158
Difference
sides of a potential debate. The professors in these more “conversational” classes
do more frequently encourage the students to occupy different sides of a debate,
perhaps those of the parties in the case, or of different policy positions pertinent
to the case, and so forth. In this sense, the students are drawn into occupying a
role that is generally taken by the professor
in the more Socratic classes, in which
the teacher frequently winds up taking one position and casting his or her stu-
dent interlocutor in the other. This does happen in the more conversational short-
exchange classes as well, all of which, as noted, contain some more traditional
Socratic dialogue. But in moments such as we observed in the previous transcript
excerpt, a polyphony of voices joins in exploring and explicating the issues raised
by the case under discussion.
In these kinds of moments, as we’ve seen, the
professor operates much like
the conductor of an orchestra, drawing out different parts of the argument from
the class. This calls on the professor to do more metalinguistic work of a particular
kind, recharacterizing and quoting previous utterances to set up the arguments and
distinctions that might otherwise simply be stated by the teacher. Thus, we find
metalinguistic structuring and restructuring of student utterances by the pro-
fessor playing a heavy role in creating coherence and continuity in many of these
classes. In the previous excerpt, we see the professor first engaging in a meta-
pragmatic recasting of Mr. N.’s response as (a) in actuality two responses, which
are recharacterized using imputed reported speech (“your response is ‘Forget
about the workers’” and “you’re saying ‘no’”), and (b) a “challenge” to Ms. L.’s
stated position. Notice, then, the degree to which subsequent
professor turns con-
sist of metalinguistic structuring of diverse students’ utterances: (a) in turn 102,
she concludes by noting that some students were attempting to enter the dis-
course, and asking, “Any more hands right at this minute?”; (b) in her next turn
(105), she begins a response of her own, but interrupts herself to recognize a stu-
dent interlocutor (“You’re going to respond to him?”); (c) her following turn
(107) consists entirely of a metalinguistic linking of previous student turns, to
clarify their (metapragmatic) relationship with one another (“So, are you agree-
ing with Mr. U.?”); and the next professor turn (109) is occupied by
a request
for one of the students to “respond to that on behalf of the county,” a request
followed by a restatement of the position to which a response is needed (a posi-
tion, by implication, that was contained in prior student comments); (d) follow-
ing two turns devoted to clarifying a student response, the professor again in turn
116 returns to her conductor role, calling on Mr. U., who is offering a reply to
the previous student’s statement; (e) after Mr. U.’s turn, the professor takes time
to correct an assumption that Mr. U. made and then moves on to recognize a
new speaker, Mr. Q., who chimes in to argue against the side implicitly taken by
the previous student speaker.
The work of creating coherence through an exchange
such as this involves a
careful metalinguistic channeling of ongoing student exchanges, restating com-
ments to make clear (or perhaps at times to create) their connections with one
another, parsing student utterances to clarify how they might relate to the overall
point of the discussion, correcting or restating aspects of the law or case under
discussion in between student turns. Note that discussion of this case began with
Professorial Style in Context
159
a fairly standard Socratic exchange between the professor and one student, occu-
pying 70 turns (or 35 question-answer pair-parts) and interrupted only by one “class
turn” (in which the entire class responded in unison “The county” to the professor’s
question “Who breached the contract?”). The first student succinctly summarized
the
facts in the case, the court’s decision, and the rule of the case. The exchange
broke down at the point where the professor asked this first student speaker to
explain the rationale behind the rule of the case: “There is now an exception to the
expectation rule, okay? What I want to know is what’s the rationale for that?” At
this point a number of students begin to raise their hands and offer their own ideas
about the rationale, resulting in a discussion that comes very close to being one
among students, with at times only a light degree of moderating from the profes-
sor. Most of the turns in these exchanges are volunteered.
For a different way of managing polyphony in a more conversational class, we
turn to Class #6, which, like Class #3, was taught by a
white female professor in a
local law school.
29
Here we see a set of exchanges that at points come even closer to
more informal conversation:
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