Classroom Discourse Analysis/Part two/G1

Students: Barouk Romeissa

Mr. Ayadi Karim

Teacher:

Arfi Affaf
Introduction:
The birth of a new branch which is Discourse Analysis paved the way to
overcome many problems that researchers have suffered from in various
contexts such as in classroom context.
1.Definition:
Discourse Analysis is the study of how language in-use is affected by the
context of its use (Rymes, 2008:13).
Classroom Discourse Analysis deals with recording, transcribing ,and then
analyzing the discourse to discover the communication gaps and deficits
which lead to the misunderstanding(Rymes, 2008).
2.Dimensions:
2.1The Social dimension:
Social context has a broad influence on what is said inside the classroom
since discourse and context each influence each other in a dialectic
relationship. Language variation provides great misunderstanding. Social
context includes several features which are: Gender Expectation, over
determination, Racial and Ethnic background of the teacher, Reputation
and Social class(Rymes , 2008:33-54) .
For example:
How are you? Takes the form of a question; however, in USA the phrase
how are you? Functions as a greeting (Rymes, 2008:34, 35) .

2.2The interactional Dimension

It is the influence of interactional context on language function (as cited
from Rymes, 2008:53).
Predictable interactional context: adjacency pairs
According to Rymes much of everyday student-teacher interaction is
predictable as in such expert Good morning! good morning

(2008:54),and he sees that such type of adjacency pairs which refers to a

to two part interactional sequence in which the first part produces the
expectation for the second part is important in driving interaction and
if a person says something, the addressee must respond(2008:54,56).

Unpredictable interactional context:

When teachers receive silence after asking questions means that their
expectations for the second part of an adjacency pairs sequence have
been foiled.Silence may be interpreted in different ways .karenGallas
found that opening a science discussion by such question with over
determined science terminology lead to silence. She argued tat using
familiar words help in avoiding silence. for example, sayingwhere do
dream come from? instead of saying what is gravity?. (As cited from
Rymes 2008: 57-59)
Creating new interactional context: interactional contingency
According to Rymes it is the present potential for interaction to
reshape the preceding individual utterances. If a teacher dismisses
studenttsideas , it ay lead to unpleasant result in the classroom. However,
if a teacher is interested in what student ts answer ,even if it
isinaccurate , this student will be encouraged to participate
(2008:59,60)
2.3-individual agency :
According to Betsy Rymes individual agency is personal control ;i.e.,
the ability to act in ways that produce desired outcomes(2008:64).
Betsy Rymes has provided two major aspects concerning teachers
individual agency:
The first aspect is : Augmented Agency through awareness of social
context:
Teachers who have the ability to read characteristics of social context,
while listening to their students, will choose which of those characteristics
will influence classroom interaction .Betsy Rimes went further claiming
that teachers have to try to conduct interactions according to their hopes
for students rather than environments expectations(2008:65).As Georges
teacher has done in the example of George as a Behaviour Problem who
saw him as a child with potential to reshape the curriculum rather than a
disruptive child(Rymes,2008:23,24).

The second aspect is :Augmented Agency through awareness of

interactional context :
Rymes has provided that developing individual agency as a teacher often
means letting students do the talking ,providing the opportunities for
students to ask questions and provide each others with
answers(2008:72).For the teachers to achieve what has been said before
Thought Provoking Questions is one factor to be aware
of(2008:70).Intelligent guiding, also, is needed from teachers as in the
pupil Germains situation ,when his teacher didnt dismiss his wrong
answer neither did she give him the right one ,but she ,perfectly, guided
his thought for more thinking and participating(2008:61,62).

3.Sinclair and Coulthards rank scale :

Sincalir and Coulthard have developed a rank scale of Hallliday to analyze
discourse in classroom setting. The top of the rank scale is a lesson
followed by transaction,then exchange ,move and act . (Dailey,2O1O,P.3)

Lesson
Transaction
Exchange
Move
Act
(McCarthy,1992,P.22)
rank scale:from the diagram we notice that acts are combined to form
moves ,the latter are combined to form exchanges which themselves are
so to form transaction and finally a lesson . In our research we are going to
focus only on the inner levels of the rank scale:

act :is the smallest and the lowest rank of discourse (Sinclair and
Coulthard ,1992,P.8)
move:there are five classes of moves which make up an
exchange(Sincalir and coulthard,1992,P.8)
a) Framing moves: are used to structure the lesson

b) Focusing moves :are there to draw the studentsattention to the

direction of the lesson
c) Follow up moves : are said to be the most important ones.This
type is used to know whether students have done what the teacher
wanted them to do.
d) Opening moves
e) Answering moves
Exchange :is the combination of moves.the three main teaching
exchanges described by Sinclair and Coulthard are :Informing ,
directing ,and eliciting exchanges . (1992,P.26-27)
Informing exchange: takes place when the teacher needs to tell
his student about new information.
Directing exchange:the teacher expects from students to do, but
not to say. Its most likely to be a non verbal response .
Eliciting exchange: Sinclair and Coulthard state that : a typical
exchange in the classroom consists of an initiation by the teacher ,
followed by a response (pupil) and followed by a feedback (again by
the teacher ).(1992,P.3). this coined the term Inititiation, Response ,
and Feed back .(IRF).(Coulthard and Brazil,1992,P.65).
There are many strategies that develop the interaction in the
classroom. These are the most important :
Maximize apportunities for students participant :
From what have said before , it was the teacher who was dominating the
classroom. The students were passive . Thats why the teacher should
bear
in
mind
that
students
who
are
learning
language
,therefore,maximizing apportunities for students participation to let them
dominate the classroom is necessary and so important. (Yu,2OO9,P.157)

Involving more
discourse:

negociated

interaction

in

classroom

The best way to involve more negociated interaction (IRF) which means
initiation opens the exchange , response constitutes a reply to the
preceding initiation and feedback evaluates the preceding response and
closes the exchange. The main purposes of negociated interaction in the
classroom setting is to resolve interactive problems or to sustain the
conversation in classroom.(Yu,2009,P.157)
Conclusion:
In sum, classroom discourse analysisis a cooperative event in which the
teacher and the learner cooperate and negociate with each other in order
to achieve certain goal in the classroom.

References

Sinclair ,J,andCoulthard ,M (1992) Towards an analysis

of discourse. In Coulthard ,M. Advances in Spoken
Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Routledge .
pp. 1-34.
McCarthy,M. (1991) Dscourse Analysis for Lnguage
Teachers. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press.
Coulthard,M. and Brazil,D. (1992) Exchange structure
In Coulthard, M. Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis.
London and New York: Routledge .pp.50-78.