QUT ePrints

Agency as discursive practice: From 'nobody' to 'somebody’'as an international student in Australia

Kettle, Margaret A. (2005) Agency as discursive practice: From 'nobody' to 'somebody’'as an international student in Australia. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 25(1), pp. 45-60.

[img] PDF (98Kb)

DOI: 10.1080/02188790500032525

Abstract

As more and more students pursue an international education, there is a need to investigate how these students deal with the demands of their study programs in the new academic context. This paper introduces one such student, a Thai English teacher named Woody, and looks at the ways that he engaged with a Master of Education program in Australia. I analyse the transcripts of two interviews that I conducted with Woody in his first semester using Fairclough's model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The analysis is interested in the social and institutional demands that Woody identified as impacting on the course, and the strategic action that he took in response to them. I argue that by undertaking this action, Woody was 'working' as an agent of his own change. The analysis highlights a proactive and strategic engagement on Woody's part, a point that has been missed in much of the literature on the international student experience in Australia.

Citations:

Search Google Scholar™

Help

Citation counts are sourced monthly from Scopus and Web of Science citation databases.

These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science generally from 1980 onwards.

Citations counts from the Google Scholar™ indexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.

Full-text downloads:

360 since deposited on 18 Jun 2007
113 in the past twelve months

Help

Full-text downloads displays the total number of times this work’s files (e.g., a PDF) have been downloaded from QUT ePrints as well as the number of downloads in the previous 365 days. The count includes downloads for all files if a work has more than one.

More statistics...
ID Code: 8086
Item Type: Journal Article
Additional URLs:
Keywords: international education, international students, agency, academic literacy, engaging with academic practices, critical discourse analysis
ISSN: 0218-8791
Subjects: Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > LANGUAGES COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE (200000) > LINGUISTICS (200400) > Language in Culture and Society (Sociolinguistics) (200405)
Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > EDUCATION (130000) > SPECIALIST STUDIES IN EDUCATION (130300) > Comparative and Cross-Cultural Education (130302)
Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > LANGUAGES COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE (200000) > LANGUAGE STUDIES (200300) > English as a Second Language (200303)
Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > LANGUAGES COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE (200000) > LINGUISTICS (200400) > Discourse and Pragmatics (200403)
Divisions: Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Faculty of Education
Copyright Owner: Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis
Copyright Statement: : Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher : This journal is available online. : First published in Asia Pacific Journal of Education
Deposited On: 18 Jun 2007
Last Modified: 02 Feb 2012 20:17

Export: EndNote | Dublin Core | BibTeX

Staff only: HERDC collection form

Repository Staff Only: item control page