# The concept of didactic interaction: theoretical and epistemological principles

Abdeladim ERRADI

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

## To cite this version:

Abdeladim ERRADI. The concept of didactic interaction: theoretical and epistemological principles. The Letters and Languages Guide Journal, 2025, 4 (1), pp.172-207. hal-05138861

HAL Id: hal-05138861

https://hal.science/hal-05138861v1

Submitted on 2 Jul 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
# The concept of didactic interaction: theoretical and epistemological principles

Abdeladim ERRADI

University of Lyon, (France),
erradi.abdeladim@gmail.com

Received :31/12/2024

Accepted:24/05/2025

Published: 30/06/2025

## Abstract

Communication in the educational context gives rise to what is called "didactic interaction". This type of interaction is undertaken and constructed jointly. These are complex systems on the modal and semiotic levels. Their observations take place in situ (here and now), using tools and techniques to detect, transcribe and analyze them in order to grasp the communicative and didactic issues with a view to interpreting them. The aim of this article is to present an overview of sociolinguistic currents which have in common the study of didactic interaction in its linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic dimensions, and which could serve as models of analysis in the field of sociodidactics.

## Keywords:

Discourse analysis, speech acts, didactic interaction, communication situation, intercultural.
Résumé

La communication dans le contexte pédagogique donne lieu à ce qu'on appelle l'« interaction didactique ». Ce type d'interaction s'engage et se construit conjointement. Il s'agit de systèmes complexes sur les plans modal et sémiotique. Leurs observations s'opèrent in situ (ici et maintenant), à l'aide d'outils et de techniques pour les détecter, les transcrire et les analyser afin d'en saisir les enjeux communicatif et didactique en vue de les interpréter. Le but de cet article consiste à présenter un panorama de courants sociolinguistiques qui ont en commun l'étude de l'interaction didactique dans ses dimensions linguistique, sociolinguistique et pragmatique, et qui pourraient servir comme modèles d'analyse en domaine de la sociodidactique.

Mots-clés :

Analyse du discours, actes de langage, interaction didactique, situation de communication, interculturel.

# 1. INTRODUCTION

It should be noted from the outset that the lecture at the University is interdisciplinary and complex. The observation and study of such presentations requires the researcher to mobilize a range of theoretical and methodological approaches; among others, the sociolinguistic approach, dialogism, the theory of enunciation and that of speech acts. This contribution aims to define the conceptual apparatus in relation to "didactic interaction". The interest is to provide a state of the art on which the examination of corpora related to Language Sciences
and language didactics is based, in particular those resulting from interactional practices in the University pedagogical context, taking the case of law lectures.

These are characterized, on a discursive level, by an asymmetrical interaction between the professor, who in a way monopolizes speaking time during lessons, and the students, whose verbal interactions remain quite short and minimal. These courses are also marked by phenomena relating to "oralization" and "polyphony" which characterize professorial academic discourse. Like any discourse, law courses are no exception; they are intimately linked to the environments in which they take place. As a result, we are witnessing the emergence of traces of the intercultural<fnref n="1" /> in the discourse of the participants in the interaction. This goes without saying, because law, as a social phenomenon, not only conveys the rules and principles emanating from the law, but also reflects the culture and social context in which it is transposed (cf. Erradi, 2023).

Bressoux poses a series of questions about the different factors that participate in the process of didactic interaction in a multilingual and multicultural teaching/learning situation:

> Is the interaction limited to the oral format or should we integrate other formats (gestural, written, etc.) Is the interaction carried out only between teachers and students or should we consider other partners (parents, colleagues, etc.)? Does an interaction only take place in the event of the simultaneous presence (face to face) of the different partners? Thus, we cannot conceive of copy corrections as a phase of interaction shifted in

<footnote n="1">¹ We will return to these and other aspects below.</footnote>
time, where the teacher sends a message to the student, which the latter
will read later and to which he will be able to react in one way or another.
another one? Likewise, isn't a teacher planning his lesson in a form of
anticipated interaction with his students? Should interaction be limited to
the classroom or include larger "spaces" such as school? (2002: 9).

It seems that didactic interaction reveals itself as a process of "co-construction"<fnref n="2" /> during the transmission/appropriation processes, even when there is only one actor, holder of academic and didactic knowledge, in this case the teacher. Because in front of him, there are a certain number of contextual parameters (a public, an institutional, educational, academic organization, a historical and political context, a cultural fund, etc.), which jointly influence his teaching practices and participate in the learning. As a result, the teacher cannot teach alone; he needs students in front of him who are learning. The action is therefore done by two people, this is what we call co-action.

To better understand the theoretical foundations of the notion of didactic
interaction and its mechanisms, we will focus more on the main schools which
have focused on the notion of interaction, particularly in social and didactic
contexts. Six theoretical trends will be succinctly developed: ethnography of
communication, discourse analysis, theories of enunciation, polyphony and
dialogism, as well as the paradigm of speech acts.

We do not pretend to mention here all the schools and trends of
interactional sociolinguistics, but our objective is to draw up, all the same, a picture

<footnote n="2">² We will return to this point later.</footnote>
of the main currents of thought which have been interested in the study of speech,
exchanged in correlation with extralinguistic parameters. The article will also
explain, through examples taken from a case study, how the theories are applied to
the analysis of didactic interactions during law courses, research area little
explored from an interactional point of view.

As a preamble, we can argue that in reaction against the reductive
conceptions of Saussure and Chomsky of language, in the last century, who
conceive of the linguistic norm as a closed and fixed system of signs to the
detriment of extralinguistic and contextual factors, sometimes relegated to the
background or totally excluded from the analysis, numerous approaches dealing
with language and more precisely with the conditions inherent to its production,
beyond the system, even of the linguistic sign, emerged in the United States of
America and elsewhere (cf. Goffman, 1961; Labov, 1962-1976; Hymes, 1962;
Fishman, 1965; Anscombre & Ducrot, 1983; Gumperz, 1989; Kerbrat-Orecchioni,
1990).

