developing elementary teachers’ understandings of hedges and personal pronouns in inquiry-based...

Developing Elementary Teachers’ Understandingsof Hedges and Personal Pronouns in Inquiry-BasedScience Classroom Discourse

Alandeom W. Oliveira

Published online: 10 December 2009

� Springer Science+Business Media, B.V. 2009

Abstract This study examined the effectiveness of introducing elementary

teachers to the scholarly literature on personal pronouns and hedges in classroom

discourse, a professional development strategy adopted during a summer institute to

enhance teachers’ social understanding (i.e., their understanding of the social

functions of language in science discussions). Teachers became aware of how

hedges can be employed to remain neutral toward students’ oral contributions to

classroom discussions, invite students to share their opinions and articulate their

own ideas, and motivate students to inquire. Teachers recognized that the combined

use of I and you can render their feedback authoritative, you can shift the focus from

the investigation to students’ competence, and we can lead to authority loss. It is

argued that explicitness, reflectivity, and contextualization are essential features of

professional development programs aimed at improving teachers’ understandings of

the social dimension of inquiry-based science classrooms and preparing teachers to

engage in inquiry-based teacher–student interactions.

Keywords Classroom discourse analysis � Language of science �Professional development � Teacher education � Elementary practicing teachers �Hedges � Pronouns

A variety of approaches have been taken by science educators who set out to offer

inquiry-based professional development opportunities to inservice teachers. These

efforts have relied mainly on the provision of long-term expert instruction and

support (Akerson and Hanuscin 2007; Basista et al. 2001; Lee et al. 2004; Wee et al.

A. W. Oliveira (&)

Department of Educational Theory and Practice, State University of New York at Albany, 1400

Washington Ave., ED 113B, Albany, NY 12222, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

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J Sci Teacher Educ (2010) 21:103–126

DOI 10.1007/s10972-009-9157-4

2007), participation in full scientific inquiry (Caton et al. 2000; Jeanpierre et al.

2005; Lotter et al. 2006) and collaboration with peers (Buck et al. 2007; Johnson

et al. 2007). Typically, immersion experiences occur early in the programs, being

followed by reflective discussions, expert instruction, and/or collaborative sessions.

One important limitation of these programs is that they tend to overlook the social

or interactional dimension of inquiry-based science teaching, focusing instead on

other aspects such as designing appropriate lessons, adopting effective teaching

strategies, following particular instructional sequences, and evaluating student

learning. Lee et al. (2004) reported the only program to give some consideration to

social aspects of inquiry-based science instruction by offering elementary teachers a

short expert instruction session on diverse students’ cultural patterns of classroom

communication and interaction. However, this program’s failure to get teachers to

adopt less authoritative interactive and communicative practices suggests that

changing teacher discourse practices requires longer, more systematic and more

clearly focused interventions aimed specifically at improving teachers’ social skills

in the context of inquiry-oriented science instruction.

Research on classroom discourse has shown that effective inquiry-oriented

science instruction can be contingent upon teachers developing appropriate

management skills for coping with the complex social demands of less authoritative

or more symmetric forms of teacher–student interaction (Chin 2006, 2007;

Mortimer and Scott 2003; Oliveira et al. 2007b; Polman 2004; Roth 1996; Tabak

and Baumgartner 2004; van Zee et al. 2001; van Zee and Minstrell 1997a, b; Wells

1993; Yip 2004). Nonetheless, professional developers have yet to recognize the

importance of making teachers more mindful of the ways that they interact verbally

with students while teaching science through inquiry. The present study attends to

this issue by examining the effectiveness of introducing elementary teachers to the

scholarly literature on personal pronouns and hedges in classroom discourse, a

professional development strategy adopted during a summer institute to enhance

teachers’ social understandings (i.e., how teachers understand the social functions of

oral language in science classroom discussions). This literature is reviewed below.

Research Question

What social understandings did elementary teachers develop as a result of being

introduced to scholarly literature on personal pronouns and hedges in classroom

discourse?

The Literature on Pronouns and Hedges

Reviewed in this section are scholarly studies of classroom discourse that adopt a

sociocultural theoretical perspective on science talk, emphasizing that teacher–

student interaction serves both cognitive and social functions. From this

multifunctional perspective, participation in classroom verbal exchanges entails

not only engagement in scientific thinking and cognition but also construction of

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social identities (e.g., expert, novice, partner, guide, peer) and establishment certain

types of social relationships (e.g., authoritative or asymmetric, egalitarian or

symmetric). Put differently, when teachers and students talk science they also

interact socially, adopting certain roles and positions and relating to each other in

particular ways though their linguistic choices.

Hedging in Classroom Settings

Studies of classroom discourse have provided evidence that, while interacting with

teachers, students frequently resort to hedges, that is, noncommittal words,

expressions, and intonations that are characteristically vague, indirect, and unclear

(Lakoff 1972). Rowland (2000) pointed out that, when faced with the task of

determining the number of ways that two positive integers can be made add up to

ten, pupils utilized different types of hedges, including (a) plausibility shields, that

is, expressions that indicate doubt about the validity of their responses (e.g., ‘‘I

think,’’ ‘‘maybe,’’ ‘‘probably,’’ and ‘‘possibly’’); (b) rounders, that is, expressions

that serve to insert vagueness and withhold full commitment to quantitative answers

(e.g., ‘‘about,’’ ‘‘around,’’ ‘‘approximately,’’ and ‘‘basically’’); (c) adaptors, that is,

terms that attach ambiguity to particular nouns, verbs or adjectives (e.g., ‘‘a little

bit,’’ ‘‘somewhat,’’ and ‘‘fairly’’); and (d) maxim hedges, expressions that signal a

certain level of inadequacy in the answers they are about to utter (e.g., ‘‘well’’).

Similarly, Oliveira et al. (2007b) noted that, while discussing how wax candles work

with their instructor, undergraduate students hedged by resorting to uncertainty

adverbs (e.g., ‘‘maybe’’), juxtaposing alternative ideas, adding tag questions to the

end of their declarative statements (e.g., ‘‘right?’’), and uttering responses with

rising intonations (e.g., ‘‘it was a chemical change?’’). These studies show that

students make extensive use of hedges to protect themselves from the possibility of

being wrong.

There is evidence that teachers also hedge while interacting with their students.

