LRDG: Negotiating discipline and politics: How students draw on diverse practices when 'doing a dissertation'
Date: 21 June 2011 Time: 1 - 2 pm
Venue: C89, County South
Kathrin Kaufhold (Lancaster University): Master's level dissertations provide opportunities for students to draw on diverse writing-related practices. However, this process is not a linear transfer. It can entail conflicts that students need to solve in order to successfully complete their dissertations. This talk reports on aspects of research into master's level dissertation writing at Lancaster University. It focuses on two cases in which students experienced discrepancies between their disciplinary background and their current master's programme in terms of writing practices and it examines how these conflicts were resolved. I will suggest that understanding writing as part of social practices - and social practices as essentially defined by their inherent meaning (Schatzki 1996) - can help to uncover the complex interrelations of different literacy practices. On this basis, I will demonstrate the role of appropriating elements of previously encountered practices into 'doing a dissertation' within a specific academic discipline
Event website: http://www.literacy.lancs.ac.uk/what/lrdg/lrdg.htm
Contact:
Who can attend: Anyone
Further information
Associated staff: David Barton, Kathrin Kaufhold
Organising departments and research centres: Lancaster Literacy Research Centre, Linguistics and English Language
Keywords: Academic discourse, Literacies, Literacy practices, Writing (general)