Given that the subject of this publication is between Language Sciences and
the didactics of languages and cultures, these new approaches are not without
interest for the theme of this reflection. They offer, on the one hand, a panel of
theoretical and conceptual tools necessary for the registration of studies examining
"didactic interaction" in their epistemological field(s). On the other hand, these
paradigms propose sociological and ethnographic methods dedicated to the
observation and analysis of this kind of interaction in a pedagogical situation, in
this case in law lectures in higher education, from different disciplinary angles,
sociolinguistic, didactic and interactional.

Regarding the methodological framework, like any interaction, the analysis
of this type of communication is carried out using approved research techniques
such as observation, to identify, record, transcribe, and then interpret it, and
questionnaires and interviews, where appropriate, to capture the opinions of social
actors regarding their interactive and pedagogical practices. We have thus adopted
a methodological approach based on the tools of sociodidactics, combining the
models of interactional sociolinguistics and the ethnography of communication as
well as those of the didactics of languages and cultures in a multilingual and
multicultural context.

Before observing the law sessions, at the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences of Kenitra (Morocco), micro context of research, we conducted a documentation phase on the theme of pedagogical interaction in University lectures to construct the conceptual framework of the study and to assess what has been done on the issue.

Equipped with a tape recorder and a logbook, we then began the immersion
phase and the observation of the law classes. The corpus we gathered consisted of
six complete recordings, transcribed and translated. This data allowed us to
identify and analyze the characteristics, mechanisms, and challenges of didactic
interaction in the construction of disciplinary content knowledge and the
transmission of course information to the student audience.
The methodological framework aimed to answer our initial questions: How does the professor address the students? How do they participate during class, in their own minds, even if they seem unresponsive?

As a result, the linguistic models that will be addressed in this reflection describe language as a language system in situation and in correlation with individual and social manifestations. The first theoretical current, called the ethnography of communication, will be presented first. The other communicative paradigms, namely *discourse analysis*, *polyphony*, *dialogism* and the theory of *speech acts*, will be discussed subsequently.

## 2. Ethnography of communication

The school of ethnography of communication, whose name is attached to the American Hymes, is one of the interactional currents that changed the communication situation in the early 1960s. This current attracted linguists such as; Gumperz, Goffman, Labov, Austin and others, whose main concern is the examination of language in the light of the social, in order to bring out the rules which organize and imply the processes of verbal interaction. The research objects of this model often relate to the competence of communication, a central notion in this approach, on the didactic level and that of the context, or the physical and socio-cultural framework thereof, as well as on the phenomena of language variation.

Among the essential contributions of this current, we note that language practices are always considered in their relationship with the communicative framework (context or situation of communication), in which they are part. Thus,
any attempt to study language should now take into account all the elements
surrounding the environment of communication or enunciation. This is why
Hymes will propose a communicative model, listing and dissecting the context
parameters, called speaking<fnref n="3" />. On the empirical level, that is to say with regard to
the research methods which allow the observation of "communication events" and
for an involvement and impregnation in their "authentic" environments, the
ethnographic trend favors a contextualized approach, based on "empirico-
inductive" methods, which constitute one of the methods of the "interpretive
approach" and are based on the technique of observation, which consists of
participating in authentic situations, in "natural" contexts, starting from real facts
via the effective and direct involvement of the researcher in the lives of social
actors.

This is the case of empirical methods deployed in studies oriented towards
the analysis of specialized discourse, the example of course at the University. It is
strongly recommended to also adopt an analytical approach to professorial
discourse.

3. Discourse analysis

Given that the discourse shapes the context and that the latter is, vice versa,
conditioned by the first (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2007 : 4), the discourse analytical
approach aims to be a reflection on the discursive articulation, within the context,

<footnote n="3">³ S/setting, P/participants, E/ends, A/acts, K/key, I/instrumentalities, N/norms, G/genre (Hymes, 1967).</footnote>
in which it is produced. This approach dates from the 1950s, following the
publication of an article by Harris. Unlike the traditional conception, which focuses
on content, this approach aims to analyze concepts and discursive phenomena, in
correlation with individual and social manifestations. It is multidisciplinary and it
applies to various research objects, the example of scientific, political, religious,
legal discourse, etc. Discourse analysis aims to show what discourse is and what
approaches can be used to analyze it.

In France, inspired by Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy, notably Austin's
theory of speech acts and after having worked on the theme of enunciation,
Benveniste was one of the first to introduce the new paradigm to French
linguistics, referred to as discourse analysis. A certain number of linguists have
attempted to provide a precise definition to the notion of "discourse", because the
term could cover several meanings. It can refer to verbal production and written
production. Maingueneau perceives discourse analysis as one of the disciplines,
whose object of study relates to discourse, through its study from sociolinguistic,
discursive, conversational, psychological, etc. points of view. Some authors make it
synonymous with "text". In addition to the study of texts and communication
situations, the approach focuses on the framework of enunciation<fnref n="4" />.

The terms "discourse" and "utterance" generally refer to oral production in
Language Sciences. The term discourse is used in many areas of humanities
research. In structural linguistics and the semantic approach, the term corresponds

<footnote n="4">⁴ It is the spatiotemporal framework (a specific place and time) and the objects that constitute the environment of communication and/or interaction. It also refers to the notion of "situation".</footnote>
to syntax and is approached as a set formed of juxtaposed sentences. From this
perspective, it is seen as a form superior to the sentence. In semiotics, discourse is
qualified as a unit of meaning. Furthermore, in the linguistics of enunciation,
discourse presents itself as the opposite of language, since the latter is conceived as
a virtual (abstract) system, in relation to discourse which constitutes the niche in
which the norm is realized. Benveniste describes discourse as an individual act and
particular use of language by the speaking subject:

The discourse, it will be said, which is produced each time we speak,
this manifestation of enunciation, is not simply "speech" [...] It is the very
act of producing, a statement and not the text of the statement which is
our object. This act is the act of the speaker who mobilizes the language on
his behalf (1966: 80).

