Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Linguistics and Education 19 (2008) 1–19
Multilingual switch in peer classroom interaction Virginia Unamuno ∗ Departament de Did`actica de la Llengua, Universitat Aut`onoma de Barcelona, Facultat de Ci`encies de l’Educaci´o, Cerdanyola del Vall`es, Despatx 107, Edifici G5, Campus UAB, Bellaterra E-08193, Spain
Abstract Focusing on code-switching from conversation analysis and sociolinguistic perspectives, this paper examines interactions between 10–12-year-old language learners of immigrant origin and locally born students as they are engaging in verbal pair work. All are students attending language classes in state primary schools in Barcelona in which Catalan is the official language of the institution, Spanish is the common language of communication among students, and English is taught as a foreign language. By examining transcripts of recorded interactions between student pairs, we analyze the role played by Catalan and Spanish code-switching in the context of classes where students are studying Catalan and English. Our results show that language alternation serves to address practical issues related to the management and completion of the assigned pair activities. We will argue that, although code-switching is a resource available to students in multilingual contexts, rather than a distorting element, the implicit and non-implicit language policies in the classroom cannot be separated from the analysis of multilingual switches and the concept of plurilingual competence. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Code-switching; Plurilingual competence; Peer interaction; Multilingual schools
1. Introduction Code-switching, or the use of more than one language in conversation, is a daily practice for much of the world’s population and a complex and variable phenomenon. Speakers’ ability to code-switch at different moments of a single conversation has been exhaustively described, initially by ethnographic linguistics (Gumperz & Hymes, 1972) and later on through the frameworks of interactional sociolinguistics and conversational analysis (Auer, 1984, 1998a). Although sociolinguists and especially interactional sociolinguists initially focused their attention on code-switching in conversations between bilingual adults in informal settings (Blom & Gumperz, 1972; Gumperz & Hern´andezChavez, 1971), the study of language switch has subsequently expanded to include conversation (Jørgensen, 1998; Zentella, 1982, 1997) between young bilingual children, as well as more formal settings such as schools (Aguirre, 1988; Benjamin, 1996) and, more specifically, second and foreign language classrooms (L¨udi & Py, 1986; Pekarek, 1999; Nussbaum, 1990; Nussbaum & Unamuno, 2001; Unamuno, 2003). A social perspective on language acquisition situates code-switching outside a classic focus on communicative functions to examine its relevance to the development of second language competences. Some authors (L¨udi, 1989; Py, 1994) point out that classroom code-switching represents different strategies in different communicative contexts, including exolingual contexts, in which the participants’ competences are uneven or asymmetrical, and bilingual ∗
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contexts, in which participants using more than one language have language competences that are comparable or symmetric (De Pietro, 1988: p. 77). Although this distinction between bilingual and exolingual can actually help to explain many different uses of language switch in the classroom, the literature in this area (L¨udi, 1999; Pekarek, 1999; Py, 1997) emphasizes that these are not mutually exclusive contexts but rather poles of a continuum along which speakers learn to move depending on the local activity in which they are involved. Most studies on code-switching practices in classroom analyze conversation between teachers and learners (for example, Adendorf, 1993; Pennington, 1995), therefore relegating studies on peer code-switching to a marginal position (Reyes, 2004). Furthermore, much of the existing research on code-switching between classroom peers is based on data gathered from bilingual populations for whom the goal of interaction is to develop competence in one of their two languages, usually the educational system’s official language (Canagarajah, 1995; Reyes, 2004). This is the sort of bilingual context examined in previous studies involving Catalan by, for example, Calsamiglia and Tuson (1994), Nussbaum and Unamuno (2001), Masats and Unamuno (2001), and Galindo (2006). Other studies have worked with data gathered in foreign language classrooms, especially in English as Foreign Language classrooms. However, data for foreign languages other than English have also been analyzed, in studies like those by Apfelbaum (1992); Griggs (1997, 1999), and Nussbaum (1999). The present article, however, has a slightly more complex focus, since it examines interactions among primary-level students with different language backgrounds who are currently attending bilingual Catalan–Spanish public schools in which English is taught as a foreign language.1 The languages in which they code-switch are therefore not necessarily their first or family languages, but rather, in the case of immigrant children, their third or fourth ones. Our study thus looks beyond the use of two languages to multilingual patterns of language use. In this paper, we adopt a conversational analysis approach to the study of multilingual switches occurring during pair work among students with diverse linguistic backgrounds. Our aim is to explore, through a sequential analysis, the different ways in which they exploit their plurilingual resources for accomplishing accountable actions during three different language classes (Catalan, Spanish and English) in which they have to manage different parts of school tasks and simultaneously guarantee cooperativeness and coordination in the dyad work. Specifically, in this paper we contrast the students’ use of these languages in order to understand (a) their role in the accomplishment of interaction; (b) the way that the alternate use of three languages can be exploited with practical (e.g. solve lexical or grammatical problems) and symbolic finalities (e.g. put in relevance a specific identity), and (c) the different categorizations of these three languages in each classroom. Finally, we explore the relationship between language alternation and the development of plurilingual competences, in particular looking at the way in which the immigrant students learn code-switching from their classmates, as a means for both discourse-related and participant-related uses. 2. Code-switching in the classroom Research on code-switching in the classroom has tended to focus on the role of language alternation in the restructuring of participants’ linguistic and communicative repertoires (Nussbaum & Unamuno, 2001). Code-switching has thus been conceptualized as a resource available to learners that indexes the processes through which learners acquire, select and use new knowledge. As we will argue in the present paper, in order to examine language switching in the classroom context it is necessary to undertake a detailed analysis of the practical activities speakers engage in, focusing on the use of their linguistic repertoires. Moreover, it is relevant to analyze the way the participants sometimes exploit the differences between languages (i.e. code-switching), and sometimes exploit other possibilities of their available verbal resources, such as the use of mixing forms (i.e. code-mixing) or forms that are valid in more than one language. Following Gumperz (1982) and Auer (1984, 1998a, 1998b), we have adopted a qualitative approach to multilingual conversation in which the organization of interactions plays a key role. In our view, the conversational moment when code-switching takes place and the nature of the communicative activity being undertaken are very important elements in the situated understanding of this particular language use. One distinction proposed by Gumperz in this sociolinguistic and interactionist tradition regarding code-switching is between situational and metaphorical code1
Catalonia is an autonomous region within the Spanish state. The autonomous government is responsible for public education in the region.
