Comunicazione, mediazione e argomentazione in classe CLIL. Termini e definizioni nel discorso didattico

This paper aims at examining the classroom communication in CLIL context, through a reflection on the ways of knowledge transmission and on the role played by argumentation in classroom interaction. The research is based on a corpus of CLIL classroom interactions in upper secondary schools in Italy and focuses on the analysis of the treatment of specialised terminology and on the use of definition in classroom discourse. The study has a dual purpose: a mainly descriptive purpose, represented by a qualitative and interpretative analysis of the CLIL teacher’s discursive practices, combined with an evaluation of the different discursive strategies of definition in CLIL classroom interactions, with the aim of offering methodological and operational suggestions for training and teaching.