This PPT presents discourse analysis in Classroom Interaction using the frame of Flander, Bellack, Coulthard, and Sinclair's frames

1. Classroom
Interaction
by
Arbaya A. Haron-Boquia

2. • MedleyandMitzel(1963),Biddle(1967),
Meux(1967)Weick(1968) have vast
literature and comprehensive reviews
on one type of verbal interaction
between teachers and pupils.
Naturally, such studies have
educational priorities but none is
concerned with simply observing the
interaction and describing its
linguistic structure, turn-taking
system, or productive, interpretive
and sequencing rules.

3. Studies of Gallagher and Aschner(1963) and
Taba et.al (1964) concerned with the levels
of thinking, produce an analysis in terms of
abstract categories several stages removed
from the linguistics data.
There are , however, three descriptive
system which do attend closely to the
linguistic data ---Barnes (1969), Flanders
(1970) and Bellack et al (1966), Barns has two
major educational tenets: that pupils should
be encouraged to participate and draw on
their own knowledge and experience as much
as possible, and that teachers’ questioning

4. Should be more concerned with stimulating
thinking than eliciting factual
information.
Two aspects of the interaction
a. Pupils participation
b. Teachers' questioning
Four categories of teachers’
questioning
> factual, reasoning (open and closed),
other open questions (not requiring
reasoning), social.

5. • The results of such analysis are
necessarily statistical and the ‘meaning’
of the analysis is the relationship
between the ideal state of affairs
provided by the education theory and
the actual data. Thus Barnes notes that
the pupils’ participation is too low; they
ask too few questions and when they
are willing to contribute as in the
following extract their contributions
are built upon:

6. T: You get the white…what we call casein… that’s…er…protein…
which is good for you… it’ll help to build bones… and the white
is mainly the casein and so it’s not actually a solution…it’s a
suspension of very fine particles together with water and
various other things which are dissolved in water…
P1: Sir, at my old school I shook my bottle of milk up and when I
looked at it again all the side was covered with…er…like
particles and …er… could they be the white particles in the
milk?
P2: Yes, and gradually they would sediment out, wouldn’t they to
the bottom?
P3: When milk goes very sour though it smells like cheese doesn’t
it?
P4: Well, it is cheese isn’t it, if you leave it long enough?
T: Anyway, can we get on… We’ll leave a few questions for later.

7. Barnes found the results of the analysis of
questionings similarly depressing: ‘what most
impressed us in these figures was the pre-
dominance of factual over reasoning
questions in the three arts lessons,’ and the
fact that entirely open questions hardly ever
occurred.
The interpretation is one step away from the
linguistic description and coloured by the
educational theory- in some cultures, which
place a high value on rote learning, factual
questions may be more highly regarded.

8. See how teachers are obsessed in
terminology
T: Where does it go before reaches your lungs?
P: Your windpipe, Miss.
T: Down your windpipe. Now can anyone remember the other
word for windpipe?
P: The trachaea.
T: The trachaea…good… After it has gone through the
trachaea where does it go then?...There are a lot of little
pipes going into the lungs…what are those called Ian?
P: The bronchii.
T: The bronchii…that’s the plural… what’s the singular? What is
one of these tubes called? Ann?
P: Bronchus.
T: Bronchus…with ‘us’ at the end…What does ‘inspiration’
mean…?

9. Flanders (1970): The basic category system of
Classroom Interaction
Teacher
Talk
Response 1. Accepts feeling
2. Praises or encourages
3. Accepts or uses ideas of pupils
4. Asks questions
Initiation 5. Lecturing
6. Giving directions
7. Criticizing or justifying authority
Pupil Talk Response 8. Pupil response
Initiation 9. Pupil initiation
Silence 10. Silence or confusion

10. The major feature of this category
system lies in the analysis of
initiative and response- which is
characteristic of interaction between
two or more individuals.
To initiate (in this context) means to
make the first move, to lead, to
begin, to introduce an idea or concept
fro the first time, to express one’s
own will.

11. To respond- means to take the action
after an initiation, to counter, to
amplify or react to ideas which have
already been expressed, to conform
or even comply to the will expressed
by others.
Initiative P: The rain of the dessert
would make many plants grow.
Response T: Mary thinks plants would
grow because of the rain. Would you
agree or disagree Jerry?

12. Flanders’ system obviously ignores
many features—while concentrating
on the control and development of
topic it neglects what may be crucial
aspects of turn-taking system.
Sacks claims that the speaker asking a
question of another, named
participant is exerting the greatest
possible control over the discourse.

