Languaging Everyday Life in Classrooms

We explore how the languaging of everyday life in classrooms promulgates conceptions of personhood. We use the term “languaging” to argue for a shift from conceptions of language as a noun to languaging as a verb, a view of language as inseparable from and constitutive of the actions and reactions of people in response to each other. It is through languaging that people act on each other, performative and commissive acts through which people establish their and others’ personhood. All parties are involved (including students, teachers, parents, administrators, and researchers) in the languaging of daily classroom life. This languaging occurs in a dialectical process. It occurs not only in the events of daily classroom life but also in how researchers act on the classroom by languaging the classroom and in turn how this acting upon influences values, epistemologies, and the happenings of daily life in classrooms. Grounded in the microethnographic analysis of a classroom writing event, and building on the philosophy of Buber, we argue that it is through languaging that people negotiate conceptions of what it means to be human—oscillating between personhood defined as I-Thou and as I-It, with the later implying a state of alienation. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of languaging and the conceptions personhood inherent to any languaging on daily classroom life.