Talking about literature in university book club and seminar settings

This study explores ways in which adults discuss literature in two differen t settings. As a graduate student in both a traditional English seminar and an English education course designed to function as a book club, I partici pated in and analyzed discussions of Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango S treet. The study examines the role of speaker turns, tentative and presenta tional language, overlapping talk, and questioning in those literature disc ussions and explores the different theoretical and pedagogical perspectives of the two discourse communities within which the discussions were embedde d. Adults in the book club setting engaged in talk that tvas more personal, more collaborative, less teacher-directed, and less text-driven than in th e traditional seminar classroom. These differences suggest tensions between the theoretical orientations and pedagogical practices of university depar tments Of English and English education.