Bilingual Pre-Teens : Competing Ideologies and Multiple Identities in the U. S. and Germany [1 ed.] 9781136275609, 9780415807289

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ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS

Bilingual Pre-Teens Competing Ideologies and Multiple Identities in the U.S. and Germany Janet M. Fuller

Bilingual Pre-Teens

Routledge Studies in Sociolinguistics

1 Emergent Lingua Francas and World Orders The Politics and Place of English as a World Language Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew 2 The Economics of the Multilingual Workplace François Grin, Claudio Sfreddo and François Vaillancourt 3 Stories and Social Media Identities and Interaction Ruth E. Page 4 Language and Citizenship in Japan Edited by Nanette Gottlieb 5 Markets of English Linguistic Capital and Language Policy in a Globalizing World Lionel Wee and Joseph Sung-Yul Park 6 Bilingual Pre-Teens Competing Ideologies and Multiple Identities in the U.S. and Germany Janet M. Fuller

Bilingual Pre-Teens Competing Ideologies and Multiple Identities in the U.S. and Germany

Janet M. Fuller

NEW YORK

LONDON

First published 2012 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2012 Taylor & Francis The right of Janet M. Fuller to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fuller, Janet M., 1962– Bilingual pre-teens : competing ideologies and multiple identities in the U.S. and Germany / by Janet M. Fuller. p. cm. — (Routledge studies in sociolinguistics; 6) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Bilingualism in children—United States. 2. Bilingualism in children— Germany. 3. Languages in contact—United States. 4. Languages in contact—Germany. 5. Education, Bilingual—Cross-cultural studies. 6. Multilingualism—Cross-cultural studies. I. Title. P115.2.F85 2012 404'.2083—dc23 2011053357 ISBN13: 978-0-415-80728-9 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-11064-5 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by IBT Global.

Printed and bound in the United States of America on sustainably sourced paper by IBT Global.

Contents

List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments

vii ix

1

Introduction: Bilingual Discourse, Identities and Ideologies

2

Normative Monolingualism in the US: Immigrant Bilingualism and the Stigmatization of Spanish

18

Amigos Amid Americanos: A Linguistic Ethnography of a Spanish-English Transitional Bilingual Education Classroom

42

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany: Normative Monolingualism and Elite Bilingualism

93

3

4

5

6

1

Speaking Your Mother Tongue in the Fatherland: A Linguistic Ethnography of a German-English Dual Language Classroom

115

Conclusion

157

Appendix A: Transcription Key Appendix B: Classroom Codes Bibliography Index

163 165 167 175

Figures and Tables

FIGURES 2.1 2.2 2.3 4.1 4.2 4.3

Welcome to America—Now Speak Cherokee. Welcome to America—Now Speak English. English/Spanish bilingual sign. Logo for the airline ‘Germanwings’. A Deutsche Bahn-sponsored rental bike. Advertisement for the newspaper Welt Kompakt: Die erste Zeitung To Go (‘the fi rst newspaper to go’). 4.4 A hairdresser’s shop named Hin under Hair (pun on the German expression hin und her, r meaning back and forth). 4.5 Eau bleib doch ‘oh/water do stay’.

21 21 25 107 107 108 110 110

TABLES 3.1 5.1

Children in the Spanish/English Classroom in Montville, 2003–2004 School Year Children in the 5th Grade Classroom at the Charles Dickens School, 2005–2006 School Year

43 117

Acknowledgments

This book has been long in coming and is the product of many years of fieldwork, transcription, and analysis of these data. There are many who have helped me along the way and who deserve mention. In the interest of anonymity, I will not mention the names of the children or teachers, but there are others I would like to thank and their names are included here. First and foremost, I would like to say muchas gracias to the two students who worked with me in my second year of fi fieldwork in southern Illinois, Kevan Self and Minta Elsman. They have both moved on to bigger and better things and I am proud to have had the opportunity to work with them along the way. I am also grateful to the Office ffi of Research Development and Administration and the Undergraduate Assistantship program at SIUC for the funds that paid their salaries and provided me with equipment to do my fieldwork. fi In addition, I owe thanks to other research assistants who worked on transcription of these data: Faylin Jihan, Silvia Lenzini, Katrin Birchler, Rose Hores and Meg Collier. I am grateful to all of them for their diligence and attention to detail. Also, special thanks to Kim Wilbanks, who went above and beyond the call of duty in her editing of this manuscript. In Berlin, I had a great deal of help and support from Carol Pfaff ff and Annette Breinlinger-O’Reilly. Carol offered ff much advice about the research process and I have been lucky to have her as a friend and mentor. Annette was essential in making contact to the teacher at the Charles Dickens School and for enduring endless conversations about the program, the children, and all of my experiences there. Vielen Dank an Euch beide! I would also like to thank my colleagues from the Anthropology Department at SIUC: Andy Hofl fl ing, Tony Webster, and Jonathan Hill, who read portions of an early version of this manuscript and gave me valuable feedback. In addition, I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript who off ffered many constructive criticisms and encouragement. While all of these people provided indispensible help with this project, my most central debt goes to the children who were participants in this research, los niños de ‘Montville’ y die Schüler in Berlin. They were often sweet and playful, sometimes bratty and rebellious, but inevitably wormed

x

Acknowledgments

their way into my heart. The representations of them in these pages do not do them justice; their cleverness and linguistic prowess go far beyond what I could portray. The gift of being able to see them negotiate their lives in two languages was one of the best I have ever received. It was not always an easy gift; at times their lives were diffi fficult, their words harsh, their feelings overwhelming. If I helped them at all in the time I spent in their classrooms, it was not enough. They have made me both a far better scholar and a far better person, und dafür bin ich sehr dankbar. Yet if the children are the stars of this book, their teachers are the heroes. I am forever grateful that they welcomed me into their classrooms and shared with me their insights about the schools, the children, and the ways in which language functioned in their world. Although I do not focus on their actions in these chapters, I hope they know that I focused very much on their abilities and kindnesses while doing my research. Last but never least, I owe a million thanks to my own children, Arlette and Nicholas. Although they have both attended bilingual programs, and both learned Alemán und Spanisch, they have had these experiences at different times, en lugares diferentes, und auf verschiedene Art und Weisen. It is serendipity that has taken them along these paths so dear to my heart, and it is my immense good fortune to be able to share at least some of their journeys with them. This book is dedicated to them.

1

Introduction Bilingual Discourse, Identities and Ideologies

In a rural community in the Midwestern United States, a ten year old boy named Juan, recently arrived from Mexico, struggles to follow the English lesson. His fi rst language is Spanish, but I also learn that he speaks P’urhépecha, because the other children tease him about it. He blushes when this is mentioned, and over the next two years I never hear him talk about or in this language. At the end of the two years I spent as a researcher in his classroom, his English has improved dramatically, and by the end of 6th grade he can often be heard speaking English with his friends, although all of them speak Spanish as their fi rst language. Although Spanish is still part of his identity, the indigenous language he was embarrassed to mention has been eliminated from his social world. At the same time, across the ocean, an eight-year-old boy has moved from the United States to Berlin, Germany. He was born in the U.S., where his father, originally from the Czech Republic, still lives. His parents have separated and he moved to Berlin with his mother, who is German. I meet him two years later, when he is ten, while I am doing research in the English-German program he attends in Berlin. He is proud of being multilingual, and he includes Czech in the list of languages he can speak, although he cannot produce even a token sentence. During my conversation with him while the children have free time, the other children in the classroom crowd around us, enumerating all of the languages they speak. One girl says she speaks what she calls ‘Ghanaian’, because her mother is from Ghana. A boy with Russian parents lists not just Russian but Polish in his repertoire; when I ask him how he learned Polish he says that he spent two weeks there on vacation a couple of years ago. A boy who speaks ‘Persian’ (Farsi) is asked to say something in this language and he counts to ten, which the other children greet with enthusiasm. There is one Turkish child in the classroom. When he admits that he does not speak Turkish, he receives a tongue-lashing from one of the girls for being too lazy to learn it. She points out that he would be trilingual, and not just bilingual, if he had just paid attention when his parents spoke. When asked to tell me what languages they speak, all of the children include French in their language repertoires, which at this point they have been learning in school for about three months.

2

Bilingual Pre-Teens

It is clear that the attitudes toward bilingualism are very different ff in these two contexts. In the Mexican American context, there is no status attached to speaking languages other than English and Spanish, and even Spanish is clearly secondary to English in terms of social value and social class mobility. In Berlin, not only do both German and English have important social roles in the lives of these children and many adults, but the cultural cachet of speaking any additional language is clearly high, as the children will claim and rejoice in languages of which they have the most fleeting knowledge. This diff fl fference is salient, but it is only the fi rst layer of diff fferences in how the children in these two classrooms are a world apart. This study shows how they position themselves and others as bilinguals or monolinguals, as members of the mainstream or of ethnolinguistic minorities, and as participants, or not, in upward mobility in terms of socioeconomic class. This volume addresses the question of how language choice constructs and reproduces social identities and language ideologies. Through critical discussion of language ideologies in communities in the U.S. and in Germany, and linguistic ethnographies of bilingual classrooms within these communities, links between language ideologies and social identification fi are examined. In the U.S. classroom, the children are all native speakers of Mexican Spanish who are in a transitional bilingual program; in Germany, the children are of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and are in a program which aims to have the children learn and maintain two languages, German and English. The U.S. children are poor and live in a rural Midwestern setting; the children in Germany are middle or upper middle class and live in the nation’s capital, Berlin. In these two very diff fferent settings we can see how social class and ‘race’/ethnicity are linked to language use by pre-teen bilinguals. Through an analysis of these data, we can both make generalizations about the role of language choice in constructing societal norms and see how specifi fic ideologies are reproduced through social behavior. In the following two sections of this chapter, bilingual discourse is defi fi ned as relevant for this study. The next section introduces social theory in general and social constructionist perspectives for the study of language choice and social identifi fication in particular. The subsequent section addresses the concept of hybrid identities and multilingualism. The final fi section of this chapter introduces the topic of language ideologies, specififi cally those related to bilingualism.

BILINGUAL DISCOURSE I use the term bilingual discourse as a broad term that encompasses all types of combinations of two languages. The choice not to use the term codeswitching for this phenomenon is based on the multiple meanings and associations, and ultimately limitations, of the term. First, there is a

Introduction

3

large body of research on structural constraints on codeswitching which is largely irrelevant to this study, as the focus here is language use in the construction of social identity. Second, there is a long-standing debate attached to the term codeswitching for single lexical items from one language embedded in another. Are they properly considered nonce borrowings (that is, loanwords not established within the language, used just ‘for the nonce’) or codeswitching? (See Poplack et al 1989, Sankoff ff et al 1990 for work on the nonce borrowing side of the controversy, and Myers-Scotton 1990b, 1993b for research arguing for inclusion of single lexical items in analyses of codeswitching). Finally, a more recent perspective on codeswitching distinguishes between bilingual discourse in which individual switches are seen to carry social meaning and discourse in which elements from two or more languages are used as a code in itself. Some researchers (e.g., Gafaranga and Torras 2002) defi fi ne codeswitching in a way that excludes the latter. My defi fi nition of bilingual discourse stems from, perhaps ironically, a traditional defi fi nition of codeswitching from Gumperz (1982): the juxtaposition of two languages within one interaction. This includes things that other researchers call codeswitching, but also bilingual discourse of types that have been excluded from this category by some researchers. For the rest of this volume, I will use the term bilingual discourse as a cover term for all diff fferent types of phenomena involving elements of two languages in speech. I will restrict my use of the term codeswitching to instances where there is a common collocation for a concept that employs this term; for instance, I will discuss flagged codeswitching (Poplack 1987, Poplack et al. 1989) and Myers-Scotton’s term codeswitching as an unmarked choice (Myers-Scotton 1993a) to refer to particular types of codeswitching as described by these authors. These terms will be defi fi ned below. The following examples show the range of uses I include here: language switches within a word (see example 1), use of elements from two codes within a sentence (example 2), switching within a turn (example 3), or language alternation within a conversation (as in example 4; please see appendix A for a key to the transcripts). Switching back and forth by one individual speaker (as in examples 1–3) is part of the linguistic behavior described by the term bilingual discourse, as is a change in language from one speaker to the next (as in 4). This analysis concerns all such uses of two languages within an interaction, or even across interactions, involving bilingual speakers as they construct their social identities. (1) Bilingual discourse within a word (German/English) Linea darf man ja auch skip-en Lines may one yes also skip-inf ‘One is allowed to skip lines.’ (4KSAT)

4

Bilingual Pre-Teens

(2 Bilingual discourse within a sentence (English/German) Now setzt dich hin and read it. Now set yourself down and read it ‘Now sit down and read it.’ (5DSPT) (3) Bilingual discourse within a turn (English/German) Come on, Mathias! Komm! ‘Come on, Mathias! Come!’ (5 DSPT) (4) Bilingual discourse within a conversation (Spanish/English) 1 A: Íbamos a ir al bosque. ‘We were going to go to the forest.’ 2 D: but it started raining and xxx 3 K: Ha. ¿Con la escuela? ¿(O) con:: tu familia? ‘Oh. With school? Or with your family?’ 4 A: No. ‘No.’ 5 M: /Con la escuela./ ‘With school.’ 6 A: /Con las cl/ases. ‘With our classes.’ 7 D: Todos (los) xxx ‘All (the) xxx.’ 8 L: All the school. (X412) Although this analysis is concerned with all of these patterns of bilingual discourse, this is not to say that they are considered equivalent in terms of social meaning; indeed, the entire premise of this analysis is that they are not. As mentioned above, there is a long-standing controversy in the field fi of bilingualism about the status of single lexical items, with some researchers claiming that these must be classifi fied as nonce borrowings, not codeswitching. I suggest that this issue, at least to the extent that it is relevant in this analysis, is a diff fference in terminology. There is relative agreement that the use of single lexical items from a second language in a fi first is often the precursor of borrowing. Words are fi rst used by bilinguals and then, if they catch on, are adopted by monolinguals. The important distinction, for my purposes, is whether the singly occurring lexical item is recognized as coming from the original language. That is, are English words used in German advertisements such as Flat rate perceived as English, or are they loanwords that have become part of the German language? Do Spanish speakers who use the word troca for ‘truck’ recognize this as an adapted borrowing from English or it is simply a lexical item from a specifi fic dialect of Spanish? The critical diff fference is in socio-pragmatic meaning; does the lexical item connote bilingualism, or merely a particular way of speaking the recipient language? I include the use of single lexical items in this analysis to show

Introduction

5

that these uses of words from a second language can play various roles in the construction of speaker stance and identity. If we assume that the way we speak carries social meaning—which you must, otherwise you would not be reading this book—the question then is what aspect of bilingual discourse is meaningful. Within a variety of approaches to bilingual discourse, the focus is how individual switches from one language to another function to provide contextualization cues, contribute to the performance of social identity, or position the speaker with reference to what is being said. Such meanings are, of course, highly culturally specifi fic and context dependent. Much of the analysis of this book will look at such meanings. For example, in Chapter 5, I will discuss how speaking German is an index of peer group membership, and responding to a peer’s German utterances in English can be a way of indicating social distance. Simultaneously, the choice of English constructs the speaker as a member of the educated elite. This analysis rests on knowledge of the social context on (at least) three different ff levels. First, ethnographic observation is necessary to make the claim that German is an index of peer group membership. Second, an understanding of the educational system within which these speakers operate is necessary to see the connection between mastering English and their success in secondary school. Finally, we must recognize the social values of these two languages on the societal level—English is a prestigious international language, and speaking English part of being an educated German. However, there is another way of using two languages in conversation that has been recognized in several diff fferent theoretical approaches to bilingual discourse, namely the use of elements of two (or more) languages as a code in and of itself. Myers-Scotton (1993a) calls this codeswitching as an unmarked choice, and describes this form of bilingual discourse as most likely in situations where there is no overt conflict fl between the two languages (or more aptly, between the two social groups associated with the two languages), when the speakers are well-acquainted, and if the situation is a casual one (Myers-Scotton 1993a: 119). Auer (1984: 9) refers to this phenomenon as ‘the creation of a new code’. For Gafaranga and Torras (2002), this does not fit fi into their defi fi nition of codeswitching, but is instead ‘language alternation as the medium’ (Gafaranga and Torras 2002: 4), that is, alternating between two (or more) languages is itself the medium of communication. Despite these terminological and taxonomic differences, ff there is agreement here that this phenomenon is diff fferent from bilingual discourse in which individual switches are assigned social or functional meaning. The occurrence of this phenomenon—which I will refer to as codeswitching as an unmarked choice—will be analyzed in these data in terms of its alignment with language ideologies and its impact on identity construction. For example, in Chapter 3, I suggest that some of the Spanish-English bilinguals use codeswitching as an unmarked choice as a challenge to both an essentialist identification fi as ‘Mexicans’ (which would

6

Bilingual Pre-Teens

prescribe the use of monolingual Spanish) and to the hegemony of English (which would dictate the use of monolingual English). Again, this analysis is informed by an understanding of wider societal norms, classroom norms, and the individual repertoires of the speakers. I would like to reiterate that my inclusion of all forms of bilingual discourse in this analysis is not indicative of a lack of recognition of the forms and functions of diff fferent ways of combining languages. The precise point I wish to make is that diff fferent ways of using two (or more) languages contribute to the reproduction of language ideologies and the construction of social identities in diff fferent ways. For instance, in Chapter 5, I will discuss instances of flagged codeswitching, which is bilingual discourse in which attention is called to the change in language through comment, laughter, or repair. This type of bilingual discourse functions to call attention to the marked nature of using words from more than one language in an utterance. It positions bilingual discourse as something that should be noted as unusual speech. This has a starkly different ff function in terms of identity construction than cases in which codeswitching itself is the unmarked code choice; in such situations, switching back and forth between languages has become a code in itself, and it is considered the appropriate way to speak in a given situation. I suggest that both fl agged codeswitching and codeswitching as an unmarked choice indicate an awareness of monolingual norms, but serve to position speaker diff fferently in relation to them. The framework for the discussion of this positioning is discussed in more detail in the next section.

SOCIAL THEORY, IDENTITIES, AND IDEOLOGIES This section will give a brief introduction to the broader social theories relevant for this research, namely critical and post-structuralist theories, outlining the basic concepts which inform this analysis. I will then move on to the narrower focus of social constructionist approaches to the study of identities.

Post-Structuralist Theories Work done within post-structuralist frameworks can be seen as in contrast to positivist approaches which assume an independent, knowable world which is stable in nature and functions to structure social practices. Poststructuralism, in contrast, holds that social practices produce and reproduce the social world, including institutions, ideologies and identities. Thus as Foucault (1980) has argued, the self is not fi xed, but is something which is positioned and repositioned through discourse. Gee (1990, 1992, 1999), uses the term Discourses (with a capital ‘D’ to describe language in use combined with other social behaviors and beliefs which construct social

Introduction

7

categories and the societal values of these categories. These Discourses are resources in identity construction, as discussed by Baxter (2002: 829), ‘Individuals both negotiate and are shaped by their subject positions within a range of different ff and often confl fl icting (D)iscourses, which vary according to historical, cultural or social context.’ Within this theoretical approach, there is no social reality that can be empirically proven to be true; as Foucault (1972: 49) notes, discourses form the objects of which they speak. In other words, social realities are discursively produced. They are not fixed and static but subject to change through social practices. This means that speakers’ identities can be continually reconstructed and may be redefi fined through discourse; they do not exist outside of discourse (see Baxter 2002, drawing on the work of Foucault 1980). One particularly notable strand of thought within this perspective has been the concept of performativity (Butler 1990, 1993, 2004) which has focused in particular on gender and sexuality as performances. Here, again, the perspective is that gender and sexual identities do not exist outside of their construction through social behavior. Another term that arises from Foucault’s work is that of subjectivities. This term is used to describe individuals’ representations of self in relation to those around them and also with respect to the propositions and attitudes expressed within the discourse (Finegan 1995; Foucault 1972). Individuals are not fi xed subjects, but position themselves, and are positioned by others, in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways. Thus power relations between individuals are constantly shifting. We speak of identity in terms of intersubjectivity, recognizing the dialogical aspect of the negotiation of subjectivities. No individual is solely responsible for their own identity and position vis-à-vis others in an interaction; this is something that is jointly constructed. This will be discussed further below, in the sections on stance and social identities. Post-structuralist discourse analysis, as discussed by Baxter (2002) and based on work by Baktin (1981) and Derrida (1991), seeks to deconstruct the dominant Discourses and make multiple voices heard. It looks at individual speakers as having agency and being able to resist, challenge, and subvert dominant discourses, and thus to change the social reality.

Critical Theories What has been called the new critical paradigm in linguistics (Bloomaert and Bulcaen 2000) most commonly takes the form of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), or Critical Linguistics more broadly (Wodak 2011). Critical theory rises in part out of post-structuralist theory that argues that discourse both constitutes social norms and ideologies and is conditioned by them. Critical theories are also derived from neo-Marxist theory (Gramsci 1971) which focuses on inequality and power relationships. CDA is

8

Bilingual Pre-Teens

designed to look at power structures as they are manifested through language use, in particular hidden or naturalized ideological relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control. Although explicitly stated ideologies may also be analyzed, CDA is particularly intended to unveil connections between language and social structure which are not easily visible. It looks at how these relationships are not just represented but produced and reproduced through discourse. An underlying assumption is that ideologies are present both on the level of language structure and language events (Fairclough 1995). A key concept here is that of hegemony. Hegemony is power that is achieved through consent; asymmetries of power are naturalized and accepted across social groups, whether the members of those groups benefit fi from the hegemonic ideologies or not. For instance, many speakers of nonStandard dialects subscribe to the ideology that their dialects are inferior to the Standard dialect, which is often seen as linguistically superior. The hegemonic discourse of the superiority of Standard dialects is perpetuated through the use of these dialects by people in power and the explicit devaluation of non-Standard ways of speaking. This will be discussed further in Chapter 2 in connection with language ideologies.

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF ‘RACE’ AND ETHNICITY The idea that race and ethnicity are socially constructed also follows from the above discussion. This perspective is in contrast with common perceptions of ‘race’ as a biologically determined way of categorizing people that is neither debatable nor changeable. However, phenotypic characteristics fall on a continuum, and not in neat separate groups, and the boundaries between the groups are culturally determined. Hence, I use of the term ‘race’ in quotation marks, to indicate that it is a social construct. More importantly, the concept of ‘race’ is not just about dividing people into categories for no reason; those categories are used to explain the behavior of their members (Wade 2008: 178). Relevant in this research is the relationship between ‘race’ and citizenship or national belonging. Although the U.S. is diverse in terms of the origins of its citizens, for some the prototypical U.S. American is White and of European origin; people of color are far more likely to be assumed to be immigrants or foreigners than those considered White. In Germany, there has long been an ethno-national ideology that has relied on the concept of descent to defi fine national belonging. As will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4, until fairly recently this ideology was codifi fied in citizenship laws. The idea of Germans as an ethnic group, defi fi ned not just through shared customs but also common bloodlines, still persists despite changes in both policies and population demographics. The construction of racial and ethnic identity in these contexts draws on ideologies of a hierarchical order of racial groups, and in

Introduction

9

both of these societies those categorized as White are considered not just the numerical majority but also the culturally dominant group. The use of language in constructing these identities is one of the issues addressed in this volume. As will be stressed throughout, language choices do not directly index ethnic or national identity (or any other aspect of identity, for that matter). That is, speaking German is not necessarily part of a construction of German identity. Similarly, speaking Spanish does not automatically indicate that the speaker is constructing herself as Latina, although of course these codes may have such associations. In some cases, explicit claims may contribute to the construction of ethno-national ideologies, or undermine them. For example, in an interaction with a girl in the Berlin classroom, I indicated that I had (erroneously) thought her father was German and her mother Indian. She responded by saying that both her parents were Indian and, holding her bare arm in front of my face, said, ‘That’s the original color of Indians’, a statement which clearly links phenotypic characteristics with nationality. In another interaction, however, she said that she sometimes thinks of herself as Indian and sometimes thinks of herself as German. This is a clear challenge to the idea of a fixed fi national identity as well as to the idea that German nationality is dependent on having German ethnicity.

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITIES Identity, as defi fi ned by Kroskrity, is ‘the linguistic construction of membership in one or more social groups or categories’ (Kroskrity 2000: 111). Identity may be constructed through a variety of linguistic means. For instance, the use of certain lexical forms or language varieties may contribute to the identifi fication of a speaker, as might particular communicative practices, such as silence, greeting formulas, or gaze. Identity is neither an attribute nor a possession, but a process of semiosis (Mendoza-Denton 2002). That is, language is a sign, and this sign must then be ascribed meaning by the hearer. As discussed by Heller (2007), the concept of identity, along with ‘community’ and ‘language’, are ‘heuristic devices which capture some elements of how we organize ourselves, but which have to be understood as social constructs’ (Heller 2007: 13). In this research, the primary focus is the meaning of code choice. Within this framework, there is no one-to-one correspondence between a particular code and a particular social meaning or identity. The term ‘identity’ is used here to describe a primarily social and not a psychological phenomenon; identity is not the source but the outcome of linguistic practice (Bucholtz and Hall 2005). As noted by Brubaker and Cooper (2000), the term identity has been used to mean somewhat contradictory things, in some cases a fundamental ‘sameness’ of group members or an abiding and foundational aspect of a person’s self. These are not, clearly, the ideas about

10 Bilingual Pre-Teens identity which form the basis for this analysis. Instead, this work uses the term identity to invoke the interactively developed self that is multiple, fragmented, and fluctuating. It is also used to discuss the speakers’ identifi fication with social categories of all types—not just enduring social categories such as ‘race’ but also situational roles such as ‘class clown’ and interactional stances of similarity and diff fference. In this way, this work is in alignment with researchers such as Fuss (1995) and Wortham (2006, 2008) who talk about social identifi fication as a process which incorporates both institutionalized practices of classification fi and localized events of identifi fication. Building on this perspective on the study of identities, the extent to which they are elective and self-constructed emerges as an important aspect. In some cases, identity categorizations may be imposed upon individuals by others (Kroskrity 2000: 113) and they are certainly constrained by others’ perceptions (Bucholtz and Hall 2005). The study of language and identity is the study of the linguistic means through which membership assignations are made and how language is used to create, embrace, resist or alter group boundaries. An important construct used in this analysis, following Bucholtz and Hall (2008), is the concept of stance. Stancetaking is operationalized in this work as how interlocutors position themselves with regard to each other, the form and content of an utterance, and ideologies and macrosocial identity categories. Speaker stance is achieved through its relation to other people, positions, and social categories (Gardner 2002, Kärkkäinen 2006, Kiesanen 2007). Particular codes—in this study, ways of speaking identified fi as English, Spanish, German, or some mixture of two languages—are associated with particular participant roles or identities, and these associations are part of the stances taken by the speakers (Johnstone 2007, 2009). However, stance is not merely the result of the speaker’s linguistic behavior, but is dialogically constructed; it can be affi ffi rmed or contested by other participants in the interaction (Jaffe ff 2009a, Scheibman 2007). The concept of stance fits into the post-structuralist and critical frameworks as stance is seen as both context-shaping and context-renewing (Goodwin 2006: 443) and access to the resources needed to take on particular stances are limited by social, institutional, and political structures in society (Jaffe ff 2009a, 2009b) As Jaff ffe (2009c) shows in her research in the classroom, teachers’ use of a minority language can lend that language legitimacy. The use of the minority language by students without the teacher’s endorsement might be seen quite diff fferently—as rebellion, for example. Because of the institutional roles they hold, teachers’ language use is seen as a model, and through these roles they can position students as authorities in their heritage languages and make that a valued position in the classroom culture. Social identity can be seen as the culmination of stances over time (Jaffe ff 2009a), although the link is often portrayed as indirect—over time stances contribute to what we think of as speech styles, and particular speech styles

Introduction

11

are associated with certain social identities (Johnstone 2007, 2009, Bauman 2001). In the following section, a framework for the analysis of social identity construction will be outlined.

The Five Principles The framework which is adopted here for the study of identity in interaction, and which will be outlined in detail in the next section, is that of Bucholtz and Hall (2003, 2004, 2005, 2008). Within the framework there are five principles which will be applied to the data: the emergence principle, the positionality principle, the indexicality principle, the relationality principle, and the partialness principle. Although these principles can be applied to all language in interaction, in the following section they will be exemplifi fied in terms of their application to multilingual interactions. The emergence principle is the key underlying concept in the study of identity: identity emerges from social interactions. Although named social categories (e.g., gender categories, nationalities, ethnic groups, etc.) may exist, the identity of an individual as a member of such a group is something that is socially constructed. The positionality principle is the idea that identities encompass different levels of social categories and roles. A speaker may identify herself as part of a demographic category or a local, ethnographically specific fi cultural position, or may adopt a stance or role which is specifi fic to a particular interaction. In the analysis of these data, relevant macro categories include nationalities, gender categories, ethnic groups, culturally specifi fic categories such as membership in a particular socio-economic class, and locally relevant categories such as being German-speaking or a Spanish-English bilingual, a dedicated student, or the best friend of another student. A signifi ficant aspect of the analysis will be how the ties between these levels are made socially relevant by the speakers. The indexicality principle states that there are four main ways of indexing social identities. First, one may make overt mention of an identity category, for example, ‘I’m Mexican’ or ‘I’m English Mother Tongue’. Second, a speaker may make utterances with implicatures and presuppositions regarding one’s own or others’ identity positions. Speaking a particular code to someone usually presupposes that they understand that language. If a speaker intentionally uses a language that is not known to an addressee, an implicature arises—the speaker may be trying to exclude the addressee or show off ff her competence in a particular language, for instance. Third, identities may emerge through the display of evaluative and epistemic orientations to the discourse, participant roles, and the interactional footings of other interlocutors. That is, a speaker’s identity is in part constructed through her attitude about the content of the discourse,

12

Bilingual Pre-Teens

including approval or disapproval but also her framing of the information of an utterance as known, questionable, hypothetical, etc. Further, a speaker identifi fies herself through her evaluation of the other speakers’ roles and attitudes about the discourse. Again, we can readily fi nd examples of this in the study of language choice. A teacher in an English classroom may reprimand a student for speaking a language other than English, which, along with displaying her orientation to the ongoing talk, is an evaluation of the student’s role and how she is positioning herself. Fourth, identities are said to emerge through the use of varieties (or elements of varieties) which are ‘ideologically associated with specifi fic personas and groups’ (Bucholtz and Hall 2005: 594). Here language choice is most obviously part of identity construction. The use of a certain language (say, German) might be part of the construction of a peer identity for students who use English in the classroom and German on the playground. It may of course also be essential to the construction of German ethnic or national identity, and it is through such multiple associations that these different levels of identity may become intertwined. The fourth principle in Bucholtz and Hall’s framework is the relationality principle, which addresses tactics of intersubjectivity. Identities are constructed through diff fferent types of relations between speakers and these authors outline three pairs of oppositionalities. First, speakers may use language to produce similarity or difference between individuals or groups. For instance, when one of the boys in a 5th grade classroom says to the other ‘You’re a stupid German boy, and you don’t know how to speak English properly’ he is establishing not just a difference ff between himself and his addressee, but also between the German Mother Tongue and English Mother Tongue halves of the classroom. (See discussion of this in Chapter 5.) Second, speakers may also seek to establish a genuine identity (i.e., authenticity) through the mastery of certain languages (e.g., establishing a Latino identity through speaking Spanish fluently) or through explicit reference to their group membership qualifi fications. Conversely, they may also challenge such essentialist positions and deny the connection between ways of speaking and social identity; this process is called denaturalization. For example, a child may lay claims to being German because of cultural and linguistic reasons despite having parents of another nationality, or may point out examples of people who are Latino but do not speak Spanish. The third tactic for intersubjectivity dealt with by Bucholtz and Hall is the opposing pair of authorization and illegitimation. The former is an attempt to legitimate an identity through some sort of outside authority, often institutional authority. For example, in one Berlin classroom a student who had been born in the U.S. was assigned American identity by his classmates even though his linguistic and cultural competence was primarily German. This identity was based on the outside authority of citizenship laws. However, in some cases such claims may be deemed illegitimate

Introduction

13

because of other aspects—for example, because of an essentialist concept of ‘race’. In one instance in my fieldwork, a boy’s claim to U.S. American identity based on the fact that he was born in the U.S. and had a U.S. passport was greeted with skepticism by his peers because his parents were Korean. In this case it was not a law that granted authorization, but an ideology which led to illegitimation. The final fi principle of this framework for analyzing language and identity is the partialness principle, which outlines the constantly shifting nature of identities. Any construction of identity may be in part habitual and in part deliberate, in part assigned by others and in part due to the desire to converge or diverge from other individuals, roles, or stances in the ongoing interaction. All of these aspects of identity construction are intertwined in everyday linguistic performances.

MULTILINGUALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF HYBRIDITY Although the above discussion of Bucholtz and Hall’s framework raises many of the issues to be addressed in this volume, there is a great deal of previous research on how social identities are constructed in multilingual communities which I would like to synthesize here. Scholars agree that it is too simplistic to say that the use of a certain language constructs a certain identity, either in the intentions of the speaker or in the mind of the hearer. Languages have a myriad of meanings, and speakers have manifold identities. For example Bailey (2001, 2002) discusses the multiple identities of Dominican Americans and how they use Spanish and diff fferent varieties of English to variably align themselves with the Dominican Republic or their U.S. community, with Whites or with Blacks, as well as many other nuanced aspects of these identities depending on the social context. As noted by Blackledge and Pavlenko (2001), in multilingual contexts all identity options, including ethnicity, are open for negotiation. I would add that this is not limited to such contexts, but is made more complex by the use of multiple codes. It is also important to note that these identities change over time. In the present study of pre-teen bilinguals, changing language competencies are part of how identities change. Children who arrive in the U.S. speaking only Spanish, or in Germany speaking only English, do not initially have the linguistic resources or the motivation to construct identities as bilinguals. This quickly changes, however, and children who construct themselves as monolinguals one month may be using their second language as a language of authority the next. Further, their identities are constantly variable and contrastive. A child in the Berlin school may flaunt fl her U.S. American identity during English class because it gives her the credentials of an English speaker, and during recess use German to mark herself as a member of her peer group, even to the extent of excluding an English monolingual child. This plurality of identities is often noted in recent research (e.g., Bailey

14 Bilingual Pre-Teens 2001, Bolonyai 2005, Cashman 2005, Chun 2001, Lo 1999, Miller 2003) and is assumed to be a key aspect to the research—all speakers have multiple identities which they enact in different ff contexts. I will also address the idea of hybridity in this analysis of identity (for earlier discussions of hybridity, see Bhaba 1994 and Papastergiadis 1997). Although analysts within social constructivist frameworks often reject the concept of hybridity, as it is dependent on an ideal of essentialism and not the actual experience of identifi fication, I suggest that eschewing the concept of hybridity misses two aspects of identity that are, to my mind, essential. First, although a major focus of social constructionism is to do away with essentialist categories for identities, such pre-conceived, named social categories are the lynchpin of popular culture. Although as researchers we seek to analyze how nuanced, shifting, and multiple identities are constructed, we cannot ignore the ideas speakers have about fixed, permanent, and singular identities. Second, we are all members of various social categories that we simultaneously enact. everyone constructs a hybrid identity in some way or another, but some kinds of hybridity are more socially salient than others. We generally have no diffi fficulty in accepting that someone who is a barista by day and is a drummer in a rock band by night. We find it commonplace if professionals and public figures also have identities as private people—for example, as spouses and parents—and that these diff fferent aspects of their identities are sometimes merged. However, some multiple memberships are less socially acceptable than others and involve being part of two named social categories that are seen, at least by some, as confl flicting or even mutually exclusive. In the U.S., the acceptability of one type of hybridity, being a hyphenated American, has been variable since Roosevelt’s early condemnation of such (see the next chapter for more discussion of this ideology). Yet the idea that some people are simply ‘American’ and others’ Americanness must be qualified fi (e.g., African American, Mexican American) is a constant in U.S. society. This means that there is an ideology within which some people are members of the default category ‘American’ and others are viewed as being not just atypical of this social category, but also not wholly one thing or another. In the eyes of the beholder, they are hybrids. Linguistically, such categories are often constructed through hyphenated or qualifi fied terms. In the U.S., this has given birth to the term Latino American (which some speakers use to make this group linguistically parallel to African American, Asian American, etc.). The meaning conveyed here is that while some Americans need no qualification, fi others do not fit the prototype. Although there are also terms for diff fferent types of what are generally considered White Americans—German American, Italian American, Polish American—these terms generally have a narrower context of use in today’s society. That is, in hegemonic ideologies about ethnicity, the ethnic background of members of these groups perceived as White Americans is relevant in fewer contexts, but a Latino, African American, or Asian American’s ethnicity is almost always salient in their identity. On a national

Introduction

15

level, ethnic groups that we identify as White have largely ceased to be socio-politically signifi ficant. For example, we do not talk about the voting patterns of Irish or Italian Americans, but the ‘Latino vote’ or the ‘African American vote’ is a concern for politicians. We see some similar ways of talking about ethnic diversity in Germany. In the German language, common (although not necessarily universally accepted) terms to refer to people of German citizenship and particular non-German ancestries, or of mixed ancestry, include Afrodeutsche ‘AfroGermans,’ Turkendeutsche ‘Turkish Germans,’ Halb-Inder ‘Half East Indian,’ Halb-Ire ‘Half Irish’—in the last two examples, the unstated other half is German. Again, these terms imply that the ancestry of those being referred to is salient in their identity in ways that it may not be for those who are viewed as ethnic Germans. All of these terms, in English and in German, focus on the non-normativity of the named group and attribute it to a hybrid quality. Such ethnic and national backgrounds, common as they are in the U.S. and in Germany, are still stigmatized in many circles. The external assignment of hybridity as indexed by these labels carries consequences. Identities that conflate fl or subvert long-established categories that are believed to be monolithic and mutually exclusive are marked as non-normative in many contexts, sometimes by speakers themselves and sometimes by others. Linguistic hybridity, which is equally commonplace, is also equally stigmatized. Use of bilingual discourse is often linked to ethnic or cultural hybridity. Codeswitching and borrowing are often seen as challenges to ‘pure’, ‘correct’ or ‘good’ forms of language use. What Baktin terms intentional hybridity (Baktin 1981: 358) is a challenge to hegemonic ideologies in the U.S. and Germany, which not only idealize strict separation of languages, but also associate distinct groups with each linguistic code. The mixing of diff fferent languages to construct an identity that does not fit named social categories is a resistance to more than the language ideologies that are the focus of this research. Mixing languages also challenges ideologies about the order and continuity of cultural groups and is therefore often viewed negatively (for example, see Boswell 2005). The present research contributes to the small but growing body of literature which links language practices to hybrid identities and the concept of transnationalism (Auer 2004, Bhatt 2008, Gonzalez 2001, Jaffe ff 2000, Sanchez 2007, Spitulnik 1999, Swigart 1994, Woolard 1999). This research also seeks to address the tension between speakers’ concepts of social categories and the fluidity of identities within a social constructionist framework.

IDENTITIES AND LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES Work by Blackledge and Pavlenko (2001) addresses the issue of how social identities of individuals are subject to power relations in society. Speakers’

16

Bilingual Pre-Teens

identities, and the linguistic means they use to construct them, are shaped by the language ideologies that surround them. The hierarchy of languages and the groups that speak them within a society have great influence fl on how people perceive their own identities. The current research seeks to assess how diff fferent communities of practice give rise to diff fferent approaches to the construction of identity by pre-teen speakers of specifi fic language pairs. As will be discussed in the next chapters, there are some similar language ideologies at play in the two societies under analysis: Berlin, Germany and southern Illinois, U.S. In particular, the ideology of normative monolingualism exists in both settings, albeit in slightly different ff forms. I will explore how this ideology, which is potentially problematic for children who are participants in bilingual education programs, influences fl children’s linguistic behavior in a variety of ways. In keeping with a long European tradition, Germany has a caveat in the normative monolingualism ideology that allows for elite bilingualism. In other words, the value of profi ficiency in (some) languages other than the majority language is acknowledged. Based on the uses of language in public arenas, as well as the norms for teaching languages in schools, English and French can be presumed to be the most prestigious foreign languages in Germany. English is the most common lingua franca in public realms (discussed in the next chapter) and is used frequently for cultural cachet in advertising (Piller 2001, 2003). In most German states, English is also the fi rst language taught as a foreign language, although in some regions French is the fi rst and English the second. The ideology behind these practices is that profi ficiency in English and French is useful and indexes the status of an educated European. Knowledge of English does not link a speaker to a non-German heritage or an immigrant milieu, as speaking Turkish or Arabic does, but to the German educated elite. Such ideology is largely absent in the U.S. context. Looking at the same criteria as I mentioned for the German situation, public use of foreign languages and schooling, we see a vastly diff fferent picture. There is strident insistence in some circles that English should be the only language needed for public interaction within the United States (see Baron 1990 for a discussion of the English Only movement). In the southern Illinois context, public use of foreign languages in signs is limited to translations into languages other than English (almost exclusively Spanish) and use of foreign languages in advertising is limited to situations in which the language is seen as directly related to the product (e.g., the Chihuahua who says ‘Yo quiero Taco Bell’ [‘I love Taco Bell’] in a Taco Bell ad campaign launched in 1997). And although there is some lip service to the usefulness of foreign language learning, in most cases instruction in languages other than English begins quite late and foreign language profi ficiency requirements are minimal or nonexistent in high schools and universities. This diff fference between the U.S. and Germany in terms of attitudes about bilingualism is shown starkly in the diff fferences in meaning of the

Introduction 17 term bilingual education in these two societies. In the U.S., the term encompasses a great a variety of approaches to education, but most often refers to methods of educating Limited English Profi ficiency students by educating them partially (and transitionally) in their fi rst language. In this sense, it carries the connotation of remedial education. When people in the U.S. say they oppose bilingual education, they most frequently mean that they do not favor fi rst language education for linguistic minorities; in most cases, it is not a statement about how they feel about native English speakers learning other languages. The term bilingual education can, of course, also be used to refer to dual language (also called dual immersion or two-way immersion) programs in the U.S., which provide maintenance bilingual education for minority language speakers and d for English speakers. Such programs are not, however, the usual referent when the term bilingual education is used. In Germany, reference to bilingual education is quite diff fferent. Again, it may refer to a range of diff fferent programs, but all of them are aimed at maintenance of two languages, and most of them have as their goal teaching a foreign language (most commonly English) to mainstream majority language (i.e., German) speakers. In other words, whereas the default understanding of bilingual education in the U.S. is immigrant education, the default understanding of bilingual education in Germany is elite education. The speakers from these two countries in my research are therefore positioned—and, as I will show, position themselves—very diff fferently with regard to the hegemonic language ideology of normative monolingualism. But this is only the beginning of the values shared in their communities of practice. The institutions in which they are immersed and the philosophies of their classroom teachers also play a signifi ficant role in how language is used in each individual classroom. In the next chapter, I will discuss in more detail the language ideologies surrounding multilingualism in the U.S. in general and the specific fi situation in the rural environment of southern Illinois. From there, I will focus on the ideologies found in the rural community in which the Spanish-English bilingual classrooms are situated. The linguistic ethnography of these classrooms is presented in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, I will present a detailed analysis of language ideologies in Berlin, Germany, and provide a background of the school at which I did the research in the German-English bilingual classroom. The linguistic ethnography of this classroom will be discussed in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 is the conclusion.

