THIS PAPER HAS EVOLVED OUT OF SIX YEARS OF CONTINUOUS RESEARCH into issues of plagiarism among ESL writers. The current study explores group discussions among ESL students and teachers, demonstrating that, through interaction with more experienced peers and instructors, students can negotiate and co-construct their notions of plagiarism by working in their zones of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). We conclude that such socially situated discourse is necessary for students to grasp and reach generally agreed-upon definitions of, and beliefs and attitudes toward, such complex academic issues as plagiarism.
Introduction
Since 1996, we have been pursuing a research agenda exploring plagiarism among post-secondary ESL writers. We have studied perceptions of plagiarism among both ESI, students and instructors as well as plagiarisms effects on curricular decisions in ESL writing programs. Our anonymous questionnaire methodology enabled us to gather revealing data; however, it was inherently limited. For example, researchers and students experience communication gaps when face-to-face negotiation of meaning is lacking. Since some miscommunication results from students' limited English (Deckert, 1993), questionnaires investigating beliefs and attitudes are best accompanied by qualitative interviews (Mishler, 1991). The current study therefore employs a qualitative interview methodology.
In our first study, we uncovered a lack of awareness among ESL instructors of the socially situated nature of writing (as discussed by Bowden, 1996b and Carson and Nelson, 1996). We also found a subtle yet pervasive distrust of ESL students' academic integrity. As Deckert (1993) remarks, “ESL students in settings of higher education are frequently viewed by Western instructors as persistent plagiarizers” (p. 131). We discovered that, often, ESL instructors and administrators adjust curricula to compensate for this perceived “problem” and that these adjustments can result in unsound instructional practices.
Prompted by these findings, we conducted a second study investigating ESL student beliefs and attitudes about plagiarism to understand the issue better from their perspectives. That study (Youmans and Evans, 2000) indicated that ESL-student plagiarism remains a concern for two reasons: Many students misunderstand U.S. notions of plagiarism, while others understand them but choose to practice plagiarism nonetheless due to attitudes they bring from their native cultures.
Methodology
Recognizing the limitations of questionnaire research, we undertook the current study—an interview-based study investigating beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors concerning plagiarism among ESL writing students. In this study, we looked at student-teacher and student-student interaction in actual discourse. In the first phase of this project, we collected data in an intermediate ESL writing classroom at a public university in the Southern United States. We asked the instructor to tape her classes every day and teach as she normally would. Neither the students nor the instructor was told that the study was about plagiarism. Over the course of a fifteen-week semester during which the class met for eighty minutes twice a week, only one brief mention of plagiarism was made—a student asked a stylistic question concerning the use of quotation marks, and the teacher briefly responded. We had intended to follow up any discussions of plagiarism that occurred in class with student and instructor interviews, but because there was only this one mention made, we had no data to explore further. Once we saw that this topic had barely been touched on in an entire semester, we realized that, in order to collect discourse data, we would have to address the issue more directly. We therefore decided to act as participant observers, tape-recording informal group conversations with ESL students to collect potentially more revealing data.
In this second phase, we worked with three ESL classes at the same Southern university: ESL 100, a lower-level multi-skills class—ESL 101, an intermediate listening-speaking class—and ESL 104, an advanced writing class. The student participants came from fifteen countries: Brazil, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Japan, Iran, Israel, Korea, Libya, Russia, Spain, Sudan, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela. We interacted for approximately an hour with each group. After transcribing these conversations, we noticed several categories into which stretches of discourse seemed to fall, categories which will be discussed presently.
Our questionnaire study investigating ESL student perceptions of plagiarism in writing had revealed certain reasons behind student and instructor misunderstandings concerning plagiarism; however, it was limited as to the amount it revealed regarding the depth and sometimes surprising sources of these misunderstandings. That study did not reveal in much detail what students privilege when constructing their views and attitudes on plagiarism. This study is much more explanatorily adequate in this respect.
