Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

Classroom Discourse Analysis 541
Research Methods
Classroom discourse analysis
To gain more fi nely grained metalinguistic awareness, teacher/researchers
also can supplement informal discourse notebooks with more systematic
classroom discourse analysis. Classroom discourse analysis is an ideal
way to understand the range of repertoires circulating in a classroom and
how they are distributed across different classroom events. So, just as
Gumperz (1964, 1971) began to explore verbal repertoire by noticing how
individuals used multiple languages differently and deliberately on different
social occasions, a classroom discourse analyst studies the relationship
between classroom events and language use within them.
An X-ray view of classroom discourse studies might reveal the following
basic skeletal steps:
(1) Identify distinct classroom events.
(2) Characterize the language within those events.
(3) Identify variations in the language within those events.
Initially, classic classroom discourse studies focused primarily on steps
1 and 2 mentioned above, describing normative expectations for classroom
talk. For example, Hugh Mehan’s (1985) study identifi ed teacher-fronted
classroom events (step 1) and the ubiquitous ‘Initiation-Response-Evaluation’
turn taking pattern within them (step 2). This research also characterized
the typical kind of questions (known-answer) and answers (brief and
swiftly offered) that are most functional within this event.
Other early studies, however, also were intent on identifying individual
variations within distinct classroom speech events (step 3). Sarah Michaels,
for example, identifi ed the ‘sharing time’ classroom event (step 1), and
characterized typical, successful storytelling turns within that event
(step 2). She found that successful stories were topic centered on a single
topic (e.g. making sand candles) and that the teacher was able to ask
follow-up questions with facility. But Michaels also identifi ed unsuccessful
storytelling turns and began to investigate why those stories were not
working (Step 3). She found that the African–American children in the
class were bringing a distinctly different communicative repertoire to sharing
time, in which sharing involved chaining together a series of personal
events that included many family members, memories and details.
Other studies, rather than comparing individuals within a speech event,
have compared language across speech events and how the language
expectations within those events affect student verbal behavior. Susan
Philips (1984), for example, documented distinct participation frameworks
within classrooms on the Warm Springs Indian reservation and characterized
the different turn-taking patterns within each of those events. Then
she investigated participation patterns within each of those distinct events.