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Language and Education

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Bakhtin in the Classroom: What Constitutes a Dialogic Text? Some Lessons from Small Group Interaction
Avril Haworth Version of record first published: 29 Mar 2010.

To cite this article: Avril Haworth (1999): Bakhtin in the Classroom: What Constitutes a Dialogic Text? Some Lessons from Small Group Interaction, Language and Education, 13:2, 99-117 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500789908666762

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Bakhtin in the Classroom: What Constitutes a Dialogic Text? Some Lessons from Small Group Interaction
Avril Haworth
Crewe School of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, Crewe Green Road, Crewe CW1 5DU, UK At a time when powerful agencies in the UK are advocating whole class teaching as an element of successful classroom practice (particularly directed at primary classrooms in relation to the teaching of numeracy and literacy), I seek in this paper to examine the potential of Small Group Interaction (SGI) to provide significant linguistic opportunities which, I argue, whole class teaching is less well placed to deliver. To do this, I shall compare data of two groups of children from the same classroom engaged on the same small group activity. Drawing on the work of Bakhtin (and Wertschs interpretations of Bakhtin) I shall seek to identify both monologic and dialogic features in the childrens discourse, tracing the origins of monologic discourse in the practices of Whole Class Interaction (WCI) the dominant genre of the classroom. Following Bakhtins account of addressivity and speech genre, I shall claim a role for dialogic talk in any classroom based on sociocultural principles of learning.

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Bakhtin in the Classroom: Some Central Concepts

Whilst Bakhtins theories of language have influenced literary theory for many years, their impact on educational enquiry has been more gradual. Wertsch (1985, 1991) has done much to locate Bakhtins theories in pedagogic settings and subsequent studies have confirmed the potential of dialogic readings of classroom practices (see for example Maclean, 1994; Maybin, 1991; Tappan & Mikel Brown, 1996; Wertsch & Bustamante Smolka, 1994). Bakhtins theoretical commitment to the particularity and plurality of everyday verbal interaction and to the specificity of experience what he termed heteroglossia (1981) offers fertile territory for those who seek to make sense of classroom discourse. He gives educationists theoretical cause to celebrate heterogeneity in discourse and some analytical categories to help identify dialogic talk in the classroom. In this paper I seek in particular to invoke Bakhtinian categories to account for the discourse features of Small Group Interaction (SGI). One of these categories is that of addressivity, the quality of turning to someone else (Bakhtin, 1986: 99, my emphasis) which requires that the speakers utterances connect with previous utterances (which might transcend boundaries of space and time) in the chain of speech communication. Addressivity would then seem to entail the articulation of personal perspective in relation to others and in relation to knowledge; a concept which I equate with Hallidays (1994) 1 account of the interpersonal function of language. A capacity to respond to otherness, to signal reciprocity (not necessarily harmonious or tolerant), in
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relation to a speaker or text is what makes an utterance dialogic and hence meaningful. Clark and Holquist (1984: 217) define addressivity as the awareness of the otherness of language in general and of given dialogic partners in particular. This two-layered representation of addressivity carries particular resonance for studies of childrens language, making explicit a distinction between the live interanimation of voices in dialogue and the more general appropriation of voice types from the language environment. Bakhtins characterisation of addressivity assumes a mature adult speaker immersed in the alterity of experience; this study will use Clark and Holquists distinction (see Figure 1) to explore childrens often hesitant attempts to express their awareness of the other in formal classroom interactions. The requirement to address others in our words also implies growth: the unique speech experience of each individual is shaped and developed in continuous and constant interaction with others individual utterances. (Bakhtin, 1986: 89) In the traditional Socratic-inspired classroom, this dialogic encounter would be realised in the teacher-pupil dyad with teacher and pupil engaged in a joint enquiry to negotiated outcomes the idealised model of direct instruction and well-paced, interactive oral work which appears in current government requirements for the training of teachers (DfEE, 1997: 18). Teachers however are only too mindful of the heteroglossic tensions in classrooms which shatter this ideal (or perhaps more accurately this chimera) at every turn. A second Bakhtinian category which can shed light on the notion of addressivity is that of social languages or speech genres (1986). The concept of the speech genre is Bakhtins counterbalance to the forces of heteroglossia, his acknowledgment of the systematicity of language and the organising principle which makes communication between speakers possible. According to Bakhtin: We speak only in definite speech genres, that is all our utterances have definite and relatively stable typical forms of construction of the whole. (1986: 76, original emphasis) We acquire these social languages from birth in every encounter in the community, at work and at play, through books and across generations by ventriloquating (Bakhtin, 1981) through the voices of others, by adopting voice types available to us in the social environment. The distinctive and habitual discourse features of Whole Class Interaction (WCI) reported in research in diverse socio-economic contexts provide sufficient grounds for regarding formal classroom interaction as one such speech genre (see for example Arthur, 1995; Brice Heath, 1983; Edwards & Mercer, 1987). In subsequent data analyses I hope to establish a case for regarding SGI as a distinctive classroom genre. However the process of ventriloquation involves a complex social adjustment itself a form of addressivity to the generic patterns in discourse which is only productive for speakers if they can reaccent a given speech genre for their own purposes, or as Bakhtin puts it: The word in language is half someone elses. It becomes ones own only

