Functional Analysis of Children's Classroom Talk: A framework for understanding
children's discourse in educational contexts
Kristiina Kumpulainen, University of Oulu
David Wray, University of Exeter
Paper presented at the 1997 American Educational Research Association Conference, Chicago
Abstract
Although children's discourse plays a vital role in the construction of meanings and knowledge in
educational contexts, we are still remarkably ignorant about the nature of this talk and how it works.
There is very little knowledge about the structure, content and function of children's oral language
or about how it changes and develops across the curriculum and activities employed over the school
years. Yet, without close analysis of children's social meanings in discourse and their functioning in
the interaction processes important information of the learning processes and mechanisms will be
lost. This paper discusses and illustrates a framework, focusing on the functional meanings of
children's discourse, which can be used to investigate the nature of children's classroom discourse.
First, the theoretical underpinning of the method will be described. Then, the framework is
introduced and its possible research applications outlined.
Introduction
The sociocognitive processes and mechanisms underlying a learning activity have been subject to an
increased attention in the field of education (Forrester, 1991; Grossen, 1994; Levine, Resnick, &
Higgins, 1993; Perret-Clermont, Perret, & Bell, 1991). Special attention has been paid to classroom
discourse since it is seen as a significant mediator, or even as a constitute of learning (Draper, &
Anderson, 1991; Mercer, 1995; Lyle, 1996; Wells, 1994; Wood, 1992). A central question around
which recent educational research has concentrated upon is how discourse mediates the construction
of knowledge in the classrooms. Research has explored the ways in which knowledge is
situationally constituted in the construction of classroom discourse (Bergqvist & Säljö, 1995;
Dyson, 1992; Edwards, 1993; Fisher, 1993; Lemke, 1990; Mercer, 1995; Schegloff, 1991). There
are also research studies which have investigated teacher's use of discursive strategies to scaffold
pupils' learning (Palincsar, 1986; Palincsar, & Brown, 1984). Other studies on discourse and
learning have focused on pupils' social and cognitive representations in classroom conversation
(Barnes & Todd, 1977; Sharan & Shachar, 1988; Webb, Troper, & Fall, 1995). More
sociolinguistically oriented research on language socialization and classroom learning has, on the
other hand, looked at the primary discourses of children's home and community lives and the
ensuing impact of such differences on children's learning across the curriculum (Cazden, 1986,
1988; Delamont, 1976). In the light of current research it is clear that classroom discourse is seen as
a significant aspect of learning which should be approached from interdisciplinary perspectives in
order to fully understand its functioning in learning. Although recent research on classroom
discourse has shed more light into the mechanisms and processes of learning, little is yet known
about the nature of children's talk and how it works in educational contexts.
The present paper proposes a framework, focusing on the functional meanings of children's
discourse, which it is hoped will contribute to present day knowledge of children's discourse in
educational contexts. First, the theoretical underpinning of the framework will be discussed. That is
followed by an introduction to the method. The paper ends, with a summary of the framework and
with an outline of possible research applications of the method.
1
Defining discourse
Ideas about the role of discourse as a mediator of learning draw heavily on the socio-constructivist
and socio-cultural theories of learning (Grossen, 1994; Perret-Clermont, et al, 1991; Vygotsky,
1962, 1978; Wertsch, 1985a, Wertsch & Stone, 1985). These perspectives have enriched
understanding of how children appropriate academic discourses and how such appropriation
mediates learning (Edwards & Potter, 1992; Rogoff, 1990; Säljö, 1994). The sociocognitive
framework views language as a symbolic mediator of thinking and learning. It regards language as a
social construct in which meaning is constituted through contextualized discourse between
communicators. Regarding language as a cultural amplifier, which covers both social and
intellectual functions, this theoretical perspective sees learning as a process of apprenticeship into
social practices (Cole & Griffin, 1980; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990; Säljö, 1994). This
process is explained by the concept of the zone of proximal development which hold that learning
proceeds from the interpscyhological plane to the intrapsychological plane with the assistance of
more knowledgeable members of culture (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1985b).
