@phdthesis{discovery10020607,
          school = {Institute of Education, University of London},
            note = {Thesis: (PhD) University of London Institute of Education, 2011.},
            year = {2011},
           title = {A sociocultural study of intercultural discourse. Empirical research on Italian adolescent pupils},
          author = {Castelnuovo, Antonella},
             url = {http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.573002},
        abstract = {This research study aims to contribute to an understanding of adolescents'
discourse analysed from an intercultural and multidisciplinary perspective in the
context of Italian educational setting.
The primary interest of this research is to outline issues on differences in
discourse, arising from pupils' different sociocultural backgrounds. In particular, the
analysis is oriented to investigate semiotic mediation by means of the modality of
language, characterised by a developmental and social analysis of verbal action
mediated by psychological tools with respect to the given task(s).
The central focus of the analysis is discourse, written and oral , produced among
groups of Italian adolescents pupils, divided in terms of scholastic abilities, gender
and sociocultural background. This approach is based on the research assumption
that sociocultural differences of pupils engaged in a similar discourse activity would
elicit different types of semiotic mediations within their group discussions.
Hypothesised existence of semiotic variations among pupils of my sample was the
basic research question to which I hoped to find an answer. If so, then, it would be
important to highlight how these variations will affect pupils' verbal performances in
their production of discourse meanings and educational knowledge.
This aim was achieved by integrating Vygotsky's genetic approach with a
discourse analysis of verbal interaction based on Halliday's Systemic Functional
Linguistics. This approach provided the opportunity to link both micro and macro
levels of sociocultural differences in school and society, since it allowed the
exploration of pupils' individual and collective mental development in linguistically
mediated social action and interactions.
This perspective is in line with recent theoretical shifts in the fields of
communication studies where the focus of interest had moved away from
comparisons among cultures to the co-constructive aspects of situated dialogue and
discourse.
From an intercultural perspective, it was more relevant to understand how social
identities and verbal meanings were co-constructed through the process of interaction
between differently constituted subjects, rather than trying to explain why some
pupils fail to communicate certain meanings in a given educational discourse.}
}