Becoming in Language: A Diffractive Analysis of Academic Language Within U.K. Postgraduate Learning

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Higher Education and the Non-Traditional-Age Learner

Abstract

The paper details a recently completed study about postgraduate students grappling with academic language, and the resulting effects in their educational 'becomings'. The novel methodology brings together concepts from poststructuralism and New Materialism (specifically the work of Deleuze and Barad), to provoke alternative thoughts about the relationship between language and learning in adult education.

Literature regarding academic language is often based in conventional discourse analysis practices, however this paper demonstrates how applying an unorthodox methodology may disrupt traditionally held understandings to generate new insights. Thinking through onto-epistemological concepts, the paper posits how academic language events might work towards furthering learners’ ‘becomings’. The research contributes to the theoretical and empirical literature on academic language, highlighting unexpected implications for postgraduate learning.

Author

• Sarah Evans, Manchester Metropolitan University