Defining and Classifying in Classroom Discourse: Some Evidence From Greek Pre-School Education

Abstract

Subscribing to Systemic Functional Linguistics approach, this paper examines aspects of decontextualised language, such as classification and definitions, in Greek preschool instructional contexts. Following the assumption that such decontextualised uses are considered critical to the transition from commonsense to educational knowledge, we attempt a lexicogrammatical analysis of taxonomic meanings occurring in these educational settings. The analysis of instances of classroom discourse in terms of identifying and attributive clauses has shown that classification and definitions, conceived as critical for educational knowledge development, seem to be a reiterated pattern by which teachers recontextualise commonsense meanings into educational knowledge. Different lexicogrammatical realisations of categorisation and definitions with respect to their meaning potentiality are discussed, and evidence of variation in lexicogrammatical choices regarding the continuum from common to uncommon experience is also illustrated. Another point worth mentioning is that social/abstract entities tend to be categorised and/or defined through saying verbs, while physical/ concrete entities through being verbs. This variation appears to be a tendency in reproducing the paradigmatic distinction between physical and social science which characterises actual school discourse from very early school age.

Paradigmatic literacy features in children’s argumentation in peer talk

“…Data gathered in non-experimental circumstances show that starting from preschool age, English-speaking children are able to generalise and classify in interactions with adults (Painter, 1999). However, it seems that asymmetrical communicative situations can explain why this capacity is not expressed among the children in this setting, where the teachers are those who construct instances of generalisations in their attempt to promote 'non-common sense'/scientific order (Kondyli and Lykou, 2008).…”