ABSTRACT
The process of classroom learning can be conceptualised in terms of progressively enhanced participation in forms of institutionalised social practice, where discourses constitute key components of that practice (Barwell, 2012; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Sfard, Forman, & Kieran, 2001). The discourse of a mathematics classroom, for example, has its own technical vocabulary and discursive and social conventions (Brousseau, 1986; Cobb & Bauersfeld, 1995). Argumentation within the mathematics classroom takes particular forms and draws upon assumptions or beliefs that are collectively accepted (Krummheuer, 1995). Students are initiated into the discourse of the mathematics classroom and particularly its distinctive forms of argumentation through teacher scaffolding of their negotiative use of language as they interact with their classmates and their teacher actively or passively, collaboratively or competitively.
