Classroom Discourse Studies:Examination Of Academic History

It is not enough to stay on the level of conception and policy to any educational change and curriculum reform.Only profound changes and reforms,which practically happen in classroom teaching and learning,could put ideas and visions into effect.Classroom research is the practical demand and the foundation to construct theories of curriculum and instruction.As a multi-dimensional complex space,classroom could be analyzed from multiple levels and perspectives.The vast majority of classroom teaching and learning activities rely on the verbal interactions between teachers and learners.Therefore,language or discourse is one of the most significant clues and views to classroom analysis.Currently,classroom discourse studies have become a specialized issue area.Teaching and learning activities are providing plentiful real and vivid empirical materials,while language and discourse theories are offering perspectives and issues to interpret teacher-student interactions.At present,classroom discourse studies have made great progress methodologically: analytical frameworks and observational instruments become more elaborate,approaches to describe the discourses of teachers and learners become more multiple,and the perspectives to explain the phenomena of teacher-student interactions become more diversified.On the contrary,discourse studies trend to “deconstruct” classrooms instead of “reconstruct” because of the advances of research methods.Meanwhile,the theories for describing and interpreting classroom discourse phenomena have not made great progress,and practical classroom situations have not made significant changes.As a consequence,substantial development has hardly been found in the understanding of language,discourse and classroom teaching and learning: empirical evidences of classroom interactions approach saturation,and classroom discourse studies could hardly product new conclusions.To solve these problems above,researchers have already reviewed gains and losses of classroom discourse studies through a series of research synthesis.Since the lack of appropriate perspective and standpoint,most reviews focus on “depiction”,which is difficult to identify a new academic starting point for follow-up studies.This study considered “academic history” as an alternative approach.Through the academic history examination of classroom discourse studies,this study attempted to review the research thread and academic evolution of this domains,uncover the interactional relationship between language and discourse theory and classroom research,represent the progress and dilemma in the perspective of relationship,and eventually construct a new academic starting point in the relation between the two disciplines.Specific research objectives and contents could be expressed by the questions below:1.How did the issue area of classroom discourse studies form? What clues could be found from the developmental process of language and discourse theory and classroom research respectively?2.Focusing on theoretical foundation,core issues,important events,key researchers,classic cases and other clues,what had researchers experienced during the research thread and academic evolution of classroom discourse studies?3.What interactional relationship between language and discourse theories and classroom research could be uncovered in the research thread and academic evolution of classroom discourse studies?4.Which aspects could be broke through by future researches on classroom discourse?As the two “parent problem” domains adjoining classroom discourse studies,language and discourse theory and classroom research were the logical starting point of classroom discourse studies to form issue area.Chapter 1 and 2 tried to find theoretical clues and practical evidences that showed the relations of the two disciplines from the course and trend of language and discourse theory and classroom research,in order to identify the academic starting point and original missions.In the process of the formation of the issue area,classroom discourse studies were influenced by a wider range of the ideological trend of teaching research and social science research,interacted with language and discourse theory,and classroom changes in practice.Consequently,there appeared two paradigms in classroom discourse studies successively.In the aspects of theoretical foundation and access,research methods and important issues,and features and limitations,Chapter 3 and 4 described the research thread and academic evolution of the two paradigms after the formation of the domain of classroom discourse: “process-product” paradigm and “description-interpretation” paradigm.Chapter 5 represented the course and progress of classroom discourse studies from the identification of issue area to the formation of two paradigm firstly,and compared two paradigms in the aspects of theoretical foundations,core issues,research approaches,conclusion orientations,features and limitations.Moreover,this study clearly put forward the perspective of the interactional relationship between language and discourse theory and classroom research.By means of three relation models of interdisciplinary research,this study uncovered and interpreted the dilemma of current classroom discourse studies,and eventually tried to relocate classroom discourse studies in the “territory” of interdisciplinary research: viewing “transdisciplinary” research as prospect,taking institutional discourse studies and classroom interaction analysis based on subject contents as cases,regaining the standing point and missions of teaching researches,and returning to teaching and learning problems per se to interpret and explain classroom language and discourse phenomena.