Although the term discourse itself refers to both linguistic form and social communicative practices,
it is common that within educationally oriented research greater emphasis is put on the latter: that is,
on understanding social meanings and their construction in discourse. The theoretical grounding for
this kind of approach can be found in Mikhael Bakhtin's (1981, 1986) work. Bakhtin contrasted his
ideas with linguists and instead developed a theory of language which centred around dialogic
utterances as opposed to grammatical sentences. He defined utterances on the basis of changes of
speaking subjects, not on the basis of their formal structure. According to Bakhtin, individual words
can have semantic content (i.e. dictionary meaning) and sentences can have stable grammatical
form. However, once a word or sentence is uttered (or written), its meaning becomes inherently
social in nature. To Bakhtin an utterance has "expressive intonation" and receives its meaning by
virtue of its position in a chain of speech communication (1986, pp. 90-91). Also Vygotsky (1962,
1978) in his sociocultural theory of development suggests that although words have meaning, only
speech has sense. Thus spoken and written language acquires meaning only through social usage. In
the light of this sociocognitive perspective discourse implies communication and social meaning
construction, which is socially situated and which sustains social relations. Therefore, explorations
between language and learning need to concentrate on the interpretation of meanings in discourse.
This interpretation should consider the social situation as well as the socio-historical context of the
activity (Bakhtin,1986; Wertsch, 1991).
Discourse genres in the classroom
One significant aspect of discourse is its situatedness. Classrooms, as any other social settings, are
characterized by stable discourse genres which are associated with particular activity structures
(Bakhtin, 1986). These stable discourses are socially established and become part of a shared history
within the classroom. The existence of such stable discourse genres enables the development of
"common knowledge" (Edwards & Mercer, 1987) between the pupils and the teacher which is a
significant condition for effective interaction and learning. Another aspect of discourse concerns the
presence of ideologies in discourse. Discourse always reflects ideologies, systems of values, beliefs
and social practices. In consequence, to "talk science", or "talk math" involves more than just a set
of linguistic forms, it also involves learning the ideologies associated with the subjects. This aspect
of discourse becomes clearly an issue when the academic discourses are in conflict with pupil's
home and community discourses (Hicks, 1995). In school, children gradually master the forms of
discourse and social activity appropriate to different settings. Each form of classroom activity has its
distinct ways in which participants socially and linguistically orient themselves to one another and
to the activity at hand (compare, for example, whole class teaching and small group work). In order
2
to participate successfully in classroom discussions children must learn to match their classroom
discourse both in terms of its social appropriateness and its content. In addition, they have to be
attuned to any number of contextual cues (Hymes, 1974). A typical triadic discourse structure found
in the traditional classroom in which the teacher tightly controls the structure and content of the
dialogue is Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) (Cazden, 1986, 1988; Mehan, 1979; Sinclair &
Coulthard, 1975). This discourse genre is typical of direct instruction in which teacher initiates the
discussion, usually by asking questions to which children respond. Finally, the teacher evaluates or
gives feed-back to students' responses. Although the discourse analysis system from which this
pattern has emerged has been successful in describing classroom discourse during whole class
teaching and enabling understanding of the interactional exchanges between teachers and pupils, it
has been criticized for shedding little light on the communicative functions of interactions (Orsolini
& Pontecorvo, 1992). Also Wells (1993) has shown in his studies that although the discourse
structure of the IRF may be constant across instructional settings, its communicative functions may
vary widely.
Recent ideas of effective learning are changing traditional classroom discourse genres and the
communicative roles of teachers and pupils. For example, Palincsar & Brown (1984) have
developed a set a discursive strategies for scaffolding students toward higher level text
comprehension. The teaching process is called reciprocal teaching and it includes explicit modelling
by the teacher of dialogic routines, such as summarizing, questioning, clarifying and predicting, that
are invoked after students' reading of a text. Other researchers (Orsolini & Pontecorvo, 1992) have
been interested in looking at teachers' discursive strategies in classroom discussions, and how they
are interpreted and reflected upon by the pupils. These strategies have included repetition and
rephrasing pupils' own contributions. Studies of this nature give evidence of the existence of new
discourse genres in classrooms. These classroom genres are likely to be more conversational in
nature with an emphasis on children's discourse. New learning environments, mostly based on
constructivist ideas of learning, and which include intentional learning, knowledge-building,
problem solving, collaborative small group work, authentic and meaningful learning contexts with
complex, ill-defined tasks, and the use of educational technology (see e.g. Brown & Campione,
1994; Cohen, 1994; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994; Wegeriff & Mercer, 1996) are also changing the
ways in which discourse is used in the classroom. Along with the new learning environments
students have more opportunities to observe, reflect on, and practice socially shared ways of
knowing and thinking. This is also likely to be reflected in classroom discourse genres. Although we
do not have yet much information of the nature of children's discourses in these new learning
environments, it seems clear that classroom discourses are going to become more pupil initiated
with extended peer discourses which reflect narrative genres in which a pupil constructs a larger text
as opposed to a single utterance (Hicks, 1995; Maybin, 1991). Extended pupil discourses can be
seen as a significant window onto children's appropriation of knowledge in these new learning
environments. Yet, this is territory which is almost completely unresearched by researchers (see e.g.
