Subject Matter in Hong Kong Primary English Classrooms

A Critical Analysis of Teacher Talk

Bibliographic Data

ID21175508
AuthorsAn E He (corresponding author), An He
Year2006
Volume3
Issue2-3
Pages169-189
Publication date2006-03-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Inquiry in Language Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1542-7587 • E-ISSN: 1542-7595
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/15427587.2006.9650845
OpenAlexW2211343045
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited10

Studies of language issues in postcolonial Hong Kong are abundant. While the majority is concerned with the language policy and medium of instruction, there seems to be insufficient discussion on the subject matter of our English lessons, which, this paper argues, are ideology-ridden. Following the tradition of critical discourse analysis and ideological studies (see van Dijk, 2005; Luke, 1994), this study attempted to explore how a habitual form of communication, teacher talk in this case, was utilized as a vehicle for young children to "[learn] the taken-for-granted aspects of lived reality" (Hasan, 1996, p. 137), and what attributed to the creation, transmission and maintenance of this dominant culture/ideology in the society, resulting in narrowly-defined subject matter for the young children in the classrooms observed. The study started with a description of lexicosyntactic items in the teacher talk via a corpus approach, and moved to an interpretation/explanation of the linguistic texts in the light of the overall sociopolitical and cultural context in Hong Kong where the teacher talk was situated

Curriculum · Ideology · Linguistics · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Situated · Sociology · Subject matter · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Gender Studies · History · Multilingual Education and Policy

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