Talk at school - An analysis of classroom discourse

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 2,3, Saarland University (Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Anglophone Kulturen), course: Hauptseminar: Language and Power, language: English, abstract: This paper, like any other conversation analysis, is 'an approach to the analysis of spoken discourse that looks at the way in which people manage their everyday conversational interactions' (Paltridge 2006:107). The kind of spoken discourse to be analysed here is classroom discourse. There are many different 'aspects of spoken discourse' (2006:107) that help to analyse a conversation such as sequences, turn taking, code-switching, feedback, repair, openings and closings, to name just a few. This paper will take a closer look at some of these aspects and in particular at opening sequences and repair. But I will first of all give a short introduction on the structure of lessons as a basis for the following chapters.