translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

significance and help the development of the interpersonal interaction.
Both the status and the role of participants have a great importance, as they
determine the interaction rules (in what concerns the beginning,
development and ending of the respective interactions).
Participants establish a certain type of relationship between/among
them; it has an asymmetrical character given by the participants` different
status and roles and the asymmetrical position taxemes: the students`
positioning at their desks and the teacher’s position behind the teacher’s
desk.
The teacher controls the whole flux of conversation in the classroom.
He is the one who (as a rule) selects the next speaker in a direct way (using
addressing terms) or in an indirect way (through a frontal question that
gives students the possibility to self-select). Students talk only when they
are asked questions/invited to do it. Their talking time is quantitatively
reduced, in comparison with that of the teacher`s.
Participants also have the possibility of choosing the style and the
way of behaviour according to the ritual they are involved in. At the same
time, they have the chance of getting or not getting involved in interactions
(the case of the students who do not know and thus do not give an answer
to the teacher’s questions or, who stubbornly refuse to do this).
The ritualized ceremony is based on a script (an unwritten one). On
the one hand, the lesson has certain moments/stages that are observed
(greetings, warm-up activities, pre-, while- and post- activities); on the
other hand, the teacher and students` roles constrain their behaviour and
make them act as actors on a stage, actors who know their parts/moves
and their sequencing. Sometimes, through their imagination and energy
participants can bring alterations/improvisations, to be noticed at the level
of content and conversational chaining.
Participants become, in turns, actors or audience. There are moments
when the teacher is the main actor (he offers input, offers feedback,
evaluates oral or written tasks, and establishes activities or types of
groupings) and students are members of the audience. Roles are then
changed; students are main actors in front of the teacher and their fellows
(the case of individual answers to questions, of students` role-playing,
simulating, solving exercises at the blackboard, reading in front of their
fellows, etc).
In the classroom one can notice the types of rituals as established by
Goffman 11: access rituals, confirmation rituals and remedial rituals.
Access rituals mark the participants` “entering” the stage. They are
the ritualistic greetings at the beginning or the end of each class and are
quite stereotyped due to the status and role of the participants.
Once the “access”ritual is established and the relationship put into
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