicity rather than their intrinsic interest: R: So why did you choose Freudian theory? B: Because firstly I think…I think about…I think that how…which one is easy to tell and present. (Bilal, I3) With these statements, Bilal and other students positioned within what Moore (2004) referred to as a discourse of pragmatism. Moore was writing about trainee and experienced teachers, but his substantive point—that pragmatism is a resource for coping with the often-intense

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

101

pressure of educational settings—applies here. Faced with a demanding range of duties around learning English, knowing their subject, pleasing their teachers, friends and families and so on, all students retreated at some point to various “comfort zones” covering one or more aspects of their identities. Repeated often enough, these actions configured pragmatic student selves around the core and outer aspects of the role. On the other hand, participants also connected the preparation and performance of presentations to their knowledge in positive terms. Özlem’s comment linked her confidence to her knowledgeability: I knew the whole of the content of the presentation and I was quite confident because for the whole semester I worked on this. I was very happy. (Özlem, I3, p. 30)

Relatedly, Müge was able to underline her commitment to the subject by emphasising the learning that took place when preparing for her presentations, positioning her firmly within a commonsense moral discourse of hard work as the main determinant of success. Referring to the second presentation, she remarked: I try to study more and I try to understand what is mainly topic saying and er… it was a quite slower, but I understand my topic. It was OK. (Müge, I2, p. 9)

The difference between the two students’ descriptions of the outcomes of this hard work (Özlem’s “I was very happy” versus Müge’s “It was OK”) corresponded broadly with their enactments of knowledge during the presentations. More fundamentally, both comments indicated the potential usefulness of presentations as a site for epistemic development, resonating with the consensus reached by several studies of L1 and L2 presenters (e.g., Sander et  al., 2002; Zappa-Hollman, 2007; Joughin, 2007)—although as Ai et al. (2018) point out, it may be challenging to align content to the different expectations of specialists (other students) versus educated laypersons (ESP teachers) in the audience.

102 

R. J. Gray

Institutional Identity in Talk About Presentations Participants’ understandings of their formal classroom talks often positioned them within a “willing apprentice” discourse, a distinctive facet of the wider culture’s reverence for formal education discussed by Ergin et  al. (2019) in which conformity with the teacher’s expectations is expected and highly valued. This duty was given a pragmatic twist by some students. For instance, both Bilal and Müge aligned closely with the teacher’s authority to judge their performances when explaining why the attention they expressed in bodily modes such as gaze and posture was directed towards her during their presentations. Bilal, in particular, positioned himself as a pragmatic presenter, who designed his performances around appealing to his teacher’s need for evidence of preparation in the form of planned humour and note-cards, with the aim of scoring a higher grade. Beyond this, some participants positioned themselves explicitly as apprentice teachers, observing their lecturers and applying ways of moving and speaking during presentations with a view to their future aims. Both Sinem and Hazal explained their actions in their first presentations in these terms. Sinem wrote on the board to explain the “infinity cycle” concept because she wanted to “feel like a teacher” during the presentation. For Hazal, the action of pacing across the dais contributed to her self-positioning as an apprentice academic: R: One of the things I noticed was you walked up and down quite a lot. Why did you do that? H: Er I want to be, you know, teachers, (…) they are not depending on the computer right? But when I walk away from the computer I feel uncomfortable so I went back to the computer. (Hazal, I2, p. 15) Interestingly, Hazal’s institutional/apprentice positioning contrasted with the peer alignment that Engin expressed when talking about broadly the same “pacing” movement as Hazal. The interviews demonstrated that students were keen to conform to normative guidelines for each presentation task. These institutionally-aligned positions were assumed when students mentioned their use of exemplars provided by the teacher and

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

103

expressed their understandings of the teacher’s expectations for presenting, as well as awareness of her rules and grading criteria. For instance, Hazal’s description of the generic organisation of classroom presentations strongly resembled the teacher’s guidelines. Other participants’ descriptions of introductions and conclusions also indicated their adherence to these guidelines, as well as their general understandings of the genre. Students’ accounts of how they responded to the rules during performances produced different forms of institutional positioning. For example, Engin’s description of the experience of being warned by the teacher during his 3rd presentation could have been framed more negatively than it was. Instead, his comment exemplified his non-judgemental stance towards Nüket and the institution more broadly: I know it’s around this time because many times I practise and (the) teacher said it’s around 10 minutes 11 minutes, and (the) teacher said “Don’t pass 15 minutes!”, so when she said this I try to finish. (Engin, I3)

In contrast, Müge experienced some teachers’ rules as coercive and explained how they impacted her emotional states during the presentations: If there are some serious rules or clear rules…not clear but er katı (strict) difficult rules, I have more stress. (Müge, I3)

Müge’s comment also exemplifies the way she consistently foregrounded her anxiety during the interviews (see the holistic account of Müge’s student identity below). Finally, several students criticised the material layout of the classroom as impacting their presenting styles. Özlem remarked that her movement around the dais was constrained by her aversion to the possibility of falling off the raised platform while presenting: When we (are) in front of the board, there is a step in front of us and it’s very bad for me because I want to move. (Özlem, I3, p. 26)

Burak also commented on how the room design restricted his bodily movements during presentations, mentioning the narrowness of the dais,

104 

R. J. Gray

the risk of the screen being obscured by pacing presenters and the absence of remote slide-changing technology, which resulted in him easily losing concentration. These were among the nexus of positions he took up as a “critical outsider” to Yeşil University during the interviews. On the other hand, Bilal contrasted the design of the classroom with the university’s lecture theatres, which facilitated audience engagement through eye contact much more effectively, a more balanced position on  the material setting of Yeşil.

Peer Identity in Talk About Presentations A lot of interview data relating to the design and performance of the talks referred to audiences in general, rather than peers in particular. However, one issue obvious during the observations and explored in the interviews was the relative lack of involvement shown between peer audiences and presenters, expressed in Özlem’s comment, which resonated with my observations: “It’s a truth that my friends didn’t listen (to) me mostly and we don’t listen (to) them” (Özlem, I2) Accounts of this behaviour generated a diverse cluster of peer positions. Some students emphasised the responsibility of audiences. Burak positioned himself as peer-oriented and therefore disappointed or even depressed by the audience’s neglect of him as a presenter: I need to see their eyes. When I see someone playing with their phone, it can make me be…you know, decrease my mood. (Burak, I1)

Conversely, Sinem’s account constructed greater social distance between her and her peers by framing the audience’s failure to listen both as contravening social norms and personally insulting: When I am (in a) social environment… everybody wants (others) to listen to them, and of course (the) same things (apply) to me. I present (to) them, and they didn’t take me serious(ly) and it feels like, really bad. (Sinem, I1, p. 9)

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

105

An additional issue was the failure of audiences to respond to their questions at the end of presentations. Özlem’s view of this was particularly trenchant, producing a detached and critical peer positioning: After I finish the presentation, I will say that I say that “I’m ready for your question”, but everybody looks (at) me like that. [Makes face] (Özlem, I1, p. 10)

On the other hand, for several participants, the disengagement from peers in presentations was framed as the responsibility of presenters, rather than classmates. For instance, Burak’s critical judgement retained some solidarity with “my friends” who simply read slides verbatim, despite the consequences of this approach: I can see my friends which is just put a words (or) whole paragraphs on one slide. It is boring: no-one will read it; everyone just don’t listen. (Burak, I1, p. 7)

Meanwhile, Hazal framed the word-for-word reading of slides as an issue with the presentation, rather than the ability or knowledge of presenters. She positioned herself as non-judgmental (“it’s their choice”) yet mature compared to her peers. “It makes the presentation kind of childish (…) it’s their choice, but I don’t give a vote to them, actually” (Hazal, I2, p. 16). This language exemplifies the less-involved peer positionings that Hazal frequently produced during the interviews. More broadly, the mention of “choice” and “votes” it aligned her with the “Western liberalist” discourse of individual rights, freedoms and equality identified by Hintz (2016). Five of the participants had given group presentations, and their descriptions of these relationships produced a particular subset of peer positioning, that of friendship. Özlem, Burak and Engin prepared and presented their first two presentations as a group, and their friendship was obvious from the observations (see Chap. 6) as well in the statements they made about each other. Engin’s comment displayed solidarity with his friends via the repeated “we”, whereas Özlem combined this with a stronger sense of her emotional involvement with her co-presenters:

106 

R. J. Gray

With Özlem and Burak, we’re talking about how can we do it just this, and we kind of evaluate each other: “If we do this, it could be better.” (Engin, I2) We are (a) very good team, so when we select the topic it’s not difficult for us, because we are easy-going people and we are always smiling. That’s funny for me. (Özlem, I3)

Peers could help with the stress of performance. Bilal remarked how relaxed he felt while presenting with one participant, while Burak used bodily actions to provide and elicit support from his peers, touching his friends to reassure them and making eye contact with someone in the audience to give himself additional confidence. Serhat’s framing of peer relations in the context of presentations was more one-way: Actually, my friends didn’t help me about the presentation. Mostly I’m helping them like to be more confident and ‘if you’re gonna get excited a lot just look at my eyes’—that kind of things. (Serhat, I3)

Peripheral Identity in Talk About Presentations Peripheral identity consists of personal, network and general aspects of identity that may influence positionings around the core aspects but do not themselves define the student role.  Participants’ reconstructions of their mental states were common in the interviews. Only one student, Müge, consistently mentioned negative emotions  during the  presentations, validating the teacher’s assertion that most students could manage the affective challenges of public speaking. Other presenters’ representations of their mental states varied according to several factors. One was the stage of the presentation (for instance, Serhat described himself as  “nervous” at the Introduction stage of his 3rd presentation, but as “confident” later on). Students also described their emotions as intricately connected to temporary physical states. Sinem’s exuberant first presentation contrasted markedly with the low-key performance  that stemmed from tiredness during her 3rd talk. Bilal was hungover, frustrated and bored during his 3rd effort, and Hazal stated that her performance in her first presentation had been impacted by an injury she had earlier sustained to her leg.