Guespin writes about the opposition between discourse and statement: “the
statement is the sequence of sentences emitted between two semantic blanks, two
stops of communication; discourse is the statement considered from the point of
view of the discursive mechanism which conditions it” (1971: 10).

It can be deduced that discourse is considered as a higher linguistic unit,
which goes beyond the sentence dimension (called transphrastic), to embrace the
interactive dimension. This communicative vision advocates the treatment of
linguistic content in its entirety, that is to say, in relation to the discursive
framework (situational and spatio-temporal), as well as with the social behaviors
of the speakers. The meaning of linguistic content is variable and carries several
interpretations that its receivers can give it, depending on their statutory, social and
ideological positioning, etc. This concept is valid for the legal content, which
changes each time it is transposed into different linguistic and socio-cultural
environments (e.g. the assimilation of criminal norms for a Moroccan is not the
same for a French person).

Reflections on discourse analysis fall within a very broad field of
investigation and they can embrace different uses of communication; the verbal,
the non-verbal as well as the written. However, the usefulness of this approach for
a study of a sociodidactic nature lies in the apprehension of the discursive
elements of the enunciation, including the enunciative aspects which parameterize
the main statement of the teacher.

In the case of the general criminal law (GCL) and administrative law (AL)
courses that we observed and examined in previous studies, the discourse
analytical perspective allowed us to identify the different discourses that
intertwine to form the discursive framework of the courses. We identified four
main discourses: academic (disciplinary) discourse, didactic discourse (linked to
pedagogy and professional gestures), institutional discourse (linked to the
pedagogical context) and professorial discourse (objective or neutral and
subjectivized, which allows us to probe the pedagogue's points of view regarding
the discipline taught).

3.1. The theory of enunciation

As part of the different approaches to discourse analysis, the theory of
enunciation attempts to identify certain phenomena inherent to discourse.
Understanding how language functions presupposes the study of the relevant
conditions of discursive production. This is done through the identification of
extralinguistic elements. In other words, it is a question of carrying out an
examination of the linguistic units, by correlating them with the latter. Benveniste,
precursor of this theory, defines the process as: "putting the language into
operation through an individual act of use" (1974 : 80).

According to the author, the enunciative process is based on three linguistic
levels: the realization of the speech act, the individual conversion of language into
discourse and the deciphering of its meaning (the semantization of language) (id.).
The essence of his theory is illustrated in an article published in 1970, entitled "The
formal apparatus of enunciation", in which he insists on the action of language
against the formalizing vision of the latter. In other words, through this linguistic
apparatus, imaginary or abstract, we can move from language to speech and
identify the motives which obscure the true intentions and positions of the
speaker. This means, according to Benveniste's vision, that the language is shared
by everyone, while the language apparatus is specific to each speaker.

It should be emphasized that in addition to the role of the formal framework
of the enunciation, or that of the extralinguistic reality of the discursive realization,
or of the position of the enunciator as well as the speaker, Benveniste notes that
during the process, it is possible to detect enunciative indices or indicators, by
which the speaker subscribes to the statement; he gives the example of "clutch"
pronouns<sup>5</sup>, namely the first person singular (I), which denotes the presence of a

<footnote n="5">⁵ Called deictics, these are words that can only be interpreted in correlation with the situation of enunciation, that is, they depend on the speaker, the recipient, the place and the time of</footnote>
speaker and which hides a sort of "subjectivity", between the speaker, the one who
triggers the act enunciative, and the (you) representing "the addressee". (see the
following section).

Possessives and demonstrative pronouns, as well as verb tenses, notably the *present* and the *imperative*, are part of the said indices. To these are added the interrogative and assertive forms, etc. The indices cited, from the point of view of this theory, forge stylistic and syntactic forms which make it possible to establish a relationship between the speaker and the addressee. These are: "discrete and each time unique acts by which the language is actualized by a speaker" (1966: 251).

The analysis of the enunciative system therefore leads us to describe and identify certain grammatical processes. We can remember that enunciation aims to be an explanatory approach to discursive productions, where the social is inseparable from the analysis of speech, in which the speaking subject is located at the center of the statements. Bakhtin used a metaphorical formula to explain the link between enunciation and the social: "the nerve center of all enunciation, of all expression, is not interior, but exterior: it is located in the social environment which surrounds the individual" (1977: 134).

This also shows that for philosophers of language, like Bakhtin, language is
not a simple operation of pronouncing sounds, but that it involves purely reflective
discursive strategies and tricks, between the one who produces the speech and the
one to who the speech is addressed to. Kerbrat-Orecchioni observes:

<footnote>communication. They serve to "point" to the situation of enunciation and to give it a precise
meaning.</footnote>
With the enunciative approach, linguistics leaves its “immanentist” ghetto: utterances are no longer considered as abstract entities, freed from the event contingencies of their enunciation, but as realities determined by their contextual conditions of production/reception (1990: 9-10).

One of the contributions of this theory consists of considering that enunciation and meaning always take place in context and that words, as abstract and meaningless linguistic forms, only produce meaning in a communication situation. The application of such a perspective in the treatment of oral discourses, the example of the discourse of law courses, proves interesting for understanding them, and it presupposes the implementation of other analytical models of discourse, in particular the dialogism and polyphony.

