Vivien Heller

Bildungssprache ‒ Kommunikative, epistemische, soziale und interaktive Aspekte ihres Gebrauchs

The notion of academic language or academic discourse has been booming in recent years, especially in (second) language teaching. This rise resembles the proliferation of Bernstein’s ,elaborated‘ and ,restricted code‘ in the 1960s. Against this backdrop, this article first sets out to systematize and critically evaluate the existing research on academic discourse differentiating between communicative, epistemic and social functions of academic discourse. On this basis, an ethnomethodological understanding of academic discourse practices is put forward. This concept takes into account the situatedness of academic discourse practices and acknowledges their role in positioning practices and identity construction, which has been largely neglected. Finally, it is argued that empirical research on practices and norms of academic discourse is a prerequisite for reflecting on the acquisition and teaching of academic language. 1. Einleitung: ,Bildungssprache‘ in aller Munde Mit den Befunden der internationalen Schulleistungsstudien zur Kopplung zwischen sozialer Herkunft, sprachlichen Fähigkeiten und Bildungserfolg ist zunehmend in den Blick der erziehungswissenschaftlichen und sprachdidaktischen Forschung gerückt, dass sprachliches und fachliches Lernen aufs engste miteinander zusammenhängen. Produktive wie rezeptive sprachliche Fähigkeiten stellen in diesem Sinne eine Schlüsselqualifikation par excellence dar, denn sie ermöglichen die Partizipation an Unterrichtsgesprächen, das Verstehen und Verarbeiten von Texten sowie die Erstellung eigener fachlicher Texte und zwar über alle Fächer hinweg

On the sequential organization and genre-orientation of discourse units in interaction: An analytic framework:

The article deals with larger stretches of talk-in-interaction and argues in favor of a descriptive approach, which integrates the structural requirements of global organization, the special type of sequential orderliness within larger units as well as the genre-orientation of these units. Drawing on previous work in conversation analysis, discourse analysis and the sociological genre analysis, the article introduces GLOBE as an analytical tool which functionally links discourse units to conventionalized communicative purposes. GLOBE reconstructs the interactive achievement of genre-oriented discourse units in a three-branch analysis of jobs, devices and forms. The analytical potential of GLOBE is demonstrated in the exemplary genre-contrastive analysis of a narrative, an explanative and an argumentative excerpt. On the basis of the analyses of the three genres, the overarching constitution of genre-oriented global units is then explicated.

Reference as an Interactive Achievement: Sequential and Longitudinal Analyses of Labeling Interactions in Shared Book Reading and Free Play

The present study examines how young children and their caregivers establish reference by jointly developing stable patterns of bodily, perceptual, and interactive coordination. Our longitudinal investigation focuses on two mother–child dyads engaged in picture-book reading and play. The dyads were videotaped at home once every 6 weeks while the children aged from 9 to 24 months. Inspired by conversation analysis and multimodal analysis, our developmental approach builds on the insight that the situated and embodied production of reference is fundamentally an interactive achievement. To examine the acquisition of reference, we developed a descriptive instrument that takes account of not only the dyads joint accomplishment but also each participants contributions to it. The instrument is based on the sequential reconstruction of the jobs that both participants have to accomplish jointly in order to achieve reference: establishing visual perception as a relevant resource, constituting a domain of scrutiny, locating a target, and construing the (meaning of the) referent. Methodologically, these jobs serve as a tertium comparationis for the longitudinal comparison of both the adults as well as the childs contributions to establishing reference. We used this instrument to examine (1) what bodily and verbal resources the participants employed, and (2) how their contributions to accomplishing the jobs changed over time. Findings showed that the acquisition of reference was closely related to the childs increasing ability to recognize, fulfill, and set up conditional relevancies. We conclude that the adults dynamic and contextualized use of conditional relevancies, recipient design, and observability is a crucial driving force in the acquisition of reference.

