Moving from "interesting data" to publishable research article: some interpretive and representational dilemmas in a linguistic ethnographic analysis of an English literacy lesson

This chapter explores the processes of case selection, data analysis, theoretical framing and representation in the move from research data to publication of a research article in a linguistic ethnographic study of classroom discourse and interaction. Over the course of our fieldwork in an East London primary school we observed and video-recorded a lesson in which the teacher invoked the televised talent show, X-factor, in organising the class to provide feedback on pupil writing. The subsequent 8-min episode intrigued us, so we spent a considerable amount of time analyzing it, and also played it back and discussed it with the teachers in the school. Ultimately, we published an article based on this episode: “Promises and Problems of Teaching with Popular Culture: A Linguistic Ethnographic Analysis of Discourse Genre Mixing” (Reading Research Quarterly, 2011). However, the move from “interesting episode” to published article was not at all straightforward. In this chapter we discuss the interpretive and representational dilemmas that we confronted in this process. In doing so, we reflect on the relationship between data and theory in linguistic ethnography, and on how academic institutions and genres impinge upon practices of interpretation and representation.