2

Normative Monolingualism in the U.S. Immigrant Bilingualism and the Stigmatization of Spanish

In this chapter I introduce the main ideology I will be focusing on in this volume, normative monolingualism, as well as a framework for the study of language ideology. As normative monolingualism takes somewhat different ff forms in diff fferent communities, the ideology in the U.S. in general and in southern Illinois in particular will be explored in this chapter. (See Chapter 4 for a discussion of normative monolingualism in Germany.)

LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY Language ideology is defi fi ned by Errington (2000) as ideas about language structure and use relative to social contexts. Much work on language ideologies is done within a critical paradigm, and the current research fits fi with this perspective and focuses on hegemonic discourses and their consequences. In this chapter, I examine the infl fluences of competing language ideologies on language use in an educational context and discuss potential problems as well as implications for educational practices. Hegemonic ideologies achieve their dominance not only through perpetuation by those whose interests they serve, but also by wide acceptance by the dominant and the dominated that these ideologies are natural and universal (Woolard 1998). Gal (1998), Silverstein (1996) and Kroskrity (2004) discuss how although hegemony is never complete, all other ideologies must relate to the dominant ideology. Even if other ideologies overtly challenge the hegemonic ideology, reference to the dominant ideology contributes to its hegemony. In this research, I discuss a hegemonic ideology I call normative monolingualism, which is pervasive in the United States as well as in Germany (and many other countries throughout the world). This ideology encompasses two main tenets: fi rst, that monolingualism is the natural state for a nation and second, that individual multilingualism is valued only when the languages are prestigious and the codes are kept strictly separate. There are, of course, competing ideologies about bilingualism, some of which are present among the speakers in this research. However, any ideology of

Normative Monolingualism in the U.S.

19

linguistic pluralism necessarily makes reference to normative monolingualism, if only to deny its relevance. This research on hegemonic ideologies addresses how they are part of the production and reproduction of social inequality. This work relies on Bourdieu’s discussion of symbolic power and symbolic domination (Bourdieu 1991). Symbolic value is achieved within what Bourdieu terms a linguistic community, traditionally defi fi ned as a ‘group of people who use the same system of linguistic signs, the minimum of communication which is the precondition for economic production and even for symbolic domination’ (Bourdieu 1991: 45). Bourdieu stresses that the domination of one variety rests on the complicity of speakers of other varieties, who recognize the dominant variety as dominant. We see this in the ideology of normative monolingualism in the United States. Although the acceptance of the supremacy of English monolingualism only serves the interests of English monolinguals, it is often embraced by others within the linguistic community whose interests are not served (i.e., multilinguals). This leads to instances of speakers of minority languages who do not pass on their language to their children because they feel it is in the child’s best interest to speak English and only English. The domination of the offi fficial language has its source in political authority, but the relationship between language and authority is circular. Once recognized as the language for government operation, education, etc., the offi fficial language may lend authority to those who speak it and those who are considered experts in it (e.g., educators, authors of dictionaries, national language societies). For example, (Standard) English in the U.S. has gained authority due to the practice of using it as the language of education, government, and so on, which in turn means that speaking English grants individuals authority they would not have in another language—assuming, of course, that they can ‘pass’ as monolingual or native speakers of English. A framework for looking at ideologies has been suggested in research by Gal and Irvine (1995). Their approach consists of the application of three concepts to ideological systems: iconicity, recursiveness, and erasure. Iconicity means that a language comes to be not only an index of a certain group, but an icon for that group. It does not merely ‘point to’ the social group, but is assumed to be a representation of that group, sharing characteristics with it. Taking the case of normative monolingualism in the U.S., we fi nd that Spanish has become an icon of Latinos in the U.S. It is a language commonly perceived to be ‘easy’, which fits with the common perception of its speakers as being simple rural folk. Spanish is seen as linguistically inferior to English. As will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter, use of Mock Spanish (e.g., no problemo, el cheapo) illustrate the attitude that Spanish is simply English with–o endings on nouns and not a ‘real’ language (Hill 1995, 1998 2005, 2008; Barrett 2006). It follows that speakers of this language, seen as so inferior to English in terms of complexity, are also

20 Bilingual Pre-Teens inferior (intellectually and possibly morally) to English speakers. Finally, within this perspective Spanish does not belong in the U.S., just as its speakers are equally unwanted in America. Recursiveness means that a certain type of relationship (between social groups or languages) repeats itself on diff fferent levels in society. Recursiveness in U.S. language ideology can be found in the pervasive idea that certain ways of speaking are superior to others and there is only one ‘right’ way to speak a language. There is a hierarchy of languages, English being superior to Spanish (and other foreign languages). There is also a hierarchy of dialects of American English—varieties associated with the educated middle class, or those varieties sometimes referred to as ‘White’ ways of speaking, are perceived as being at the top. So the perspective of one ‘correct’ way of speaking and multiple inferior ways of speaking is seen on both the level of language as well as the language of dialect. We also see recursiveness in the application of this hierarchy to the social groups connected to these particular language varieties. Although the varieties thought to be superior are in reality not uniform or homogenous, they are seen as being one Standard code (Lippi-Green 1997). In terms of languages, English is a uniform entity which is contrasted with Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Hmong, etc., which are all also seen as homogenous. One sign of this is the common reference to any Spanish speaker as ‘Mexican’, indicating a lack of awareness about the variation within the Latino community. Finally, erasure is the phenomenon of ignoring or rendering invisible any practices which would contradict the hegemonic ideology. The ideology of normative monolingualism dictates that having one sole language within a national territory is the natural and ‘right’ way for a country to operate and that multilingualism is a feature of poor immigrant communities which are separate from so-called mainstream America. In order for this ideology to stand, several sociolinguistic realities must undergo erasure. Middle-class multilingual communities, the success of bilingual education programs, and the existence of many multilingual nations must be ignored or refuted—or, at the minimum, portrayed as exceptions to the rule. In addition, selective erasure of many aspects of the linguistic history of the U.S. must also take place, in which the multilingual nature of early settlements and maintenance of immigrant languages other than English are forgotten—along with the fact that English itself was a poor immigrant language when it arrived in what is now the United States of America. In Figure 2.1, we see a bumper sticker that challenges the erasure of this history by pointing out that Native American languages like Cherokee preceded English as the ‘rightful’ code in what is now the United States. Like most challenges to hegemonic ideologies, it necessarily evokes the hegemonic ideology as widespread—by echoing the rhetoric in the more commonly seen bumper sticker seen in Figure 2.2—while at the same time discrediting it.

Normative Monolingualism in the U.S.

Figure 2.1

Welcome to America—Now Speak Cherokee. Photo by author.

Figure 2.2

Welcome to America—Now Speak English. Photo by author.

21

How and where do we find evidence of ideologies? There are diff fferences of opinion among researchers about the sitings of ideology (see Woolard 1998: 9 for further discussion of this). Kroskrity (1998) maintains that naturalized ideologies are generally not explicitly addressed in discourse, but must be found in implicit messages; hegemonic ideologies are inevitably naturalized in this way. Bourdieu (1991) maintains that we must seek ideologies where they are least visible, in places like liberal rhetoric. Blackledge and Pavlenko (2002) assert that ideologies are not just visible in rhetoric but also in policy. Woolard (1998: 9) adds to this list ideological display in metalinguistic or metapragmatic discourse (i.e., discourse about how language is used), and linguistic practice itself. This last site is apparent in Kroskrity’s description of competing ideologies as ‘variations in ideas, ideals, and communicative practices’ (Kroskrity 2004: 496). In other words, ideologies infl fluence the way individuals speak. This is the position taken by Silverstein (1979, 1985, 1996), who argues that speakers’ ideas about the social meaning of language can infl fluence their use of linguistic forms and such usages can become part of language development and change. This idea of infl fluence between language ideology and linguistic practices is embraced in this research, specifi fically with regard to multilingual practices. As discussed by Bourdieu (1991), Silverstein (1985), and Rumsey (1990), language ideology and linguistic practices react to one another. For example, normative monolingualism dictates that bilingual discourse

22 Bilingual Pre-Teens is stigmatized. As stigmatized language, bilingual utterances may be flagged, that is, marked with commentary, laughter, or repair. This flagged codeswitching in turn reinforces the idea that bilingual discourse is not ‘normal’ discourse and thus contributes to the perpetuation of normative monolingualism as a hegemonic ideology. In some cases, alternative ideologies that challenge hegemonic ones may have great influence fl within certain social realms. For instance, in one of the classrooms in which the data for this study were collected, the classroom norm was bilingual. Bilingual discourse was accepted when used by the students and it was also strategically employed by the teacher. In these cases, the competing ideology of pluralism and acceptability of multilingual discourse trumped the hegemonic discourse of normative monolingualism in its infl fluence on the children’s linguistic practices within the classroom. It did not, however, erase all effects ff of the ideology of normative monolingualism nor did it eff ffectively compete with it outside of the classroom. In the current research, ideologies about multilingualism and the statuses of particular languages are sought primarily in language policy and public practices of language use, although some metalinguistic discourse is also included in the analysis. However, such policies and practices should be viewed as part of the construction of language ideologies and not merely a refl flection of them. The approach taken here is a dynamic one, looking at the ongoing relationship between ideologies, identities, and language use. In this chapter, I examine how language ideologies in the U.S. and in southern Illinois in particular are displayed in the public realm through policy and practice. I will discuss normative monolingualism in the U.S. in more detail and then introduce the specifi fic research setting in which the fieldwork on Spanish-English bilingualism was carried out. In the next chapter, I explore how these ideologies infl fluence the linguistic practices of pre-teen multilinguals in their classroom interactions.

NORMATIVE MONOLINGUALISM IN THE U.S.: ENGLISH ONLY The ideology of normative monolingualism is expressed through English Only discourse in the United States. This ideology revolves around the underlying ideas of monolingualism as the norm, linguistic diversity as an impediment to unity, and language as an important symbol of national character. This ideology, as mentioned above, relies on the erasure of the fact of multilingualism in the U.S. It also ignores the reality that a multilingual community can have one lingua franca for communication that can allow people to communicate eff ffectively and that many cohesive entities (e.g., nations, communities, families, etc.) incorporate linguistic diversity. Finally, this ideology also disregards other equally important aspects of

Normative Monolingualism in the U.S.

23

demographics that can divide or unite populations—‘race’/ethnicity, social class, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc. In the U.S., not just English, but English monolingualism is a symbol of American belonging. Theodore Roosevelt played on this sentiment in the early 1900s when he wrote: ‘we have room for but one language here, and that is the English language . . . ’ (Roosevelt 1919: 1). It is important to note the other parallels he draws in this speech: according to Roosevelt, there is room for but one fl ag, the American flag, and room for but one sole loyalty, the loyalty to the American people. Language is unambiguously made into a symbol of belonging and speaking English—and only English—is portrayed as the choice to be American. Here we see iconicity, as English monolingualism is a transparent representation of American identity. The alternative is, Roosevelt suggests, a ‘polyglot boarding house’ (Roosevelt 1919: 2)—implying that multilingualism brings with it a certain transience that assimilation to solid monolingualism can help immigrants avoid. The push for English Only legislation is a revival of this attitude. Although the sentiment Roosevelt voiced had never disappeared, it seemed to be given new life in the early 1980s. An Amendment to the Constitution was sought to make English the offi fficial language of the United States. Although this failed, as have subsequent bills decreeing English the ‘language of government’, attempts to pass such a bill continue (see http://www.us-english.org/ view/310 for an up-to-date list of proposed federal legislation). Legislation has also been sought at the state level with individual states creating policies naming English as their offi fficial language (Crawford 2008). What this means in terms of language practices varies widely. Illinois, for example, has a statute declaring English the offi fficial language of the state, but also has quite progressive bilingual education laws. As a symbolic statement, however, declaring English the offi fficial language is a clear reinforcement of the hegemony of normative monolingualism. In addition to such policies that refl flect public sentiment, it is also possible to fi nd public language use that is indicative of language ideologies. In the U.S. context we see public condemnation of the use of languages other than English. One notorious case involves Geno’s Steak House in Philadelphia which posts a sign requesting customers to order in English because ‘This is America’ (for the full story, see http://www.foxnews.com/ story/0,2933,198757,00.html). We see this sentiment in Figure 2.2, a bumper sticker that says ‘Welcome to America—Now Speak English’. There is also a Facebook page dedicated to complaints about having to press ‘1’ for English (https://www.facebook.com/pages/i-should-not-have-to-press1-for-english/189057582033). Although the people who hold these sentiments may be a minority, they certainly do not feel the need to hide their minority views—and I have never seen t-shirts or bumper stickers which sport mottos such as ‘bilinguals do it with many tongues’ or ‘My child is learning two languages at Roosevelt Elementary School!’ Public displays

24 Bilingual Pre-Teens of opinion support the idea that we should stigmatize and reject languages other than English. The rhetoric involved in normative monolingualism claims that a common language and assimilation brings unity. Here we see the erasure of a good portion of early U.S. history in which emigrants of different ff lands joined together on various fronts, including the Revolutionary War, despite diff fferent community languages. This theme of unity, or uniformity, plays a large role in educational settings. Not only is English the language which symbolically shows belonging, it is also the language which is necessary to construct an identity as a good student. Although there is no objective reason why being bilingual could not be part of the profi file of a successful student, immigrant bilingualism is not prestigious because it is linked to working class status and the received wisdom is that it hinders academic achievement. Of course, learning English and losing Spanish does not necessarily mean access to the middle class, but immigrant bilingualism almost certainly means marginalization (see Meador 2005, Valenzuela 1999).

SPANISH IN THE U.S. Schmidt (2002: 154–155) discusses the rhetoric and counter-rhetoric in the English Only debate. One salient aspect of his analysis is that EnglishOnly proponents depict assimilation as egalitarian: if English is the offiffi cial language, the privileges of being an English speaker are available to all. Pluralists claim that this position denies that the U.S. social structure is in fact inegalitarian and that mastering English does not insure access to privileges for people of color. Thus the English-Only position discriminates against speakers of languages other than English, especially if they are not White. Schmidt references the concept of new racism to explain this phenomenon in which ‘race’ becomes coded as culture. In particular, he focuses on Spanish speakers. Speaking Spanish is seen as part of a culture that marginalizes its members; it is an index of the underclass. Because speaking a heritage language is seen as a choice, not part of a life experience, speakers of Spanish are thus seen as choosing life in the barrio and constructing their own barriers to socio-economic mobility. Further, speaking Spanish is associated with being ‘non-White’. Waterston (2006) has argued that Latinos who speak English well are more likely to be characterized as White. Thus speaking Spanish brings with it the stigmatization of being an immigrant, the assumption of a low-income background, and the potential for racial prejudice. The ideologies surrounding Spanish in the U.S., as discussed by Schmidt (2002), revolve largely around the discourse of Spanish as a minority immigrant language, spoken by the underclass. It is valuable to English speakers because this underclass represents an increasing market. Native speakers

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of English who can also speak Spanish may have employment opportunities in educational and social services as well as in the business realm. At the same time, there is a double standard, as native speakers of Spanish are encouraged to learn English and abandon Spanish, thus losing this potential for employment. An additional aspect of erasure in this ideology reflects fl the narrow association of Spanish with immigrant communities in the U.S. There is little recognition of Spanish as a global language and thus a powerful language for business transactions. There is an erasure of Spanish within any communities or social groups other than immigrant ghettos in the U.S. These attitudes inevitably infl fluence how Spanish is used in public arenas. For the most part, we see Spanish regulated to the role of a subordinate language. It is used for translations of information that is deemed essential for people who cannot understand English. Thus we often see bilingual signs such as the familiar one shown in Figure 2.3. Some businesses (e.g., Lowe’s Home Improvement Store) have signs in English and Spanish and telephone help lines often have an option of assistance in Spanish. As noted before, even these are found objectionable by those who feel there is no place for languages other than English in the U.S. However, for those who see either the value or the inevitability of Spanish speakers in the U.S., translation is an acceptable way of using Spanish. Signifi ficantly, the Spanish text is always

Figure 2.3 English/Spanish bilingual sign. Photo by author.

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second and in smaller print than the English. We see iconicity at work here: the Spanish language and its speakers are considered less significant. fi All of these uses of Spanish are in keeping with the second half of the normative monolingualism ideology: if you do speak two languages, keep them strictly separate. Translation is an acceptable way of using two languages; bilingual discourse, in which the languages are combined within a sentence or even a word, is not. Part of this unacceptability runs deeper than prescriptive norms about language and rests in the iconic relationship between language and speakers. If the language is mixed, as it is in bilingual discourse, then the speaker is also mixed and therefore uncategorizable. Such hybridity violates essentialist ideals about social categories, especially ethnic categories. In the Midwestern context of this research, we rarely see creative and metaphorical use of Spanish or Spanish-English bilingual discourse in public arenas. I suggest that this is due to the association of Spanish and bilingual discourse with members of stigmatized ethnolinguistic groups. In Chapter 4, we will see what a great contrast this is with public language use in Germany. The ideology of elite bilingualism that supports the use of English in Germany (and many other countries) is largely absent in the U.S. This is because English is viewed as a world language that we already speak and therefore other languages add little to social status. Spanish, in particular, is anything but prestigious. When we do see bilingual discourse, it is portrayed as something that is not part of mainstream U.S. society but instead indexes a distinctive Latino culture. For instance, mainstream women’s magazines do not contain Spanish utterances, yet the women’s magazine ‘Latina’ does. Whereas Taco Bell may be advertised with Spanish (see, for instance, one of the well-known advertisements with the phrase yo quiero Taco Bell at http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8sZ1DWsAHE), this is clearly because of the purported Mexican nature of its food. Companies that do not have a Latino connection do not include Spanish in their ads unless specifi fically targeting a Spanish-speaking audience, and if that is the case the ad is generally entirely in Spanish and in a venue which specifi fically targets a Spanish-speaking audience. For instance, in the largely Latino neighborhood of Little Village in Chicago, IL, McDonald’s billboards in Spanish can be seen. Unlike the Taco Bell advertisements, the McDonald’s billboards are entirely in Spanish, not because their food is Latino but because in that context there are potential Spanish-speaking customers. Spanish–English bilingual discourse is often called Spanglish and is subject to the same prejudices against language mixing found around the world. I use this term here to reference the use of both words and structures from both languages. Although I recognize that the term Spanglish is often used in a derogatory sense, it has also been embraced by some Latinos to describe their own way of speaking and adopted by some linguists to describe the bilingual discourse of some U.S. Latinos. An example of the negative attitude about Spanglish can be seen in the ploy used to entice learners of Spanish on the ‘Spanish Academy’ website, arrived at

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by clicking the button which reads ‘avoid Spanglish’: ‘Why speaking (sic) spanglish if you can learn and speak real SPANISH?’(http://www.spanishecademy.com/saynotospanglish.php). We see here how so-called Spanglish is attacked from both sides: English speakers denigrate it for not being English and Spanish speakers deride it for not being ‘pure’ Spanish. As discussed by Lipski (2007), this focus on ‘pure’ Spanish is linguistically unrealistic. Borrowing is a linguistically natural process that regularly infl fluences languages in multilingual communities (see Haugen 1950) and contributes to the maintenance of Spanish in the U.S. But popular attitudes toward language mixing do not recognize this linguistic truism. The marginalization of Spanglish and its speakers can be seen most clearly in the motto on a t-shirt I once saw: Spanglish spoken: some palabras may not be suitable para gringos ‘Spanglish spoken: some words may not be suitable for (White) Americans’. Spanglish is something that is solely for Latinos; it is not part of mainstream U.S. culture. We will see in Chapter 4 how this contrasts with the attitude about English in Germany. Ironically, what has been called Mock Spanish is considered acceptable by some English speakers (Hill 1995, 1998, 2005, 2008; Barrett 2006). What is the diff fference between Spanglish and Mock Spanish? To some extent, it is a matter of who is using it. Spanglish is generally considered as the way some Latinos speak Spanish whereas Mock Spanish is one way in which Anglophones speak Spanish. But there are also linguistic features that distinguish the codes denoted by these two terms, although there is some overlap. Spanglish, as described by both popular sources (e.g., Casañas 2006, Santiago 2008) and scholarly ones (Lipski 2007, Ardila 2005, Stavans 2003) contains at least four diff fferent linguistic phenomena. First, Spanglish includes the use of singly occurring lexical items from English, both phonologically and morphologically integrated (as in example 1) and without integration (example 2). (1) Integrated singly-occuring lexical item Spanglish: José tiene que arreglar las brek-as de su carro. Spanish: José tiene que arreglar los frenos de su carro. ‘Jose needs to fi x the brakes on his car.’ (example adapted from Casañas 2006) (2) Unintegrated singly occurring lexical item and calque Spanglish: El policia me dio un ticket por pasarme una luz roja j *. *word for word, ‘a light red’; this follows Spanish word order of the noun preceding the adjective in noun phrases Spanish: El policia me dio una multa por pasarme una semáforo con luz roja j *. *literally, ‘a traffi ffic light with light red’ ‘The police gave me a ticket for going through a red light.’ (adapted from Casañas 2006)

28 Bilingual Pre-Teens Spanglish also includes bilingual discourse of constituents larger than a single word (example 3) and between clauses (example 4). (3) Intrasentential bilingual discourse Tengo que ir al bus stop para pick up mi hija. ‘I need to go to the bus stop to pick up my daughter.’ (Adapted from Erichsen 2007) (4) Inter-clause bilingual discourse Dolores dice: Need advice? Escríbeme. (On home page for the online Latina magazine.) ‘Dolores says: Need advice? Write me.’ (Adapted from Erichsen 2007) Example 2 also shows what linguists call calques or loan translations—the words are Spanish, but the structure is translated from English. Here we have a calque of the English expression ‘red light’; the Spanish expression makes use of the word semáforo ‘traffi ffic light’. Spanglish also notoriously contains what are called semantic shifts. These are words that exist in Spanish, but are used with the meaning of a similar-sounding word in English. Common examples include groseria, which means a rude action in Spanish but is used for a grocery store in Spanglish, and carpeta, which means a folder in Spanish but is used in Spanglish to refer to carpet. This is not an exhaustive list of the possible linguistic structures that make up Spanglish, but this description shows that Spanglish is a contact variety of Spanish which incorporates vocabulary and structure from English. These aspects of language mixing were described in Haugen’s landmark work in 1950, in which he described U.S. varieties of German, Norwegian, and Portuguese. Spanglish is the result of a natural linguistic phenomenon that draws on the lexicon and structure of two languages. It is not an intentional construction but part of the normal process of language development in contact situations. Mock Spanish, on the other hand, is usually a conscious eff ffort to say things that sound like Spanish with no real attempt to actually speak Spanish. Hill (1995, 1998, 2005, 2008) discusses how Mock Spanish not only devalues Spanish, but also constructs Whiteness as normative. Barrett (2006) similarly shows how it can be used as a marker of Anglo identity and argues that Anglo appropriation of Spanish reproduces the context of racial inequality. Examples of Mock Spanish can be found in a children’s book called Skippjon Jones (Schachner 2003). This is the initial book of a series that stars a Siamese cat (Skippyjon) who does not act like a proper Siamese cat. His mother sends him to his room to ‘do some serious thinking . . . about just what it means to be a cat’ (Schachner 2003: 4). But Skippyjon doesn’t want to be a Siamese cat, he wants to be a Chihuahua. So he puts a black

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mask over his eyes (Zorro style, the fi rst hint of things to come) and goes into his closet, which leads him (in his imagination) to Mexico. Once there, he meets a band of Chihuahuas called the Chimichangos and manages to rescue them from a bandito (a ( giant bumblebee) who has been stealing their beans. Although there is some use of real Spanish words (see examples 5 and 6), most of what appears is defi fi nitively Mock Spanish: Skippyjon calls himself ‘El Skippito’ and makes exclamations likes ‘holy frijoles’ when he fights the giant bumblebee (Alfredo Buzzito, another Mock Spanish name), during which the noises bangito, crashito, and pop-ito can be heard. (5) Then in a muy, muy soft voice, he said, ‘My name is Skippito Friskito. ‘very, very’ I . . . fear . . . not a . . . single bandito.’ (Schachner 2003: 20)

(6) ‘Si,’ said Poquito Tito. ‘The Bandito steal our frijoles.’ ‘yes’ ‘beans’ ‘Not your beans!’ cried Skippito, outraged. ‘Si,’ Poquito continued. . . . (Schachner 2003: 19) ‘yes’ There are, of course, various interpretations of the storyline in this children’s book. In my sociolinguistics class, when my students analyzed children’s books for their underlying messages, the students working with this book said they felt the message was about the hybridity of identity—it is possible to be a Siamese cat and a Chihuahua. In other words, they saw it as a book about resistance to the hegemony of essentialist identities. But alongside this potentially positive message about identity is a disturbing one about language. Spanish is made to appear easy—just add an ‘o’ to English words!—and not a real language. Yes, the Mock Spanish produced is in the imagination of a kitten who is presumably Anglophone and one could argue that Skippyjon the Siamese cat’s desire to be a Chihuahua is a positive depiction of Mexican identity. One could argue this, but I will not. Instead I will point out that the use of Mock Spanish in Skippjon Jones runs parallel to examples cited by Hill and Barrett on Mock Spanish. On the surface, these usages show a willingness to accommodate to a Spanish-speaking interlocutor, but on a more substantive level indicate a rejection of Spanish as a real language. This positions Spanish speakers as inferior, no matter how cute it is when a Siamese cat puts on a black mask, rides a pogo stick, and pretends to be a Chihuahua. Another problem Mock Spanish creates is that it is often conflated fl with Spanglish and even Spanish. Even Barrett (2006), whose article is a critical analysis of the practice of using Mock Spanish, is somewhat

30

Bilingual Pre-Teens

guilty of this. The title of his article, ‘Language ideology and racial inequality: Competing functions of Spanish in an Anglo-owned Mexican restaurant’, implies that Mock Spanish is a form of Spanish use, a representation which underlies the whole problem with Mock Spanish. Mock Spanish is not Spanish; it is simply adding pseudo-Spanish endings or articles to English words. There may be some overlap between Mock Spanish and Spanglish in terms of structure—for instance, some uses of intrasentential codeswitching might be dubbed either Mock Spanish or Spanglish—but the faux hispanifi fi cation of English words is clearly Mock Spanish in examples such as ‘indeed-o’ (Schachner 2003: 9) or ‘ice-o’ (Barrett 2006: 182). Such usages are not potentially Spanglish and neither are phrases which make jokes based on the pronunciation of Spanish words (e.g., Fleas Navidad in a Christmas card discussed in Hill (1995) or holy frijoles uttered by Skippjon (Schachner 2003). These examples are not attempts to speak Spanish but efforts ff to mock it, however playfully. As Hill (1998) discusses, although this directly indexes a jovial identity for the speaker, it indirectly indexes the normativity of White (or at least Anglophone) identity. Thus in both linguistic and social terms, these uses cannot be discussed as if they are Spanglish and they are certainly not Spanish. This discussion of Spanish in the U.S. shows a situation in which English is the dominant language and Spanish is seen as only of limited use (to talk to a minority population) and of restricted complexity (as evidenced by Mock Spanish depictions of it). Given these attitudes, it is unsurprising that Spanish-English bilingual education is often deemed undesirable; this will be the subject of the next section.

SPANISH-ENGLISH BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS: IMMIGRANT BILINGUALISM As discussed previously, hegemonic ideologies in the U.S. clearly include normative monolingualism and the low value of Spanish. The low value of Spanish is clearly linked to its status as the language of poor immigrants and Spanish has become an icon for marginalized, unassimilated, and usually undocumented Latinos in the U.S. This is a salient connection in southern Illinois, a region in which adult native speakers of Spanish have historically been primarily poor and uneducated people who have been forced by economic conditions to leave their home country to seek employment. In this view, speaking local varieties of English does not necessarily grant access to economic prosperity, but speaking Spanish provides even fewer opportunities. Thus the concept of education in Spanish is almost an oxymoron: education is conceptualized as a vehicle for access to cultural capital (Bourdieu 1991) which can lead to middle-class opportunities. Speaking Spanish natively is fi rmly linked to

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the experience of poverty and unskilled labor. If you hold this attitude, it seems nonsensical to reinforce the disadvantage of learning Spanish at home through continued schooling in Spanish. In the remainder of this section, I will discuss diff fferent opportunities for bilingual education in two settings in southern Illinois: the district where I did my classroom research, which I will call Montville (see below), and another school district in a nearby town that is home to a state university, Carbondale. Although southern Illinois on the whole does not diverge from the national trend in terms of what ideologies are privileged (i.e., normative monolingualism is dominant), there is some evidence of competing ideologies within this region. In particular, the founding of a Two-Way Immersion program in English and Spanish in Carbondale, while at the same time eliminating even transitional bilingual education in Montville, illustrates that there are diff fferent perspectives on bilingualism even within the southern Illinois setting. The public school in which this research was conducted is in a rural community which was given the pseudonym of ‘Montville’ by Montavon (2003) in her research in this community. Montville has a population of slightly over 1000 people and lies in an area where farming has traditionally been the major local industry. Prior to the arrival of Latino migrant workers the town was almost entirely comprised of White Americans with the exception of a small number of Black Americans who were primarily the descendants of former migrant workers who had settled in the area. The shift from Black migratory workers to Hispanic (mostly Mexican) immigrant labor in the orchards occurred in the early 1960s and has continued to the present day (Anderson 1997: 29–30). The school report card for the Montville Elementary School during the time of the research (2003– 2005) shows that of the 377 children in the elementary school (grade K–6), approximately 25% are Hispanic, 73% are White, ten children (about 3%) are classifi fied as Black, and there are no children in any other racial/ethnic background categories. Illinois state law requires that schools must off ffer bilingual education if, within a single building, there are 20 or more children who are classified fi as Limited English Profi ficiency (LEP) and share the same native tongue. This policy led to the creation of a bilingual program in Montville in 1990 (Montavon and Kinser 1996). Montavon and Kinser report, and my own experience in the program confi firms, that there was widespread belief by the teachers and administrators that the children would be better off ff in mainstream classrooms and there was limited support within the school for the bilingual program. Several teachers outside of the bilingual program said to me that they felt the children needed ‘immersion’, not Spanish instruction, and that they needed to learn English, not maintain Spanish. (There is no support for this belief; in fact, research on second generation Mexican Americans who do not speak Spanish (Valenzuela 1999) has shown that they often have lower performance levels in school than their bilingual, first generation counterparts.)

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Although this attitude acknowledges the important aspect of peer input in language learning, it did not seem to spur interest in a dual language program, in which these Spanish-speaking children would become ‘immersed’ in English by being placed in a classroom which was comprised of half Anglophone and half Spanish-speaking children, both learning each other’s languages. The school principal made it clear to me that the school was not interested in this type of program and other members of the community—including one of the English teachers in the bilingual program who had a child in the school district—expressed the opinion that there would not be enough Anglophone parents interested in enrolling their children in a dual language program. Therefore, the bilingual program which was off ffered was a transitional program aimed at getting children into mainstream classes as soon as possible. It was implicitly viewed as a remedial program. This was not lost on the children, who realized that success in their bilingual classroom meant ‘graduating’ to what they referred to as las clases normales ‘the normal classrooms’. This attitude perpetuates the sense that Spanish is somehow inferior to English and implies that Spanish speakers are inferior—at least academically—to English speakers. The local discourse about the bilingual program focused solely on the need of the students to learn English, and it was frequently said that teaching them in Spanish prevents assimilation to U.S. linguistic and cultural practices. What was not recognized was that a goal of transitional bilingual education is enabling the children to maintain grade level skills in their subjects while they are learning English. There was no recognition that learning English would be a lengthy process, and that the children needed to continue to learn subject matter during this period. It is important to note that although these attitudes (and the programmatic consequences of them) are not atypical for the United States, even within southern Illinois other choices have been made. Signifi ficantly, the different ff choices are very much a product of diff fferent associations between language learning and social class membership. Sixteen miles away from Montville is Carbondale, home of Southern Illinois University (SIUC). With a population of approximately 25,000, and an additional 15,000 students, it is the largest ‘small city’ in southern Illinois. Carbondale is generally perceived as being more liberal than the rest of southern Illinois and certainly a difference ff in attitudes toward multilingualism is apparent from recent events concerning bilingual education. In the spring of 2005, the Dual Language Consortium, an organization started by faculty and students at SIUC, held a workshop to educate area parents, teachers, and school administrators about the benefi fits of two-way immersion programs. They sought a site for a two-way immersion program in the area and approached the Montville school district administration

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as one possibility. In many ways, it was the most logical possibility as the Montville school district had the largest Hispanic population in the region. The Montville school administrators did not express any interest in the idea. However, two years later, a two-way immersion program was started in Carbondale’s Parrish School, an elementary school that serves grades K–1. The impetus for off ffering bilingual education was a legal necessity as the Parrish building had reached the 20 children mark (i.e., 20 children who had Spanish as their fi rst language and were classifi fied as LEP). However, the school administration was under no obligation to off ffer a two-way immersion program. They could have provided transitional bilingual education for the Spanish-speaking children to fulfi fill their legal obligation, just as the Montville school district chose to do. However, thanks to the Dual Language Consortium, the administration was convinced that the dual language model of bilingual education was most eff ffective in serving Spanish L1 children. Also, they recognized the demand among Anglophone parents for bilingual education. In other words, a dual language program was not merely a means of off ffering more cultural capital to immigrants, but also to middle-class U.S. citizens. The program expanded and currently runs from kindergarten to 5th grade. As a parent of a child in the program and a member of the Parental Advisory Committee for the dual language program, I have good evidence that the administrators in the district have come to appreciate the prestige of their bilingual program. Some of this prestige rests on the belief that it is an eff ffective method for educating immigrant students, and will lead to higher standardized test scores for the school district. Some of the prestige comes from the fact that the Anglophone half of the class is participating in elite bilingualism. I cite these events to provide the proper context for the Montville school district bilingual program. It is clear that national attitudes about bilingualism and the low value of Spanish are prevalent in this community. It is also apparent that it is possible to show resistance to this ideology, even in decidedly non-cosmopolitan areas such as southern Illinois, and adopt practices which embrace, at least to a limited extent, pluralist ideologies. The success of such alternative ideologies has been very limited in the context of the Montville school district and I argue that these limitations are intrinsically based on ideological connections between language and social class. In the Montville context, there is no model for elite bilingualism–all bilingualism is immigrant bilingualism. Because immigrant bilingualism is perceived as limited in terms of the opportunities it off ffers, there is no motivation to support bilingual education. In Carbondale, however, there is a model for elite bilingualism. There are educated university professors who speak more than one language and want this for their children and therefore bilingual education can be seen as something other than remedial education.

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MONTVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL As previously discussed, Montville is a small, rural community and the ethnic make-up of the school is primarily White Americans and Mexican Americans. The bilingual program was started in 1990 and, I was told, was originally called the ‘Amigos’ program (hence the title of chapter 3). Despite this upbeat name, this transitional bilingual education was provided grudgingly as it went against the beliefs about language learning and the value of Spanish held by most of the teachers and the administration. Thus it is not surprising that as the demographics of the community changed, so did the schooling options. According to information from the Illinois State Board of Education for 2006–2007 (http://www.greatschools. net/cgi-in/il/district_profi fi le/350?schoolId=1590#students), although the Hispanic population remained steady at 24% of the student body, only 8% were classifi fied as LEP. In the 2007–2008 school year, the bilingual program was abolished and pull-out ESL instruction (i.e., ESL instruction that pulls the children out of the regular classroom activities) was offered ff for the LEP children. This move is compatible with the belief I encountered that bilingual education does not benefi fit the children in English language learning and that Spanish literacy skills are not valuable. However, it is diffi fficult to understand why anyone would believe that pull-out ESL instruction is the ideal way for a child to learn English. As noted by Warriner in her study of Sudanese refugee education in the U.S., ‘Although Englishlanguage learning is valued because it is assumed that it will provide access to opportunity, the quality of the English-language learning experience is not prioritized because the learners themselves are members of marginalized groups’ (Warriner 2007: 350). The climate in the school during the time of the research, in retrospect, was one in which the decline of the program was apparent. In the 2003– 2004 school year there were approximately 13 children who remained in the 4th /5th /6th grade combined classroom for the school year. In the 2004– 2005 school year there were three (although there were at least five fi others who were in the classroom for a month or two at various points during the year). The decline in numbers was largely due to LEP children being placed in mainstream classrooms. Although some of the children appeared to be able to swim and not sink in this submersion environment, others were clearly sinking and the solutions sought to deal with them were somewhat puzzling. In one case, a girl who had arrived in the U.S. in December of the previous year—that is, she had been in the U.S. for less than a year at the beginning of the 2004–2005 school year—was placed into a mainstream 6th grade classroom. However, because she was not profi ficient enough in English to complete the work in the mainstream classroom, she was sent to the ESL room at the high school every afternoon where she worked on her own using a computer English learning program. So, instead of having her participate in the bilingual program designed to help Spanish-speaking

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LEP children maintain grade-level knowledge while learning English, she was left to fend for herself in a classroom in which it was acknowledged that she did not have adequate language skills to participate in the instruction. Despite the attitudes about immersion being the best way to learn English, she was expected to improve her English language skills by working alone on a computer program. Although I did not have regular contact with teachers outside of the bilingual program, I did have occasional conversations with them about the bilingual program. Consistently I heard comments which showed attitudes toward the bilingual program which the bilingual teachers also reported– bilingual education was coddling the children, they needed to be immersed in English and not given instruction in Spanish. It was known to all of the teachers in the bilingual program that this strategy is not supported by research on programs serving LEP children in the U.S. (see Collier 1995, Ramírez et al. 1991; Ramírez 1992; Thomas and Collier 1995, 1997 for discussions of eff ffectiveness of bilingual education programs). Particularly salient in my mind is the comment of the reading teacher, who said that when the children left school and got jobs at Wal-Mart, they would need to know English, not Spanish. This is in keeping with the socio-economic class assignment for Spanish speakers. This teacher did not perceive these students as capable of employment in skilled labor, but envisioned lowpaying retail employment as their only opportunity—if, of course, they could speak English. Ironically, this teacher also mentioned the benefi fit of being able to speak Spanish in future employment. When I pointed out to her that this was usually only a benefi fit if they also had literacy skills in Spanish, she stared at me blankly. It appeared that it had not occurred to her that being able to speak Spanish did not mean that the children could read and write it, an attitude that was sadly at odds with her role as the reading teacher. I also had some contact with teachers of special subjects when I accompanied the children at times to their music or computer classes. The computer teacher expressed a complete inability to deal with the lower profi ficiency English students, saying she did not speak Spanish and could not communicate with them. My observation was that she did not attempt to talk to them by using simplifi fied English, taking the time to deal with these children individually, or by enlisting the help of the Spanish-speaking children who were profi ficient in English. The children who did not understand what the teacher said were largely ignored. To some extent their peers translated for them, but the teacher did not facilitate this. Another sign of the disregard for the bilingual program and those within it came from the offi ffice staff ff. In the 4th /5th /6th grade classroom, the English teacher was there every morning, and the Spanish teacher every afternoon. When they were not in the bilingual classroom, they were assigned to teach ESL in the high school. This schedule remained constant throughout the entire school year. Despite the relative simplicity of this staffi ffing schedule,

36

Bilingual Pre-Teens

it happened with great regularity that someone from the office ffi would call on the intercom for the teacher who was not present, and when told she was not there, would ask where she was. As their schedules were fi xed, this seemed a rather remarkable lack of insight on the part of the office ffi staff ff, but the calls continued throughout the school year. In the K–3 classrooms, where I also observed regularly, there was a similar confusion, but it had to do with the students instead of the teachers. In this half of the program, the English and Spanish teachers remained in their classrooms and the K–1 children had English in the morning and Spanish in the afternoon, and the 2nd–3rd grade children went to the Spanish classroom in the morning and the English classroom in the afternoon. Again, calls from the office ffi for children who were currently in the other classroom were frequent, as the simple rotation that occurred every single day was never attended to by the staff. ff There is no question that these actions, which clearly indicated disregard for the bilingual program and its inhabitants, were far more salient to me than to the children. It was also clearly more irritating to me than to the teachers, who simply laughed or shrugged when I mentioned this. The children also seemed to be blessedly oblivious to the fact that they were often slighted in other ways. For instance, the bilingual classroom teachers were often not informed of school assemblies until the last minute (whatever the usual method of announcing such activities was, it did not seem to reach into the bilingual program, although the bilingual classrooms were in the same building as the mainstream classrooms). Further, in order for announcements to go out in Spanish (in many cases, the only language the parents could read) the Spanish teachers had to translate them themselves, but were usually given no advance warning of this. In some cases all they could do was provide hastily scrawled handwritten translations in the margins of the English language flyers. Although these slights may have gone unnoticed by the children, the separation of the mainstream classrooms from the bilingual classrooms did not. Although there was some attempt made to integrate the bilingual program children with the children in the mainstream program by having them attend PE, computer, and music classes with students in their grade, when I went to these classes with them there was invariably little to no interaction between the mainstream classroom children and the bilingual classroom children. The bilingual classroom children sat together for lunch at separate tables from the other children and often had separate recess times. On the occasions that they did have recess with other classes, they rarely if ever interacted with children from outside their class, even other Latino children in mainstream classes (some of whom had been their classmates as recently as the beginning of that school year). I have no evidence that this separation was due to the rejection of the bilingual children by the children from the mainstream classrooms. In some cases the rejection went the other way, as in an incident in which a girl from the bilingual classroom would only allow Latinas to participate in a game of jump rope. However,

Normative Monolingualism in the U.S.