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switching; the former describing code-switching taking place due to extra-linguistic reasons (changes in the situation, interlocutors, type of activity undertaken, etc.), and the latter motivated by reasons inherent to the ongoing discourse or interaction. However, an interpretative analysis of code-switching functions is not always exhaustive, nor does it always succeed in systematically interpreting the role played by a piece of one language inserted within a phrase in another language. Since Gumperz’s original proposal, perhaps the most influential effort to do so is Auer’s (1984, 1998a), differentiation between participant-related and discourse-related code-switching, whereby the former is related to the speaker’s (in)competence (i.e. oriented to the participant’s preference), while the latter is related to the construction of the interactive activity (i.e. discourse-oriented). Participant-related code-switching concerns people in a process of language acquisition who prefer to (a) fall back on the language they better command in order to avoid mistakes or misunderstandings or simply for economy of language use, (b) use a given language due to institutional constraints or attitudinal reasons or (c) choose their interlocutor’s preferred language with the aim of facilitating the comprehension and production process during the interaction (Nussbaum, 1990; Nussbaum & Unamuno, 2001). On the other hand, discourse-related code-switching is related to the organization of an interaction as it contributes to the provision of meaning to the utterances. Thus, in language acquisition contexts, code-switching can be used to indicate “the commutation” of some of the interactional parameters (i.e. when an activated element becomes “suspended” as another one is introduced). This occurs, for example, when there is a shift in the thematic orientation, when a new interlocutor is given the floor, when a new voice is introduced in the speaker’s utterances, when a joke is incorporated, etc. Code-switching in classroom interactions has been said to be most often participant-related (Liebscher & DaileyO’Cain, 2005; Zentella, 1981). Switching in these instances is be motivated by, on the one hand, the students’ lack of competence and, on the other, the teacher’s intention to give help (Nussbaum, 1990; Unamuno, 2000), thus facilitating the interlocutors’ language comprehension or production. However, as we will see, instances of discourse-related codeswitching may also occur in the classroom context when it is constructed as a multilingual community of practice. In this case, as will be shown in this article, participant-related code-switching and discourse-related code-switching are not exclusive categories, and both can be used together to illuminate the analysis. We will also need to relate our work to other research which has argued that the analysis of code-switching must take into account the interpretation of such contexts by the interlocutors themselves (Mondada, 2001), as well as the balance between their linguistic competences (Py, 1991) and the practical activity they are attempting to undertake (Pekarek, 2005). Our work thus has common ground with those social perspectives on language acquisition that argue that code-switching can be interpreted either as a strategy for the appropriation of a new language (Pekarek, 1999), as a communicative strategy, or as functionally diversified evidence of the development of a plurilingual competence (Coste, Moore, & Zarate, 1997). There has been to date no systematic description of the role played by other (non-target) languages in languagelearning interactions, nor has it been proven that the use of code-switching is per se a positive factor for language learning. However, it seems to be increasingly accepted among the scientific community that code-switching does not play a negative role in the language acquisition process (Liebscher & Dailey-O’Cain, 2005: p. 245). According to several authors (L¨udi, 1999; Nussbaum & Unamuno, 2001; Py, 1991; Vasseur, 1991), its potential in language acquisition processes depends on the way linguistic objects are treated within the interaction. For example, language switches can be used to delimit sequences of reflection on linguistic forms and patterns,2 and the use of more than one language can be described as an important strategy to modify verbal repertories. Different authors (Castellotti & Moore, 1997; Cook, 2001; Kramsch, 1995; Levine, 2003; Moore, 2002) have showed that the use of more than one language in the classroom also allows participants to re-define, on the one hand, the learning context and, on the other hand, the language learner’s identity. In other words, the multilingual classroom becomes an environment where the students’ bilingual (or multilingual) identities are accepted, and this can make a positive contribution to the learning context. Once participants view classrooms as communities of practice, in which code-switching is considered a legitimate practice, it becomes one of the activities shared by the members of that community (Liebscher & Dailey-O’Cain, 2005; Pekarek, 1999). Like these authors, the present article argues that the possibility of taking advantage of code-switching as an additional resource for learning languages and participating communicatively in classroom interactions will depend
2
Such sequences have been defined as potential sequences of acquisition (PSA) by De Pietro, Matthey, and Py (1989).
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on how the languages involved in the classroom’s specific practices are categorized. In other words, it will depend on the legitimacy of bilingual or multilingual practices within the classroom group concerned. We claim that this categorization of languages is not external to the specific practices in which interlocutors participate, nor is it external to the specific interactive context within which such practices take place. Our work is thus premised on the assumption that code-switching between languages works in the service of practical questions, such as (a) the need to accomplish an assigned task despite the limited resources available in a given language, (b) marking distinctions between internal practices that form part of the activity underway in order to contribute to its organization and (c) the will to cooperate in terms of conversation and to orientate towards the social task, etc. Likewise, code-switching can be interpreted as a resource which the interlocutors can use to foreground different roles or identities, such as those of classroom peer, colleague, student, etc., that are useful for the accomplishment of social activities, one of which is learning. 3. Multilingual interaction between language classroom peers: methodology and analytical framework The data under analysis is extracted from a corpus gathered in the framework of a larger project3 aimed at studying the development of the communicative competences of immigrant children and adolescents who have enrolled in primary and secondary state schools in Catalonia.4 It is important to note that although the language curriculum in Catalan schools was originally conceived within the framework of a Catalan language immersion programme addressed to children whose mother language was Spanish, the student population has now diversified considerably. The official curriculum states that Catalan, as the official language of Catalonia’s schools, is the language of instruction and communication, and Catalan is also taught as a core subject from Grade 1 in primary schools. Spanish,5 still the language spoken at home for many students, is taught as a core course starting in Grade 3. Finally, when our data were gathered, English had been introduced as a foreign language core subject starting in Grade 3. For the present article, we have examined a subset of the data which was gathered in different Grade 5 and 6 classes at two state schools in the city of Barcelona, specifically, this subset consists of the recorded conversation of eight students carrying out pair tasks in their Catalan and English language classes. 3.1. Population As part of their regular language classes, these students were instructed to carry out a variety of oral pair activities intended to help them practice and learn the language in question. The eight students recorded in our data (i.e. constituting four pairs) were selected because one member of each pair was a locally born child while his or her partner was a foreign-born immigrant child. The ages of the eight children in our study ranged from 10 to 12. Following the recording, each child was individually interviewed to obtain biographical information. Table 1 summarizes the data obtained through the interviews. The four locally-born children reported using Spanish at home, whereas as members of immigrant families the other four spoke one or several non-European languages at home. All the children reported using either their family languages or Spanish outside school, though two of the locally-born children (Pau and Salma) also reported using Catalan in such contexts. They also all reported that Spanish was the language most commonly used among students outside the classroom, in the playground or in the school dining room. With respect to Catalan, they reported that they mostly used it when interacting with teachers, in reading or writing practices, and in the Catalan language classroom. 3 This project ( BSO2001-2030) obtained assistance from the MCyT of Spain. The research team comprised: E. Baiget, J.M. Cots, C. Escobar, Tx. D´ıaz, M. Ir´un, D. Masats, L. Maruny, X. Mart´ın, M. Molina, A. Noguerol, L. Nussbaum, A. Tuson and V. Unamuno. 4 Since 1983, the official language in the educational system of Catalonia has been Catalan. This initially entailed the establishment of Catalan immersion programmes, especially aimed at people from other regions of Spain who had become long-term residents of the region. Nowadays, Catalan is the language of schooling in all primary education but also in public secondary schools. It is also the language used in the special classes whose function is to facilitate the linguistic and cultural integration of immigrant children from outside Spain, now present in very large numbers. 5 Spanish is taught as a mandatory subject starting in the third year of school. It is, however, a very common language at school in the Barcelona area as it is the first language of most of students, and therefore the main language of communication among themselves and with teachers. In the case of foreign-born children, Spanish is learnt mainly among classroom fellows and outside school, and is the language spoken within their families alongside those from their own places of origin. According to a recent study (Nussbaum & Unamuno, 2006), despite the fact that formal education is in Catalan, immigrant children are developing a greater oral competence in Spanish.