Meanings at hand: Coordinating semiotic resources in explaining mathematical terms in classroom discourse

Abstract The article examines how diverse semiotic resources are made available for explaining mathematical terms in a fifth-grade classroom. Situated within the methodological framework developed by conversation analysis and the analysis of embodiment-in-interaction, the study deals with two instances of a classroom episode in each of which participants establish a ‘found object’ (Streeck 1996) as relevant to the interaction and transform it into an exemplar of a mathematical solid. The two episodes differ in terms of the participants’ manipulatory access to the objects: in the first instance, the ‘explainer’, when textualising his explanation, has greater opportunities for organising semiotic resources himself; in the second instance, it is the recipient of the explanation who manipulates the object, thus requiring the explainer to adapt her use of semiotic resources to his actions. In comparing the two episodes, the study examines what opportunities the different organisational forms of coordinating semiotic resources entail for textualising explanations. Findings shed light on a) the relationship between speech and bodily and material semiotic resources at the discourse level and b) the distribution of semiotic resources in the particular context of the classroom.

Managing knowledge claims in classroom discourse: the public construction of a homogeneous epistemic status

Abstract Drawing on sequential and multimodal analysis of video-recorded classroom interactions, the paper examines in detail the interactional practices and verbal and bodily displays that serve to (re-)establish a congruency between the teacher’s expectation with regard to the participants’ relative knowledge and the students’ actual knowledge claims. By analysing the details of turn and action design, the present study shows how inserted knowledge questions and inserted knowledge accounts are used not to ascertain, but rather to define the students’ epistemic status in a homogenising way. Challenging the students’ knowledge, withholding confirmation and producing first explanations are practices that serve to reconstitute the students’ limited access to new matters. Category-bound epistemic rights and obligations rather than displayed knowledge thus provide the basis for categorisations such as ‘novices’ or ‘advanced learners’. It is argued that the public construction of a homogeneous epistemic status is consequential for the achievement of tasks and practical purposes in the multiparty setting of the classroom. Transforming individual students into a group of homogeneous novices enables participants to mutually align their knowledge claims and to form an epistemic ecology in which collective learning can take place.

Interaktive Verfahren der Enkulturation von Lernenden in fachspezifische Praktiken im Mathematik- und Deutschunterricht

Schulerfolg wird nicht nur durch kognitive Leistungen bestimmt, sondern auch durch die mehr oder weniger erfolgreiche Enkulturation in unterrichtliche Praktiken. Das Poster stellt erste Ergebnisse des interdisziplinaren Projektes InterPass zur Analyse von Passungen und Divergenzen dieser Enkulturationsprozesse vor, die zwischen den unterrichtlichen sprachlichdiskursiven und fachkulturell-epistemischen sowie den sozialisatorisch verankerten, habituellen Praktiken emergieren.

Kognition in Interaktion

Die 15. Arbeitstagung zur Gesprächsforschung wurde zum siebten Mal vom Institut für Deutsche Sprache und vom Institut für Gesprächsforschung veranstaltet. Organisatoren waren Arnulf Deppermann und Thomas Spranz-Fogasy. Die Tagung fand in den Räumen des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache Mannheim statt. Ziel dieser Arbeitstagung ist es, Gesprächsforschung als eigenständiges interdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld zu etablieren. Die Tagung versteht sich als Forum der Präsentation und Diskussion des aktuellen Forschungsstandes der Gesprächsforschung. Nach einer Begrüßung durch den Direktor des IDS, Ludwig M. Eichinger, führte Arnulf Deppermann in das Rahmenthema der Tagung, „Kognition in Interaktion“, ein. Das Thema ist in jüngster Zeit nicht nur zu einem Brennpunkt in der Gesprächsforschung geworden, auch kognitionswissenschaftliche Forschungen haben sich in den letzten Jahren verstärkt der Schnittstelle zwischen Kognition und Interaktion zugewandt. In der Gesprächsforschung wird zum einen untersucht, ob kognitive Prozesse (wie Intentionen, Planung, Strategien, Partnerannahmen) Voraussetzungen für Gesprächsprozesse sind und wie sie als solche untersucht und nachgewiesen werden können. Auf der anderen Seite widmet sie sich der Frage, ob Kognitionen selbst sozial konstruierte Sachverhalte darstellen und als solche im Gespräch angezeigt, durch Gespräche verändert und in ihrer Bedeutung ausgehandelt werden. Die epistemologische Frage, in welcher Weise Kognition an der Interaktion beteiligt ist und in welcher Hinsicht Kognition von der Gesprächsforschung zum Gegenstand gemacht werden kann, muss nach wie vor als umstritten gelten.