This paper addresses a recurring reporting problem in sociocultural theory-informed Concept-Based Language Instruction (C-BLI) research and studies of multilingual classroom discourse: The related terms think-aloud, verbalization, languaging, and translanguaging are often used interchangeably, obscuring what was elicited, how it was produced, and what kinds of claims the resulting verbal data can support. Drawing on scholarship in C-BLI, verbal-report methodology, and theories of languaging and translanguaging, the paper proposes a decision-oriented clarification that distinguishes procedure, data label, functional construct, and analytical stance. This clarification is translated into three practical tools for transparent reporting: a four-term comparison matrix, a terminology-selection decision tree for boundary cases, and concise guidelines for eliciting, coding, and interpreting verbal data, including multilingual marking and warranting practices. Methodologically, the paper argues for tighter warranting: Procedural labels should describe elicitation procedures, whereas mediational and stance-based labels should be used only when their defining criteria and evidence are made explicit. Pedagogically, the proposed tools aim to improve the interpretability and comparability of verbal-data research in English language education and to strengthen the link between transcript evidence and instructional implications.
Jie Yang (Sat,) studied this question.