The Triadic Dialogue Reconsidered: Microgenetic Processes of Transfer

What is the role of classroom talk in the teaching-learning process? This important question has informed the work of researchers in education, sociolinguistics, and developmental psychology for many decades. Studies of classroom discourse reveal a pervasive and predictable pattern of interaction that is teacher-directed and consists of three interactional exchanges: Initiation, Response, and Feedback or Evaluation (IRF/E). Recently, it is referred to as a ‘‘triadic dialogue’’ [Lemke, 1990; Mehan, 1979; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975]. Research into the triadic dialogue has led to a widespread view that the IRF sequence restricts students’ active participation in the co-construction of knowledge during explicit instruction. Yet, many students do learn academic content, and they most often do this through an IRF exchange sequence. Clarà and Mauri [this issue] explain how this learning happens in their excellent article in which they contribute to the development of the general laws of exchange in sociolinguistics. However, rather than the more common emphasis on knowledge construction, these authors draw from Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of development to focus on the transfer of responsibility for using cultural mediators. They show how this transfer occurs through three mechanisms in the triadic dialogue and, in doing so, contribute to our understandings of how a common, often criticized, discourse pattern between students and teachers fosters learning. Over the past thirty years or so, there has been a growing interest in ‘‘present-tofuture’’ models of development that explain how processes of change emerge through the co-construction of knowledge during social interaction [Valsiner, 2001; Vygotsky, 1978]. This interest rekindled an examination of discourse practices between novices and tutors. Further, this work suggested that it made sense to look more closely at the canonical IRF exchange sequence in classrooms since it had been identified as omnipresent yet ineffective in fostering learning. Not surprisingly, this reexamination led the majority of researchers to consider more adaptive or productive