13. The system proposed by Bellack et al(1966)
1. The analysis is in terms of linguistic not
temporal units;
2. He has intuitively more acceptable ideas
about initiating and responding behavior,
seeing it as structurally not topically
reciprocal;
3. He introduces an extra category, reacting—
to cope with teacher utterances which are
reacted to, but not called for by, pupil
utterances;
4. His categorization of utterances is in terms
of discourse function rather than
pedagogical function.

14. He suggests that all the interaction can be described in
terms of four moves:
1. Structuring moves serve the pedagogical function of
setting the context for subsequent behavior by
either launching or halting/excluding interaction
between students and teachers.
2. Soliciting moves that are intended to elicit (a) an
active verbal response on the part of the persons
addressed. (b) a cognitive response. (c) a physical
response.
3. Responding. These moves bear a reciprocal
relationship to soliciting moves and occur only in
relation to them.
4. Reacting. These moves are occasioned by a
structuring, soliciting, responding, or prior reacting
move, but are not directly elicited by them.

15. Example of the analysis applied to piece of data:
T:STR: Let's turn to American investment
abroad.
SOL: You suppose we do invest much money
outside of the U.S.?
P: RES: Yes.
Bellack notes that utterances typically consist
of one or two moves and can never consist of
more than three.
He further notes that moves occur in
classroom discourse in certain cyclical patterns
or combinations, which we designated teaching
cycles.

16. A [typical] teaching cycle begins in either
with a structuring or a soliciting
move…continues with responding move
by the student addressed and ends with
an evaluative reactions by the teacher.
* ‘styles of pedagogical discourse can be
described in terms of cycle activity,
percentage of teacher-initiated cycles
and distribution of cycle types.’

17. Four criteria intended for all linguistic descriptions
suggested in Sinclair(1973)
1. The descriptive apparatus should be finite, or else
one is not saying anything at all. And may be creating
the illusion of classification.
2. The whole of the data should be describable; the
descriptive system should be comprehensive.
3. There must be one impossible combination pf
symbols.
4. The symbols in the descriptive apparatus should be
precisely relatable to their exponents in the data…if
we call some phenomenon a ‘noun’, or a ‘repair
strategy’ or a ‘retreat’ we must establish exactly
what constitutes the class with that label.

18. The English used by Teachers and Pupils
Sinclair et al devised a rank scale model based on
principles outlined for grammatical models by
Halliday(1961).
The basic assumption of a rank scale is that a unit at a
given rank, for example, word, is made up of one or
more units of the rank below, morphemes, and
combinations with other units at the same rank to make
one unit at the rank above, group. The unit at the
lowest rank has no structure:
For example in grammar, morpheme –is the smallest
meaningful unit, and cannot be subdivided into smaller
meaningful units.

19. The major advantages of describing new
data with the rank scale:
1. No rank has any more importance than
any other.
2. If one discovers new patterning it is
fairly sample process to create a new
rank to handle it.
Initially, there were only two ranks:
1. utterance—everything said by one
speaker before another began to speak.
2. exchange– two or more utterances

20. However, there are problems with such an
analysis: the following example has three
utterances, but how many exchanges?
T: Can you tell me why do you eat all that
food?
Yes.
P: To keep you strong.
T: To keep you strong. Yes. To keep you
strong. Why do you want to be strong?

21. Verbal interaction inside the classroom differs
markedly from desultory conversation in that its
main purpose is to instruct and inform and this
difference is reflected in the structure of the
discourse.
In conversation, topic changes are unpredictable
and uncontrollable.
Inside the classroom it is one of the functions of
the teacher to choose the topic, decide how it
will be subdivided into smaller units and cope
with digressions and misunderstanding

22. Figure 2 Levels and Ranks
Non-Linguistic
Organization
Discourse Grammar
Course
Period
Topic
LESSON
TRANSACTION
EXCHANGE
MOVE
ACT
Sentence
Clause
Group
Word
morpheme

23. Transactions have a structure
expressed in terms of exchanges—
they begin with a boundary exchange,
which consists of a frame and/ or
focus and then followed by a
succession of informing-stating,
directing-commanding, or eliciting
exchanges- questioning.
The structure of exchanges is
expressed in terms of moves.

24. Moves combine to form exchanges; moves
themselves const of one or more acts.
The category act is very different in kind
from Austin’s illocutionary act and
Searrle’s speech act.
Acts-are defined principally by their
function in the discourse, by the way
they serve to initiate succeeding
discourse activity or respond to earlier
discourse activity.