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when the speaker populates it with his [sic] own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention. (1981: 2934) The relationship between speaker and speech genre is then the second dimension of discourse to be explored in this paper a relationship which Bakhtin (1981) suggests can be more or less empowering for the individual. The subject can either accede to the authority and status of a genre as a given, we encounter it with its authority already fused to it (1981: 342); or the speaker may resist, reshape and reaccent a speech genre so that it becomes half-ours and half-someone elses (1981: 345), thus making new meanings possible. In dialogic discourse one might therefore expect interaction to be multi-voiced, versatile and playful with the authority of generic forms. In what I shall call monologic discourse, speakers would tend to accept the fixity of meanings, ventriloquated through single-genre authoritative texts. The variable capacity of pupils to adopt and adapt speech genres in their discourse will be a key determinant in my account of dialogic talk. In the following analysis I shall try to trace both monologic and dialogic tendencies in childrens talk (or in Bakhtins terms the authoritative and the internally persuasive forces (1981)), which incline the speaker to hitch her/his words to the authoritative text of the classroom whilst simultaneously requiring the speaker to reshape words in order to register as an active member of the classrooms speech community. In the classroom I argue that the authoritative text is that of teacher-directed WCI, the prevailing genre in any classroom environment. I am not, however, suggesting that the classroom is a single-genre site, offering only teacher-directed information. Rather it is a question of which genres are given authority by participants. The status of formal classroom instruction as the privileged genre is as likely to be confirmed by pupils as teachers (there is comfort in ritual). It therefore seems predictable that the conventions of WCI will percolate through the words of children even in less formal settings, as they unconsciously accede to the authoritative discourse of the classroom. I seek in this paper to explore what resources children use to resist these conventions and ultimately to claim an educational role for such resistance. I have invoked two key Bakhtinian concepts addressivity and speech genres/ social languages to support the characterisation of dialogic talk set out in Figure 1. This taxonomy has resulted from the study of data collected over a six month period and provides the framework for the subsequent analysis of childrens talk in small-group settings. Conversely, monologic discourse (in a classroom setting) would have a single or limited genre-orientation, privileging what Wertsch calls the formal instructional speech genre (1991: 135). Knowledge would be constructed as fixed rather than provisional, the domain of the adult-teacher and not the child. Interpersonal meanings would be signalled only weakly, with limited reference to personal and collective perspectives.

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Voices in a Year 3 Classroom: The Research Setting

The data presented below were part of a year-long case study of small group

102 ADDRESSIVITY: THE INTERANIMATION OF ACTUAL VOICES IN UTTERANCES At least some group members can: Articulate interpersonal meanings, signifying social identity and social relations explicitly Use a range of strategies to signal a perspective on knowledge e.g. modality markers

Language and Education ADDRESSIVITY: THE APPROPRIATION OF VOICE TYPE/SPEECH GENRES Articulate a range of voice types and related genres Adapt and reaccent genres to generate own meanings

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Figure 1 Dialogic talk

interaction in a Year 3 classroom (UK: ages 78). Most of the children had previously attended the same-site infant school, serving a predominantly working-class area of a large town with industrial origins. I worked alongside the class teacher who had expressed an interest in my proposed study whilst working with me on a Masters programme. She had previously made a study of the role of talk in learning and was professionally committed to the notion of a multi-voiced classroom. Subsequently I spent one day per week with her class and began recording small group collaborative talk at the beginning of the second term, when we judged that the children accepted me as co-teacher, and continued for six months. Groups were selected by the class teacher on each occasion according to their current working groups (usually single-sex) and recordings were made in an adjacent workroom regularly used for small-group activity. The children were fully aware of the microphone and my interest in their talk and had become familiar with and accepting of this weekly event. The data presented here were selected as a representative sample of the collaborative work of two groups of four at the half-way point in the research project; both groups were excited by the topic and keen to collaborate and each had been recorded regularly during the term. (Seven of the children had also gained similar scores on recent reading and non-verbal tests.) I have selected some 3040 turns from each data set to represent the most collaborative and interactive (and thus dialogic) phases of much longer recorded discussions; these are presented in three sequences as follows: Group 1: Sequences 1.1, 1.2, 1.3; Group 2: Sequences 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 (transcription conventions are included in the Appendix). In each case I ask the reader to accept my judgement of what constituted successful interaction based on my considerable knowledge of the childrens oral work over time. I shall argue that Group 1 illustrates the features of dialogic discourse central to this paper, whilst for the most part Group 2 is oriented monologically to the genre of Whole Class Interaction. The constitution of the groups (Group 1: boys/Group 2: girls) working with a female teacherresearcher raises important questions about gender inequalities in respect of classroom discourse experience. Much educational research (see for example Bousted, 1989; Fisher, 1994; Swann, 1992) has shown that the interactional routines of teachers, boys and girls combine to create [a] consensus where an unequal distribution of talk is seen as normal (Swann & Graddol, 1994: 166). However, there is insufficient space here to address this issue in full. Rather,