## 4. Dialogism and polyphony

The concepts of dialogism and polyphony, from the work of Bakhtin until their reappropriation by French speaking linguistic literature during the 1970s, were taken up by authors like Foucault, Todorov or Kristeva, within the framework of the theory of "interdiscourse"<fnref n="6" />.

### 4.1. Dialogism

Conceived as one of the forms of monologous university services, course has its own discursive and methodological particularities. Dialogism constitutes

<footnote n="6">⁶ Charaudeau and Maingueneau define interdiscourse as a “set of discursive units (related to previous discourses of the same genre, contemporary discourses of other genres, etc.) with which a particular discourse enters into an implicit or explicit relationship” (2002: 324).</footnote>
one of the discursive particularities of this practice. Indeed, it is dominated by an
asymmetrical and dynamic posture, between the two interlocutors (the professor
and the students). This type of course is constructed by a single speaker, namely
the teacher, holder of academic and didactic knowledge. However, the principle of
exchange of these lectures is established in collusion with the listener, who is the
learner. This makes the lecture speech a complex speech, due to its structure,
organization and flow, etc.

Let us return to the notion of dialogism, introduced by the linguist Bakhtin.
Inspired by the philosophy of Socrates, the Bakhtinian conception of acts of
enunciation is based on the latter's dialogic model, which assumes that dialogic
action requires more than a participant/speaker. She adds that truth does not arise
from a single person but that it, Socrates specifies, "is born between men who seek
it together, in the process of their dialogic communication" (1970: 155).

The philosophy of the interactional function of language, in Bakhtin, is close
to theories of enunciation. It postulates that enunciative acts correspond to one or
more other enunciators. For him, linguistic manifestations evolve and take shape
according to "the continuous and permanent interaction of the individual
utterances of others" (1984: 296).

This means that a speaker's utterance is defined as dialogical, if we can
detect an enunciative splitting or a phonic splitting. Statements of this type turn
out to be loaded with communicative clues towards others, and it is appropriate
for the researcher to study them.
We have detected these personal (or dialogic) markers in legal presentations. They do not always have the same enunciative significance in professorial discourse, but they change meaning according to the changing moments of the lessons, including the speaker's intended uses and his communicative expectations in the face of an audience that interacts differently. These units of meaning appear in the teacher's discursive framework through personal and impersonal pronouns (I, you, we,) and through possessive pronouns (my, our, your, yours, etc.).

Polyphony, according to Bakhtin, applies to the literary genre, while dialogism remains an intrinsic characteristic of verbal production. In his work, devoted to his theory on language, entitled Marxism and the philosophy of language, Bakhtin explains that the evolution of the linguistic norm is dependent on verbal communicative practices: "Language lives and evolves historically in concrete verbal communication, not in the abstract linguistic system of language forms, nor in the individual psyche of speakers" (1977: 137).

The author adds:

[...] The true substance of language is not constituted by an abstract system of linguistic forms nor by isolated utterance-monologue, nor by the psycho-physiological act of its production, but by the social phenomenon of verbal interaction, carried out through enunciation and utterances. Verbal interaction thus constitutes the fundamental reality of language (id.: 135-136).
In the functioning of the dialogic game, the speaker modulates and adjusts his speech according to the position of his speaker and his possible response. The dialogic context is not without interest for us, and it turns out to be crucial in determining the roles of the participants in an interaction. Bakhtin further specifies: "it is under the more or less great influence of the speaker and his presumed response that the speaker selects all the linguistic means he needs" ([1952] 1984: 296, cited by Nossik, 2010: 7).

The studies that were carried out from this perspective were particularly interested in two types of dialogism; the first is called "interdiscursive", the second called "interlocutive" or "autodialogical". This is how, for authors who have taken up the concept in their studies, interdiscursive dialogism refers to previous discourses and makes it possible to identify various modes of discourse. The second type, called "autodialogical", refers to discursive production which takes place in interaction with what is stated by the speaker previously, or during the interaction. It is as if he is in dialogue with his own enunciation, the example of professorial discourse in lectures, by mobilizing clues like the "I" and other discursive strategies (reprises, repetitions, quotations, etc.), in the case of the course, and this can imply well obviously the staging of several voices, called polyphonic speeches.

## 4.2. Polyphony

Derived from the greek poluphônia, the word designates the multiplicity of voices or sounds. In discourse analysis, the phenomenon is also inspired by
Bakhtinian reflection, in the context of his work on literary texts, and developed by
Ducrot, with several differences. As the name indicates, polyphony characterizes a
text where there is the presence and/or resonance of several voices; sometimes the
phenomenon is associated with dialogism. However, the theory applies to different
discursive forms and not only to textual productions. This doubling of voices,
often, in a speech does not only reveal a phonic plurality, within a given utterance,
but a difference in the world visions, points of view, as well as the different modes
of thought of the speakers. In fact, the phenomenon of the plurality of voices can
help to identify, in a discursive sequence, the various ways of speaking, reasoning,
thinking, etc., of the interlocutors.

In the lectures at the University, these multiple voices intervene to obviously
accomplish various discursive and didactic functions, among others: a didactic and
informative function, tending to transpose and transmit the teaching contents
(disciplinary and methodological), according to academic standards, a
communicative function, ensured by verbal and para-verbal communication, an
organizational function, the aim of which is to manage the course in a professional
manner, and an evaluative function, which consists of evaluating the students'
productions (correction of their statements and/or validation of their answers,
support of their interventions, etc.). Thus, each teaching situation requires the
pedagogical actor to adopt a particular discourse, which depends on this or that
pedagogical and communicative goal.

The course, because of its monological form, constitutes one of the privileged
places of polyphonic discourse; in the sense that there are students (receivers)
facing a teacher, in his capacity as an expert in his discipline, but who maintains a
sort of collusion with the learners.

