THE LINGUISTIC CONSTRUCTION OF AUTHORITY IN TEACHER-STUDENT INTERACTION IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF PAKISTAN

Abstract

This study evaluates how language principles, for maintaining powers, are developed, negotiated, and supported by the authorities to use in classrooms. This study is conducted through the critical discourse analysis to explore the discursive construction of power in teacher-student relations within the learning institutions of Pakistan. Through the Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of discourse analysis, this study evaluates the discourse used in the classroom setting of the secondary schools of Lahore, Pakistan. The findings demonstrates that the hierarchical model of power is constructed, reshaped and transmitted through the linguistic strategies. The findings of this study also offer valuable insights for teachers, educational program designers, and developers of educational technology, suggests that the development of linguistic choices or language tools, accelerates training environments where power serves as a catalyst for collaborative knowledge and democratic student involvement rather than just a means of control. The results of this study obtained through the analysis of observations student-teacher interactions in real settings of three institutions (a public university, a private college, and a higher secondary school) of Lahore, 35 interviews with teachers, and 28 focus-group interviews with students, and concludes the relevance of applying imperatives, deontic modality, and ideological positioning to maintain authority. This study is going to argue that these habits of a language support cultures to believe in obedience and deference that could offend critical thinking. The implications regarding the educational reforms in Pakistan are the dialogic pedagogy, needs to be developed to come up with egalitarian classes. The findings of this study also suggests that the successful education in the future lies and depends on development of intentional and strategic language authorities.