Establishing Scientific Discourse in Classroom Interaction Teacher Students’ Orientation to Mundane Versus Technical Talk in the School Subject Norwegian

ABSTRACT

This article reports a case study on classroom interaction in teacher education in Norway. It addresses how teacher students in the school subject Norwegian constitute scientific talk in a student-led discussion. First, the analysis reveals tension in the classroom conversation between mundane talk—that is, where students make claims with reference to their personal epistemic domain—and scientific talk—that is, where students make claims with reference to a shared scientific epistemic domain. Then, the analysis identifies specific interactional resources (reproach, embedded correction, formulation, and recontextualization) that the students use to regulate and bridge the 2 levels of discourse. Finally, the article provides insights into how scientific discourse is collaboratively established through conversational turns and considers how teacher education might use these findings for communication-skill training.

KEYWORDS:

• Student talk
• conversation analysis (CA)
• scientific discourse
• formulations
• bridging devices
• pedagogical link-making
• teacher education

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Anne Marie Dalby Landmark, Jan Svennevig, Kenneth Silseth, Liz Stokoe, and Marit Skarbø Solem for their careful reading and useful comments on the first draft of this article. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for their highly qualified, thorough, and critical feedback. I am also grateful to the students who participated in the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Baynham (1996) identified similar practices as examined by the CA researchers Heritage and Watson but does not refer to the CA definition of formulations (cf. Heritage & Watson, 1979). In addition, Lemke (1990, pp. 100–106) has identified a teacher practice that involves “selections and modifications of student answers to fit a thematic pattern.” However, he did not identify this practice as “formulations” in the CA sense of the concept.

2 For a discussion on the effect of simulations and role-play, see Stokoe (2013, 2014).

3 A Norwegian expression meaning: Life is miserable for the time being. Life goes backward/in a wrong direction. When the hen goes out on the fields, she kicks soil and crops backward.

4 However, against this possible objection, one could say that students who are practicing being teachers during their teacher education make up a naturally occurring activity in this context.