Findings
The content of the conversations in this study revealed a good deal about where gaps and intercepts between students' and teachers' notions of plagiarism actually lie. Furthermore, when we analyzed the transcripts and categorized the data, we found passages in which, through discourse, students were actually refining and constructing their mental concepts of plagiarism during interaction. It is this social-constructionist finding which interests us the most.
In contrast to our previous findings, this study revealed less of a mismatch between students' reported definitions of plagiarism and those traditionally thought of as Western constructs. Although students did exhibit some contradictions when expressing their notions of plagiarism, most students described Western definitions of plagiarism and contended that the definition of plagiarism is the same throughout the world. Western notions of plagiarism in writing, as stated in Youmans and Evans, 2000, are described as “involv[ing] the use of someone else's writing as one's own without giving credit to the author, whether the source be a published work or a classmate's essay.… Asking or hiring another person to write a paper or buying a paper written by another to submit under one's own name are included within this definition” (p. 114). Dillon (1988) encapsulates Western notions of plagiarism by stating that “actual words of discourse are either mine, or someone else's, and possession…is grounded in having selected, ordered, and uttered the words…in some written document that can be checked and cited by others” (p. 63). Most students in our study reported that they understood similar definitions from their own countries, as is shown below. Please note that “M” and “F” designate Madeleine and Faun, respectively. Students are designated by the letter S followed by a number given in the order in which they first spoke in their groups.
Example 1.
F: Do you think that the attitudes about plagiarism and cheating are different in this country than they are in other countries where you come from?
S3: I think that it is the same, but I don't think so, the basic thing is different. Still, you know uh, back in Iran they say also “Cheating is bad, it's immoral, it's not good…”
Example 2.
M: In your mind, what is plagiarism?
S4: Plagiarism, actually at my school I had to study official definitions for plagiarism, which includes also citing without telling to whom this works belongs or…without rephrasing it, but actually for me is to use someone's mind's work and to actually look at the…answers…when but book specifically tells the answer.
Example 3.
F: How about in Ecuador?
S1: If you you use the book, you have put the page and the author of the book.
F: And they taught you how to do that, and how to use quote marks, quotation marks?
S1: Yeah. (Students from China, Korea and Venezuela all concur that they have been taught these methods in their countries.)
Example 4.
F: Um, have you gotten much information about how to give credit to the other person?
S2: Well, not exactly but uh I I know some kind of idea, I can just write down the person's name and then if I just copy from journal I can just write down each journal, and then the year, and month, and then I can just write down detail as detail I can be I can write down, so I could just show peoples “Oh, this person just copy the document from the I mean paragraph from other person's journal.”
We categorized student comments on plagiarism as follows:
One of the most striking findings which emerged was the extent to which students associated plagiarism not with academics but with the law, categorized in Table 1. as “Plagiarism Associated with Legal Issues.” Until prompted specifically about plagiarism in school settings, when students were asked to comment on the word “plagiarism,” they brought up, for example, court cases in which they reported that artists such as Luis Miguel had been sued for allegedly plagiarizing other artists' songs. Overlapping this fundamental issue of legality is the category “Plagiarism Associated With Media.”
Consider the following example:
Example 5.
M: Okay, who has talked to you about this [plagiarism], what have you heard about this kind of thing? How have you found out about it? (students murmur)
S2: I have heard about people fight in courts, in law, some kind of things, telling that the work's from someone, and someone copy the work, or
M: Okay
S2: Going to the media, that kind of thing
M: So like lawsuits
S2: Yeah
M: Yeah, yes.
F: Have any of you ever heard this word discussed any other place? You said you've heard it in the news
S2: Yeah, the news
F: In the media
S2: Yeah, I used to read about it in the newspaper
F: Any other place?
S1: News, always news
F: Always news?
S1,2: Yeah.