The sequences below illustrate this aspect:

**The GCL teacher:** / I'll give an example / so you'll understand things better // a person A / I'll take a woman it's better because women are always afraid XXX

Sts: (*laughts*) / » (lecture 1 of GCL, S6, L: 454-456)

**The GCL teacher:** / I see you're looking at me insistently (the students smile) // so to detect anomalies / do you have any questions? / questions / I repeat / **not the difference between cabbages and carrots, that doesn't interest me** (the students smile) questions about what I just explained / **and don't look for the moon**

Sts: (*laughts*) » (lecture 1 of GCL, S7, L: 615-618)

**The GCL teacher:** / criminal association is simply the meeting of several thugs / thugs when I say thugs they are simply delinquents / or / normally / this offense is punishable by the provisions of the penal code / why is it punishable by the provisions of the penal code? / **because when the thugs / when / they are (in) a round table in parentheses / it is not for scientific research //**

Sts: (*laughts*) » (lecture 2 of GCL, S7, L: 550-556)

**The GCL teacher:** It's simply for / the commission of offenses, so they're preparing / Mr. A with Mr. B, the other one is **the other one is a**
specialist, so in simply in fake keys, the other one, I don't know, he's
strong, he can carry the TV

Sts: *(laughs)*" (lecture 2 of GCL, S7, L : 557-560)

The GCL teacher: I'll give another, simpler example // this time not about
me / I'm fed up

Sts: *(laughs)* /

The general criminal law teacher here seems to be playing on a kind of
collusion with the audience, trying to caricature, each time, the chosen examples.
We can add that code switching contributes, in turn, to the construction of
academic knowledge (explanations, translations) and to mutual understanding
between the speaker and the student audience.

Here are some examples of language contact during administrative law sessions:

AL's teacher: / the walis and wali governors) [bʌŋk I mɑːRrib]
= bank of Morocco) / (lecture 1 of AL)

/ he is obliged to return to the municipal council and present what is called
the administrative account / [l hisâb I idârî] = the
administrative account) / (lecture 2 of AL)

St: [hɑːl Imɑːzlis | zamɑːci] = the dissolution of the
municipal council) (lecture 2 of AL)

AL's teacher: // the municipal council / [ɑːl mɑːzlis |
bɑːlɑːdî] = the municipal council) (lecture 3 of AL)

These sociolinguistic and sociocultural data can create a kind of trust and
connivance between the participants. Indeed, we specify that this relationship
between social actors also includes religious traces (e.g. "for us Muslims" (lecture 2 of GCL, S2, L : 108), "all religions of / religions whether it is the Christian religion / or even Jewish or even Muslim they are quite simply totally hostile to this practice (euthanasia) /" (lecture 2 of GCL, S4, L : 313-315).

The students' gestures and looks help the teacher to adjust his speech, and in some cases to pause in order to know if they are able to understand the content developed:

AL's teacher: // What's happening to you today, sir? (! مدوخين شفتكوم)
[ʃftkum mdwxin] = I see you're dizzy!)

Sts: (*laughts*) / (...) we've been here since 8 o'clock /

AL's teacher: I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning too (lecture 3 of AL)

In this excerpt, the AL teacher alternates between French and Moroccan Arabic to express his dissatisfaction with the learners, who, according to him, seem passive. The use of ordinary language, in this case, ensures what is called "pragmatic communication."

Parpette and Royis (2000 : 2) go in this direction, considering this discursive process, on the semantic and enunciative levels, as a "split discourse", or even a "discourse with several voices". In this respect, Halté and Rispail note that this type of teaching, where the oral takes precedence over other didactic forms, constitutes a privileged place for a certain number of manifestations, in particular those of a social order: "the oral is an object of representation and a place of social interactions, before being an object of competence" (2005 : 50).
Integrating this paradigm into the analysis of data resulting from this type of
discourse amounts to examining the recurrence of said process in the teacher's
main statement. Furthermore, polyphony and dialogism are analytical tools that
help to decipher and analyze professorial discourse in the university educational
context.

What then are the theoretical principles of the pragmatic tendency, which
can be used in the analysis of such a discourse?

5. The theory of speech acts: towards a pragmatic perspective

The pragmatic tendency starts from the observation that language practices,
in a community, are not content to only describe realities (relationship between
signified and signifiers), but that they act on them. So that philosophers of
language distinguish between two essential functions of language; a function of
"representation" of the world and that of "action", allowing one to interact and act
with others, via speech acts, which is of particular interest to the didactic function.
Philosophers of language like Austin and Searle, convinced of the insufficiency of
general semantics, start from the principle that an utterance is an act of
speech/language, going beyond, at the same time, the linguistic sign and carrying a
meaning. According to them, in order to give an order, for example, we can
implement linguistic tools other than the imperative.

The general theory of language, as "action", developed by Austin, the
initiator of the approach, defends the idea that all utterances are endowed with a
pragmatic action. According to this theory, the fact of producing an utterance is, at
the same time, a simultaneous realization of the "phonetic", "phatic" and "rhaetic"
acts. She explains that to say something, the speaker must first articulate a certain
sound sequence, or produce sounds, we speak of the "phonetic act". It is also
necessary that the articulated sound sequence can be valid as the realization of a
sentence of language. In other words, it must be accessible and understood,
phonetically, by the interlocutor. The meeting of these two conditions means that a
phonetic act is also a "phatic act", whereas to accomplish the "rhetic act", one must
grasp the meaning of the sentence and update this meaning, depending on what is
we mean. Otherwise, where the meaning of the sentence is ambiguous or has
several meanings, the accomplishment of the rhetorical act fails (Récanati, 1980 :
191), which depends largely on its interpretation, on the part of the participant in
the interaction.

