Teachers’ discourse in class in different sociocultural environments

Abstract

Speech acts are among the most relevant ways whereby teachers exert influence on students’ cognitive, emotional and social processes. We present a descriptive study of the speech acts teachers use in their classes in different sociocultural environments (middle and underprivileged). We study 22 classes corresponding to different subjects at the beginning and end of primary education (grades 1st and 7th). All of the oral interventions of teachers in class were coded according to a double criterion: type of speech act and type of content. Results show, on the one hand, that despite the fact that the effective amount of combinations of speech act types and content types is very wide (55 combinations), 4 combinations include 42% of the total number of interventions. These are: orders (direct or indirect), social management, orders as actions in the execution of tasks, inquires facts and repeating facts. On the other hand, Cluster Analysis shows that speech acts and content types vary according to school grade and sociocultural environment.