Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Academic Discourse Socialization for International Students in Architecture: Embedding an Imagined Scenario in Telling a Design Narrative

Abstract Details

2022, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, EDU Teaching and Learning.
Although studies in higher education have paid attention to the complexities of learning disciplinary language and discourse, little attention has been given to learning professional discourse in a second language (L2). Recent studies on language socialization have addressed this gap by focusing on L2 students’ emerging communicative competence in disciplines. However, these studies have primarily paid attention to language and considered the role of embodied actions and objects peripheral in employing the field-specific practices. This dissertation aims to complement this prior research on disciplinary socialization and professional vision by incorporating those two lines of inquiry. This study addresses the following questions: (1) How does an instructor use imagination to engage novice students in disciplinary discourse? And (2) how do L2 students change how they use disciplinary discourse practices and spatial repertoires to construct their telling over time? Taking a language socialization approach, this semester-long video-enabled ethnographic study focuses on desk critiques, or repetitive one-on-one instructional conversations about student design, in a college architectural design studio as a locus of one’s learning and socialization. I recruited two instructors and two L2 international students as the focal participants for this study and video recorded all desk crit interactions between a focal instructor and student. To address the first research question, I mapped a desk crit using an advice-giving activity frame to understand how a desk crit is organized and how both parties mutually oriented each other within a crit. Within the schematized desk crit interaction with seven steps, I identified two steps, identifying a student’s design problems and offering advice to address the issues, when an instructor (Mr. J) embedded an imagined scenario in telling their design narrative to co-construct perception with their students. Then, using multimodal interaction analysis, I analyzed a collection of desk crit events and found Mr. J’s patterned way of using an imagined scenario in telling his design narrative as a professional designer. Using the notion of narrated event, I demonstrated how Mr. J demarcated the boundary of an imagined scenario to involve his students in his design narrative. Then, for the second research question, I employed a narrative activity frame to extend the unit of analysis to a series of desk crits and trace how a student changed the way they used the embedding practice in their design narrative. I examined how students used indexicals to indicate that their telling shifted to an imagined scenario through multimodal interaction analysis. Both students demonstrated the development of their communicative competence through their expanded spatial repertoires. Through a detailed description of each student's changes, I illustrated how they developed their distinctive spatial repertoires over time. This study complements the prior academic language socialization research by exploring an under-researched setting and providing each student’s learning trajectory in detail with empirical evidence of transformation. Examining both teacher’s practices and students’ learning over time occurring in desk crits, I also seek to discuss how teaching and learning are intertwined in an iterative activity and how teacher discourse can create learning opportunities for diverse students. Finally, this study demonstrates conceptual and methodological innovations by recontextualizing various concepts and expanding some notions to document what happens within and across events.
Leslie Moore (Advisor)
Melinda Rhoades (Committee Member)
Caroline Clark (Committee Member)
184 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Choi, M. (2022). Academic Discourse Socialization for International Students in Architecture: Embedding an Imagined Scenario in Telling a Design Narrative [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1658460915770387

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Choi, Minseok. Academic Discourse Socialization for International Students in Architecture: Embedding an Imagined Scenario in Telling a Design Narrative. 2022. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1658460915770387.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Choi, Minseok. "Academic Discourse Socialization for International Students in Architecture: Embedding an Imagined Scenario in Telling a Design Narrative." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2022. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1658460915770387

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)