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Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 20:2 (2010) ► pp.133–148

Positions and actions of classroom-specific applause

While the interactional conditions and timing of applause in audience response to public speeches has received attention in conversation analysis research, little research has been done on applause in educational contexts. The nature of applause, however, can vary depending on the context. This paper examines classroom-specific applause and focuses on where in classroom interaction the applause can occur, who initiates the applause, and what the applause accomplishes in the interaction. The data come from 14 audio and video-recorded Japanese primary school EFL class sessions. The analysis reveals that the applause in the data was a typically teacher-initiated action and it regularly occurred in sequence closing position as a positive assessment to the students’ success in carrying out the teachers’ oriented-to expectations.

Keywords: EFL classroom, Applause, Conversation analysis, Primary school, Classroom interaction
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 June 2010
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https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.20.2.01hos
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Cited by 3 other publications

Hosoda, Yuri
2014. Missing response after teacher question in primary school English as a foreign language classes. Linguistics and Education 28 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hosoda, Yuri & David Aline
2013. Two preferences in question–answer sequences in language classroom context. Classroom Discourse 4:1 ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
Remisiewicz, Łukasz & Dorota Rancew-Sikora
2022. A study of applause in family ritual. Discourse Studies 24:3 ► pp. 307 ff. DOI logo

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