25. Eliciting exchange
initiating move Can anyone have a shot, a guess at
that one?
(elicit)
Responding move Cleopatra. (reply)
Follow-up move Cleopatra.
Good girl.
She was the most famous queen,
wasn’t she?
(accept)
(evaluation)
(comment)

26. Discourse Structure
Sinclair Sacks Scheflen Kendon
Interaction Conversation Presentation --
Transaction Topic Position Discourse
Sequence Locution Group
Exchange Pair Point Cluster
Move Turn -- Locution Group
Act --- Sentence Locution
Forms and Function
Sinclair et al observe that while their categories of
elicitation, directive and informative are frequently
realized by interrogative, imperative and declarative
structures respectively there are occasion when this
is not so.

27. The opportunity for variety arises from the
relationship between grammar (in the broad
sense) and discourse.
The unmarked form of a directive may be
imperative,' Shut the door’, but there are
many marked versions, using interrogatives,
declarative and moodless structures.
Can you shut the door?
Would you mind shutting the door?
I wonder if you could shut the door.
The door is still open.
The door.

28. Sinclair et al
Situation- refers to all relavant factors in
the environment, social convention and
the shared experience of the
participants.
Tactics- handles the syntagmatic
patterns of discourse, the way in which
items precede, follow and are related to
each other.

29. Sinclair et al suggest that there are four questions one need
to ask about the grammatical form of a clause in order
to be able to analyze it as the realization of a particular
function.
1. If the clause is interrogative is the addressee also the
subject?
2. What actions or activities are physically possible at the
time of utterance?
3. What actions or activities are proscribed at the time of
utterance?
4. What actions or activities have been prescribed up to
the time of utterance?

30. Rule 1
An interrogative clause is to be interpreted as a command to do if
it fulfils all the following conditions:
(i) It contains one of the modals can, could, will, would, (and
sometimes going to)
(ii) If the subject of the clause is also the addressee;
(iii) The predicate describes an action which is physically possible at
the time of the utterance.
1. Can you play the piano, John. command
2. Can John play the piano? question
3. Can you swim a length, John? question
The first example is a command because it fulfils the three
conditions—assuming there is the piano in the room. The second is
a question because the subject is the addressee are not the same
person. The third is also heard as a question if the children are in
the classroom and the activity is not therefore possible at the
time of utterance. Sinclair et al predict that if the class were at
the swimming baths example three would be interpreted as a
command.

31. Rule 2
Any declarative or interrogative is to be interpreted as a
command to stop if it refers to an action or activity which is
proscribed at the time of the utterance.
1. I can hear someone laughing. Command
2. Is someone laughing? Command
3. What are you laughing at. Command
4. What are you laughing at? Question
Any declarative command, as in the first example, is very
popular with some teachers. It is superficially an observation,
but its only relevance at the time of utterance is that it draws
the attention of ‘someone’ to their laughter, so that they will
stop laughing.

32. Rule 3
Any declarative or interrogative is to be interpreted as a
command to do if it refers to an action or activity which the
teacher and pupil(s) know ought to have been performed or
completed and hasn’t been.
1. The door is still open. Command
2. Did you shut the door. Command
3. Did you shut the door? Question
Example one states a fact which all relevant participants already
know; example two is apparently a question to which all
participants know the answer. Both serve to draw attention to
what hasn’t been done in order to cause someone to do it.
Example three is a question only when the teacher does not
know whether the action has been performed.

33. Tactics
In grammar items are classified according to
their structures, the relative position of subject
and verb determines which clause is declarative,
interrogative or imperative.
In situation, information about the non-linguistic
environment is used to reclassify grammatical
items as statements, questions or commands.
However, the discourse value of an item depends
also in what linguistic items have precede it, what
are expected to follow and what do follow. Such
sequence relationships are handled in Tactics.

34. Pearce(1973) argues that the best
solution is to see larger contributions
as a different type of discourse, not
interactive in the same way and
therefore not suitable for this type of
analysis which would then simply cope
with points of speaker change at the
beginnings and ends.

35. Mountford (1975) gave a major
criticism of the descriptive system.
He observes that the model as
constructed sets out to analyze the
products of…discourse activity, to
account for the resultant data in
terms of a descriptive apparatus that
is applied to the discourse ex post
facto.

36. • Conclusion:
– If you are going to analyze discourse,
especially in Classroom Interaction or
Discourse using the frame of Flander,
Bellack, Coulthard and Sinclair or you
can even combine the four frames.
The End

37. He argues that the analysis concentrates on the
product rather than the process and maintains
that ‘a model of discourse analysis should be able
to account for how participants understand
discourse as a communicative activity.’
This criticism appears to be based on a
misunderstanding of generality of the descriptive
system. Possibly because Sinclair et al talk in
terms of ‘analysis’ and ‘categorisation’ , base their
description on tape-recorded data and provide
extensive analyzed examples.