Rowland (2000) highlighted that school teachers used attributions shields—

expressions that explicitly attribute authorship of ideas to particular students (e.g.,

‘‘Ann says that 70 can be divided by 6, what do other people think?’’)—to distance

themselves from students’ propositions, remain neutral, and avoid giving explicit

evaluations of students’ responses. Oliveira et al. (2007b) noted how a college

professor made vague evaluative comments about students’ ideas, prefaced his

utterances with indirect quote markers (e.g., ‘‘you said that…’’), and used the adverb

‘‘maybe’’ and prolonged ‘‘hmm’’ to avoid evaluating students’ work. These findings

underscore the value of hedges as an interactional resource that teachers

strategically can draw upon to avoid giving explicit evaluations to students or

committing to the correctness of particular ideas while facilitating classroom

science inquiries.

Hedges in Scientific Discourse

Hedges constitute an important and pervasive feature of the specialized discourse of

science. Hyland (2005) reported 9.6 and 13.6 cases of hedging per 1,000 words in

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published research articles in the fields of physics and microbiology, respectively.

Another important aspect of hedging in scientific discourse is highlighted by

Rowland (2000) who described how plausibility shields and adaptors can be used to

alter the truth conditions of utterances, rendering scientific claims, predictions, and

generalizations unfalsifiable. For instance, vague statements such as ‘‘I think there

are ten beans in the jar’’ and ‘‘there are about ten beans in the jar’’ cannot be shown

to be either true or false even through careful inspection of the jar contents. The

truth conditions of these hedged utterances pertain to the speaker’s uncertain state of

mind rather than the actual number of beans in the jar.

Teachers’ Use of Personal Pronouns

Several studies have examined how teachers employ personal pronouns to position

themselves interactionally or socially in relation to their students. A recurring theme

in this research is that, while some pronouns have the effect of distancing or

separating teachers and students into different social groups, others promote

closeness or solidarity (Brown and Gilman 1960). The term ‘‘solidarity’’ is used in

reference to pronominal choices aimed at creating the impression of a common

ground or social group, thus generating a sense of camaraderie between teachers and

students.

There is a growing amount of evidence that effective teaching can be contingent

on teachers’ ability to employ the inclusive we (includes both the teacher and

students as in ‘‘today, we will discuss the different states of matter’’) to promote

solidarity with students. Oliveira et al. (2007b) described how a professor’s

employment of the inclusive we while discussing how candles work with a student

group allowed him to relinquish his authority and position himself as just another

member of the group. Similarly, Tabak and Baumgartner (2004) pointed out that a

high school science teacher was able to position herself as a partner or co-

investigator during an inquiry-based unit on evolution through strategic use of the

inclusive pronoun we. Rounds (1987a) noted that instructors who used the inclusive

we more frequently (approximately three times more frequently than I or you) were

able to successfully establish and maintain a cooperative and consensual interac-

tional atmosphere in the classroom; that is, a sense that teachers and students were

working together toward a common goal. Less successful instructors used we less

than twice as often as I or you. Fortanet (2004) reported that university lecturers

used the inclusive we 62% of the time to build cooperation with students and avoid

presenting themselves as authoritarian experts. Wortham (1992, 1996) noted how

high school teachers, while facilitating whole-class discussions, used the pronoun

we to place themselves and the students in the same social group. This literature

provides evidence that teachers can foster inclusiveness and establish symmetric

social relationships with students through strategic use of the pronoun we.

Through their pronominal choices, instructors can also adopt a more authoritative

and distant interactional position and exclude students. Rowland (1999) reported

that some elementary teachers used the pronoun we in ways that excluded students

(e.g., ‘‘how did we say you had to do square roots?’’), associating themselves with

an anonymous community of experts to add authority to their requests for students

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to conform to standard mathematical practices. Rounds (1987b) showed that

mathematics instructors used the pronoun we to associate themselves with expert

mathematicians, at the same time excluding the students (e.g., ‘‘we call this a square

root’’). Wortham (1992) focused on teachers’ combined use of we and you (e.g.,

‘‘we want you to think and discuss’’), a pronominal choice that leads to the

emergence of an interactional structure in which teachers cast themselves as

members of an authority social group from which students are excluded. Tabak and

Baumgartner (2004) described how a secondary teacher used the exclusive pronoun

you while giving directions to students (e.g., ‘‘you need to control your variables’’),

adopting the interactional position of an outside authority (a mentor) and

establishing an asymmetric teacher–student relationship. Oliveira, Sadler, and

Suslak (2007b) described how an experienced professor was able to divide himself

and his students into two distinct social groups through the combined use of I and

you (e.g., ‘‘I want you to revise this’’), and adopt an authoritative interactional

position by employing the exclusive we to highlight his membership to a community

of science experts. These studies reveal that teachers exclude students when they

associate themselves with outside experts or social groups, and establish author-

itative social relationships with students when they employ the distancing pronoun

you.

Personal Pronouns in Scientific Discourse

Personal pronouns constitute an important aspect of scientific discourse. Hyland

(2005) reported 5.5 cases of self-mention (I, my, mine) and 2.1 cases of reader

reference (inclusive we, and more rarely you, your) per 1,000 words in published

articles in the field of physics. In microbiology articles, these same frequencies are

2.1 and 0.1, respectively. For the most part, scientists avoid the distancing you,

choosing instead to use the inclusive we to claim solidarity (claim shared

understandings and goals) and adopt a dialogic stance toward peers by anticipating

their possible objections, concerns, and alternate views from peers. Rowland (1999)

pointed out that the pronoun it enables speakers to point to unknown or unnamed

concepts and identities, whereas the pronoun you serves as a pointer to generalized

procedures and relationships in the context of investigative discourse (e.g., ‘‘you usewater displacement to measure the volume of a solid object’’). Described next is

how teachers were introduced to this literature.

Research Design

Participants and the Institute

This study comes from the last summer institute of a 3-year professional

development program called ‘‘Scientific Modeling for Inquiring Teachers Network

(SMIT’N),’’ which was offered to fifteen K-6 teachers who taught all subjects,

including science, in eight different public schools from one district in Indiana. Nine

teachers taught lower elementary grade levels (K-3), whereas the other six taught


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higher elementary grade levels (4–6). All teachers were white females and taught in

suburban elementary schools that served a predominantly white, upper middle-class

student population. Their teaching experiences varied considerably (from 3 to

25 years). Twelve teachers had participated in the two previous years of the

program, whereas the other three teachers participated only in the last year of

SMIT’N.

In its first 2 years, the SMIT’N program sought to enhance elementary teachers’

understandings and abilities to incorporate scientific modeling, scientific inquiry,

and nature of science into their classroom practices through a combination of

summer institutes, school year institutes, and classroom support. The third summer

institute aimed primarily at enhancing elementary teachers’ ability to interact with

students while teaching science through inquiry.