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

107

Other aspects of non-defining identity as it pertained to presentations were much less prevalent in the interviews. For instance, only Özlem and Müge mentioned their families in connection to the presentations (see next section). Similarly, while different aspects of general identity were enacted at various points during the presentations themselves (see examples in Chap. 6) there were few overt instances of this during the related parts of the interviews. Overlapping with two participants’ epistemic identities were broader aspects related to their choice of topics. Referring to her decision to focus on the psychological effects of violence for her first and third presentations, Hazal stated: Actually it’s normal (…) in Turkey I think everyone sees violence and I exposured violence too in a way so I wonder how it affects the childs and their future. (Student participant, I1)

Hazal’s account of her topic choice positioned her as a moral actor personally engaged with a major social and national issue, thereby bringing in the outer aspects of her identity as a student to the conversation about presenting. Sinem’s topic choice for her 3rd presentation was based on feminist principles, and therefore brought her gender into play: “I am strong feminist so (laughs) all my topics include feminism” (Sinem, I1, p. 2).

5.3 Intersecting Identities in Student Narratives While this chapter and the previous listed typical positionings in pairs for the sake of analytical clarity, multiple, simultaneous types of positions occurred frequently as participants spoke. To examine how the repeated patterning of positions in discourses produced more durable  identities and to represent the participants themselves as more than simply carriers of discursive practices, the next section uses the framework of core and non-defining aspects of student identity to examine individuals’ identities in greater depth.

108 

R. J. Gray

Özlem A highly successful student, Özlem displayed strong agency when recounting the difficulties she had faced. By marshalling a range of intrapersonal and interpersonal resources, she claimed expertise and affiliation with English, commitment and credibility in relation to her subject, and solidarity with her peers. Özlem’s general identity as ethnically Kurdish differentiated her from all other participants, and its significance reverberated through the core positionings she took up during our conversations. A Kurdish L1 speaker, Özlem aligned the three languages she spoke with different aspects of her identity. Kurdish was associated with the positive emotional support of her family and her heritage. Turkish, which she began to learn at the age of eight, was linked strongly at this point to her academic identity, while English was connected to challenge, flexibility and enjoyment. Her affiliations with these languages were therefore quite distinct and despite her obvious expertise in English, she frequently identified areas in which she could improve, perhaps because, having studied and mastered one additional language, she was better able to discern the gaps in her knowledge of English. Özlem’s Kurdish ethnicity and background permeated her approach to studying psychology, as well as her attitudes to many of her peers. In 2016 and 2017, the Turkish government’s suppression of unrest in several eastern cities had affected Özlem’s family, separating her mother and father and preventing her siblings from attending school. Unable to influence this situation in any meaningful way, she coped by committing herself to learning her subject: And I wonder(ed) what can I do for this (the unrest). I’m just didn’t (follow the) news and comments about (it). I just focus(ed) on the psychology and different areas. (Özlem, I1)

In one of her many agentive positionings, Özlem recounted overcoming discriminatory behaviour from peers for her political views—severe enough to make her consider leaving Yeşil entirely, at a point when her

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

109

family was also vulnerable. Her narrative foregrounded her agency and resoluteness as well as her knowledgeability and maturity compared to her peers. When I came to Istanbul for the first time to study, my friends look(ed) at me in a different way and are talking to me something not logical, and I thought that I should go and don’t study at Yeşil. But then I realised that they didn’t know anything about me and I can introduce myself and pursue my identity. It’s good for me because I learned many thing(s) earlier than my peer(s). (Özlem, I1)

Özlem maintained this general distance from the mass of her peers in various ways during the interviews: their lack of willingness to speak English, their capacity to ask questions of presenters, their monotonous and fearful presenting styles, and so on. Yet both her interviews and the observations also positioned her as highly invested in a number of close friendships. These friendships overlapped with the epistemic commitment and credibility she claimed during the interviews and presentations. I had already watched her, Burak and Engin have fun rehearsing for the 1st presentation in a room she had booked for the purpose, and she linked her choice of 3rd presentation topic to the help she’d previously given a friend on the topic of job satisfaction in the previous semester. Another example of Özlem’s agency concerned her account of preparing for a presentation. This story configured her identity in many different ways: a dutiful sister, an unprivileged student, a savvy tech user, responsible to her friends, and committed to learning and the institutional task. I don’t have any notebook because I gave it to my sister and when I prepare a presentation it was very hard to me if the library closed is closed. And after I prepared the presentation, I download to my smartphone and from there I made practice. It’s very important. And also, when the library is closed, I write down the slides and it’s also very helpful for me because I can er truly understand the presentation, the outline of the presentation, so I marked (it) on a wall and started to (do) ‘blank’ practice, and recorded a video and send (it to) Burak and (…) Engin. (Özlem, I3, p. 26)

110 

R. J. Gray

As the reference to her sister indicates, the “family first” discourse featured more strongly in Özlem’s student identity positionings than in the accounts of most other interviewees. Despite living a considerable distance away, her family was framed as a crucial and readily available interpersonal resource, even for her presentations. Ö: When my mum or my father call me before (the) presentation started, I can present it better. R: Oh Ö: Yeah—I said that now I have a presentation, and I think he or she said “You can do it.” R: Do you phone them …? Ö: Yeah, always when we have a break. (Özlem, I3, p. 27) Overall, Özlem’s interviews positioned her as a highly agentive individual who had successfully developed her abilities and knowledge of English and psychology. She was (critically) aligned with institutional expectations, and had close relationships with other students. Specific aspects of her general and network identities (her Kurdish ethnicity and her partner, who lived far from Yeşil) were significant factors in complexifying her relations to her peers and the institution respectively. Her family was closely interwoven with her core student identity throughout the interviews.

Müge Müge’s outer identity differed from all other participants on several dimensions: her age, her marital status and her more conservative Muslim ethnicity, all of which influenced how she enacted the core aspects of the role. The interview data suggested that, along with Özlem, Müge was the only participant whose family had significantly shaped all aspects of her core identity as a student. This dense nexus of personal identity positions constructed her family network in contradictory ways as both restricting and enabling her academic success. To begin with, Müge’s account of her decision to study psychology positioned her as a daughter dutifully

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

111

attempting to understand and perhaps solve her family’s issues. This contrasted with most other participants, who did not mention family when framing the same decision. R: Why are you studying psychology? M: Erm, it is about my family problems, actually. In my children (childhood), there is a problem with my mum and father. R: Mm-hm M: So it’s er conflict every day, so it’s affect of us every day, and my brother also. (Müge, I1) Müge’s headscarf distinguished her from the other participants, (as well as the majority of learners at Yeşil) as having a religiously conservative background; indeed, she was the only student who mentioned family support and religious belief in the same utterance: M: Yes my mother also always pray for me (laughs) R: OK M: (As) I’m coming today (to) school (I told her) “Today I have last presentation”, and she is learn to me some dualar öğretiyor (she’s teaching (me) some prayers). (Müge, I1) Slightly older than the other students, Müge was also the only married participant. Her husband encouraged her before she presented, but the practical support he could supply to her English performances was limited: R: How did you practise the presentation with your husband? What did you do? M: Er he tried to understand the English. He want(s) to learn. R: Right. M: And then, so we are generally… erm, he helped to me. He (was) listening and I tried to (be) more understandable talking to him. (Müge, I1) Interestingly, Müge’s response turned my question about her activities into an account of her husband’s English needs and how listening to her presentation would help him to learn, again foregrounding her familial