37

the structure of the school and the attitudes of the teachers and staff ff outside of the bilingual program clearly constructed the bilingual program as something apart from the ‘regular’ workings of the school. Although the children, like me, were mostly unaware of what the bilingual program had been like in its healthier days, and knew even less of the workings of the administration and school board than I did, it was certainly not lost on them that they were treated diff fferently. It was considered a sign of status to be put into the mainstream classroom. Although they appeared to enjoy their bilingual environment, they viewed it as what it was—a transitional place that prepared them for las clases normales.

THE BILINGUAL CLASSROOM My research in the classroom began at the beginning of the school year in August 2003. I conducted linguistic ethnography (Creese 2008) in the combined 4th /5th /6th grade classroom for two school years, until the spring of 2005. During the 2003–2004 academic year, I was present in the classroom twice a week, once in the morning, during English instruction, and once in the afternoon, during Spanish instruction. During the 2004–2005 academic year, I was again in the classroom twice a week, but only during English instruction. In addition to observing classroom interactions and recording small group interactions, I was an active participant and often led small groups of children in their lessons or floated fl around the classroom helping students working independently on their assignments. Also, during both years I regularly spent time as a participant observer in the K–1st and 2nd–3rd grade classrooms, although I did not make any recordings of the children in those groups. In addition to my field notes that I wrote up during or after my time in the classroom, the data for the following analysis comes from transcripts of audio recordings of small group interactions. The analysis in Chapter 3 is based on these recordings, including the verbal interactions of 19 children. The recordings were most often made when I was present and working with a group of children on an assignment, but some recordings were made when the children were working with their English teacher or engaged in an activity without teacher supervision. Two of my R.A.s who worked in the classroom with me, Kevan Self and Minta Elsman, also appear in the recordings. On paper, the bilingual program had two equal components. One teacher did lessons in English and one teacher did lessons in Spanish, with equal portions of the day allotted to each language. For the sake of simplicity, I will call these two teachers ‘The English teacher’ and ‘the Spanish teacher’. The English teacher was a White American woman whom I will call Ms. Carrington and the Spanish teacher was a Columbian woman I will dub Ms. Thomas. Although there was the occasional large project

38

Bilingual Pre-Teens

or event that included both teachers and tasks in both languages, for the most part the two halves of their school day were carried out separately, without overlap in subject matter. The assumption, based on the second tenet of normative monolingualism (if you must speak two languages, keep them strictly separate) is that each of these learning environments is monolingual. However, as none of the speakers in either setting are monolingual—the closest being the newest students in the classroom who have limited English profi ficiency, but are actively learning English—it should come as no surprise that bilingual norms developed. The development of a bilingual norm was especially noticeable in the English half of the day, for obvious reasons–the children, at least initially, spoke Spanish among themselves and did not always understand the content of their English lessons. The English teacher would often use Spanish to ensure comprehension. The Spanish teacher had no similar need to switch to English, as she and all of the children spoke Spanish as their fi rst language. The children would often use Spanish among themselves during English lessons as well as make comments in Spanish directed at the teacher. As the year progressed, some of the children did begin to address each other and even the Spanish teacher in English on occasion, reinforcing the idea that they were negotiating bilingual norms, but the main enactment of bilingualism was during English instruction. Although the children in the classroom were necessary participants in the construction of the classroom as a bilingual setting, the teacher’s attitude toward bilingualism was critical in the overt nature of the acceptance of bilingualism. The children’s abilities in both languages were recognized in the educational process. Both the Spanish teacher and the English teacher would use words or sentences in the opposite language and did not forbid the children to speak one language during instruction in the other. Because of the asymmetry of language profi ficiencies, there was far more use of Spanish in the English classroom than vice versa, although the Spanish teacher did use school-related terms such as recess or white slip (a warning notice for bad behavior) embedded in Spanish sentences. She expressed to me the attitude that she felt she should not codeswitch as she was there to help them maintain their Spanish. However, as the year progressed and some of the children began to speak more English among themselves, I did not hear her insist that they speak Spanish, indicating that although she wanted to model monolingual Spanish she did not strictly enforce such linguistic performance by her students. The English teacher—who completed her certifi fication as a SpanishEnglish bilingual teacher during the 2003–2004 academic year—used Spanish with the children much more frequently than the Spanish teacher used English. One reason Ms. Carrington used Spanish was to insure comprehension, as shown in example 7.

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th

(7) MC = Ms. Carrington, the teacher; JC = Juan Carlos, 6 grade boy; J= Juan, 5th grade boy; C= Consuela, 6th grade girl 1 MC: What is he wearing that is blue? 2 JC: He wearing green 3 MC: No, (I said) blue 4 J: no, no 5 C: He wearing blue blouse 6 MC: Okay, okay let’s see usually (4) usually a man will wear a shirt and a 7 woman will wear a blouse. Unless it is like a t-shirt, okay, a blouse is 8 almost always (for) a woman9 Juan Carlos: Blusa. ‘Blouse’ 10 MC: Um huh. Yeah, en espanol es blusa. ‘in Spanish it’s blouse.’ (X004) Ms. Carrington also responded to Spanish utterances made by the children without commentary on their code choice, as in example 8. The result of this was that both codes were viewed as acceptable for classroom discourse. (8) MC= Ms. Carrington, the teacher; JC = Juan Carlos, 6th grade boy; 1 MC: Look. Where we at? Uh, Juan. What is he, he wearing that is 2 brown. Brown (.) what is he wearing (.) that is brown? 3 JC: Calcetines. ‘Socks’ 4 MC: He. He, the man, el hombre (.) he.(.) ‘. . .the man. . .’ 5 JC: ¡Ah el pantalón.! ‘Ah the trouser!’ 6 MC: How about in a sentence 7 JC: Shhhe she 8 MC: El hombre. ‘The man.’ 9 JC: Oh he wearing (.) brown? (.) slacks? 10 MC: Slacks or pants, ok. (.) (X004) Although Ms. Carrington herself used Spanish and accepted Spanish utterances as legitimate from her students, this is not to say that anything goes when it comes to code choice in this ESL classroom. The teacher did on occasion urge the children to use English. As we can see in 9, the teacher asks Juan to explain his idea in English in line 12 and frames this as an opportunity to work on English in line 14. However, she also reverts to accepting their answers in Spanish with her turn in line 18. Thus although English is clearly linked to achievement and cooperation during English

40

Bilingual Pre-Teens

instruction, the classroom is also constructed as a bilingual zone in which both languages are permissible. (9) MC = Ms. Carrington, the teacher; H=Hugo, 4th grade boy; M=Manuel, 4th grade boy; J=Juan, 6th grade boy 1 MC: Are there any other ways besides water, wind, and animals? 2 H: No. 3 J: Con trenes maestra (1) habia en Tennessee trenes {makes a squeaking 4 noise} y sonaban asi y todos nos moviamos. ‘With trains teacher (1) there were trains in Tennessee {makes a squeaking noise} and they sounded like this and all of us moved’ 5 H: Así maestra, es de (.)de los tre::nes ‘Like that teacher of the trai::ns’ 6 MC: Hugo 7 H: Los trenes ‘The trains’ 8 MC: Okay. 9 J: She d/oes/n’t know, man. 10 MC: /No./ 11 H: /{makes a high-pitched falling whine}/ 12 MC: /In English./ 13 J: /She doesn’t know./ 14 MC: /‘Cause our job is to work/ on our English in the morning. 15 H: Se explo(.) t (.) / an. / ‘They exploded’ 16 J: /{makes little swishing noises}/ 17 H: Yo no se como hacerlo. ‘I don’t know how to do it’ 18 MC: /They explode?/ 19 M: /Se explotan ma/estra. ‘They explode teacher’ (M009) This classroom setting, in which both bilingualism and Spanish were fostered, contrasts in terms of the language ideologies it represents with the school and wider community. The following chapter addresses how the children negotiated their identities in the context of these competing ideological influences. fl

CONCLUSION This chapter has discussed hegemonic language ideologies, focusing on normative monolingualism, the inherent value of English, and the devaluation

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41

of Spanish. These languages have become icons for their speakers. Spanish, in particular, is often depicted as an easy language spoken by simple folk and it is excluded from the mainstream culture in the same way its speakers are. Language mixing, or speaking what is often called ‘Spanglish’, is an icon of a ‘mixed’ identity which is also unacceptable within the framework of an essentialized set of ethnic and national identity categories. These ideologies rest on the erasure of the history of multilingualism in the U.S. and the status of Spanish in contexts outside of the immigrant barrio. These attitudes are reinforced through recursiveness which makes hierarchical thinking about linguistic varieties normative. In the same way that English is seen as inherently superior to ‘foreign’ languages, Standard dialects of English are seen as intrinsically more valuable than non-Standard ones. Thus whatever the comparison, the ideology is always that there is one ‘correct’ way of speaking that is the only variety which allows the speaker to reap cultural capital. It has been suggested here that language ideologies are found in and constituted by linguistic practices. In the following chapter, how these ideologies about bilingualism, English and Spanish play out in a bilingualism classroom are examined. In particular, the language choices made by these pre-teen bilinguals are interpreted as stances and identity constructions that are performed by drawing on these societal ideologies.

3

Amigos Amid Americanos A Linguistic Ethnography of a Spanish-English Transitional Bilingual Education Classroom

In this chapter, I move from the discussion of language ideologies to presentation of conversational data that show how identity construction through language choice is accomplished in this setting. The methodology of linguistic ethnography incorporates approaches from both ethnography of communication and interactional sociolinguistics, and is aimed at analyzing local interactions as embedded in a wider social world (Creese 2008: 233). Based on the theoretical framework of identity discussed in Chapter 1, the analysis will look at different ff levels of identifi fication as well as multiple and conflated fl aspects of identifi fication. In particular, this analysis looks at construction of identities having to do with language competence and social class. The construction of self and other as bilingual or monolingual relies on presuppositions and implicatures about one’s own and others’ identities as well as social meanings of particular codes. Similarity and difference ff are negotiated and reproduced through these code choices. In addition to employing bilingual discourse to position themselves vis-àvis other speakers, the children also use language choice to create a stance in opposition to the hegemony of English and the ideology of normative monolingualism. In particular, the use of mixed language utterances and codeswitching as an unmarked choice indicate the construction of competing ideologies. However, the resistance to the hegemony of English carries a cost. I argue that the cost of embracing bilingualism in an immigrant setting is the risk of restricted social status and, potentially, socio-economic mobility.

THE RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS AND THEIR SOCIAL ALIGNMENTS In this analysis, I present data from the Spanish-English bilingual classroom in Montville, where I spent two years as a participant observer in the classroom. Unless otherwise specified, fi the data discussed here come from the first year of research and include 13 children: four 6th graders, four 5th graders, and five fi 4th graders. Of these, three were only present for part of the year and they are not a focus in the analysis. See Table 3.1 for the list of names (all pseudonyms) with the grade, age, sex, and length of time each child had been in the U.S.

Amigos Amid Americanos Table 3.1

43

Children in the Spanish/English Classroom in Montville, 2003–2004 School Year

Name (sex category)

Grade Length of time (age by Dec.) in the U.S.

ESL reading group (high, medium, low)

Zoe (female)

6 (12)

Born in the U.S.

High

Consuela (female)

6 (12)

New at the beginning of the Low school year, but had spent a year in the U.S. prior to this

Inez^ (female)

6 (12)

Arrived in January

Juan Carlos (male)

6 (14)

New at the beginning of the school year

Felipe (male)

5 (11)

New to this district at the beginning of the school year, but had lived in the U.S. for many years

Medium

Vicente* (male)

5 (11)

Had lived in the U.S. for two years

High (but moved to a special education class midway through the year)

Juan (male)

5 (11)

New at the beginning of the summer

Low

Francisca^ (female)

5 (11)

New in December

Low

Miguel (male)

4 (9)

Had lived in the U.S. for three years

Medium

Antonio* (male)

4 (9)

Had lived in the U.S. for two years

High

Dora (female)

4 (10)

Had lived in the U.S. since preschool

Medium

Lucia (female)

4 (9)

Had lived in the U.S. since preschool

Medium

Rosa (female)

4 (9)

Attended Aug–Oct only, but for the third year in a row

N/A

Low

*brothers ^sisters

The social structure of the classroom was determined largely by grade and sex. Much of the time the students were divided into groups by grade level to do various subjects (e.g., English, Math) and within their grade they usually kept the company of the same-sex members of the group. In the English half of the day (the morning), while one group would work with

44

Bilingual Pre-Teens

the teacher, the other two groups would be given assignments to do, either individually or as a group, or allowed to use the computer or play languageoriented games. They also did some activities as a whole class—science projects, larger social studies projects with themes like the Lewis and Clark expedition, and some English grammar instruction. During Spanish instruction, because one of their subjects was math they would often be divided up into groups and given problems to work on independently. In this case, I usually sat with the 4th graders and some of the data from these sessions will be discussed below. I also occasionally read in the Spanish reading book with one grade level of children or accompanied children from one of the grades to music or computer classes where they joined the monolingual students. Although friendships and even family ties cut across grades (in addition to the immediate family ties listed in Table 3.1, Miguel and Consuela were cousins, and Inez and Francisca were also cousins with Lucia), the strongest ties seemed to be within grade and sex groupings. My assessments of the friendships between children had to do with how they interacted during their lessons, but also relied heavily on whom the children chose to interact with in their free time. In the 6th grade, the two girls who were present for the entire year, Consuela and Zoe, were close friends. The same was true of the two 4th grade girls who were there all year, Dora and Lucia. The three 5th grade boys (Vicente, Felipe and Juan) also spent a lot of time together. Juan was also friends with Juan Carlos, the 6th grade boy. However, this relationship involved a lot of physical roughhousing and they were often separated in the classroom, usually meaning that Juan would spend his time with Vicente and Felipe. The two 4th grade boys, Miguel and Antonio, worked together on assignments and sometimes aligned themselves against the 4th grade girls during classroom activities, but in their free time they did not usually choose to be together unless they were part of a larger group. On the playground, the boys, along with Consuela and Zoe, often played basketball. In the spring, someone brought a jump rope and all of the girls and the younger boys participated in that activity. For a few weeks all of the children were interested in playing volleyball, which the English teacher was teaching them, and they would stand in a circle and hit the ball around to each other. Soccer was prohibited for much of the year, but in the spring, when it was allowed again, all of the children participated in soccer games for a while. For a period of time some of the boys were interested in playing marbles and Juan Carlos was the leader of this activity, which often included boys from the 3rd /4th grade bilingual classroom. Thus there was some variation in how the children aligned themselves for outdoor activities, due to shifting opportunities and interests. Indoors, however, the groupings were more stable. On rainy days when the children stayed inside during recess, Consuela and Zoe inevitably played a game or did an activity together, as did Lucia and Dora. When Francisca and then Inez joined the class, Francisca usually joined Lucia and

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45

Dora. Inez either worked alone (she was very studious and would sometimes work on assignments during free time) or joined Consuela and Zoe. The boys were more often in larger groups, often involving either all or some of the 4th and 5th grade boys. Juan Carlos was rarely part of this; if he was not horsing around with Juan, he was usually sitting alone. There are defi finite linguistic consequences of these social alignments. As I have discussed in previous research (Fuller 2007, 2010), because Dora and Lucia comprised the only friendship group in which both/all members were fluent English speakers, they used English, or Spanish-English bilingual discourse, as a means of establishing a group boundary. Two of the 5th grade boys, Vicente and Felipe, were quite fluent English speakers and did some switching back and forth between languages when they were alone together. However, their free time activities often included Juan, whose English was initially quite limited, and they did not incorporate much English into activities which involved him. In the other pairings of friends—Zoe and Consuela, Juan and Juan Carlos—the friendships were carried out in Spanish because one or both of the speakers were more comfortable in that language. This left use of English between peers largely to Dora and Lucia. The earliest examples of their use of frequent Spanish-English bilingual discourse in peer interactions occurred in November, when they engaged in a game of checkers (using a chess set) and I noticed that they were negotiating what they wanted to play in English. At this point I set the recorder near them and moved away, so as not to infl fluence their language choices. Example 1 is an excerpt from the beginning of this recording. In his analysis, Self (2005) has shown that English is the language that moves the game along, whereas Spanish is used to provide details and elaboration. I will return to the data from this interaction in the fi nal section of this chapter in the discussion on codeswitching as an unmarked choice. Here I provide a brief example to illustrate how the two languages work together. Commands such as ‘your turn’ are overwhelmingly in English in this section of the conversation. (1) L=Lucia, D=Dora 1 L: Wait a minute. (2) ¡Ya! Okay, oh, uhm ‘There!’ 2 D: Okay, my turn. /(Oh, yeah,) it’s your turn./ 3 L: /U::/::h. 4 D: Okay? (1) One two three four five. fi (3) Puedes pasar one two 5 three con los dedos. ‘You can pass [through] one two three with your fi ngers.’ 6 L: One two three f- four (.) five fi 7 D: Yeah xxx 8 L: (laughs) 9 D: No, you leave this one right, right right there. You left it. Your 10 turn. No, my turn, my turn. (F403)

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Bilingual Pre-Teens

This use of primarily English is in striking contrast to what happens when, toward the end of their game, Dora and Lucia are joined by Consuela and Vicente, who coach them on their strategies. Consuela and Vicente speak only Spanish and Dora and Lucia follow suit, as shown in 2. (2) D= Dora, C = Consuela, L = Lucia 1 D:(Va) así o (era) así , xx? ‘((Does it) go) like this or (was (it)) like this, xx?’ (5) 2 C: xxx xxx tu rey. ‘xxx xxx your king.’ (7.5) 3 C: No, no lo muevas / pa’lla./ ‘No, don’t move it over there.’ 4 D: No, ya sé. ‘No, I know.’ (8) 5 D: Ya no te puedes regresar. Ha, no. Yo estaba aquí, ¿verdad? ‘Now (you) can’t go back. Ah, no. I was here, right?’ 6 L: Sí. { both laugh} ‘Yes.’ (3) 7 L: {snorts} Te puedes regresar para ac estaba aquí ‘You can come back this wa (it) was here.’ 8 D: No, yo no (.) ha. Ha sí, verdad. ‘No, I don’t (.) ah. Ah, yeah, huh.’ (F403) Example 3 is an excerpt of the conversation which takes place directly after Consuela and Vicente join Dora and Lucia, and shows the only English turns produced after this point. Initially, Lucia continues the pattern of relying on English and Dora follows suit, but this ceases when Dora switches to Spanish to ask if it is her turn in line 6. This question is likely directed at Consuela. In any case it is Consuela who answers, in Spanish, and from that point on until I turn off ff the recorder the four children speak only Spanish. (3) 1 L: I can’t move it anywhere. 2 C: Yo lo muevo. Yo muevo éste. ‘I’ll move it. I’ll move this one.’ (2) 3 L: Mkay. Thank you. {gasping in shock} One quee::n! 4 D: One queen xx 5 L: Ee:::-ee. 6 D: My turn! ¿Sí es mi turno, / no?/ ‘It is my turn, isn’t it?’

Amigos Amid Americanos

47

7 C:

/No,/ es de ella. ‘No, ( it)’s hers.’ 8 D: Pero ella ya no se puede mover ya. ‘But now she can’t move anymore.’ 9 L: No, ya no puedo. ‘No, now (I) can’t.’ 10 C: No le hace. Sí se tiene que mover ella (.) aunque se la coman, éstos, 11 tienen que mover ‘It doesn’t matter. She does have to move (.) even though (they) eat her up these ones (they) have to move.’ 12 D: Ha. ‘Ah.’ 13 C: Ya muévete, Lucia. ‘Go on and move, Lucia’ 14 L: Ya sé. xxx A ver. Di. ‘I know. xxx Okay. Tell me.’ 15 C: Está bien fácil. ‘ira. Si (yo) te ayudo ahora. X xx xxx, Lucia} ‘(It)’s really easy. Lookit. (I’ll) help you now. X xx xxx, Lucia.’ 16 L: Mm-hmm. (4.5) 17 C: Ya no puedes poner. No más = ‘(You) can’t put anymore. No more. . .’ 18 L: =Ha pos éste. {laughs}Ya. Ten, Dora’ ‘Ah, well, this one. There. Here, Dora.’ 19 D: ‘perame. ‘Wait up.’ 20 V: Ten, Dora. ‘Here, Dora’ (F403)

The use of Spanish here by Lucia and Dora is significant fi in its contrast to the earlier part of this conversation, which was overwhelmingly in English. They are clearly accommodating their addressees, especially Consuela, who is a fairly recent arrival in the U.S. But it would be possible for them to address Consuela in Spanish and still speak to each other in English—this type of switching back and forth is found in other contexts and in some cases it was not uncommon for Dora and Lucia to switch back and forth within one conversation, switching to English to address me and back to Spanish to speak to their peers. Their choice to speak only Spanish here is a means of creating social alignment. For this interaction, they are including Consuela (and Vicente, although he participates less) in their friendship group. Instead of continuing to mark the membership with English, they include others by speaking Spanish. Within the framework discussed for the analysis of language and identity, we see here the construction of similarity and diff fference through language choice. Dora and Lucia set themselves

48

Bilingual Pre-Teens

apart through their use of English, yet they did not consistently do this. They shift to Spanish to construct similarity with their peers. As the year progresses, however, they seem less inclined to show inclusion through Spanish use. A recording made in March of 2004 shows a very diff fferent pattern. By this point in the school year, Dora and Lucia’s pattern of using English to mark their friendship dyad was well established. Both of the following examples are taken from a recording made in the afternoon—during Spanish instruction—when the girls are supposed to be working on math but are just goofi fing around. Dora, Lucia, Francisca, and I are sitting at a table together and a group of the 4th and 5th grade boys are not far away. I have been helping Lucia write out multiplication tables and trying to get the girls to fi nish their math assignments. I am making no headway with my coaxing and at one point Dora takes the microphone and starts pretending to do interviews; example 4 begins at this point. Note that Francisca, who does not speak much English, refuses to participate in the fi rst excerpt, and in example 5 she fi rst joins in by speaking Spanish and then is coached by Lucia to provide an English response to a knock-knock joke. She finally fi produces an uncoached contribution in English in line 20 when she says crazy. Aside from a short dispute that Dora has with one of the boys (it is not clear from the recording who it is) after calling him gordo ‘fat’, both Dora and Lucia conduct their goofi fi ng around in English. (4) D=Dora, L=Lucia, F=Francisca 1 D: Hello, my name is (.) Carmen Cortéz. {to Francisca} What’s 2 your name? 3 (1) She doesn’t wanna speak. {to Lucia} What’s your name? 4 (1) Neither does she. 5 What’s your name, girl? 6 L: My name is Lucia Gutierrez- {trails off ff into laughter} 7 D: I can see it in your eyes. 8 L: Hey, you put the rrrr in xxx xx 9 D: What’s your name. 10 L: Carlita. {laughter}No, no. (F001) (5) D=Dora, L=Lucia, F=Francisca 1 D: How old are you, Mrs. 2 L: Nine years old. 3 D: How old are you M:ister:: (1) 4 F: =Gordo! {giggles} ‘Fat!’ 5 D: Gordo! ‘fat!’ 6 Boy: Flaca! ‘skinny!’ 7 D and F: (Mr. Gordo) {more giggles}

Amigos Amid Americanos 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

49

Boy: Flaca! ‘skinny!’ D: O.k., you may shut up now. Boy: Flaca! ‘skinny!’ D: Yeah, whatever, yeah whatever. Boy: Flaca! ‘skinny!’ D: O.k., you may shut up now. {laughter} D: Malos! {laughter} She has xxx xx. (.) Fu::ller ‘Bad boys!’ How old are you ma’am? (1) So::: Mrs.: How old are you? (1) Kno:ck kno:ck. L: {softly} say, who’s there? F: Who’s there? D: M:e. Hahahaha. (.) Knock knock. F: crazy! D: Yeah, whatever. (F001)

This conversation is interesting in many regards. First, it shows Dora and Lucia’s clear preference for English in this type of language play. At the same time, there is some indication that they are not taking on Anglo personas with this code choice. When they make up names for themselves in example 4 (in lines 1 and 10; in line 6, Lucia gives her real name), they use Latina names. Their use of English serves to construct their identities on many levels. First, as discussed above, it constructs their identities as best friends, which is arguably a gendered concept, but it also indexes a Latina identity that is rooted in U.S. cultural practices, not Mexican ones. Another interesting aspect is that they seem to be socializing Francisca into their way of speaking, as Lucia coaches her in line 17 on the proper response in knock-knock jokes and she is repeatedly addressed in English. She shows some resistance to joining in the English banter, as shown by her initial silence and contributions in Spanish, but eventually participates with a one-word English utterance, crazy. The stance Lucia and Dora are taking here is quite diff fferent from the stance taken in the checkers game examples above. Their switch to Spanish to accommodate Consuela in the earlier examples positioned them as part of the larger peer group and also aligned them with a non-assimilationist ideology for language use. In 4 and 5 we see that they are constructing themselves as different ff from their Spanish-speaking peers and they seek to draw Francisca into this way of being. Further, the lines are clearly drawn in the brief argument Dora has with a boy from the classroom. Dora will only deign to argue in Spanish to a limited extent (using a Spanish insult that is initiated by Francisca) and then switches back to English to express her disdain. This is a construction

50

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of diff fference with language choice standing in for gender. As I have argued elsewhere (Fuller 2010), among the 4th graders in this classroom, English has become an index of feminine identity through the pervasive use of this code by Dora and Lucia and the high rate of Spanish use by the 4th grade boys, especially Miguel. In this instance, opposition is shown through these language choices. In addition to not speaking Spanish, Dora rejects this male speaker by refusing to enter into an exchange of name-calling and instead discounting his taunts with yeah, whatever and you may shut up now. Her muttered use of Spanish at the end of this exchange (malos ‘bad boys’) is lower in volume and less directed at the boys than at her audience of Lucia, Francisca, and me. While at odds with her strategy of constructing diff fference through language choice, this use of a Spanish insult is consistent with her overall construction of herself not as an English monolingual, but as a bilingual. Here we see the multiple and sometimes confl flicting nature of the work of identity construction. Dora is not just a girl who is waging a verbal battle with a boy, but also a Latina who can demonstrate her authenticity through the use of Spanish. Although Dora and Lucia were the main children in this classroom to construct their identities through bilingual discourse, with a heavy reliance on English as their friendship code, this does not mean that the other children did not construct themselves as bilinguals. Such bilingual identities and how they are negotiated through language choice will be investigated in the next section.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF BILINGUAL IDENTITIES FOR SELF AND OTHERS As discussed in Chapter 2, there was a bilingual norm in the classroom— the children’s competence in both languages was recognized and sometimes utilized in instruction. However, this is not to say that all of the speakers constructed similarly bilingual identities for themselves and others. Their use of strategic bilingual discourse shows presuppositions about their own and others’ identities with regard to bilingualism and also constructed difference between those considered bilingual and those considered monolingual (or not very profi ficient in one language or the other). It also shows the dynamic aspect of identity construction, as the identities of some individuals with regard to bilingualism changed over time. Although the categories of ‘bilingual’ and ‘monolingual’, as they emerged in this setting, clearly had something to do with the more concrete aspects of language profi ficiency (i.e., can a person understand and make him/herself understood in a language), they are primarily identity categories. The clearest example of this can be found in data involving Miguel, a 4th grade boy. I did not have access to academic records in my research, but from my interactions with the children, comments made by the teacher, and

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grouping of students for ESL instruction, I had a good sense of how the children compared to each other in terms of English profi ficiency. Miguel’s English profi ficiency in terms of academic use was around the same level as Dora and Lucia, and Antonio’s English level for academic work was somewhat higher than that of the other three children in his grade. However, Miguel did not construct himself as a bilingual in terms of social identity. He did construct himself as a diligent student, which led to consistent use of English during English instruction, but outside of this context he did not attempt to negotiate an identity as an English speaker. In this case, we see that a single code—English—can mean diff fferent things in diff fferent contexts, even within the same classroom. In the process of doing an English lesson, it contributed to the construction of a serious student persona, but outside of that context it was linked to a broader identity which included participation in mainstream U.S. society, an identity which Miguel did not construct for himself. One example of Miguel’s pattern of language use can be seen in the excerpt shown in 6. In this interaction, I am reading with the five fi 4th grade children. As this example begins, I am asking the children questions about a story they are reading in which three children are left alone in a frontier home. In an attempt to get them to think about what it means for three children ages 11, 8, and 3 to be left to fend for themselves, I ask them how old they are, hoping to tie this back in to the story. However, I have unwittingly set the stage for controversy as this question quickly leads to a dispute about Antonio’s age (Miguel accuses him of being eight, while he claims that he is nine). Note that in lines 3 and 5, Miguel answers the questions I am asking about the ages of the children in the book—and also note that he appears to be the only one attending to this conversation. Dora is singing to herself, Antonio is having a conversation with a child from another group, and Raquel and Lucia do not say anything at all until the debate heats up. This conscientious behavior is typical of Miguel. He constructs himself as a diligent student not only by paying attention and responding to the teacher’s questions, but also by speaking the language of instruction. In this case, he is speaking English, his dispreferred language, because the instruction is in English. Therefore it is no surprise that when he moves away from his student identity to pick a fight with Antonio, he switches into Spanish. The other children do not follow suit, and continue to use English to a large extent. (6) JMF = author, D=Dora, L=Lucia, R=Raquel, M=Miguel, A=Antonio 1 JMF: Okay. So, (1), how old are the kids and they’re gonna stay alone? 2 D: {singing to herself} 3 M: Uh, three, eight and twelve. 4 JMF: Eleven. 5 M: Ele /ven. / Yeah. 6 JMF: /Eleven./ That’s, that’s not very old, is it? to (.) How 7 old are you guys.

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Bilingual Pre-Teens 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

R, M, D: I’m nine. I’m nine, I’m nine D: I’m almost ten. R: I’m nine. M: He’s eight. D: He’s eight. {pointing at A} He = A: = {protesting} nine. M: ¡A que sí! !A / que sí /! ‘Uh-huh! Uh-huh!’ A: {protesting}/ nine / M: Tienes ocho. ‘You’re eight.’ R: nine! D: He’s eight. M: Ocho ‘Eight.’ A: ¡Dije nueve! ‘I said nine!’ D: He’s eight, ocho, he’s eight. ‘eight,’ A: Unh-unh, I’m nine! M: ¡A que no! Tienes ocho. ‘Unh-unhh! You’re eight.’ (X402)

This language choice of Miguel’s is, on the face of it, not unusual. After all, Spanish is the shared fi rst language of these children. We might expect them to switch to that language when they turn away from roles that require English, such as participating in an English reading lesson, and into roles in which they are interacting with each other as peers. However, it becomes signifi ficant when we see that in this community of practice, this is not necessarily the norm. For example, in one recording in which Miguel and Antonio are working on a worksheet with me (X403) and arguing over who has the right answers, at one point Miguel, who has just given an answer I have said was correct, turns to Antonio and says, ¿Que te dije? ‘What did I tell you?’ Only minutes later, the tables are turned and it is Antonio who has provided the correct answer and he turns to Miguel and gloats, Told ya! Given the larger picture, with Dora and Lucia speaking English to demarcate their friendship group and Antonio using English to show his bilingual skills (discussed below), Miguel’s language choices become more of a construction of difference than similarity. An interesting set of language choices that illustrate the dynamics and identities in the 4th graders’ interactions can be found in a recording in which I was reading a Spanish text with the children (X410). My Spanish was only marginally up to the task and the children were aware that their English was better than my Spanish, but for the most part

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they gamely participated in the exercise, reading in Spanish and answering the questions I read from the teacher’s manual. They occasionally switched into English to address me, as shown in examples 7 through 9—except for Miguel, who did not utter a word of English throughout the entire lesson. In example 7, we see that Antonio makes a mixed utterance in line 1 and switches to English in line 7. Dora participates in the conversation in Spanish but Lucia appears to have her attention elsewhere, and when she speaks in lines 14 and 17 it is to inquire what page they are on—in English. In this very simple example, we can see how multiple positions are negotiated with code choices. Miguel, Antonio, and Dora, in this excerpt, are performing their student roles and, because we are doing a Spanish lesson, that means speaking Spanish. Miguel also has a strong tendency to adhere to the language of instruction and he usually speaks Spanish with me when we are not in an explicitly Englishlearning context, so his use of Spanish is typical of his overall linguistic behavior. Dora is a diff fferent matter; here she temporarily abandons her usual practice of speaking English with me to cooperate in the lesson. Although she will often use English even during Spanish instruction, here she is participating in the pretense that I am their Spanish teacher. Antonio, on the other hand, is often quick to switch into English with me to position himself as bilingual and me as not profi fi cient in Spanish. Here, he also constructs himself as a language authority, but in terms of knowledge of Spanish. (7) D=Dora, L=Lucia, M=Miguel, A=Antonio 1

A: =Cuál pa/ge?/ ‘Which page?’ 2 JMF: /Les/ gustan las matemáticas? ‘Do you (all) like math?’ 3 D/L: Eeeuwwww! 4 M: Sí:: ‘Yes.’ 5 A: A mí sí! ‘I do!’ 6 M: A /mí sí!/ ‘I do!’ 7 A: / I do! / 8 JMF: Y por (.) Y por qué? ‘And wh And why?’ 9 M: Por qué sí, porque tienes números. ‘Why do (I), because you have numbers.’ 10 D: Haaa! {mocking} 11 JMF: {laughing slightly}Y por qué no?{to D} ‘And why not?’

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Bilingual Pre-Teens 12 D: Porque::: tienes que (ahí) estar pense y pensé* y me cae mal. ‘you have to be (there) think and think and it rubs me the wrong way.’ 13 A: Piense y piense, no pense y pensé*. ‘Think and think, not thenk and thenk*.’ 14 L: What pa:::ge 15 M: Uuuuooo! {sigh of exasperation} 16 JMF: Te gusta la mate/máticas?/ [sic] {to Lucia} ‘Do you like math?’ / I’m try/ing to fi:nd fi . . . (X410) 17 L: *Standard Spanish form is piense ‘think’; non-Standard pense translated here as ‘thenk’ to show contrast with Standard ‘think’

In line 13, Antonio is making a reference to the non-Standard verb form that Dora uses in this utterance. Instead of the Standard piense for the present subjunctive form, she uses pense. This turn positions Antonio as an expert on Spanish. Given that he has also just claimed to like math, it appears to be part of an overall display of knowledge which is certainly part of a ‘good student’ identity, and also potentially part of the construction of masculinity (Kiesling 2001, 2007). Also, signifi ficantly, it shows an ideological stance indicating the value of Spanish; he claims authority through his knowledge of ‘correct’ Spanish. This is again a multi-layered identity construction. Displays of knowledge are often part of a ‘good student’ identity, and being a good student may be ultimately linked to future socio-economic upward mobility. In this case the area of Antonio’s knowledge, Spanish, indexes an identity that is more rooted in Mexico, or at least the Latino ethnic enclave in southern Illinois, than a mainstream U.S. identity. This utterance is thus part of diff fferent facets of Antonio’s identity, contributing to ethnolinguistic identity as well as gender and social class identification. fi Later in this same interaction (see 8), Dora switches to English when she does not know the word for ‘scale’, but up until this point she is constructing herself as a cooperative student and participating in the construction of me as a Spanish speaker. Her switch out of this frame reflects fl her own identity as a profi ficient English speaker as well as her construction of me as dominant in English. Again, this identity construction works on different ff levels. Within this interaction, she is constructing herself as a cooperative student. Her shift to English lets go of the pretense that Spanish is the usual code for an interaction among these participants, but she continues to be on topic and participating in the lesson. But her switch to English to express herself more clearly is part of a construction of herself as English dominant. This aspect of her identity has clear implications for her position in and toward the wider society, especially when seen as part of a larger pattern of speaking English with her peers.

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(8) D=Dora, L=Lucia, M=Miguel, A=Antonio 1 JMF: Qué hacen cuan, cuando quieran saber cuánto pesa algo? ‘What do you (pl) do whe, when you want to know how much something weighs?’ 2 D: Ha, /pos,/ la pongo en una libra thing. ‘Ha, well, I put it in a pound thing’ 3 ?: /Qué:?/ ‘What?’ 4 JMF: Hmmm? 5 D: You know about this, they look li:ke (1.5) (like) 6 JMF: like (an) abacus? 7 D: I don’t know. Xxx like this one (.) (No no no) (.) and (you) go 8 like this 9 something and with something’s and when something is like 10 A: like here 11 D: No, 12 L: they’re gonna finish fi 13 D: =when something’s like fatter, I mean bigger, it goes like this {makes continuous falling beeping sound, presumably to indicate the trajectory of the heavier object on the scale ‘falling’ downwards} 14 JMF: Oh, I see. Ok, a uh, (.) scale. (X410) While Dora tended to construct herself and me as English speakers, Miguel’s use of the two languages is quite different. ff Of all of the students in the classroom, he is most consistent in the construction of me as a Spanish speaker, although it is largely the byproduct of his construction of himself as a Spanish speaker. In this interaction and in general, he is always eager to speak Spanish to me despite evidence that I do not always understand. As discussed in Fuller (2007), this is part of his construction of a Mexican identity, but I suggest that it is also linked to his positioning with regard to me. Although it may be in part the construction of solidarity, speaking Spanish also puts Miguel in a position of power in interactions with me. This does not allow him to be positioned as a bilingual, but it clearly positions me as somewhat helpless, and he is in control of the conversation. Example 9 illustrates how Miguel gains power from this code choice. This excerpt begins with me reading a question from the textbook, in Spanish, for the children to answer. Lucia and Dora give flippant answers to the question in English, which is their usual code for playful activity, as shown in 4 and 5 above. Antonio and Miguel answer in Spanish, but their answers are not relevant. The question is about problems in their lives they can solve with mathematics. Although their co-constructed answer does involve a perceived problem in their lives, it is wholly unrelated to mathematics, which is the focus of this lesson. Antonio is the one who brings up the subject of not having a girlfriend, but it is Miguel who takes this topic and runs with it, going into a long story about a fortune-teller who predicted that he would have many children. Early in the interaction (lines 16, 18, and 20) I try

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to halt this conversation by saying that this is not a problem that can be solved by using mathematics, but Miguel continues on at some length. As I only partially understand the story he is telling, the best option I have at the end of Miguel’s story is to continue on with another question. Miguel has thus gained interactional power in this conversation; he was able to take the floor and tell his story without interruption or insistence that we return to the topic of the lesson. (9) JMF= the author, M=Miguel, L= Lucia, D=Dora, A =Antonio 1 JMF: Okay. /Qué tipo de/problemas pueden (.) resolver (.) usando los matemáticas. ‘Okay. What kind of problems can you (all) solve using math?’ 2 M: /(Mucho xxx)/ ‘and A lot of xxx’ 3 L: I don’ know. 4 A: Je? ‘Huh?’ 5 D: I don’t know. 6 ?: Mm:: 7 JMF: Hay problemas en: tu vida? ‘Are there problems in your life?’ 8 D: Yep! 9 JMF: Qué:, qué: pueden re resolvar? (.) resolvan? (.) /usando los matemáticas?/ ‘What what can you (all) so solve? You (all) solve? using math?’ 10 A: No /tengo/ novia. ‘I don’t have a girlfriend.’ 11 D: /No./ 12 M: Sí, ‘ire! ‘Yeah, look!’ 13 JMF: No? Y (.) Ésa es una problema? (.) para ti? ‘No? And That is a problem? for you?’ 14 A: Sí.= ‘Yes.’ 15 M: =Sí:, pa’ mi tambié::n (.) porque n/o te/ngo novia:. ‘Yes, for me too because I don’t have a girlfriend.’ 16 JMF: {laughs} Pero ‘But’ 17 M: No me /voy a casar / ‘I’m not going to get married’ 18 JMF: /tú no puedes resolver/ eso ‘you can’t solve that’ 19 M: porque /ahí diciendo/ ‘because saying there’

Amigos Amid Americanos 20 JMF: 21 22

23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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/xxx la matemática,/ o no? ‘xxx math, or not?’ M: mdijo la me dijo ahí en un papelillo que yo me iba a casar, de ocho, o de ocho años (.) iba a iba /a ser mi mil/ millonario ‘(s/he) told m the mb said there on a little paper that I was going to get married, at eight, or at eight years old I was going to I was going to be a mil mil millionaire’ L: / ha (pues) ya estás casado./ ‘ha, (then) you’re already married.’ M: y que:: y que me iba en fui me iba a ir pa’ onde? ‘and that and that I was going in I went I was going to go to where?’ A: p/a::’/ ‘to’ M: /p/a’ Hawaii, y que iba a tener (.) cuántos (.) niños? ‘to Hawaii and that I was going to have how many children?’ D: Eleven. A: Once ‘Eleven’ M: Once niños ‘Eleven children’ D: A:y, no es /cie/ ‘Oh, that’s not tr’ A: / Atréven(se)/ ‘Dare to’ M: Ho, no tres. (.) Tres /o dos/. ‘Oh, no three. Three or two.’ JMF: /No/ (.) Eso no es un pro‘No. That’s not a proD?: Q/ué?/ ‘What?’ M: /Y / ‘And’ JMF: /problema=/ ‘problem’ M: /y que. . .y que../ ‘and that and that’ D: =Ay! Quítate::! ‘Oh! Get off ff!’ A: Que me voy a casar con una que se llama Raquel y que vamos a tener va a tener dos hijos y que las voy a casar a los catorc a los catorce años y /xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx/ ‘That I’m going to marry some girl named Raquel and that we’re going to have, she’s going to have two boys and that I’m going

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42 43 44 45

to marry them off ff at four at fourteen years old and xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx’ M: /Yo me voy a casar a los ocho/ ‘I’m going to get married at eight years old.’ M: /{laughs}/ D: Ee/uuww!/ JMF: /Okay./ No . . . otra pregunta. ‘Okay. No . . . another question.’ (X410)

In this example, what begins as Miguel and Antonio’s participation in the lesson is quickly transformed into their hijacking of it, and their use of Spanish—a language they realize I do not master—is key to this interaction. The girls habitually use English for playful talk, but the boys use Spanish, which in this case is more eff ffective because it is much more diffi fficult for me to intercede. This language choice has many layers of meaning. It is linked to their own profi ficiencies and preferences, but it is also the construction of an ideology that runs counter to hegemonic monolingualism. It is because they are bilingual and especially because they are fluent speakers of Spanish, the minority language, that they gain power in this dialogue. Because I am dominant in English and only a poor speaker of Spanish, I lose control of where the conversation is going. So they can turn the usual hierarchy of languages on its head. It is my status as a speaker of the dominant language and their status as speakers of a minority language which gives them the power to dominate in this conversation. Although Antonio participates, indeed initiates, this cooption of the conversation by use of Spanish, in general he is less willing to speak Spanish to me. Again, I would argue that this is largely because of how language choice is part of his own identity construction. That is, he likes to construct himself as a good student and a profi ficient English speaker. So instead of constructing interactional power, as he and Miguel do in example 9, his usual strategy is to construct power through positioning himself as a bilingual and others as monolinguals. Although he is cooperative in speaking Spanish with me for part of the lesson discussed above, I suggest that this is because in these instances it serves to construct his good student identity. Antonio is competitive about academic achievement and will sometimes brag or gloat when he does better than others on assignments. He is also quite aware that he is in the highest ESL reading group while the other three 4th graders are in the mid-level group. Many of his language choices have to do with positioning himself as a good student. Although part of this positioning is displaying his bilingual skills, being a good student in some cases involves speaking the language of instruction, regardless of other factors. In most interactions with me, when Spanish is not necessary to his identity as a good student, he is quick to switch to English. This is clearly a construction of diff fference, as he positions himself as a bilingual and me as an English monolingual.