The third institute consisted of daily professional development activities divided

into 2–3-h blocks (9:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. and 1:00–4:00 P.M.). Furthermore, the

institute met five times a week (Monday–Friday) over a period of 2 weeks, thus

affording a total of 60 direct contact hours. Each day, professional development

activities focused on a particular aspect of teacher–student interaction (see

‘‘Appendix A’’ for the institute daily schedule). Due to space limitations, the

present study focuses solely on professional development activities related to

hedges and personal pronouns (Days 5 and 7). On those 2 days, teachers first

participated in a morning expert instruction sessions that lasted for approximately

1.5 h. After discussing the literature on hedges and pronouns extensively, teachers

then took part in midday inquiry immersion sessions wherein a facilitator modeled

3-h inquiry-based science lessons on ‘‘Genetic Inheritance’’ and ‘‘Fat Finders.’’

Teachers then participated in 1.5 h afternoon collaborative assessment sessions in

which they discussed the facilitator’s use of hedges and pronouns while modeling

inquiry lessons, and then assessed their own use of these two linguistic forms by

watching and critiquing video-recordings of their inquiry-based teaching practices

(teachers were video-recorded in their own classrooms prior to the institute).

Research Methods

The present study adopts a qualitative research approach (Bogdan and Biklen 2003;

Creswell 2003) and has an ethnographic research design, being aligned with social

constructivist perspectives that emphasize that meanings are created in human social

interaction (Robson 2002). As part of the study, descriptive data were systematically

collected through open-ended research methods such as video-recordings of

professional development activities, and then analyzed inductively to build a

naturalistic account (Lincoln and Guba 1985) of teachers’ social understandings of

hedges and personal pronouns in inquiry-based classroom discourse.

Data Collection

To track the development of their social understandings, elementary teachers were

video-recorded while discussing the literature on hedges and pronouns, while

critiquing the facilitator’s use of hedges and personal pronouns, and while assessing

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their own video-recorded use of hedges and personal pronouns. In other words,

characterization of teachers’ social understandings was based exclusively on oral

data (teachers’ oral contributions to expert-guided discussions).

Data Analysis

Teachers’ social understandings were obtained through the adoption of a ‘grounded

theory’ approach to qualitative data analysis (Glaser and Strauss 1967). This

approach called for the iterative and combined use of interpretative and flexible

methods of analysis such as close reading, inductive or open coding and memoing

(Bernard 2002; Emerson et al. 1995). There were no a priori hypotheses or codes.

Instead, analytical categories emerged and were gradually refined based on close

examination of meanings and patterns in the collected data.

The video-recordings of SMIT’N sessions were transcribed and then systemat-

ically read to generate coding categories for teachers’ social understandings. As

pointed out by Emerson et al. (1995), it is useful to have a set of guiding questions

in the initial phase of open coding. The researcher can generate codes or categories

by mentally turning the answers to these questions into words or terms that capture

the information read on a piece of data. The following set of questions guided this

close reading of transcripts: (a) How are teachers describing instructors’ use of

hedges and personal pronouns?; (b) What interactional or social functions are

teachers recognizing?; and (c) What assumptions are teachers making?

The emergent coding categories were revised until patterns or themes in teachers’

social understandings became discernable. Teachers’ social understandings were

then elaborated upon through a combination of focused coding (a minute, line-by-

line analysis of each set) and memoing (detailed running notes about the coding

themes). Upon completion of focused coding, a written report was produced

summarizing and comparing themes in teachers’ social understandings.

Peer debriefing sessions were held with other SMIT’N personnel—a linguistic

anthropologist, a feminist science educator, and an analyst of science classroom

discourse—to triangulate emerging interpretations of the data. Working from

transcripts of SMIT’N sessions, particular scenes were examined collectively,

individual analyses shared, and interpretations discussed extensively. The emergent

account was gradually adjusted to include any variation that surfaced from this

reflective group interpretation of the data. These debriefing sessions helped guard

against individual researcher biases (Robson 2002) during interpretative analysis of

the transcribed video-recordings. We choose to focus our analysis on hedges and

personal pronouns because these topics engendered some of the most lively and

productive sessions of the institute, with teachers displaying particularly high levels

of engagement and interest despite their unfamiliarity with such topics.

Findings

Teachers’ social understandings are presented in this section. Attention is first given

to how teachers understood the social functions of hedges. The focus then shifts to


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their understandings of personal pronouns. Teachers of different grade levels

participate in the excerpts provided below, including kindergarten (Mrs. Walsh),

first grade (Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Tracy), fourth grade (Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Carter, and

Mrs. Parker) and fifth grade (Mrs. Simpson). Transcript excerpts follow conventions

listed in ‘‘Appendix B’’. Pseudonyms are used for all participants.

Understanding Hedges

During the morning session of Day 5, a facilitator presented a PowerPoint slideshow

with definitions and examples of several different types of hedges (‘‘Appendix C’’)

and then discussed their social functions extensively with teachers. After this

presentation, the facilitator asked teachers to identify the social functions of hedges.

Their responses suggested the development of a clear understanding of the reasons

behind hedging in classroom discourse:

Facilitator: What are hedges for? What do they accomplish for us when we

speak?

Mrs. Adams: Being non-committal.

Facilitator: Yeah, it’s a way of avoiding commitment, and what were you

saying?

Mrs. Smith: Defense mechanisms.

Facilitator: Um hmm, so defending against?

Mrs. Smith: Umm, possibility of failure of your response.

Facilitator: Um hmm, and what else? What else do hedges do for us?

Mrs. Adams: It leaves it open; it’s more inviting for other responses.

Prompted by the facilitator, Mrs. Adams and Smith displayed their social

understandings by identifying avoidance of commitment, defense against response

failure and encouragement of multiple opinions or ideas as social functions

generally served by teachers’ and students’ hedges.

As the morning session progressed, teachers’ understandings of the social

functions of hedges became increasingly contextualized and specialized. For

instance, when the facilitator asked teachers about the occurrence of adaptors in

classroom discourse, Mrs. Simpson replied:

Mrs. Simpson: It [the use of adaptors] certainly depends on when in your lesson

you are employing this kind of thing too, because at the beginning

you wanna have some doubts, some questions and getting them

[the students] focused into finding answers, doing things to find out

for themselves.

Instead of offering generalizations about the use of adaptors, Mrs. Simpson

pointed out that classroom use of such hedges is contextualized, that is, teachers

may employ adaptors for varied social functions at different parts of a single lesson.

