Multivocality in the interview discourse of young people with difficulties in school

Authors

• Henri Satokangas Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki
• Penni Pietilä Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki
• Leea Lakka Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23997/pk.131260

Keywords:

discourse, education, interview, multivocality, reading difficulties

Abstract

Within educational institutions, authorities of different kinds regulate a diversity of social norms for
reading and writing. In this article, we analyse how young people orient to these norms while deploying
a versatile set of linguistic resources. We examine multivocal linguistic resources in interview
discourse by utilising tools from appraisal theory. The data consists of interviews conducted with young
people who have faced diverse difficulties during school years. In the analysis, we outline a continuum
of reported speech and interdiscursivity by delineating the categories of named other voice, unspecific
figure, indefinite other voice, and terminology. By constructing other voices in their speech, interviewees
echo accounts of themselves or disalign with them, thus claiming epistemic authority over themselves.
Terminology, in turn, brings along specialised discourses that prompt the interviewees to view themselves
through diagnostic categories. We argue that the interviewees use multivocality in ways that
complexify their agency. First, external voices exercise definitional power over the interviewees. On the
other hand, the interviewees utilise voices in resourcing their agency over their own life.