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This enactment of bilingualism by Antonio can be seen quite clearly in a recording from a math lesson. Math is done in the afternoon, during the Spanish half of the day, and the math books are in Spanish. This does sometimes trigger my use of Spanish, as there are word problems and instructions that I read in Spanish as I assist them in doing their assignments. Antonio will often switch to English when addressing me to ensure comprehension, as in example 10. Note that although Antonio initiates this exchange in a mixture of English and Spanish, and seems to be repairing his English question to pose it in Spanish in lines 1–2, this is the only time he does this in this recording. All other utterances addressed to me are in English. He seems to rethink his initial use of Spanish when he repeats the questions in English in lines 11 and 13 and after I have read the problem more carefully he seeks confirmation, fi in English, in lines 24–27. (10) A=Antonio, M=Miguel, JMF = the author 1 A: Maestra (.) Teacher do you do you have to. (.) Tenemos que 2 hacerle menos en en number ten? ‘Do we have to subtract in in number ten?’ 3 JMF: Ten? 4 A: Menos. ‘Subtract.’ 5 JMF: How much. 6 A: Menos. ‘Subtract.’ 7 M: No lo entiendo la die:z. ‘I don’t understand number ten.’ 8 A: Plus or 9 JMF: Minus. 10 M: No lo entiendo la diez no xxx ‘I don’t understand number ten I don’t xxxx’ 11 A: Minus, o.k.. 12 JMF: How much is 13 A: It’s minus right 14 JMF: {mutters to self} 15 A: Oh, number ten. 16 JMF: {Reading the problem} Cuánto menor que ocho. (.) Ocho al 17 cuadrado es(.) qué. ‘How much less than eight (.) Eight squared is what.’ 18 A: Cuarenta, sesenta y cuatro? ‘Forty, sixty four?’ 19 JMF: Mmm hmm. (.) y siet—umm ‘Mmm hmm. (.) and sev—umm’ 20 A: Siete por ocho?= ‘Seven times eight?’

60 Bilingual Pre-Teens 21 JMF: 22 23 24 25 26 27

=Siete por ocho? ‘Seven times eight?’ A: Umm cincuenta y seis? ‘Umm fifty six?’ JMF: O.k. yeah. (.) Sí. (.) Es correcto. ‘O.k. yeah. (.) Yes. (.) That’s right.’ A: And and and then it’s (.) um minus? JMF: Yeah. (.) Yeah. A: O.k. JMF: It’s minus. (X409)

Miguel is working at the same pace as Antonio at this point and he is also confused about how to do this problem (math problem #10). It is typical of him that he asks for help in Spanish, his preferred code. The next excerpt from this same recording is given in 11 and illustrates the dynamics when Antonio is interacting with both me and Miguel. He directs his questions to me in English, switches to Spanish to speak to himself as he does his sum in line 6, and speaks Spanish to Miguel in lines 24 and 26. In this excerpt, Miguel again asks for help in Spanish but does not receive a direct answer from me. Antonio, who is speaking much more loudly and in English, receives my direct attention and Miguel, who is on the same problem, listens in on my discussion with Antonio and follows along. This dynamic can only serve to reinforce the high status of speaking English and the practicality of being a bilingual, but these factors have different ff infl fluences on the two boys. Antonio is willing to use English to achieve his ends, but Miguel seems only willing to do so within English instruction. In mathematics, which is a subject taught in Spanish, speaking English does not appear to be part of what he perceives to be his student role and he sticks with Spanish. (11) M=Miguel, A=Antonio, JMF = the author 1 A: This is it twen/ty-five/ fi 2 JMF: /No:. (.)/ No. (.) You have to add those two numbers. 3 A: A/:dd?/ 4 JMF: /be/cause the biggest one minus this one is this one, so if you add 5 those two you get the/the things added so, ‘c’. (.) Yeah./ 6 A: /Oh (.) Forty-eight plu::s (.) twenty-three. Ocho y /tres (once)/ ‘Eight and three (eleven)’ 7 JMF: /Yes (.) exa/ctly (2) 8 A: A hundred sixty one (.) That’s what I get 9 JMF: when you add twenty-three? (.) and forty-eight? 10 A: /Yes./ 11 M: maestra / no lo/ entiendo a ésta ‘teacher I don’t understand this one’

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12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

JMF: {to A} Oh you’re adding o::ne twenty-three (2) or what. It’s just (.) /twenty three/ A: /no because/ {inhales} eight plus three is eleven, right. /Eleven./ JMF: /Mm hmm./ A: an’ you got /o:ne/ JMF /and/ then you oh and then you carry {} carry the one. A: fourteen (.) Oh no, four (.) Oh yeah (.) Sorry. JMF: Four, six::::: and then you /just add the one/ A: /Seventy-one./ JMF: Yes. (.) There you go. A: Huh. I was doing something else. JMF: /Were ya/ carrying the one all the way down? A: En cuál vas M/—/-? ‘Which one are you on, M—?’ 25 M: E/n la:: dieci/siete. ‘On seventeen.’ 26 A: La dicisiete yo también. ‘Seventeen, me too.’ (X409)

In this case, the use of English, my dominant code, seems to be the construction of diff fference when used by Antonio and, paradoxically, Miguel’s use of Spanish, in which I have much lower profi ficiency, is a means of constructing similarity. At the same time both boys, using different ff codes, are putting themselves in positions of power. Antonio uses English to construct the identity of a bilingual who has more linguistic resources than the monolinguals (me and Miguel), while Miguel uses Spanish which puts him in a position of superiority over me because of my low profi ficiency in that language. Miguel’s is not an eff ffective strategy, but allows him to avoid being placed in a one-down position by using my dominant language and his non-preferred language. The fact that for Antonio speaking English is a powerful position whereas for Miguel speaking Spanish is more powerful has more to do with their constructed identities than their relative profifi ciencies. Antonio is, by objective measures, a higher level English speaker than Miguel, yet Miguel is by these same measures at the same level of English profi ficiency as Dora and Lucia. Despite sharing their level of competence, he does not share their level of confi fidence. In terms of identity, Miguel does not construct himself as someone who possesses the status of an English speaker. Instead, he challenges the hegemony of English through using Spanish as a power code. Miguel is relatively unique in this regard, however. On the whole, the children are eager to position themselves as English speakers. This emerges most regularly in interactions with me, as I am the weakest Spanish speaker in the classroom. Switching to English also occurs with their English teacher even though her Spanish is fluent and her comprehension excellent, so the use of Spanish is less about practicality and profi ficiency and more about

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identity. But more importantly, how the children position themselves with regard to each other shows the value of bilingualism. Each language choice works on diff fferent levels in identity construction. The switches are often locally motivated in the emerging discourse, yet they are also part of the speakers’ positioning in the wider society. Speaking Spanish, or switching back and forth between Spanish and English, only remains a viable option as long as the children continue to value ways of speaking other than monolingual English. As I will discuss below, however, the value of bilingualism is restricted to the classroom and the immigrant community. Outside of these realms, English is the language of power. Immigrant bilingualism is a type of bilingualism which has a limited and transient sphere of influence. fl The classroom, however, is defi fi nitely within that sphere. An example of the construction of bilingual versus monolingual identities can be found in data among the three 5th grade boys. Two of the boys, Felipe and Vicente, are quite profi ficient English speakers. Juan, on the other hand, came to the U.S. in the summer of 2003 and, at the time of the recording discussed below (M503), had only been in the U.S. for about four months. Both Felipe and Vicente are eager to position themselves as bilinguals and I off ffer them opportunity to do so by asking for a translation, as shown in example 12. (12) F=Felipe, V=Vicente, JMF = the author 1 JMF: Um, what is the word for cricket in Spanish? 2 F: Um, cricket. 3 JMF: Do you know? 4 V: No, it’s:: (.)/ grillo. 5 F: Grillo. ‘Cricket.’ 6 JMF: Grillo? ‘Cricket?’ 7 F: Yeah. 8 JMF: M’kay. 9 F. Gr/illo./ ‘Cricket.’ (M503) Although such interactions serve to construct difference ff in identities with regard to me—they are profi ficient in Spanish and I am not—a more frequent and for them undoubtedly more important positioning involves their alignment vis-à-vis Juan. They frequently translate English utterances directed at him, as illustrated in examples 13 and 14. (13) F=Felipe, V=Vicente, J=Juan, JMF = the author 1 JMF O.k.. (.) Juan? (.) What do you hear. 2 V: Qué oyes en: tu casa. ‘What do you hear in your house.’

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3 JMF: At night. 4 V: Yeah, qué /oyes./ (.) at ‘Yeah, what do you hear. at’ 5 J: /Na:da./ ‘Nothing.’ 6 /{laughter}/ 7 JMF: /Nothing?/ It is perfectly silent. 8 J: Ahhh, /xxxx/ 9 V: /Ca:LLADO/ todo. ‘Everything (is) silent.’ 10 J: Uh-huh. (M503) (14) F=Felipe, V=Vicente, J=Juan, JMF = the author 1 JMF: A rooster? (.) Is it a rooster? 2 V: Que sí es un gallo. ‘(She says) is it a rooster.’ 3 J: No. 4 JMF: Is it a goose. 5 V: Que sí es un pato. ‘(She says) is it a duck.’ 6 J: No. 7 Fr: It’s a plane. (.) Nah. 8 JMF: Juan, what sound does it make. 9 Fr: Que qué /soni/ ‘(She says) what sou’ 10 V: /Qué so/nido hace. ‘What sound does it make.’ 11 J: Ah? 12 JMF: What sound does it make. 13 V: Que(.) qué sonido hace. ‘(She says) what sound does it make.’ (M503) This mediation between Juan and me by Vicente and Felipe serves to construct us as diff fferent from each other and diff fferent from them, while they construct similarity between themselves. Their translations imply that Juan is not capable of understanding my English questions and their categorical use of English with me implies that I will not understand Spanish. The truth of my and Juan’s linguistic competencies is not quite so black– and-white, of course, but Felipe and Vicente construct clearly delineated categories for us as an English monolingual and a Spanish monolingual, and themselves as bilinguals. However, over time identities based on language profi fi ciency may change as an individual learns a language. Recordings made toward the end of the school year show that these same boys interact quite differently. In a recording made in January, only two months after the

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recording discussed above, Juan produces some English answers and answers some of my English questions in Spanish, showing he has understood them. Felipe does translate for him twice, but Juan more or less disregards his translations. In 15 and 16, we see how Vicente and Felipe have also changed tactics with regard to me. Most of the Spanish used in this interaction is found in turns in which the boys address each other, usually for off ff -task conversation, but in 16 Vicente is explicitly addressing me. I respond mostly in English, but in direct response to the content of Vicente’s Spanish utterance, and I also introduce the Spanish word medicos ‘medical doctors’ in line 8. (15) F=Felipe, V=Vicente, J=Juan, JMF = the author 1 V: Maestra, sabía que yo soy doctor? (.) y Felipe un doctor es. ‘Teacher, did you know that I’m a doctor and Felipe is a doctor.’ 2 F: Por qué le dices ‘Why are you telling her.’ 3 V: xxx/ xxx xxx xx/x los ojos ‘xxx xxx xxx xxx eyes.’ 4 JMF: /xxx xxx/ so you should be doctors? 5 V: /Yes./ 6 F: /N::/o. 7 V: A /que sí, Felipe/ ‘Yes, Felipe’ 8 JMF: /Médicos?/ ‘Doctors?’ 9 F: Yo no. ‘Not me.’ 10 V: Yo sí, así le xx xx todo el libro. ‘I am, that way xxx xxx the entire book.’ (M506) In example 16, we are discussing where they are in the book and who should begin reading. Felipe responds to my request for him to read in Spanish, abandoning the tactics we saw in 13 and 14 of treating me like an English monolingual. Juan also participates in the conversation in ways that indicate he is clearly following the English dialogue. In fact, although I interpret his utterance of each in line 16 as a bid to read, his turn in line 21 is interpreted by all as a prompt for Felipe. Juan’s turn follows Felipe’s question about where we are (line 18) and my response in line 19, and Vicente’s laughter. By prompting Felipe with the first fi two words of the sentence he should begin reading, in line 21, Juan position himself as more capable than Felipe in terms of following instructions. This is clearly a very diff fferent alignment than in the earlier conversations, when Felipe and Vicente were the experts who kept me and Juan informed of what was going on.

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(16) F=Felipe, V=Vicente, J=Juan, JMF = the author 1 JMF: Felipe, you wanna start? 2 F: Pa::: qué? De(.) De dónde? ‘What for? From from where?’ 3 JMF: Each (.) I think ‘each morning?’ 4 F: Aquí? ‘Here?’ 5 JMF: Or (.) Have we read this part? 6 F: No. 7 JMF: Why don’t you read this part, then. (.) ‘On Friday night.’ 8 F: {reading} On Friday night (.) D 9 JMF: O.k. (1) O./k./ 10 V: /W/e w/e stopped right here we ha/ve to read right here. 11 F: /W:::he::n/ 12 JMF: Oh. (.) Starting ‘ea/ch night.’/ 13 J: /Yo leo to/do. ‘I’ll read it all.’ 14 JMF: O.k. 15 F: Starting 16 J: Each 17 JMF: It’s Felipe’s turn first. fi 18 F: S:tarting? Dónde v/amos?/ ‘Starting? Where are we going?’ 19 JMF: /Each, /each. 20 V: {laughs} 21 J: Each morning 22 F: {reading} Each morning on (.) h::e/r/. . . (M506) This shift in Juan’s identity construction from monolingual to bilingual continues and the example in 17 shows how things stand at the end of the school year. Here Juan and I interact with no intermediaries, although Vicente, Felipe, and Antonio are all close by. Juan’s continued use of Spanish may carry several levels of meaning. In addition to bilingualism and monolingualism, stances with regard to the hegemony of English and my tenuous authority in the classroom are also part of these interactions. (17) J=Juan, JMF = the author JMF: are you done Juan? J: /yeah I’m done. / JMF: /did you hand it in?/ J: huh? JMF: did you hand it in? J: lo puedo poner aquí? ‘can I put it here?’ JMF: yes. (M507)

66 Bilingual Pre-Teens Juan has established himself as functionally bilingual by this time and this aspect of his changing identity is accepted by his peers, who stop constructing him as belonging to a diff fferent category from themselves. It is important to note that this is negotiated almost entirely without explicit mention of identity categories. No one ever describes another student as being unable to speak English or as a fluent bilingual or refers to me as an English monolingual. They initially asked me if I could speak Spanish (I said yes), but this did not lead to automatic categorization of me as a Spanish speaker. To the contrary, there was much giggling the first fi time I worked with a group of children in Spanish, but gradually they negotiated an identity for me that allowed me some competence in Spanish but dominance in English. Yet how they spoke to me varied greatly depending on how they wished to position themselves with relation to me, for example, as a fellow English speaker or as a Spanish speaker. Of course, most of the interactions in the classroom did not involve me at all. Because it was easiest for me to record the children when I was working with them myself, my data are clearly skewed through the inclusion of me as a participant in many of my recordings. However, I do have a number of recordings of the children working in a group with their English teacher, and I will turn to one of these recordings now. This interaction took place between the four 6th graders (Inez, Consuela, Zoe, and Juan Carlos) in mid-March of 2004. Inez had been in school in the U.S. for only two months and Juan Carlos and Consuela had been in the U.S. less than a year. Zoe, the fourth 6th grader, was born in the U.S. and has much higher English profi ficiency. However, despite her linguistic advantage, Zoe does not produce the most English. In the entire lesson, she produces only 39 English utterances in comparison with Consuela’s 68 turns in English. Even Inez, with barely two months of English instruction under her belt, produces 16 English utterances. As exemplifi fied in the following excerpt, Juan Carlos does not participate in the discussion at all. He occasionally makes comments in Spanish, but only uses English when he is asked to read part of the story they are working on (reading was not included in the above-mentioned counts of English utterances). In 18 and 19, Ms. Carrington is trying to teach the children the meanings of the words ‘compare’ and ‘contrast’ (i.e., to say what is similar about two items and to say what is diff fferent). Example 18 begins as Ms. Carrington is focusing on the word ‘compare’, and Consuela picks up a pen and a pencil to use as examples. (18) MC= Ms. Carrington, the teacher; C=Consuela; Z=Zoe; I=Inez 1 MC: Now (2) Then what are you doing with those things, then. 2 (.) If you’re comparing them. 3 {unintelligible} 4 MC: Right, but there’s xxx xxx xxx 5 C: One pencil? And one (.) pen.

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MC: O.k. (.) That will work. ‘Kay? (.) But if we’re gonna compare them, what will we do? (.) Look and see:: C: The:: (1.5) The (.) The pencil and the pen? MC: O.k. (.) but C: (Look at) the /pencil./ MC: / if we’re loo/king at comparing them (.) right? (.) If we’re comparing them, we’re going to look and see the things that are? Z: Diff fferent. MC: The::: Z: Same. MC: Compare means Z: They’/r::e / MC: /L/ook and see what /is / Z: /Sharp/ MC: The same, o.k.? (1) So if we compare them what will we say that they both have a p-(.) sharp (.) What (.) What is sharp on them. C: Sharp. MC: The:: C: Sharp pencil (2) Ah! The pen::: I: Paper C: Paint. Z: Point. MC: The point of them is sharp, right? (X603)

Consuela is the most active participant in this discussion, but is not the fi rst to give the answer the teacher is looking for, namely that comparing means to say what is the same about two or more things. Consuela is still a few steps behind where the teacher is going, naming the pen and pencil as the things they are comparing in line 8 when the teacher is asking what it means to compare. It is Zoe who figures out what Ms. Carrington is getting at, although she guesses wrong in line 14 by saying that you compare things that are diff fferent, she is on the right track and, with a hint from the teacher, gets the right answer in line 16. Consuela again misunderstands the question Ms. Carrington asks in lines 21–22, which is apparently aimed at eliciting the idea that they both have sharp points. Consuela responds with sharp pencill in line 25. Inez then comes up with paper in line 26, but this contribution is not attended to by the teacher. (Although it is not entirely clear what Inez means, my guess is that she is providing another thing that these two items have in common, namely that they are used to write on paper.) Consuela then produces paint, possibly as an attempt at ‘point’, but it is again Zoe who produces the correct answer, which Ms. Carrington affirms ffi in line 29. This pattern of interaction shows how Consuela and Inez both try to construct themselves as English speakers, using whatever English resources

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they have and guessing at what the teacher wants them to say. Both appear to be following the conversation and in that way are successful in their constructions of themselves as English speakers and good students. Their answers are often off ff target, but they are working to display what they know. Zoe, who has the advantage of much better English skills, appears to hold back and produce the answer when she knows what the teacher is asking for. Zoe is overall very reticent, but that does not mean that she avoids displaying her understanding and ability. She does this in a diff fferent way than Consuela, who is very outgoing, by giving fewer overall answers but a higher rate of correct ones. All three girls use English as a straightforward index of their identities as English speakers and good students. However, as seen in the next example, this is by no means the only way in which this identity can be constructed. Example 19 is a continuation of this conversation, where they have moved on to discussing ‘contrast.’ Here we see that Consuela and Inez have another strategy to construct their good student roles—the use of Spanish. Although this may seem as if it would be counterproductive during English instruction, we can see in this example that it is actually quite effective. ff Because they are following the English questions of the teacher and incorporating some English into their answers, their identities as English speakers are also performed in these examples. (19) MC= Ms. Carrington, the teacher; C=Consuela; Z=Zoe; I=Inez 1 MC: O.k. (.) What is different, then. 2 C: Uh (.) De que uno es silver con tinta y xxx xxx con:: xxx ‘Uh. One is silver with ink and xxxx with xxx’ 3 MC: Mmm-hmm? 4 C: Una es con tinta (.) Y el /otro/ ‘One is with ink. And the other’ 5 MC: /M’kay/ Which one 6 C: Pen? 7 MC: Pen what. 8 C: Pe:::n (.) Ay, no sé. ‘Pen. Oh, I don’t know.’ 9 I: /tinta/ ‘ink’ 10 C: /(Black)/ ink. 11 MC: M’kay. (.) And what about the pencil, then? 12 C: xxx xxx /xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx/ 13 I: /El otro es de carbón./ ‘The other is (made) of charcoal.’ 14 C: Thi thi this thi is 15 MC: What does it 16 C: carbon 17 MC: And what does it have.

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18 I: El otro es de carbón. ‘The other is (made) of charcoal.’ 19 C: Sharp and xxx xxx {laughs} 20 I: {laughs} 21 C: lah 22 I: Qu/é./ ‘what’ 23 MC: /O./k. (.) xxx xxx xxx? 24 I: When /you/ 25 MC: /And/ what you do with them? 26 I: (No está, no está.) ‘It’s not there, it’s not there.’ 27 MC: What do you do with these? (.) With a pen and a pencil? 28 Z: You write. 29 MC: Is that something that’s comparing or con/trasting./ 30 C: /Esto (.) /Éste se puede borrar y éste no. (1.5) /This erase?/ ‘This one. This one can be erased and this one can’t. This erase?’ 31 I: /Comparing?/ 32 MC: Sí. ‘Yes.’ 33 I: En cuál xxx xxx xxx xxx los dos. ‘Which xxx xxx xxx xxx both.’ (X603) In this example, Consuela again shows she is able to understand the questions asked by the teacher, but does not have the vocabulary to answer them in English. She gives an answer in Spanish, incorporating one English word, silver, r and then fi nally, in line 10, comes up with black ink to describe the pen. The material of the pencil is never given in English, only in Spanish, but this appears acceptable to Ms. Carrington. She then moves on to the question of what you do with the pen and the pencil. Zoe makes her only contribution to this topic here by saying, you write, again a correct answer delivered in English. Ms. Carrington then asks if that is comparing or contrasting, to which Inez correctly responds that it is comparing. It is interesting to note that Ms. Carrington’s affirffi mation of Inez’s answer of the correct English term is off ffered in Spanish. This is part of the means she uses to construct a bilingual norm for the classroom. Both Inez and Consuela use the strategy of speaking Spanish here as a means of constructing themselves as knowledgeable and good students. They are engaged in the lesson and can provide the correct information about the pen and pencil, just not in the target language, but as the teacher responds to their Spanish utterances without comment, it is clear that this strategy is working. And they both switch to English when they find fi the words. For Consuela, this comes when she utters black ink and later with

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the words sharp and xx xx and this erase; Inez uses comparing g to show she has learned the terms they are discussing. Arguably, all of the girls’ strategies are attempts to position themselves as knowledgeable. They often back off ff of this position (as in line 8, when Consuela says, ay, no sé ‘oh, I don’t know’), but they rally and return to try again. Zoe makes fewer efforts, ff but she does not undermine her status as the best English speaker of her grade by fumbling around in Spanish, but makes short, succinct contributions in well-formed English. These examples, and especially the language use of Consuela, show that the use of English is part of constructing a good student identity in the English classroom, but it is not the only strategy that can be used eff ffectively. In this section I have shown that there is some resistance to the hegemony of English in that bilingualism is valued, albeit in a limited way. Part of its value, of course, comes from the high status of English, because speaking both English and Spanish is clearly better than only speaking Spanish. However, the children also gain status through constructing themselves as bilinguals and others as monolinguals. In the immigrant community, bilingualism is a valued commodity. Also, the use of Spanish in the English classroom is considered acceptable if the content they are providing is correct or it indicates that they are engaged in an academic task. Although this is not a direct affi ffi rmation of the importance of Spanish, it is certainly a challenge to the assignment of social worth and practical value only to English. Finally, Spanish can also be used to put the speaker in a position of power when the addressee does not master Spanish, a move which again challenges the hegemony of English. This topic will be further developed in the next section.

ENGLISH HEGEMONY AND USE OF ENGLISH Despite the positive value associated with a bilingual identity in this classroom, there is no question that the children in the bilingual classroom in Montville Elementary School understood, and to some extent internalized, the dominance of English in the United States and within their community. At their school, the superiority of English speakers was implicit in the fact that all of the authority figures could speak English. English was also quantitatively dominant as most of the children on their buses, in the lunchroom, and in the school yard were English speakers. Even their Spanish teacher spoke English to everyone but the students in the classroom. On the one hand, this made their bilingual classroom an oasis in a desert of monolingualism, but on the other hand it also off ffered the interpretation that their classroom was not part of the ‘regular’ school. They were aware that the goal of their bilingual classroom was to help them learn enough English so that they could go into las

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clases normales ‘the normal [monolingual] classrooms’ and this further reinforced the secondary status of Spanish. The language ideologies of the wider community therefore potentially contributed social meanings to languages choices. English was not just a language they were learning; it was also a symbol of integration into U.S. society and socio-economic mobility. Spanish was not simply their fi rst and most fluent language, but also a link to their working-class ethnic communities and the nations of their (or their parents’) origin. Of course, these languages did not have these meanings all of the time and these were not the only meanings. In addition, there were local meanings which were developed in their community of practice. In the following sections, I will explore the connections between macro-level categories and such locally constructed meanings of language choice. The above discussion has placed the negotiation of sameness and differff ence and the indexing of identities about language profi ficiency within the context of a bilingual classroom, in which bilingualism was constructed as an advantage. Although this is one of the ways in which these children experience bilingualism, there is also another way they experience it—in the context of English hegemony. Speaking a language other than English implies that you are not a native speaker of English, which is a social disadvantage. Having a language other than English as a home language marks a person as outside of the mainstream and not a participant in the ideal trajectory of upward mobility in terms of income and social status. Urciuoli (1996) describes the attitudes of working class Puerto Ricans, stating that the ‘ideologically unmarked’ American citizen is a White, Anglo, middleclass, English-speaking male. Unconsciously, speakers compare themselves to this ideal and internalize the idea that in order to be upwardly mobile, they must become as similar to that ideal as possible. She writes: Class mobility has become central to the idea of the good citizen, and perceptions of language are rightly tied to ideas about class mobility. ‘Race’/ethnicity and gender may be accidents of birth but, ideologically, people should be able to control class mobility and language. (Urciuoli 1996: 138) ‘Controlling’ language in the quest for upward mobility in the U.S. means assimilation to speaking English. In subtractive bilingualism models of education such as the one in Montville, monolingualism in the dominant code is presented as the means to class mobility, although in reality this is not a plausible outcome for these speakers. Despite the evidence of a bilingual norm in the classroom, and an environment in which bilingual discourse was acceptable linguistic behavior, this does not mean that code choices do not construct and perpetuate inequalities. For instance, in the examples of the math lesson above, we see that Miguel, who used Spanish to ask for help, was disadvantaged by this

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code choice because of my dominance in English. As math instruction was part of the Spanish half of the school day, he was well within his language rights in expecting help in Spanish, but he nonetheless did not receive it. The translations by the fluent bilinguals show another perspective on the status of English versus Spanish. Only English is translated. I have no examples of a child translating something said in Spanish for me or another English speaker. One possible interpretation is that not understanding English is clearly a problem for the children, but not understanding Spanish is not viewed as a disadvantage, at least not for me, someone who is part of the Anglophone majority. Of course, another possible interpretation is that in some cases, the children clearly assumed I understood something said in Spanish (e.g., when Juan says nada ‘nothing’ in example 13). They did, after all, regularly see me take part in the Spanish language activities in their classroom. However, another important aspect is that at times utterances were produced in Spanish because they didn’t want me to understand in the fi rst place. So again, we see that code choices have multiple motivations and interpretations. There is no consistent social meaning for a particular code. However, the hegemony of English must be seen as a part of the asymmetrical approach to translation. Given that the children know that ultimately all of their schooling will be in English (at least, if they remain in the U.S.), it is only logical that they would see Spanish as a superfluous fl skill in the realm of education. As the school year continued, more and more English was heard throughout the day in the bilingual classroom. As discussed above, Juan began to use far more English in his interactions with his teacher and me, although he still spoke mostly Spanish with his peers. Consuela could be overheard asking the Spanish teacher Can I go to the bathroom? or hissing Shut up! to a classmate who was annoying her. Students who began the school year as already competent speakers of English used it more and more among themselves. The one exception to this progressive increase in the use of English was Juan Carlos, who made little progress using English academically or socially throughout the course of the year. He did not return to school the next year and the teachers did not know if he had moved away or was just not attending school. What is of particular interest here is the roles that are associated with English. One factor seems to be the power of the identity being performed. In some instances, it seemed clear that positions of authority were constructed through English. In one recording of the 4th graders reading in Spanish with me (X410, discussed above), I traded books with Dora because I had forgotten my glasses and could not read the small print in the teacher’s manual. This led to Dora pretending to be the teacher, a performance in which Lucia was eager to participate. In example 20, Dora gives the command Read! in English and Lucia explains Dora’s role as the teacher to the boys, also in English, in line 4.

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(20) D=Dora, L=Lucia, A=Antonio, M=Miguel, JMF = the author 1 D: Lucia, read! 2 A: Ey, pon a /leer a/ é:ste ‘Hey, make him read.’ 3 M: No, yo leo y si= ‘No, I read and if’ 4 L: =No, she’s the teacher 5 A: Ha:, ‘stás loca. ‘Ha, you’re crazy.’ 6 L: Dora? 7 D: Lucia, read! 8 L: {reading} Qué puedes /decir / ‘What can you say’ 9 JMF: {to Dora} /En españ p o:l / ‘In Spanish’ 10 D: Oh, yeah. (X410) At the end of this excerpt, I remind Dora that she is supposed to be a Spanish-speaking teacher, and in some subsequent interactions she does give some Spanish commands (e.g, empieza ‘begin’; Miguel, lee ‘Miguel, read’) as part of her playacting, as well as asking the other children to discuss a picture in the text in Spanish. Yet toward the end of the discussion, Dora once again slips into English, saying read, one more paragraph, next page, and other commands. I suggest that the use of English in performing the role of the teacher constructs a number of diff fferent aspects of identity. First, it helps to construct the macro-level identity of an English speaker. This taps into the prestige of English on a societal level. I suggest that the use of English is one way of positioning oneself as powerful, in part because of its associations with access to middle class identities. Because Dora has been given the teacher’s book and I am willing to let her pretend she is the teacher by having her indicate who is to read next, she is enjoying a bit of authority that children do not usually have in the classroom. There are several disputes about who gets to read next (the children often vie for the next, or longer, turns) and in one case Dora opposes the boys by letting Lucia read another paragraph when they feel she should have given one of them a turn. Being allowed to dictate who reads and how much is not an inconsequential power and it is telling that this position of authority is enacted in English. Second, the use of English constructs the classroom-level identity of a teacher. To some extent, this is based on Dora’s own experiences as all of her schooling has taken place in the U.S. Although both of their teachers speak Spanish (one natively and as the primary medium of instruction, the other as a second language and only intermittently), they also know that both of their teachers speak English. Further, all of the teachers for their special subjects (P.E., music, etc.) and the teachers in the other classrooms

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speak only English. But beyond this real-life association, there is a link back to the association of English and authority. Teachers are powerful people in their world and the way that they speak is also powerful. As an instance of metaphorical codeswitching (Gumperz 1982, Hill and Hill, 1986), Dora’s utterances show the link between speaking English and power wielding. There is also a link between mastering English and access to upward mobility in terms of socio-economic class. Doing well in school is unarguably a means to obtain earning power in the long run. This connection between macro and interactional roles is more salient in the German classroom I discuss in Chapter 5 and will be explored in more detail there. Third, in terms of cultural heritage, both Dora and Lucia position themselves as participants in American as well as Mexican culture. They came to the U.S. when they were in preschool and have lived most of their lives there. Although they are part of a Spanish-speaking ethnic community, they are also part of a U.S. youth culture that is carried out in English. These two girls dress, act, and talk like their White Anglophone southern Illinois contemporaries far more than the two 4th grade boys. Speaking English is clearly necessary to this aspect of their identities. Further, English (or Spanish-English bilingual discourse) is part of the construction of their friendship and this provides another motivation for English use in this context. Finally, speaking English also serves to position them with regard to me, the authority figure within this interaction. They align themselves with me, an Anglophone, but they also emulate me. That is, in taking on my role of ‘teacher’, speaking English is a necessary part of Dora positioning herself as me. However, this stance is temporary and part of a performance that is abandoned when a serious argument arises. In example 21, Dora abandons her performance of the teacher in line 18 as she tries to convince Antonio that her assignment of reading passages is fair. By switching to Spanish, she puts herself back into a peer role. Note that she uses English to tell Antonio what she has decided, but switches to Spanish to try to cajole him into seeing the fairness of her decision. In line 35 I revert to English to reinsert myself as the authority figure, and we fi nally move on from the dispute and continue reading. At this point Dora switches back into English and takes up her performance of the teacher again. (21) D=Dora, L=Lucia, A=Antonio, M=Miguel, JMF = the author 1 D: ‘Kay, next page, kids. 2 L: Next page. 3 A: My turn 4 JMF: Is it? Wait a second. No, it’s Lucia’s turn. 5 A: /No::::.!/ 6 M: / No:::!/ 7 D: Uh huh!

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A: It’s myy turn. D: /I’m/ the teacher. L: /Mine/ JMF: paragraph. A: Okay, Lucia, and then I’ll read all this. JMF: No no no no, Lucia, and then Miguel, and then you. D: and then Mrs. Fuller A: Lucia, Miguel, and me. {apparently staking out reading passages} D: N:o:::. He gets /a big/ part. So JMF: /Lucia/ D: Está bien chiquitita, ve lo cortito, ha ha. ‘It’s very, very, very small, look how very short, ha ha.’ JMF: Un poco ‘A little’ D: An, / an’ Okay (.) Miguel / no. //Miguel reads this, Antonio/ L: / xxx, yo quiro leer. (.) xxx xxx/ ‘xxx, I want to read. xxx xxx’ JMF: //No, no, no, no, no-no-no- no. Lucia, Lucia// Lucia, Lucia. A: xxx en esa página ni estamos. ‘xxx we’re not even on that page.’ D: Ay, ya, Antonio! Tú déjala. ‘Oh, enough, Antonio! Leave her, you!’ A: No estamos en esa pág/ina./ ‘We’re not on that page.’ D: //A:: que/ sí:! ‘Yes we are!’ M: //A que: no:!/ ‘No we’re not!’ A: /xxx/ D: En/tonces en cuál/ estamos? ‘Then which one are we on.’ M: /No es cierto./ ‘It’s not true.’ A: {turns pages} Estamos. Aquí no /esta/mos. Estamos ACÁ::. ‘We’re. We’re not here. We’re here.’ D: /Es/ ‘It’s’ JMF: Yeah. Right /xxx/= A/M: Hu::::y::! {exasperated} ‘Oh!’ JMF: =go back here. Could you read this sentence please? D: Sure. {reading} ‘Somos entendes’ ‘Sure. We’re xxx xxx xxxx’ A: (Louder) D: xxxx , please.

76 Bilingual Pre-Teens 39 A: Dale:.= ‘Give him/her’ 40 D: =Well, let Miguel read that and /I’ll (xxx)/ 41 JMF: xxx,// por favor. ‘xxx, please.’ 42 D: Right over here 43 JMF: Por favor. Aquí ‘Please. Here.’ 44 M: {begins reading} (X410) The identities the children construct here are, to some extent, named, preexistent social categories: teacher, student, English-speaker, Spanish speaker. However, exactly what these social categories mean to them emerges only within the interaction even for these labeled and salient positions. To be a teacher means to have authority, but not (usually) the power of bilingualism. Between the two girls, English is part of the construction of their peer relationship, as this relationship is linked to their ‘Americanized’ pre-teen culture. However, in their interactions with the boys, and in interactions between the boys, Spanish is used to position themselves as peers. Finally, the construction of an individual as the speaker of a language is not merely dependent on his/her ability to form sentences, but also on their profi ficiency relative to other speakers and their willingness to speak a particular language. For example, they all know Miguel prefers Spanish and they usually address him in that language, constructing him as a monolingual despite his displays of English profi ficiency in the context of English instruction. All of these meanings are socially constructed within this classroom, but also have ties to the norms of the school, practices within their ethnic community, and the hegemonic status of English in the U.S. Through the negotiation of these confl fl icting ideologies, the meanings of Spanish and English are shaped and shifted. It is impossible to say that speaking English is always a move to claim authority or that speaking Spanish is always positioning oneself as a peer. Wider cultural ideologies and local norms matter, but so too, do interactional contexts and the relationships between speakers. In the above examples, the status of English as the dominant language is not challenged in any real way. Although this is not the only or even necessarily the most relevant meaning for English, it is constantly in the background. Speaking English carries a connection to the middle class mainstream and speaking Spanish is a rejection of, or perhaps an inability to conform to, mainstream norms. In the next section, we will see how some linguistic practices challenge normative monolingualism. Although one must acknowledge this hegemonic ideology in order to respond to it, these practices show how mixed languages are used in ways that are resistant to the ideal of separation of languages and all the social roles associated with this ideology.

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CODESWITCHING AS AN UNMARKED CHOICE As discussed in Chapter 1, what Myers-Scotton has called codeswitching as an unmarked choice and Auer (1988, 1995) has called a new code is called language alternation itself as the medium by Gafaranga and Torras (2002). Despite these different ff labels, all of these researchers similarly depict this phenomenon as something diff fferent from bilingual discourse within which you can assign social or functional meaning to individual switches. In codeswitching as an unmarked choice (as I will continue to call it), switching back and forth is not significant fi in the details but in the larger picture, and this is a picture of hybrid language and identities which challenge essentialist social categories. Of course, not all of the children frequently used bilingual discourse as the medium of communication. In fact, only a minority of them did. As discussed above, Miguel tended to speak Spanish unless English was explicitly called for and Antonio was very strategic in his use of the two codes, maximizing the benefits fi of code choice in most cases. For others, such as Consuela, Inez, and Juan (in the fi rst year of the research), switching back and forth was related to power but also to profi ficiency. They spoke mostly Spanish among themselves and spoke English in their lessons, but they used little intrasentential codeswitching. Zoe followed a similar pattern, even though she was more profi ficient in English. Vicente and Felipe tended to speak Spanish in peer interactions, perhaps because they were often with Juan and he did not speak English at the beginning of the year. When they did speak English, it was usually in separate utterances and not in intrasentential codeswitching, and it rarely included the rapid back and forth associated with codeswitching as an unmarked choice. In the 2003–2004 school year, the only children who actively used codeswitching as an unmarked choice were Dora and Lucia and, for them, this seemed to be a transitional phase before they moved into speaking mostly English to each other. Examples 1, 4, and 5 illustrate their consistent use of English. Example 22 below shows their use of Spanish-English bilingual discourse during their checkers game (discussed previously). This took place in November, the point that marked their departure from using Spanish as a peer code. In this recording, the girls are playing checkers (with a chess set, hence the references to kings and queens) during an inside recess. (22) D=Dora, L=Lucia 1 L: No, you could have skipped me, Dora, but you di/dn’t do it. / 2 D: /But you,/ it was your turn. And (at your turn), I couldn’t do it. 3 L: Mm-hmm. 4 D: O sea que (xxx turno). = ‘In other words (xxx turn).’ 5 L: = ¡Ay, es que yo estaba ahí ya! ‘Oh, it’s just that I was already there!’