In early stages of inquiry science lessons, teachers’ adaptors can serve a

motivational or engaging function. By strategically introducing doubt, teachers

can encourage their students to inquire and look for their own answers. Later in the

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discussion, participants continued to develop this contextualized understanding of

the social functions of hedges:

Mrs. Adams: In a discussion, it [hedging] seems to fit. Now, if they [students]

are writing their answers with hedges in them, no.

Facilitator: Right, so if on a test you get?

Mrs. Adams: I think, maybe, What should I call it? The thingie, then [laughs]

Mrs. Simpson: To allow this kind of discussion in the classroom, and then on a

test have like thing and stuff.Facilitator: So, there is a disjoint.

Mrs. Simpson: So, there is this disjoint and that’s why I have a problem with it.

Facilitator: Right.

Mrs. Parker: Well, when you’re getting through the learning cycle though, once

you’ve gone past the Explain part they need to start using the

vocabulary.

Mrs. Simpson: I agree.

Mrs. Parker: Then by the time you are at [interruption]

Facilitator: Right, in Explore, they will likely not have had that terminology to

use, so thingie might be completely appropriate at that point.

Mrs. Simpson: Even when we are at Explain sometimes there are children who are

saying Well that stuff we did before instead of being precise, so

Facilitator: And that’s indicating?

Mrs. Simpson: So, that’s indicating to me that they really still are not comfortable

with the content.

Drawing on the definitions introduced by the facilitator and her previous teaching

experiences, Mrs. Adams recognized the differential use of hedges in oral and

written classroom discourses. While hedging is acceptable in students’ oral

contributions to classroom discussions, teachers typically discourage students from

hedging in their written responses to tests or exams. Immediately, Mrs. Simpson

reacted by expressing her disapproval of such practice which is described as a

‘‘disjoint’’ in classroom communication since students are required to eliminate the

vague language they commonly use to talk to teachers and peers from their writing.

Mrs. Parker then took the discussion one step further by referring to the five

different phases of the learning cycle (Engage, Explore, Explain, Evaluate, and

Extend), an instructional model commonly used by teachers to structure their

inquiry science lessons (Bybee 1997). According to the three discussants, students

are likely to hedge during the Engage and Explore phases of inquiry science lessons,

but students’ employment of vague language is expected to reduce in the Explain

phase, when teachers usually introduce relevant scientific terminology and

vocabulary to students. Persistence of vagueness in student discourse after this

point is taken as an indication of student discomfort or unfamiliarity with the

scientific ideas and concepts presented by the teacher.

During the morning session, teachers discussed the social functions of attribution

shields:


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Facilitator: [If] we say Kim says widow’s peak is dominant. Think about why

we might use this kind of shield?

Mrs. Simpson: Well, because you are not quite sure yourself, but you are

confident that Kim knows what she is talking about.

Facilitator: We think Kim is really smart.

Mrs. Simpson: Yeah, so I might suggest that someone I think is smarter thinks it is

true so, we are ending the discussion [laughs].

Facilitator: Right, we’re kinda treating Kim as the expert.

Mrs. Adams: Or, you’re just inviting other opinions, Kim says this, what do youthink? Instead of just saying it that’s just what we are saying it.

Facilitator: So, it kinda sounds like what you are saying is we are being kinda

neutral in our response to whatever Kim said.

After providing an example related to genetic inheritance, the facilitator asked

why teachers normally use attribution shields while interacting with students. In

response, Mrs. Simpson and Adams identified two social functions, namely to

acknowledge students with high academic ability and to invite opinions from other

students. It must be noticed that the facilitator reworded each of the two teachers’

responses, helping them articulate their responses in terms of expertise social status

and discursive neutrality. By doing so, the facilitator continuously helped teachers

develop more articulated and elaborated understandings of the social functions of

hedges in the context of inquiry-based science classroom discourse.

During the afternoon session, the facilitator and teachers discussed how

hesitation markers can serve multiple social functions in classroom discourse:

Facilitator: We have to be careful about what we are expressing when we are

using these hedges or hesitations markers, and what our students

are expressing.

Mrs. Adams: I am reading the ones that are listed there and, umm, maybe it’s

just that they [students] are nervous. It’s just like, if you say okay,

and then okay? uh, okay? And go on, filling space.

Mrs. Simpson: It’s different though hearing a speaker than it is a child speaking in

a classroom, because you know that some of the umm’s are

because they are nervous, or because they are not sure how you’re

gonna respond to what they say, which is very different than a

speaker getting up and saying umm, umm, umm which drives me

crazy, because I don’t think that’s trying to hold floor, I think it’s

not being prepared.

While showing a PowerPoint slide with several examples, the facilitator

highlighted the need for teachers to be attentive to what they and their students

express when they use hesitation markers. In response, Mrs. Adams raised the

possibility of hesitation markers being indicative of nervousness on the part of

students who use such hedges as placeholders or fillers to hold onto the discussion

floor while pulling themselves together. Next, Mrs. Simpson pointed out the

importance of context for the interpretation of the meaning(s) of hesitation markers

in classroom discourse. According to her, children’s uncertainty about the teacher’s

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reaction to their contributions motivates their use of hesitation markers, whereas

presenters’ and teachers’ use of hesitation markers is more likely to be caused by

unpreparedness. The above discussion provides evidence that the teachers

developed an increased awareness of classroom discourse that took into account

the social multifunctionality and contextual nature of hedging.

Understanding Personal Pronouns

In the morning session of Day 7, a facilitator used a PowerPoint slideshow to

introduce teachers to the different types of personal pronouns identified by discourse

analysts such as the inclusive we (I ? you), the exclusive we (I ? they) and the

generalized you as well as their social functions such as building solidarity (social

closeness) and power (authoritative distance) (see ‘‘Appendix D’’). After this

presentation, the facilitator played a short video of a classroom inquiry wherein

elementary students designed and conducted hands-on investigations with earth-

worms. The video showed verbal interactions between a male teacher and a female

student who planned to investigate whether earthworms were able to hear sounds.

After challenging the student to design a method of generating noise that would be

invisible to an earthworm, the teacher uttered the following comments ‘‘yeah, thinkabout that for awhile, see what you can come up with, and if you are still, uh, if youare not sure, come back and check in with me, and I will tell you’’ [for the video or

more information about the earthworm inquiry lesson see the companion CD

entitled ‘‘Visit an Inquiry Classroom’’ (Peters and Stout 2006)]. Participants

discussed the social implications of this particular utterance extensively:

Mrs. Parker: We would have changed it from if you are not sure to if there are anymore questions to kinda avoid making that about her [the student],

but if there are any more questions, come back and let’s talk about itsome more.

