Patterns of Power and Authority in Classroom Talk

Classroom talk is organised for the controlled transmission of knowledge. In this chapter I want to consider whether sociological investigation of the resulting discourse has identified a ‘basic’ structure to the communicative strategies normally employed. Has it detected a ‘relatively stable, socially structured series of events’ even where the participants themselves may be more immediately aware of a ‘fluid, transient and fragile situation’?¹ Is such an analysis irredeemably static and normative, or can it meet Bernstein's criterion for an ‘exciting’ sociological account by relating structural features and interactional practices?² Although these questions have particular meaning for me in the context of a recent study of ‘the language of teaching’, my purpose here is not to summarise the findings of that research but to reflect on some of the issues which it raised.³