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I seek in this paper to offer a Bakhtinian-derived analysis of the collaborative potential of each groups discourse as a contribution to the debate about what constitutes quality pupilpupil and teacherpupil talk in small-group settings. (See Fisher, 1996; Lyle, 1996; Westgate & Hughes, 1997; Wegerif & Mercer, 1996 for other contributions to this debate.)

The Case Study Data: An Encounter with A Midsummer Nights Dream

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The classroom teacher had previously introduced the children to A Midsummer Nights Dream via the BBC Animated Tales in book and video form. At the time of this recording, the class knew the plot very well, were all working on various written projects and could talk about the play in whole class discussion with enthusiasm. Their task was to create a script to introduce a puppet show for their classmates as audience set in the magic woods of Shakespeares play. Taking the role of good spirits, they were asked to do three things: (1) use words to make the audience feel the magic of the woods; (2) select a charm which would make the audience dream fantastically; (3) describe the dream which the audience would enjoy. To help them do this I had prepared a list of objects which Shakespeare used in his evocation of the magic of the woods and gave them an opening line to suggest an appropriate tone for the script (greetings children welcome to the enchanted forest). As was the custom I acted as the scribe and asked them to explore ideas together which I would then write down as a draft of their intended script.

In Shakespeares forest: Establishing a focus: Sequence 1 [1.1, 2.1] Group 1: Sequence 1 [1.1]
Turn Child Childrens script Turn no. no. 1 Daniel yeh but (.) I (.) weve got to judge about that owls twooting hooting 2 Dayne yeh jdge (.) second round (I do not want) Adult script Contextual comments At (1) Daniel refers to an earlier line in the script they are composing. At (2) Dayne speaks with exaggerated emphasis imitative of an adult with an upper class accent.

3 4 5

Daniel I dont like this Martin I object [ Daniel [do you wan it do you wan it Dayne + no Daniel do you wan it, 7+ 9 you object dont point your finger thats aggressive [10 like that =

At (5) and (8) Daniel is pointing at the others and raising his voice.

6 8

10

Daniel [do you wan it

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Group 1: Sequence 1[1.1] cont.

Turn Child Childrens script no. 12 Dayne [I object Turn no. 11 Adult script = lets (.) hang [12 on a minute you dont need to worry about that yet Humming during 4 second pause. Jan is re-reading the script they have composed so far. Contextual comments

(....)

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13

Dayne ( ) weve had whizzing

Group 2: Sequence 1[2.1]

Turn Child Childrens script no. 2 Roxanne [er you did that one Turn Adult script no. 1 (give me) [2 something youd like to put in do you want to put the beContextual comments

3 4

Roxanne a beanstalk yeh Gemma yeh

From (4) to (7) there are several inaudible single word utterances.

5 6 7 8 9

Lorna yeh ? a magics better Gemma thats Roxannes idea (write R) on the end All magic beanstalk and Nicci skeleton and (rocks) (.) 10 make it a nice wood because if you if theyre lying there imagine theyre in the room and its dark and youre behind there [11 and you see spirits [12 & 13 we try to tell them its a [14 nice (.) forest

At (8) they chant the phrase together At (10) AH reminds the children of the task they have been set (the puppet show designed for their classmates)

11 12 13 14

Gemma [ah miss Ive got another idea ? ( ) Roxanne [beanstalk and if you Gemma climb [and if you [climb up it you

At (13) & (14) Gemma joins Roxanne to speak as one voice

In these opening sequences the orientation of each group is strikingly different. A surface reading would suggest that Group 2 discourse is more collaborative and less individualist, free of the competitive impulse which drives Group 1. However a Bakhtinian reading would imply that it is precisely this sometimes antagonistic articulation of self in relation to others, this two-way traffic of meanings which can generate (fruitful) dialogic exchange, as one voice is questioned, [] is put in a new situation in order to expose its weak sides, to get a feel for its boundaries [] (Bakhtin, 1981: 348)

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Group 1 is focused on the articulation and definition of individual rights in relation to a specific ideational focus that owls twooting hooting introduced by Daniel in turn 1. Three members of the group appear confident in the expression of feeling, preference and opinion articulated around the verbs to want, to like and to object and the emphatic reconfiguration of the pronouns I/we/you to contest meanings. (The adult/teacher is not addressed or invited to speak by the children in this sequence.) Daniel and Dayne are explicit about the insertion of the first-person singular pronoun throughout the opening sequence and equally careful to shift to more inclusive terms when solidarity serves their cause, as in this self-conscious shift:

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Daniel:

yeh but (.) I (.) weve got to judge about that owls twooting hooting.