Mrs. Carter: I think there is a problem at the end when he [the teacher] was, uh,

come back and check in with me, and I will tell you, that was just

setting her up to like ok, well I’ve got to go back and get the rightanswer, I will just write whatever answer I can and I will come backand he will tell me the answer, kids react in different ways, but when

they go back and really think about it to try to get the right answer,

they stress and get anxiety about it because they know there is one

answer because he said come back I will tell you.

Mrs. Walsh: I kind got it that he [the teacher] is saying like if you need anythingelse, come back and I will help you.

Mrs. Parker suggested that the expression ‘‘if you are not sure’’ should be

replaced with ‘‘if there are any more questions.’’ Such a replacement, she argued,

would have made the teacher–student interaction more focused on the investigation

itself rather than on the student’s competence or ability to investigate. Mrs. Parker

also suggested that instead of saying ‘‘if you are not sure, come back and check in

with me, and I will tell you,’’ the teacher should have said something like ‘‘if there

are any more questions, come back and let’s talk about it some more.’’ As


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underlined above, Mrs. Parker’s suggestion was that the teacher should have

avoided the pronoun you in the first part of his sentence, and strategically replaced

the I and you pronouns in the second part with the inclusive we. The former would

have placed student ability in the background, whereas the latter would have

fostered solidarity (social proximity or oneness) rather than authority (social

distance or separation).

Similarly, Mrs. Carter argued that the statement ‘‘come back and check in with

me, and I will tell you’’ can have a potentially negative social impact on teacher–

student interactions by encouraging the student to focus on finding the right answer

which is known only by the teacher. Such an interpretation seems to be based on the

fact that the teacher uses the communicative verb ‘‘tell’’ which in classroom

contexts is frequently associated with the object ‘‘answers.’’ In contrast, Mrs. Walsh

proposed a more positive interpretation of the verb ‘‘tell’’ as meaning a willingness

to help on the part of the teacher.

Throughout the day, participants continued to develop their views of personal

pronouns by reflecting upon and articulating social aspects of their own teaching

practices and classroom contexts. Mrs. Parker described how she was able to make

strategic use of personal pronouns while implementing science inquiries by having

her students work in small groups:

Mrs. Parker: I use a program that encourages, uh, you put the kids in groups, so

the inquiry that students do in my class is always done in a group. I

want that group to be successful by themselves while I am doing

whatever else I need to do in the room, so the you, I kept waiting for

him [the teacher on the video] to say your group, what does yourgroup think about this? Because it’s very difficult to have each child

doing their own inquiry, and having a group gets me out of the being

in-charge mode and helps them develop which I think is a greater life

skill, being able to work in groups by themselves. And, then you may

work in one group more than others and then it’s we and let’s.

Mrs. Parker pointed out that her collaborative approach to science inquiry

enables her to strategically shape her use of personal pronouns while interacting

with students by substituting the singular pronoun you (the individual student) for

the plural form you (the group of students). Such a replacement serves to promote

collective student agency and accountability in the more independent and higher-

ability groups. In contrast, Mrs. Parker employed solidarity-building pronominal

forms such as we and let’s, hence promoting solidarity while working with groups

that require more guidance and support from her.

Later in the discussion, teachers articulated the social implications of particular

personal pronouns for classroom management. Some teachers highlighted the

benefits while others emphasized the risks of continuous use of the inclusive wewhile interacting with students:

Mrs. Tracy: I think it’s so true that in the younger grades you have to teach and

say we because, because you have to let all your kids know that we’re

gonna be working today so that, because the kids will want to roll on

114 A. W. Oliveira

123

the floor, we are working, I mean, first graders, that’s what they will

do unless you really have a cohesive group.

Mrs. Carter: I was in a much different setting with eight kids in my class, so I

could use we all the time, I mean, it was such a small group basically,

so we were gonna do this, we were gonna do that. I had seven of

them in everyday in math, today in everyday in math, we are going todo this, we are going to do that, and for science ok, today in sciencewe are going to do this, what do you think if we did this? Or wouldyou like if we all did this, and I used we all the time, and actually I

thought it was not good that I was doing that because I felt like

people would perceive as me not being authoritative in the sense of

not having enough control because I was like that with my students

like let’s do this or we’re gonna do this.

As underscored above, Mrs. Tracy and Carter expressed contrasting views with

regard to the effectiveness of using the pronoun we as a verbal strategy to manage

elementary classrooms. Mrs. Tracy argued that the pronoun we can be effectively

used by elementary teachers to foster group cohesiveness or solidarity, thus making

student behavior more manageable. In contrast, Mrs. Carter pointed out that

teachers who frequently employ the personal pronoun we can be perceived as

lacking authority and unable to control student behavior, thus leading to classroom

management difficulties.

Participants also demonstrated having developed an increased sensitivity to how

teachers expressed authority in their pronominal choices. For instance, during the

morning expert instruction, a facilitator provided participants with a short

transcript of an inquiry-based lesson in which a professor interacted with a group

of three undergraduate students who were trying to explain how wax candles work

[for the complete transcripts see Oliveira, Sadler, and Suslak (2007b)]. While

discussing the transcript, participants focused on how the professor employed

personal pronouns:

Mrs. Carter: It seems to me that they [the students] are writing answers to

questions because Amy says we are on eight which means the

question number eight, and then when the professor speaks, he says

you haven’t told ME why there is a flame sitting on the top of thecandle. So, it looks like he is maybe looking at their answers to their

questions, and then he says I don’t think you’ve explained it, you justsaid it was made out of wax. It is like these answers that you arewriting down are for my, for me, you’re writing them for me. I know

he is like the audience who is going to be reading them obviously,

probably grading them on what they are writing down but a lot of

times teachers of younger grades have students write things down for

themselves in a journal, recording information, recording

observations, recording inferences, those kinds of things.

Facilitator: Right, so maybe this was a lost opportunity to play around with the

pronouns a little bit.


123

Mrs. Carter: He wants the students to be in charge of their learning but he is like

you are doing this for me, or whatever, you are answering thesequestions for me, so their goal seems to be a little bit like ok, so we’vegot to say it the right way, how would he say it? How would he wantus to say it? Instead of like okay, what’s going on here? How can wefigure this out?

Facilitator: And I assume that the danger of this is that at the end of the process,

instead of the reward being the ah hah moment when you figure it

out, the reward would be this sort of pleased expression on the

teachers’ face.

Mrs. Carter: Yeah, I said exactly what he wanted me to say.

