Proper Names in Second Language Classroom Interaction: An Initial Investigation into the Use of First Names in Instruction Sequences

Abstract

In this article, I present some initial results of a study on the use of first names in school interactions. I assume that first names are not only used to refer to persons, which is well established, but also to accomplish a variety of institutional, acquisitional and interactional actions. In my analysis, I first describe a provisional pattern used by teachers for gaining students’ attention during school activities. Then, I argue that first names are context-sensitive and I show how they participate in the organisation of an instruction sequence. My analysis is based on a corpus of English-as-a-Second-Language lessons (ESL) in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. The data were video-recorded and transcribed.