Country of birth Languages spoken at home Contact with English Contact with Catalan and Spanish
Kamal
Bawama
Hafi
Jony
Salma
Raquel
Ra¨ul
Pau
Morocco Arabic
India Hindi & Sindi
Pakistan Punjabi & Urdu
Spain Spanish
Spain Spanish & Catalan
At Catalan school since Grade 3 9 years
At school in country of origin 1 year
Spain Spanish & Arabic Catalan At school since Grade 3 Born in Catalonia
Spain Spanish
Last 3 years in Catalan school 3 years
Philippines Pangasiman Tagalong English At school in country of origin 2 years
At school since Grade 3 Born in Catalonia
At school since Grade 3 Born in Catalonia
At school since Grade 3 Born in Catalonia
V. Unamuno / Linguistics and Education 19 (2008) 1–19
Table 1 Biographical data of participants
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With regard to language preferences, most of the students said that they did not prefer any particular language, as they were all useful for different purposes. However, the non-immigrant children expressed a dislike for English because they felt it was a difficult language.
3.2. Design and procedure The collection of data was made over three days during the students’ regular language classes devoted to Spanish, Catalan and English respectively. Several tasks were carried out within the framework of a collaborative project between our University research team and a group of teachers. In the Catalan and Spanish language classes, the instructions by both teachers and researchers were given to the students in the language of the classroom. In the case of the English class, teachers and researchers used Catalan to give the initial instructions. However, during the course of the class, English was also used in order to remind students of the instructions, especially the requirement that the students should use English in the task interaction. Furthermore, teachers and researchers switched from English to Catalan, specially to clarify aspects of the task or to solve language problems that children had. In the course of each day, participants were assigned a variety of tasks revolving around a different theme for each language: books and folk stories (Spanish), clothes and travel (Catalan) and food (English). Approximately 10 hours of inter-pupil class-time conversation was tape-recorded during the period in which the cooperative tasks took place. Recordings were subsequently transcribed and reviewed by two different researchers following the conventions described in Appendix A.
4. Data analysis: code-switching communicative uses and interactive contexts Instances of code-switching were identified in the transcripts and then analyzed. In our discussion below, we will first look at code-switching that took place during the Catalan language class and then turn our attention to interaction during the English language class. The transcripts of recordings done during Spanish language classes showed that code-switching rarely occurred in this context,6 so these instances will only be referred to in passing. We will first analyze learners’ use of code-switching and then contrast their outcomes according to the target language of each task. Secondly, the impact of interactive contexts on such functions will be addressed.
4.1. What does code-switching serve to do? By far the most frequently occurring use of code-switching by students during the Catalan language task is to mark boundaries between the various discursive and practical activities undertaken in the course of the assigned language-learning tasks. For example, students generally code-switch in order to shift from the undertaking of the school activity to its management or regulation, i.e. from assigned activities to other ones in which the parameters involving the school task are suspended. Code-switching opens sequences aimed at planning, organizing and structuring the discourse and the activities students are sharing. Similarly, code-switching sometimes shows an alteration in the arrangement of participants, i.e. a shift of receiver, the incorporation of a new interlocutor, etc. Several of these issues are illustrated in Excerpt 1. The exchange takes place during a Catalan language class in which Bawama and Pau are working as a pair to find seven differences between the drawings they each hold.
6 According to Nussbaum and Unamuno (2006), code-switching in Spanish language activities does not seem to be a common practice, mainly due to the fact that the language of the activities and the usual language of communication coincide. The few cases of code-switching found in this context relate to metaphorical functions, especially when quoting the teacher’s words in children’s discourse.