The impulse driving this sequence would appear to be the negotiation (or perhaps more accurately the contestation) of interpersonal status. The ideational focus is either unstated or taken as a given, whilst single-clause utterances which seek to establish personal perspective take precedence: I object/do you want it/I dont like it, etc. However, the antagonistic tendencies are leavened by the interplay of voice types/genres in this phase of the talk. Daniels opening turn is cast in the genre of SGI; his voice is that of the schooled small-group leader who has learnt the principle of reasoned collaboration: 1 Daniel: yeh but (.) I weve got to judge about

In sudden juxtaposition, Dayne introduces the genre of playground sparring at turn 2 as he plays on the meaning of judge introduced by Daniel; in doing this he seems to mix the discourse of the boxing ring and the courtroom using both word and intonation (see contextual comments in the transcript): 2 Dayne: yeh judge (.) second round (I do not want).

Martin seems to read in Daynes words an invitation to continue the mock formality with words, shifting between the genres of playground and courtroom and introducing a new refrain I object which figures predominantly in the rest of this sequence. (Their classroom teacher recognised this phrase as a characteristic motif of hers which she had been using in class to induct her pupils in formal discussion. Their grafting of this phrase onto the genre of playground sparring is a specific instance of ventriloquation and indicative of the groups creative experimentation with words across genres.) So whilst the central thrust of the interpersonal engagement appears at first to be exclusive rather than inclusive, dialectic rather than dialogic, the mixing of genres acts as counterpoint recasting the exchange in a more playful, creative form signalling relaxed and more equal relations among the interactants. Their playfulness with generic form suggests a capacity to move between classroom 2 and community discourses and harness both to their purposes. In Group 2, on the other hand, the children construct both interpersonal and ideational relations through the teacher/adult. There is only one assertion of the first-person perspective (at turn 11) and three instances of you (two of which

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use the pronoun in its generalising sense). The children seek to establish themselves as pupils rather than individuals (and certainly not as a collective) using the conventional forms of classroom address and referring to each other by name for teacher approval: 7 11 Gemma: thats Roxannnes idea (write R) on the end Gemma: [ah miss Ive got another idea

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They make no concerted attempt to establish a peer group identity, their collective instinct only extending to the generous presentation of each others ideas for teacher approval itself a submissive acknowledgement of the authority of the teachers discourse. Group 1s discussion was driven by pronouns and verbs securing agency and status for the peer group as discriminating agents; Group 2s parallel data offer few verb forms always in simple tense form (did ,is, got and climb) outlining a world of simple actions and fixed truths over which they have little control. Their impulse is to provide a chain of exotic noun forms as contingent responses to the teachers task a [magic] beanstalk, skeleton and rocks which in effect replace the children as participants in the interaction. The noun phrases are proffered as gifts without the label of personal or collective attribution, privileging the classroom task and downgrading their role in the interaction. Nor is there any experimentation with genre and voice in Sequence 2.1; the children construct their responses in the genre of WCI casting themselves as teacher-dependent learners consistently oriented to the teachers agenda even though my utterances signal to them their discrepant reading of the task. They are nonetheless cheerfully compliant, accepting that the rules of WCI often cast them as inexperienced players in an adult game. My utterances in both sequences are encoded in the genre of WCI, reprimanding in the first and redirecting in the latter; but Group 1 operates independently of my words whilst Group 2 depends upon them for focus. I read Group 2s reluctance to establish shared knowledge and their privileging of the adults agenda as indicative of a monologic text.

Towards collaboration: Sequence 2 [1.2, 2.2] Group 1: Sequence 2 [1.2]

Turn no. 38 Child Childrens script Turn Adult script no. Contextual comments At (38) Daniel mentions a barn owl. I had introduced the motif earlier in the talk.

39 40 42 44 45

Daniel ( ) I can say something else and it is gonna be with owls magic barn owl soars through the sky ? (I can ) Jan yeh 41 Dayne no Dayne [gldes Daniel glides yeh a magic barn owl glides 43 cos I think you [44 should have alright?

At (42) Dayne speaks bluntly

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Group 1: Sequence 2[1.2] cont.