112 

R. J. Gray

duties. In fact, she explicitly linked recurrent family problems with her academic difficulties, and had prioritised her family at such times: Each year there is a problem again with my family and I (am) always interested in my family. This (Nüket’s) lesson: I didn’t do it. (Müge, I1, p. 2)

Like Özlem, Müge’s network positioning was tightly interwoven with her core student self—but the threads were more diverse. It would be simplistic to attribute the strong family influence to her religious ethnicity, since this is widespread throughout all social groups across Turkey and the wider world (Offenhauer & Buchalter, 2005). Nevertheless, Müge’s comments should be seen against the backdrop of the huge changes in Turkish society that have accompanied AKP rule. While girls and women from conservative Muslim backgrounds have been empowered by many of the government’s educational and political reforms, this has come with a discursive doubling-down that women’s primary role is domestic and defined by the family (Özkazanç-Pan, 2015). Although Müge’s achievement in studying at university might not even have been possible a generation ago, there were many signs that she struggled to separate her core student identity from this dominant discourse in wider Turkish society. Perhaps because she differed in terms of several aspects of her general identity, Müge did not seem to derive much support from peers at the university or friends in her network. Her close friends were mostly studying at another university, 400  km away in the town of Kütahya. Her friends from Yeşil who had graduated the previous year were “not the best” friends in any case. This distance from peers impacted her English, her subject knowledge and her presentation skills. For the first presentation, she would rehearse alone by practising in front of a mirror, while for her third, she enlisted the help of her husband; but as the previous quote indicates, he appeared to know less English than she did, and she did not mention his knowledge of psychology: I think in presentation there is no effect (of) other friends because I generally studying with my husband. He is helping (…) me. (Müge, I3, p. 13)

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

113

A late learner of English, Müge’s affiliative positioning with the language was clear in the storyline of meeting and talking with an Australian man near the University, which led her to conclude that English “has benefits for me (in) all aspects of my life” (Müge, I3). Yet evidence from the observations and interviews suggested that her expertise in the language, already more limited than many other participants when she entered the Prep School, remained less developed than her peers. Unlike students whose ability with English had clearly benefitted from work and study abroad, she had not had this opportunity, and her interpersonal resources for learning English were also more limited. Alongside solving her family’s issues, Müge’s reasons for studying psychology mentioned her need to self-regulate. She referred to her anxiety—which she had sought help to overcome—throughout the interviews. Professional intervention had been unsuccessful, so she had decided to manage the issue herself. She particularly struggled with presentations, as this short exchange exemplified: R:

When you’re standing up on the stage, how do you feel?

M: Very stressed and maybe fear(ful) (as) to what thinking people about me. R: Right. M: Maybe I thinking, er speaking is difficult (in) English, maybe this is (a) reason about that. R: Right. M: More stress and anxiety a little bit and er heyecanlı (excited). (Müge, I1, p. 4) While there is an obvious connection to speaking English publicly here, in other parts of the interview, Müge linked anxiety in presentations to the more general issue of self-esteem, as well as knowledge of her topics and audience size. Thus, in the context of presenting, anxiety affected each aspect of how Müge conveyed herself as a student, an interpretation that the observations often confirmed. As a married and religiously conservative woman in a Republican nationalist institution under AKP rule,

114 

R. J. Gray

Müge’s commitment to her family network was the obverse of her resistant institutional identity and may have limited her engagement with other students.

Serhat Serhat positioned himself as an expert English speaker, committed subject specialist and allegiant member of the university within a storyline of personal and academic recovery. He connected his struggle with social phobia during his first year in the Prep School to his difficulty with learning English, which then impacted his GPA scores on the faculty. Rather than continue to struggle with the educational impact of his social phobia, he had been to live and work in the US twice on long-term stays to learn English. Serhat positioned himself as agentively shaping his own learning and personal development on arrival in the U.S: I was by myself and I couldn’t understand like what people speak and I had to do something I had to make like communication and then that’s why I like improved my English skills. (Serhat, I1, pp. 1–2)

Working as an ice-cream salesman and tattooist in the States, Serhat’s time learning English in the U.S. was linked to a wider personal struggle to overcome social phobia. Serhat’s narrative of agency, recovery and selfhood was enmeshed with his language learning: At the beginning of the university, I was thinking: ‘It’s not the words coming out of my mouth. I’m just saying the words. I’m not telling something’. But now I feel like even (when) I speak in English, I’m telling the story as my own words. (Serhat, I1)

This comment demonstrates a holistic affiliation with English—as well as a strongly implied expertise—that flowed through into other aspects of his identity as a student. First, English was framed in his interviews as key to learning psychology: “When you learn the English very well, you learn the content (subject) in English” (Serhat, I1, p.  4, brackets added), another echo of the compartmentalisation of language and subject that

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

115

marks EMI discourse. English was also linked in general terms to more effective forms of cognition: he associated the language with more flexible, logical and open-minded thinking. His narrative of self-­improvement was also institutionally validated. Serhat frequently referred to his preand post-overseas GPA scores. The importance he attached to this validation was one among the cluster of the allegiant institutional positions which his comments conveyed and were repeated in the observations. Serhat’s comments suggested that his expertise in English alleviated the social phobia he had previously suffered since it increased his confidence to communicate effectively. He emphasised that his use of  simple language during presentations  was a choice, not a necessity. This implied proficiency was combined with a strong orientation to peers, whose understanding was his primary concern when presenting: I always try to speak simply, like the street language, because if the audience can’t understand me the presentation is not gonna seem good to them. I think that’s the most important thing that I’m doing. (Serhat, I3)

The confidence that Serhat derived from being an effective English speaker and thus able to understand the content of his courses featured strongly in the nexus of peer positions taken up during the interviews. Perhaps acknowledging his earlier academic and social struggles, he was neither particularly critical of his peers nor very close to them. During the interviews, he seldom mentioned preparing for the presentations with classmates, although he worked closely with one other student. For instance, rather than practising with fellow students Serhat rehearsed for his presentations in front of a mirror, a technique also advocated by the class teacher (Nüket, Interview, p.7). When he did mention peers, he tended to position himself as more knowledgeable and supportive  and  framed his choice of presentation topics in terms of helping his peers: I’m planning to do social anxiety problem(s): phobia, social phobia. Because I had experienced it, I want to present (to) my friends that how they can overcome (it), how they can become successful about dealing with it. (Serhat, I1)

116 

R. J. Gray

This final quote confirms how one aspect of Serhat’s personal identity, his social anxiety, had suffused the development of his identity as a successful student via a recovery storyline that he constructed via descriptions of achieving success as a student. These descriptions highlighted his expertise and affiliation with English, his credibility as a subject specialist, his allegiance to the university and his peer-centred interactions. Serhat’s recovery from social anxiety, on his account, paralleled the improvement of English he had achieved while working abroad on immersion programmes, which in turn required the support of his family. He prioritised institutional validation of his knowledge and positioned himself as loyal to his institution of study during the interviews. English was key to extending his knowledge of psychology, and the confidence that derived from his learning enabled him to make friends and assist his peers when they presented.

Burak One aspect of Burak’s personal identity (his ADHD) had—counterintuitively—led to greater affiliation with his second language, English, than his first. Beyond the dense nexus of English-affiliated positions which he took up during interviews, his ADHD had also influenced how he related to other core aspects of the student role. Having initially encountered difficulties understanding EMI psychology classes, Burak had undertaken voluntary work in Europe to improve his English. As a result, he reported feeling much more calm and able to communicate when speaking the language, which he ascribed to differences in the grammatical structure of the two languages (unlike English, Turkish is an SOV, agglutinative languagely): I feel, like, much more comfortable when I speak English, even (if ) it is not my native language. I am not speaking that good. Still I feel like (it is) much better than Turkish. (Burak, I3, p. 30)

In fact, as the presentation and interview data attested, Burak’s expertise in English was produced consistently through his displays of fluent, complex and generally accurate speech. He framed the three months’

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

117

voluntary work he had done in Greece in terms of improving his English, and the emergent bilingualism this had fostered was acknowledged thus: When I return here…I was sometimes you know putting some English words when I speak some Turkish too. It really helped me. (Burak, I1)

For Burak, this mixing up of languages was framed positively (“it really helped me”), aligning him with a range of discourses which view multilingual practices as both natural and desirable within the classroom and beyond (see Wei, 2018). There was implied resistance to the compartmentalising language-learning  discourse that sustains EMI here, too. Elsewhere in the interviews, Burak took more evidently critical positions around aspects of his student identity, including his peers and the institution. When speaking in general terms, Burak was highly critical of his classmates’ approach to learning. However, his account generated a second, dense bundle of positions of close engagement with them. First, unlike most other participants, his descriptions focussed on the interpersonal aspect of presenting. He mentioned the importance of capturing the audience’s interest in introductions and creating a relaxed atmosphere which could be achieved through questioning and humour. Burak did not frame the presentation as an institutional task requiring the display of knowledge, but as an opportunity to help his peers learn something, positioning himself as a trainer or educator within the overall discourse of transmission pedagogy: It is a time to get some information. It is really interesting—that’s why we have to… we have to put this kind of things to their mind. (Burak, I1)

