A Multi-Layered Discourse Analysis of Students’ Classroom Talk in Two Contexts: Rural vs. Urban

Abstract

This study aimed at discussing and representing discourse analysis of classroom talk in two contexts. It is significant, since it considers different genres of talk, cultural and social identities, social relations, different ideologies and many other aspects in this analysis. It attempts to analyze the dominant classroom patterns in two contexts. Two cases of study were analyzed in this study: a rural setting which includes 28 participants, and an urban setting including 32 participants. Using Schiffrin's model of study with different principles – speech act theory, Interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, ethnography of communication, conversation analysis, and variation analysis – we tried to interpret and analyze different forms and functions of utterances, different social orders, ideas, thought processes and social identities of participants in each context. Frank talks, simple constructions of utterances, simple action clauses and their referents are common in rural setting, while intertextuality, literal phrases, similes and metaphors, ellipses and complicated action clauses and their referents are popular in urban settings. The findings of this paper direct us toward a complete needs analysis and designing new courses in two contexts. These indicate that there are many differences among two groups.