Interestingly, two students, when discussing plagiarism in academic contexts, stated that the subject had been brought up at their schools only in response to famous court cases. Here again is a connection between plagiarism and law/media. An Ecuadorian student reported that his highschool teachers had discussed plagiarism in class due to an exposé of a government official; similarly, a Korean student stated that universities in his country had adopted a stronger response to plagiarism after a notorious software-pirating lawsuit in that country a couple of years ago. Consider the following examples:
Example 6.
M: Have you ever had a teacher talk to you about it? [plagiarism]
F: No? Anybody else, have you ever had a teacher talk to you about this? S?: No.
M: Even in your own country. S1: When I was in 6th grade M: In where?
S1: In a high school
M: In high school?
S1: Yeah, a teacher uh talked me about it.
M: What did they say?
S1: That it's no good. Because in Ecuador, an important person did it, like, in the government
M: In the government?
S1: Yeah.
M: Oh, okay. And so was that—that was in the news media?
S1: Yeah.
M: Was that what—was it during that that your teacher talked to the class about it?
S1: Yeah.
M: Okay. So, um, what happened to that person?
S1: Uh, she lost uh the job, and she got a um, uh
F: Fine?
S1: Yeah, fine.
F: What country are you from?
S1: Ecuador.
F: Ecuador, okay.
S1: I just think it's like a, no fine, I think it's like the court
M: Okay so, she was, she got a legal judgment against her?
S1: Yeah, legal problem.
M: Okay, for plagiarizing. Okay, so that's why your teacher brought it up?
S1: Yeah.
Example 7.
S2: …In my country, when I was a university guy, a college student in 1985, there was kind of popular things, copying something, but I have some friend uh they graduate uh… I think 98…and then I talked to them and he said nowadays, in the uh Korean university people little bit change, so because maybe three years ago…Korean government trying to…punish peoples copy kind of software, like that. So after that, the situation little bit change. So student doesn't share about the homeworks or exam anything because they know if they share it uh the person who give them the material,…he or she could get a bad credit or bad grade. Maybe, what I'm saying is that he lose, he or she lose some point, because there are kind of same answers, like that, so grader will know about it. So right now situation little bit different than I when when I was a student in the university.
An additional finding was that certain students seemed confused about plagiarism as opposed to legitimate collaboration or typical U.S. instructional methods and assessment procedures. For example, one student declared that “plagiarism here [in the United States] it becomes legalized,” as she could not imagine how open-book tests, take-home exams and the like could be anything but plagiarism:
Example 8.
S4: And plagiarism here it becomes legalized, actually. You have openbook tests, you can write anything you want in the book, you can do open notes too in the book
F: That's not really
S4: You have cheat sheet, official piece of paper, or even two, or we're, I think we're even allowed to have two, that you can put whatever you want on there, there are home tests, when you take the test home and you do it. Isn't that plagiarism?
F: It—well, why do you think it's plagiarism?
S4: Well, I mean that is exactly what people do in my country, but it's not open, I mean that is what you call like if a student takes a book under the table and looks for material, many people will say it's plagiarism, but if the book is allowed on the table, why is it not a plagiarism? Actually
F: Why do you think it's not plagiarism?
S4: Actually, I think it's plagiarism, some way.
Still other students stated that the greatest harm of plagiarism is that it discourages students from studying throughout the semester which results in failed high-stakes exams:
Example 9.
S2: …sometimes but I copy [meaning past tense] some kind of homework, stuff like that, sometimes I just uh uh sat behind the desk and just copy and then I turn in now, like that. But when I came in here I realized that is kind of stupid so I didn't do that but after that I realized most people sometimes uh if they have a kind of problem about the homeworks, they just copy and then, they think uh “I can study later,” but when I came down to here I realized I cannot do that. The reason is if I copy some material from here, then later I have a bad credit, I mean bad grade, because I cannot keep up that uh material other than somebody just study or professor just uh give the course.
Example 10.