First, Mrs. Carter described what she considered to be the context of the verbal

interactions presented by the facilitator: a professor reading and commenting on the

written responses that a group of students provided to a series of questions. She then

pointed out that, by prefacing his assessment with the expression ‘‘you haven’t told

ME,’’ the professor explicitly positions himself as the sole audience who will be

reading the students’ writing assignment as well as the authority who will be

grading their work. Such social positioning, she argued, is less often adopted by

elementary teachers who tend to favor self-writing, that is, assignments in which the

students are asked to position themselves as the audience for their own writings

(e.g., diaries and journals). More importantly, Mrs. Carter eloquently argued that the

professor’s social positioning as the ‘‘audience’’ or ‘‘grader’’ can potentially have a

negative impact on students’ inquiry by encouraging them to focus on pleasing the

professor (i.e., reporting what the professor wants to read) rather than on learning

about the scientific phenomenon under investigation. Mrs. Carter’s comments and

arguments provide evidence of her increased level of awareness of personal pronoun

use and its social implications for inquiry-based science instruction.

Neutrality, Tentativeness, and Inclusiveness

Participation in the SMIT’N institute encouraged elementary teachers to recognize

that hedges and personal pronouns serve important social functions in the context of

inquiry-based science instruction. By reflecting about the role of language in

inquiry, teachers developed an in-depth understanding of how hedges constitute an

important interactional resource that they can strategically draw upon to adopt a

neutral stance toward students’ oral contributions to classroom discussions, invite

students to share their opinions and articulate their own ideas, and motivate students

to inquire and look for answers by introducing doubt or uncertainty into discussions.

Similarly, teachers understood that they can resort to personal pronouns to build

solidarity or group cohesiveness, foster student inclusiveness in classroom inquiries,

promote student agency, accountability and independence, manage student behav-

ior, and encourage students to write and investigate for themselves rather than for

the teacher.

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123

Helping teachers realize the social significance of oral language in inquiry-based

science teaching is precisely the area where this study of the professional

development of teachers’ social understandings advances our knowledge of how to

better prepare teachers to interact with students engaged in scientific inquiry. The

present study contributes to this knowledge base by showing how teacher educators

can help teachers better understand classroom interactions by means of professional

development strategies such as reflective discussions about the role of language in

classroom settings, expert-guided instruction on specialized literature, and video-

based collaborative discourse analysis. Since teachers’ social understandings serve

as a basis for their classroom practices, improving how teachers understand hedges

and personal pronouns is likely to bring about changes in how they relate to students

during science discussions. Some important changes are with regard to discursive

neutrality, tentativeness, and student inclusiveness, which are discussed below.

The importance of discursive neutrality has been highlighted in previous analyses

of inquiry-based science classroom discourse. van Zee and Minstrell (1997a, b)

described how a high school teacher was able to help students articulate their own

beliefs and conceptions by providing neutral acknowledgement of students’ oral

contributions and encouraging students to keep talking through frequent use of

vague expressions such as ‘‘okay,’’ ‘‘all right,’’ and ‘‘uh huh.’’ Likewise, van Zee

et al. (2001) was able to encourage their students to explore different points of view

and monitor their own thinking through neutral acknowledgment of students’

discursive contributions (i.e., without signaling an evaluation of the correctness of

student utterances). Similar to van Zee and her colleagues, SMIT’N participants

emphasized the need for teachers to be able to remain neutral while facilitating

science inquiry discussions. This ability, according to teachers’ social understand-

ings, is contingent upon effective employment of attribution shields. Such social

understanding underscores discursive neutrality as a crucial feature of effective

inquiry-based science teaching.

Previous research on mathematics classroom discourse has explored teachers’

employment of tentative language while talking to students. Rowland (2000)

described the discursive practices of a primary school teacher who placed five

plastic ‘‘people’’ on the floor and then posed questions such as ‘‘right, Anna how

many people are on the floor?’’ and ‘‘how many people do you think we need to

make ten people?’’ Because she thought her pupils might find her second question

challenging, the teacher resorted to a plausibility shield (the tentative verb to think).

In other words, questions seen by the teacher as trivial were asked without hedges,

whereas questions viewed as challenging are worded in a tentative manner. As a

result, Rowland (2000) argued, the teacher was able to foster a ‘‘conjecturing

classroom atmosphere,’’ that is, a nonthreatening social context wherein students

know that it is ‘‘all right to be wrong.’’ SMIT’N participants also stressed that

tentativeness or uncertainty in teacher talk can be beneficial to students’ science

learning. According to their social understandings, uncertainty can be introduced at

the beginning of inquiry lessons through strategic employment of adaptors. Not only

is such practice likely to foster student engagement but it can also render science

inquiry discussions less threatening or more conjectural to students (i.e., safer for

students to offer tentative oral contributions).


123

Previous research has revealed that the personal pronouns used by writers

establish particular types of social relationships with readers. Hyland (2002) pointed

out that writers of textbooks tended to identify their readers explicitly through

frequent use of second-person pronouns (you), creating an authority structure in

which readers are given a subordinate status. Similarly, Oliveira et al. (2009)

described how the authors of an environmental story promoted an asymmetric

teacher–student relationship through the use of you, identifying students explicitly

as the commanded party. Herbel-Eisenmann (2007) described how the prevalence of

you in a problem-based mathematics curriculum leads to the establishment of a

distant and formal relationship in which the author remains in control of the

common knowledge (Edwards and Mercer 1987). In contrast, Morgan (1996) and

Pimm (1987) pointed out that the authors of some mathematics textbooks used weinclusively to imply that students are involved in and share responsibility for

mathematics activity. Similar to SMIT’N teachers’ social understandings, these

studies underscore that you can have a distancing and authoritative interactional

effect, whereas we can include students as legitimate participants of classroom

investigations. This social understanding points to a direct connection between

personal pronouns and teacher authority. This connection is discussed next.

The Discursive Nature of Teacher Authority

As described above, SMIT’N participants became increasingly aware of how

teachers’ pronominal choices can lead to the establishment of higher or lower levels

of authority. This increased awareness of teacher authority enabled them to

articulate several potential implications for classroom management. Participants

recognized how the combined use of I and you can render teacher feedback to

students highly authoritative, how too much use of you can shift the focus of

classroom interactions from the investigation itself to students’ ability or

competence to investigate, and how excessive employment of the inclusive wecan create the impression of loss of control or authority over student behavior.

