Abstract:

Because language is and always will be an important social variable that reflects and impacts larger social dynamics, the assessment and evaluation of written language will always be both sensitive and hotly contested. Therefore, the writing classroom is a microcosm of society at large and examining how authority is negotiated between teachers and students in the writing classroom can reveal how an education system serves to either perpetuate or challenge larger, social power structures. This paper examines-- through the lens of Politeness Theory and based on data already collected from student interviews--how authority is negotiated in two English writing classrooms: an Albanian classroom taught by an American writing instructor, and a rural American classroom taught by an Albanian professor of English. The primary goal is to form a hypothesis and raise questions about the social power structures that inform and condition teaching in both the Albanian and the American education system. A secondary purpose is to examine how the multi-cultural writing classroom impacts those structures.

Keywords:

negotiation of authority, pedagogical practices, classroom power structures.