Turn no. Child Childrens script Turn Adult script no. 46 Id say you should have owls in because you havent got any actual animals have you youve got creatures but theyre general arent they = [47 = so I dont [48 Is that all right with you Contextual comments

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47 48

50 51 52 53 54 55

Jan [yeh Dayne [( ) yeh but thats still er thats still the barn owls rooting [49 49 swooping round Daniel ( ) animal Dayne the barn owls rooting round Daniel ( ) a magic barn owl a magic barn owl = Martin noDaniel = magic Martin a magic barn (.) [56 owl 56 hooting cos we shouldnt have the tweeting in this=

[what do we ( ) barn owl

Group 2: Sequence 2 [2.2]

Turn no. 19 Child Nicci Childrens script = I know (.) pretend its a bubble and you went through it and you came to this ship and there was no pirates in it and they found some gold 20 21 22 23 Gemma [yeh and (.) and miss Roxanne [yeh beanstalk miss ? and then when you climb up it it takes the treasure pirates and gold well [21 that takes [22 you to the sea doesnt it straightaway Turn no. Adult script Contextual comments

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Group 2: Sequence 2 [2.2] cont.

Turn no. 24 Child Childrens script Turn no. Adult script Contextual comments

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25 27

Roxanne erm er its got a bubble and we all went to pop it after wed gone up the beanstalk and all of us went to pop it and then and then what Nicci said that we went into erm a pirate land Lorna yeh or 26 ?Gemma [yeh with loads of ( ) I think were just going to get (.) [27 cos I want to work it round Midsummer Nights Dream but let me hold onto that what were you going to say Gemma

28

29

Gemma you might see like loads of flowers and it might smell nice so you might se- like another a bride getting married = a wife or [29 something like that Roxanne =or [you could go (up the) beanstalk

In this section I shall seek to characterise and then compare the most collaborative phases of Group 1 and Group 2 interactions, where the children seem most consistently able to make the agenda serve their purposes. Group 1 The strongly coded interpersonal positioning noted in Sequence 1.1 is absent in this sequence; the group is now focused on ideational resolution still in relation to Daniels first overture. It is as if the competition for interpersonal space has been resolved, or at least articulated sufficiently to release other energies. In this sequence they seem able to balance interpersonal and ideational interests to operate creatively as one voice committed to a common goal. After Daniels initiating utterance at turn 38, there are no examples of first person pronoun in theme position which typified Sequence 1.1. I would argue that Sequence 1.2 represents a very fluid exchange structure in which the prefacing pronouns of ownership go underground to be replaced by a relaxed trading of nouns and verbs offered as possible ways of wording. Between turns 38 and 55 the children absorb each others words within their own utterances, continuously recycling material in different forms, without the competitive edge noted in the earlier

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sequences. Daniel establishes the framework for their interplay at turn 38 with the strongly signalled initiation: ( ) I can say something else and its gonna be with owls magic barn owl soars through the sky. The children take his emphasis on the word soar as an invitation to explore other permutations as follows: 38 44 48 55 Daniel: Dayne: Dayne: Martin: soars glides rooting swooping round hooting

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There are also more direct borrowings of single words at turns 4445 (glides) and 5255 (magic/magic barn owl), the latter being so closely aligned as to effect one voice. This mutuality is possible at least in part because the children are able to signal modality a speakers capacity to make explicit her/his commitment to any 3 proposition or representation of knowledge. At turns 38, 48 and 55, three of the speakers are able to indicate an explicit relationship to the ideas in circulation, signalling to their peers that words do not have fixed values, that propositions are negotiable. In turns 38 and 55 modal auxiliaries do much of the work; in turn 48 the combination of hedging device and hesitation phenomena produce what Kress (1989a: 54) has called a modality of tentativeness: 38 48 55 Daniel: Dayne: Martin: I can say something else and it is gonna be yeh but thats still er thats still we shouldnt have the tweeting in this=

Arguably, these strategic expressions of modality, what I shall call interpersonal cueing serve to reduce interpersonal rivalry and allow the free flow of ideas which I have characterised as dialogic. Coates (1994) describes this kind of interaction as a shared floor a discourse space created by speakers to facilitate the joint-construction of meaning across several turns (see also Edelsky, 1981; Maybin, 1991). She suggests that this discourse style is a function of a shared and secure knowledge base which allows intimates to predict the intentions of other speakers accurately and thus to operate temporarily and productively as a single voice of enquiry. This is a matter of fusion rather than homogenisation, the dialogic process which Bakhtin has elsewhere described as the meeting of two consciousnesses, two language-intentions, two voices (quoted in Holquist, 1990: 360). I would argue that 1.2 provides further evidence of a creative reaccentuation of generic forms, prompted by Daniels opening turn [38] in the genre of SGI echoing the tone of turn 1. Across Sequence 1.2 the pupils construct largely without adult support a distinctive form of collaboration which seems to blend the genre of Intimate Conversation with that of WCI, creating a kind of intellectual forum where they parade and trade ideas freely and sometimes competitively. (As teacher/adult I am allowed my say at turn 46 but none of my contributions affect their line of enquiry.) Amongst the turns which seem

