Group dynamics in Chinese EFL curriculum development discussions: a longitudinal transpositioning perspective

Abstract While group dynamics have been widely studied in student interaction in EFL education, little is known about how it operates among teachers. Likewise, transpositioning, with its “trans-prefix” reconceptualizing positioning as a processual and iterative activity across linguistic, spatial, and relational dimensions, remains underutilized for examining teacher professional interaction. This study therefore investigates how transpositioning shapes group dynamics in teacher collaborative curriculum development. Drawing on a longitudinal dataset of four video-recorded meetings among six EFL teachers at a Chinese university, this study employs Multimodal Conversation Analysis (MCA) within an ethnographically informed approach to trace moment-by-moment interactional practices and their evolution over time. Findings reveal that transpositioning primarily occurs across three interrelated dimensions (i.e., spatial, role and epistemic). These fluid shifts foster distributed leadership, collective sense-making and emotional safety, portraying collaborative curriculum development as a multimodal, relational, and epistemically negotiated practice within real-time discourse. The longitudinal MCA enhances analytic depth by linking micro-interactional shifts to broader developmental trajectories, illustrating how collaborative practices evolve and reconfigure over time. In sum, the study extends transpositioning theory into the context of peer-level professional collaboration across a longer interactional trajectories, evidencing the “trans-prefix” as capturing the dynamic, boundary-transcending nature of interaction beyond traditional positioning theory.