In addition to the phonic act, relating to pronunciation, the speaker uses his
lexical repertoire and his grammatical competence, as well as tools of
"rhematization" which make it possible to give meaning to the utterance; this
serves him to produce "speech acts", selected according to the communication
situation in which he finds himself.

The person who speaks or interacts thus performs a "speech act", by
transmitting content to an interlocutor through linguistic signs. Actions performed
in this sense can be true or false; that is to say, depict reality or not, and they are
successful, from the moment the recipient grasps the speaker's intentions. For
there to be effective cooperation, in terms of communication, the first is supposed
to ensure that the meaning of the message is deciphered and interpreted in order
to understand its content. Charaudeau and Charaudeau apply, on this subject, that
“any speech act (interlocutive or monolocutive) is an act of exchange through an
evaluative gaze interposed for the purposes of influence” (2002 : 166).

However, even if the transmitted codes are decrypted, the communication
may be doomed to failure, and this is due to other unspoken or non-verbal factors.
Based on this principle, pragmatics strives to provide explanations linked to
linguistic phenomena relating, particularly, to the implicit. She works on the
development of adapted theoretical models, the aim of which is to highlight the
various mechanisms which intervene in the process of interaction, namely the
context, the intention, the presuppositions, etc., and this in submitting them for
examination.

In the classification of "performative verbs", Austin and Searle distinguish
these acts based on three components: the locutionary (saying) (acts that trigger
the utterance), the illocutionary<fnref n="7" /> (doing), and finally the perlocutionary (acts that
produce an effect on the interlocutor (called perlocutionary acts). Each category is
based on specific verbs and linguistic processes. (e.g. *I beg you, I promise you, I
swear that, I advise you to, I order you to*, etc.) (Austin, 1970; Searle, 1972).

The following extract highlights one of the performative acts, which is the
promise, in the statement of the professor of administrative law:

<footnote n="7">⁷ In the observed law courses, these speech acts refer to pedagogical management. They encompass operations that the law professor uses, consciously or unconsciously, to manage his class and deliver courses in a professional manner, as explained in the following table.</footnote>
**The AL teacher:** (...) on the day of the exam I **promise you** this year there is no (...) gift / from me I speak about this subject / I gave a lot of gifts last semester / considering that / it is the first contact with legal subjects / (lecture 1 entitled "central administration").

Austin's theory completely changed the communication situation, by giving a new form to interaction, by questioning the effects of speech, as well as the different parameters which regulate it. The author presents some examples; for him, the statement "Hands up" tends to neutralize the victim and put them out of harm's way, as much as to terrify the latter. In other words, the same statement could have several different meanings; in this example, the desired effect of the speech act (the illocutionary goal or the communicative intention) would be to neutralize the person, and the hoped-for effect on the speaker (the perlocutionary goal) would be to scare him or her, so that she might renounce her criminal action.

A single statement can therefore have several goals on the interlocutor.

Influenced by the philosophy of Austin and Grice, Searle also approaches language according to the theory of speech acts, more precisely in what he calls "intentions". For him, during the interaction, there is an intention of the speaker to produce and there is, on the other side, an interlocutor who interprets this underlying intention, for which the context of the utterance is essential. Vanderveken subscribes to Searle's thinking by noting: "Indeed, any speaker who uses an utterance (whether performative or not) with communicative intention always intends to perform an illocutionary act in the context of its enunciation" (1989: 10).
The pragmatic perspective of speech acts revolves around the categorization and description of speech acts, including their regulation in interaction, according to the principle of "expressibility"<fnref n="8" />.

In this conception, the actional and didactic perspective, the CEFR<fnref n="9" /> (2001-2022) considers that speech acts only have full meaning within actions. It qualifies the user and learner of a language as social actors, having to accomplish tasks, without them necessarily being linguistic, in given circumstances and context, within a domain of particular action: "If speech acts are carried out in language activities, these are themselves part of actions in a social context which alone give them their full meaning [...]" (Council of Europe, 2001: 15).

This is an essential aspect in the action perspective. Bourguignon notes on this subject:

> including speech acts in this perspective invites us to go beyond Austin's theory of speech acts on the one hand, a theory which is based on the speaker's intention, and Hymes' theory around communication situations, other, [...] (2007: 1).

The author, having devoted a work to the framework, explains that the purpose of this framework is to go beyond learning the language, which would be

<footnote n="8">⁸ This principle, from Searle's point of view, is linked to indirect speech acts. It allows a speaker to not state everything he or she might mean (Searle, 1972), which leaves room for the "implicit" or the implied.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is an educational system developed by the Council of Europe, dedicated to the teaching/learning of languages and their assessment within the EU.</footnote>
based solely on the intention of the speaker, because such a criterion does not
necessarily lead to the success of an action.

From a sociological point of view, Bourdieu argues that a speech act, or any
action, is defined by social dispositions and by linguistic *habitus*, and that they are
organized and sanctioned by a social system, which he designates "linguistic
market"<fnref n="10" />

Every act of speech and, more generally, every action, is a conjuncture, an
encounter of independent causal series: on the one hand the socially
shaped dispositions, of the linguistic habitus, which imply a certain
propensity to speak and to say things determined (expressive interest) and
a certain ability to speak defined inseparably as a linguistic capacity for
infinite generation of grammatically conforming speeches and as a social
capacity allowing adequate use of this skill in a determined situation; on
the other, the structures of the linguistic market, which impose themselves
as a system of specific sanctions and censorships (1982: 14).

He adds that the notion of "extended competence", defined as the capacity
of a speaker to master forms and their stylistic appropriateness to place them
adequately on the "linguistic market", is closely linked to that of habitus,
considering that "The chomskyan competence is an abstraction which does not
include the competence allowing one to use the competence adequately (when

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ The concept of "linguistic market" refers, according to Bourdieu, to the fact that, in any situation of interaction, language productions and varieties are assigned differential and distinctive values.</footnote>
should one speak, when to be silent, when to speak this language or that, etc.)”
(Bourdieu, 1977: 18).

