Education and the experience of language : a phenomenological approach to pupil talk.

The thesis argues that language research in education
is implicitly positivistic, and that in:'focussing on
communicative functions, most ,investigations ignore
the processes of expression. This imbalance has influenced
theory and method in English Studies, which
should acknowledge both aspects. After a review of
linguistic influences, a phenomenological epistemology
is developed. This provides the basis for an account
of language which restores the element of expression.
The centre of the work comprises two parallel strands
of enquiry which have an elaborated distinction of de
Saussure's langue and parole as their common structure.
After sketching a simple model of some of the features
of langue, one part draws on phenomenological writing.
It shows how the formal structure of language has its
roots in experience; langue, therefore, - as a science
of elements - is ,extended to comprehend the relationship
of those necessary abstractions to the structures
of experience underlying them. The other part shows
how such a philosophical account has an empirical and
useful validity; literary method is used to describe
the expressive acts of students as they discuss poetry.
Consonant with the first part, parole is viewed as so
many instances of experience disposed to sharing meaning.
This illumination of parole suggests some);"truths
which research methodology must respect if it is to
recognise the character and event of meaning. In conclusion,
several principles of art which the expressive
nature of language shares are elaborated with examples
from 'literature, and pedagogic implications illustrated
from the author's experience. Finally, phenomenological
enquiry is characterised as a method which can investigate
the experience of language in education; such
work respects the personal, experience of meaning, and
so the moral dimension of research lies in the problem
of communicating that effort for meaning to others.