Corpus Linguistics and Cross-Disciplinary Action Research: A Study of Talk in the Mathematics Classroom

In this book, Joanna Baumgart offers a detailed and innovative account of how a mixed methods approach, combining corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, can shed light on educational practice. Corpus Linguistics and Cross-Disciplinary Action Research is based on a 22,000-word corpus of mathematics lessons in a multicultural secondary school in Ireland with the analysis of classroom data supported by insights from reflective meetings with the participating teacher. It demonstrates how examination of video recordings of lessons and reflective conversations facilitate discursive changes in the classroom and increase teacher awareness of classroom interaction. Throughout, the role of teacher talk is used as a model in the subject-specific discourse into which students are socialized. Baumgart also relates the story of a successful interdisciplinary approach to action research, thereby providing an example of how talk and interaction can be examined within wider educational contexts. Building on the premise of the key role which language, and talk in particular, plays in teaching and learning processes, this book will be of keen interest to teacher-educators as well as researchers in the fields of corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and educational linguistics.