Secondly, Burak’s interview responses foregrounded his close involvement with some of his classmates. As the comment below indicates, he overtly connected ADHD to his preference for working collaboratively with other students:

118 

R. J. Gray

Mostly—I know myself—I can’t listen (to) a class at all. I have (a) concentration problem. That’s why I, like, feel so bad in the class, but when my friends try to teach me I can easily understand. (Burak, I1)

Burak sometimes framed his relationship with co-presenters as one of dependence, which contrasted with his earlier, more confident appraisals of his own knowledgeability in comparison to peers in general: I can’t do it just myself. I don’t trust myself at all, mostly about the courses and without my friends I feel like “OK, I can’t pass”. (Burak, I3)

And: I was with Engin. He was help me. He just came here for help me to study our exam. Also Özlem (is) like that too. I think they are very nice to do this kind of things for me. (Burak, I3)

He had not obtained help for these issues from the university’s counselling services, which had not alleviated Burak’s feeling “stuck” (I3) with his learning. I wondered if this might have been a factor in the clear disillusionment he expressed about the university, which he felt needed to push its students harder and to teach them study skills, to employ higher-­ profile academic staff and to become more internationalised. His comments were both interesting and insightful, and the university administration has since taken steps in these directions. In fact, Burak’s critique of education extended to the national context, thereby implicating his general identity as a Turkish citizen, and was also detectable in the presentation excerpt described in Chap. 6. Burak positioned himself as someone who, easily bored by his classes, had high expectations of the university and was committed to learning. However, in a comment that typified his critical view of the Yeşil lecturers’ approach, he said that much of what he was doing in classes was, essentially, common sense: Maybe I’ve learned some things we are learning something we know in the classes. We are learning something we can easily guess without knowledge. That’s why it seems like ‘OK.’ (Burak, I3)

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

119

Burak’s commitment to psychology was dependent on his framing of it as multidisciplinary and scientific. Thus unlike most other students, he did not assume a vocational epistemic positioning but foregrounded his interest in acquiring academic knowledge more generally. Indeed, despite his obvious competence and credibility as a learner of psychology, Burak was the only participant who questioned his future commitment to the discipline during interviews. He did mention industrial psychology as one area he might consider further, but also emphasised that studying the subject had not resulted in a secure sense of disciplinary identification: Maybe I can do something out of the psychology—really out of the psychology. I can I can find something but still I didn’t make… I am not make any certain plan. (Burak, I1)

And on a different interview date: It’s not (had) much effect on my person-personality. It is, you know, just (a) subject for me. It’s not had any effect on my personality. (Burak, I3)

Overall, Burak’s ADHD had shaped his student identity to a considerable degree. It was highlighted by him as the reason for his affiliation with and expertise in English. Moreover, it was an obvious factor in his close involvement with other peers, particularly Özlem and Engin, whose help was crucial to his success as a psychology learner. It may also have been relevant to his interpersonal awareness more generally in presentations. His resistance to several institutional practices displayed his critical acumen and, while identifying less obviously with the discipline than other learners, his performances in the presentations highlighted that his knowledge of psychology, relative to the norms of the research setting, was highly credible.

5.4 Discussion This chapter has described how participants produced different aspects of their identities in relation to classroom presentations, before examining the cases of four students in more detail. Two obvious themes emerged

120 

R. J. Gray

from the data. First of all, discussing classroom presentations with students configured their identities in complex, shifting and often contradictory ways. The positions taken by a single respondent on one aspect related to presentations might conflict, as when pragmatic and idealistic accounts of choosing the topics for different presentations were given. The broader issue, however, was the difficulty some students faced in negotiating practical expectations related to each aspect of their identities when preparing for and giving the presentations. For instance, the conflict between the need to demonstrate proficiency in English, to appear credibly knowledgeable of one’s subject and to demonstrate allegiance to the teacher led Bilal to the compromise of selecting simpler and familiar topics to present. Zappa-Hollman (2007) also found that her research subjects sought to strategically mitigate difficulties with presenting in English by choosing familiar topics. The second theme, which arose from the individual descriptions above, was how aspects peripheral to the student role suffused the core of participants’ identities as students. The accounts demonstrated that facets of their personal, network and general identities had a range of powerful effects, both restrictive and enabling, on how participants related to the language of study, their subject, the institution (including teachers) and their peers. As forms of personal identity, Müge’s anxiety, Serhat’s social phobia and Burak’s attention disorder permeated all aspects of their identities. Anxiety is the emotion most commonly associated with second-­ language learning but may be the consequence as much as the cause of students’ difficulties (Pavlenko, 2007). Serhat was certain his extreme anxiety (social phobia) had impacted his initial success in English and psychology, perhaps because it seemed he had overcome it. On the other hand, Müge’s nervousness when presenting remained a major issue. While small-to-moderate degrees of anxiety resulting from the “social performance” of presentations can produce better demonstrations of knowledge than written exams (Huxham et  al., 2012), Müge’s main affective issue was much more pervasive. The teacher offered strategies to her classes that are known to help offset the fears of anxious learners, such as presenting in groups (Kobayashi, 2016) and framing the first two tasks in terms of “knowledge display” (Joughin, 2007), but Müge did not take up the first, while the second seemed to make little difference.

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

121

To explain the variation in Müge’s learning trajectory and those of Serhat and Özge, Norton’s concept of investment (2000) is helpful. All three students were motivated, but the investments they could make to achieve their goals differed considerably. The initial monetary investment that Serhat’s family made in sending him to America was reinvested as linguistic and cultural capital  that had enabled him to succeed in his studies. Similarly, Özlem was able to draw on the cultural capital of her family’s educational experience for support. Müge, however, was much less invested: despite (or perhaps because of ) her family’s close involvement in her life as a student, the data from the interviews suggested their involvement could be a liability as well as an asset and, perhaps reflecting differences in her cultural background from the dominant culture at Yeşil, the resources she could draw on from peers were limited. Müge’s family had not invested in attempts to “grow” her linguistic capital since she began learning as a novice at prep school, meaning much less was available for her disciplinary learning or to invest in peer relationships. As mentioned above, Burak’s ADHD had shaped his core student identity, influencing how he related to the language, the institution, his peers and the discipline of psychology. However, he usually resisted the pathologising “learning disabilities” discourse in which people with ADHD are constructed as academically deficient (DuPaul et al., 2009) and less capable of functioning socially (Sacchetti & Lefler, 2017). Instead, Burak’s responses positioned him within a discourse of neurodiversity that constructs ADHD as potentially enabling or constraining, depending on the circumstances (Sonuga-Barke & Thapar, 2021). For instance, Burak linked his neurodiverse status to increased affiliation with English, as well as increased expertise, in line with the association between ADHD and average to above-average achievement on university foreign language courses found in earlier research (Sparks et al., 2005). Many factors outside the scope of my research were involved in the closeness and concern that Burak displayed when discussing and interacting with peers (another “neurodiverse” ADHD  positioning opposing the dominant discourse of social impairment), and these cannot be explained simply by his reinvestment of linguistic capital into developing supportive relationships. The final theme I want to draw out in this discussion is an aspect of identity external to the student role yet infusing the core identities of

122 

R. J. Gray

Müge and Özlem—ethnicity. Unlike Özlem, Müge never alluded to the disruptive effects of her ethnicity on her peer alignments, and her visible religious conservatism in comparison with most other students was insufficient to explain her difficulty aligning with this and the other core norms, as the holistic account above is intended to show. Nevertheless, ethnicity is a key fault line in the othering of Turkish undergraduate peers, both within the country and beyond (Çolak et  al., 2019; Toker Gökçe, 2013) and has also been shown to impact the institutional identification of ethnic minority students (Witkow et al., 2012). In her interviews, however, Özlem’s ethnic differences formed part of a wider narrative that foregrounded her agency in responding to and overcoming obstacles to her educational trajectory. One such was the initial hostility of other students to her Kurdishness. It is important to note that agency, the capacity to initiate purposeful action, occurs against the background of social practices and is therefore embedded in materiality and human relationships (Teng, 2019). Özlem’s agency was enabled in particular by the social capital supplied by her close network relationships—members of her immediate family were involved in education either professionally or as students, and thus able to offer more effective support, for instance. This chapter has clarified the meanings of the framework of core and outer role-related identity by looking in depth at how students enacted their identities around presenting and how the aspects interacted for individuals, based on the positions taken during interviews. The next two chapters zoom in again to examine how these identities were enacted moment by moment in the genre practices of the classroom presentation.

