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Floors, talk and the organization of classroom activities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2004

ROD JONES  and
JOANNA THORNBORROW
ROD JONES
Affiliation:
Centre for Speech and Language Therapy, School of Health and Social Studies, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Cardiff CF5 2SG, Wales, U.K., [email protected]
JOANNA THORNBORROW
Affiliation:
Centre for Language and Communication Research, School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, CF10 3XB, Wales, U.K., [email protected]
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Abstract

This article addresses the issue of the conversational floor. Using data from classroom discourse, covering a wide range of floor related phenomena, the authors propose a concept of the floor that ties it to the activity in hand, and the local flexible organization of talk within that activity. After beginning with a short review of current work relating to the conversational floor, discussion turns to extracts from data as examples of various types of activities requiring different structures of participation. The aim is to move from binary definitions of the floor, particularly the opposition between one-at-a-time and collaborative, and toward a conceptualization of the floor as a continuum between “tighter” and “looser” organizations of talk in the activity.

Keywords

Floorone-at-a-timecollaborative activityclassroomdiscourseorganization of talk
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , July 2004 , pp. 399 - 423
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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