Communicative aspects of definitions in classroom interaction.

This paper studies the interactive structure and the interactive meaning of definitions in primary school classroom interaction. Three categories of definitions will be analysed: teacher definitions, pupil definitions and common definitions. It will be shown that teacher definitions have a very important communicative function. They help the pupils grasp the words and the world that surround them. Pupil definitions on the other hand _as most pupil utterances in classroom interaction_ often have a completely different communicative function: their only goal is to express the pupil's knowledge.
As far as the interactive structure of the definitions is concerned, there appears to be a huge difference between teacher definitions and pupil definitions. Teacher definitions resemble dictionary definitions most. A pupil definition on the other hand is mostly not a one-liner by one person, but a process of information exchange between teacher and pupil, in the course of which the definition is being built up gradually.