Explaining as Mathematical Discursive Practices of Navigating Through Different Epistemic Fields

Abstract

This chapter introduces a conceptualisation of explaining as mathematical discursive practices of navigating through different epistemic fields and uses this framework for analysing collective explanations in whole-class discussions. The framework coordinates Interactional Discourse Analysis from linguistics with interactionist and epistemological perspectives from mathematics education. After outlining the main ideas of the three perspectives on explaining, I describe how the notion of practices functionally links theories from linguistics and mathematics education. Furthermore, I show how the conceptualisation simultaneously highlights the interactive nature of explaining processes while also keeping the mathematical content in focus. Finally, I outline the method of identifying explaining practices in transcribed video data.