V. Unamuno / Linguistics and Education 19 (2008) 1–19 Excerpt 1 47
BAW:
48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58
PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU:
59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU:
Excerpt 1 (translation) 47 BAW: 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58
PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU:
59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU:
7
hi ha un jersei de de mil dos-cents hi ha un jersei de mil dos-cents cinquanta- monedes/ monedes/| s´ı s´ı que n’hi ha\ | eh- hi ha hi ha un XXX/ hi ha un jersei hi ha un jersei que e´ s de color verd/ aqu´ı\ | s´ı\| no\ | s´ı\ | no\| XXX| yo yo tengo\ | ya pero aqu´ı no\| [protestant] yo creo que tu haces haces el m´ıo\ | ya pero t´u t´u has encontrado una diferencia y yo he encontrado otra\ y esto de aqu´ı que est´a colgado\ | el m´ıo es verde y el tuyo es XXX | vale\ una diferencia\| vale\ Llu´ıs c´allate\| Llu´ıs ay-| Llu´ıs Pau pregunta\| eh/| pregunta\ | ah no\| te tocaba a ti\| ah s´ı\ || er la noia que est`a pagant t´e un ronyonera\ | una rinyonera/| s´ı s´ı que t´e una rinyonera\| there’s a jumper of of one thousand and two hundred there’s a jumper of one thousand and two hundred and fifty- coins/ coins/| yes yes there is| eh -| there’s there’s a XXX/| there is a jumper there is a jumper which is green/| here\| yes\| no\ | yes\ | no\| XXX I |’ve got\| OK but not here\| [complaining] I think that you’re doing doing mine\ | yes, but you you have found a difference and I’ve found another one\ and this hung thing here\| mine is green and yours is XXX | OK\| this counts as a difference | OK\ Llu´ıs shut up\| Llu´ıs ay-| Llu´ıs Pau you ask | eh/| ask\ | ah wasn’t it your turn\ | oh yes\ || er the girl who’s paying has got a bum-pack\| a bom-pack/| yes, yes, she’s got a bom-pack\|
Both children have been using the target language, Catalan, until turn 51, when a problem regarding the role they are supposed to play during the task arises. Bawama’s switch to Spanish in turn 55 opens a sequence aimed at solving the problem. In this sequence, the participants agree on how to proceed with the task (turns 55–58) and then on the distribution of roles (turns 59–63), is defined in this sequence. Finally, by switching to Catalan (turn 63), Pau invites his partner to resume the language-learning activity itself. Also note that in turn 59, Bawama speaks in Spanish to another classmate (Llu´ıs) with whom she usually uses this language. Her doing so is a way of showing that Llu´ıs is not part of the learning task she is performing with Pau. Whereas the code-switching in Excerpt 1 cannot be related to a difference between the participants’ linguistic competences, in Excerpt 2 it is. Here, Salma and Jony are undertaking the same activity as Bawama and Pau. They have both use been using Catalan until they switch language in turn 54.
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Excerpt 2 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61
SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON:
quantes bufandes tens eh colgades?| quatre\| quants mitjons [+mijons+] tens?| mi com?| mitjons [+mitxons+]\| eh-|| dos pars\| qu`e?| {(DC) dos pars\}| dos/| {(AC) momento\}| mitjons\ mitjons/|| mira\| un calcet´ın esto es un calcet´ın\|
Excerpt 2 (translation) 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61
SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON: SAL: JON:
how many scarves have you got eh hung?| four\| how many socks [+sacks+] have you got?| s what?| socks [+sucks+]\| eh-|| a pair of\| what?| {(DC) two pairs of\}| two/| {(AC) just a minute\}| socks\ socks/|| look\| a sock this is a sock\|
tinc un dos tres quatre\| quants?|| no\ jo tinc tres\| m’he equivocat\ [a Cec] {(F) ja tenim una altra\}| s´ı\ s´ı s´ı s´ı\|
I’ve got one two three four\| how many?|| no\ I have three\| I was wrong\ [to Cec] {(F) we’ve got another one\}| yes\ yes yes yes\|
In turn 54 Jony code-switches as he asks his partner to give him time to solve a problem that prevents him from doing his part in the language-learning task. It is of interest to note that code-switching is accompanied in this instance by a modification in the rhythm of the interaction (marked in the transcript “AC”, meaning “accelerated”). The sequence in Spanish (turns 54–56) is thus used as a parenthesis which temporarily suspends the pairwork activity: while Jony attempts to overcome a problem of comprehension, namely that he cannot identify in his drawing the object corresponding to the Catalan word “mitjons” (socks). The sequence thus initiated by Jony’s code-switch continues with an unfruitful search for information, which is expressed through the long pause after he first utters “mitjons” (turn 54). Salma responds to this implicit request by translating the problematic word into Spanish (turn 55). Now, after checking his drawing, Jony is ready to return to Catalan, the language in which they have been asked to do the language-learning task (turn 57). The difference between Excerpts 1 and 2 can be interpreted as a reflection of the different way in which participants evaluate their respective Catalan competences. According to the terminology set forth by L¨udi (1989) and Py (1994), these instances lie at different points on the continuum extending between bilingual and exolingual contexts. Excerpt 1 tends towards a bilingual context, whereas Excerpt 2 would better be described as an exolingual one. Code-switches in the first, more bilingual context relate to the organization of discourse from an interactional perspective, whereas in Excerpt 2 they are resorted to with reference to the participants’ language preferences. Salma code-switches to facilitate Jony’s comprehension (what Nussbaum, 1990 calls heterofacilitation), and does so by using the language which she believes he likes and know best. The sequence opened by the code-switch in turn 54 is also related to Jony’s restructuring of linguistic skills. It is a moment of metalinguistic reflection, during which Jony becomes aware of what he does and does not know. Through his partner’s help, he is able to incorporate new lexicon and apply it to completing the task. We are therefore dealing with a potential sequence of acquisition (De Pietro et al., 1989) which may influence Jony’s linguistic and communicative repertoire. Indeed, the use of code-switching to signify the momentary search for a word or expression is common
V. Unamuno / Linguistics and Education 19 (2008) 1–19
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as a bilingual practice, and may also be understood as an action intended to avoid a breakdown in the unfolding of an interaction’s development. When in turn 54 Jony says “momento” (“Just a minute”), this utterance simultaneously acts as the opening of a conversational parenthesis, a request for some extra time, and an expression to maintain the cooperative framework. It is therefore a discourse-related code-switch, although it places the interlocutors in a context where their linguistic competences are not identical. This illustrates that we cannot view discourse- and participantrelated switching as mutually exclusive categories, since both discourse and participant issues are here embedded in a single switch. In the Catalan-learning tasks, as exemplified by these two excerpts, we often find that participants can freely perform academic tasks using multilingual practices. As we have seen, such practices are not oriented towards a difference between competencies. Children who are latecomers to the Catalan bilingual school system are simultaneously learning to speak the two languages of the community, as well as to switch between them like their partners do. Therefore, they take advantage of the possibility to do so depending on the discourse, on the participants’ preferences, or on both factors. It is our opinion that they have learnt to do this according to the way they interpret the practical activity they are carrying out in the classroom and the practical value of the alternated use between languages. Excerpt 3 also illustrates this idea. Excerpt 3 22. 23. 24.
