A great emphasis has been put on understanding knowledge construction through analysing discourse (Cole 1996; Engestrom 1999) since discourse is an essential practice that creates a certain community (Wenger 1998) when learners engage in learning activities (Hmelo-Silver 2003). Everyday learning practices have been studied using a broad range of techniques, highlighting the importance of the dynamic relationship between discourse and knowledge (e.g. Cazden 1986; Cobb and Yackel 1996; Koschmann et al. 2000). According to Koteyko (2006), discourse provides “several ways to see how meaning is created in language use” by implying “a complex relationship between the linguistic and the social, and the different
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approaches construe this relationship on different terms” (p. 132). Structural configurations of discourse are closely associated with meaning production for knowledge construction.
Discursive skills are, therefore, regarded as one of the key competences (Heller and Morek 2015) for knowledge construction because they enable learners to participate in learning activities across different subjects and disciplines (Uccelli et al. 2014). The view that knowledge is the product of a constructive discourse process rather than the by-product of communicative activities is shared by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1989). They initiated a model of knowledge building which was later developed into the term knowledge creation.
Referred to as “a set of social practices that advance the state of knowledge within a community over time” (Paavola et al. 2004, cited by van Aalst 2009: 260), the term emphasizes the status of discourse in determining the limits of knowledge, setting goals, investigating problems, promoting the impact of new ideas and evaluating whether the state of knowledge is advancing. Similarly, van Aalst (2009) distinguished three modes of discourse:
Knowledge sharing discourse refers to the transmission of knowledge between people,
involving introducing information through collaborative inquiry in a community with a lack of attention to interpretation, evaluation, and development;
Knowledge construction discourse refers to the processes by which students solve problems and construct understanding of concepts, phenomena, and situations, featured as effortful, situated, reflective at the interface of being individual and social (Palincsar 1998);
Knowledge creation discourse: involves the design and improvement of intellectual artifacts such as theories, explanations, and proofs (Bereiter 2002), emphasizing explanations, casual mechanisms, and the coordination of claims and evidence.
(p. 260-264)
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Knowledge construction is often associated with deep learning in a community (Biggs 1987), involving “qualitative changes in the complexity of students’ thinking about and
conceptualization of context-specific subject matter” (Moore 2002: 27). Knowledge
construction contributes to restructuring knowledge in a substantial manner (van Aalst 2009) at different levels (usually from moderate to high) of engagement - a term coined by Dole and Sinata (1998), referred to as the effort a learner makes to process information through learning practices. Cognitive activities are involved in knowledge construction processes which would imply deeper insights into both the concepts themselves and the networks of concepts (van Aslst 2009). New concepts can be invented and enhanced during knowledge construction processes as well, along with the practice of interpreting, evaluating, critiquing, testing and sharing these concepts within and outside a community.
As argued by some scholars, knowledge construction is placed at a higher level than knowledge sharing (e.g. Hmelo-Silver et al. 2007) through processes directed at the
acquisition of the reliable knowledge of a field (see Kolodner et al. 2003; Krajcik et al. 2008).
The intensive focus on sharing knowledge by increasing informational input may explain why many educational approaches do not perform well in practice. Some ill-structured learning tasks make learners misunderstand knowledge as isolated, segmented, static “pieces of things”
they could quickly pick up to solve the problem provided to them. Such a “to-know-for-the-sake-of-knowing” orientation to knowledge has to be replaced by a new model which goes beyond the acquisition level into broader conceptual and practical domains. Such a new model shares the features of Bereiter and Scardamalia’s (1996) knowledge creation model, following the principle that discourse plays an important role in enhancing knowledge innovation by “maintaining social relations, setting goals, deepening inquiry and lending support to ideas that are already understood by some in the community” (van Aalst 2009:
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263). In such sense, knowledge construction and knowledge creation are overlapping, consecutive or even interwoven processes in a community’s learning practices. A
re-conceptualization of knowledge construction is needed and the discursive practices through which people deal with knowledge should be viewed in a dynamic circle rather than a liner order, in a systematic rather than an isolated manner.
Specifically, to explore knowledge construction in the educational context, I found
Bernstein’s work (1971; 1999) particularly relevant. In his Classification and Framing paper (1971), Bernstein introduced the term educational knowledge code, whose forms depend on
“social principles which regulate the classification and framing2 of knowledge made public in educational institutions” (p. 47-48). He explained the two terms classification and framing as follows:
Classification refers to the degree of boundary maintenance between contents… Classification is strong when contents are well insulated from each other. Classification is weak when the boundaries between contents are blurred.
Framing refers to the form of context in which knowledge is transmitted and received, the specific options of power distribution and discourse control which shape the specific
pedagogical relationship. Strong framing entails reduced options, while weak framing entails a broader range of options.
(p. 47-48)
Bernstein’s classification does not refer to how disciplinary contents are classified, but the degree of insulation between them in pedagogical interaction. As illustrated by Bernstein
2 The term framing coined by Bernstein (1971) in his educational knowledge code is defined from a pedagogical perspective.
The focus is on knowledge transmission and reception in formal educational institutions, which is different from how frame and framing are conceptualized in Frame Semantics and Interactional Linguistics.
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(1971), very strong insulation can be identified between the ‘pure’ and the ‘applied’
knowledge (see Becher 1987a, 1987b) in England at levels below Higher Education. It should be noted that there is difference between educational levels concerning how ‘pure’ and
‘applied’ disciplines are to be perceived. At levels below Higher Education, a pure variety of subjects are drawn from a common universe of knowledge (e.g. chemistry, physics,
mathematics) while an impure variety of subjects are drawn from different universes of knowledge (e.g. religion, physics, economics) (Bernstein 1971, original examples). The optional combinations as such are, to a large extent, in the form of the collection knowledge codes (Bernstein 1971: 51), where disciplinary boundaries are quite clear and relatively closed.
On the other hand, Higher Education manifests features of the integrated knowledge codes (Bernstein 1971: 53) where disciplines are developed into a more intricate structure bound by some relational ideas, thus with blurred boundaries.
It should be noted that framing in Bernstein’s (1971) educational knowledge code is different from how frame and framing are conceptualized in semantics research (see Section 2.3.1) and social interaction studies (see Section 2.3.3). It does not refer to what knowledge is for itself, but how knowledge is constructed; or in Bernstein’s (1971) words “ways of knowing” (p. 57).
Frame in Bernstein’s term represents patterns of power distribution and control of
institutional discourse in contextualized pedagogical relationships. Bernstein (1971) identified a weaker frame in the teacher-pupil relationship in England compared with that in Europe, while understanding of framing of knowledge in the Higher Educational context is to a large extent limited, if not missing in his work.
In his 1999 paper, Bernstein distinguished two modalities of discourses vertical discourse and horizontal discourse with “forms of knowledge” (p. 158) as the criteria. He argued that
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different forms of knowledge will be realized and constructed within the two types of discourses:
Vertical discourse: A vertical discourse takes the form of a coherent, explicit, and
systematically principled structure, hierarchically organised, as in the sciences, or it takes the form of a series of specialised languages with specialised modes of interrogation and
specialised criteria for the production and circulation of texts, as in the social sciences and humanities.
Horizontal discourse: A horizontal discourse entails a set of strategies which are local, segmentally organised, context specific and dependent, for maximising encounters with persons and habitats.
Bernstein (1999: 159)
Defining features of the two types of discourse are shown in Table 2:
Table 2 Features of vertical and horizontal discourse (Bernstein 1999: 162)
Based on the distinction between vertical and horizontal discourses, Bernstein further argued that these two types of discourses entail different modes of learning and context management patterns due to different structures of knowledge acquisition. His main propositions are summarized as follows:
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Both vertical and horizontal discourses are likely to operate with distributive rules that set up positions of defense and challenge. In vertical discourse, there are strong distributive rules regulating access, transmission and evaluation. Circulation of knowledge is basically realized through explicit re-contextualization and evaluation which are motivated by strong distributive procedures. In horizontal discourse, there is inter-dependence between the social relationships and the forms of discourse.
Circulation of knowledge is basically realized through the segmental organization based on its contextual mode of orientation to social solidarity. The mode of knowledge acquisition is created by the form taken by the pedagogy, the interventions of which shape the form of knowledge to be acquired. In vertical discourse, knowledge is mainly acquired through an integration of meanings based on specialized symbolic structures of explicit knowledge. The procedures for the acquisition are linked hierarchically. Development is seen as the development of theory. In horizontal discourse, knowledge is mainly acquired through the relevance of one contextual segment to another. A general competence rather than a graded performance is acquired. The competences are segmentally related, context-specific and dependent, highly goal-oriented to the on-going practices. Development is seen as the introduction of a new language to offer the possibility of fresh perspectives, new questions, new connections and a new set of speakers.
Bernstein (1999: 160-163)
While Bernstein’s work on knowledge and discourse structures is illuminating, it is limited in the following aspects:
1) There has been little first-hand information drawn from empirical studies to test the validity of the framework.
2) The investigations have been mainly conducted within educational practices below Higher Education, with little research specifically focusing on university settings.
3) Generic specifics within the educational register have been to a large extent ignored (e.g.
formats of classroom organization, types of participants, language varieties, etc.).
4) Products rather than processes of knowledge construction have been emphasized, with the interactional mechanism in collaborative learning contexts reduced to trivial.
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In sum, Bernstein’s (1971; 1999) work has provided a useful way of approaching the
relationship between knowledge construction and discourse structure in educational practice.
This inspires the design of the current study to address the research focus (collaborative knowledge construction) within the discourse dimension. On the other hand, due to the limitations mentioned above, the current study has been conducted in a setting (university small group talk) with the research focus shifted to the processes rather than products of knowledge construction and a broader scope of contextual factors taken into account.