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generically closest to formal classroom instruction are the childrens teacherly contributions at 38, 48 and 55 already discussed; the fast-flowing latched and overlapping utterances throughout Sequence 1.2 are features of intimate conversation. The adaptation and reaccentuation of genres is empowering for the children; their apparent ease with a range of genres allows them to position themselves as largely self-sufficient interlocuters and the teacher-researcher as 4 umpire/scribe. Group 2 This sequence of talk in this group represents their most collaborative and productive phase three of the children sustain lengthy utterances without teacher/adult talk as a central focus. Whilst they share with Group 1 the common goal of ideational resolution, Sequence 2.2 provides the first evidence of this groups emergent capacity to make interpersonal meanings explicit. This is reflected in a new willingness to assert individual and collective perspective through first-person pronoun usage and a hesitant capacity to communicate provisionality in relation to propositions. In Bakhtinian terms the children begin to give expression to a sense of otherness or addressivity. Roxanne is persistent in the use of the first person pronoun (plural) to establish peer group solidarity and all three major interactants deploy the generalising pronoun you across the whole sequence to reduce exclusivity or individual claims. However the children use these forms without conviction so that the dynamic of their utterances tends to shift to external objects in rheme position. Utterances 19, 24 and 28 are typical; Niccis turn (19) can stand as an instance: =I know (.) pretend its a bubble and you went through it and you came to this ship and there was no pirates in it and they found some gold. The utterance begins with Nicci positioning the group as active participants, both individually and collectively: I know, (lets) pretend. This position is steadily weakened by the introduction of non-animate participants functioning as theme (its, there) and ending with they (the pirates). The confusion in the theme function threatens to eclipse the children as participants and the focus shifts to the array of seductive new information presented in rheme position from which a narrative is to be constructed (bubble, ship, pirate, gold); the pirates literally oust the children from subject-position in the utterance. This pattern is repeated in the subsequent, lengthy turns (24 and 28) where in each case the articulation of interpersonal perspective is threatened by multiple ideational focii. This kind of talk is described by Mercer (1995: 104) as cumulative and associated with an uncritical but supportive mode of thinking amongst interactants. Just as the children in Group 2 signal ideational perspective in less confident ways, their articulation of modality is somewhat restricted. Roxanne and Gemma use a small number of modal auxiliaries repeatedly to convey hypotheticality (could, might, cant), seeming to appreciate the importance in groupwork of making propositions negotiable. However ideational elements always threaten to overwhelm expressions of provisionality. The following utterances encapsulate the struggle:

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28

Gemma: you might see like loads of flowers and it might smell nice so you might se- like another a bride getting married = a wife or something like that.

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To cast her utterance in modal form, Gemma uses the modal auxiliary might three times and like and something like that as hedging or distancing devices. But whilst this utterance is heavily coded for modality, it also introduces two elaborated new items at the ideational level which have no lexical relationship with previous turns. Gemmas proposal has no dialogic relation with the community of ideas her peers are seeking to set up; she unwittingly threatens group cohesion as though she were unable to hear and address prior voices from within her group. Nor is there any real change to the pattern of single-voiced discourse encoded in the genre of WCI which was first noted in Sequence 2.1. Use of the conventional address miss in turns 21, 22 confirms the orientation to the teachers agenda, although the insistent use of the generalising pronoun you with the first person plural pronoun does suggest they are attempting to realise the voice of the group as distinct from the voice of the pupil-in-response mode. Before drawing together my observations about the parallel interactions I shall comment briefly on two final sequences which confirm the direction and style of each groups collaboration. Neither represents the end-point of the taped discussion but in each case I intervene as teacher/adult in an attempt to redirect the childrens line of enquiry.

A postscript to collaboration: Sequence 3 [1.3, 2.3] Group 1: Sequence 3 [1.3]

Turn Child Childrens script Turn no. no. 93 Daniel and soars 94 Martin no and flies away and [( ) 95 Daniel [and soars 97 Jan [wide w(ings) 96 98 Martin [no 99 100 101 Dayne yeh just leave it how it is for (.) Daniel magic barn owl= Martin? = til we finish it right 102 103 105 106 Daniel = magic barn owl 104 Martin [the magic ( ) Daniel = (wise and wonderful) = now children think [105 wise and wonderful th-things wondrous things [106 tell them whats going to happen to them At (104) I read from the written script they have composed At (106) Daniel is whispering yeh lets leave that for a moment = Adult script Contextual comments

() [97 well leave it like [98 that for the moment

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Group 2: Sequence 3 [2.3]

Turn Child no. Childrens script Turn no. 41 Adult script now lets not tell a story At (43) Roxanne laughs before she speaks Continued reading aloud from the script Contextual comments

42 43

+ ? Lorna miss I know (one) + Roxanne ( ) oh I cant do it

44

+ ? Lorna miss Ive got [45 one

45

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46 47

Roxanne Nicci

[that was mine and Lornas= [= with toys inside

[childrens cave you might find a magic beanstalk (.) a childrens cave [46 & 47 but remember remember its Shakespeares wood that were in