RAQ: KAM: RAQ:
25. 26. 27. 28. 29 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.
KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ:
37.
KAM:
Excerpt 3 (translation) 22. RAQ: 23. KAM: 24. RAQ: 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35 36. 37.
KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM:
cua cu´ales juntamos? cu´ales juntamos\| primero?| de qu´e?| de todo\| mira\| yo s´e una\| les bambes amb els mitjons perqu`e s´on per als pe perqu`e es posen als peus\| =no/= =s´ı\=| XXX t´u uno\| la bufanda\| perqu`e y y cu´al m´as\| Kam?| er la bicicleta\| y qu´e tienen que ver?| no tienen XXX\| els guants\| y por qu´e?| XXX\ di una cosa\| porque la bufanda y y els guants\| er van {(&) (PP) no lo s´e\}| mm\| a ver\| XXX\| las monedas y la ri˜n ronyonera perqu`e les monedes es guarden a la ronyonera\| el taxi i la bicicleta perqu`e els dos s´on transports\ whi which ones should we match? which ones should we match\| first?| of what?| of everything\| look\| I see one\| the sports shoes with the socks because they’re for fee because you wear them on your feet\| =no/= =yes\=| XXX you one\| the scarf\| why and and what else\| Kam?| er the bicycle\| and do they have to do?| they don’t XXX\| the gloves\| and why?| XXX\ say something\| because the scarf and and the gloves\| er they {(&) (PP) I don’t know\}| mm\| let’s see\| XXX\| the coins and the bom bum-pack because coins are kept in the bum-pack\| the taxi and the bicycle because both are forms of transportations\
Excerpt 3 is taken from a recording of the first activity that Raquel and Kamal doing a pairwork activity which consists of reaching an agreement on matching two drawings, discussing why they have made their choices, and finally remembering them so that they can play “memory” afterwards. Raquel adopts a teaching role, and is always tutoring Kamal’s actions within the task (see turns 22 and 34), helping him by means of questions which structure the activity he must undertake (turns 28, 30, 32), giving him examples (turns 36 and 37), etc. Of note is that in parallel with Kamal’s
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language-learning while on task, he also learns to distinguish the different inherent activities he has to carry out in the course of performing the task, and this correlates to the different uses of two languages. Thus Kamal’s code-switching in turn 31 shows how he uses a procedure similar to that of his partner to distinguish the management of the task from the task itself. Furthermore, Kamal’s amendment in turn 35 indicates that he recognizes the correspondence between the task’s inherent activities and the participants’ language practices. In summary, the data show that children carry out their Catalan-learning tasks using two languages sequentially distributed in different ways. Code-switching is used predominantly to indicate the opening of sequences where the language-learning task becomes temporarily suspended. The direction of such changes is relevant and provides some indications of the way interlocutors interpret the situation they are involved in. For them, the teacher-assigned activity itself is limited to the task-related utterances, whereas its regulation can be done in the usual language of communication among classmates, i.e. Spanish. Note that the Catalan-to-Spanish code-switching direction is not bilateral: during analogous sessions in the Spanish-language classes, no lateral sequences opened by a switch from Spanish into Catalan were recorded (see note iv). In contrast, code-switching is frequent and usual in English language-learning tasks. This is unsurprising: since English is a language that neither of the participants command, they need to repeatedly resort to their other languages in order to accomplish the school tasks assigned. In the case of English language-learning tasks, the available verbal resources in this language are insufficient. Nevertheless, the instances of code-switching from the English class share features with what occurs in the Catalan class. As in the case of Catalan tasks, the switch into Spanish delimits sequences by setting up a difference between the regulation of the task and the task itself. Such a sequential distribution shows that participants categorize these activities as different in nature. They switch into Spanish to initiate sequences in which the activity to be carried out is negotiated among the interlocutors, where roles are distributed, and where problems related to the task or to the target language (English, in this case) are solved. Nevertheless, unlike what happens in Catalan class, participants tend to resort to all three languages rather than just two to carry out pair work tasks, therefore proving their capacity to exploit the linguistic repertoire they share. Let us now analyze code-switching in the English classroom in detail. To this end we have selected three excerpts from the transcript that we find particularly representative. As noted, each dyad consisted of one child educated entirely in Catalonia and one child who was a relatively recent arrival to the Catalan education system. In Excerpts 4 and 5, the dyads formed by Kamal/Raquel and Pau/Bawama, respectively are carrying out a role-play involving buying and selling the ingredients needed to bake a birthday cake. In Excerpt 6, Ra¨ul and Hafi are carrying out the activity referred to in Excerpt 1, whereby they have to identify seven differences between the drawings they have been given. Excerpt 4 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ:
17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.
KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM:
yellow\| hello\| qui quiero cake/ quiero cake\ {(PP) c´omo se llama XXX?} {(PP) qu`e celebres?} {(PP) my birthday [+birdai+}| pregunta XXX {(P) qu´e quiere comprar?|} one cake\ a·nd-|| two XXX\ and merenge i choco i chocolate [+chocoleit+] \ and one merengue i three chocola tables de chocolate [+chocolat+]\| three tables de chocolate [+chocolat+]\| {(PP) and cake\} mm\ no hi ha\| de qu´e? e´ s que no hi ha\| in English\ no hi ha merengue\ || ah- | three paquete de chocolate [+chocolata+]\ and cake\ val\ quant val money? er {(PP) cu´anto vale?} XXX
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32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.
RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: TER: RAQ:
six dollars\ mm\ ics dolars\ bei good bye\| ad´eu =good bye\= =good bye\= good bye\| bye\ bye\ [+ bei\ bei+]| another \ una altra vegada\| e´ s que· no sabem com gaire\|
Excerpt 4 (translation) 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ:
17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.
KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: KAM: RAQ: TER: RAQ:
yellow\| hello\| I want a cake\| I want a cake {(PP) how do you say XXXX {(PP) what are you celebrating?}| {(PP) my birthday [+birrdai+] \} ask XXX {(P) what do you want to buy?) one cake\ an -|| two XXX and meringue I choco I chocolate +chocoleit+] \ | and one merengand three chocola tables de chocolate [+chocolat+]\| three tables de chocolate [+chocolat+]\| {(PP and cake\)| mm\ there isn’t any\| any of what?| there isn’t any\| in English\| there is no meringue\| ah-| three packets of chocolate [+chocolate+]\ and cake\ OK\ how much how much money? e·r {(PP) how much is it?}| XXX six dollars\ mm\ ics dollars\ bei good bye\| good bye\| =good bye\= =good bye\= good by\| bye bye\ [+bei\ bei+]| another | again\| we: don’t know how enough\|
Excerpt 4 corresponds to the preparation and rehearsal of the role-play. Raquel starts with a greeting in English. Kamal replies in the same language. The girl then switches to Spanish, though she uses the English word “cake” (turn 12). She continues in Spanish, searching for a way to continue with the simulated shopping dialog. Kamal then switches to Catalan (turn 13) and Raquel tries to answer in English (turn 14), then uses Spanish or Catalan to tell Kamal to take his turn. Kamal continues in Spanish and Raquel uses English in her turn. In turn 19, Kamal uses Catalan to play his shop assistant role, which causes Raquel to be confused. Her use of Spanish in turn 20 invites Kamal to open a sequence aimed at clarifying the misunderstanding. This fragment offers an interesting example of alternation between Catalan and English that serves the function most frequently observed within our corpus: to fulfill the requirements of the language-learning task. While code-switching to Spanish is used by the children to differentiate the sequences related to the school task and those related to other activities, such as (i) its management, (ii) the thematization of problems inherent to its resolution and (iii) the resolution of problems that arise in the course of the school task, the use of Catalan structures the utterances belonging to the task into those sequences which are considered related to it, or intrinsic to its fulfillment. This is evident in turn 28, when Raquel, completes her Catalan utterance by resorting to English. As Griggs (1997) points out, the fusion or alternate use of more than one language in the same utterance may be regarded as a resource used by interlocutors to guarantee
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the intercomprehensibility of the linguistic and practical7 activity. In this case it is worth mentioning that the fusion that takes place does not involve the children’s habitual language but rather is conducted in the foreign language they are learning (English) and Catalan, the school’s institutional language. This can also be seen in Excerpt 5, where Pau and Bawama are preparing their role-play during English class In turn 62, Pau alternately uses English and Catalan, probably impelled by the homophony of the word “ingredients”. It is worth mentioning that whereas in this turn he uses the Catalan word “menys” (less), once Bawama shows that she is having difficulties, Pau switches to Spanish to facilitate Bawama’s understanding of what they are supposed to do by now using the Spanish “menos”. He later switches from English to Catalan when he encounters a lexical problem, signaled by the interruption in the first part of turn 65 and asks the teacher, Teresa, for help. On this occasion, he uses the word “all” in Spanish but addresses Teresa in Catalan to ask her for the translation (turn 65: “Com es diu?” = How do you say?). Excerpt 5 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.
PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: TER: BAW:
what do you want to buy [+baik]?| one cake | one cake\| it’s a ingredients \ menys one/| {(PP) XXX\|} que tienes todos los ingredientes menos uno\| no\ I a I want um tot tot \ [a TER] todo\| todo\| com es diu? to todo/| todo/| all\ all\ all\| I want all ingredients [+in’gredients+]\|
Excerpt 5 (translation) 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.
PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: PAU: BAW: TER: BAW:
what do you want to buy \|| one cake | one cake\| it’s a ingredients \ but one/| {(PP) XXX\|} that you have all the ingredients but one\| no\| I a I want: um all all\| [to TER] all\ all\| how do you say? all all/| all\ all\ all\| I want all ingredients [+in’gredients+]\|
As noted above, the direction of code-switching gives us clues about the way participants interpret the situation. In this case, the switch from English to Catalan shows an orientation towards the teaching-learning situation – with Catalan as the official language and subsequently the language regularly used by teachers in the classroom – rather than an adaptation to the usual language of communication among classmates (Spanish). Catalan is the language categorized by students as being more institutional, more appropriate to school practices and therefore more suitable for the specific fulfillment of the language-learning task, alongside English. However, all three languages remain activated throughout the execution of English language tasks, as students resort to their shared repertoire in order to solve questions which they consider relevant for carrying out these tasks. Nevertheless, in some cases the multilingual resource is exploited more actively than in others. This can be seen for example, in Excerpt 6: Excerpt 6 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.
7
RAU: HAF: RAU: JON: RAU: JON: RAU: JON: RAU:
apple [+aipel+]/| apple [+eipl+] ah\ hello\| XXX\ yes\| XXX\| hello\| this is a Hafi\| banana\| this is Hafi\| Hafi/ this is Hafi\| ¨ i s´oc el millor del m´on\| hello hello my name is Raul no\ ets el David Bisbal\| s´ı\ jo s´oc el David Bisbal XXX una merda XXX\|
Griggs, however, refers to data in which he analyses the use of L1 among learners of a second or foreign language. In the examples herein analyzed, learners resort to a language which is in no instance their L1 but instead the official language of the educational system.
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18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.
HAF: CEC: HAF: RAU: HAF: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU:
tienes que preguntar\| cu´anto valen er- las las manzanas?| XXX XXX\| bueno\ una difer`encia\ heu de trobar set\| hala\| XXX XXX\ er ioghurt\| ioghurt/| is-| vale\| llavors-| tu las diferencias/| yes\| eh-| cu´antos?| one two three four five six \| six\| six\ pero se ven enteros/| no··\| enteros no\| you have er one XXX/| tinc tres\| antes me hab´ıas dicho si XXX\| cuatro\| la venta XXX/| XXX\| dos\ tres\ y yogur cuatro\| vale\ XXX\| this a cheese\| vale\| er one no\ I have two\| two/| have you- have you a milk\| eh-| milk/ er six\| eh-| do you have eipie apple\| no\| no/| XXX\| one two three four five\| five\ Hafi\| do you have-| cistel of fruits/| {(PP) un dos tres cua } otra diferencia\| no\| I I have apple-| apple two\| apple milk-| salad no\| ay XXX milk salad and orange\| and bananas\|
Excerpt 6 (translation) 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.