Edwards & Westgate's, 1994 review on classroom talk). The mere opportunity for social interaction
and discourse will not necessary lead to learning experiences, unless serious attention is paid to the
purposes the discourse serves in particular activities and the types of interaction to which it
contributes. It is clear that wider research is needed in this area and, in particular, that a more
sophisticated and replicable methodology is required.
Method
In this paper we would like to propose a framework for understanding children's discourse and its
use in the process of knowledge construction in educational contexts. The rationale for the
framework is based on the sociocultural, communicative perspective in which the unit of analysis
lies in the socially constructed meanings of discourse. The framework is derived from our own
3
studies of children's classroom talk in diverse settings, particularly in settings which encourage
pupil collaboration, problem solving and knowledge building (Fourlas, 1988; Fourlas & Wray,
1990; Kumpulainen, 1994a, 1994b, in press; Rogers, 1996). The data for these studies were
gathered through tape recordings, video recordings, observations and transcriptions. In our analyses
we have focused on the functional meanings, i.e. illocutionary force, of children's utterances. The
functional meanings we have identified from children's discourse are interesting from the
educational point of view since we consider them as giving evidence of the nature and purposes of
children's discourse in the process of knowledge construction in the classroom. We also believe that
the framework reflects children's discourse genres in new learning environments. Moreover, by
investigating the interplay and sequential development of the functions in children's discourse one
can obtain more understanding how educationally valuable explorative and argumentative
discourses are constituted by children.
In the analysis framework the functions are identified from the utterances on the basis of meanings
constructed in a social situation. In other words, the analysis does not focus on linguistic forms of
discourse but rather interprets the social meanings from discourse. Practically, this means that an
utterance which can linguistically be considered as a question, e.g. "Do you want to do it ?" can be
considered as serving an organisational function on the basis of interaction processes and situational
information. In the analysis process the interpretations of the participants are also taken into
consideration by investigating how utterances are responded to by the children in the conversation.
The framework consists of 16 functional categories subsequently labelled as the Informative,
Interrogative, Responsive, Organisational, Judgemental, Argumentational, Compositional,
Reproductional, Experiential, Expositional, Hypothetical, External thinking, Imaginative, Heuristic,
Affectional, and Intentional. These categories were grounded (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) in the data
via content analysis (Weber, 1990) and then modified on the basis of two other studies.
Functions of children's classroom talk
In the following, the functions in the framework will be described with some brief indication of
findings from our studies.
Informative (I)
Our studies show that a common feature of children's discourse in modern classrooms is exchanging
knowledge and information. The information exchanged seemed to be derived from children's preexisting knowledge, interpretations, personal opinions and ideas. Sometimes this information is
further developed by the children in situ. With new learning environments there are many available
resources, like computers, books, and maps and they also seem to work as a source of information
for children. Thus children's information giving is also derived from the resources children have
under their control. In addition, we have noticed that children's talk often draws upon information
derived from the current situation (Kumpulainen, 1994a).
Interrogative (Q)
Questioning appears to be a common feature of children's discourse in the classroom. By asking
questions children use their peers as information sources. On the other hand, questioning seems to
help children to recall their own knowledge and understanding. By questioning children appear to
become aware that they have a problem and that they need to solve it. In addition to information
seeking, questioning seem to be used by the children to obtain social approval or encouragement.
4
Responsive (R)
One would expect that children's talk contains as many answers as there are questions. However, in
our data, we have noticed that responding to questions may not be as frequent as asking questions.
One reason may be that children are simply unable to answer all the questions they ask. However,
when looking closely at the interplay between questioning and answering in children's discourse, it
seems that social questions, i.e. questions waiting for social acceptance or approval, do not
necessarily gain a reply. Neither do questions that act as clarifiers of children's thinking. Our data
also show that children respond to questions by non-verbal behaviour, for example, by pointing out
the answer from the computer.