S3: You know because those people, like, when I came here I know that some people are cheating in the classroom, but when we went for the board, board is just like a getting you're a-knowledge, so if you cheated whole four years in the college, then nothing is here (points to head), you just cheated in the paper, once you go to give the board, they are testing your knowledge. Once you don't have that knowledge, then it's nothing, you are going to fail. So even though your whole four years
Table 1. Categories of student comments on plagiarism.
- Plagiarism Associated with Legal Issues
- Plagiarism Associated with Media
- Inability to Distinguish Between Plagiarism and Legitimate Collaboration
- Plagiarism as an Ineffectual Long-Term Strategy
- Plagiarism as a Necessary Strategy to Succeed in School:
a. Plagiarism as Solidarity Against Sometimes Draconian Educational System and Instructors
b. Plagiarism as Initiated by Educational System and/or Instructors
you got all As, and came out very nicely, and teachers
loved you, not knowing that you were cheating, but then
the paper and the board show that, okay, she doesn't
know anything, nothing is there. Once you come to board,
it still it shows.
M: Okay, so you don't is there's no way to cheat on the
board exams?
S3: No, uh uh, because it's a computer, and there monitors
is all around you, and somebody outside looking at you,
first you go in the room and they check all over you,
you cannot take nothing in the room.
During our previous research, we began to suspect that, despite the fact that definitions of plagiarism vary somewhat from culture to culture (Youmans and Evans, 2000), cultural issues beyond mere definitions were at the root of students' beliefs and attitudes toward plagiarism. In the current study, we were able to uncover some of the reasons that students may share Western notions of plagiarism but act in ways that are incompatible with these Western definitions.
The most telling findings came from student comments that, in their countries, plagiarism is viewed as absolutely necessary to success in school. As is discussed above, they feel that the definitions of plagiarism in their cultures are similar to ours; however, due to the academic environments and cultures of their countries, plagiarism has become a necessary norm. Consider the following:
Example 11.
S4: Some feel like, un- unavoidable in some way, I mean
students can't imagine their life without plagiarism,
just in, just in high school you always write notes, and
try to do, actually I also tried to do it but I'm just
really had at this, so I just quit it in high school.
F: What, why do you say that it's almost impossible to
avoid? This is in the Ukraine?
S4: Yeah.
F: Why did you say it's almost impossible to avoid?
S4: Because uh education system works like this. You go to
lectures, during whole during the whole semester, there
is no homeworks, there is no tests, you just go to the
lectures, if you if you are a good student you actually
show up for the classes, at the end there is one exam
that covers the whole material of all the lectures that
were given during several months, and as you have
something as five exams or even more in different
classes, and you never actually did not you never read
books, or did homework or anything, it actually really
impossible to study this material during several nights.
And actually what happens is that students study this
material during several nights so in most of the cases,
professors even like don't really even even don't try to
catch plagiarism, or even if they catch it, there is no
punishment for plagiarism in Ukrainian schools.
F: How, how do they, how do they cheat then?
S4: Oh, first of all you always make a really small notes,
now that you have Xerox copy machines that can make it
like 20 times smaller it's easier
F: Uh huh
S4: You also use the book, under the table, you look at your
notes, I mean there is the tables that have something
like bottom desk so you can put notes over there, you
can have somewhere, I don't know, calculator, um you
know, covers, you know, everything
Students from several countries mentioned the necessity of “establishing good relationships” with instructors by giving them gifts of office supplies, candy, flowers, and even alcohol:
Example 12.
S4: … My best friend's father he was instructor in
the university, and what what I really like in your
house is that there is always some good chocolate, and
some drinks and everything, ch- chocolate, and my
friends enjoyed brandy, but they they're really poor
because teachers are not paid, this actually teachers
just forced to take money because the salary is so low
that you can never, ever live on it, so you give candies
and flowers even if just to build better relationships
with the instructor, because ask these questions and all
these grades we have oral exams, so you stand up and
teacher may ask all the kinds of questions you know she
wants, I mean, if the teacher doesn't like you there's
no way you can pass it, because even like history this
teacher may ask small picky details and you can fail,
even the best student can fail the class, so you really
try to build good relationships, and the only way to
actually do this is to give candies.