RAU: HAF: RAU: JON: RAU: JON: RAU: JON: RAU: HAF: CEC: HAF: RAU: HAF: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF:
apple [+aipel+]/| apple [+eipl+] ah\ hello\| XXX\ yes\| XXX\| hello\| this is a Hafi\| banana\| this is Hafi\| Hafi/ this is Hafi\| ¨ and I’m the best of the world\| hello hello my name is Raul no\ you are David Bisbal\| yes\ I am David Bisbal XXX go to hell XXX\| you’ve got to ask\| how much do er- apples cost?| XXX XXX\| good\ a difference\ you must find seven\| come on\| XXX XXX\ er yoghurt\| yoghurt/| is-| OK\| then-| you the differences/| yes\| eh-| how many?| one two three four five six \| six\| six\ they are whole/| no·\| not whole\| you have er one XXX/| I’ve got three\| before you told me if XXX\| four\| the sale XXX/| XXX\| two\ three\ and yogurt four\| OK\ XXX\| this a cheese\| OK\| er one no\ I have two\| two/| have you- have you a milk\| eh-| milk/ er six\| eh-| do you have eipie apple\| no\| no/| XXX\|
14 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.
V. Unamuno / Linguistics and Education 19 (2008) 1–19 RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU: HAF: RAU:
one two three four five\| five\ Hafi\| do you have-| baskel of fruits/| {(PP) one two three fo } another difference\| no\| I I have apple-| apple two\| apple milk-| salad no\| ay XXX milk salad and orange\| and bananas\|
In this interaction, while Ra¨ul and Hafi are carrying out their English task, Jony, their Filipino classmate, appears on the scene (turn 12), takes the tape-recorder and pretends he is interviewing Hafi in English, as for a radio program. Ra¨ul takes the floor in turn 15, first in English and then in Catalan. Jony and Ra¨ul continue to use this last language through two turns until Hafi interrupts this exchange (turn 18) to remind his partner Ra¨ul that they should carry on with the language-learning task. Spanish is the language he uses to do this. Excerpt 6 illustrates a use of language frequently present in our corpora, whereby Catalan alternates with English in a sequence which students categorize as external to the language-learning task (turns 12–17). Nevertheless, it is also a sequence in which a role shift takes place as the “partnership” identities are suspended, momentarily taking back seat to a different set of fictitious identities—in this case that of a journalist and David Bisbal (a Spanish pop singer). The use of code-switching to indicate role shifts has been studied by several authors (Gumperz, 1982; Zentella, 1997) and seems to be more proper to bilingual or multilingual interactions (as in the case under analysis here) rather than exolingual interactions defined by asymmetric language competences among participants. 4.2. The interactive contexts Excerpt 6 also serves to introduce a last issue, which is how interactive contexts affect the participants’ use of code-switching. In turn 19, CEC, the researcher takes the floor and uses Catalan instead of English. This contributes to the creation of a multilingual context where the use of more than one language is established as appropriate or desirable. In the case of the language-learning tasks taking place here, the creation of such a context is also supported by the fact that the instructions for the English language activity have been given in Catalan or bilingually. This sets up a distinction between these tasks and the analogous tasks in the Catalan or Spanish classes, in which the teachers have taken part using only the respective target language. Teachers’ bilingual or monolingual practices while the class is in session, as well as the language or languages of the written materials given to students, are elements that may serve as the basis for an interpretation of the ways code-switching is used differently in the different classes. Thus, teachers’ bilingual practices in the management of English language tasks contribute to the creation of a context where alternating between this language and Catalan becomes legitimate to participants. Within this context, the use of code-switching gains the necessary legitimacy for use during the completion of the tasks. The use of Catalan thus emerges as a privileged resource for the accomplishment of the task’s objectives even if as a result the linguistic requirements of the pairwork task, strictly speaking, are not met. 5. Discussion The analysis of our corpus leads us to consider two main issues. In the first place, the distribution of code-switching types or uses in our data in relation to the direction of the switch challenges the rigid correspondence between the social status of a given language and its function in interactive practices (Auer, 1998b; Li Wei, 1998; Myers-Scotton, 1993). As argued by Auer (1998a: p. 5), code-switching as a local practice indicates extensive or collective practices which can be best described through ethnographic studies. Code-switching indexes a wider context through the conversational structure. This relationship, however, is not mechanical but rather, is reinterpreted by the interlocutors and exploited by them for practical purposes. In the case of code-switching among children, as Jørgensen (1998) points out, we cannot say that power relationships between languages within society as a whole determine the direction of language switches, and therefore the function played by each of them in the interaction. Rather, as we have shown in our analysis, it seems that children learn (a) through the observation and re-creation of the linguistic practices of their peers and the adults that surround them, (b)
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through the evaluation they make of the effectiveness of such practices and (c) through the results achieved by their own code-switching activity. Our analysis shows that code-switching is a common practice both among children fully schooled in Catalonia and among those who enter its educational system at a later age (Nussbaum & Unamuno, 2006; Unamuno, 2005). For many of the latter, none of the languages used during the activities we recorded during this study are their mother tongues, nor have they been acquired as a first language. On the contrary, these are languages they have acquired at different moments in their linguistic biographies, in more or less institutional contexts. In the cases of Spanish and Catalan, these are, moreover, languages they have learnt as a consequence of their migration experience, after their arrival in Barcelona. Since they are new languages to them, the children’s reinterpretation of the power relations between these two languages and of their respective speakers’ rights and duties is related to their own practical experiences, especially within the school environment. As a matter of fact, this reinterpretation occurs simultaneously with their observation of specific practices and their own linguistic participation in interactions. Our analysis does not allow us to determine if the occurrence of code-switching in multilingual children and in multilingual contexts is specific to these cases, but it suggests that in these contexts, speakers have a wide linguistic and communicative repertoire that they can deploy for different practical aims. They deploy elements of this repertoire according to the interactive context in which they participate and according to the relative value of these languages in different contexts, that is, what they can achieve by using each of them. However, immigrant children also learn from their locally born classmates how to manage the linguistic repertoire which they possess and which they progressively expand. With regard to the data we are dealing with here, for them the repertoire activated during the tasks recorded by us is limited to the languages they share with their classmates. Thus, for example, they have learnt that non-academic activities practices among fellow students are contextualized by means of Spanish, and that this is also the language through which the partnership identity is expressed most efficiently. This accounts for the fact that immigrant children temporarily interrupt their teacher-assigned academic task by switching to Spanish. However, the use of code-switching to contextualize activities outside the academic task is not exclusively confined to Spanish. In the case of English language-learning tasks, the contextualization of aside or lateral sequences, where pupils suspend the academic work, can also be accomplished by switching into Catalan. Such uses of code-switching, which are very usual in the schools where the present data were gathered, may be interpreted either as related to participants’ preferences or as related to issues linked to the organization of their conversation. In the participant preference framework, the switch into Spanish emphasizes an identity shared by students when the task is being dealt with. However, in our corpus code-switching has a key role in the organization of the conversation by supporting the meaningfulness of the common action learners are carrying out. Children are shown to be able to code-switch to suggest a change of theme, of activity, of discursive role, etc. So, despite the fact that their bilingual competence is being built up, these children are able to code-switch to serve both discourse-related and participant-related functions. The case of the English tasks is a peculiar one. The children’s lack of competence in this language explains why they sometimes need to resort to other languages in order to clarify the specific task’s goals and fulfill them. As these children share at least two other languages, the repertoire available becomes complex. The switch into Catalan acts as a substitute language which participants can mix with English in order to manage their assigned task. The use of code-switching between Catalan and English in this case relates to functions bound to participants’ preferences but, as our analysis suggests, it also fulfils an intrinsically conversational function: the desire to cooperate in the execution of the task while maintaining some fluency in the interaction. In summary, these linguistic practices express the students’ orientation towards the successful completion of the academic task assigned to them. Code-switching into Spanish, on the other hand, is used to organize the interaction and is related to the participants’ preferences in the local activity they are carrying out. As the language usually spoken among classmates, Spanish would thus seem to be the language which preferentially allows them to place themselves outside the academic task. In view of this, it becomes apparent that the difference between participant-related and conversational-related code-switching is not clear-cut. As we are dealing with contexts in which more than one language is used, codeswitches can be best interpreted if one considers how they are useful in the course of a specific practice, through which the use of more than one language can be an effective way means or resource to complete an academic assigned task.
