Le traitement interactionnel des objets de la connaissance en milieu contraint: enjeux discursifs et interactionnels

This article analyses interactions taking place during a training activity on the basic uses of computer
communication tools, based on audiovisual recordings made in the Cyber-base® Justice of the prison
of Gradignan. Speech produced in a constrained environment has not been the subject of particular
attention in linguistics. This study mobilises both conversation analysis (Sacks 1992) and interactional
linguistics (Ochs et al. 1996a). It examines the discourse activities through which the trainer of a digital
literacy workshop proposes new information. The analysis focuses not only on the trainer's proposals
of knowledge objects, but also on the way in which the learners respond to these proposals. Their
coordination allows the progression of the learning activity. This article shows how the characteristics of
the learner audience, which is very heterogeneous in terms of socio-identity but also in terms of prior
digital knowledge, as well as the randomness of the frequency of participation in the training, impact the
interactions analysed. The trainer seems to be almost groping in the dark during the interaction because
he cannot rely on a shared "interactional history" (Deppermann 2018).