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Bilingual Pre-Teens 6 D: I know. 7 L: Go. (4) ¿Si llego acá? ‘If I get over here?’ 8 D: ‘perate, Lucia, no, you can go back. Lucia. If I go, si yo llego 9 acá, y:, you can get one of these, mira, de estos chiquitos. I’ll give you 10 one of /these/. ‘Wait, Lucia, no, you can go back. Lucia. If I go, if I go over here, and, you can get one of these, look, of these little, small ones. I’ll give you one of these.’ 11 L: /No::!/ 12 D: (If you / get)/ 13 L: /Well, / I don’t ¿o uno de éstos? ‘or one of these?’ 14 D: Yeah. I’ll give you one of these. (4) 15 L: Mm::! Mm. (.) Okay. (2) I’m trying ghm:::! (7) Mmkay. Mmmm. 16 D: xxx (move) this? 17 L: {laughs} (3) 18 D: ’perate. ‘Wait up.’ (3) 19 L: Hmmm.. Me faltan mi king y mi queen. {sighing} Haah. Okay 20 okay okay. ‘I’m missing my king and my queen.’ 21 D: Mm:-hm::. Yo ya llegué. (1) Gimme one. ‘I made it’ (F403)

In addition to the frequent switching back and forth between Spanish and English both intra- and inter-sententially, this recording shows a number of interesting aspects to the girls’ bilingual discourse. First, there are a number of key terms that they use in both languages throughout the game: they refer to the white squares as both white and blanco ‘white’, they use both my turn and mi turno ‘my turn’, and both the Spanish mover ‘to move’ and the English ‘move’ are used with reference to the game play (e.g., No, mejor no lo muevas ‘no, better you don’t move that’ and Okay, I can’t move there). Further, the act of one piece jumping over and capturing another, referred to with the verb comer ‘to eat’ in Spanish, is used in both languages (e.g., Me puedes comer ‘you can eat me’ and so you won’t eat me). They also use agarrar ‘to grab’ and English skip to refer to this game move. This overlap in key terms indicates that the languages are not being used to fi ll lexical gaps in one language with words from another, but to refer to the same things and actions. For these girls, who had largely used Spanish as their peer language up until this point, this is a signifi ficant step in terms of identity construction. They are not only constructing themselves

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as bilinguals, but as bilinguals who do not separate their languages in the way most of their peers do. However, it must also be noted that there is a pattern in the data of using English to give commands and convey the substance of their propositions, whereas Spanish is used for elaboration and repetition (Self 2005). In this, we can see the connection between the role of English on the macro-level as the dominant language and the language used to create interactional power. When Dora and Lucia progressed to speaking mostly English to each other by the end of the year, as was the case in examples 4 and 5 above, they went a step further. Although they were still constructing bilingual identities, as they used Spanish with some interlocutors and when necessary in Spanish class, their identities as English speakers were beginning to overshadow their identities as Spanish-speaking peers.

‘I’M GONNA HACER TODO LOS PLANETS, MAESTRA’: NEW CODES AND NEW IDENTITIES There is one other social group among whom Spanish-English bilingual discourse became the code choice, the three boys who were present in the 4th /5th /6th grade classroom during the 2004–2005 school year (i.e., the second year of my research in the school). Juan, now in 6th grade, and 4th graders Hugo and Manuel, who had attended the bilingual program in the earlier grades, were the only three children present in the classroom for much of the year. At the beginning of the year there were also three girls in the classroom, but two of them left at the end of October when the migrant housing closed to return to Mexico. The third was moved into the special education classroom around the same time. Antonio also was in the bilingual classroom at the beginning of the year, but only in the afternoons for Spanish instruction. After a few weeks he was moved entirely to a ‘regular’ 5th grade classroom, where Lucia and Dora had been since the beginning of the school year. Later in the year, a brother and sister in 5th grade joined the classroom, but only attended for a couple of weeks. Thus these three boys—Juan, Hugo and Manuel—were the only continual participants in the classroom and by midway through the year had become a tight-knit trio. This section will explore the linguistic results of this grouping and how their language choices and social identities challenge hegemonic language ideologies. Juan was in his second year in the U.S. His relative recent arrival at the age of 11 contrasted with Hugo and Manuel’s background. They had both come to the U.S. several years earlier and had done all of their schooling in Montville, aside from brief absences. For example, Manuel was gone from the district for a few weeks in the fall when he was in Texas with one of his parents, but he then returned to resume his schooling in Montville. When asked about where their families came from in Mexico, Hugo volunteered

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that his family was based in Cherán, but Manuel did not know where his parents had lived in Mexico before coming to the U.S. Neither of them ever discussed visiting Mexico. This background is similar to that of Dora and Lucia. Their personal histories were fi rmly rooted in the U.S., yet they were also clearly participants in a local community that had roots in Mexico. While this background does not automatically lead to more use of bilingual discourse, I will show here how this community of practice developed this pattern of interaction. My main claim in this section is that the boys used bilingual discourse as an in-group code, but this is not as simple a claim as it might at fi rst seem. Although there is evidence for codeswitching as an unmarked choice, there are also other patterns to be found in these data. For instance, in some cases the boys would clearly use Spanish as the in-group language, at times with the intent of having conversations that their teacher or the researchers could not understand. A prime example of this is a recording made in October of 2004 in which the three boys were supposedly working with Minta (a research assistant working with me in the classroom) on a vocabulary assignment. Their teacher is across the room working with Raquel. Instead of working, however, the boys were having a conversation about women in thong underwear. The conversation becomes quite risqué at some points. It is not entirely clear if they are just assuming no one who can understand Spanish is listening or if they are pushing the limits of what topics they can discuss in the classroom or, most likely, a little of both. But there is a fairly clear pattern during this discussion of addressing each other in Spanish and using English to address either their teacher or Minta. In example 23, we see an example of Hugo using English to speak to the teacher and switching back to make a comment about thongs in a lower volume. The Spanish part of this utterance it is tagged on to a comment directed to the teacher, but by the topic and the reaction of both Hugo and the other two boys (laughter), it seems apparent that the Spanish portion of this sentence was produced for the amusement of his peers. Ms. Carrington does not appear to hear any of the conversation about thong underwear, as she does not respond or make reference to it in any way. (23) MC = Ms. Carrington, H=Hugo, J=Juan, M=Manuel 1 MC: {calling across the room} hey you guys! 2 H: {laughing} 3 Ms. C: you guys are not concentrating, alright4 J: I was listening while I was writing teacher 5 H: ¿ Como qué? I was concentrating teacher por que miro las tan 6 gas y luego se apuro. {laughing} ‘How come? Concentrating teacher because when he saw the thongs and then he got in a hurry {laughing}’ 7 J/M: {laughter} (M008)

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Shortly after this exchange, the boys check to see if Minta has understood what they are talking about. Although Minta is a fluent Spanish speaker, she has spoken very little Spanish with them up until this point as she is only present in the classroom during English instruction, and the boys are unsure of how much she understands. She does understand their Spanish conversation and says so, but they explain it to her anyway. The boys seem to feel it is safe to include her in their discussion, as Manuel explicitly explains in line 31 of example 24 They’re underwear! They do not include Ms. Carrington in this conversation, however, which was typical of how they treated their teachers as opposed to me and the other researchers, Minta and Kevan. Although Minta, Kevan and I were often addressed as teacherr or maestra ‘teacher’, we did not have the exact same status as their real classroom teachers. We were often party to conversations the children would not have let their classroom teachers overhear, most likely because they correctly understood our lack of real authority over them. This exchange is an example of how they constructed the distinction between teachers and researchers, despite using the same label for all of us. In terms of language choice, in example 24 we see that Juan fi first addresses Minta in English, in line 2, and then switches back to Spanish to continue the discussion of thongs. Although his turn in line 2 is explicitly directed at her, it is also a bit of performance for his peers, which is picked up on and elaborated by Manuel in line 6. As mentioned above, the boys have never spoken Spanish with Minta and are not aware of how much she understands of their covert conversation. The rest of this discussion follows in this pattern; comments that are part of the actual discussion of thongs are uttered in Spanish and the explanation of these utterances is given in English. (24) ME=Minta, H=Hugo, J=Juan, M=Manuel 1 M: las tanguitas! ‘The little thongs!’ 2 J: Do you know what are those, teacher (.) what are they talking 3 about? 4 ME: I think I know. 5 J: Son unas buenas muchachas xxx maestra. ‘They are good girls teacher’ 6 M: ¡xxx xxx bién chulas! ‘xxxx xxxx very beautiful! 7 J: because I don’t know why (they always do that) teacher 8 M: teacher we need xxx the same 9 ME: hum huh. 10 M: xxx the skirts teacher (.) {laughing} 11 H: {unintelligible} 12 J: {unintelligible}

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Bilingual Pre-Teens 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

H: Teacher the skirt the skirt {laughs} ME: (you haven’t done any) work yet H: what, teacher? ME: you haven’t done any xxxx J: now you know they were talking about xxxx H: {seems to be reading a question on the worksheet they are working on} J: No let me show you. It’s sorta like, like this. I think it’ something like this {drawing}. Other one like this. H: What in the worl- no that’s a mouth! J: no M: Like this teacher! H: Like this teacher M: Like this teacher like this and then we just cut it through. {laughing}J: No teacher, like this see? ME: yes I know, that’s what I thought. {Boys laughing} ME: Yeah M: no teacher, they’re underwear! {laughs} ME: yeah (M008)

In these examples and throughout the transcript, there is a pattern of language switching in which the boys mark not just the content of their utterances through language choice (i.e., risqué talk in Spanish, explanation of such in English), but also the true addressees. Although they overtly address some Spanish comments to Minta, the true audience for the comments about thongs is their peers. It only makes the conversation more thrilling to address such things to Minta, an adult and a relative stranger. Here the boys are very much constructing themselves as bilinguals and Minta as an English monolingual. Although she does understand their conversation, they obviously don’t really believe this, as in lines 19–27 they are drawing pictures to illustrate the kind of underwear they mean. But it is more than that, they are using Spanish to construct a rebellious identity. Hosemann (2009) discusses these data in terms of relajos, a term which is used to refer to a particular style of clowning around, as discussed in Farr (2006). Not only are they not attending to the task they are supposed to be doing in the classroom, they are discussing a topic that is clearly not suitable for school. Here, then, Spanish functions as a means of constructing masculinity (through rebellion) as well as bilingualism, and is a means of establishing a boundary between themselves and the Anglophone women in their classroom (i.e., the teacher and Minta). Yet during the same time period as this recording was made, the boys were also developing a pattern of intra- and inter-sentential bilingual discourse that became their trademark by the end of the year. In the beginning (that

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is, in recordings made in October and November of 2004), it was mostly Hugo who used intrasentential codeswitching and he also used more English in peer interactions than the other boys did. Note the use of intrasentential codeswitching with the teacher in examples 23 (above) and 25 (below), as well as in the quote in the title of this section, also uttered by Hugo. The example in the section title and the excerpt in 25 come from a recording in which the children—Hugo, Manuel, Juan, Raquel, and a 4th grade girl, Sarah— are making all of the planets to scale. Here, Hugo is discussing how they are going to make the planets. This discussion begins as the answer to a question from the teacher in line 1, so what do we need to do? However, in line 6 Hugo is responding to Raquel’s suggestion that they need to color the planets with the disagreement marker a que no. Line 8, which is a codeswitched turn, is arguably again addressed to the teacher as well as his classmates, but he then switches back to Spanish to tell Raquel that if they color them the planets se parecen de mierda ‘look like shit.’ His final utterance, that’s at the end, if you want to, is a concession to Raquel that coloring the planet might be part of the project. (25) MC = Ms. Carrington, H=Hugo, R=Raquel 1 MC: O.k. (.) So what do we need to do? 2 ?: Mm. 3 M: Make a little ho:le in (.) on /(.) o/n the paper? 4 H: /And y/ou gotta, you gotta draw (.) the picture and put the name then you (.) you know 5 R: Color it. 6 H: A que no. ‘No (you don’t.)’ 7 R: A /que sí/ ‘Yes (you do).’ 8 H: /to put/ a hole there (.) Put a hole para meter la string. ‘xxx xxx a hole there. Put a hole to put the string in.’ 9 R: ¡Pués así entonces ¿qué? sí lo coloreas!? ‘And what if? What! you color it? 10 H: Se par/ecen de/ (mierda). ‘They look like (shit).’ 11 ?: /(Quieres xxx)/ ‘You want xxx.’ 12 H: That’s in the end, if you want to (X017) This switching back and forth between languages, use of English in utterances primarily aimed at peers (such as line 12), and use of intrasentential codeswitching when addressing the teacher are a pattern unique to Hugo at this time. During this period, neither Manuel nor Juan used much intrasentential codeswitching. Juan does address the teacher in Spanish with some frequency, but neither boy uses much English when they are

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addressing their peers. Hugo, in contrast, uses lots of Spanish-English bilingual discourse (as well as both Spanish and English) with the teacher, and mostly Spanish but some English and Spanish-English bilingual discourse with his peers. By the spring, however, all this had changed. All three boys used a mix of languages to address each other and the teacher, as shown in the next examples from a recording made in late April. In 26, Hugo has done something silly—probably something that makes him look feminine, to judge from Juan’s response—and calls Juan’s attention to it, in English. Juan responds with a wisecrack in English. In 27, Manuel is drawing something and Hugo and Juan are critically assessing his picture; their comments and Manuel’s defense of his drawing are all in English. (26) H=Hugo, J=Juan 1 H: / J—-!/ /xxx/ n/ew style!/ 2 J: Cool, (give five), man. (.) I mean my si/ster. {laughs}/ 3 H: /{laughs}/ (M009) (27) MC = Ms. Carrington, H=Hugo, J=Juan, M=Manuel 4 H: What in the /wo::r/ld is that. 5 J: /What is that, man./ 6 MC: /Shh::/:: 7 M: /That’s a seed!/ (M009) These two examples, as well as the following data, are taken from an almost hour-long recording in which the boys are preparing for, carrying out, and writing up their observations about a science experiment. This experiment is an investigation of how seeds are spread by animals. It involves the boys putting socks on over their shoes (to simulate animal fur) and running around in diff fferent places outside the school to see what vegetation will be picked up on the socks. The experiment is preceded by a 15-minute oral review of a previous lesson about ways in which seeds are spread. Then, the boys spend about 20 minutes struggling to pull the socks on over their shoes and discussing who is going where outside. Approximately ten minutes of recording involve me outside in front of the school building with Juan and then a fi nal 15 minutes was recorded while the boys discussed and supposedly wrote descriptions of what the socks picked up outside. Example 28, repeated from chapter 1, is taken from the initial part of the recording, during the review session about how seeds travel. (28) MC = Ms. Carrington, H=Hugo, J=Juan, M=Manuel 1 MC: (.) Any other ways that they travel before we go check our (.) 2 and see. 3 J: I don’t know! 4 M: Huh?

Amigos Amid Americanos 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

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MC: Are there any other ways besides water, wind and animals? H: No. J: Con trenes maestra (1) habia en Tennessee trenes {makes a squeaking noise} y sonaban asi y todos nos moviamos. ‘With trains teacher (1) there were trains in Tennessee {makes a squeaking noise} and they sounded like this and all of us moved’ H: Así maestra, es de (.)de los tre:nes ‘Like that teacher of the trai:ns’ MC: Hugo H: los trenes ‘The trains’ MC: Okay. J: She d/oes/n’t know, man. MC: /No./ H: /{makes a whining sound with falling pitch, like a bomb falling}/ MC: /In English./ J: /She doesn’t know./ MC: /‘Cause our job is to work/ on our English in the morning. H: Se explotan. Yo no se como hacerlo ‘They exploded. I don’t know how to do it’ MC: /They explode?/ M: /Se explotan ma/estra. ‘They explode teacher’ J: Explosation! H: Ex/plosation!/ M: /Explosation! / MC: /What is (.) Wh/at is exploding. (.) The seed is exploding? J: /{inhales & yawns}/ H: /Uh-huh (.) And ex/ (.) plos/ation/ MC: /Wow/ you guys know some diff fferent plants! (M009)

Hugo initially responds negatively to the question about other ways that seeds travel, probably hoping the discussion will be over and they can put on the socks and go run around outside, which they are excited about doing. However, when Juan begins to discuss travel by train Hugo eagerly supports him in this rather ludicrous diversion. In line 15, he begins another line of diversion by making the sound of a bomb falling and then talking about explosions, continuing in line 19. This is picked up by Manuel in line 21, a continuation of this topic in Spanish despite the teacher having explicitly asked them to speak English in lines 16 and 18. Their use of explosation, started by Juan in line 22, is an interesting coinage. This creative application of the suffix– ffi ation is something that the boys have been playing around with, as heard in other recordings made over the past few months. This suffi ffix is also part of Mock English performances of Spanish speakers

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in Latin America (Darling Castro Canales, personal communication), so this may be something the boys have learned in other contexts. This example nicely illustrates the fluidity of language choice that is involved in the playful disruptions the boys engage in during class. Much of the talk, although overtly directed at the teacher, is really a performance for their peers and the collaborative answers to questions such as those displayed in this exchange are common among the boys. The signifi ficant aspect of language choice here is that it does not follow a particular pattern according to addressee. Note that Juan’s discussion of trains, overtly aimed at the teacher, is in Spanish, but his comments in English in lines 13 and 17 about the teacher (she doesn’t know, man, she doesn’t know) is explicitly addressed to the other boys (or to Hugo in particular). This is the opposite pattern that would be used if the children were making choices based on the expected or preferred language for a particular interlocutor, indicating a breakdown in the use of addressee-related or function-related bilingual discourse. Although Spanish had always been used for a variety of functions and by all addressees in this classroom, English was not used by Juan and Manuel for peer interactions in earlier data. Here we see that the pattern of Spanish as the language for peer group interactions has been broken. The continued increase in profi ficiency in English undoubtedly plays a role here, but the framework being used here assumes that linguistic choices are part of the construction of social identity. How then have the social identities of the boys changed? I suggest that, similar to the development of the language choice patterns of Dora and Lucia the previous year, the dynamics of being in a peer group in which all members had high enough profifi ciency to use both languages made this an option and bilingual discourse has developed as an ingroup code. More evidence for the use of codeswitching as an unmarked choice is shown in the next example. This excerpt is taken from the initial discussion of the diff fferent ways seeds spread. Someone has mentioned that animals spread seeds and Hugo has taken this as a cue to bring up random animals. (29) MC = Ms. Carrington, H=Hugo, J=Juan, M=Manuel 1 H: {makes chicken noises} (2) Un mo:nkey, un cheetah! (2) Será /xxx/ ‘a monkey a cheetah! (2) will be xxx’ 2 J: /Did/ you say (.) cheetah? 3 MC: ‘Kay. 4 J: Did you say (.) 5 MC: Squirrels, what a 6 M: Brasil, maestra, co/mo / ‘Brazil, teacher like’ 7 MC: /a/bout 8 M: Bras/il./ ‘Brazil’

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9 MC: /o/ther animals? 10 M: /Brasil/. ‘Braziil’ 11 J: /Did you/ say /(.) {laughs}/ 12 H: /{laughs}/ (M009) The point I would like to make about this excerpt concerns Juan’s repetition of did you say, and his and Hugo’s laughter in lines 11 and 12. His production of this phrase, in lines 2, 4, and 11 is very stylistically distinct. It appears to be a fi xed formulation, possibly something the boys have picked up from hearing it on TV or in a movie, although it may just be a phrase they have picked up from other English speakers. One indication of its formulaic nature is Juan’s pronunciation. He has a definite fi accent in his normal speech, but this line is delivered with standard Midwestern American English pronunciation (i.e., [I] in didl in other instances, he might pronounce this as [i]). Also, it is delivered with a distinctive intonation pattern, with a higher tone and stress on you and a pause before the final fi word of the sentence. In fact, in the repetitions of the utterance in lines 4 and 11, the sentence is never completed after the pause. Obviously, whatever funny business is indexed for these boys through this utterance has been accomplished with the repetition of did you say, because both Juan and Hugo erupt in laughter. This is an example of their rebellious identities being constructed through utterances made in English, although the code choice is not a rebellious one, but the prescribed language of instruction. Hence what is signifi ficant is that the specifi fic language choice has been bleached of meaning. Instead, the shared knowledge the boys have about the particular phrase did you say is what creates the humor, constructs their identities, and negotiates their relationship. In this case, identity relations emerge not through the use of a code that is associated with a particular group or role in their community, but through the shared orientation to a particular phrase that happens to be in English. They are constructing similarity through this interaction, but the similarity of their bilingualism is backgrounded and instead they are creating a divide between those who know the joke and those who do not. Another interesting development in interactions among the boys involves the role that Juan, the oldest of the three, takes on with regard to the two younger boys. He adopts what I call a ‘big brother’ role, trying to placate them when they are upset (as in example 30) and cautioning them when they in danger of getting into trouble (as in example 31). In example 30, the teacher is becoming irritated with Hugo, who is disrupting the lesson. In line 4, she indicates that she will wait for him to behave. Earlier the threat has been uttered that if they cannot finish fi the lesson during their usual class time because the boys are being uncooperative, they will use recess time to complete it. In line 10, Juan addresses Hugo in English to console him for getting into trouble.

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(30) MC = Ms. Carrington, H=Hugo, J=Juan, M=Manuel 1 H: rrrr:::: 2 J: /{laughs}/ 3 H: /{laughs}/ 4 MC: I’ll wait. (.) And wait. 5 J: {gulps} 6 MC: We’ll use up /more time./ 7 H: /Ahh!/ Tea::/cher!/ 8 MC: /Make your/ decision. 9 H: Hm. 10 J: It’s okay, it’s okay my brother. 11 MC: Juan? (.) You’re making the decision /(too when you do that)/ 12 H: /Sí, you’re the one who has the/ earphone* off ff. {giggles} ‘yes’ 13 J: Oh, cool! (M009) *Hugo is making reference to the fact that Juan is wearing the microphone (which he mistakenly calls an earphone) for this recording. Juan’s utterance in line 10 is a deviation from earlier practices of addressing his peers in Spanish, but is undeniably part of his ‘older brother’ role. It is not the case that this role is now carried out exclusively in English, however. In the next example, we can see how Juan uses Spanish-English bilingual discourse to construct his older brother persona. (31) MC = Ms. Carrington, H=Hugo, J=Juan, M=Manuel 1 MC: Do you remember any other /ways/ that animals can tra, help 2 things trav/el?/ 3 H: /N:o./ 4 M: /Chew/ ‘em up. 5 MC: Hands still, please. 6 H: (chew ‘em up chew ’em up chew ‘em up!) {spits} 7 MC: Stop, please.. 8 H: xxx es que kickó maestra! ‘what happened was that he kicked me teacher!’ 9 MC: Again, /xxx, I want you/ to be res/pectful./ 10 J: /Ya dejar xxx/ ya dejalo ‘leave him alone’ 11 H: /Ah, sí/ verdad, nos sentamos. ‘ah yes we better sit down’ 12 MC: Manuel 13 M: What. 14 J: ¡dejala! ¡dejala! por que luego te metes en problems. ‘Leave it leave it! because then you get in trouble’ (M009)

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These examples show that the relationship between the boys is being constructed with utterances in both languages. I suggest that their relationship (i.e., Juan’s position as the older, protective member of the trio) and the new way of speaking have developed in tandem. The new identities which have developed and are constructed through this ‘new code’ can be seen on many diff fferent levels. The use of Spanish-English bilingual discourse allows them to position themselves in a number of ways in terms of wider social categories, local roles, and interactional stances. First, I suggest that the boys have begun to see English and American youth culture as part of their identity They do not align themselves with the Anglophone children of the school with whom they have little contact, but they also are no longer new immigrants. Part of this is not merely their use of English, but also in their references to American popular culture and youth language. We see this in the mention of Snoop Dogg or in the singing of rap songs as well as through use of colloquialisms such as man or what in the world, which are things that do not appear in their textbooks or, at least in the case of man, in the speech of their teacher. By adopting ways of speaking that are part of U.S. youth culture, they are making a claim about their own identities and they are participants in something that is quintessentially American. Further, by mixing colloquial American English with frequent use of Spanish, they are resisting widespread essentialist understandings of identity. They deny the one-to-one associations between language and nation that are assumed in normative monolingualism. They are Mexican, but they do not simply speak Spanish. They can speak English, but they do not always choose to speak English, and when they do it is often with a liberal admixture of Spanish. This pattern of language use is part of a construction of transnational identities that do not fit neatly into preconceived ideas about what it means to be ‘American’ or ‘Mexican.’ It is commonplace that such language mixing is viewed as simply bad language and it can be doubly problematic for speakers when it is also the mixture of two essentialized, and potentially confl flicting, identity categories. I suggest that these boys have nothing to lose by bilingual discourse. With their non-native-like English and brown skin, they are unlikely to be embraced as ‘Americans’ in this largely White, hegemonically Anglophone community. And with their use of English and preference for U.S. American rap music, they will have diffi fficulty constructing an authentically Mexican identity in the eyes of the adult members of their ethnic communities or in communities they may visit in Mexico. Whereas they may distance themselves from older generations and recent arrivals through the use of English, they may not wish to align themselves with the mainstream either. In addition to wanting to maintain a sense of Latino identity (albeit a diff fferent type than their Mexican relatives), they may also be aware of ethnic boundaries that they do not wish to cross. Although there are a few African American children in the school, English is by and large the language of Whites in their school and community. Outside of this trio of boys, there is no particular

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peer group for them to align themselves with through language choice if they adhere to monolingual norms. This is the first way in which their bilingual discourse can be seen as resistant behavior. It is resistance to their categorization in a single national, ethnic, or linguistic grouping. Second, the boys use bilingual discourse to position themselves in terms of the expectations based on local norms and interactional discourse identities. They are in English class and, even when this is not explicitly stated, they know that they are expected to speak English. The teacher will often accept Spanish comments, questions, and answers, but the students generally use English when they are making an eff ffort to get in her good graces or capture her attention with displays of knowledge. Despite tolerance of bilingual discourse and willingness to use Spanish to insure comprehension, the teacher’s preference is that they speak English and they are aware of this. Speaking English during English instruction is part of constructing a ‘good student’ role, as discussed above, and we see the boys using English in this way in the above examples. But this is not the only role the boys wish to construct for themselves and sometimes it is an aspect of their identities which fades to the background. Thus a constant back and forth between languages is a way of distancing themselves from this role without completely abandoning it and muddying the waters so that it is not clear from their code choices if their answers are diversions or on-task responses. In example 32, for example, all of their utterances are on task, regardless of the use of English or Spanish. (32) MC = Ms. Carrington, H=Hugo, J=Juan, M=Manuel 1 MC: How does the seed get into the water, though. (.) We didn’t go 2 on that part. 3 M: By the /wind/? 4 H: /animal?/ 5 MC: An animal, how. 6 M: Maybe it’s a /xxx./ 7 MC: /So the a/nimal takes it and bites it and carrie/s i/t in its 8 mouth? 9 M: /No./ 10 J: Ye:::s 11 M: No. 12 J: Teacher, /yeah./ 13 MC: /xxx xxx xxx/ xxx xxx xxx 14 H: xxx xxx xxx xxx /bird/ 15 M: /xxx/ holds it. 16 MC: Holds it in his hand. 17 M: Y/eah./ 18 J: /No/::. 19 MC: What if it doesn’t have a hand. 20 J: Ah, que no Manuel. ‘no, Manuel’

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21 M: /Fur/ 22 H: /No/ teacher, se le pega a, se le pega, su a su:: cómo se dice a su ‘no teacher it sticks to it, sticks to it, its, to its, like how do you say it?’ 23 M: Fur. 24 H: /fur./ 25 J: /Su/ ala. ‘ it’s wing’ 26 MC: Mm-hm. 27 H: Y luego some birds ‘And then. . .’ 28 ?: xxx xxx xxx 29 MC: Some birds do::: (.) what. 30 H: Le pican la esta y la ala. ‘they peck it and its wing.’ (M009) This brings us to a second aspect of local positioning, that having to do with power. I have said above that English is a language which lends authority to the speaker, I suggest that here the boys are undermining this association. By using both Spanish and English for all functions, for displays of knowledge as well as jokes and for obedience to authority as well as resistance, they do away with these language associations. By using Spanish as well as English and codeswitching to enact positions of power, they are resisting hegemonic language ideologies which value English as the sole language of prestige.

CONCLUSION One of the major fi ndings here is that the children in this transitional bilingual classroom frequently positioned themselves as bilinguals and others as monolinguals in a variety of ways. Although positioning oneself as academically successful was a common stance taken, bilingualism could also be used to draw boundaries of friendship groups or to negotiate for interactional power. Despite these positive associations with bilingualism, the hegemony of English was clearly apparent in the classroom. English was often used to take on a position of authority, based on its connections to powerful individuals in the wider community, school, and classroom. It sometimes also functioned as a means of constructing the speaker’s identity as more Mexican American and less Mexican, and this assimilation was potentially a link to social class mobility. There was also some use of codeswitching as an unmarked choice. Despite the anti-bilingual and anti-Spanish national and local ideologies, the children in the Montville bilingual program engaged in bilingual discourse practices

92 Bilingual Pre-Teens that flouted the rules of normative monolingualism and challenged essentialist ideas about the social categories to which they belonged. Although I believe that the competing ideologies beneath such behavior should be celebrated and presented as evidence that there are institutions and individuals that challenge hegemony, it would be naïve to look at these data and see only resistance. In the first year, most of the children used English in ways that indicated their acceptance of the status of English as the dominant code in their society and as a tool for dominance in their own interactions. And it must be noted that Dora and Lucia, who were put into a mainstream classroom in 5th grade, quickly became integrated into the Anglophone girls’ network in the classroom. Juan went on to high school, where he was in mainstream monolingual classes, and later moved to live in a diff fferent town with few Spanish-speaking children. Thus the longevity of practices of resistance to the ideology of normative monolingualism seems to be limited and based on the specifi fic dynamics of the social structure within a particular classroom. The hegemony of English and the power of the ideology of normative monolingualism have a lasting impact that often manages to subdue resistance. In addition, the association of immigrant bilingualism with membership in the working class and exclusion from the middle class is a pervasive factor in the structure of the bilingual program and the resulting messages about bilingualism and the Spanish language. As noted by Kanno (2008) in her research on elite and immigrant bilingual education opportunities in Japan, whereas elite bilingualism is considered an important asset, immigrant bilingualism is deemed irrelevant for the future achievements of immigrant children. Instead of bilingualism, integration becomes the de facto, if not the explicit, goal of educational programs for minority language immigrants (Kanno 2008: 7; see also Zentella 1997 for discussion of this among Spanish speakers in the U.S.). Further, even if integration is assumed, the integrated immigrant children are not treated as if they will be important players in the global market or even necessarily middle class members of their local economy. As Kanno notes, ‘Compared with children of privilege, immigrant and refugee students are socialized into impoverished imagined communities with more limited possibilities. . . . once a school sets the range of identity options for its students, it is tremendously diffi fficult for the students. . .to resist these assigned identities’ (Kanno 2008: 7). In this study, we see how the Mexican American children in Montville are off ffered subtractive bilingualism and, at best, a working class future. The extent to which these children use bilingual discourse to resist both normative monolingualism and the socio-economic class limitations placed upon them can only be understood in the context of the stigmatized status of immigrant bilingualism in the U.S. and the ethnic and racial boundaries that prevent them from assimilation into this largely White community.

4

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany Normative Monolingualism and Elite Bilingualism

As discussed in Chapter 3, the main language ideology which is investigated in this research is the ideology of normative monolingualism. This ideology has two main tenets: fi rst, the ideal of a nation having one and only one language and second, the value of strict separation of languages in cases of individual bilingualism. In this section, how this ideology fits fi into German society will be discussed through applying the concepts of iconicity, erasure, and recursiveness (Gal and Irvine 1995). Further, the caveat to normative monolingualism, elite bilingualism, will be discussed in terms of how it relates to English-German bilinguals.

ONE NATION, ONE LANGUAGE In Germany, the fi rst part of the ideology of normative monolingualism can best be described as a one nation, one language discourse, as discussed by Bauman and Briggs (2003), Gal (2006a, 2006b), Hansen-Thomas (2007), and Heller (1999). This ideology can be traced back to German Romanticism (i.e., the work of Herder). The construction of the German state was legitimized based on the idea that speakers of a single common language naturally belonged together in a political unit. Language was seen as a unifying force and a nation as a natural unit for a monolingual linguistic group (Blommaert and Verschuren 1998). Language diversity, then, is framed as unnatural and a barrier to communication. The two competing ideologies in German society regarding linguistic and cultural diversity are the traditional ideal of the Leitkultur ‘lead culture’, the values of which need to be adhered to by members of minority groups, and the more recent Multikulti notion. Short for Multikulterell ‘multicultural’, the Multikulti model is based on the idea that many cultures can coexist within a nation with each retaining its own unique features (Martin 2008). Applied to matters of language, these two models for German culture would dictate diff fferent patterns of language use and varying language rights for speaking minority languages. The Leitkultur model would allow the use of languages other than German in private spheres, as

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long as the value of German as the dominant and unifying language of the nation was not violated. If strictly adhered to, this would not grant rights to minority language speakers for translation or education services in their languages. A reigning position in the Multikulti camp is that attempts to destroy cultural diff fference leads to the marginalization of minority group members, not to their assimilation into the mainstream (Martin 2008: 20). This view supports language rights for minority language speakers, although presumably also the acquisition of German to foster communication across groups. Whereas the Leitkultur ideology remains dominant in Germany, at the same time there are many social institutions that recognize and cater to the needs of linguistic minority groups. Bilingual education, in particular, is seen as a positive opportunity for children. This topic will be taken up again in the section on elite bilingualism below.

WHAT IS ‘ONE LANGUAGE?’ The ‘one nation, one language’ position, which contains the argument that a common language fosters national unity, implies that languages are defi fi ned by mutual intelligibility, which is a common folk belief about the defi fi nition of language. Most sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists would argue that socio-political factors, not linguistic ones, are crucial in determining the status of varieties as distinct languages or dialects of a language (see Mesthrie et al. 2000; Wardhaugh 2006). If speakers identify as belonging to a particular linguistic group, and especially if that language is associated with a politically defi fi ned region, then the varieties they speak are considered dialects of one language. If the varieties they speak are on differff ent sides of a national border, they are usually called diff fferent languages. It is possible for dialects of the same language to be mutually unintelligible, and for diff fferent languages to be mutually intelligible. Thus whether two varieties are called distinct languages or dialects of one language is not determined in terms of linguistic features, but socio-political factors. So, in the case of Germany, assigning increased unity through mutual intelligibility to everything within the national borders labeled ‘German’ requires the process of erasure to be hard at work. The fact is ignored that many dialects of German (especially on either side of the High German—Low German divide) are often depicted as mutually unintelligible, as is the often acknowledged mutual intelligibility of dialects of Low German and Dutch on either sides of the German-Netherlands border. Also erased from public awareness within the ideology of ‘one nation, one language’ are the speakers of minority languages within Germany who have historically lived in the region, namely speakers of Sorbian, Frisian and Danish. Iconicity also becomes involved when language is seen as an expression of the ‘spirit of a nation’ (Gal 2006a: 163). Hutton (1999) presents a very chilling

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 95 analysis of the role of linguists in the Third Reich with relation to the connection between language and national identity. Although linguists acknowledged that the language one learns as a child is not innate, but based on input, they nonetheless felt that there was a strong tie between language and descent. Hutton points out that this attitude was well established in the eighteenth century. Both Herder and Grimm make reference to the idea of a primal bond of language, which runs parallel to the natural bond of child and parent. This means that the ideal is for language to be passed down from parent to child within a descent group. Recognition of the fact that non-Aryans will learn an Aryan language when exposed to it does not negate the ideology that the German language is tied to ethnic identity. Instead, acknowledging that anyone can acquire the German language if they grow up in Germany opened the door for trying to prevent ‘undesirables’ from having the opportunity to learn German. This contributed to the motivation for eliminating people not seen as ‘ethnically German’ from the German nation. I will argue in Chapter 5 that there is evidence of ideological changes in Germany that weaken the link between nation and ethnicity, but the idea that there is a link between nation and language is still strongly present in German society (although hardly unique to it). Language is understood as learned cultural behavior, but there are also remnants of the rhetoric about language being linked to lineage. One example is the use of the term Muttersprache (literally, ‘mother language’, usually translated as ‘mother tongue’) for a child’s dominant language in dual language programs.

PUBLIC DISCOURSE AND PUBLIC POLICY SURROUNDING IMMIGRANT LANGUAGES In addressing the link between language and ethnicity, Bloomaert and Verschuren (1998: 196) write about ‘the deadly logic of a nationalist ideology’. This is the underlying logic of public discourse that insists that it is desirable for immigrants to integrate into German society, but also defines fi ‘das Volk’ as an ethnic group, making integration impossible for those who are not of German descent. Thus an unattainable goal is set for immigrant populations, especially if they are not categorized as White. This attitude is clearly changing in both public policy as well as public sentiment in Germany, as can be seen in the procedures and attitudes surrounding immigration in the last two decades. For example, after German re-unifi fication, ‘ethnic Germans’ from the Soviet Union were invited back to Germany—as German citizens, not immigrants or Gastarbeiterr ‘guest workers.’ Immigrants who were invited to come and work in West Germany after World War II were Gastarbeiterr and the plan was that they would come, help rebuild the nation, and then leave. But the ‘ethnic Germans’ were intended to ‘return’ to Germany to stay. It should be noted that a motivating factor for this invitation was the recognition of the poor

96 Bilingual Pre-Teens treatment these emigrants had received in the Soviet Union and the desire on the part of the newly reunited German nation to provide benefits fi to those who had suff ffered for having ties to Germany. However, as the return migration process brought in hundreds of thousands of people, all of whom were eligible for German citizenship, subsidized housing, and other social programs, the welcome they received became less warm (Dietz, 2003; Hansen-Thomas 2007). Signifi ficantly, these return emigrants are generally called Rußlanddeutsche ‘Russian Germans’ or even simply Russen ‘Russians’—both are misnomers as many of these immigrants are actually from areas of the (former) Soviet Union outside of Russia. However, because they are mostly Russian speakers, and language is taken as an indicator of national identity in hegemonic ideologies, distinctions according to which former-Soviet country they came from are largely ignored in the public discourse. As frustration with the flood of returnees grew, measures were taken to limit their entrance into Germany. First, applications from within the country of emigration were required, then quotas were imposed, and then a language test was implemented to allow in only those who spoke German (Brown 2005). But implementation of a language test did not drastically change the fact that most of these return immigrants are Russian speakers who do not master German, because hundreds of thousands of return immigrants had already arrived by the time the language test was imposed, and it continued to be the case that family members of a person claiming German ethnicity did not need to prove competence in the German language in order to immigrate. Several studies (Dietz 2003, Rosenberg 2001, von Wierda 2000) report on the diffi fficulties these post-Soviet emigrants have had integrating into German society due to cultural and linguistic diff fferences. One diffi fficulty in their adjustment has been their negotiation of identity. Rosenberg describes these immigrants as having an inclusive identity as German and Russian in the Soviet Union (Rosenberg 1994), but in Germany, ironically enough, they became merely Russians. Signifi ficantly, the designation of these people as Russians, and not Germans, is a distinction that is not based on ‘race’ and ethnicity, but on culture and language. It is diffi fficult to say to what extent the immigration policies described above represent the attitudes of the population, but the offi fficial position went from a welcome based on shared ethnicity to an insistence on shared language. At the same time, German citizenship in general has become less clearly tied to blood and more to soil and culture. The German language has become less of an icon for a descent-based group of people sharing a common heritage and more of a symbol of shared culture. German citizenship is now granted to children of immigrants born in Germany—with some provisions. For example, they must have lived in Germany legally for eight years and may not have citizenship in any other country (for details, see Wie werde ich Deutsche(r)? 2005: 11; for discussion of this, see Hansen-Thomas 2007). For immigrants who were not born in Germany, there has been increasing focus on language profi ficiency.

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 97 Both the 2004 Naturalization Law and the 2007 revisions to this law include provisions about assessing German language ability as a key aspect of naturalization. This focus on language is part of an overall focus on assimilation. One proposal made in the German state of Baden-Württemberg was that individuals wishing to obtain German citizenship would need to take a test and answer questions indicating a liberal perspective on issues such as gay marriage and women’s rights (see Lau 2006). Although there was controversy about this proposal, it represents a general attitude that becoming a German citizen requires assimilation to all German customs and speaking German is one practice which is undisputedly part of the package. Lest we make too much of such changes in immigration law which focus on language and not ethnicity or ‘race’, it should be pointed out that there are still many people who consider ‘being German’ something very different than having German citizenship or being culturally and linguistically integrated into German society. For example, in an online article in the Siebenbuergische Zeitungg in November 2002 (Roth 2002), the author attempts to defi fi ne the concept of being German. He fi rst says that language is an important defi fining factor. He maintains that it is possible to be German even if you are from a territory outside of Germany. In other words, if you share a common history, culture, and customs; and you live in a German emigrant enclave in another country. He maintains that religion is not important, but qualifi fies that this means that Germans are both protestant and Catholic, so being a member of a non-Christian religion, one gathers, might well disqualify a person from being German. He then adds: .

