Professorial Style in Context 167voice, as indicated by use of the pedagogical “we.” However, as marked in the tran-
script, it is unclear at what point this shift actually occurred—a by-product of the
ubiquitous usurpation of courts’ and others’ voices in fictional direct quotation
forms used so frequently in these classes.
We can discern other similarities between this and other classrooms. Like the
professor in Class #6 above, this professor moves around the classroom in search
of a correct response and comments approvingly when he receives it. There are
very few repeat players in the class as a result of a conscious policy of the professor:
I try to never have more than- there may be a follow-up question occasionally, but
for the most part it’s one question per student. I think it’s extremely unfair to stay
with one student. Not that they shouldn’t be prepared to be able to do that, but be-
cause, while they’re talking they aren’t getting any notes. () primary reason to be in
class is to get the necessary notes... usually what I do is hop around and then the
students pay more attention to it.... I like students to participate. I want them to
participate, it makes it more enjoyable, but I have to admit as a student, I purpose-
fully tried to avoid dialogue because I was there to hone in on what the professor had
to say and get it down in my notes.... Because the reality is, that I was not going to
be ultimately evaluated and graded on my preparation for class. It was going to be
my preparation for the exam.This policy results in a teaching style that is difficult to categorize because despite
the heavy preponderance of lecture here, the overall class structure remains some-
what dialogic, although there are far fewer pair-parts than in other classes. One
measure of this is the total number of professor turns throughout the semester in
this class (586), which is markedly lower than in the other classes. (The next-low-
est number, in Class #3, is 1,537, and all of the remaining professors took up more
than 3,000 turns, ranging as high as 4,046 turns for the professor in Class #1.)^35
Obviously, particularly in light of the high percentage of class time taken by the
professor here, each professor turn would on average be much longer than in other
classes.
To generate a skeletal picture of the overall structure in this class, the next text
excerpt gives an outline of the remaining turns in the class whose opening was in-
cluded in Transcript 7.13. This outline includes the time for each turn, along with a
sketch of features of the professor’s speech that contribute to continuity between turns:
Transcript 7.14 [7/10/6–17]Ms. R.: 13 sec.
Prof.: 1.58 min., ending, “why are these advertisements generally considered to
be invitations that () preliminary negotiations without binding effect.
Mm-hmm, Ms., uh, E.”
Ms. E.: 10 sec.
Prof.: “That’s right.”—2.06 min. turn, ending, “Say the advertisement goes
beyond that, says, same deal, except first come, first served. Offer or not?
(.03 pause) Offer or not? (.04 pause) Mm- hmm.”
Mr. A.: 4 sec.