References Ai, B., Kostogriz, A., Wen, D., & Wang, L. (2018). Student presentations as a means of teaching and learning English for Specific Purposes: An action research study. Teaching in Higher Education, 25, 223–237. Çolak, F. Z., Van Praag, L., & Nicaise, I. (2019). A qualitative study of how exclusion processes shape friendship development among Turkish-Belgian university students. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 73, 1–10.

5  Student Identity: Presentations and Intersections 

123

DuPaul, G. J., Weyandt, L. L., O’Dell, S. M., & Varejao, M. (2009). College students with ADHD: Current status and future directions. Journal of Attention Disorders, 13(3), 234–250. English, F. (2011). Student writing and genre: Reconfiguring academic knowledge. A&C Black. Ergin, M., Rankin, B., & Gökşen, F. (2019). Education and symbolic violence in contemporary Turkey. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 40(1), 128–142. Giles, H. (Ed.). (2016). Communication accommodation theory: Negotiating personal relationships and social identities across contexts. Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. University of Pennsylvania Press. Hintz, L. (2016). “Take it outside!” National identity contestation in the foreign policy arena. European Journal of International Relations, 22(2), 335–361. Huxham, M., Campbell, F., & Westwood, J. (2012). Oral versus written assessments: A test of student performance and attitudes. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 37(1), 125–136. Hyland, K. (2015). Teaching and researching writing. Routledge. Hyland, K., & Guinda, C. S. (Eds.). (2012). Stance and voice in written academic genres (p. 2012). Palgrave Macmillan. Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing and identity (Vol. 10). John Benjamins. Joughin, G. (2007). Student conceptions of oral presentations. Studies in Higher Education, 32(3), 323–336. Kobayashi, M. (2016). L2 academic discourse socialization through oral presentations: An undergraduate student’s learning trajectory in study abroad. Canadian Modern Language Review, 72(1), 95–121. Moore, A. (2004). The good teacher: Dominant discourses in teaching and teacher education. Psychology Press. Morita, N. (2000). Discourse socialization through oral classroom activities in a TESL graduate program. Tesol Quarterly, 34(2), 279–310. Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Pearson. Offenhauer, P., & Buchalter, A. R. (2005). Women in Islamic societies: A selected review of social scientific literature. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. Özkazanç-Pan, B. (2015). Secular and Islamic feminist entrepreneurship in Turkey. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 7, 45–65. Pavlenko, A. (2007). Emotions and multilingualism. Cambridge University Press.

124 

R. J. Gray

Sacchetti, G.  M., & Lefler, E.  K. (2017). ADHD symptomology and social functioning in college students. Journal of Attention Disorders, 21(12), 1009–1019. Sander, P., Sanders, L., & Stevenson, K. (2002). Engaging the learner: Reflections on the use of student presentations. Psychology Teaching Review, 10(1), 76–89. Sonuga-Barke, E., & Thapar, A. (2021). The neurodiversity concept: Is it helpful for clinicians and scientists? The Lancet Psychiatry, 8(7), 559–561. Sparks, R. L., Javorsky, J., & Philips, L. (2005). Comparison of the performance of college students classified as ADHD, LD, and LD/ADHD in foreign language courses. Language Learning, 55(1), 151–177. Tardy, C. M. (2005). Expressions of disciplinarity and individuality in a multimodal genre. Computers and Composition, 22(3), 319–336. Teng, M.  F. (2019). Autonomy, agency and identity in teaching and learning English as a foreign language. Springer. Toker Gökçe, A. (2013). University students’ perception of discrimination on campus in Turkey. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 35(1), 72–84. Wei, L. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30. Witkow, M.  R., Gillen-O’Neel, C., & Fuligni, A.  J. (2012). College social engagement and school identification: Differences by college type and ethnicity. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 33(5), 243–251. Zappa-Hollman, S. (2007). Academic presentations across post-secondary contexts: The discourse socialization of non-native English speakers. Canadian Modern Language Review, 63(4), 455–485. Zareva, A. (2013). Self-mention and the projection of multiple identity roles in TESOL graduate student presentations: The influence of the written academic genres. English for Specific Purposes, 32(2), 72–83. Zareva, A. (2020). Speech accommodation in student presentations. Springer International Publishing.

6 Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations

6.1 Introduction This chapter describes how multimodal practices produced each of the four core aspects of identity at the same time they reproduced different steps in the classroom presentation genre. The similarities between the description and other studies of the multimodal register of academic presentations (see particularly Forey & Feng, 2016 and Morell, 2015) are apparent, so it is useful to define register in order to note how it differs from the term genre practices as introduced in this book.  Systemic Functional (SFL) approaches treat register as functionally-organised patterns of the contextual variables of field, mode and tenor realised in the lexico-grammar and other modes of texts (O’Halloran, 2006), which are coordinated by genres (Martin & Rose, 2008). Meanwhile, ESP register studies have tended to describe sentence-level, surface features of the (primarily written) language of particular domains, such as “legal English” (Alousque, 2016). Latterly, the focus has been as wide as “conversational register” and as narrow as the register of the Discussion section of an IMRAD article (Biber & Conrad, 2019). While register and ESP genre occupy distinct research territories, they converge when the focus shifts to the language used to realise particular steps (Borza, 2015). What are referred to in this research as the genre © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. J. Gray, Genre Practices, Multimodality and Student Identities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97933-1_6

125

126 

R. J. Gray

practices realising sections, moves and steps in the classroom presentations also produced the register of the talks. However, whereas register and genre are terms that emphasise the use rather than the users of language and other communicative resources, the notion of genre practices views role-based identities, registers and genres themselves as emergent, complementary perspectives on the same sociomaterial processes. This view echoes that of Martin et al. (2013, p. 468), who assert that “Identity…is always already conditioned by register and genre, so that who we are depends on the roles we play in a given situation”. Rather than assume such conditioning has already occurred, a genre practices framework directs attention to investigating how each aspect is simultaneously (re)produced in performances. Each of the four core aspects of identity is described in terms of the contribution made by the eight modes transcribed for the video samples. The methods of discourse transcription and analysis were broadly the same as described in Chap. 3. Appraisal was used alongside two other areas of discourse semantics relevant to identity: Negotiation, realized in speech functions such as questioning, responding, asserting, etc. and Involvement, by which degrees of interpersonal solidarity are expressed through the technicality and abstraction of language and other resources (Martin & White, 2003). Abstraction and technicality (Gardner, 2012) were also useful sensitizing concepts to apply to analyzing the register of the presentations, as were Maton’s “knowledge codes” configured from semantic gravity (concreteness/abstraction of meaning) and semantic density (simplicity/complexity of meaning) respectively (Maton, 2014). To support claims on epistemic and institutional positionings taken up by students at different sections of the genre, the lexis in each sample was classified according to its level of technicality. Lexis used in the presentations which also appeared in task rubrics was also noted to ground claims about institutional positionings. The transcription conventions used for the illustrative examples of speech are based on Interactional Sociolinguistics ([IS] (Gumperz & Berenz, 1993). Although now less widely used than other notation systems such as CA and SBS (Jenks, 2011), IS transcription focusses on informational phrases or intonation units rather than turns (as in CA), an approach more attuned to the primarily monologic spoken discourse of academic presentations.

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

127

6.2 Language Identity Table 6.1 summarises the multimodal actions which contributed to the production of language identity during the presentations.