Zur Bestimmung der Volkszugehörigkeit gehören auch biologischkonstitutionelle-rassische Elemente. Anhänger der nazistischen Rassentheorie haben diese in weit übertriebenem Maße in Betracht gezogen und politisch bis zum Genozid missbraucht. Es ist jedoch nicht richtig, dass z.B. ein Vietnamese, Chinese oder ein Ghanese bei Besitz der deutschen Staatsbürgerschaft als Deutscher bezeichnet wird. Es wäre eine Verwechslung oder Identifi fi zierung des Volkstums mit der Staatszugehörigkeit. (Roth 2002) [The determination of ethnic belonging includes biological-constitutional-race elements as well. Proponents of the Nazi Race Theory took this to drastically exaggerated lengths, and misapplied them in the political realm to commit genocide. However, it is incorrect to say for example a Vietnamese, Chinese, or Ghanaian person who has German citizenship is a German. This would be confusing or identifying a people with a nationality.] (My translation; emphasis in original) We see, then, two competing ideologies in Germany. Although many hold traditional attitudes such as Roth, current citizenship policies reflect fl a growing attitude that Germans are made, not born. That is, cultural and

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linguistic assimilation makes you German. But in terms of resistance to the hegemonic ideology of normative monolingualism, this is not necessarily good news. Taking ethnicity out of the mix has, if anything, strengthened the ‘one nation, one language’ ideology, making linguistic assimilation an even more explicit criterion for German national belonging. This sentiment can be seen in recent attempts to use language to integrate immigrants into German society, namely in the events involving the Herbert Hoover Realschule in Wedding, a district of Berlin. (A Realschule is a type of second tier high school in Germany; students complete ten years of schooling and then typically enter vocational training programs.) During the 2005–2006 school year, approximately ninety percent of the students at the Herbert Hoover Realschule were not native speakers of German, so the school administration—with full support of the student council—created a rule that only German would be spoken in the school building and on the grounds (Reimann 2006). Reactions to this in the public were initially mixed, but some (e.g., members of the Turkish community, as well as a number of linguists) felt that such rules were repressive of minority languages and identities. Others pointed out that the students themselves saw speaking German in all situations as an important part of their education. Further, proponents defended the rule with the claim that there were no sanctions for breaking the German-Only rule. It was simply intended to encourage German language use. There was, however, a public comment by Robert Heinemann, an expert on education for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, the Christian Democrats, suggesting that children who break the rule dictating German-only should be forced to sweep the school yard (!). Although such punishments were not, as far as I can tell from newspaper reports, ever infl flicted on children who spoke languages other than German in school, the existence of a rule does seem to imply that there will be enforcement of some sort. (See Martin 2008 for a further discussion of this.) The German newspaper Die Zeitt ran an interesting series of articles in January 2006 about integration into German society. Addressing the issue of dictating how children speak in their casual interactions, author Susanne Mayer wrote: Schüler, selbst die mit deutschen Eltern, sprechen sowieso oft und gerne so, dass diesen Eltern die Ohren rauschen, nicht nur auf dem Schulhof. Das hört sich dann zwar nicht ausländisch an, ist aber trotzdem für alle Ohren über 25 komplett unverständlich und soll das auch sein. Das Einzige, was rüberkommt—dass die Jungen eine Menge Sprach-Spiel-Spaß haben, von dem Ältere ausgeschlossen sind. Gemein! Aber klar. Was Schüler, die mit ausländischen Eltern, untereinander sprechen, ob das Afghanisch ist oder Türkisch oder eine Mischung mit deutschem Akzent, ob es eine gute oder eine schlechte Sprache ist, wer kann das wissen, die Lehrer jedenfalls nicht. Es sei denn, wir schulen sie um zu einer Sittenpolizei, die dann den Schulhof patrouilliert, na, das klappt ja noch nicht

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 99 mal im Iran. Tatsache ist, Lehrer können in der Regel gar nicht verhindern, dass junge Leute das tun, was älteren so schwer fällt—Sprachen unentwegt aufnehmen, sie in sich aufsaugen, verändern, spielerisch. Man muss ihnen nur die Gelegenheit geben. (Mayer 2006) [Schoolchildren, even those with German parents, frequently like to speak in ways that make their parents’ ears hurt, and not just in the schoolyard. It doesn’t sound like a foreign language, but is completely incomprehensible for the ears of everyone over the age of 25 anyway. The only thing that is clear is that these youths have a lot of fun playing with language in ways that exclude adults. How mean! But of course. What schoolchildren with foreign parents speak to each other, whether it’s Afghani or Turkish or a mixture with a German accent, whether it is good language or bad, who knows, certainly not the teachers. That is, unless we train them to be the vice squad, patrolling the schoolyard— well, that doesn’t even work in Iran. The fact is, teachers generally can’t stop young people from doing what is so difficult ffi for old folks—incessantly absorbing languages, soaking them up, changing them playfully. You only have to give them an opportunity.] (My translation) This newspaper article represents a challenge to the hegemonic ideology of normative monolingualism. It depicts youth language as incomprehensible to adults but also something natural, regardless of whether it involves slang in the mainstream language or a mixture of diff fferent foreign languages. The attitude toward such youth language portrayed here is a positive one, an idea that is developed further in the article after this quotation. Not only is it impossible to stop children from creating their own ways of speaking, but also such linguistic creativity and the love of the sounds of certain phrases is something we should be encouraging in our children, not squelching. This opinion represents a minority attitude toward language in general and tolerance of multilingual discourse in particular. In the case of the language policy for schools, ultimately the ideology of normative monolingualism raised its hegemonic head: the Herbert Hoover Realschule received the Deutsche Nationalpreis in 2006, a national award given for the creation of unity in Germany (Loy 2006). This is clear evidence of the belief that linguistic homogeneity contributes to national unity, one of the main tenets in the ‘one nation, one language’ ideology.

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN STANDARD LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES AND NORMATIVE MONOLINGUALISM The ideology that monolingualism fosters national unity is intertwined with standard language ideologies as written about by Gal (2006a, 2006b) for Europe and Lippi-Green (1997) for the U.S. According to Gal (2006a),

100 Bilingual Pre-Teens the sources of authority for the Standard include authenticity and universality, two potentially confl fl icting features of a code. I will show how these are also sources of authority for monolingualism. Authenticity involves the endorsement of one way of speaking by some authority. Often, descriptive grammatical works or dictionaries are viewed as prescriptive authorities, legitimizing language change in the minds of many people. For example, when I was learning German in the mid-1980s, I became aware of the use of the dative case in instances in which the genitive had historically been used. For example, instead of the historically correct wegen des Wetters to mean ‘because of the weather,’ many speakers would use wegen dem Wetter. r A German acquaintance told me that such dative uses were in the Duden (THE grammatical reference book in Germany) and were therefore correct German. Later, I realized that because the Duden is a descriptive grammar, inclusion in the most recent volume actually refl flects popular usage, not prescriptive acceptance. Yet in literate societies, readers all too often accept the printed word as authority even when a prescriptive stance is not intended and thus inclusion in a grammar book gives a linguistic feature the mark of correctness. A sign that some Germans wish to shore up the authenticity of German with a stamp of political authority is found in the recent (2008–2009) attempts of members of the CDU (the political party of the current Chancellor Angela Merkel), and other parties in Merkel’s coalition, to amend the German constitution to include a clause which specifies fi German as the offi fficial language. Currently, German is only specifi fied as the language to be used in government matters (see article in the newspaper Dei Zeit and the news magazine Der Spiegel on this topic at the following websites: http://www.zeit.de/online/2008/49/cdu-deutsch; http://www.spiegel.de/ politik/deutschland/0,1518,654049,00.html ). Peter Müller, the Ministerpräsidentt (i.e., state political leader) in Saarland and leader of the group that proposed this amendment, was quoted in the newspaper Die Zeitt as saying Deutsch ist Deutsch sprechen und deutsche Identitätt (‘[to be] German is speaking German and [having] German identity’; http://www.zeit. de/online/2008/49/cdu-deutsch). Certainly inclusion in the constitution is the highest authority which could be sought to confi fi rm the authenticity of German as the language of Germany. This would also potentially challenge the right of other languages to be used inside German borders. The second source of authority Gal refers to for Standard language is universality. Universality means that a particular linguistic variety is seen as the voice of the majority. This ties in to the perception of the Standard as easily understood by all speakers. Although common sense tells us that it is easily understood because most people are exposed to it (i.e., it is taught in schools and frequently used in the media), the assumption often is that Standard varieties are easily understood because they are linguistically clear and logical. We see iconicity at play here: speakers who speak the Standard are seen as more rational and articulate and their language is a transparent representation of this.

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 101 In terms of monolingualism, both authenticity and universality are very straightforward. The authenticity of the national language in Germany can be seen everywhere. It is the Amtsprache, meaning that it is the offiffi cial language for use in government agencies and schools. It is also spoken by important cultural figures and has a long literary tradition. Although Standard language authenticity must include erasure of dialect use, dialects spoken within the border of the country are not a threat to monolingual German authenticity; they are acceptable variation. The use of languages other than German, however, violates the norm of monolingualism. Dialects are accepted as something quintessentially German in a way that Turkish or Russian never will be, no matter how many people speak them within Germany–English, however, is a diff fferent story, as we will see. Yet erasure is also apparent in this ideological stance, for Austrian dialects of German are not part of the German image and Swiss German ones even less so. Universality is even easier to claim as a source of authority for the monolingual norm. The hegemonic view of language in Germany is that it is a German-speaking country. The existence of indigenous and immigrant linguistic minorities do not challenge the foundation of normative monolingualism but are seen as affronts ff to it. This is a clear case of erasure. Realities that do not support the hegemonic ideology are ignored in the construction of the ideology and then stigmatized because they do not conform to the ideal. This is a process that is always necessary when evoking the authority found in universality.

SEPARATION OF LANGUAGES The second aspect of normative monolingualism ideology is, if a person does speak two (or more) languages, the languages should remain ‘pure’ and be used in strict separation. Languages should not be mixed in one utterance or interaction. Often, bilingual discourse or mixed codes that may arise in multilingual contexts are not viewed as ‘real’ language. Even when they are given names such as Spanglish or Patwa (for Jamaican Creole) they generally are accorded low status and people often deny speaking them (see Swigart 1991 for an example of this from Urban Wolof, a mixed Wolof/French code spoken in Dakar, Senegal). The same can be said about Dinglish (i.e., a mixture of Deutsch ‘German’ and English, also spelled Denglish by some), a term made popular by the American entertainer Gayle Tufts. Tufts lives in Berlin and has carved out her niche as a German-English bilingual performer. She uses frequent bilingual discourse, as shown in example 1. She also uses the stage as a forum to acknowledge her own faulty German production, as in example 2. Because her German is not native-like, it is Dinglish and not German. Bilingual discourse is presented as the same thing as speaking a language inaccurately. Both are portrayed as having their roots in lack of profi ficiency in the monolingual code.

102 Bilingual Pre-Teens (1) From Erste Dinglish Allround Entertainerin (Tufts and Bielfeldt 1998) I’ll mix English mit Deutsch especially für euch That’s exactly what I’ll do I’ll be the Erste Dinglish Allround Entertainerin In Deutschland ich bin’s I know I don’t quite fit fi in But that’s okay I’ll fi nd my way Hier und jetzt I will begin Deutschland’s very first fi Dinglish Entertainerin ‘I’ll mix English with German especially for you That’s exactly what I’ll do I’ll be the fi rst Dinglish all-around entertainer In Gemany, I’m it, I know I don’t quite fit fi in But that’s okay I’ll fi nd my way Here and now I will begin Germany’s very fi rst Dinglish Entertainer’ (2) From Correction (Tufts and Bielfeldt 1998) {Bielfeldt has just corrected Tufts’ grammatical case usage in German} I know I am a blöde Amerikanerinininin! Ich bin sieben Jahre hier, ich kann immer noch nicht richtig sprechen. . . ‘I know I am a stupid American [note: the–IN N ending, which she repeats here four times for comic eff ffect, marks the noun as feminine]. I’ve been here seven years and I still can’t speak properly . . .’ Dinglish is not merely a term used for comic relief by Tufts. As of this writing there are eight entries under Denglish or Dinglish in the online slang dictionary Urban Dictionary which identify it as a mixture of German and English, and there is also an entry in Wikipedia on Denglish. In addition to these references, the term ‘Denglish’ appears in feature articles about language in Germany in both English languages press (e.g., The Independentt and an English version of Deutsch Welle) as well as in articles in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeitt (see Jessen 2001). Although Dinglish had not yet rated an entry in the the Wahrig Deutsches Wörterbuch (2000), it is not only a presence online. It is commonly heard on the streets of Berlin and, most relevantly, in the classrooms where I did my research. For example, one of the boys in the classroom to be discussed in the next chapter said, ‘I speak three languages: German, English, and Dinglish’. The widespread use of this term does not, however, mean the widespread acceptance of language mixing. We name things not only to laud them, but sometimes so that we can better disparage them. Most of the Urban Dictionary entries are at least slightly negative, one describing it as ‘heavily used by imature [sic] wannabe hip hoppers and wannabe gangsters in Germany, mainly at the age of 10 to 18’ and another writes ‘A

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 103 pseudo language created by german people who think they are cool and modern, they form english-looking words.’ (http://www.urbandictionary. com/defi fi ne.php?term=denglish, accessed October, 2011). Authenticity and universality are again sources of authority which speak against language mixing. Dictionaries, for instance, are a great source of authenticity for monolingualism, which is another example of how ideology can infl fluence practices. Dictionaries ‘sanction’ the use of loanwords in the same way in which grammatical reference books ‘sanction’ grammatical change. Once loanwords appear in the dictionary, they are seen as legitimate vocabulary of the recipient language and use of them no longer constitutes language mixing. In German, there is the term Neudeutsch ‘new German’ which is used to describe trendy developments in the language, including recent borrowings, usually from English. Signifi ficantly, this term implies that although loanwords are recognized as having foreign origin, they have become part of the German language. Speakers use loanwords from English (such as lipstick or einloggen ‘log on’) in their spoken language. The occurrence of these words in written contexts (especially dictionaries) increases the perception of the practice being legitimate and this whiff ff of legitimacy leads to their perpetuation. Agha (2003) calls this process of individuals hearing and reproducing ideologies ‘speech chains’ which operate in public as well as private discourse. The reproduction of ideologies is often implicit, as when use is equated with endorsement. When borrowings are used in the mass media, knowledge of them expands among individuals who are not known to each other but nonetheless become part of a network of individuals who are linked through media infl fluences. Thus they seem universal, and if you hear it everywhere it must be legitimate language. The Neudeutsch twist is that because German is explicitly the legitimate language, then popular terms and phrases—even those with obvious foreign origin—must be German. Although this process of lexical borrowing is, of course, present everywhere, the Neudeutsch label introduces a level of awareness of the borrowing process which nicely illuminates how the integration is necessarily not just linguistic, but also social. The authority from universality may work to endorse loanwords, yet it works powerfully against other more spontaneous and conversational aspects of bilingual discourse. The rhetoric about foreign languages is that they are fi ne if they are spoken where they belong, that is, in the nation in which they are the sole acceptable language. So the ‘one language, one nation’ aspect of normative monolingualism is presented not as a prejudice against a way of speaking, merely a sense of appropriate correlations between place and code. Everyone in Germany speaks German, therefore German is legitimate there but Turkish is not, but this is not framed as a prejudice against Turkish, because Turkish is just fi ne in Turkey. Bilingual discourse, however, does not belong anywhere. It is a sign of hybridity that goes against the widespread essentialist ideal that linguistic groups are homogenous and have natural boundaries and territories. Mixed language use is often, even usually, viewed with disdain. Bilingual discourse is sometimes perceived as the inability to speak one language or the other

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properly and erasure often occurs to maintain the normative monolingualism ideology. That is, when a well-educated German uses a mixture of German and English, it is a humorous exception that proves the norm. Proper language use is monolingual discourse, spoken in the appropriate region for that language. If there is only one language appropriate within a nation, bilingual discourse is by defi finition inappropriate everywhere. However in Germany, as in much of northern Europe, there has been a long tradition of foreign language learning in the schools and the ability to speak English and French is seen as an accomplishment. Thus we have the caveat to normative monolingualism: elite bilingualism.

ELITE BILINGUALISM In the bilingual schools in Berlin where I did my research, the ideal of normative monolingualism was upheld through strict separation of the two languages or at least lip service to this separation. When I discussed my proposed research with school administrators, I was told that the children did not use bilingual discourse. They spoke English in English class and German in German class. Sometimes, one principal admitted, they might forget and speak German in English class (as German was generally the dominant language of the students, the reverse was less likely), but she maintained that the teachers would correct them and they would revert to proper monolingual behavior. Despite the fact that even the most casual observation showed bilingual discourse among these children, the view that the two languages were, indeed, not mixed and always spoken in the appropriate contextswas shared by some teachers and staff ff as well as administrators. It was also refl flected in the classroom policies of some of the teachers. In one 5th grade English class where I conducted research (not the classroom discussed in Chapter 5), the teacher had a strict English Only policy that most of the children obeyed scrupulously. Most other English teachers were less strict about the language practices in their classrooms, but only a minority viewed bilingual discourse as positive and productive. Although I had less opportunity to observe in German classes, the attitude there seemed more lax, even among children at lower levels of German profi ficiency. Of course, in this case the language they were teaching was the majority language of the community and thus was easily reinforced. The teachers were not solely, or even largely, responsible for the German input the children received. I suspect that this is the major reason that German teachers were less resistant to use of English in the German classroom than English teachers were to use of German in their classrooms. However, there is also the fact that all of the German teachers, as educated Germans, spoke English and speaking it marked them as part of the English-speaking elite. Thus the German teachers themselves would sometimes use English to construct their identities, although this might have been a violation of the ideal of strict separation of languages.

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 105 This use of both languages was acceptable, however, because the mastering of English in addition to German makes a person an elite bilingual, which is an entirely diff fferent matter than being an immigrant bilingual. Elite bilingualism has a long history throughout the world. Educated upper classes have long learned foreign languages that enhanced their economic and social capital in Europe, Africa, and Asia. This practice is rarely followed in North America, with the notable except of French immersion programs in Canada. In keeping with the ideology of elite bilingualism, these programs teach European French norms as opposed to Quebecois French, which is associated with working class communities (Heller 1999). These programs do not, then, serve the local French-speaking children, or at least do not serve them well, but instead focus on the international status of French. The result is what Myers-Scotton has termed elite closure (Myers-Scotton 1990a). Elite closure relies on the fluency of members of elite groups in offi fficial or high status languages and the lack of profi ficiency in these codes by the masses. Symbolic domination is achieved through the use of the high status language in contexts beyond those in which it is formally dictated, thus using language to mark the boundary between the elite and the commoners, the haves and the have-nots. The ‘haves’ have language skills along with monetary wealth. Currently, English is one of the languages most frequently taught in schools throughout the world as a tool to enable socioeconomic gain. In Germany, English is the fi rst foreign language taught in most schools and educational programs in English abound: private English medium schools, English dual immersion programs, Sachfach Unterrichtt (bilingual subject instruction), and preschool ‘Early English’ programs can all be found in Berlin. Admittedly, bilingual education in general has become popular and there are dual immersion programs available in Berlin in English, French, Italian, Greek, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Turkish, and Sachfach Unterrichtt in Russian as well as English. However, there are more opportunities in English, from preschool to university, than there are for acquisition of any other foreign language. For the most part, the ability to speak English is not seen as allegiance to an English-speaking culture, but it is part of being an educated German (Erling 2004, 2007). I mentioned above that the term Neudeutsch is sometimes used for recent English borrowings, indicating that they are considered part of the German language. There is also an interesting contrast between Spanglish (discussed in Chapter 2) and Dinglish. Spanglish is seen as something which is spoken by Latinos in the U.S., but Dinglish is associated with mainstream German society, which for many means ‘ethnic Germans’. Spanglish is something associated with poor immigrants, but Dinglish is associated with the educated middle class. Spanglish may index being Latino, but is not commonly viewed as indexing an Anglo who can speak Spanish. The use of Dinglish, in comparison, is often associated with a German who can speak English. Of course, Dinglish may also carry negative connotations about speaking English badly or, as in the case of Gayle Tufts, being a native English speaker who speaks German badly. So although Dinglish may be a

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negative term, it does not refer to the language of a particular minority language ethnic group. Dinglish is potentially for everyone. In some settings, either a British or American linguistic norm for English is explicitly referenced, as in the case of the German-American John F. Kennedy School or the British English-oriented Charles Dickens and Quentin Blake schools in Berlin. But this does not mean that the participants in these schools uniformly identify with a particular country or even one linguistic norm. For some of these children, particularly the children of diplomats or other professionals who have international careers, English is simply an international language. Children in the classrooms in which I did research had attended English medium schools around the world, both in Anglophone countries (e.g., the U.S., England, Scotland, Australia) as well as multilingual countries such as Ethiopia, Malaysia, South Africa, or India. Some of the children did have allegiance to particular English-speaking countries, but they also recognized English as a global language—and that English was simply part of the linguistic landscape in Germany. Public uses of English in Berlin are frequent and take on a variety of forms. Most mundane are the translations of informational signs in the subway, at museums, monuments, etc. These are largely aimed at tourists as opposed to residents of Berlin and are sometimes in French as well as English. For instance, signs in the subway cars explaining what to do in case of an emergency are in German, English, and French. What is interesting about this is that it is rare to see such informational signs in languages that are spoken by thousands of residents of Berlin, such as Turkish or Russian. I did once see a sign at a Karstadtt (a department store chain) which gave information about the use of debit cards in both German and Turkish, but this was an anomaly in my experience. The only place where information was consistently given in the immigrant languages spoken by the largest numbers of people in Berlin was the German immigration services building. There were large signs in German, English, French, Turkish, and Russian that told of the services offered ff in the building. However, oddly enough, the Turkish sign contained some German borrowings: Reiseausweis (passport, literally travel identification fi card) and Freizügigkeitserklaerung; the latter is diffi fficult to translate into any language. Literally, it means a ‘freedom of movement declaration’; it refers to a permit that grants permission to foreigners which enables them to travel freely within Germany. The English, French, and Russian signs did not include any German terms. The above-mentioned uses of English for public information, in contrast with the uses of Turkish, indicate a clear orientation of German services toward visitors or immigrants to Berlin who are educated enough to speak English and away from speakers of stigmatized minority languages. More significant fi for understanding the status of English in Germany, however, are uses of English that are aimed at Germans themselves. One such phenomenon is the previously mentioned Gayle Tufts, who promotes herself as a Dinglish Entertainerin (‘German-English female entertainer’). The audience for her performances is not Anglophone immigrants to Germany, but Germans themselves. This is

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 107 most apparent in her books, in which the bilingual discourse of her songs and shows is dropped and the text is entirely in German, except for the song lyrics, which are published in the original ‘Dinglish’ (Tufts 1998). Gayle Tufts may have played a role in the popularization of the term and concept of Dinglish, but the practice of mixing German and English is longstanding. Tufts was simply clever enough to take advantage of the increasing openness to this type of incorporation of English into German. There are many recent English borrowings in German, often to name things that are quintessentially German. For instance, a German airline is named Germanwings; see Figure 4.1, a picture of a sign advertising this airline that was taken at the Berlin Schönefeld airport. Similarly, the bikes that are available for rental from the Deutsche Bahn (German train company) are labeled Call-A-Bike (See Figure 4.2, a picture of a bike on the streets of Berlin).

Figure 4.1

Logo for the airline ‘Germanwings’. Photo by author.

Figure 4.2

A Deutsche Bahn-sponsored rental bike. Photo by author.

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Another popular borrowing is the expression to go; in German it is used in ways that extend it beyond recognition to the monolingual English speaker. Coff ffee to go is straightforward enough and, although Kaffee ff zum Mitnehmen (literally, ‘coff ffee to take with [you]’) still exists, coff ffee is increasingly ‘to go’ on the streets of Berlin. But the phrase ‘to go’ has also been extended to become an attribute of portability—not in contrast to things that cannot be carried, but as a sign of the ultimate in convenience for the person on the go. For example, a newspaper in a smaller format was billed as Die Erste Zeitung To Go ‘the fi rst newspaper to go’ (see Figure 4.3, a picture of a sign in Berlin-Wilmersdorf). Although obviously all newspapers are ‘to go’ in the typical sense, this newspaper, the Welt-Kompakt,

Figure 4.3 Advertisement for the newspaper Welt Kompakt: Die erste Zeitung To Go (‘the first newspaper to go’). Photo by author.

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 109 is stressing its compactness by declaring it ‘to go’. Similarly, ‘lipstick to go,’ advertised in a German magazine for girls named Mádchen, is paper with a single-serving of lipstick on it. These lipstick blotting papers relieve a clubbing teen from the heavy weight of an entire tube of lipstick in her purse and hence are ‘to go.’ This interpretation was stretched even further on a sign I saw in Berlin Kreuzberg which said Jade Massage To Go. The ‘Jade Massage’ refers to an automated massage bed that contains balls of jade which move up and down the customer’s back. The ‘to go’ part means, in this case, not that the massage is portable but that no appointment is required. Thus ‘to go’ has been extended from something that can be taken with you that is normally consumed on location, to something that is normally taken with you and has been made more portable, to something which can be enjoyed spontaneously, without prior planning. This development is not only of interest for those studying the process of borrowing, but is also relevant in terms of language ideology and linguistic practices. The ideology of normative monolingualism is potentially challenged by borrowings such as ‘to go’, but it is redeemed in the development of meanings of the borrowings that are no longer part of English. Other loanwords that have been similarly adapted to mean things they do not mean in English include Handy (a cellular phone) or fit fit (which does not mean physically fit through regular exercise, as in English, but alert and rested, a more temporary state). These borrowings may be recognized as having English origin but are embraced, and rightly so, as being German—or at least Neudeutsch. This is not the case for all uses of English in the public arena, of course. In some cases, English words or phrases are used in advertisements to symbolically make a statement about the product. Often, as noted by Piller (2003), this functions to give the product a more cosmopolitan air, although in many cases the product is something quintessentially German. Lufthansa, for examples, uses the slogan ‘there’s no better way to fly’ and Berliner Pilsnerr (a brand of beer) is billed as ‘Made in Berlin’. This is hardly limited to German products, however. A Nokia ad (in the magazine Chica) uses the phrase ‘Nokia—connecting people’, and to advertise the Nokia 5700 Xpress Music feature on a cellular phone, the phrase ‘Music gets you talking’ is employed. Last, but certainly not least, is the phenomenon of bilingual puns, word plays which require knowledge of both German and English. One example, shown in Figure 4.4, is the name of a hair salon in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Hin und Hair. r The German expression hin und her means ‘back and forth’. The pun then is based on the similar pronunciation of German her and English hair. r Another advertisement with a clever pun was put out by the Berliner Stradtreinigung, the institution responsible for street sweepers, with the text We kehr for you (Erling 2004: 120). The pun is based on the similarity of pronunciation of the English word care and the German word kehr ‘sweep’.

110 Bilingual Pre-Teens

Figure 4.4 A hairdresser’s named Hin under Hair (pun on the German expression hin und her, meaning back and forth). Photo by author.

Thus the Berlin streets are littered with bits and pieces of English, on billboards, signs, flyers, newspapers, and magazines. Publicly, English is embraced in a way no other language is, not even French (although I did see one billboard with a German-French pun; see Figure 4.5).

Figure 4.5

Eau bleib doch ‘oh/water do stay’. Photo by author.

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 111 It is assumed that not just most tourists, but also the residents of Berlin, will speak English. Yet its role is not limited to a lingua franca for nonGerman speakers, it is also assumed that the public will be able to appreciate English phrases and bilingual puns used for aesthetic and symbolic purposes. This is in stark contrast to the use of immigrant languages. I saw little evidence that other languages are used in the public sphere in ways similar to how English is used in the public sphere. I saw signs at restaurants that provided menus in both Turkish and Arabic, but these were more likely an attempt by Turkish or Arabic-speaking shopkeepers to cater to German-speaking customers as opposed to vice versa. Also, the standard cell phone settings included being able to set the language to German, English, or Turkish. So, in some cases information that is deemed important for Turkish (and to a lesser extent Russian or Arabic) speakers might be translated, but I was not able to fi nd any instances of these languages being used in other contexts. Certainly they did not appear in popular magazines and newspapers or on billboards for major corporations. Despite exploration in districts of Berlin that have high percentages of Turkish, Arabic, and Russian-speaking immigrants, I found no use of immigrant languages in public signs beyond instances of translation of information from (or into) German. This lack of use of immigrant languages is an indication that they are not part of the German public face—but English is. Thus elite bilingualism is in stark contrast to immigrant bilingualism; the former encouraged through public uses of English, the latter made invisible in the public realm.

ELITE BILINGUALISM AT THE CHARLES DICKENS SCHOOL The bilingual branch of the Charles Dickens School (CDS) is called an Europa Schule ‘Europe School’. It follows the German curriculum, but starting in the 1st grade (which, in Berlin, children must begin in August of the year they turn six) the children are taught half in German and half in English. The CDS is a ‘full day’ school, meaning that the children have classes or supervised activities until 4 pm. For the children in the Europa Schule track, the after school program (from about 2pm to 4pm, after regular classes are over) is staff ffed with English native speakers. Certain subjects (e.g., German language arts and math) are always taught in German, while other subjects (e.g., English language arts and social sciences) are taught in English. This pattern is followed for grades 1 through 6. The children in each classroom are divided into two sections: German Mother Tongue and English Mother Tongue; the other language is called the child’s Partner Tongue. Students are classified fi as English Mother Tongue for a variety of reasons, the most common being that they have one or more English-speaking parent and have learned English in the home from infancy on. This was the case for six of the ten children in the English Mother Tongue half of the class I studied at

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the CDS. Although this seems like a straightforward criterion, it leads to anything but homogenous levels of English profi ficiency within the groupings. Almost all of these children have grown up in Berlin and therefore have learned German from early childhood on and tend to speak German with their peers. Also, the home domain is rarely a purely English one. For example, one of the children had a Spanish-speaking father and most of the Anglophone parents are also long-term residents of Germany who speak fl fluent German. The second most common reason for children being classifi fied as English Mother Tongue is that they have lived abroad and their early schooling was in English, as was the case for four of the children. Depending on the child’s experience, this can lead to greatly varied levels of English. In this classroom, children in this category included two girls who had attended school in Scotland and Malaysia, both of whom spoke German at home. They had some German interference, but were capable students in English. There was also one boy who had been born in the United States and lived there with his German mother and Czech father until he was about eight. He learned German and English during this period, although it is likely that English was his dominant language. However, he then moved to Germany with his German mother and he no longer had signifi ficant English input outside of school. In the year of my research, three years after his return to Germany, he was clearly German dominant and was beginning to struggle with his English assignments. Another girl had spent her fi rst years of life in Botswana, where her mother was from, and had learned Setswana and English. She currently lived in Berlin with her German father and her mother and older siblings lived in England. Despite her German dominant surroundings, she was one of the top students in English. We can see from these descriptions that although the children’s backgrounds and home languages played a role in their proficiencies fi in the two languages and their categorization as English Mother Tongue or German Mother Tongue, the categorizations sometimes did not match the children’s dominant language. And in many cases, the children did not have one clearly dominant language. It is a notable sign of the dominance of normative monolingualism that a key concept in the structure of this bilingual school, the single Mother Tongue, is a concept that is based in a monolingual perspective. (See Fitts 2006 for a discussion of this same phenomenon in a dual language program in the U.S.) The German Mother Tongue (=English Partner Tongue) children were also a diverse group in terms of their language backgrounds. Of the eleven German Mother Tongue children in this class, only six of them had two German parents. Of the remaining five children, three lived with two parents of another nationality (Indian, Iranian, or Russian) and spoke Hindi and English, Persian, and Russian at home, respectively. Another child lived with her German father and Ghanaian mother and spoke some English and what she called Ghanasisch (‘Ghanaian’) with her mother. The remaining

Language Ideologies in Berlin, Germany 113 child was Turkish (although not Turkish-speaking). He lived with his Turkish mother and German stepfather. Given this multilingual group of students, it is perhaps unsurprising that they were all quick to claim profi ficiency in many languages. For example, in their initial introductions to me, all of the children claimed to be able to speak French, which they had just started to learn in school. The levels of profi ficiency of the home languages of the children also undoubtedly varied widely, but only the Turkish child denied an ability to speak the language of his parents. I suggest that this is not a coincidence, as the other languages were either somewhat prestigious internationally (e.g., Russian) or seemed exotic to the children (e.g., Persian (Farsi), Setswana). Turkish, however, is a commonly spoken language in Berlin, but not one associated with a positively valued social group. Even Russian, which may have some negative associations, is nonetheless recognized as a powerful international language. It is more commonly learned in German schools than Turkish. I was told that the stereotypical Russian immigrants in Berlin are pushy and ambitious. Although this is not an entirely positive stereotype, it is more positive than the stereotype of Turkish immigrants, which is that of the uneducated peasant. Thus even in the general survey of the language repertoires of the classroom we see the potential effect ff of language ideology. Elite bilingualism is desirable; immigrant bilingualism is something to be avoided.

CONCLUSION This chapter has focused on normative monolingualism in its German manifestation, a ‘one nation, one language’ ideology which advocates the use of German as the rightful language within German borders. A caveat to this ideology is elite bilingualism, which promotes speaking English (or French) in addition to German. This is a requirement to participate in the realm of the educated middle class. Public displays of English include not just English in translations, as we saw with Spanish in the U.S., but also uses of English that indexed an international or sophisticated identity for the reader (especially in advertisements). Further, creative instances of language mixing—codeswitching and bilingual puns—could be seen on signs, and many borrowings of words and phrases (e.g., to go) were adapted and made into something uniquely German. The expression Neudeutsch is an indication of how such loanwords are embraced as part of the German language. Yet despite the frequent and visible use of bilingual discourse, mixed language is often denigrated. The (usually) pejorative term Dinglish is often used to refer to discourse that contains features of both German and English: it may be entertaining, but it’s not real language. And in the bilingual schools in particular, the separation of languages is often advocated, at

114 Bilingual Pre-Teens least on the surface, working to reinforce the normative ideal of separation of languages. The next chapter focuses on how the elite bilingualism (i.e., GermanEnglish bilingualism) of the children is managed in the climate of normative monolingualism of the wider Berlin community. Within the school, bilingual discourse undergoes erasure: instances of public codeswitching are not adopted as emblems of the bilingual student body, and the administrators and some teachers claim that the children speak their two languages in neatly separate contexts. The following analysis focuses on the reality of bilingualism in the classroom: the uses of the two languages and of bilingual discourse. As we will see, the connection between English and high status is not straightforward, as it is blocked in many instances by the language desirable for peer interaction: German. Nonetheless the patterns of language use are very different ff from the immigrant bilinguals discussed in Chapter 3, and I will show how some of these diff fferences are the product of associations between diff fferent types of bilingualism and diff fferent socio-economic classes. Specifi fically, whereas immigrant bilingualism was linked to working class identities, elite bilingualism is, as the name implies, linked to membership in higher social classes.

5

Speaking Your Mother Tongue in the Fatherland A Linguistic Ethnography of a German-English Dual Language Classroom

In this chapter, I build on the description of the setting provided in Chapter 4. I present examples from the recorded data which illustrate how language choice is part of the construction of identity for the children in this German-English bilingual program and how these choices can both challenge and reproduce the ideology of normative monolingualism. The analysis further addresses how language choice serves to construct diff fference and similarity and how diff ff erent levels of identity categories, including macro-level demographic categories, local cultural positions, and interactionally specific fi stances are intertwined in the classroom discourse.

THE CLASSROOM AS A WHOLE: GROUP SOLIDARITY AND GENDER OPPOSITION The recordings and observations discussed in this chapter come from two types of instruction in the bilingual program: the English Mother Tongue (MT) instruction and what is called the English Partner Tongue (PT) instruction; that is, the instruction of English language arts to English MT and German MT children, respectively. Although the English proficiencies fi of the children in the two classes are probably best viewed as a continuum as opposed to two separate categories, the program is designed with the assumption that the English MT children are receiving instruction in a language they speak with native-like competence, while the English PT children are receiving instruction in a foreign language (albeit one they started at the age of four in a natural setting). Based on this assumption, the English MT children are taught to read and write in English in the first fi years of school and then German is introduced. The German MT children are taught to read and write fi rst in German with English introduced in the 3rd grade. The teacher and I discussed the problems with this assumption and the ensuing practices in one of our first fi conversations. He maintained that the

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biggest drawback was that some of the children classifi fied as English MT children were actually dominant in German and were taught to read and write first fi in a language which was not their strongest, thus slowing down their acquisition of literacy. By 5th grade, this continued to be an issue for some of the English MT children who had little exposure to English outside of school. Although obviously the most salient problem was that they were struggling to keep up with their peers who were more proficient fi in English, it is also relevant in the language choices they make which will be discussed here. All but one of the children in the classroom had grown up speaking German, meaning that for German instruction, there was little difference ff between the two groups. My conversations with the German teacher revealed that she did the same curriculum with both sections. Aside from the one student who had been in Germany only a couple of years, all of the children had learned German in early childhood and did not need instruction in German as a foreign language. The one more recent arrival was a girl who had come to Berlin from Australia in the 3rd grade with no knowledge of German. The school was not really designed to accommodate children with no knowledge of one of the languages starting in the more advanced grades, as it did not off ffer language instruction at diff fferent levels, and all of the German instruction was aimed at children who spoke it fluently. It did nonetheless sometimes happen that a child would enter the program in the 2nd or 3rd grade without speaking German. According to Mr. Gregory (the classroom teacher), they often learned German very quickly and within a year or two were indistinguishable from the children who had lived in Berlin their whole lives. In this case, the girl in question (Ingrid) had acquired a great deal of German in the time she had been in Berlin, but she was overall a somewhat weak student, which especially hindered her in German instruction. Socially she was also at a disadvantage as a less fluent speaker of German. These aspects of language use will also be discussed in this chapter. In Table 5.1, I provide a list of the children in the classroom with information about the MT they have been assigned as well as other relevant information about their linguistic background. The social alliances of the children in the classroom were complicated and fluid. Unlike the relationships in the Spanish-English classroom discussed in Chapter 3, in which children had close friendships with particular others that continued throughout the year, the children in this classroom had more varied alignments. Because I usually saw them during English instruction, in which they were grouped with other children sharing their MT, I had a more vague sense of how friendships worked across the MT boundary, but I did see them in the times between classes and on the playground and occasionally during instruction of the whole class. Based on these observations, it seemed that the MT/PT distinction was not a boundary when forming friendships and certainly did not dictate participation in large group activities. For instance, if the children

Speaking Your Mother Tongue in the Fatherland Table 5.1

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Children in the 5th Grade Classroom at the Charles Dickens School, 2005–2006 School Year

Student pseudonym (sex category)

Mother Tongue categorization

Ingrid (girl)

English

Australian mother, German father; came to Berlin from Australia two years before research period began. Lives with her mother and her Italian stepfather and a younger sibling

Kia (girl)

English

German parents; had received schooling in Edinburgh, Scotland prior to moving to Berlin two years earlier

Dana (girl)

English

Lived in Botswana until she was about three; mother from Botswana, currently living in England. Lives in Berlin with her German father. Learned Setswana as well as English from birth on, and German after the age of three.

