Students' self-initiated requests for explanation and their treatment: Negotiations on the epistemic rights and responsibilities in classroom interaction
Keywords:
accounts, classroom interaction, epistemic rights, requests for explanationAbstract
Th e study deals with students’ requests for explanation and accounts that link to the requests. Th e data consist of three diff erent data sets, two coming from the university context and one from Finnish high school classes. Th e research method adopted is ethnomethodological conversation analysis. Th e analysis is based on the explanation sequence that is presented as an action-driven and epistemic sequence. Th e participants address the request as a non-marked and justifi ed turn in talk when the request fi ts to the sequential context and advances the larger activity. Th e study focuses on requests that are accompanied by accounts. Moreover, the requester or requestee may deal with the request turn as an unexpected and as such norm violating turn. One central fi nding is that participants use accounts to negotiate the epistemic and moral responsibility of requests for explanations. Th e legitimacy of the explanation request infl uences the successful closure of the explanation sequence.