The same goes for speech acts in law classes, for comparison, which are
defined and organized by a linguistic, judicial and socio-cultural system, which
makes teachers of this discipline strive to choose and arrange these acts for
linguistic, educational and professional purposes. We would like to emphasize that
there are several types of speech acts. However, in our discursive analysis of
lectures, we will restrict ourselves to didactic and pedagogical acts,

This table presents professional gestures noted in a lecture course on
general criminal law:

<table><caption>Table 1 – Educational management in the lecture of GCL</caption><thead><tr><td>Educational management instructions</td><td>Reference sequences in the corpus</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Ask students to take their seats quietly</td><td>“/ go quickly (a student enters after 2 min 10s) //” (lecture 2 of GCL, S1, L: 4-5)</td></tr><tr><td>Reminders of the concepts and themes covered previously</td><td>“// so / compared to the previous session //” (lecture 2 of GCL, S1, L: 1)</td></tr><tr><td>Announce the points to be developed</td><td>“The second thing that we are going to study or the second important element that we are going to study concerning the justifying facts is the question of</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td></td><td>consent /" (lecture 2 of GCL, S2, L: 81-82)</td></tr><tr><td>Interrupt the class to call for order.</td><td>"شُكِّي شُويَةً / [sukti ∫wiǰa /] = shut up a little bit /" (lecture 2 of GCL, S7, L: 625-626)</td></tr><tr><td>Do not allow late arriving students to enter.</td><td>"// (a student, arriving late, opens the door, while the teacher does not allow him to enter)" (lecture 2 of GCL, S1, L: 44-45)</td></tr></table>

Elements related to educational management enter into the process of didactic interaction, the markers of which are: reminders, announcements, comments, instructions, long pauses, silence, etc.

## 5.1. Typology of speech acts

In the theory of speech acts, the interpretation of statements, as already mentioned above, concerns three levels or three groups of speech acts:

- The locutionary level: it refers to what is said or stated;

- The illocutionary level: it corresponds to the act of enunciation, carried out or exercised by the speaker on the listener, what Grice calls "reflexive intention";

- The perlocutionary level: it refers to the goal of carrying out the perlocutionary act, or the psychological effect that the act produces on the receiver.
- Presentation of the illocutionary level

They characterize the acts that a speaker performs on an addressee or interlocutor. Normally, they state the speaker's intentions (performatives). Searle's theory of speech acts proposes a classification of the different possible language uses in conversational exchanges, of which the "illocutionary goal" forms the basis of this taxonomy. The author explains that the number of ways of using the language is limited; in an enunciative process, he sees five illocutionary goals. These are the major classes of speech acts. This classification is based on a range of discursive criteria:

* The purpose of the illocutionary act (assertive, engaging, directive, declarative, expressive);

* Type of adjustment between words and the world (either the words adjust to the world, or the latter adjusts to the words);

* Differences in content;

* The strength of illocutionary goal;

* The status of the speaker and the interlocutor;

* The relationship of the statement with the interests of the speaker and the interlocutor;

* Relations to the rest of the speech;

* The differences between acts integrated into speech (oaths) and those that can be accomplished with or without language (decisions);

* The difference between institutional acts;
* The existence or not of the performative verb relating to the illocutionary act;

* The style of performing the speech act.

This panel of pragmatic criteria led Searle to distinguish between five main classes of language acts<fnref n="11" />; which are based, essentially, on the first four criteria:

- **Indirect acts**

These acts are linked to statements relating to indirect acts. That said, statements that conceal an intention to say more than what is actually said. It is a way of expressing things in the world and intentions differently (e.g. *can you keep silent, please? / a little silence, please*), as in both examples, the teacher or lecturer would like to say, by addressing the presence, something other than what is uttered, namely that there is noise. These acts are based on allusions and enunciative adjustments on the part of the speaker.

- **Directive acts**

This block of language acts brings together acts with the illocutionary goal of carrying out a future action. Introduced by specific verbs and phraseology, they are used with the aim of expressing orders, directly or explicitly (e.g. *be quiet / I want total silence!*). It should be noted that these acts intersect with "promissive acts".

<footnote n="11">¹¹ Searle criticizes Austin's classification of illocutionary verbs because it presents classification difficulties and overlaps between categories. Searle clearly distinguishes between illocutionary verbs and illocutionary acts, developing a taxonomy based on illocutionary acts. He bases his classification on four criteria, respectively the illocutionary purpose, the direction of adjustment between words and the world, the psychological state expressed and the conditions on the propositional content (Searle, 1972).</footnote>
## Promisive acts

Belonging to the category of illocutionary acts, having the illocutionary goal of carrying out an action in the future, by adjusting the world to the words, this type of act refers to the commitments made by the speakers. They are also inserted by verbs (e.g. *I promise you / you can count on me / I swear to you*, etc.).

## Assertives

They are used to express and represent things in the world. When carrying out assertive, so-called representative acts, the speaker can resort to a set of discursive operations (e.g. *assertions, testimonies, conjunctures, assertions and predictions* (predictions assume that the hypotheses are true, e.g. researchers write down the results they expect if their hypotheses are correct)). Unlike promissives, the enunciative principle of this category consists of adjusting words to the world.

## Declaratives

Based on the "performatives", established by Austin, the illocutionary goal of declarative acts is to concretize the act of enunciation in reality. As their name reveals, they tend to declare a fact explicitly (e.g. *declaration of a scientific event, a recruitment competition, an exam*, etc.). Declaratives, for pragmaticians, take on a dual adjustment function, that is to say that words and the world adjust jointly (a reciprocal action).

