Challenging the triadic dialogue format: Pupils’ interactional work in answering questions in whole-class interactions

Building on previous work focusing on teachers’ questions in whole-class activities in an Italian primary school, this study focuses on pupils’ responses in interactions organised according to the ‘triadic dialogue’ format (Lemke 1990), also known as the Initiation-Response-Evaluation (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975; McHoul 1978; Mehan 1979). The results show that the second position is a place where pupils perform many different actions. Using Conversation Analysis, it is argued that pupils follow two main and conflicting principles, associated with the institutional nature of interactions: being first to answer and being respectful of the classroom turn-taking system. By examining the features of turn design and the overlapping onset of answers, an interactional account of answering as a social, public, and conjoined activity is provided.