The above findings underscore the importance of increasing elementary teachers’

levels of linguistic awareness, being consistent with previous studies of inquiry-

based classroom discourse, which have highlighted the need for science and

mathematics teachers to become more aware of authority. Oliveira et al. (2007a, b)

argue that science instructors need to develop a higher degree of ‘‘pragmatic

awareness,’’ that is, an improved comprehension of the language-mediated process

underlying the enactment of authority in classroom encounters. This awareness can

enable science teachers to change their ways of talking as inquiry-based learning

contexts demand, thus allowing them to better support their students’ inquiry

experiences. Amit and Fried (2005) describe how strong authority relationships can

negatively interfere with students’ engagement in mathematical thinking by

promoting non-reflective forms of teacher–student interaction, and preventing

students from participating in the construction of mathematical ideas. In authority-

based classroom relations, students gain practice with obedience and teacher

domination rather than negotiation and intellectual independence. To promote

118 A. W. Oliveira

123

thoughtful and reflective learning of mathematics, teachers need to establish a

relationship with students not based on authority but on intellectual partnership. The

establishment of this type of relationship is contingent upon teachers’ ability to

share authority (i.e., to allow students to take part in the authority structure of the

classroom without losing their own authority).

Based on the above arguments and findings, it can be argued that participation in

the SMIT’N summer institute served to increase elementary teachers’ levels of

pragmatic awareness. Teachers’ improved understandings of how authority is

constructed in their choices of personal pronouns enabled them to recognize that

they should avoid speaking authoritatively to students, and instead seek to establish

inquiry-based classroom relationships based on intellectual partnership. However, it

must be emphasized that the SMIT’N teachers were not encouraged to completely

remove authority from classroom discourse or to relinquish their authoritative status

completely, but rather to use language with a greater awareness while facilitating

inquiry lessons in their classrooms and to share authority with students. Not only is

an authority-free stance toward inquiry-based discourse difficult (if not impossible)

to achieve, but its educational value must be seriously questioned. Teachers need to

maintain some degree of control or authority over the inquiry-based classroom

discourse to ensure that students have productive and high-quality science learning

experiences.

Developing Teachers’ Social Understandings

The present study provides evidence that elementary teachers’ social understandings

can be effectively improved through an explicit reflective professional development

approach, a format previously shown to be effective in improving preservice

teachers views of nature of science (NOS) (Abd-El-Khalick and Akerson 2004;

Akerson et al. 2000). Like these NOS interventions, the SMIT’N institute provided

teachers with numerous opportunities to reflect about the social dimension of

inquiry-based science instruction. Furthermore, elementary teachers were encour-

aged to articulate explicit and more informed understandings of the social functions

of hedges and personal pronouns in classroom discourse by discussing current

educational linguistic research, critiquing teacher–student interaction in the context

of their inquiry immersion experiences, and conducting video-based collaborative

discourse analyses.

Several educational researchers have emphasized that professional development

programs need to be contextualized to effectively produce changes in teachers’

views, beliefs and understandings (Clough 2006; Schwartz et al. 2004; Yerrick et al.

1997). Such changes require that teachers participate in professional development

activities that can elicit much of the same contextualized forms of thinking that

teachers are required to perform in their daily tasks. Based on these recommen-

dations, it can be argued that the reported improvement in elementary teachers’

social understandings is directly connected to the high level of contextualization and

authenticity of the SMIT’N professional development activities. The inquiry

immersion experiences provided participating teachers with an authentic


123

instructional context (i.e., investigative and content-specific) in which to reflect

about inquiry-based science classroom discourse. Furthermore, the video-recorded

inquiry lessons allowed teachers to (re)consider their social understandings in light

of critical examinations of their own daily discursive actions and to engage in highly

contextualized reflections about the social dimension of inquiry-based science

instruction in their own classrooms. As a result of engaging in collaborative

activities and discussions about classroom social contexts that were authentic,

familiar, and grounded in their realities, elementary teachers’ social understandings

of inquiry-based science classroom discourse improved substantially.

In conclusion, the present study provides evidence that encouraging teachers to

reflect about the social dimension of inquiry-based science instruction is well worth

the effort. As described above, teachers’ increased levels of pragmatic awareness

enabled them to better understand how teachers can establish less authoritative

relations with elementary students by strategically adopting discursive behaviors

that are more inclusive, tentative and less committal. Based on such findings, it can

be argued that explicitness, reflectivity, and contextualization are essential features

of professional development programs aimed at improving teachers’ understandings

of the social dimension of inquiry-based science classrooms. Future research will

need to explore how teachers’ improved social understandings influence their

classroom practices (i.e., the ways they actually interact with students engaged in

science inquiries). Such research has the potential to provide science educators with

valuable insights on how to effectively prepare teachers to engage in inquiry-based

teacher–student interactions and use language in ways that can better support their

pupils’ science learning experiences.

Acknowledgment This project was funded by the state of Indiana Mathematics and Science Partnership

Program.

Appendix A

See Table 1.

Table 1 Summer institute daily schedule

Day Intervention/class Class description/topics

Week—1

1. Monday (A.M.) Introduction (3.0 h) Introduction to the professional development

program (goals, format, and expectations)

1. Monday (P.M.) Inquiry immersion session

(3.0 h)

Teachers participate in ‘‘fungi’’ inquiry

120 A. W. Oliveira

123

Table 1 continued


2. Tuesday (A.M.) Expert instruction session

(1.5 h)

Teachers are introduced to ‘‘discoursestructures.’’ (IRE, IRF, IRFRF, IR, etc.)

Inquiry immersion session

(1.5 h)

Teachers participate in the first half of the ‘‘soilerosion’’ inquiry

2. Tuesday (P.M.) Inquiry immersion session

(1.5 h)

Teachers participate in the second half of the

‘‘soil erosion’’ inquiry

Collaborative assessment

(1.5 h)

Teachers discuss and assess ‘‘discoursestructures’’ used during the ‘‘soil erosion’’

inquiry and in their own videos

3. Wednesday (A.M.) Expert instruction session

(1.5 h)

Teachers are introduced to ‘‘types of questions’’

(display questions, convergent questions,

pseudo-questions, etc.)


(1.5 h)

Teachers participate in the first half of the

‘‘pollination’’ inquiry

3. Wednesday (P.M.) Inquiry immersion session

(1.5 h)


‘‘pollination’’ inquiry


(1.5 h)

Teachers discuss and assess ‘‘types of questions’’

used during the ‘‘pollination’’ inquiry and in

their own videos

4. Thursday (A.M.) Expert instruction session

(1.5 h)

Teachers are introduced to ‘‘questioningapproaches’’ (cued elicitation, retrospective

elicitation, Socratric questioning, reflective

toss, verbal cloze, etc.)


