Ilkogretim Online - Elementary Education Online, 2021; 20 (1): pp. 228-250 http://ilkogretim-online.org doi: 10.17051/ilkonline.2021.01.025 Teacher Talk and Teacher Discursive Moves: A Systematic Review from Vygotskian Perspective Yılmaz SOYSAL, İstanbul Aydın University, yilmazsoysal@aydin.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0003-1352-8421 Abstract. In this study, qualitatively-oriented content of research studies pertaining in-class usage of teacher discursive moves (TDMs) was examined in a fine-grained sense in the context of teaching science. For this purpose, within the scope of the present systematic review, 31 research studies available in the related literature were explored by means of various theoretical perspectives (e.g., communicative approaches, Vygotskian perspective, learning demand, etc.). TDMs practised on various studies had both dialogic and monologic tendency. In addition, the thematic representations extracted at the end of coding and categorisation processes showed that the TDMs incorporate a hierarchy regarding supporting teaching. In addition, most studies did not address the TDMs that could help learners to internalise science phenomena. Recommendations were offered to teacher educators and teachers in the junction of professional pedagogical development and the TDMs. Keywords: Teacher talk, teacher discursive moves, Vygostkian perspective, systematic analysis, learning demand Received: 31.03.2020 Accepted: 20.08.2020 Published: 15.01.2021 INTRODUCTION This study aimed at attaining a critical review of teacher discursive moves (TDMs) for science teaching and learning in the context of Vygotskian perspective. The review was framed by two fundamental concepts: (science) learning and teaching in Vygotskian manner. In a Vygotskian sense, learning denotes the acquisition of an alternative (social) language incorporating specific thinking and talking styles (Vygotsky, 1978). In science classrooms, meaning making of a concept can be achieved in two planes: intermental (social plane) and intramental (cognitive plane). On the intermental plane, members of a specified community perform various social languages (Bakhtin, 1986) and other semiotic mechanisms (such as symbols, diagrams, graphics, gestures, intonations, and mimicking) as in the forms of speech genres (Wertsch, 1991) to produce a situated meaning (Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1981; Vygotsky, 1978). Then, following the internalisation of the reproduced phenomena among group members, individual thinking is played out on the intramental plane (Vygotsky, 1981; Vygotsky, 1978). In this context, learning phenomena is thought to be actualized from social cognitive systems, for instance, from learning communities as classrooms to individual cognition of a member of that community (Lemke, 1990; Mercer & Dawes, 2014). For the intermental plane, Vygotsky (1987) proposed two terms: spontaneous and scientific concepts. The former ones “are developed through everyday experience and communication and are formed aside from any process aimed specifically at mastering them” (Scott 1997, p. 16). Vygotsky (1987) clarified that scientific concepts can be formed through formal instruction as “the birth of the scientific concept begins not with an immediate encounter with things but with a mediated relationship to the object” (p. 219). The existence of the spontaneous and scientific concepts confirms that there can be different thinking and talking approaches to a phenomenon for different groups. In an instructional context, learners may hold and apply their spontaneous concepts in meaning making a phenomenon, while scientists consider and operate a more distinctive jargon specifying their alternative thinking. Bakhtin (1986) explicated a social language as “a discourse peculiar to a specific stratum of society (professional, age group, etc.) within a given system at a given time” (Holquist and Emerson 1981, p. 430). Aforesaid distinctiveness between the social languages is also valid for science instruction (Leach and Scott 2002, Scott 1998). Students may come to classrooms with their spontaneous concepts (“Plants feed on the earth” or “I’ve consumed my energy today”) that can be