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In:Producing and Managing Restricted Activities: Avoidance and withholding in institutional interaction
Edited by Fabienne H.G. Chevalier and John Moore
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 255] 2015
► pp. 181–204

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“Don’t tell him just help him”

Restricted interactional activity during a classroom writing lesson

 | Charles Sturt University, Australia
Published online: 27 March 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.255.06dav
Studies have established the restricted interactional activity that occurs during teacher-led lessons in classrooms. However, little attention has been given in conversation analysis to the interactional accomplishment of restrictions during activity in classrooms when students work alone. This chapter presents an analysis of restricted interactional activity during an independent writing lesson where young children were completing a writing task. During this lesson some children sought information from others about the spelling of unknown words. The analysis in the chapter produces descriptions of the methods used by the teacher and a student to avoid providing the spelling of words. Withholding of information will be shown to result from the restriction on telling, producing working out of words rather than the provision of specific information that was requested.
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Davidson, Christina, Susan Danby, Stuart Ekberg & Karen Thorpe
2021. The interactional achievement of reading aloud by young children and parents during digital technology use. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 21:4 ► pp. 475 ff. DOI logo
Davidson, Christina & Christine Edwards-Groves
2020. Producing and closing down multiple-response sequences during whole-class talk in an early years classroom. Language and Education 34:3 ► pp. 193 ff. DOI logo
Jakonen, Teppo
2016. Gaining access to another participant’s writing in the classroom. Language and Dialogue 6:1 ► pp. 179 ff. DOI logo

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