Enacting cultural literacy as a dialogic social practice: The role of provisional language in classroom talk

This article summarises the following research article: Cook V, Maine F and Čermáková A (2022) Enacting cultural literacy as a dialogic social practice: the role of provisional language in classroom talk. London Review of Education  20(1) DOI: 10.4324/LRE.20.1.02.   Introduction Provisional language, such as might/maybe/could/perhaps, is vague language that can be used to encourage open mindedness and speculation.  Traditional views of cultural literacy, which focus on the essential cultural knowledge that is needed to function in society, represent a static, one-way transmission of knowledge. In contrast, the authors argue that cultural literacy may be reconceptualised as a dialogic social practice. According to this idea, culture and heritage are continually co-created through interaction between people. Such a view of cultural literacy celebrates different perspectives.  The aim of this research project was to explore how children from different European con