Language Identity in Speech Language identity as theorised by Rampton (1990) was taken to consist of expertise, heritage and affiliation. Whereas the first and (to a lesser extent) the second of these were expressed directly in presenters’ actions, affiliation with English during the presentations (unlike the interviews) was only intermittently inferable and thus appears very rarely in this Table 6.1  Language identity practices in classroom presentations MODE

ACTION

SPEECH

Complexity/accuracy/fluency of spoken language (CAF) Pronunciation of cognates, digraphs, diphthongs. Transferring L1 grammar features (in Turkish: Optional ‘be’, plurals, accusatives) Using ‘in-group’ markers (e.g., ‘like’, ‘you know’, ‘gonna’, etc.) Lexico-grammatical accuracy/range L1 words Transferring grammar and lexis from Turkish. Spellings, characters, punctuation conventions. Foregrounding the above via font size/type/colour, bullets, positioning, etc. Labelling images accurately and using complex language. Gaze direction during speech (in relation to screen/ computer/notes). Restarting or maintaining speech. (beats). Short interval between gesture & speech onset. Control and complexity of gesture. Non-use of gesture with expert speech. Using metaphoric gestures to substitute for missing speech. Gestural style: “Expansive”. Use of emblems. Direction of these modes during speech (in relation to screen/computer/notes)

TEXT

IMAGE GAZE GESTURE

POSTURE, LOCATION, MOVEMENT

128 

R. J. Gray

discussion. The co-occurrence of fluency, accuracy and range enabled speakers to project a saliently high level of English expertise, particularly when sustained over longer durations. The introductions contained the second-­highest rate of speech, as well as the most accurate and technically-dense language, and therefore featured many instances of expert language usage. One such was that of Serhat’s introduction to his first talk (0.08–0.17), where an exceptionally high speech rate, minimal inaccuracy, the use of embedded clauses and Latinate lexis coincided, positioning him as an expert speaker of English in this context: S: Have you ever felt like someone’s watching you all the *time,   If you had experienced that/   you’re *already interested with the topic that I’m going to talk about, Serhat, Introduction, Move 2d (0.08-17)

Language heritage was signalled most directly through the practice of using the mother tongue, which was Turkish for all but one participant. Few examples existed in the sample, indicating students conformed closely to institutional expectations of the sole use of English for presentations. The salience of the two examples below in enacting heritage within the genre differed as a result of each speaker’s use of spoken resources: whereas Bilal’s procedural use of Turkish (a) was less salient as a result of the very brief preceding pause and its low volume compared to the English speech that surrounded it, Burak’s Turkish (b) was preceded by a much longer pause of 15 seconds, was delivered at a higher volume and contained a marked stress on ‘hiç’. a. Bi: {[p]geçebilirim} (I can move on) (Bilal, Explanation, Slide change) b. Bu: *Hiç mi yok? (None at all) (Burak, Closing Remarks, Move 2b)

On the other hand, indirect indications of Turkish language heritage existed in numerous syntactic and phonetic features of the presenters’ English speech at all sections in the genre. The prominence of such indirect features is culturally mediated, (i.e., the observer’s frame of reference

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

129

determines how apparent they are in the interaction). In isolation, these features were not salient; however, combined with each other and with other heritage-indexing actions (e.g., culturally-specific gestural emblems) in other modes over extended stretches of discourse, they pointed to speakers’ language heritage quite definitively. The most prominent heritage markers were cognates whose pronunciation was identical to standard Turkish; for instance, the words status (Turkish statu, /ˈstætu/) in Hazal’s Explanation, tolerant (Turkish toleran / ˈtɒlƏræn/) and symptom (Turkish semptom /ˈsemtɒm/) in Burak and Sinem’s Introductions. Another phonological feature which signalled the presenters’ Turkish heritage was the nonstandard pronunciation of vowel digraphs, very rare in the Turkish writing system, e.g., guilt as /gwilt/ in Engin’s Explanation and ‘theory’ as /ˈθeɒ:i/ in Müge’s Introduction. The examples below show two other types of heritage marker in context: a. Müge: it’s also..*crucial to ::er children {[hi] *development} (Explanation, Move 1b. 0.02.59-0.08.83) b. Özlem: he is the first psychologist to bring life to the..cultural *facts {[hi] effect} (Closing Remarks, Move 1b. 0.26.20-0.32.23) c. Bilal: in Turkey ::er…attitudes towards er homosexual homosexual people ::er…negative (Introduction, Move 2e. 0.44.16-0.52.80) d. *Turkish culture similar,.. ::er in *too many culture (Q&A, Move 2b. 0.18.34-0.22.76)

Examples a & b show how the high tone that marks the focus of information units in Turkish declaratives was often used to mark on-focus words in the presentations when a falling tone would be expected. Syntactic markers of Turkish language heritage were observed most clearly in the presenters’ use of words and morphemes which are often optional in Turkish but obligatory in standard English (c,d). These include the 3rd person forms of ‘be’ (Turkish: dir/dır) and the plural morpheme ‘s’ (Turkish: ler/lar).

130 

R. J. Gray

Language Identity in Writing Language expertise could be judged from the accuracy and complexity of slide text, with heritage obvious in uses of written Turkish and recoverable from lexico-grammatical choices in English. As anticipated, expert— and to some extent, heritage orientations—varied according to the genre stage. As described in 2.2, participants’ slides produced expert language in terms of clausal & lexical complexity and accuracy in the Explanation section, while their Turkish heritage was most visible in the Q&A due to the inclusion of Turkish language sources in the reference lists on closing slides. An example of written text enacting expert language identity and Turkish heritage was Hazal’s Explanation slide enacting Move 1a Defining key topic term(s) (6.1a). The lexical density of this slide was moderately high, with a high proportion of Latinate words such as initiators, rigidity and intention. Grammatically, it contained several genitive noun phrases, passives and non-finite clauses. It was highly accurate, with punctuation the only major area of inaccuracy. Language heritage was signified by the image citation at the foot of the slide, which primarily consisted of Turkish words. The font contrasted with the white background but was relatively small, reducing the salience of the expertise and heritage enacted by the language. As with speech, students often included some indirect features transferred from Turkish on their slides, which pointed to language heritage and impacted the speaker’s English accuracy. However, there were notably fewer such features than in the spoken language. Because such indirect markers are likely to be shared with other languages, they should be seen as indicative rather than definitive of Turkish language heritage. Just as with spoken language, the most common linguistic markers were the 3rd person morphemes and plural forms, such as with Hazal’s Introduction slide meeting Move 2c (Fig. 6.1b). Mapping the accusative case in Turkish onto the definite article in English accounted for the unconventional usage in Serhat’s 3rd presentation (Fig. 6.1c). Another feature was the Turkish accusative case syntax used by several presenters for genitive noun phrases (Fig.  6.1b,c,d). For example, the

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

Fig. 6.1  Examples of direct and indirect language identity in slide text

131

132 

R. J. Gray

third slide of Sinem’s final presentation, enacting Move 2c of her Introduction, contained the phrase Military sexism area (askeri cinsiyetcilik alanı), rather than the unmarked English form (the) area of military sexism. Finally, although Turkish uses similar conventions to English in its alphabet and punctuation, some differences signified the speakers’ language heritage. Most obviously, in the speakers’ names on slides, the absence of accents such as in the letter ‘ı’, and their use in the letters ‘ç’, ‘ğ’, ‘ö’, and ‘ü’ also marked heritage. An example of another heritage feature affecting accuracy can be seen in the marked use of the semi-colon (used to introduce lists in Turkish) and the capital ‘İ’ in the Explanation section of Müge’s first presentation on insomnia (Fig. 6.1e). The varying combinations of font colour & background, size and layout modulated the prominence of these features, as illustrated below.

Language Identity in Nonverbal Embodied Modes Four practices using the embodied modes of gaze, posture and location contributed interdependently to positioning speakers in terms of their English proficiency. First, shifts in gaze (and other embodied modes) frequently preceded the resolution of dysfluencies such as vocalised and unvocalised pauses. Switching gaze either elsewhere or to available text on slides or notes facilitated the resumption of speech on numerous occasions, at all stages. Second, when the content of presenters’ speech mirrored the text on slides, actions in these modes conveyed a high level of dependence on the text, as well as indirect resistance to the teacher’s explicit instruction not to read from slides. For example, in Fig.  6.2a below, Sinem’s gaze and location in the room while defining her key term of addiction (Move 1a of the Explanation) impacted the proficiency she expressed in speech. Conversely, when combined with speech that differed from the slides, the direction and duration of gaze, posture and positioning towards the screen could foreground the speaker’s ability to paraphrase text and thus project greater expertise, as in Serhat’s expansion of the slide text at Move 1c of the Closing Remarks (Fig. 6.2b). Finally, when oriented away from written sources, and synchronised with fluent, accurate and complex

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

133

Fig. 6.2  Effects of nonverbal embodied modes of action on language expertise

Fig. 6.3  An emblematic gesture contributing to language heritage

speech, participants’ actions in these modes helped to position them as expert English users, as Hazal’s Explanation indicates (Fig. 6.2c). Gesture was particularly important in producing the heritage and expertise components of language identity. Because emblematic gestures are more direct markers of language heritage, they are of particular interest, although uncommon during the presentations. While several universal emblems such as the ‘plea’ and the vertical palm-out ‘stop’ sign were used, there were very few specifically Turkish variants in the data. One less ambiguous, albeit fleeting, example was produced by Serhat during a slide change in the Explanation stage of his second presentation. This emblem, the outward hand flick with fingers uncurled from the palm, meaning “go”, is highly typical of Turkish gestural language (Fig. 6.3).

