National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences
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- 56 3.0 MAIN CONTENT
| 1.0 Introduction In this Unit, we shall be examining the trends in the study of discourse that was introduced by a group of scholars in the University of Birmingham in the early s. The idea started with the study of classroom discourse and later became a possible theory for the study of any human interaction. The study undertaken by John Sinclair and Malcolm Coulthard proposed a scale for the study of the structure of discourse in the classroom. 2.0 Unit Objectives By the end of this Unit, you should be able to do the following • explain the Birmingham School Approach to Discourse Analysis • use these units to attempt analyses of instances of discourse • write a classroom lesson showing different classes of acts used by the teacher and the students • differentiate the differences between the units of discourse 56 3.0 MAIN CONTENT 3.1 Classroom discourse Classroom discourse is an institutional discourse that involves the teacher and pupils interacting and exchanging ideas. The teacher initiates the discourse and ensures that it follows a particular course, which he/she has predetermined. The typical structure of the classroom discourse identified by Sinclair and Coulthard is IRF (Initiation, Response and Followup. This means that the teacher initiates the discourse while the students supply response to the initiation and the teacher typically gives the feedback. Though, there are several ways teacher and students exchange ideas, the teacher is the one saddled with the responsibility of controlling the discourse and determining the direction it goes. The teacher has a role that is described in discourse as [ + HIGHER ROLE, while the students have the [ − HIGHER ROLE. With this tenor relationship between the teacher and the pupils, the classroom discourse is able to run smoothly. In the next section we will discuss the features of classroom discourse as observed by Sinnclair and Coulthard (1975) Download 0.49 Mb. Share with your friends:
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