| Summary: | This dissertation presents a critical examination of men's and women's
discourse practices in directive-response speech sequences (DRSS), on the
basis of data obtained from teacher-student interactions during groupwork in
two secondary schools in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
Following West (1990), the broad purpose of this study is to explore the
similarities and the differences in the DRSS between educators of different
gender and their students. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, particularly
the work of Fairclough (1989,1992,1995), this study then critically examines the
social relations of power implicit in these instances of discourse.
The findings of this study indicate that both similarities and differences exist in
male and female educators' linguistic choices for issuing directives. There is
some evidence that female educators made more attempts than male educators
to reduce asymmetrical relations of power in their directive choices. However,
the critical discourse analysis revealed that the linguistic choices of all
educators in my study were mostly informed by the language functions they
wished to perform at a particular stage of their lesson.
I conclude that it is crucial that educators, both male and female, make more
effort to employ discourse practices (especially during groupwork) that are more
democratic rather than those that emphasise asymmetrical relations. === Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.
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