In addition to the need to establish “good relationships” with instructors, some students described outright bribes to teachers; for example, some said that students who engaged in private tutoring with their instructors were told the answers to the exams, and in certain cases, instructors even demanded specific amounts of money from students to pass important exams:
Example 13.
S3: I do have a friend who came to Canada and he was
telling, “How can I go to the college? From first
grade to twelfth grade my father was giving pen and
pencils and gifts to the teacher and they were giving me
good grades, and now I (start doing it?) (laughs) and of
course he couldn't get through, 'cause he was right, all
his life was father was giving gifts to the teacher, he
could have never finished his study, but he did that,
the bribery, the bribing the teacher, is the
M: Do they bribe the teacher with money, ever?
S4: Yeah
M: Really?
S3: No
S4: Sometimes teachers do that. Actually
F: Oh, really? It's from the other side
S4: My my cousin like he was a student at this school and
his teacher said to the group, we have we don't have
like freshmen, sophomores, uh like freshman divided into
small groups, and he said like “When you come to
exam you have to bring a certain amount of money to
pass,” and there was one student who said “I
really know this class, I mean, I'm not going to pay or
something, I can do it by myself,” he was really
poor, and he tried four times. And he borrowed money,
then he borrowed money.
M: (?) instructor (?)
F: Wow
S3: Not like that, it's not
S4: No, it's not, it's not always like that.
Example
S3: But, back in Iran it's with private tutor. The teacher
will say, “Okay, I can do the private
tutoring,” and those students who do their private
tutoring with that teacher gets more marks. Because he
will go to their homes and tell them the marks, you know
S4: Exactly
S3: The questions, indirectly, indirectly he will tell them
the questions, so when and then he knows who didn't sign
up for his class at home so they are not his favorite
students, even though maybe their parents cannot afford
it.
Implications
Our analysis of the group discussions has revealed that students' understanding of plagiarism and related concepts is not fixed but rather is developing. A major issue which we have not yet discussed is the fact that, in certain junctures of discourse, it is apparent that students are in the midst of constructing their ideas on plagiarism through talk. For example, consider the following:
Example 15.
M: Mm hmm. Okay. All right. Should we go on now to some of
the activities? Okay, what if um what if you get someone
um to write a paper for you, let's say that you don't
have time to write your paper so you ask him to write it,
but you put your name on it and hand it in, would that be
plagiarism?
S1: Well that's first thing cheating, I'm cheating people,
I'm cheating myself, I'm cheating the other person
because I'm I'm stealing his effort.
M: What if he doesn't care? What if he says “Oh sure,
use my paper.”
S1: Well if he- he-, but still uh, I don't think it's you
know, it's not acceptable, I think it's plagiarism,
yeah. Even that other person he accept it, but it's not
right, it's plagiarism, that's my point.
Looking at S1's last comment, above, we can see that, through
interaction, he is in the process of constructing his notions of
plagiarism. The speech errors (Fromkin, 1973), recasts, qualifiers
(“but”), the use of the epistemic modal verb
“think” both positively and negatively (Youmans, 2001),
the use of “you know” as an appeal for understanding
(Youmans, 1995), and the student's use of “yeah” to
affirm his own developing theory all suggest knowledge under
construction. An example follows that is even clearer in this
respect:
Example 16.
M: Yeah, okay. What if your friend helps you with some
ideas. You don't have any ideas for your paper, and your
friend says “Why don't you write about this?”
And then you write about that. Is that plagiarism?
Ss: No.
M: Again, is that help?
Ss: Yes.
M: Do you all agree with that or does anybody disagree?