(1.5 h)

Teachers participate in the first half of the ‘‘seamonkey behavior’’ inquiry

4. Thursday (P.M.) Inquiry immersion session

(1.5 h)


‘‘sea monkey behavior’’ inquiry


(1.5 h)

Teachers discuss and assess ‘‘questioningapproaches’’ used during the ‘‘sea monkeybehavior’’ inquiry and in their own videos

5. Friday (A.M.) Expert instruction session

(1.5 h)

Teachers are introduced to ‘‘hedges’’

(plausibility shields, attribution shields,

placeholder words, etc.)


(1.5 h)


‘‘genetic inheritance’’ inquiry

5. Friday (P.M.) Inquiry immersion session

(1.5 h)


‘‘genetic inheritance’’ inquiry


(1.5 h)

Teachers discuss and assess ‘‘hedges’’ used

during the ‘‘genetic inheritance’’ inquiry and

in their own videos

Week—2

6. Monday (A.M.) Expert instruction session

(1.5 h)

Teachers are introduced to ‘‘reactive language.’’

(backchannels, phatic expressions, reactive

tokens, etc.)


(1.5 h)


‘‘plankton’’ inquiry


123

Appendix B

See Table 2.

Table 1 continued


6. Monday (P.M.) Inquiry immersion session

(1.5 h)


‘‘plankton’’ inquiry


(1.5 h)

Teachers discuss and assess ‘‘reactivelanguage’’ used during the ‘‘plankton’’ inquiry

and in their own videos

7. Tuesday (A.M.) Expert instruction session

(1.5 h)

Teachers are introduced to ‘‘personal pronouns’’

(exclusive and inclusive ‘‘we,’’ generalized

and distancing ‘‘you,’’ solidarity-building

pronouns, etc.)


(1.5 h)


‘‘nutrition and fat finders’’ inquiry

7. Tuesday (P.M.) Inquiry immersion session

(1.5 h)


‘‘nutrition and fat finders’’ inquiry

Collaborative Assessment

(1.5 h)

Teachers discuss and assess ‘‘personalpronouns’’ used during the ‘‘nutrition and fatfinders’’ inquiry and in their own videos

8. Wednesday (A.M.) Expert instruction session

(1.5 h)

Teachers are introduced to ‘‘directives andpoliteness’’ (positive and negative politeness,

imperatives, declaratives, and interrogatives,

etc.)


(1.5 h)


‘‘DNA’’ inquiry

8. Wednesday (P.M.) Inquiry immersion session

(1.5 h)


‘‘DNA’’ inquiry


(1.5 h)

Teachers discuss and assess ‘‘directives andpoliteness’’ used during the ‘‘DNA’’ inquiry

and in their own videos

9. Thursday (A.M.) Expert instruction session

(1.5 h)

Teachers are introduced to ‘‘involvement-focused language’’ (poetics, parallel

repetitions, figures of speech, etc.)


(1.5 h)


‘‘biochemistry’’ inquiry

9. Thursday (P.M.) Inquiry immersion session

(1.5 h)


‘‘biochemistry’’ inquiry


(1.5 h)

Teachers discuss and assess ‘‘involvement-focused language’’ used during the

‘‘biochemistry’’ inquiry and in their own

videos

10. Friday (A.M.) PowerPoint presentations

(3.0 h)

Teachers share the findings of their video-based

discourse analyses

10. Friday (P.M.) Planning for school year

(3.0 h)

School year workshop schedule and objectives

are discussed and decided

122 A. W. Oliveira

123

Appendix C

See Table 3.

Table 2 Transcription

conventions

The mentioned notation is

adopted in all transcript excerpts

included in the present article

CAPS Indicates stress

[ ] Indicates observer comments

Underlining Indicates key linguistic features

of the provided excerpts

Italics Indicates shifts in voice inflection

Table 3 PowerPoint slideshow on hedges presented during the morning expert instruction session

HedgesFuzziness in Classroom Discourse

Definition: vague, unclear and indirect language that speakers use to become less committed to the truth of their utterances (Lakoff, 1972)

Categories (T. Rowland)

Ways to be vague Example words

Plausibility shield I think, maybe, I believe, probably, possibly, I guess

Attribution shield According to…, says…

Rounders About, around, like, approximately

Adaptors A little bit, somewhat, fairly, pretty

Imprecise language

Vague category identifiers

And stuff, or whatever, or something

Placeholder words Stuff, thing, thingy, whatchamacallit

(1) (2)

Examples

Plausibility Shield: I guess widow’s peak is dominant.

Attribution shield: Kim says widow’s peak is dominant.

Adaptor: Molds are mostly bad.

Rounder: About all the offspring had dimples.

Other ways of introducing vagueness

Simply not being precise – Ex: “I’m traveling north for the holidays.”

Vague category identifiers– Ex: “Fungi decompose dead things or whatever.”

Placeholder words– Ex: “Genetic counselors look at your family stuff.”

(3) (4)

Functions of Vagueness

Convey attitude toward & commitment to assertionsPoliteness, to soften a statement that might alienate othersMaintain the pace of conversation, fluencyForeground/background relevant/irrelevant informationQuantify without being preciseConvey information about speaker’s assumptions about content or listeners’ expectationsActually being uncertain (cannot be precise)

Where’s the fuzziness?

Define evolution.– “Evolution is, I guess a - it's a process of change and

adaptation from one thing to another that's more advanced.”

– “About where they think other things evolved from other things like living animals or other species types.”

– “Um, evolution is just pretty much how we got here. But it's about how we came about and that we - how everything, how every living thing evolved from something and that kind of thing.”

Plausibility shield

Attribution shieldPlaceholder word

Placeholder word

Adaptor

Vague category identifier (5) (6)


123

Appendix D

See Table 4.

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Table 4 PowerPoint slideshow on personal pronouns presented during the morning expert instruction

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Personal PronounsPronouns of power & solidarity

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power (distancing or separating effect)asymmetric structure/relationship

– First person pronouns (we, us, let’s, our) create solidarity (social closeness, the impression a common social group)

symmetric structure/relationship (1) (2)

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Scene 1Prof: We did a, a lab a couple of labs back where we had

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Brook: heat.

Scene 2Amy: I mean, [are we correct or not?Prof: [um, you, you have a general idea here, I’m just

trying to think about what I wanna let, what, what we need to tell you. Um, let me look at what you said it, for how it works.

symmetric

asymmetric

Conclusion: teachers can use “we” to exclude as well as include students -- just counting we’s is meaningless

(3) (4)

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