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Language and Social Interaction at Home and School
Edited by Letizia Caronia
[Dialogue Studies 32] 2021
► pp. 257–294

Chapter 7
Challenging the triadic dialogue format

Pupils’ interactional work in answering questions in whole-class interactions

| University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

Building on previous work focusing on teachers’ questions in whole-class activities in an Italian primary school, this study focuses on pupils’ responses in interactions organised according to the ‘triadic dialogue’ format (Lemke 1990), also known as the Initiation-Response-Evaluation (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975; McHoul 1978; Mehan 1979). The results show that the second position is a place where pupils perform many different actions. Using Conversation Analysis, it is argued that pupils follow two main and conflicting principles, associated with the institutional nature of interactions: being first to answer and being respectful of the classroom turn-taking system. By examining the features of turn design and the overlapping onset of answers, an interactional account of answering as a social, public, and conjoined activity is provided.

Keywords: classroom interaction, answers, triadic dialogue, IRE model, whole-class, conversation analysis, turn design, overlap onset
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background literature on pupils’ answering practices
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.The organisation of answering in teacher-led whole-class activities
    • 4.1Bids to answer or self-selection in response to addressed questions
    • 4.2Bids to answer or self-selection in response to unaddressed questions
    • 4.3Being the first to answer: When pupils self-select
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.32.07mar
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