S2: I don't know, I have, I need to think a little bit more
about that, I really … now, thinking more about
that, I really don't know. I had plagiarism in my mind,
was something different. But maybe, yeah, if you a
person agree with you and if you copy something from
him, maybe it's gonna be a plagiarism. Uh, I don't know,
I …
M: Okay, um, even if the person agrees, why why why have you
changed your mind about that? Why do you think
S2: (laughs) I don't know if I changed my mind, I'm just
thinking a little bit more now about the idea, I really
don't know, maybe if you copy the ideas from someone
else, maybe it's gonna be a plagiarism, even if he
agrees to give you the ideas. So I, I'm not pretty sure
now about that. I have, I have to think a little bit
more about the concept of it.
Not only does S2 explicitly state that, during the group discussion, she has begun to rethink her notions of plagiarism, but also her language use gives several indicators of developing knowledge as well. She uses the epistemic modal verb phrase “I don't know” as well as the epistemic modal adverb qualifiers “really,” “a little bit more,” and “maybe” (Youmans, 1995). She also uses the verb “think” in the present continuous tense, which is emblematic of the ‘here-and-now’ nature of her thought process.
These examples illustrate that, in their discussions with us and with each other, sometimes contradicting themselves as they went along, students rethought and refined their understandings of plagiarism. Given that these findings show construction of knowledge through discourse, they are best analyzed within a Vygotskian paradigm(1978).
We propose that the only way that instructors and students can reach a mutual understanding of concepts such as plagiarism is through interaction and discourse since knowledge is socially constructed. Vygotsky defines the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under … guidance … or in collaboration with more capable peers” (1978,p. 86). Evans (1999) explains that the actual development of the learner is what the student can master independently, while the potential development is what the learner can do with the aid of a facilitator, stating that “the width between the two points of development determines the degree to which an individual can advance or progress The greater the width between the actual and potential development, the greater is the potential for growth” (p. 16).
In Examples 15 and 16, it is clear that the participants are working toward a better understanding of plagiarism through discourse. Through interaction with students at different levels of maturity, intellectual development and language proficiency as well as with the two participant-observer researchers, these students appear to be working within their zones of proximal development. Evans (1999) reviews Wertsch's (1984) concept of “semiotic mediation,” whereby facilitators help students move from actual developmental levels into the ZPD. Consider again examples 15 and 16 in which the researchers, serving as facilitators, seem to be involved in semiotic mediation within their conversational groups.
For instance, in Example 15, M asks a student if having another person write a paper is plagiarism. He responds, “Well that's first thing cheating.” However, when she pushes him to refine his answer, he ends up determining that he does, in fact, think that the activity discussed constitutes plagiarism. M's continued questioning leads the student to a better understanding of his own notions of plagiarism.
Similarly, in Example 16, M asks Ss (students) if getting help from a friend would constitute plagiarism, and Ss reply “No.” M then pushes the students to consider their responses carefully by saying “Again, is that help?” and asking whether or not everyone agrees. S2's response to M's query demonstrates how she is developing her understanding of plagiarism as she speaks. She replies:
Example 17.
S2: I don't know, I have, I need to think a little bit more
about that, I really … now, thinking more about
that, I really don't know. I had plagiarism in my mind,
was something different. But maybe, yeah, if you a
person agree with you and if you copy something from
him, maybe it's gonna be a plagiarism. Uh, I don't know,
I …
In this excerpt we can see that S2 is formulating her thoughts in response to M's prodding so that her knowledge is being constructed within the context of the discursive situation.
Similar social construction of knowledge occurs in the following exchange:
Example 18.
M: Okay, um, even if the person agrees, why why why have you
changed your mind about that? Why do you think
S2: (laughs) I don't know if I changed my mind, I'm just
thinking a little bit more now about the idea, I really
don't know, maybe if you copy the ideas from someone
else, maybe it's gonna be a plagiarism, even if he
agrees to give you the ideas. So I, I'm not pretty sure
now about that. I have, I have to think a little bit
more about the concept of it.
