Clarifications and carnival: Children's embodied investments in a literacy conversation. Issue 2 (4th May 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Laursen, Helle Pia; Kolstrup, Kirsten L.
• Is Part Of: Classroom discourse. Volume 9:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 112
• Page End: 131
• Publication Date: 2018-05-04
• Subjects: Clarification requests -- the grotesque body -- second language conversations -- semiotic movements -- social meaning-making; Discourse analysis -- Periodicals; Discourse analysis; Periodicals; 371.102205
• DOI: 10.1080/19463014.2017.1392880
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1946-3014

Abstract

Abstract: Previous studies of clarification requests in conversations involving second language users typically view such requests as important to obtain 'comprehensible input' or as a form of repair resulting in a sidetrack from the ongoing conversation. This article argues that clarification requests potentially have a much deeper influence on the course of interaction. Using data from a classroom literacy activity, involving three 12 year olds jointly reconstructing a text, the analysis shows how the requests become points of departures for a collective exploration of the symbolic possibilities of sign, text, body and space, through which a Bakhtinian carnivalesque and grotesque universe emerge.