134 

R. J. Gray

Due to its close interdependence with speech, gesture mediated the production of language identity, and particularly its expertise component, in many ways. Most fundamentally, gesture (particularly beat gestures) helped to sustain speech at all sections of the genre. This practice was most evident during longer pauses when speakers sometimes “kickstarted” the vocal channel with a beat. In fluent speech, gesture stroke co-occurs with or marginally precedes the word (McNeill, 2005), but for dysfluencies, the gap between gesture and word becomes more noticeable. The combination of a lower speech rate and higher percentage of beats in the Explanation indicated that the sustaining effect of gesture was most widespread at this stage. One example occurred during Engin’s Explanation, Move 1b, as he detailed one of Erickson’s stages; the gesture foregrounding the dysfluency can be seen in the central image (Fig. 6.4). Shifts in gestural style also foregrounded changes in the expertise conveyed in speech. For instance, Bilal’s use of notes during Move 1a & b of his Explanation enabled him to maintain moderately high levels of fluency, accuracy and complexity in his speech; his gestures were similarly controlled. However, his spontaneous response to a student’s comment later in 1b was characterised by markedly reduced control of speech combined with several rapid and extended flapping metaphoric gestures,

Fig. 6.4  Example of beat gesture foregrounding spoken dysfluency

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

135

Fig. 6.5  Examples of gesture foregrounding level of spoken language expertise

making the temporary drop in language expertise more salient (Fig. 6.5a). In contrast, following a stretch of more hesitant discourse, Burak projected significant expertise in his Q&A via the fluency, accuracy and metaphoricised complexity of the utterance (Fig. 6.5b). This moment of expert speech was amplified by the clarity and distinctiveness of the gestures in terms of their direction, height and hand shapes. Finally, two further practices related to gesture were noteworthy in respect of language expertise. First, the absence or minimal use of gesture during talk often co-occurred with and foregrounded the expert use of spoken English. This was particularly true of the Introduction, when the closed rest was used most often, at the same time that the overall

136 

R. J. Gray

proficiency of speakers in terms of CAF was at its highest. For example, demonstrating how modal complexity (as well as density) could foreground an aspect of identity, Serhat only left his “home position” (RendleShort, 2016) to gesture once during the seventeen seconds of his expert speech in the Introduction. Second, metaphorical gesture could also clarify or even replace spoken meanings. This function was particularly relevant at the Q&A stage when other sources (slides/computer/notes) that could compensate for difficulties with spoken meaning-making were used much less by presenters, with a concurrent increase in metaphoric gesture.

6.3 Epistemic Identity In Table 6.2, presenters’ actions in multiple modes which produced their epistemic identities are listed and explained in the sections that follow.

Epistemic Identity in Speech Single utterances analysed in terms of their technicality, Engagement and Attitude positioned each speaker as a particular type of knower as they enacted the presentation genre. Epistemic credibility unfolded via the accumulation of such positions during the presentation. Within academic settings, technical and appraised positionings conferred higher epistemic status; credibility, however, was contingent on how such positions were formed or unpacked by presenters using language enacting more everyday meanings and contexts. For example, enacting Move 2c of the Introduction, Previewing the presentation, enabled Hazal to begin to stake her claim to epistemic status by listing a succession of decontextualized and technical collocations, such as adolescents, violence exposure, and socioeconomic status in adulthood (Hazal, Introduction, 12.8–33.2). But following generic convention, the meaning potential of these and other semantically dense terms was not explained in detail during the introduction. To establish credibility would require such technical terms to be contextualised in later sections.

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

137

Table 6.2  Epistemic identity practices in classroom presentations MODE

PRACTICES/Features

SPEECH

Using psychology-specific lexis and Latinate language. (prosodic focus; word pronunciation) Referring to other sources. Subjectivity, modal verbs and expressions. (prosodic Focus; word pronunciation) Critiquing sources (prosodic focus; word pronunciation) Using technical-dialogical and appreciation resources across the presentation, unpacked through everyday language & contextualisation Intonation & pitch range (certainty of knowledge) Pronunciation of technical words & sources TEXT Using psychology-related and Latinate lexis. Citing and displaying reference lists Foregrounding via font size/type/ colour, bullets, positioning, etc. IMAGE Using and/or citing technical images Foregrounding via positioning, size, colour, contrast GAZE Directing gaze to screen / elsewhere + technical-­ dialogic speech GESTURE Deictics directed to board + technical/dialogic language Metaphoric gesture POSTURE, LOCATION, Orienting to board and other sources during utterances MOVEMENT containing technical-dialogic language

Different configurations of meanings at different stages of the presentation suggested that epistemic positionings were closely linked to the move in the genre they reproduced (Table 6.3). Technical lexis as a proportion of total unique spoken words declined continuously from the introduction to the Q&A (from 28% to 22%). On this vertical scale of technicality of spoken language, the least-frequent and most technical language enacted specific disciplinary knowledge by naming theorists, researchers, theories and conditions: Erikson, Covey et  al., postconventional, traits, for instance. The second, less-technical category of words consisted of terms shared by psychological and non-specialist discourses, consisting of mental processes, states, developmental stages and emotions: regulation, resilience, adolescence, shy, for example. Another category of general academic vocabulary was based on the Academic Word List: process, correlation, commitment, bias. Projecting less technical knowledge were general Latinate words which were neither academic nor obviously

138 

R. J. Gray

Table 6.3  Examples of epistemic positioning in speech Speaker Example a. Bilal

b. Engin

c. Burak

d.Özlem

e. Bilal

f. Burak

He said...Woman are my properties...::Er everything is mine The aim is to bring the productive solution to.. Competition/ I come from::Er...Kind of *dangerous area from *Bağcılar, In the meta-analytic review er which was conducted in US*A? In *Turkey..::Er *attitudes towards *homosexual homosexual *people,:: Er **negative After look looking for this studies, I thought he was *right/

Epistemic positioning

Genre move/time

(everyday/ heteroglossic + judgement) (technical/ monoglossic)

Explanation, move 1b. [0.26.67–0.32.41]

(everyday/ monoglossic + affect) (technical/ heteroglossic)

Q&A, move 2b. [01.58.21–02.02.76]

(technical/ heteroglossic + judgement)

Introduction, move 2e. [0.44.15–0.52.25]

(technical/ heteroglossic + judgement)

Closing remarks, move 1b.[0.06.62–0.10.19]

Explanation, move 1b. [0.45.42–0.49.19]

Q&A, move 2b. [0.30.87–0.34.28]

disciplinary, such as continue, material, society, and present. Finally, highfrequency language, of Anglo-Saxon origin, enacted more everyday knowledge positionings: must, right, someone, talk. The “horizontal” continuum of engagement with actual and theoretical contributors to the presentation also constructed speakers’ identities as knowers of their subject. Positioning along this continuum was again linked to the genre section, with greater use of Engagement in the last two sections as presenters evaluated the topics introduced and explained during the first two stages. At the most monologic point of this continuum were utterances giving only the bare facts: (I am Bilal; overcoming social phobia takes patience; I will continue; the next stage is initiative versus guilt). Moving along this continuum, heteroglossic utterances were categorised according to how overtly they alluded to other disciplinary voices/ positionings. Less overtly heteroglossic were those propositions grounded in the subjectivity of presenters (I believed that that affected my academic performance; for me addiction is dependency), and utterances which

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

139

entertained alternatives through modal words and expressions: (it mostly about the rewards and punishment; another example can be openness to experience trait). More overt but rarer examples of heteroglossia were spoken attributions to other voices from the discipline: (according to Goodman and Mustang; according to this theory; in the study which is conducted in China). Combining the two axes of Technical-Everyday and Monoglossic-­ Heteroglossic language enabled particular utterances to be categorised according to their meanings, as indicated in the examples provided in Table 6.3, below. By enacting these meanings, the learners positioned themselves as particular types of knowers. The configuration of these positionings over the entire presentation contributed to the speaker’s epistemic credibility at the same time they enacted different moves in the genre. In combination with this, the system of Attitude was a powerful way of conveying the speaker’s evaluation of theories and empirical studies constituting their topics to produce a “critical thinker” epistemic positioning. However, it emerged that there were very few instances of this in the sample of Attitude (e.g., sentence (e) below). Rather than evaluating theories or research findings, students tended to judge theorists, as demonstrated in example (f ). Nonetheless, the co-occurrence of Judgement/Appreciation with technical, heteroglossic meaning-making positioned speakers as critical thinkers, perhaps the most-valued epistemic positioning in the context of classroom presentations. Besides word choice, the specific affordances of speech contributed greatly to the impression of epistemic credibility ultimately achieved by each speaker. While the meanings realised in lexical choices might enable speakers to project the sense of deep, broad and critical knowledge at any given utterance, this was modulated by their articulation in speech. For example, the hesitancies in (7.8a) and (e), and the marked rising tone in (d) were likely to make speakers sound less convincing than speaker (b), with the proviso that among Turkish speakers of English, such marked rising tones may simply indicate information focus rather than the uncertainty they convey to L1 speakers. Alongside these features, greater pitch variation in utterances enacting technical knowledge enabled students to convey epistemic authority more convincingly. Finally, the conventional

140 

R. J. Gray

articulation of technical vocabulary was also crucial to conveying an impression of expertise. Because technical vocabulary is usually polysyllabic and lower-frequency, it frequently posed difficulties for students; mispronunciation, hesitation and repetition of such words, as exemplified in sentence (7.8e), impacted their projection of knowledgeability on several occasions.