Organisational (OR)
Organising appears to be a common characteristic of children's discourse. Children use their talk for
organising their work and controlling their peer's or their own behaviour. This feature of children's
discourse gives valuable information about their control and ownership of the task. Furthermore,
verbal expression of working strategies may give children opportunities to self-monitor their
activities and possibly their own cognitive functioning. These are all important acts in the
development of metacognitive skills (Brown & Campione, 1990).
Judgemental (J)
One critical feature of effective learning is that children are able to judge and evaluate their work
and actions (Brown & Campione, 1990; Cohen, 1994). In our data we also found evidence of this.
Children were frequently observed to judge their work, actions, ideas, opinions and information.
Argumentational (ARG)
The argumentational use of language is closely connected with judgemental discourse and is used
by children to support their judgements. Argumentative discourse is widely considered as an
educationally valuable mode of discourse (Wegeriff & Mercer, 1996). Our data suggests, however,
that although judgements often occur in children's discourse, justifications and arguments may not
always be that frequent.
Compositional (C)
Writing reports, summaries, etc. is a common feature of children's work in educational contexts and
this is also reflected in children's discourse. In our studies we found that the compositional function
serves different purposes in children's activities. It is often used for the creation of children's writing
or sometimes it is used for revising already composed text. In addition, children use tlanguage to
dictate. The occurrence of the compositional function gives evidence of collaborative activity since
children are collaboratively exploring new ways of creating ideas and expressing themselves. In
addition, whilst dictating children show evidence of taking responsibility for organising and sharing
their writing with their peers.
Reproductional (RP)
Interacting with texts and reading aloud from them is one characteristic of children's discourse in
classrooms. In project and problem-based learning contexts reading often plays a vital role. Reading
activity can be connected with children's own text production or with the use of pre-existing texts.
In addition to reading, we found that the reproductional function was also used by children for
5
repeating what was recently mentioned in the discourse. This use of language seemed to serve as a
reminder of what had been said in discourse, or children wanted to put an emphasis on some
meanings which were produced in the discourse.
Experiential (E)
Some activities in new learning environments elicit or even require children to use their discourse to
express their personal experiences. These are usually related to children's personal lives at home or
school. Recently, there has been emphasis on valuing and accepting children's home and community
discourse genres in school contexts (Hicks, 1995). In fact, this is seen as helping children and the
teacher to increase their reciprocal understanding. Observations of children's use of the experiential
function may give a lot of information about children's personal contexts.
Expositional (EXPO)
Classrooms are often full of resources which are used during various learning activities. Children's
discourse appears to be affected by this and children use their talk to demonstrate a phenomenon or
an experiment. This we have called the expositional use of language. Discourse of this nature is
usually heavily connected with the physical context of the activity and demonstrations and nonverbal behaviour play a big part in the interaction process.
Hypothetical (HY)
Hypothetical discourse is a valued mode of discourse in education (Mercer & Wegeriff, 1996). Its
use is considered to give evidence of children thinking about the consequences and results of their
activity and, hence, projecting to the future. Moreover, in terms of children's oral language
development the use of this function shows that a child can use his/her language in context free
ways. The use of the hypothetical function in children's discourse can also suggest that children are
engaged with the task and find it meaningful to tackle.
External Thinking (ET)
An interesting feature of children's classroom discourse is the presence of external thinking. In our
studies we found that sometimes a child would thinking aloud while solving problems. This kind of
language use is very seldom addressed to anyone in particular and language utterances carrying this
function can easily sound incomplete since often only a part of children's thoughts are expressed in
speech. Although the external thinking is not directly addressed to anybody, it still seems to play an
important role in children's discourse. On the one hand, it tells the other participants what the
speaker is thinking. On the other, it seems to clarify and direct the speaker's own thinking.
Imaginative (IM)
Drama and role play are a part of the activities of modern classrooms. They can foster children's
skills in taking the perspective of another person, as well as creating imaginary settings and stories.
Language is very often used to express such imagined realities.
Heuristic (HE)
Discovery learning is a common feature in modern classrooms. Within this type of activity heuristic
expressions seems to play a role in children's discourse. These usually seem to occur when children
6
have discovered something new and exciting and can relate to the current situation or to children's
own thoughts and ideas.
