Language of and in the classroom: Constructing the patterns of social life

Abstract Over the past decade, research on classroom discourse has focused on the the match between the language used by students and teachers in the classroom. In this article, a distinction is drawn between language in the classroom and language of the classroom to illustrate the ways in which situated definitions of language, text, and academic practices were established by a seventh-grade English teacher and her students through their oral and written discourse practices. This study combines discourse analysis with ethnographic analysis informed by cognitive and symbolic anthropology. The combined perspectives provided a basis for describing the processes through which the teacher and students shaped the events in the classroom life and for identifying how these events were locally accomplished and intertextually related. Through an analysis of the patterns of interaction within and across the first 9 days of school, the discursive, social, and academic practices constructed in and through the verbal and nonverbal interactions of members of the classroom are described. Central to these analyses is a description of the role of the teacher in helping students construct a situated understanding of what counted as “language and all of its uses,” the theme for the year in the English class studied.

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