Here we can see the way in which M's further questioning of S2 pushes the student to reexamine her understanding of plagiarism, and in doing so, encourages her to think more critically. These two examples illustrate that language not only reflects but instantiates reality: Language and social reality are mutually constitutive of each other.
As stated above, it was not just the researchers who assisted the students in constructing knowledge: Students were seen to engage in semiotic mediation (Wertsch, 1984) with other students, as is shown below:
Example 19.
S1: … I'm trying to say we are talking about the
honesty. You feel like.…
I am trying to say that honesty has nothing to do with
plagiarism. To be honest or not to be honest, you're
doing the same thing.
S2: I think that what [S1] is saying is that honest, if
you are an honest person, if you have the chance to
cheat, you won't. But if you're not honest, and you do
not have the chance to cheat, you're not honest, but uh,
so if you have the chance you will, but if you're not,
if you don't have the chance, you can't.
Ss: (laughter)
S1: I'm trying to explain. I don't know if you understand
it.
S2: You are talking about the honesty, like you are talking
about if you take some money from someone to do some
work for you, this is not cheating, right?
S: (unintelligible)
S: I was trying to say that honesty, like if you take
someone's, someone's, this is what I did…, If you
take someone's, and you take their work and you turn it
in, this is not plagiarism.
Although at the end of this excerpt the students dearly have not yet arrived at mutual understanding, it is evident that they are attempting to co-construct notions of plagiarism. Such phrases as “I think what [S1] is saying” and “You are talking about” indicate that attempts to clarify concepts are being made. The claim that these students are working not at their actual developmental levels but rather within their ZPD is supported by their use of epistemic modal verb phrases indicating fluctuating levels of certainty such as “I think” and “I don't know” (Youmans, 1995). Furthermore, their comments such as “I am trying to explain” and “I was trying to say” demonstrate the students' metalinguistic awareness; that is, they are aware that, to be understood, they must make explicit what they are trying to explain.
Conclusion
Based on our findings, we conclude that student-student and student-instructor discourse on the topic of plagiarism must be encouraged. As is shown in examples from our data, such discourse is likely to serve as a site for individuals to construct their ideologies concerning such crucial academic constructs as plagiarism.
Plagiarism is “perhaps one of the most foremost and richest post-modern dilemmas” due to an increasing acceptance of social constructionist views of ‘language and self’ (Bowden, 1996a, p. 82). Within a social constructionist paradigm, reality is not fixed, but rather relative, and such realities can vary among interlocutors within a conversation, influencing interaction (Leki, 1992, Taylor and Cameron, 1987). In Vygotskian terms, the findings of this study demonstrate that pedagogy which allows student-student and student-teacher interaction to flourish is more likely to result in the students working within their zones of proximal development. Without engaging in socially situated, interactive discourse, individuals cannot compare their own realities with those of others and thereby begin to co-construct ideologies with their interlocutors.
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Youmans, M. (1995). Communicative rights and responsibilities in an East Los Angeles barrio: An analysis of epistemic modal use. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Youmans, M. and Evans, F. (2000). Perceptions of plagiarism in ESL writing: Student perspectives. Journal for Language Teaching 34 (2), 113–125.
Youmans, M. (2001). Cross-cultural differences in polite epistemic modal use in American English. Forthcoming, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.
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By Faun Bernbach Evans and Madeleine Youmans
Faun Evans is Assistant Professor (Literacy Education) and Director, Teachers' Writing Center at Chicago State University. Her research interests include the teaching of writing to native and non-native speakers of English, intellectual property and plagiarism, issues concerning neo-Vygotskian and social constructionist pedagogy in language teaching and bilingual/dual language programs.
Madeleine Youmans is Assistant Professor (English) and Director, TESOL and ESL Programs at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She earned a B.A. at Cornell University and an M.A. and Ph.D. (linguistics) at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include intellectual property and plagiarism and discourse analysis of Chicano-Anglo conversations with a focus on the sociolinguistic implications of epistemic modal use.
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