Discourse in drama: Talk, role, and learning in drama education

In the 1970s and 1980s John Carroll published three papers concerned with analysing talk in drama classrooms. It was Carroll's belief that "Drama, by its very nature as a creative force, demands a different sort of discourse from both teacher and pupils in the classroom" (Carroll, 1988). According to Carroll, the act of role-taking in the classroom is central to this. Carroll used socio-linguistic analysis to discuss the particular way in which role-taking affects classroom dynamics and the effect drama has on student learning. Since this early work from Carroll, the detailed analysis of talk in drama has received little attention. In this paper I aim to draw on both this early work by Carroll, and my own recent work using conversation analysis (Freebody, 2009, 2010) to continue the discussion around the significance of drama, role and talk in education. Kelly Freebody is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney where she is Program Director of the undergraduate Secondary Education program. Kelly's teaching interests include educational drama and preservice education. Her research interests are concerned with applied drama, education, social justice, and interaction analysis, particularly conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis.