Exploring Deontic Asymmetry in the Korean EFL Primary Classroom Interaction

Abstract

From a conversation analytic perspective, this paper explores teachers’ authority in English classroom interaction in Korean primary school, focusing on how they impose constraints on students for what next action to take or not take, as reflected in directive sequences. Directives are viewed as speakers’ claim of rights to influence the occurrence of a certain future event, namely deontic rights, which are relatively distributed between the speakers and the recipients. The analysis of 10 video-recorded lessons showed that teachers frame their deontic claims in such a way that blocks any negotiation on the part of the students regarding what is demanded of them and students would simply concede to the demands. The non-negotiability of teachers’ deontic claims are further manifested in how teachers make the entire cohort concede without exception and how their deontic authority is maximized. The paper concludes with a discussion of the rigidity of deontic asymmetry established in the interactional work of English teaching and learning.