Preface to New Edition. Preface to First Edition Introduction Chapter 1: Readers and Reading 1. New Fortunes 2. Reading as a Woman 3. Stories of Reading Chapter 2: Deconstruction 1. Writing and Logocentrism 2. Meaning and Iterability 3. Grafts and Graft 4. Institutions and Inversions 5. Critical Consequences Chapter 3: Deconstructive Criticism Bibliography. Index

The main aim of this research has been to address the issue of meaning in children's task-related utterances, by examining speech acts made whilst solving a challenging problem and their relationship with task-ability. Of particular interest is communication which in educational settings may be interpreted as being helpseeking, reflecting dependence or low self-confidence. A central concern in this work is possible gender differences in the way children express themselves and interact with adults in problem-solving settings, and particularly how such differences may be interpreted by caregivers and teachers. Chapter 1 introduces the issues addressed in the thesis, including the historical context of gender research in the areas of cognitive ability, interactional style and achievement motivation and expectation. The literature review (Chapter 2) provides a central theoretical framework (deriving from developmental psychology, speech act theory and pragmatics) within which the experimental design, data analysis and interpretation of findings are discussed. An important issue is the presumed relationship between children's achievement motivation (including task-mastery, competitiveness etc.) and affiliative motivation (including cooperative interactional styles, deferential language use, etc.) This research has specifically examined the validity of these constructs as gender-related and, moreover, their presumed existence as competing motivations. The experimental work was conducted with nursery children, an age group which has received little attention with regard to task-related communication. This was undertaken to determine the degree to which children's spontaneous communication, particularly help-seeking behaviour, reflects actual ability. Of specific interest were possible gender differences. In Studies 1 and 2 children were videotaped solving a challenging jigsaw puzzle in the presence of the experimenter. A coding system (Chapter 5) with definitions based upon the contextualised meaning of children's utterances was developed by the researcher, which provided a means of analysing the frequency and exact sequence of communicative behaviours, as well as their grammatical structure and orientation (to whom or what they refer). Analysis of data described in Chapter 6 revealed striking differences in both the orientation and the frequency of help-eliciting utterances made by boys and girls. Also of interest was the finding that girls' help-eliciting behaviour, whilst greater, did not reflect task-ability as did the boys', but among some girls increased with faster puzzle solving time. The girls were also observed to use more collaborative expressions (those that engage others using plural pronouns), make longer eyecontact and more help-eliciting utterances that were self-referential; whilst the boys' on-task utterances of all types were dominated by "instrumental" language (object-oriented). In the light of this evidence for greater "pro-social" communication among the girls, and equal solving time between boys and girls, it is suggested that affiliative motivation may indeed be greater among girls, but exists in parallel with achievement motivation, and is not a competing priority. Moreover, it is suggested that nursery aged children are capable of appropriating "help-eliciting" as a means of indirect social engagement, because of their sensitivity to the social constraints of a formal problem-solving context. Study 3 (Chapter 8) was conducted in order to assess the influence that helpeliciting behaviour, as a possible dimension of "communication style," may have upon the evaluative interpretation of educational practitioners. It was found that children, regardless of gender, with a high level of help-seeking, yet equal task performance, were pervasively underestimated by teacher trainees and professionals alike, with regard to the children's relative task-ability, confidence and independence. Chapter 9 concludes by discussing the overall theoretical implications of Studies 1 and 2 within the framework of development and linguistics and by highlighting practical implications raised by Study 3, particularly the potential for teacher bias and self-fulfilling prophesies in relation to academic achievement.

On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism

Children's communication in a problem-solving context : gender differences and their effects upon adult assessment of task-ability

Little of the vast literature on Albert Camus has been devoted to his ideas of Europe Existing material is either biographical criticism or portrays Camus as pioneer and visionary of modem-day European integration Though useful, these interpretations do not do justice to the complex plurality of Europe in Camus's ceuvre, which appears in several of his works It is depicted in differing and intriguing ways, for example as a sombre, divided continent of despair (in the fictional works) or as an aspiration towards
European unity as a means of preventing future war (in the political journalism) This thesis examines these manifestations with three aims The first is to situate Camus's political discourse of Europe (his calls for European integration and related matters) within the history of ideas of Europe, highlighting his negotiation with and adoption of Europeanist discourses Secondly, the thesis analyses Camus's fictional inscription of an imaginary Europe of fault lines and division using a space in literature approach and a Barthesian understanding of the antithesis Thirdly, instances of dialogue within the ceuvre between his fictional and political discourses of Europe will be examined The
epistemological grounding for this is provided by Bakhtin's theories of the novel:
Europe is conceived of as a multiplicity of overlapping discourses with which Camus
relates dialogically, and between whose works there exists a similar dialogue of Europe
Such an approach offers both a new way of reading Camus's treatment of Europe and,
potentially, of reading the history of the idea of Europe itself

Constructions of Europe in the fictional and political works of Albert Camus

Writing, Speech, and Silence in Mrs. Dalloway

An analysis of worship according to Peirce's three part taxonomy of sign-types perhaps gains for us some idea of the kinds of meaning generated in liturgical signs. It does not yet say how such meanings are generated, nor whose meanings they are. This is the task addressed in this concluding chapter on the semiosis of worship. Its thesis is that meaning is forged (fastened together) in signs, and that this is a collaborative task for which both the sign's producers and its recipients are equally responsible. In addition to attempting thus to give some concluding account of the making of liturgical meaning, I hope to draw into relationship with Peirce's semiotic theories of meaning some of the strands of thought rehearsed in earlier chapters: meaning as both making and finding, meaning as ‘Best Account’, the reasonableness of the meanings of worship, and so on. In all this I am ruled by a degree of circumspection. It was something of a vogue in the 1980s to attempt to find the points of convergence between the Peircean and Saussurean approaches to semiotic theory. That undertaking now appears singularly unpropitious. On the other hand, as I have noted already in various places, many careful scholars of Peirce consider him to have been a forerunner of what we now call postmodernity or late modernity.

On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism

Citations

Children's communication in a problem-solving context : gender differences and their effects upon adult assessment of task-ability

Constructions of Europe in the fictional and political works of Albert Camus

Writing, Speech, and Silence in Mrs. Dalloway

Worship as Meaning: Sign-production, sign-reception

Worship as Meaning: Meaning in worship

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