Affectional (AF)
Classrooms are nowadays a forum for all sorts of activities of which the purpose is to reflect real
life, authentic situations (Brown, et al, 1989). This kind of activity entails the affectional use of
language since real life is also about dealing with one's own and each other's emotions. The school
context with its authentic activities provides one forum for children to learn to express and handle
their feelings and emotions. These can be surprise, admiration, pleasure, amazement,
disappointment, happiness, indignation and even fear.
Intentional (IN)
In traditional teacher directed classrooms the children have to signal their intention to speak, usually
by raising their hand and asking for permission to say something. In modern classrooms this pattern
changes to some extent. Children when working together without direct teacher control,
nevertheless, have to deal with their speaking turns in some rational way. They have to inform each
other of their intention to participate in discourse. Although this may be done non-verbally, we have
identified turn taking to be reflected in children's discourse as well.
Discussion and conclusions
In this paper we have argued that although children's discourse plays a vital role in the construction
of meanings and knowledge in modern classrooms, we are still remarkably ignorant about the nature
of this talk and how it works. There is very little knowledge about the structure, content and
function of children's oral language or about how it changes and develops across the curriculum and
activities employed over the school years. Yet, without close analysis of children's social meanings
in discourse and their functioning in the interaction processes important information of the learning
processes and mechanisms will be lost. We have proposed a framework for analysing and
understanding children's classroom discourse which we feel can give information about the nature
of children's discourse and its functioning. Moreover, it can add a valuable insight into children's
discourse genres in the classroom and highlight the potential of children's discourse for constructing
and interrogating meanings and understanding. The framework consists of 16 functions which we
have derived from our own studies of children's discourse during different classroom activities
across the curriculum. The functions and their descriptions are summarized in Table 1. It should be
noted that the functions in the framework are not presented in any hierarchical order.
Table 1: The Functional Analysis of Children's Classroom Talk (FACCT)
FUNCTION
Informative
CODE
(I)
Interrogative
Responsive
Organisational
Judgemental
Argumentational
Compositional
(Q)
(R)
(OR)
(J)
(ARG)
(C)
DESCRIPTION
Providing information, from previous ideas, pre-existing knowledge,
by manipulating information resources, or from the situational
context
Asking questions in order to get information or social approval
Answering questions
Organising and controlling behaviour
Expressing agreement or disagreement
Reasoning in language
Creating written or spoken text not earlier mentioned, revising or
7
Reproductional
Experiential
Expositional
Hypothetical
External thinking
Imaginative
Heuristic
Affectional
Intentional
dictating
Reproducing previously encountered language either by reading or
repeating
(E)
Expressing personal experiences
(EXPO) Language accompanying the demonstration of a phenomenon
(HY)
Putting forward a hypothesis
(ET)
Thinking aloud in accompaniment of a task
(IM)
Introducing or expressing imaginative situations
(HE)
Expressing discovery
(AF)
Expression of personal feelings
(IN)
Signalling intention to participate in discourse
(RP)
Children's discourse is full of meanings and voices which serve social, informative and intellectual
functions (Bakhtin, 1986; Maybin, 1991; Vygotksy, 1962). It is clear that the functions indentified
in the framework we have proposed occur in children's discourse in complex ways, and there is a
close interplay between several functions in children's utterances. By investigating children's
discourse at a microanalytic level and studying the close interplay between its functional meanings
and their sequential development in discourse, we are able to increase our understanding of the
nature of children's discourse and its contribution to learning in modern classrooms.
Finally, we would like to suggest a number of possible research applications of the framework.
These include the following:
 Cross-cultural studies of verbal interaction patterns of a variety of classrooms and curriculum
areas. For example, how are interaction patterns affected by variables such as group size and
composition, teacher role, the nature of the task and the perception of it by the participants, the
curriculum area location of instances of collaborative work? Or more generally, is classroom
talk patterned in different ways in different cultural settings?
 The relationships between particular verbal interaction patterns and learning outcomes. For
example, do particular patterns tend to be associated with higher levels of recall of content? Are
different learning outcomes, for example, transferable understanding, more likely to be
associated with different verbal interaction patterns?
 Investigations of the linguistic contexts and patterns of particular talk functions. For example,
what kinds of learning contexts are more likely to be associated with, say, External Thinking or
Argumentational talk?
These questions are undoubtedly of importance, not merely to educational theorists, but also to
practitioners. At the moment, answers to them are very difficult to obtain, largely because we lack
appropriate analytical tools. It is hoped that the framework outlined in this paper may be of
significant value in providing such a tool.
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