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Therefore, our second key observation is related to the notion of plurilingual competence. According to our analysis, these children have learnt to articulate their skills in different languages in such a way that they are able to resolve satisfactorily practical and symbolic issues through code-switching (i.e. to show their difficulties in performing a task, to bypass their limitations in a given language, to prove their readiness to cooperate, to highlight their mutual complicity, etc.). Our analysis shows that this is a situated competence, in which all linguistic resources are articulated depending on a specific activity and within a specific interactive context. That is, it is not a competence resulting in the sum of linguistic knowledge, but rather in the ability to explore and exploits the linguistic resources that are available or shared, depending on a specific practical activity. This observation leads us to re-examine code-switching among learners or people developing their plurilingual competences. According to our data, the degree of competence in the different languages partially explains the different uses of code-switching. However, a more relevant interpretation should be sought in the legitimacy obtained by the alternate use of more than one language in activities that participants consider to be linked to the school-imposed task itself, or in other activities they also carry out simultaneously. Such legitimacy is not external to their interactions. The linguistic practices of teachers and students as well as the linguistic content of written classroom materials all shape an interactive context in which resorting to other languages may be interpreted either as the expression of a deficiency or as an alternative means to make an assigned task doable. Code-switching as a practical resource needs to be specifically reinterpreted in each context. Our data also exemplify the way in which the different linguistic skills merge in the definition of a plurilingual repertoire. However, further analysis will need to determine whether this merging allows the extension of such a repertoire, that is, if it participates positively in the development of a wider plurilingual competence. 6. Implications for future research Research on the development of plurilingual competences is a new field within the area defined by the intersection of applied sociolinguistics with the study of language acquisition. The arrival of people with different linguistic backgrounds in traditionally bilingual communities such as Catalonia provides us with an exceptional opportunity to investigate how immigrant children merge their pre-existing linguistic skills with those they acquire in the new bilingual context in which they are immersed and how this merging shapes the resulting plural competences in their language repertoire and adjusts to the different social purposes they pursue. In the field of second language acquisition there is a debate on the role played by other languages in linguistic learning (Castellotti & Moore, 1997; Cook, 2001; Kramsch, 1995; Levine, 2003; Liebscher & Dailey-O’Cain, 2005; Unamuno, 2003). There is no consensus about the value of resorting to language alternation in the classroom. However, resorting to other languages does not seem to detract from the learning of a specific language, as shown by the data we have analyzed. On the contrary, it rather seems that code-switching may open up social and pedagogical sequences that are more favorable to language learning (when, for instance, code-switching opens a sequence aimed at solving a linguistic problem and marks the subsequent return to the interaction in the target language, as in Excerpt 2). In other instances, code-switching may simply reveal the limitations in the linguistic repertoire children possess, without the occurrence of any re-creation of such repertoires. We have shown that speakers can learn to intertwine the linguistic resources available in order to carry out a specific activity, and therefore build up relevant elements of the interactive and sociolinguistic aspects of their language competences. Similarly, we have also shown that in interactions involving people with a command of more than one language, code-switching is one more resource that allows them to participate in multilingual interactive practices with certain autonomy, even in those cases where the lexical units necessary to build the elementary syntax of utterances are not available. Our study thus highlights the need to decentralize competence acquisition in a single target language – apparent in monolingual practices – and focus instead on the acquisition taking place in multilingual interactions. The results of our study are even more important to this field of research as they show the mobility of resources and their plasticity, the way in which learners may articulate and deploy the linguistic resources available to carry out a specific activity, and do so according to the identities they consider suitable for such an activity. In conclusion, our study shows that the interactive contexts proposed to learners are fundamental elements in order to understand the use of other languages as a resource towards language learning. In this respect, further research is
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needed on the impact of implicit (or not) language policies in classrooms. Therefore, the study of classroom language management may open a door to understanding the way in which code-switching contributes to second language acquisition and the development of plurilingual competences. Appendix A. Key to the transcription symbols 1. a. b. 2. a. b. 3. a. b. c. 4. =text of speaker A= =text of speaker B= 5. text 6. Text: 7. a. (fortissimo): {(FF) text} b. (pianissimo): {(PP) text} 8. a. 9. a. b. 10. a. b. c. 11. 12. a. b. c. d.
Questions: yes/no/ wh + ? Other intonation types: Affirmative:\ Suspension:Pauses: Short: | Quite long: || Longer than a second: Overlapping:
interruption (unfinished sentence): Lengthening of a sound: Intensity: Loud (forte): {(F) text} Soft (piano): {(P) text} Tone: High tone: {(A) text} Rhythm Accelerated {(AC) text} Slow down {(DC) text} Languages: Spanish: cursive Catalan: normal English: bold Comments from the transcriber: [text] Other symbols: Incomprehensible: XXXX Uncertain {& text} Words & laughter; {@ text} Approximate pronunciation [+text+]
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