Informal spoken language in a mathematics classroom: How high-school students talk about solving for x

In secondary mathematics education in British Columbia, written communication is recognized as the dominant form of mathematical language, while little emphasis has been placed on spontaneous, spoken, peer-to-peer language. This prioritizing misses out on the opportunity to see student thinking through their informal speech. The purpose of this thesis is to attend to what students say to each other when they talk about the doing of mathematics in small groups. In particular, I seek to respond to the question, "What informal terms do students use in their spoken language while solving algebra equations in small groups together?" I recorded student conversations as they solved algebra questions, transcribed their discussions, and categorized aspects of their language. I found that students used a variety of terms outside of the mathematics register, terms that demonstrated different implications of mathematics and exhibited singular features of language. Furthermore, I discovered that when students worked with one another, they consistently used metaphorical language to express mathematical operations and objects.