48

Gemma

49

a cave was hers put a L on the end miss a childrens cave Lorna got that ? Roxanne yeh Lorna and Roxanne

Group 1 has sustained the improvisatory exchange of words on the owl theme across 40 turns which can still be seen in turns 9397. Their response to my attempt at closure in turn 96 shows clearly their sense of collective ownership of the task and indeed an implied right of appropriation. First childrens voices seep into my utterance in overlapping moves as they resist the closure, after which first Dayne then Martin assimilate and reaccentuate my words for group approval: 99 Dayne: 101 Martin: yeh just leave it how it is for (.) =til we finish it right

Their words imply a relationship with the otherness of the task and their agency in relation to both task and teacher. In the terms I have been trying to establish the children in Group 1 have made dialogic contact with the authority 5 of the text, finding a counter word (Voloshinov, 1973: 102, original emphasis) which predicts empowering discourse relations for the group. For Group 2 the collaboration has less productive outcomes. With the exception of turn 43, the childrens utterances indicate that their talk is still strongly coded in the genre of WCI. With the habitual labelling and attribution of ideas for teacher approval, each utterance is framed as a response to teacher initiations in the conventional I-R pattern associated with formal classroom interaction. The catechistic responses sound increasingly anxious, as though they were involved in a ritual whose significance lay just beyond their grasp. Their frustration is registered by Roxannes comment: 43 Roxanne: ( ) oh I cant do it (prefaced by a half-laugh).

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The degree of agency inferred in this utterance is unique in the data set for Group 2; Roxanne asserts her position as a classroom learner (the self as actor) with the right to state her relationship to the task (coded in explicit modal form). Her very direct statement of position serves two purposes; it acts as a request for the help of the teacher whilst also signalling a metacognitive awareness of the task which she feels unable to complete. In Vygotskian terms she is signalling to the teacher that the task is within her Zone of Proximal Development; she is aware 6 of the dimensions of the task but is requesting help in meeting those ends. In Bakhtinian terms she is able to signal addressivity, by articulating a relationship with the task and the teacher. It is precisely the relationship which Group 2 has struggled to appreciate; their utterances have otherwise implied an innocence about outcomes, purpose and rights in relation to the teacher/adults agenda an innocence which leads to frustration. The children in Group 2 had sensed the need for other ways to respond to SGI, other ways to code their understandings of the world but their submission to the authoritative text of orthodox classroom exchange rendered them monolingual.

Patterns of Domination or Collaboration? Implications for Pedagogy

The three samples of data presented for Groups 1 and 2 yield evidence of very different perceptions of relationships between the self, others and knowledge as revealed in the childrens talk with significant implications for power and access to classroom discourses. Group 2 members are never confident in establishing their status as participants in the task, finding the collaborative we perspective literally hard to articulate. They defer to the teacher as the natural audience for their utterances, providing very few explicit interpersonal cues. Mutual knowledge (of fantasy/narrative) is briefly celebrated, but their limited capacity to accommodate or address (in a Bakhtinian sense) each others agendas undermines their cooperative instincts. They are generally less confident than Group 1 in expressing personal taste and judgement and in casting their ideas in propositional form for group scrutiny. Consequently their agency in relation to knowledge as represented by the task is always threatened. In the absence of well-defined interpersonal relations, the interactants have acceded to the construction of the task as a teacher-governed activity, despite my attempts to counter this expectation. As Kress puts it: field always presents itself to each speaker as self-evidently there, as neutral and ideology-free, as simply a description of a particular area of the world (1989b: 4578) A Bakhtinian reading would trace this compliance through the limited range of voice types articulated in the single genre of WCI. The childrens coding-orientation (Kress, 1989b: 452) is that of teacher-dependent classroom learner whose natural audience is the teacher not the peer group. Their discourse is therefore characteristic of what I have described as the monologic text with a single-voiced orientation toward the authoritative discourse of the conventional classroom.

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Group 1 members (with one exception) provide ample evidence of the capacity to reaccent the task in largely empowering ways. From the outset, they signal a willingness to assert both individual and collective perspective and later a capacity to register the provisionality of ideas. In doing this, they manage high levels of explicit intersubjectivity, whilst also foregrounding the subject matter of the classroom task. These characteristics invite comparison with Wegerif and Mercers (1996) description of exploratory talk which features the explicit use of reasons, a hypothetical mode and constructive exchanges. Their playfulness with generic form, their appropriation of teacherly discourse and the importation of community/domestic genres suggest a strong sense of agency in relation to the task and a Bakhtinian capacity to address, accommodate and reshape the words of others in fruitful ways all the features of a dialogic text.