Erin (girl)

English

English mother, Argentinean father. Has always lived in Berlin. Admits to speaking some Spanish

Bronwyn (girl)

English

English-speaking parents from the U.K. Has grown up in Berlin

Cherise (girl)

English

German mother, Belgian father; lived in Malaysia and attended an English-medium school. Lives in Berlin with her mother

John (boy)

English

English parents; has grown up in Berlin

Sam (boy)

English

Irish parents; has grown up in Berlin

Edgar (boy)

English

English mother, German father; has grown up in Berlin, lives with mother

Max (boy)

English

German mother, Czech father; born in the U.S. and lived there until he was about seven. Lives in Berlin with his mother

Background

Marianne (girl) German

Ghanaian mother, German father; has grown up in Berlin. Speaks some English and ‘Ghanaian’ with her mother

Daphne (girl)

German

Indian parents; has grown up in Berlin. Speaks Hindi as well as some English with her parents

Sabine (girl)

German

German parents; has grown up in Berlin

Elena (girl)

German

German parents; has grown up in Berlin

David (boy)

German

Russian parents; has grown up in Berlin

Klaus S. (boy)

German

German parents; has grown up in Berlin

Marco (boy)

German

German parents; has grown up in Berlin (continued)

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Table 5.1

(continued)

Kadri (boy)

German

Turkish parents, has grown up in Berlin; lives with mother and German stepfather

Bahram (boy)

German

Iranian parents; has grown up in Berlin

Bettina (girl)

German

German parents (Julia’s twin sister); has grown up in Berlin

Julia (girl)

German

German parents (Bettina’s twin sister); has grown up in Berlin

Holger (boy)

German

German parents; has grown up in Berlin

played sports or games in large groups on the playground, children from both MT sections participated. The language of play in these large group interactions was invariably German. Before delving into the individual alignments, however, I would like to say a few words about the nature of the class as a whole. As is common in German schools, the children remained as an intact class throughout their elementary school education and to some extent into their secondary education. This means that for the roughly two-thirds of the class that had been attending the Dickens School since they began school, they were in the sixth year with the same group of students. Of course some children had left the city or the school and some children had been added along the way, but the concept of the class was one of stability. The most recent additions were Ingrid, the Australian girl mentioned above, and Kia, a German child whose mother was a diplomat and had lived in Edinburgh before coming to Berlin. Both had joined the class two years before, making the year I observed them their third year in the classroom. During that year there was one brief addition, a boy who attended for several weeks but did not end up staying in the school. Socially, there are some interesting consequences of having an intact class over years of schooling. First, a great deal of solidarity developed within the classroom, which was most apparent when they were confronted with other groups. For instance, at one point during the planning for a class trip, the children were stridently against going on a trip with the other 5th grade class in the bilingual program at their school. There was surprisingly little interaction between these two classrooms of children, despite the fact that their classrooms were next to each other and they had the same recess times. One might think that they might be bound together by a sense of solidarity (or superiority) vis-à-vis the other monolingual classrooms in the school, but this did not seem to be the case. Even large group events such as playing soccer did not involve children from both classrooms. In this way, the alliances between the girls and boys within the classrooms— groups that often constructed themselves in opposition—were stronger

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than affi ffiliations across the classroom boundary. There was one incident that was an amusing example of this. It was winter and the girls from this classroom had been allowed to go beyond the authorized play area in the school yard to construct a snow fort along the driveway leading up to the school. Initially, permission was given only to the girls from this class to be in this normally forbidden area. On the second day that this was allowed, the boys from the classroom were also in this area with the girls. As I was standing on the playground talking to Mr. Gregory, he told the boys that they were not allowed to be in that area. The boys countered that they were only there to protect the girls as some of the children from the other 5th grade bilingual class (who were often depicted as evil-doers) had tried to ruin the snow fort. Although neither Mr. Gregory nor I wholly believed this excuse—it was more likely the boys were motivated by playing in a normally forbidden zone rather than chivalry—this answer was indicative of the nature of the relationship among the children. Despite many skirmishes and disagreements within the classroom, there was nonetheless a great deal of group solidarity. Despite this solidarity when faced with outsiders, within the group there was a clear division according to gender. The children were often assigned seats in the classroom that had boys and girls sitting next to each other, often with the intention of seating children next to those they did not get along with so that they would be less disruptive during class. During English instruction, the usual pattern was to read and discuss something from their textbook as a whole class and then be given questions from the text to work on alone or in pairs. They were usually allowed to move and sit next to the student(s) of their choice to work collaboratively on assignments. Invariably, when the children moved to work with another child, it was a child of the same sex. This is not to say that there was no alignment across gender lines, but it was relatively infrequent. Julia and Holger often spent time together and the other children were very casual about this alignment, which apparently had a long history. Although in other cases the children teased each other about ‘being in love with’ someone of the opposite sex, this legitimate friendship between a boy and girl was treated as unremarkable. The teacher simply said that they had always liked each other. Also, toward the end of the year, Elena and Kadri were seated next to each other and I noticed that when they were allowed to move around and work with other children, the two of them mostly stayed put and talked and laughed together as they did their work. Both of these relationships were notable as exceptions to the general rule of gender separation. Although sometimes children chose to work alone, the norm was for two or three girls or boys to seat themselves next to each other. Members of the opposite sex who were nearby were often portrayed as a source of irritation and could be the object of ridicule or verbal attacks. A case of this is shown in example 1. Here, Ingrid and Kia are sitting together and John is at an adjacent desk. The girls have already accused John of

120 Bilingual Pre-Teens bothering them because he wants to get his voice on the recording. As this excerpt begins, Ingrid and Kia are joking around about the other reading or writing upside down (they are sitting facing each other, so the other’s book or paper appears upside down). In line 7, John joins into the conversation by insulting Ingrid and this leads to Ingrid calling the teacher to mediate. (1) I=Ingrid, K=Kia, J=John, MG= Mr. Gregory 1 I: Kia, why are you reading upside down, because that’s not xxxx 2 K: Ingrid, why are you writing upside down? 3 I: I’m not. 4 K: Of course you are. Well I’m not reading upside down, otherwise 5 I would be reading xxx xx 6 I: Okay, let me tell you. Don’t worry, I’ll say it myself. I’m dumb. I 7 know. 8 J: Yes, Ingrid is dumb, everyone knows 9 I: Ha ha ha 10 J: That’s why Ingrid is dumb 11 I: That’s why John’s dumb (and) a little bit Schwerhörig ‘hard of hearing’ 12 J: Ingrid is so dumb that she can’t xxx 13 I: Mr. Gregory! John keeps annoying me, he keeps saying that Ingrid is so dumb 14 (like a) ble blib bleh 15 J: And you keep saying I am so dumb like a 16 K: No she doesn’t! 17 MG: John leave Ingrid alone 18 J: xxx 19 K: We can’t work ‘cause he’s always {makes nonsense sounds} (5MTDS3g) Such arguments between boys and girls are frequent in these data. In the recorded interactions it is always the girls who call the teacher over and claim that they are trying to work but the boys in their vicinity are bothering them. In this case, there is some truth to this accusation. John does insinuate himself into the girls’ conversation and twists their talk to insult Ingrid. However, the girls were not working and Ingrid in particular has accomplished little during this period. Further, the girls’ mocking of John must be noted in the interpretation of this incident—John has a speech impediment and their depiction of his talk in lines 18 and 19 is a rather cruel imitation of his speech. Mr. Gregory, who is sitting quite near the children and probably heard the entire episode, quickly sides with the girls in this instance. His treatment of the interaction contributes to the construction of the divide between boys and girls and the boys (and John in particular) as guilty of pestering the girls. Of course there were disputes and name-calling within same-sex groupings and times when children objected to working

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with or sitting next to children of the same sex, but teacher intervention was, in my observations, only requested in purported boy-on-girl pestering and always by the girls. In this way, the battle lines were clearly drawn.

INDIVIDUAL ALIGNMENTS Because my observations and recordings were largely within the context of the English language classroom, and thus usually contained either English MT or German MT children but not both, the comments I have about social alignments will be restricted to those within each of these MT groups. As acknowledged above, this does not represent the full range of alignments in the classroom, but does provide a general background for the data I will discuss below. In the German MT group, there were six boys. I had permission to record only three of them, and thus the other three, David, Marco, and Holger, are not represented in the discussion of data below. However, I made frequent observation of their alignments with other boys. As mentioned above, Holger often spent time with Julia. Although he did sit with other boys he was the quietest of the bunch and the least strongly allied with any other particular boy. Marco was also somewhat peripheral to the German MT boys’ groups. He laughed and joked with the other boys, but he was not frequently in the company of anyone in particular. The remaining four boys (David, Kadri, Bahram, and Klaus) all seemed to be good friends and I witnessed all of them choose to work with each of the other three at some point during the year. All four of these boys were reasonably ambitious (and sometimes competitive) about getting their work done in class. David was generally constructed as the strongest student in the class through comments that assumed his academic superiority. For example, the one time I visited the German MT classroom they were being judged on reading out loud and many of the students gave voice to the assumption that David would be rated the highest, which, indeed, he was. Among the six German MT girls, there were also very fluid alignments. At one point during the year Marianne and Sabine seemed to be close friends, often walking arm and arm, but then a few days later during my recording of Marianne and Daphne, the two of them made jokes about Sabine behind her back. Marianne and Daphne often chose to work together and that seemed to be their most permanent alignment, but they did not have an exclusive ‘best friends’ relationship. The twins, Bettina and Julia, never chose to work together, but both were sometimes aligned with Sabine or Elena or some of the English MT girls. As a rule, Daphne, Marianne, and sometimes Elena were the ones who accomplished the most during the class period. Bettina, Julia, and especially Sabine often got little to nothing done on the assignments they were given. This undoubtedly played a role in the alignment between Daphne and Marianne, who recognized that if they

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sat with the other girls they got little work done and they generally placed value on completing their assignments and getting good grades. I did not have permission to record Sabine or Elena, and they are not included in the more detailed discussion of alignments below. The six English MT girls were, on the whole, a more studious lot. There were no clear and lasting alignments between the girls, although Dana and Bronwyn once told me that they did not get along. This was supported by their behavior. They never chose to work together or spend time together in the classroom or on the playground. All of the other girls seemed to get along well with diff ffering pairs of girls spending time together at diff fferent points throughout the year. Within the classroom, the agenda of the girls in terms of academic accomplishment was part of the friendships. Dana usually worked very conscientiously and in this regard was fairly well matched with Erin and Kia. Ingrid and Cherise were fairly unmotivated students and Ingrid, especially, rarely got anything accomplished in class. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they were also fairly closely aligned with Julia, Bettina, and Sabine, the girls from the German MT class who generally spent their work time socializing. Bronwyn was also rather lackadaisical about doing her work in school, but according to the teacher this was because her father would make her do homework and extra work at home, so she viewed school as her downtime. She was a strong student with very good English skills and she got along well with the others in the class as a whole, but was something of a loner in terms of her work habits. The shifting nature of the alignments between the children and how they are negotiated will be examined within this rest of this chapter, with particular attention to how language choice plays a role in these relationships. The ideology of normative monolingualism and how the children responded to it in this context of elite bilingualism will also be a focus of the following analysis.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF BILINGUAL IDENTITIES Probably the most common type of bilingual discourse in this class was the use of single lexical items from one language in sentences otherwise comprised of the other language. Unlike in the Spanish-English bilingual classroom discussed in Chapter 3, there was little intrasentential codeswitching involving larger constituents or switching between sentences or turns. As discussed in Chapter 1, some researchers do not view the use of single lexical items as the same process as bilingual discourse of longer stretches of morphemes. Yet whether these insertions are deemed codeswitching or borrowing, they are part of the linguistic practices of these bilingual children and deserve attention as such. Almost all of the examples of this type of bilingual discourse are instances of German words inserted into English dialogue. There are few instances of the reverse in these data; one is shown in example 2. This sentence was uttered in the context of two

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boys who were working on an English project together for which they needed to collect some pictures. I suggest that because the previous discussion of the pictures had been in English, this term is used in the German conversation too. (2) Klaus: Sam, ich habe ein Paar pictures abgeholt. ‘Sam, I downloaded a few pictures.’ (5ATDS) Most of the other examples of such insertions from the recorded data and my fieldnotes involve German words inserted into English sentences. This asymmetry in bilingual discourse patterns is not an unexpected result. Because the dominant language in the community and in the repertoire of many of the children is German, it would be expected that they would include German in their English utterances but not necessarily vice versa. However, it is also possible that this fi nding is an artifact of the data collection site. That is, I did not record the children in their German classroom, where they would be more likely to speak German and insert English words. All of my recordings come from a setting in which they are supposed to be speaking English. The attempt to comply with this expectation may be what led to the use of English as the matrix language with the insertion of German words. Although this type of bilingual discourse is structurally fairly straightforward, it is legitimate to ask what identity performances are achieved with the use of German words in otherwise English sentences and the answer to this is more complicated. The lexical gap hypothesis (see Nicoladis and Secco 1998; Takeshi 1991) suggests that single lexical items are used from one language within sentences of another if a translation equivalent is not known. In this case, a German word would be used because the speaker is not familiar with (or cannot come up with) the English equivalent. This is not an unreasonable hypothesis. All of the children live in a German-dominant environment, and half of the speakers in the classroom speak English as a foreign language. Thus it would be expected that these children would have a larger vocabulary in German than English, and in particular have gaps in their vocabulary related to the language of everyday life. The examples given in 3 and 4 are examples of such single lexical items in bilingual discourse. Note that in 3, there is also influence fl from German structure. (3) The teacher is teaching the children about the passive tense in English and has written on the board, ‘Max broke the window’ and ‘The window was broken by Max’. Max: The window was broken and Max was not Schuld*! ‘fault’ (5MTDS) *This sentence is constructed with the German structure; one says in German ‘er ist nicht schuld’, literally, ‘he is not fault.’ (=he is not at fault)

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(4) The children are reading a story, and there is a picture of a weasel-like animal on the page. Marco: Oh my god, that can’t be a Frettchen! ‘stoat’ (5PTDS) An interesting perspective on the use of single German lexical items can be found by comparison to data from another 5th grade classroom in Berlin at the John F. Kennedy School (another German-English bilingual school in which I carried out my research). The children in the JFK School classroom participated in ‘gap fi lling’ codeswitching to a far lesser extent. In utterances directed at the teacher, I never heard them use such constructions, undoubtedly because speaking German was strictly forbidden in their English classroom. On one occasion I witnessed a girl ask permission to use a German word after admitting that she did not know the English word. The teacher gave her permission and some of her classmates provided a translation, which she then used in her English sentence. This was the closest anyone ever came, in my observation, to using a German word in an English sentence in front of the teacher. Of course, in conversations to which the teacher was not party, the children would occasionally use German. They would sometimes use German words or phrases in otherwise English sentences, (as in 5 and 6, below), or have entire conversations in German. Although this was limited to a small number of children (the others either not being fluent speakers of German or not being willing to risk the teacher’s wrath if they were caught speaking the forbidden language), I have examples of this in my recordings. As in the Dickens School classroom, by far the most common pattern of bilingual discourse was the insertion of single lexical items, as in examples 5 and 6. (5) Nico is pretending to do a palm reading. Nico: I’m going to open my hand, and look into my Zukunft ‘future’ (5MTKS7b) (6) The boys are goofi fi ng around for the recorder, blowing into the microphone and acting silly. JMF: If you can’t behave yourselves we’ll turn it off Ben: No, I was always artig, I am. ‘good, well-behaved’ (5MTKS2b) We see here an interesting comparison between the two classrooms. In the JFK School classroom, there is a strictly enforced rule of no use of German. In the Charles Dickens School classroom, the teacher encourages the use of English but does not forbid them from speaking German. The Dickens School teacher is also a fluent German speaker and often displays this by providing the children with translations, whereas the JFK teacher never speaks German. In terms of linguistic structure, the outcomes are basically

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the same—the vast majority of the intrasentential codeswitching is the use of single lexical items from German inserted into English sentences. However, in terms of the frequency of use of such instances of bilingual discourse, there is a vast diff fference. In the JFK school classroom, such usages have been turned into acts of rebellion by classroom language policies. In the Dickens school, the use of single lexical items from German is part of the code of the classroom. Thus these switches may be lexical gap filling, but they are not without implications for identity performance. I suggest that it is part of the construction of a bilingual identity for these students and, perhaps more importantly, a way of emphasizing their alliance with the dominant German-speaking culture. All of these switches occur in situations in which they are expected to speak English. Many of the examples I will give below are from class discussion and are responses to the teacher, whom they almost invariably address in English. The students are trying to comply with the expected code, but they are also acknowledging not just their own dominance (or at least profi ficiency) in German. They are also constructing reliance on German vocabulary as the norm. This makes perfect sense when it comes to interactions with their peers, as peer interactions are carried out largely in German and German is the language that indexes mainstream cultural belonging. With their teacher, it is a somewhat different ff matter. He performs his identity as a German speaker frequently through translations and speaking German to other teachers and staff. ff Further, he almost invariably tolerates this kind of lexical insertion as part of class discussion, only rarely off ffering English translations and insisting that they use them, and he often acknowledges contributions made entirely in German when the students are talking to each other. Thus despite the occasional admonishments to speak English, the norm which has developed in this classroom is bilingual. This is, I suggest, the result of the confl fl icting norms that the children have to sort out (the explicit rule of English in English instruction and the norm of speaking German to peers) and also the implicit message from the teacher that bilingual discourse is acceptable. The reaction from other students to bilingual discourse varies from treating it as an error (as in examples 7 and 8), to treating it as normal speech (as in examples 9–15), and framing it as performance speech, largely through laughter and repetition of the utterance (to be discussed in the next section). In example 7, the use of the German word Delphin ‘dolphin’ is treated as an error. It is corrected in line 3 and mocked in line 4. It is diffi fficult to categorize this as a borrowing or codeswitching. Although the English morphology is added to the German noun, indicating that it is being treated as an English noun (the German plural would be Delphine), codeswitched and borrowed nouns are both frequently infl flected with base language morphology so there is no linguistic evidence to determine how the speaker categorized this lexical item.

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(7) 1 2 3 4

Mr. Gregory: Bronwyn and Kia were doing Cherise: =They were doing Delphins ‘dolphin’ + [Eng.] pl Kia: Dolphins Ingrid: {amused voice} Delphins! ‘dophin’ + [Eng.] pl (5 MT DS 003g)

In other instances, a translation was provided for the German word, indicating that it needed repair. In example 8, we see this happening with r This work literally means ‘ink killer.’ This term was the word Tintenkiller. commonly used by all of the children to refer to a type of pen that had a white marker that could cross out ink on one end and a special ink tip on the other end that could write over the marked-out area. One day in the English MT class the children were discussing who had and did not have Tintenkiller (Erin was complaining that everyone was always asking to use hers) when the teacher asked, What are they called in English? One of the girls had some with multilingual packaging and declared that the English was ‘ink eradicator’. Although this term did not catch on in their casual speech (they continued to call it Tintenkiller), the status of this word as belonging to German, and thus not appropriate in English, was brought to the forefront. (8) Ingrid: Do you have a Tintenkiller? ‘ink eraser’ John: No I don’t have a Tintenkiller. Anyway, speak English, ‘ink eraser’ Say, ‘do you have a ink (.) killer.’ (5MTDS3g) In most cases, however, single word switches were simply accepted as a normal part of the conversation, by students and teacher alike. One day in the English PT class the students were reading stories they had written for the class and their classmates were off ffering critiques, in which they used a series of inserted codeswitches. These instances, from my fieldnotes, fi are shown in examples 9–12. (9) The Höhepunkt was too short. ‘climax’ (5PTDS) (10) It wasn’t langweilig. ‘boring’ (5PTDS) (11) I think the Überschrift didn’t fit. ‘title (5PTDS)

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(12) And then it was just a Bericht. ‘report’ (5PTDS) Although these examples all come from German MT speakers, they are not the only ones who use such insertions. Examples 13–15 are from English MT speakers, including some of the strongest English speakers in the classroom (Bronwyn and Dana, in example 14). (13) Kia: Can I do already Stichpünkte cause I just had a good idea! ‘keywords’ (5MTDS3g) (14) Max: And that’s the problem, you cannot bestell a pizza on a verlassene. ‘order’ ‘isolated’ island (5MTDS) (15) Bronwyn has just discovered that she had fi nished part of an assignment that she was not required to do: Bronwyn: But I did it as well! So I did it umsonst! ‘in vain, for nothing’ Dana: So you did it umsont {said with a shrug, meaning, so what?} ‘for nothing’ (5MTDS) This acceptance of German words in English utterances indicates an acceptance of a rebellious stance toward the ideology of normative monolingualism. I suggest that this rebellion is mitigated, however, by the relatively simple forms of bilingual discourse that occur. Most of the bilingual discourse found in these data is either single lexical item insertions or switches of language across turns or speakers. The contrast with the patterns of bilingual discourse found in Chapter 3 only emphasizes the lack of complexity in these bilingual discourse patterns. In the Spanish-English setting, we see speakers who alternate codes within and across turns, using the insertion of individual lexical items but also switches between and within clauses in a variety of ways, as well as language alternation from one speaker to another. In these data, this variety of bilingual discourse patterns is not seen. Within utterances, the children only use the insertion of individual lexical items. They do not utter one clause in German and the second clause in English, nor do they use full prepositional or adjectival phrases from German in their English utterances, and only rarely do we see English morphology on German words or vice versa (one of these exceptions is shown in example 7). In short, only the simplest type of bilingual discourse is employed by these children. The insertion of single lexical items requires little effort ff to integrate the two languages, especially as most of the German words are nouns and they are inserted into English sentences that do not require matching of case or gender marking. Linguistically, this bilingual discourse

128 Bilingual Pre-Teens is fairly ‘safe’. It does not make great demands on their knowledge of contrastive grammar nor is it likely to confuse a listener. For these reasons I depict these linguistic practices as a mild form of rebellion. They are testing the waters of bilingualism and successfully constructing bilingual identities, but without behavior that is highly marked or risky. The topic of the relationship of this bilingual discourse behavior to language ideologies will be expanded in the next sections.

FLAGGED SWITCHES AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION Gafaranga and Torras (2002) do not consider language alternation to be part of the proper category of ‘codeswitching’ when it is signaled within the interaction that the switch requires repair. However, repairs are an important site of identity construction. They show the attitudes of speakers toward the appropriateness of one language or another within the interaction and for this reasons they will be part of the analysis in this section. The examples presented here are not always repaired but are flagged in some way, either through repair, comment or laughter that indicates that the switch was inappropriate. We can thus assume that the reaction to such switches is infl fluenced by language ideologies, in particular the ideology of normative monolingualism. These switches are signifi ficant in that they both resist the hegemonic ideology and conform to it, are both real linguistic practices and exaggerations of ideologies. The example in 16 illustrates the infl fluence of ideologies in several diff fferent ways. The explicit classroom rule of speaking English during English instruction, the tacit acceptance of bilingual speech, and the macro-level condemnation of separation of languages are all at work here. This example comes from the fi rst recording I made in this classroom, and the two German MT boys, Kadri and Bahram, are very aware of the recorder. They are self-consciously speaking English, even for discussions that have nothing to do with their school work, as is the case in this excerpt. Although some bilingual discourse was often present in the speech of the children in this classroom, the language for most casual conversations was German. In addition to my ethnographically-based judgment on this, however, there is evidence for the artifi ficiality of this conversation from the reaction of classmates who stopped by the desks of these boys during the class period and commented on the oddness of them speaking only English. The very unnaturalness of these data holds an important message about the statuses of languages in this classroom. First, we can gather that English is the prescribed language for interaction of all kinds during English instruction, because the boys feel they must speak it when they are ‘on record’ (here quite literally). Second, German is the usual code for peer interactions, as evidenced from the artifi ficiality of the English discourse. Third, language mixing is not endorsed by either prescriptive norms (which would dictate

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the use of English) or local practices for peer interaction (which would dictate the use of German). Speaking English allows the speaker to both index an identity as an English speaker and, by performing it as the unnatural code of peer interactions, as a native German speaker. (16) K=Kadri, B=Bahram 1 K: xx xx my sister. And she, and she . . . eh, buyed me uhm . . . a 2 present for ehm, for Christmas, and . . . and I—I—looked heimlich 3 at it, eh, sorry. {laughing} ‘secretly’ 4 and I looked . . . and I lo:o:ked, ehm . . . secretly at it, and 5 B: What was it? 6 K: Ah, Football (.) Bayern Munchen (.) Kalender! Oh, ehm. {both 7 boys laugh} ‘calendar’ (5PTDS1b) This example is a classic case of fl agging, as the German word heimlich ‘secretly’ provokes both an apology (sorry) and laughter in line 3, and a translation in line 4. Any one of these would be enough to mark this switch as improper speech. The production of the German word Kalender also provokes laughter in line 7. In terms of identity construction, the choice of English serves to position the speaker at every level outlined by Bucholtz and Hall (2005). First, macro-level demographic categories are apparent as Kadri, by calling attention to his non-nativeness in English, positions himself as a native speaker of German, the majority language of the nation. This is enacted through the laughter over ‘slipping’ into German, which suggests that the use of English is a performance of Otherness. At various times in the conversation, the boys accuse each other of speaking German, and explain to others that they are being recorded (implicit in this statement is that they must speak English). Also, at one point the boys are discussing when Bahram can go to Kadri’s house, and every time Bahram tries to suggest a day, he begins with Monday and runs through the days of the week until he reaches the one he means. This would be inexplicable among native speakers, but among these English language learners it is clearly the result of having learned the list of the days of the week by rote and not being able to access them out of sequence. Thus the use of English, although serving to construct the speakers as able to speak English, also emphasizes their status as native speakers of German. English constructs their identity as members of the educated elite, whereas German situates them as participants of the mainstream culture in Germany. It is important to distinguish this linguistic and cultural identity from an ethnic or national identity, for neither Kadri nor Bahram identifies fi as German, although they are German MT students. Kadri explicitly self-identifies fi

130 Bilingual Pre-Teens as Turkish. He was born in Berlin, but both of his parents are from Turkey. He does not speak Turkish. By his own description, he was ‘not interested’ in learning it. He aligns himself with the other German children culturally, and is indistinguishable from them in terms of his food choices, preferred vacation destinations, manner of dress, way of speaking, etc. Like the other children in the classroom, he rooted for Germany in the World Cup, painting his face with stripes in the colors of the German flag on the days of their matches. His use of German with his peers is part of a construction not of Germanness as ethnicity or nationality but of German cultural belonging and peer group membership. This is more or less the same as for Bahram, both of whose parents come from Iran, except that he does speak ‘Persian’ (Farsi). But similar to Kadri, he does not exhibit culturally distinctive social behavior and clearly prefers German with his peers and siblings, again as part of the construction of cultural belonging and peer group membership. For both boys, the ability to transcend their normal speech patterns (i.e., by speaking English instead of German in a peer interaction) is also part of a larger social category. It positions them as part of the educated elite in Germany. Yet although being able to speak English carries prestige, children who come to this school speaking only English are at a clear disadvantage socially and academically. Therefore, showing English profi ficiency while at the same time constructing oneself as a native speaker of German allows the speaker to possess the cultural capital of both languages. On a second level, the use of English positions the boys in terms of local, ethnographically specifi fic cultural positions. In particular, this is a display of English profi ficiency that the average German 5th grader does not possess and serves to construct the identity of a student in a German-English bilingual school. Further, profi ficiency in English is part of the status of a good student. And Kadri, despite his laid-back demeanor, is a good student who prides himself on his achievements. Bahram is a consistently hard worker who I have seen close to tears when he did not get a ‘1’ (the highest grade) on an assignment. For both boys, skill in English is part of the academic success they strive for and seek to incorporate into their identities. We can also see how construction of the ‘good student’ role leads to the construction of macro-level identity category. In this context, speaking English is part of conforming to the teacher’s expectations and excelling in school. These 5th grade children know that in the next year their fates will be decided by their teachers. It will be determined if they can go on to the prestigious Gymnasium (highest level of secondary school) to complete an Abiturr (Gymnasium school diploma). An Abiturr is the only secondary school degree that leads to the possibility of study at the university level. If they do not make the cut to attend the Gymnasium, they will be sent off ff to a lower level school (which, not incidentally, will not allow them to continue their bilingual education). The stance of a good student in this interaction can be seen as part of a larger social identity of a successful individual, linked to categories of social class. Specifi fically, it is

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mostly middle or upper-middle class children who attend the Gymnasium and getting an Abiturr provides them with better opportunities for professional and high-paying positions. Lower middle or working class children usually attend Realschule or Hauptschule, the lower types of secondary education tracks. Being a good student in 5th grade is more than a matter of status within the classroom, it is very closely tied to socio-economic class membership in the future. Third, there are interactionally specifi fic stances and participant roles that are created through their language choices. In particular, the ‘let’s speak English’ game is something that Kadri and Bahram are playing together and it is a collaborative construction of friendship. This stance is also shown through the elaborate eff fforts to work in tandem. They are not actually cooperating on fi nding the answers to the questions they are working on, but they nonetheless are trying to work at the same pace. At one point Bahram makes a point of saying I’ll wait for you, Kadri (and Kadri thanks him politely) so that they can begin the next question at the same time. Later, when they have to write several sentences for the answer to one question, Kadri asks Bahram how many he has written. When Bahram answers two, Kadri says, oh, two. Huh . . . two-two-two-two-two . . . {gasp} two?! I’ve written one! I hate you! no no . . . and then dissolves into laughter. Bahram cheerfully replies, I hate you too! and the two boys proceed to discuss and fi nish the exercise. There is a competitive element involved in this positioning, but it is light-hearted and also shows common goals and values, that is, the desire to do the work quickly. Speed, I suggest, is considered a sign of competence, as children frequently compete against each other to finish fi fi rst and brag about it when they do. Although I will not include a thorough investigation of the construction of gender, I suggest that a competitive edge is also part of the construction of hegemonic masculinity, something which appears more overtly in the behavior of Kadri, who initiates the comparison of where they are in the assignment. This fits fi with his overall positioning in the class. He is popular with his peers and sometimes a leader among the boys. Speaking English is not, however, a gendered way of speaking in this classroom. A recording of two German MT girls, Daphne and Marianne, shows a very similar pattern of language use as the one seen in the excerpts from the recording of Kadri and Bahram. This interaction also took place during English PT instruction and the girls, like Kadri and Bahram in their recording, are trying to speak only English as a performance for the recorder. Their bilingual discourse, like that of Kadri and Bahram, is flagged, although in this case mostly through repair. Despite the similarities of their linguistic performance to the boys’, Daphne and Marianne themselves make gender associations with the way they speak, as when they explicitly refer to girls’ power in line 7 of example 17. In this example, we see how the girls show solidarity against a boy, who implies in line 3 that Daphne does not have a good English accent.

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(17) D=Daphne, M=Marianne 1 JMF: Um, so what do you, what do you think you speak best? 2 D: Um:: English because I developed a good English accent. 3 {one of the boys}: Yeah, yeah 4 D: Yeah, you can’t even talk English. You talk German. 5 M: He is just jealous because Daphne is better than him. 6 D: I know Marianne, give me five. {girls do a high five} 7 M: Girls’ power {both laugh} 8 D: The girls have just arrived (5PTDS1g) However, competition about English profi fi ciency also goes on between these two girls. Early in the recording, we have the incident in example 18, in which Daphne repairs Marianne’s use of a German adjective, streng ‘strict’. After this, the girls both self-correct (Daphne once and Marianne twice; see examples 19–22), possibly in order to avoid other-correction. (18) S=Daphne, M=Marianne 1 M: Uhm, and Mr. Gregory is our teacher in English? And, yeah, he’s 2 actually very nice but sometimes he’s too streng. ‘strict’ 3 D: Strict. Mr. Gregory is a really nice teacher? But sometimes he’s 4 strict. Like Marianne said. {laughs} (5PTDS1g) (19) Marianne: We can now see Sabine’s Bauch. Stomach ‘stomach’ (5PTDS1g) (20) Daphne: And sometimes Sabine have Blahungen n and that’s in English gas ‘gas’ (5PTDS1g)

(21) JMF: Why did your parents want you to go to this school? Marianne: Um, fi rst, em um my father want that I go to another school, to the JFK. But, but then um my grandmother found this school and she said it is very good actually? and the Lehr-, teachers are nice? So I went here. ‘teach-’ (5PTDS1g) It is clear from the eff ffort these girls expend to stay in English that constructing identities as profi ficient English speakers is important to them and they are proud of being good English speakers, as they say explicitly in the examples above. However, despite Daphne’s claim that she speaks English better than German (see example 17), these girls, like Kadri and Bahram,

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are also implicitly indexing their status as German speakers. Like Kadri and Bahram, Daphne and Marianne have immigrant backgrounds. Daphne’s parents are Indian and Marianne’s mother is from Ghana (her father is German). There are similar dynamics for these girls as for Bahram and Kadri. They have spent their entire lives in Germany, yet they nonetheless have allegiances and experiences that are linked to having parents from foreign countries, and phenotypic features that may mark them as ‘nonGerman’ for those who see being German as linked to ‘race’. Although they are overtly trying to construct themselves as English speakers here, at times their dominance in German and their automatic use of German as the peer language comes through, as shown in the examples below. In 22, Marianne asks me to translate a German word for her; in 23, Daphne uses a German term to say something unkind about a classmate; in 24, Marianne gets upset with Daphne and switches to German to make it clear she is serious. (22) Marianne: What is vertraut in English? ‘familiar’ (5PTDS1g) (23) Daphne: We can just see Sabine’s platt popo ‘fl flat bottom’ Marianne: Oh, Daphne don’t say that. (5MTDS1g)

(24) D=Daphne, M=Marianne D: Okay {reading one of the grammar problems they are supposed to be working on} Ann went to the bank and a few minutes ago she returned. Somebody asked is Ann still in the bank, you say no M: Please don’t speak loud Daphne:: I can’t. Mann, Daphne jetzt wirklich ‘Man, Daphne, now really.’ (5PTDS1g) Thus although they describe themselves as English speakers, Daphne and Marianne indirectly construct themselves as German speakers, through the self-conscious nature of their conversation in English and rare but telling detours into the use of German. Beyond a construction of their status as bilinguals, this is also a construction of their identity in terms of cultural and peer group belonging and social class, parallel to what was discussed for the boys above. We can see that in addition to the categories of German speakers and English speakers, with all of their social connotations, these girls are also constructing their gender identities and with them the difference ff between boys and girls. It is significant fi that the flagging of their bilingual discourse is not done through laughter but through repair, and often other-repair.

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What for Kadri and Bahram is a jointly constructed performance takes on an edge of competitiveness in the girls’ speech that is stereotypically associated with masculine behavior. I suggest that, quite to the contrary, for these girls speaking English well is part of a complex construction of social identity that includes a brand of femininity—and perhaps even feminism— linked to intelligence and succeeding in competition. After all, at the time of this recording Germany had recently named a female Chancellor and these children are part of a generation for which being female is framed as not being a deterrent to achievement. The content of their banter is also part of their positioning of themselves as girls and good students, two aspects of identity that they connect. At one point Daphne says that the boys always get minus points, part of her depiction of boys as dumb and girls as smart. Part of this female cleverness—and competitiveness—is played out on the interactional level, as the two girls have minor squabbles about who can sing the best, the ethics of saying nasty things about a classmate on the recording, and whether they should continue recording or turn off ff the recorder. The use of English is part of a parallel effort, ff as was the case for Kadri and Bahram, yet it is also part of a slightly competitive aspect to their relationship, where they are careful not to ‘slip’ into German and be corrected by the other. Outside of these two conversations, during which the presence of the recorder triggered close monitoring of language choices, there is generally little prohibition against integrating German words into English utterances, as shown above. In some cases, bilingual discourse adds humor to utterances that are supposed to be funny (or sarcastic) in their content, the use of two languages making them amusing in their form, too. In one instance, this had to do with the identity of the speaker, me. The laughter seemed to indicate that they considered such switches to be their domain and adult production of them was amusing because of the mismatch between speaker and utterance style. In this interaction, one of the girls complained (in German) that a boy was writing on a tall bench at the back of the room (Er schreibt auf einer Bank! ‘He’s writing on a bench!’). Because this girl herself was not working on her assignment at all, I responded, Well, at least he’s schreibingg ‘writing.’ Unfortunately the pointed critique implied in this codeswitched utterance was lost in the laughter of the children who heard it and their repetition of the utterance for those who had not. This reception clearly framed this utterance as marked language use. The use of German in English utterances was not only funny when I did it. Some of the children’s bilingual discourse performances elicited laughter as well. Admittedly, in many cases it is difficult ffi to tell whether it is the meaning or the form which is funny, but I suggest that this is no coincidence. Bilingual discourse is used in these cases precisely because the student is trying to make a joke, so there is a convergence of meaning and form in attempted humor. These laughable insertions of German words into English are all highly public announcements, often carrying

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other features that mark them as jokes. Thus bilingual discourse it simply part of the humorous package. In example 25, Klaus is (jokingly) complaining about being insulted. Part of the joke is that, instead of trying to conceal this insult from a peer, which he might do if he were really upset about it, Klaus is bringing it to the attention of the class by loudly repeating it. His bilingual discourse enhances the comic eff ffect of his mock outrage and brings peer laughter. (25) Klaus: He nennt me ‘loser’! ‘calls’ (5PTDS) A similar example is shown below. Here, the children are writing stories in which they assign themselves professional roles and Kadri has announced that he is a pilot in his story. The response from Max is given in example 26. This utterance is produced at loud volume for the benefit fi of the classroom and his friends, including Kadri, reward him with laughter. I suggest that both the form of the utterance, which involves a German calque as well as codeswitching, and the insult to Kadri’s ability to fly a plane contribute to the humor. (26) Max: You are a pilot? I’m not going to steig by you ein*! ‘I’m not going to board your plane!’ (5PTDS) *German einsteigen, ‘get in, board (a vehicle)’ is a separable prefix fi verb and the prefi fi x is placed at the end of the phrase as it is here; the preposition used in this utterance in German would be bei, which is largely homophonous with English ‘by.’ One final fi example of bilingual discourse that shows the overlap between humorous manner of speaking (i.e., codeswitching) and humorous content is shown in example 27. The context for this utterance is a discussion among the children about reading their assigned chapters in a novel, and in 27 we see Marianne’s portrayal of her father. It is unclear to me if her father (who is German) actually speaks English or produces bilingual utterances, but the authenticity of this utterance is not the point. Marianne is making a humorous representation of her father as a strict disciplinarian and the goal of the utterance is to entertain her friends. She succeeds, as her utterance is greeted by laughter. (27) Marianne: ‘Now setzt dich hin and read it!’ ‘sit (yourself) down’ (5PTDS) In this section, I have discussed the use of flagged switches that show the competing language ideologies and norms at work in this classroom. Normative monolingualism, with the caveat of elite bilingualism, is a hegemonic ideology which benefi fits these children as long as they can pass as

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native speakers of German and competent speakers of English. On a local level, German is more important, but this does not mean that English does not have cultural value—and this is complicated by the fact that they are in a bilingual education program and cannot progress in school without adequate English skills. Thus the local influences fl are in themselves multilayered with community priorities diff ffering from school requirements and family patterns of interaction in many cases at odds with peer expectations of speaking German. Although on the whole these data show relative adherence to the separation of languages (the intrasentential codeswitching which occurs is almost exclusively the insertion of single lexical items), there is some rebellion against this ideology. The children may, as I suggest, flag their switches as part of the reproduction of the hegemonic ideology (i.e., it is marked speech), but they also use some bilingual discourse which is unmarked and made unremarkable in the local construction of identity, as shown in the last section. They show some resistance to hegemony through following the competing ideology of bilingualism as a positive way of being and speaking. There is competition here between language norms. On the one hand, English is a socially valuable language and the key to their academic success and this is tied in to higher-level social identities as good students and members of the educated middle class. On the other hand, German is the peer language and key to social success. The undeniable value of German for academic success does not appear to be constructed here. There may be several reasons for this. For one, the arena for such performances would be more likely to be the German language classroom. Additionally, it is possible that German competence is more or less taken for granted. Although obviously German skills vary across members of the class, for all except one student (mentioned above and discussed further below) their profi ficiency in spoken German is a given, and part of their daily lives as much, and probably more, than it is part of their schooling. Profi ficiency in English is more explicitly tied to academic success. This competition between languages surfaces in bilingual discourse practices as these speakers construct themselves in diff fferent ways in diff fferent situations. Both of these languages are part of who they are and want to be, but in diff fferent ways. Which aspects of their identities are salient at a given moment in interaction vary—sometimes gender is more important, sometimes status as a profi ficient English speaker is highlighted, and so forth. This will be explored further in the next section.

LANGUAGE CHOICE AND THE POWER OF ELITE BILINGUALISM Given the asymmetry of language proficiencies fi in these classrooms, there was surprisingly little mocking of others’ lack of competence in one language or the other. In particular, there was ample opportunity for the more

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fluent English speakers to make fun of the English of their classmates. There was an asymmetry wherein the power seemed to lie with the English MT children, who were more ‘balanced’ bilinguals. Yet only once did I observe this explicitly used as ammunition in an altercation. Admittedly, most of my observations were of the MT and PT children separately, so perhaps using language as a weapon was more common in their joint lessons. However, my observations of the children together before and after class, during joint projects, and on the playground, as well as my discussions with their teacher, all indicated that language profi ficiency was rarely wielded with intent to harm. The one exception to this pattern is found in example 28. Here, Sam (English MT) and Klaus (German MT) are working on an assignment together. The teacher was confused about what time the class period would end and Sam had tried to trick him into letting them out early, saying the bell was due to ring about ten minutes earlier than it actually was. When the teacher realized the real end of the period, he began to question Sam about his claim that the class period was almost over. (28) MG=Mr. Gregory, the teacher; S=Sam, K=Klaus 1 MG: Was it a mistake or was it cheating? 2 S: It was trying to get out early. 3 MG: Sam. {in a disapproving tone} 4 S: Yes? (2) 5 K: That don’t was sesacary, necessary, necessary, yes! 6 MG: That was unnecessary. 7 K: That don’t, that was unnecessary! 8 S: You little German child, you can’t speak English properly. (5ATDS1b) Sam is clearly angry at Klaus for teasing him about getting caught in a lie and his utterance in line 8 is delivered in a scathing tone. There are two interesting things about this interaction. First, there is no bilingual discourse involved. Sam could conceivably have switched to German to deliver his condemnation of Klaus’s character, but he does not. A switch to German would potentially have been more damning, as it would have proven Sam’s own linguistic versatility while belittling Klaus’s. This leads us to the second point, which is that this insult is not really about language profi ficiency at all. Sam is angry at Klaus because he is making him look bad, but instead of addressing the real issue (how dare you side with the teacher in chiding me!) he attacks Klaus’s linguistic weakness. This is effecff tive because of the asymmetry of their repertoires. Klaus cannot counter that Sam is a little Irish child who can’t speak German properly, because Sam speaks German as well as Klaus does. Thus although the subject of the attack is irrelevant, it is irrefutable.