Epistemic Identity in Writing The level of technicality and amount of position-taking in slides varied according to the genre section. More significantly, the slides contained a much higher density of technical and “factual” language than found in presenters’ speech and far fewer speakers overall used slides to engage with their topics in each section of the genre than did so in speech. The overall average percentage of technical language (i.e., psychology-related, AWL and Latinate vocabulary) on slides was 50%, more than twice as high as speech (24%), with fewer users and uses of Appraisal resources at every section of the presentation (see Table 6.3). In terms of epistemic identity, this meant the technical and monoglossic slide text was potentially able to counterbalance the everyday and/or “opinionated” positionings which were more likely to be achieved in speech. The extent to which it did so depended on how far into prominence it was brought by each presenter’s uptake of practices in other modes, as well as on the particular affordances (e.g., font size, colour, bullet points, etc.) of writing. Word choice in slide headings often foregrounded participants’ claims to epistemic credibility. Two groups were identified: first, headings that included at least one psychology-related word; and second, headings consisting of general Latinate vocabulary, often labelling a part of the presentation such as introduction, conclusion or discussion. Only four of the slide headings contained both word types. The participants’ authority as knowers could be foregrounded in headings by the manipulation of stylistic features of font such as case, type and colour, and particularly size, to foreground the technical language they contained (examples Fig. 6.6a & b below).

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

141

Fig. 6.6  Affordances of written text foregrounding epistemic status

In the body text, the communicative affordances of writing as a mode also increased the salience of technical or heteroglossic meaning-making in several ways. First, using bullet point styles to list their points, as many presenters did, ensured that technical/hetereoglossic vocabulary in thematic position in clauses increased in prominence (Examples Fig. 6.6 a & b). Some presenters used contrasting font types to bring these high-­status epistemic meanings to the forefront of awareness. For instance, during her explanation, Hazal used italics to differentiate her use of an expert quote on her topic of autonomy from the largely monologic body of her slide text, thereby projecting her own engagement (as the author of the slide) with her topic (Fig.  6.6c). One of Burak’s slides emphasised the technical terms he was explaining by excluding other language from the slide, increasing the font size and using a yellow colour which contrasted with the dark background (Fig. 6.6d).

Epistemic Identity in Image Images on slides were categorised as either scriptural, figurative or graphical, with the latter most likely to produce a high-status epistemic identity.

142 

R. J. Gray

73% of all images were figurative: these images produced more everyday meanings, served a largely interpersonal purpose, and are examined in more depth in Sect. 6.5.2 below. An example is provided in Fig. 6.7a. Much rarer were scriptural images, predominantly “word clouds” imported from the web and containing dense arrays of psychology-related vocabulary clustered around a technical theme. Because they were never referred to by presenters in speech and were not explicitly connected to the speaker-authored text, these word clouds were not deemed to make a significant contribution to epistemic credibility (b). Finally, there was only a single example of a graphical image in the sample, used by Özlem in her Q&A section. This table, authored by the presenter from data in the articles she had read, conferred high epistemic status via its display of technical knowledge drawn from a range of sources (C). The table was made more salient through its size and vivid colour

Fig. 6.7  Examples of epistemic identity realised in slide images

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

143

scheme; although misspellings of two psychology-specific key headings marginally reduced the credibility it conveyed, Özlem exploited its meaning-making potential with great skill during the Q&A section, as detailed in the next chapter.

Epistemic Identity in Nonverbal Embodied Modes The uptake of practices in the embodied modes of gesture, gaze, positioning, posture and movement produced epistemic identity interdependently with speech, text and image across all moves in the genre.. Broadly speaking, nonverbal actions in many modes at once co-produced epistemic positions in the same ways they co-produced language expertise as described in Sect. 7.2. However, it is necessary to qualify this observation. High-status knowledge in this context was realised in a particular subset of meanings, i.e., technical/heteroglossic/attitudinised positionings. Nonverbal actions at these points in particular shaped the presenters’ ability to project themselves as knowledgeable about their topic. For example, Burak’s utterance below from his Closing Remarks included two technical expressions, moral development and mindset. Both were articulated accurately (Fig.  6.8b,e). The first collocation was preceded by only a short pause, with a gaze shift upwards, single beat gesture

Fig. 6.8  Gesture increasing salience of epistemic positioning in speech

144 

R. J. Gray

Table 6.4  Summary of Burak’s style at the closing remarks section Mode

Style

Speech

Particularly fluent, with slightly below-average complexity and relatively frequent inaccuracies. Several false starts. Engagement proclaims positions on subject matter. Gesture Mostly beats and metaphorics. Very few deictics. Ends with only closed rest. Direction of gesture frequently extended to audience. Gaze Gaze predominantly at the teacher. Also elsewhere, less frequently and for shorter durations at audience and screen. Use of metaphoric separating gesture to refer to self and Kohlberg. Posture Centre-left and Centre. Movement Frequent leg movements accentuate semantic and intonational peaks in the utterance. Example at “but” 7.37 frames and draws attention to critical thinker identity and marks next move. Location Only between desk and screen. Slide Slide 10. Font serif –TNR black on white background. Font unknown. A single (red) bullet point, Centre. Two sentences, no images.

and forward step (a). These were typical features of Burak’s presentational style (see Table 6.4 above) and therefore did not foreground the technical knowledge given in speech. The second word, however, was preceded by a more marked set of gestures: a longer pause, rapid double beat and more pronounced shifts in posture and gaze, which projected the greater difficulty in retrieving the second technical meaning, mindset, more saliently (d). As a result of the nonverbal actions, Burak’s self-positioning within academic psychological discourse was therefore made marginally and momentarily less convincing at this point. While unimportant in a single instance, over longer durations, the aggregation of similarly configured actions would be likely to impact the speaker’s epistemic credibility. At this point, it important to consider how style and identity differ regarding this excerpt from Burak’s presentation. For Fairclough (2003), style is a “way of being”, or in other words, how social identities are produced through language practices. Auer (2008) underlined that the difference is primarily disciplinary: style is a term drawn from sociolinguistics and refers to recurrent clusters of language and other communicative patterns which index arrays of particular (often highly localised) identities, whereas identity is a sociological construct used to refer to group or role

6  Core Student Identity in Classroom Presentations 

145

affiliations claimed or given off via such communicative practices. The difference between style and identity on this account pivots on whether the study is conceived in sociolinguistic or sociological terms, respectively. Because this book explores how the student role is constituted by individuals’ uptake of communicative practices of the classroom presentation genre, it is framed as a study of identity, rather than style. The latter is approached as recurrent, observable patterns of use of different modes which are then interpreted as producing different aspects of the individual’s identity as a student. For Burak’s Q&A, then, as for all other students at each section of the presentations, I summarised these recurrent features as a first level of analysis of the presenter’s style (see Table 6.4), based on my annotations of the video transcripts and CAF analysis. Burak’s presentational style contained recurrent features, with the most distinctive features across all samples his spoken fluency and almost constant leg movement, which he ascribed to nervousness and which appeared to function with speech in ways similar to the gestural hand beats made by other students to maintain fluency and mark discoursal shifts. However, such idiosyncratic stylistic features only gained meaning in terms of the individual identity produced by interpreting them against other elements of the presentation, i.e., the audience (peers and teacher), subject matter, institutional setting and task, and in the context provided by the interview data (see 7.6.1). The presentational style of all participants including Burak also varied at each section of the genre, as described in the previous chapter. For instance, Burak’s gestural style was marked by a higher frequency of deictics during the Introduction and Explanation sections than the Closing Remarks and Q&A, which contained more metaphoric gestures. Thus, Burak’s presentational style consisted of features which were more durable and distinctive, as well as those which were much more unstable and dependent on the genre and other elements of the activity. While disciplinary identity was mostly realised in English talk and text, it could be also be enacted via other languages, and observing metaphoric gestures in particular had an important role in establishing that learners knew a concept, even when they were unable to retrieve the English word. One clear example of this was in Engin’s Q&A. During a

146 

R. J. Gray

Fig. 6.9  Knowledge of concept produced via metaphoric gesture

spoken dysfluency which occurred as he tried to retrieve the word global, Engin first produced a circling gesture representing the concept, maintaining this gesture as he spoke the Turkish word küresel to elicit the missing English word from the teacher (Fig. 6.9). The complexity of identity production in the presentations can be recognised by the fact that within this