# 6. Conclusion

It turns out that grasping the meaning of a speech and understanding the intention of the speaker is not only extracting, or reconstituting information, to integrate it into what we already know, but rather identify the function of this
information in the discourse situation, where it is produced. All discourse has
textual properties, since it is accomplished under certain conditions of
communication. We then realize that all discourse depends on very specific
circumstances of communication, and that each of these is the result of a certain
number of parameters, which must be inventoried. We already believe that it is
possible to establish a close relationship between these parameters and the
particularities of the discourses that depend on them.

This is valid for the didactic situation in the academic context, which creates
specific interactions. Their observation and examination, from a sociodidactic
perspective, require the mobilization of a set of paradigmatic tools, which we have
reviewed in this work, and methodological ones in order to identify, analyze and
interpret them in order to grasp their sociolinguistic, didactic and pragmatic goals
and issues. However, we conclude by asking ourselves whether didactic
interactions induce particular discursive and enunciative processes, depending on
the discipline taught and the target student audience. This is an avenue of
reflection that remains to be explored in more detail in future empirical studies.

7. Transcription and translation protocol for recordings:

— Inv: Investigator

— Sts: Students

— S: Section

— L: Line

— /: Short pause
- //: Long pause

- XXX: Inaudible or incomprehensible sentence

## 8. References

* Anscombre, J-C., and Ducrot, A. (1983). Argumentation in language, Mardaga, Coll. Philosophy and language.

* Austin, J-L. (1970). When saying is doing, Paris, Seuil. (2nd ed., 1st ed., 1962).

* Available on: http://docslide.fr/documents/langages-23-01-discours-politique-guespin-problematiques-des-travaux-sur-le-discours-politique-1971.html (consulted on August 8, 2024).

* Available on: http://lesla.univ-lyon2.fr/sites/lesla/IMG/pdf/doc-194.pdf (consulted on August 8, 2024).

* Available on: http://www.aplv-languesmodernes.org/spip.php?article865 (consulted on June 2, 2022).

* Available on: http://www.praxiling.fr/IMG/pdf_Nossik1.pdf (consulted on March 13, 2024).

* Available on: http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/recherche/aci/cognib.htm (consulted on May 4, 2022).

* Bakhtin, M. (1970). The Poetics of Dostoyevsky, Paris, Seuil.

* Bakhtin, M. (1977). Marxism and the philosophy of language: essay on the application of the sociological method in linguistics, Paris, Minuit. (2nd ed., 1st ed., 1929).

* Benveniste, E. (1966). Problems of general linguistics, 1, Paris, Gallimard.

* Benveniste, E. (1970). The formal apparatus of enunciation, Languages, 5, n° 17, pp. 12-18.

* Benveniste, E. (1974). Problems of general linguistics, 2, Paris, Gallimard.
* Bourdieu, P. (1977). The economics of linguistic exchanges, French language 34, 17-34.

* Bourdieu, P. (1982). What speaking means, Paris, Fayard.

* Bourguinon, C. (2007). Learning and Teaching Languages from an Action-Oriented Perspective: The Action-Learning Scenario. Lecture given on March 7, 2007, at the General Assembly of the Grenoble APLV Regional Association.

* Bressoux, P. (2002). Teacher strategies in interaction situations, summary note for Cognitics, School and Cognitive Sciences Program, Pierre Mendès France University, Grenoble II:

* Charaudeau, P. and Mainguenau, D. (2002). Dictionary of discourse analysis, Paris, Seuil.

* Council of Europe, (2001). Common European framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessing, Paris, Didier.

* Council of Europe, (2022). Common European framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessing, Complementary volume, Council of Europe Publishing.

* Erradi, A. (2023). The practices of specialized French at Moroccan universities. The case of the law course, Pollet M-C., and Parpette Ch. (eds.), Didactics of higher education discourses, Action Didactique, 6, n° 2, 153-175.

* Guespin, L. (1971). Problems of work on political discourse, languages, 6(23), 3-24.

* Gumperz, J. (1989). Engaging in conversation, introduction to interactional sociolinguistics, Paris, Minuit, Le sens commun Collection.

* Halté, J-F., et Rispail, M. (2005). Speaking in the classroom: skills, teaching, activities, Paris, l'Harmattan.

* Harris, Z-S. (1952). Discourse analysis : A sample text, Language, 28, n° 4.

* Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1990). Verbal interactions. Interactional approach and structure of conversations, Volume 1, Paris, Armand Colin.
* Labov, W. (1976). *Sociolinguistics*, Coll. Common Sense, Paris, Midnight.

* Maingueneau, D. (2002). *Interdiscours*, in P. Charaudeau and D. Maingueneau (eds) *Dictionary of Discourse Analysis*, Paris, Seuil, 324-326.

* Nossik, S. (2010). *Dialogism and political positioning in the life stories of Russian-speaking migrants*, *International Symposium Dialogism: language, discourse, 1-10*.

* Parpette, C., and Royis, P. (2000). *Educational discourse: discursive characteristics and teaching strategy*, *Mixtures du CRAPEL*, (25), Nancy 2 University, 27-53.

* Récanati, F. (1980). *What is a locutionary act? Speech acts*, 32(1), 190-215.

* Searle, J. (1972). *Speech acts*, Paris, Hermann. (2nd ed., 1st ed., 1969).

* Searle, J. (1982). *Meaning and expression*, Paris, Midnight.

* Todorov, T. (1981). *Mikhail Bakhtin: the dialogical principle*, Paris, Seuil. (3rd ed., 1st ed., 1975).

* Vanderveken, D. (1989). *Speech acts: Essay on philosophy of language and mind on the meaning of utterances*, Brussels, Mardaga.