Small Group Interaction: The Bridge to Dialogic Talk

I have characterised dialogic discourse by its capacity to register and respond to otherness its addressivity which demands that voices and genres meet, mix and interanimate. Taking a Vygotskian perspective on what Wertsch and Bustamante Smolka (1994: 90) call the priority of sociality in any account of learning, I would argue that dialogic talk should be a central discourse in any classroom based on neo-Vygotskian and social constructivist principles of learning (see for example Bruner, 1986; Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Mercer, 1994; Wood, 1988). In this final section, I shall argue that SGI is more likely to foster dialogic talk than WCI on two grounds. Firstly, the conventional I-R-E routines of WCI construct pupils as respondents only; the given of teacher-perspective means that children are rarely called upon to make their perspectives explicit, to provide the interrelational cues which would locate their utterances in a network of social relations to which others must necessarily connect. I would speculate that in WCI it is the teacher who takes responsibility for what Fairclough (1992b: 210) calls issues of social identification in texts, unwittingly limiting childrens discourse opportunities for interpersonal cueing. Second, the inevitable imbrication of WCI in issues of control and (adult) power casts it as the authoritative or single-voiced genre, privileging the teacher/adult and transmitting high-status information. A likely but not inevitable consequence of the privileging of one genre is the displacement of community discourses childrens alternative voices to the margins of classroom life. Without explicit teacher-intervention, WCI is unlikely to foster plurality and heterogeneity in voice and genre on which dialogic talk depends. I have presented data to suggest that the shadow of WCI falls heavily across the discourse of some children (Group 2) concealing the many voices, nuances and reaccentuations which classroom interactions might embrace. In contrast, the children in Group 1 seem literally to have made light of the genre of WCI, marrying the focused explicit language of formal teacher exposition to the relaxed and creative freedom of playground/intimate talk in more productive ways. The genre of SGI is the result of this fusion which is not reducible to everyday conversation or to normative classroom interaction. Its plurality is its strength, offering creative discourse options for children and teachers

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Bakhtins word with a sideward glance (1984: 196) which WCI is less likely to nurture. I have tried to show how SGI can encourage this playful, part-ironic engagement with language, which prompts children to use words as thinking devices, as generators of new meanings (Wertsch & Bustamante Smolka, 1994: 87). In effect, Small Group Interaction can act as a bridging or intermediary discourse helping pupils connect more confidently with the formal discourse of instruction in ways which can only support learning in every classroom genre. If seven-year-olds have already acquired limited (and limiting) expectations of classroom discourse, they need more not less exposure to the different language demands of SGI, particularly its demand for explicit interpersonal cueing. In this capacity SGI can over time do much to resolve the language tensions which educationists have identified as barriers to learning. These differences between interaction in events inside and outside of the classroom reminds us that the academic aspect of schooling is enmeshed in a normative web. The fact that there is not a one-to-one correspondence between everyday conversation and classroom conversation has educational consequences for children and for classroom organization. (Mehan, 1979: 1967) My research suggests that dialogic talk in small-group settings can help children and their teachers spin more delicate language webs to the benefit of all involved in learning.

Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Avril Haworth, Crewe School of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, Crewe Green Road, Crewe CW1 5DU, UK (A.HAWORTH@mmu.ac.uk). Notes
1. Fairclough (1992a) elaborates on Hallidays interpersonal function of language, usefully distinguishing between identity and relational function. I use these distinctions in Figure 1 and subsequent analyses. 2. Maclean (1994) presents a similar argument for the significance of this fusion of school and community discourse in childrens school learning. 3. For a fuller account of modality see Fairclough (1992a), Hodge and Kress (1988). 4. It will be evident to the reader that one member of the group (Jan) says very little. This data set provided insufficient evidence to include Jan in my claims about the potential of dialogic talk to empower group members, although subsequent data samples provided strong evidence of a (newly acquired?) capacity to function dialogically in peer group interaction. 5. Much has been written about the disputed authorship of texts by Bakhtin and Voloshinov (see for instance Todorov, 1984, Wertsch, 1991). In this paper I retain the separate nomenclature, whilst acknowledging what Hasan (1992: 503) has called the bond of intertextuality which implies single or collaborative authorship. 6. Mercer (1994) provides a valuable critical interpretation of Vygotskian theory and its classroom implications.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr Roz Ivanic and Professor Phil Hodkinson for helpful

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comments on earlier drafts of this article, and Debra Walker for her patience in making childrens voices come good on the page.

Appendix: Transcription Conventions

() B+ R+ ?Jan [5 unintelligible snatches: any attempted transcription inside brackets simultaneous speech: each utterance transcribed on separate lines uncertain attribution overlapping utterances: number in bracket used to mark the point at which another utterance interrupts if it is not otherwise clear in the transcription latched or continuous utterances untimed pauses of about one second longer pauses: the number of dots approximating to the number of seconds incomplete utterance rising intonation words given additional emphasis by the speaker

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= (.) (..) ? /

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