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I witnessed one other example of language competence mocking that involved a non-German speaking student. This was an interaction I observed between several of the girls and a boy who was only in the classroom for a few weeks. At the time of this incident, he had just arrived in Germany and had almost no knowledge of the language. The girls addressed him in German, asking him questions such as Trägst Du Windeln? ‘Do you wear diapers?’ and obviously enjoyed his embarrassment. Although he did not understand what they were saying, he correctly intuited that they were making fun of him. He was doing his best to ignore them when I intervened. I was particularly appalled because the girl leading this attack, Ingrid, had been in his position as the only non-German speaker in the classroom only a few years earlier. Of course, her position on the lowest rung of the German-speaking ladder was clearly part of the background involved in this incident. Mocking of a non-German speaker served to construct her as a German speaker and part of the mainstream crowd, while he stood outside it. This very blatant use of language in drawing social boundaries was unusual. This non-German-speaking boy did not end up staying at the school, and all of the other students spoke both languages, so there was little opportunity for other incidents of this type. We see, then, that language profi ficiencies are an integral part of the identities of the children. Speaking German is part of the construction of a peer identity. Speaking English is part of the construction of an identity linked to intelligence and superiority over peers as well as membership in the educated middle class. Despite this, in most cases the English MT students switch to German to argue with their peers because it is the language they all understand best. This does not mean, however, that bilingual discourse is not part of power relations. In the next example of how language choice is used to construct asymmetries of power, again linguistic identity—in this case, being accepted or not as a bilingual—is at stake. In this example, the English MT children Ingrid and Kia are sitting together. They are both working on the same project but not together, as Kia is much farther along than Ingrid. John is sitting nearby. Ingrid makes repeated attempts to speak German with both Kia and John, almost all of which are rejected. In example 29, we can see how this pattern of language choice is part of the positioning of the two girls. (29) I=Ingrid, K=Kia 1 I: Iii, you knabber on your fi nger ‘ick, you chew on your fi nger’ 2 K: No I don’t, this one is broke off 3 I: Ekelig ‘gross’ 4 K: What, it broke off 5 I: Iii, it’s all white and dirty. Uh: ‘ick’ (5MTDS3g)

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In lines 1, 3, and 5 Ingrid is criticizing the appearance of Kia’s fi ngernails. She uses the German discourse marker iii (equivalent to ‘ick’ in English) and the German lexical items knabber ‘nibble’ and ekelig ‘disgusting’. Although this is not a clear bid to speak German, it serves to position Ingrid as a bilingual. It is important to note that Kia, who is categorized as English MT because she has been educated in English all her life, has German parents and speaks German as her fi rst language. I often observed her speaking German with the other English MT children and during this 45-minute recording she addresses three other English MT girls in German. Yet she consistently speaks English to Ingrid, despite the fact that Ingrid addresses her in German twice and in German-English bilingual discourse twice. Through this language choice Kia positions herself as an English speaker and Ingrid as not a German speaker. Kia’s unwillingness to speak German negated Ingrid’s profi ficiency in German. Because she is a known German speaker, Kia does not need to construct that aspect of her identity here. Instead, she focuses on constructing Ingrid as incompetent in German. This makes a great deal of sense in the short excerpt above, where Ingrid is criticizing her. It is a means of keeping Ingrid in her place—she may have nice fi ngernails, but she’s not bilingual! There is some evidence that her irritation with Ingrid persists throughout this class period. Although the two girls do chat and joke around a bit, Kia is also rather dismissive of Ingrid’s progress on the project. At one point Kia asks Ingrid if she has even read the book the project is about and later says to me, when I am trying to help Ingrid, she didn’t read it, so she doesn’t really deserve it that she gets everything told. Also, as shown in example 30, Kia actively avoids working in tandem with Ingrid by arguing that she is ahead of Ingrid in reading the book. Shortly after this interaction, Kia goes off ff to read by herself. (30) I=Ingrid, K=Kia 1 I: Can you help me a bit? 2 K: I haven’t read that yet 3 I: Okay, so you haven’t done this yet 4 K: Yes 5 I: Then we can do it together 6 K: I’ll do this one 7 I: Can I do it too? 8 K: Yeah but you have to be xxxx. You didn’t do the other page, did 9 you read it? 10 I: What? 11 K: The book 12 I: What chapter is it? 13 K: Eight 14 I: xxx have the book, can I have a look at the book? 15 K: That’s mine. (5MTDS3g)

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This example is especially interesting in its contrast to the interaction between Bahram and Kadri, discussed above, in which they use English, their PT, to minimize social distance. Here, English, the MT for these girls, is used as an attempt to increase social distance. Kia is indirect in her rejection of Ingrid—in line 2 she off ffers an excuse instead of saying ‘no’ and in line 6 she makes an alternative suggestion instead of fl flat out refusing. In line 8, she off ffers a false agreement and then proceeds to tell Ingrid why she cannot work on the same worksheet as her. The use of English for this interaction is signifi ficant only when embedded in the larger sociocultural arena. Knowing that Kia generally prefers German for her casual interactions and that Ingrid is eager to construct herself as a bilingual allows us to see these data as a negotiation of identity. Kia is using language choice, as well as unwillingness to work with Ingrid, as a strategy to position herself in a higher status position than Ingrid. Her language choice implies that she is a better speaker of English than Ingrid is of German. Further, she positions herself as more successful academically by emphasizing that Ingrid is not far enough along in the project to work with her. This pattern of language choices is echoed in another recording, during which Kia and another English MT girl, Erin, are working on a worksheet together. They speak exclusively English throughout the interaction and are relatively task-oriented. They do briefl fly discuss the lunch menu and Erin tells a series of skeleton jokes, but they make a great deal of progress on their assignment. At one point toward the end of the recording, Ingrid comes to sit near them and makes several attempts to interact with them. Although her participation in their joke telling and work is not completely rebuff ffed, they do fi rst quiz her about how far she is on the assignment, expressing disbelief that she has completed the fi rst two pages. Only when she insists do they consent to let her work with them. There are moments of solidarity among the three girls—for example, at one point they unite to tell a fourth girl, Dana, that she cannot work with them—but linguistically, Ingrid is once again rejected. She initiates conversation in German twice and is ignored both times, and her integration of a German word, Feder (‘fountain pen’), is also not taken up by the other girls. This pattern of rejection of Ingrid’s German is not categorical. In larger group interactions, I often heard her participate in German, and Kia herself told me at one point that Ingrid often spoke German with the other children because sie will sich anpassen ‘she wants to fit in’. However, in situations in which other girls do not want to align themselves with her, refusal to speak German can be used to symbolically reject Ingrid without doing so with the content of their utterances. Thus, language choice is part of the linguistic construction of stances in interactional dynamics (i.e., Kia is rejecting Ingrid’s overtures for friendship) and also part of student role positioning (i.e., Kia claims a

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position as a better student than Ingrid). German is the language used to construct similarity within this group of peers. Rejecting overtures in German is a way of constructing difference. ff Also, we see how these stances can clearly contribute to the construction of larger identity categories, such as social class membership, which is critically infl fluenced by academic achievement. Supporting evidence for these social meanings of English can be found in a conversation between Ingrid and Cherise. Cherise is a native speaker of German who is classifi fied as English MT because she attended an Englishmedium school in Malaysia before coming to live in Berlin a few years earlier. In this recording, the girls are supposed to be working on a collaborative writing project. They instead spend 35 of the 45-minute class period coloring in the pictures of potential characters and deciding on fitfi ting names for them. There is a great deal of back and forth between the two languages. Examples 31 and 32 show excerpts that are primarily in English and German, respectively. (31) I=Ingrid, C=Cherise 1 C: Have you got a blue 2 I: Yes 3 C: Can you give it to me, I don’t have blue 4 (2) 5 I: Warte . . . ‘wait’ 6 C: Okay I’ll take that one (5MTDS6g)

(32) Ingrid and Cherise are discussing what color to make a woman’s dress. 1 I: Nein! Hell blau. ‘No! light blue’ 2 C: Hell blau? Okay. Kannst du mal xxx geben? Hellbla. Hellbla. ‘Light blue? Okay. Can you give xxx? Liblu, liblu’ 3 I: Lass uns sehen xx xxx ‘Let’s see xx xxx’ 4 C: Dies blau . . . und dies blau. Und dies blau. . . . noch mal . . . so 5 viel xxx xxx Xxx mmhmm. Okay, welches blau nehmen wir? 6 Das ist rosa. ‘This blue . . . and this blue. And this blue . . . another one . . . so many xxx xxx xxx mmhmm. Okay, which blue should we take? That’s pink.’ 7 I: Habe ich ausgenommen. ‘I took it out’ 8 C: Okay, xxx xx blau ‘Okay, xxx xx blue’ 9 I: xxx (unintelligible)

142 Bilingual Pre-Teens 10 C: Uh-oh, {laughs} danke. ‘Uh-oh {laughs} thanks’ 11 I: Okay, das war alle meine blaue ‘Okay, that’s all of my blues’ C: Okay, let’s take that one. (5MTDS6g) This back and forth between the two languages was somewhat unusual in this classroom. There are a few recordings of the children speaking almost entirely in English (recordings of Kia and Erin, and Erin and Dana working on assignments together, for instance). There are also many instances in which the children have conversations entirely in German about things that are not connected to their lessons. There are also instances discussed above of single words from one language being inserted into utterances in the other language. However, I observed few interactions that involved this frequent back and forth and this is the only one I have in my recorded corpus. The reason for the back and forth was undoubtedly partially due to the language proficiencies fi of these two particular children. Ingrid’s position has been discussed above; she is a native speaker of English who has been speaking German for almost three years at the time of this recording and she frequently makes bids to be accepted as a German speaker. Cherise has German as her home language, but is classifi fied as English MT because she received the first few years of her schooling at an English medium school in Malaysia. She has had no support for her competence in English outside of the classroom since returning to live in Germany about four years earlier, however, and is clearly dominant in German. More than any of the other English MT children, aside from Max, her English is marked with direct translations from German. She does not seem to be as highly invested in defending her English MT status as Kia in the example discussed above and at times seems happy to slip comfortably into speaking German with Ingrid. Ingrid also has advantages in this partnership; she is treated as a German speaker (at least some of the time), but the use of English, her stronger language, is also part of the peer relationship and the negotiation of the work they are doing (or not doing, as the case may be). Despite the seemingly comfortable switching between the two languages, I would not call this alternation ‘codeswitching as an unmarked choice’ for several reasons. One reason I make this distinction is that there is very little intrasentential codeswitching and what does appear seems to be used when one of the girls does not know a word in the language they happen to be speaking, as in example 33. In this regard, their conversation is less of a challenge to the ideology of keeping languages strictly separate. They do not mix languages as much as they switch back and forth between them, as shown in example 34. (33) Cherise: What color do you do color, uhm, the Tasche? ‘purse’ (5MTDS6g)

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(34) I=Ingrid, C= Cherise 1 C: So Ingrid, (.) show me, which person would you (.) say is a good 2 leader. (2) She. And he? Xx xxx but it doesn’t matter. 3 I: Ich nehme eine ‘I’ll take one’ 4 C: Ja, ich auch. Okay, let’s take her. Yes, me too.’ (5MTDS6g) The second and more important reason that this pattern of language alternation does not qualify as ‘codeswitching as an unmarked choice’ is that the alternation between languages can be assigned social meaning. That is, English and German are used to construct different ff identities. The assignment of social meaning to diff fferent codes in bilingual discourse negates the possibility that the language alternation itself is a code for the conversational participants. Much of the alternation that is present within conversational topics seems to be linked to interactional power. The fi rst telling aspect of this conversation is that Ingrid utters far more German turns than Cherise— 51/80, or 63.8% of Ingrid’s turns are in German, whereas German turns comprise only 29/99, or 29.3%, of Cherise’s total conversational contributions. Unsurprisingly, the pattern of initiation of the use of German is also asymmetrical. Ingrid initiates the use of German 24 times and Cherise initiates the use of German only once. Even more telling is the fact that of the 24 times that Ingrid begins a conversation with Cherise in German, Cherise responds in German only half of the time (12/24, 50%). We see how this works within the conversation in the following excerpt. Here, the girls are making up personas for the characters they have so carefully colored and are discussing the second woman they have chosen to include in their story. (35) I=Ingrid, C=Cherise 1 I: Muss sie auch einen Mann haben? ‘Does she have to have a husband, too?’ 2 C: Nein, denn sie ist nicht verheiratet. Miss is not married. Okay, 3 Mrs. Smith is a rich person. ‘No, because she’s not married.’ 4 I: Mrs., oder Mr? ‘or’ 5 C: Mrs. First we do Mrs. 6 I: Kann ich auch mal schreiben? ‘Can I write some too?’ 7 C: Okay, you do those two then, and I’ll do those two, ‘kay? Cause

144 Bilingual Pre-Teens 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

I’m already (done). Mrs. Smith {sound of pen on paper} is . . . a rich . . . Tell me what I should write! I: Is a rich lady. C: Lady . . . I: She always brings people into trouble C: She always. . .brings. . . I: Huh? C: Oh well, xxxxx. . . . always brings . . . I: Finally! C: Always brings . . . people . . . in trouble. I: She thinks that she’s the best. C: Langsamer! In . . . trouble . . . She thinks . . . she’s . . . she’s . . . the best. ‘slower!’ I: But she’s not. C: But in reality . . . so we get more, one xx or two. . . . reality she’s I: Not C: Not. She never, uhm, she never, mmm, she never says, yes, she never says I: She never does the right thing C: She, no, like yesterday, she never listens when someone says the right thing. I: Darf ich das machen? Darf ich das machen? Darf ich das machen? Darf ich das machen? ‘Can I do that? Can I do that? Can I do that? Can I do that?’ C: Wait, I’m writing. (5MTDS6g)

As can be seen in this excerpt, Cherise uses German to provide Ingrid with information (line 2), but uses English to deny her requests in lines 7–8 and 32. In line 7 although she says okay, which appear to be agreement, the eff ff ect of her turn is to put off ff Ingrid’s turn at writing. This use of English simultaneously grants Cherise the power of this language of authority and also reinforces its status as authoritative. This is particularly poignant in lines 29–30, in which Ingrid begs to write part of the assignment and Cherise essentially brushes off ff her request. We see this pattern replicated in the following rather amusing example, in which Cherise insists on using the word ignorant to describe a character because she maintains that it means someone who doesn’t listen (i.e., someone who ignores other people). In line 6, Ingrid protests when her word choice, dumb, is not used and Cherise again provides information in German (line 7), but then switches back to English to assert her position in line 9. It is interesting to note that Ingrid does not give up her position immediately, but consults the teacher (unfortunately for her she only asks if the word ignorant exists and not what it means, thus Cherise’s error is not discovered).

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(36) C=Cherise, I=Ingrid 1 C: She’s an ignorant 2 I: =She’s an idiot. 3 C: She’s 4 I: She’s xxx, she’s dumb. 5 C: She’s ignorant 6 I: Hallo! ‘Hey!’ 7 C: Ignorant ist wenn sie nicht zuhört. ‘Ignorant is when she doesn’t listen’ 8 I: Ach so. Ignoring. ‘Oh, okay’ 9 C: She’s ignorant 10 I: Mr. Gregory, is there such thing as iggrinent. 11 MG: Ingredient? 12 I: No, 13 MG: Ignorance? 14 I: Oh, okay. 15 C: Bad and stupid . . . she’s bad, stupid, and never listens (5MTDS6g) This pattern is also seen in example 37. Here, Ingrid accuses Cherise of moving something (I believe they are discussing the digital recorder) and Cherise off ffers a resistant, if somewhat nonsensical, answer in line 5. In line 7, she then shows Ingrid where the recorder is. All of Cherise’s utterances are made in English, while Ingrid’s are in German. (37) I=Ingrid, C=Cherise 1 C: Okay Ingrid, are you fi nished? Miss Anna, Okay. So. Miss 2 Anna? was a good, good person and she knows nearly 3 everything over the jungle. 4 I: Wo hast du das (Ding) hingetan ‘Where did you put that (thing)’ 5 C: It was like that 6 I: Wo ist es? ‘Where is it?’ 7 C: Okay, here. Brown. . .okay, we’ve got brown, one second 8 (let’s do it) like that. 9 Miss Anna . . . how old is she, Miss Anna? She . . . How old is she, 10 Miss Anna? She’s . . . She’s not married, and how old is she now? 11 She. She’s not married. 12 I: Ich weiss nicht wie alt sie ist. ‘I don’t know how old she is’ (5MTDS6g) It may be that part of what Cherise hopes to accomplish with her English choices is a construction of herself as the one who is on task and working,

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and being in the language of instruction is part of the identity of a good student. However, in addition to the potentially powerful role of English, there is also divergence at work here which serves to construct difference. ff Although English has the potential to index the role of the educated elite, that does not seem to be its only meaning here. These turns are also indicative of Cherise’s lack of willingness to speak the same code as Ingrid, even though the code Ingrid makes a bid to speak, German, is Cherise’s dominant language, not Ingrid’s. The switch of languages in places in the conversation in which there is a power struggle is made salient by the fact that Ingrid also does this, but by switching into German. This can be seen in some of the above examples. In example 36, line 6, Ingrid’s objection is voiced in German and in example 37, line 9, Ingrid constructs a position as an unwilling, or unable, participant in the collaborative project with a German utterance. In example 38, lines 6 and 8, Ingrid switches to German to resist the suggestions Cherise makes for the characters’ names. (38) I=Ingrid, C=Cherise 1 I: What should her name be 2 C: Uhm, a good name, that goes to the desert 3 I: Anis. Mrs. Anis. 4 (5) 5 C: Miss Spider 6 I: Miss Spider? Das past nicht zu ihr, das past zu IHR. ‘That doesn’t suit her, that suit her.’ r 7 C: Miss Panther. {German pronunciation [pantR]} 8 I: No, no, zu ihr passt das nicht. ‘That doesn’t suit her’ (5MTDS6g) The excerpt in example 39 shows how the girls use language to show a lack of alignment. Ingrid contradicts Cherise in line 3 and mocks her name in line 5, marking these turns as oppositional with a switch away from the language Cherise is using. Cherise shows her opposition to Ingrid’s mocking of her name in line 5 with an English response in line 6, claiming that her name is that of a member of royalty. Switching to German here would have aligned the girls in a non-task-oriented topic. Cherise’s maintenance of the use of English shows how she constructs herself as diff fferent from Ingrid. (39) 1 I: Miss Anna 2 C: I’m called Anna 3 I: Du heist nicht Anna. ‘Your name isn’t Anna’ 4 C: Anuk Anuk, Anuk, ah Anuk Cherise Anna. 5 I: Du heist Anuk {shrieks} ‘Your name is Anuk!’ 6 C: But it’s from, the Queen from Belgien ‘Beglium’ (5MTDS6g)

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Here, these two girls are using either language with each other, as opposed to both. The diff fferent choices they make construct somewhat diff fferent identities, meaning there are shifts throughout the interaction in how they are positioning themselves. Convergence to the other’s language choice happens most often when they are in agreement. Minor arguments that are easily resolved are also carried out in the same language (see example 40, in which the girls argue about what color to make the handbag and hair on one of the figures), but larger diff fferences of opinion in this recording are often marked with a shift in language choice away from the other speaker. (40) C=Cherise, I=Ingrid 1 C: Die Tasche, die Tasche! ‘The purse, the purse!’ 2 I: Die Tasche ist schwarz ‘The purse is black’ 3 C: Und die Haare ‘and her hair’ 4 I: Nee nee, Haare ist braun. ‘no, no, [her] hair is brown’ 5 C: Okay. (5MTDS6g) I have suggested that the use of each language positions the girls in opposition, yet it is also possible that the use of both languages contributes to an overall identity construction for the girls as bilinguals. Certainly, Ingrid is more successful in constructing a bilingual identity in this interaction than in her interaction with Kia. Although Cherise does not exactly treat Ingrid as a bilingual equal, she does contribute to the overall bilingual discourse. This allows them to both enjoy the status of English speakers linked to macro-societal categories of high value, as well as reap the symbolic benefi fits of speaking German, the majority language of the community as well as a highly valued symbol of peer group membership.

THE HEGEMONY OF GERMAN German, as both the dominant language of most of the children and the language of the wider society, was the usual language for peer interaction. This is made reference to in a recording between Dana and Julia, during a lesson in which all of the children, both German and English MT, were present. The excerpt in example 41 is toward the beginning of the recording. Julia has sat down next to Dana to get her help on an English assignment. (41) 1 J: Can you help me? What do we do by number twenty xxx, 2 D: Es ist total witzig, na? Immer wenn man recordet wird, spricht 3 jeder Englisch.

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Bilingual Pre-Teens ‘It’s totally funny, isn’t it? Whenever someone’s recorded, everyone speaks English.’ 4 J: Ja, na? ‘Yes, huh?’ 5 D: Und normalerweise spricht man deutsch. ‘And normally we speak German’ 6 J: Also, das war jetzt deutsch, was du gerade sagst {laughing} ‘Well, that was just German, what you just said’ (5ATDS1x)

The artifi ficial nature of the English in some of the recordings has been noted above. In most cases, it wore off ff after a short period of time but in some cases it persisted throughout the recording (as in the cases of Daphne/ Marianne and Kadri/Bahram, discussed above). However, Dana’s observation is that normalerweise spricht man deutsch ‘normally one speaks German’. Although this analysis has shown that such a generalization is a simplifi fication of the code choices made by these children, this attitude— that German is the peer code—is manifest in many of the interactions. A common pattern of bilingual discourse in this classroom is the alternation between English and German in which English is used for the content of the lesson and German is used to frame that content. Because these recordings were made in English class, these examples are always in the context of students working together on an English assignment and most frequently when they are doing joint collaborative writing. This happens frequently among all of the children, although less commonly when there is a group or pair of highly profi ficient English speakers. Example 42 comes from an interaction between Bettina (German MT), Dana (English MT), and Kia (English MT). The children are collaboratively writing a text that will accompany a display of prints made with linoleum carvings and they are in the midst of describing the process of making the prints. In lines 1 and 9, Tina switches to German to do a word search and self-corrects in line 7 with a switch to German. In line 10, Dana introduces suggested text with a German question, aber habt ihr geschrieben ‘but did you write’, a very common pattern in this interaction. What follows is the beginning of an argument between the three girls about what the content of the text should be. Dana wants to provide detailed instructions on how to make the print, while Bettina and Kia are adamant that a general description is enough. This argument in entirely in German and they only switch back into English when the teacher and I intervene to get them back on track. (42) B=Bettina, D=Dana, K=Kia 1 B: /And ro:ll/ (.) on it (1) agai- (.) and roll (.) and (.) mann (.) wie 2 heisst es? (.) ‘man (.) what it is called?’ 3 and roll on it (.) another time 4 D: /Roll a/ (.) a roller (.) over (.) ehm

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5 B: And roll on it /and not/ 6 D: /A dry roller/ 7 B: Now (.) you roll on it with another ro- (.) nee (.) you rolll (.) on it! ‘no’ 8 K: And (.) roll on it with another roller! 9 B: And roll on it (.) with another: ehm (.) ehm: (1) Oh Gott! ‘oh God!’ 10 D: Aber habt ihr geschrieben (.) you have to put it (.) up (.)on the 11 other way around. ‘but did you write’ 12 B: Ja (.) ‘yes’ 13 K: /Es doch EGAL /! ‘it doesn’t matter!’ 14 B: Es egal! (.) (guck mal), wenn man muss hier (.) (xxx) macht (.) 15 dann ist es ja klar dass du nicht hier rauf presst 16 und überollst dann wieder (1) Es, irgend xxx xx ‘It doesn’t matter! Look, when, here you have to xx do, then it’s clear that you don’t press on this and roll over it again. It, somehow xxx xx’ 17 K: Ja (.) ja ‘yes, yes’ 18 D: Nee, xxx xx drauf, dann malst du das darüber mit dem ro:ller. ‘no, xxx xx on it, then you paint over it with the roller’ 19 B: xxxx umdreht, das ist nicht so wichtig. ‘xxxx turn it around, that’s not that important’ 20 D: =Nein! ‘no!’ (5ATDS1g) The use of German in this way is not just the consequence of higher profi ficiency in German than English, but also a sign of its social dominance within peer interactions. For the children, German is the single most important language for constructing peer relationships. English holds status and power, but German is necessary for daily life, for school, and for participation in youth culture. Almost all of the children report that they speak German with their siblings and many of them claim to use some German with their parents as well, whether or not it is the parents’ fi rst language. The use of German to frame their construction of a text in English is symbolic of the way in which German frames their experiences in English and the other languages they may speak. Although they may speak English in English class and English or another language with parents at home, most of their lives–casual interactions in school, on the playground, with their friends, out in public—are carried out in German. However, as noted above in the discussion of Kadri, Bahram, Marianne, and Daphne, the use of German is not necessarily the construction of a

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German ethnic or national identity. This interpretation of speaking German was one that seemed pervasive among all of the children and not just children for whom physical appearances might lead them to be categorized as of nicht-deutsche Herkunftt (‘non-German heritage,’ the term used in the census and other offi fficial contexts). For example, I once discussed this matter with Edgar, a (White) English MT child who had an English mother and German father. He had lived his entire life in Berlin, but when asked if he considered himself to be English, German, or both, I was surprised when he said, without hesitation, that he was English and only English. He explained that he had an English passport and that made him English, not German. When I pointed out that he was also entitled to a German passport (and thus, by this logic, to ‘be’ German) he said he did not need it because England was in the European Union. Initially, as I watched this boy show his preference for speaking German and participate natively in German cultural practices, his illegitimation of German identity by claiming English citizenship and identity made little sense to me. But the explanation for this illegitimation of what seemed to me to be an essential aspect of his identity comes from looking back at the positionality principle. He did not position himself as ‘German’ by speaking the German language, but as a full participant in the peer culture in his environment. The code that I initially assumed carried significance fi at the macro level of identity was in practice signifi ficant primarily at local and interactional levels.

THE POWER OF ENGLISH There is power in bilingualism and power in the use of the dominant language in the wider society (German), but there is also power in English. The use of English draws on its global status, which is of course tightly linked to its status within the smaller spheres of nation, community, and classroom. Some of the children are in the classroom because they have some personal connection with English (i.e., they have English-speaking parents or have lived in English-speaking countries), but this is not true for everyone. However, all of the children are enrolled in this bilingual program because their parents want them to have access to the international language of English. This is not a desire for just any bilingual experience for their children, but the desire for them to be educated in German and English in particular. This is true whether the children have English-speaking parents or not. For instance, Erin has an English mother and an Argentinean father. She could also have been enrolled in the German-Spanish bilingual program to augment her home language repertoire, but the choice was made to enhance her English, not her Spanish. Also, several of the children had parents who spoke English as a lingua franca in their home countries, although they also spoke indigenous languages. This was the case for Daphne, whose

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parents are Indian, Marianne, whose mother is from Ghana, and Dana, whose mother is from Botswana. Thus the status of English as an important global language was not simply part of their experience in Germany, but in some cases part of the heritage of their parents’ native countries. All of this contributed to the potential of English as a language of power and the use of it in disputes among the children. The construction of the self as an English speaker in these cases is very self-conscious and is to some extent a performance for the recorder, as is the case in the next example. Here, Julia and Dana are working together on an assignment and Klaus and Kadri are working together nearby. A battle between the sexes begins, with the usual theme of the other sex being particularly stupid. The choice of English for this dispute is a poor one for Klaus and Kadri, as it turns out, largely because Dana is a highly profi fi cient speaker of English while Klaus, the main antagonist in the interaction, is much less profi fi cient and stumbles a bit in his production. But the reasons for using English to construct interactional power are clear. First, it is the language of the classroom and the language they are supposed to be using, and part of Klaus’s accusation (delivered, ironically enough, in German) is that the girls are not doing their assignment. Second, it is the language of the two authority fi gures in the classroom at that time—their teacher and me. They are mostly speaking directly into the recorder in this interaction, so while they are arguing with each other they are also performing for me, an English speaker. Thus English serves to make their positions clear to their audience as well as to align them with this adult authority. As this excerpt begins, Klaus is making a point of speaking into the microphone, trying to get his complaint about the girls on record. Unfortunately for the effectiveness ff of this attack, he cannot figure out how to say what he wants to say in English and shifts into German. The German part of this utterance is lower in volume than the preceding English, and seems to be an aside to Kadri, perhaps an appeal for help. This interpretation is supported by the fact that Kadri makes an attempt to produce what Klaus is trying to say (that the girls have done very little work) in English, but also fails. The girls retaliate and ultimately the boys give up trying to fight with them in English. (43) K1=Klaus (Schmidt), D=Dana, J=Julia, K2 =Kadri, MG = Mr. Gregory 1 K1: The, the, the girls Dana and Julia especially are very stupid. 2 They got, sie haben wenig gearbeitet. ‘they have not worked much’ 3 K2: They got uh, 4 MG: What are you doing Dana? 5 J: They are always speaking /into our microphone/ 6 D: /She wanted me/ to help her shortly 7 J: xx xxxx recording us, and he always said, uh, girls are stupid.

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Bilingual Pre-Teens 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

K1: They said D: Yeah because you started it, dumbheads {laughter} MG: Okay, stop it now J: {to Dana}Okay, schreib xx nicht mehr, du brauchst xxx nicht ‘don’t write xx any more, you don’t need xxx’ {multiple voices, unintelligible} J: xx xxx xxx question number three!!! {mumbling} {boys whispering} K1: Especially Julia and Dana as I said, have a uh, hurt in the head. That’s the reason why they xxx D: Schmidt is the dumbest boy in the class so just ignore him it’s this stupid boy who always keeps interrupting K1: Uhm, ah, uhm, ah, ah J: He can’t say anything because he’s so dumb. K1: I can say something, it’s not true. D: Yeah, it’s not true that you’re clever. K1: Eh, wie witzig. ‘Oh, how funny’ (5ATDS1x)

The use of English as the language of the battle here is underlined by Julia’s use of German with Dana when they return to doing their assignment two lines after the end of this excerpt. The language choices clearly mark friendly peer interaction versus antagonist peer talk. This is not the norm—most peer disputes are carried out in German—but in this case, possibly because of the presence of the recorder and the researcher, the children are drawing on the authority of English for additional ammunition. This backfi fi res for the boys and, in line 23, Klaus reverts to the use of German. After this, the boys retreat entirely and leave the girls alone to work. The use of English as the language of antagonism is not a common pattern, but this is not the lone instance of it by any means. Another example comes from a recording in which Bettina is working—and goofi fi ng off ff — with several other girls, including Marianne, Daphne, and Kia. At one point she claims that she is the teacher and begins to boss the other children around, as shown in example 44. This episode begins with Bettina taking on the persona of the teacher. (44) B=Bettina, K=Kia, M=Marianne, D=Daphne 1 B: Yeah xxx yeah Daphne (1) This is not good enough to be a: (1) 2 warning (.) Do you want to copy the class rules? (1) I think not! 3 (.) so: (.) be quiet. 4 D: Mr. Gregory {In a whining voice} 5 K: Ms. Fuller {Whiny voice} 6 B: I’m Mrs. Gregory (.) and you have to be quiet.

Speaking Your Mother Tongue in the Fatherland 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

153

K: Mrs. Gregory? B: /I:::/ {High pitched shout} D:: When did you marry him? B: No (.) I’m not! (1) He’s not exist, He’s not existieringg (1) I am existiering* g (.) not he! ‘He doesn’t exist, I exist’ D: But? (1) /Mrs. is/ K: /What/ (1) //xxxxxxxx English// B: //xxx is no:t (.) good enough!// D: But Mrs. Gregory (.) you never listen /(to u::s)/ B: /And I lost my/ pla:ce. D: You’re never listening to ah::. (.) eh (.) (while we) K =/It was just/ B: /La la la la/ la la (.) egh:: eh eh xxxx M: Ple:ase (.) can you rea:d? (1) /can you read/ B: /Yes (.) I rea:d/ (1) But (.) Marianne (.) this is not good enough (1) now do the sto:ry please now finish. fi K: (I always do (.) the) /stage is (setting)/ M: /xxxxxx/ B: Stop it no:w you girls. (1) This is not good enough (.) Be quiet now. (4) Daphne K: xxx B: =Daphne! D: What? B: It’s okay now (.) stop it! Stop (.) it! (2) Oh my- (5ATDS1g) *German existieren,, ‘to exist’

What is interesting about this example is not only that Bettina is using English to perform the teacher. They are, after all, in their English class and the teacher speaks English. Yet given that the children do not usually make an eff ffort to stay in English for other off ff -task activities (telling jokes, having private conversations, etc.), we must assume that the choice of English is more than simply a refl flex because they are in English class. Some of the clues to the meaning of language choice here can be seen in other linguistic features of the teacher role. Bettina does not just speak English in her performance of the teacher; she uses a loud voice, command forms, and many negative evaluations of the students’ work as the lynchpins of her teacher identity. This is not an imitation of Mr. Gregory, who I never heard say that’s not good enough or shout at the children. Although he frequently asked them to quiet down, his manner with the children was quiet, accommodating, and encouraging, not loud, strict, and commanding. What Bettina is constructing is a persona of a strict disciplinarian. This is not a caricature of their actual English teacher but of a fictitious, fi

154 Bilingual Pre-Teens stereotypical character. This character speaks English because they are in English class, yes, but also because English is a powerful global language and a source of authority in public spheres. The children do not make frequent use of this link, as it creates a confl flict with the power of the peer code within the closed community of their class. They do, however, show their awareness of the power of English in episodes such as this. As discussed in the last section, part of the power is their own profi ficiency in the language and part comes from the status of this particular language in German society and international circles. Thus it is not just Bettina, who is playing the teacher role, who uses English, but all of the girls involved in this interaction. This choice is, in part, a means of participating in the roleplaying game, but it is also a way of strengthening their position. However playful this interaction may be, it is a performance that is part of their identity construction. Those playing the parts of students are positioning themselves in opposition to the teacher and in order to resist her authority they must use whatever resources they can muster. Retreating into German is not an option. German may be valuable ammunition for use with peers, but against an authority figure, English is more powerful.

CONCLUSION This chapter has shown how both English and German can be used as indices of power in the construction of identity on different ff levels. Both languages have a variety of social meanings and these meanings are often locally constructed and thus vary across interactions. English is often a link to the status of being a member of the educated elite in German society and German is linked to membership in youth culture in this society. Thus in some contexts speaking English can both reinforce a speaker’s social class aspirations and deny the addressee membership in the peer group. These languages carry cultural capital as distinct codes, yet here is also status to be gained through a bilingual identity, although this must be carefully done. The ideology of normative monolingualism is challenged through bilingual discourse while at the same time reproduced through flagging of codeswitched utterances. Relatively speaking, these students toe the linguistic line when it comes to the separation of languages because they do not use codeswitching as an unmarked choice, but show a bit of resistance by inserting words of German. In the instances in which they mark their use of German as abnormal, through laughter or repair, they flirt with rebellion but reinforce the hegemony of monolingualism. These patterns diff ffer from the patterns of language use found in Chapter 3 and illustrate a diff fference between immigrant and elite bilingualism. In immigrant bilingualism, there are two main choices that make the most sense: either assimilate to the mainstream norm or flagrantly violate that norm and embrace a socially stigmatized bilingual identity. In the analysis

Speaking Your Mother Tongue in the Fatherland

155

of the Spanish-English bilinguals in Chapter 3, we see both of these things being done, sometimes by the same individuals, as they negotiate the options open to them. In the case of these elite bilinguals in Germany, however, there is considerably more to gain. Successfully constructing an identity as an elite bilingual can have signifi ficant positive consequences for their socio-economic class standing, among other possible positive outcomes. There is also more to lose, and to avoid the slippery slope that leads to being perceived as a polyglot semi-lingual they dare not mix their languages too much. Speaking two elite languages badly or in an overly mixed fashion does not grant a speaker cultural capital. A further phenomenon is that in a milieu in which elite bilingualism is part of the mentality, non-elite languages also gain prestige. So if you are a member of the educated middle class who speaks a standard version of the majority language of your country, speaking minority or immigrant languages is perceived as a resource. There is a marked difference ff in the value of Spanish as spoken by a poor Mexican American in the rural Midwest who speaks English as their second language, and Spanish as spoken by a middle class girl in Berlin who also speaks German and English natively. Even if in both cases the Spanish variety has been learned as a heritage language from an immigrant parent, the value of a minority language is not always the same. Both the socio-economic class standing of the speaker and the social context in which multilingualism is understood play signifi ficant roles in the cultural capital generated by competence in an immigrant language. In central Europe, languages are valued in diff fferent ways than in the United States and transnational trends place value on languages not merely as resources, but also as markers of authenticity (Heller 2009). A question that remains unanswered by this research is exactly how issues of ‘race’ and ethnicity are intertwined with other aspects of identity. Germany’s ethnonational ideology is slowly changing, but the children of nicht-deutscher Herkunftt ‘non-German background’ in this research did not claim German identity in most cases, despite having lived in Germany for most, if not all, of their young lives. I can only speculate about why this would be, based on my knowledge of the experiences of other Germans of (for instance) African, Indian, or Turkish background who were often positioned as non-German. Perhaps they do not try to claim German identity because they fear it will be denied them. However, it may also be the case that they do not construct themselves as German because it is not a particularly relevant category in the context of their classroom, which is to some extent constructed as a transnational space. National, ethnic, and racial categories were not organizing principles for these children. They did not seek out friends within those groups and they rarely mentioned them. Ethnic, racial, and national categories were not constructed as meaningful among the diverse student body found in their school, although I suspect that the importance of these categories may change as they enter into

156 Bilingual Pre-Teens other realms of German society. However, as noted above, it is important to remember that language use has meaning on many different ff levels. In the case of the Charles Dickens schoolchildren, their use of German and English is strategic and can be linked to diff fferent constructions of identity. These children construct their identities as English speakers through speaking English, but their identities as German speakers show through the cracks. They are invested in the construction of their identities as English speakers, as this aspect of their identity is tied to being a good student, which in turn is the key to achieving membership in the middle class. Yet the importance of German overshadows even this value. They are, after all, ten-year-old children. German is the language of peer interactions—as well as the language of the mainstream society in which they live—and their language loyalty runs strong, regardless of whether they identify as ‘German’ in an ethnic or national sense. Speaking German is not being German any more than speaking English is being English. Both play roles in the construction of locally negotiated stances to others within the classroom as well as the macro-level identity of elite bilinguals. Such uses and meanings of language use are part of what has been termed a ‘post-national discourse’ (Pujolar 2007: 73) and is part of the recognition that increased globalization and multilingualism challenge the status quo connection between language and national identity.

6

Conclusion

This book addresses how language ideologies are reproduced and challenged, sometimes simultaneously, through linguistic practices. Embedded in this topic is the analysis of how macro ideologies contribute to the construction of social identities. Both ideologies and identities are shown to be discursively constructed. The data for this analysis are taken from two very different ff contexts. The fi rst setting is a transitional bilingual education program in a rural area of the Midwestern United States, which serves the children of Mexican immigrants. The second is a dual language program in Berlin, Germany, which primarily caters to the children of the educated elite from a variety of national backgrounds. These are both communities in which pre-teen bilinguals are the foci, but they diff ffer in a number of ways. The languages the children speak (Spanish/English versus German/English), and the relative statuses of those languages, is a key difference. ff In the U.S., English has a great deal more prestige than Spanish, while in Germany both German and English are high status languages, albeit in different ff ways. Further, the homogeneity/heterogeneity of the student populations, and the socio-economic backgrounds of the children, contrast markedly in these two settings. These factors are in part the differences ff between immigrant and elite bilingualism. In the U.S. setting, the children are all native speakers of Spanish who are learning English, which will be the language in which they will complete their schooling. English is very explicitly the language they need to achieve anything in school or in life in the United States. Spanish is framed as a language that is only useful in the personal sphere, if at all. In the Berlin context, the children are divided into two groups: native speakers of German who are learning English as a foreign language and fluent speakers of English, almost all of whom are also essentially native speakers of German. All of these children are being educated in both languages and they will potentially continue with their bilingual education until they fi nish their secondary education. Both languages are clearly very valuable for academic achievement and for their futures.

158

Bilingual Pre-Teens

These two data sets cannot provide a neat comparison, as there are too many differences ff between them to allow us to isolate variables and link those variables to diff fferences in linguistic behavior. However, they can provide us with diff fferent windows through which we can view the processes of ideological reproduction and identity construction. In both settings, there is a macro-level ideology of normative monolingualism which influences fl how the children perceive and use their languages. Although individuals make different ff choices and we see some patterns that are diff fferent across groups, there are also some generalizations to be seen. All of these children are aware of and respond to (albeit in diff fferent ways) the macro-social norms. This may seem unremarkable, except that we do not always assume that nine- and ten-year-olds are infl fluenced by larger societal values, so it is important to recognize that youth does not shield children from such ideologies. Clearly, we do not expect bilingual two-year-olds to make language choices based on the societal values of their languages, so it is not a given that nine year olds will either. This study cannot address when and how children learn to orient themselves to community norms in addition to personal experience, but only that by the age of nine or ten, they have learned to do so. In many cases, we see these children embracing the hegemonic ideology of normative monolingualism and the values of particular languages in the wider society. However, pre-teen children can and do also use language choices to thumb their nose at such macro-social values. Children at this age are very good at showing their lack of respect for most things—their peers, their teachers, their school work—and they extend this rebellious behavior to the blasphemy of bilingual discourse. Recorded data reveal that multilingual children are aware of the power of language choices and use them in diff fferent ways, sometimes banking on the authority of a code based on its status in the wider community, but also creating their own power in new and inventive ways through language mixing. However, pre-teen children are also capable of recognizing the ways in which the deck is stacked against them or the ways in which they have advantages that could be jeopardized. In the German setting, I have shown that the linguistic rebellion is more mitigated, as the children in this prestigious school program have more to lose. Still, it is signifi ficant that they do not stick to strictly monolingual codes during the appropriate class periods, as the adults around them want them to do. In the U.S. setting, we have seen how some of the children are much more willing to construct identities that are counter-hegemonic, which make use of bilingual discourse to challenge essentialized categories about national belonging. Here, we see the influence fl of social class. The children in the German setting are on the path to successful participation in the middle class, but the children in the poor, rural community in the U.S. are not. Ethnicity is also a key factor here. The Latino children are prey to further prejudice because they are brown-skinned children in a majority White community.

Conclusion 159 However, societal language ideologies are not the only influences fl on the language choices of these children. Also important are the attitudes and policies of classroom teachers and the communities of practice that the children create within these domains. Children respond to not just the explicit commands and rules they hear but also the practices of their teachers. They both emulate and mock them, but they rarely ignore them. Some of the competing ideologies found in this research are due to the conflicts fl in norms in the wider society and within the classroom. In a general way, the entire existence of a bilingual classroom is a contradiction in a society in which monolingualism is normative. This is resolved in differff ent ways. In the Spanish-English classroom, to some extent an alternative ideology of pluralism has developed and for a few speakers there is outright refusal to fit into essentialist categories in terms of language or identity. Most of the children, however, slowly begin to abandon their bilingualism and use English as their primary language, a process which may never be carried to completion but can only increase once they are moved into mainstream monolingual instruction in school. These data do not show how the story continues, but in the snapshot of these children in their pre-teen years, we can already see that various paths toward resistance and assimilation are followed. This is the quintessential experience of the immigrant bilingual in the U.S. For the German-English bilinguals, there are different ff issues at hand. There is far less overt confl fl ict between these two languages, as both German and English can be successfully combined to construct the identity of a member of the educated elite in Germany. Note that this does not mean that the identities they construct are necessarily German. Many of the children consider themselves to be English, U. S. American, Turkish, Russian, or other nationalities which may or may not be indexed through their code choices. There are some important developments in this setting of bilingual education in terms of social meanings which, if they spread through the community, may have a lasting impact on social categories and ideas of national belonging. As mentioned in Chapters 4 and 5, in German society English does not necessarily index allegiance to a particular English-speaking country. Speaking English is part of being an educated German or, even more broadly, an educated European. What is significant fi in these data is that we see that German, too, has lost its index to nationality. For these children, German is part of their construction of peer identity and their habitual use of this language does not mean that they are constructing a German identity. This weakening of the link between language and nationality, although brought about by the hegemony of normative monolingualism, is still ultimately a challenge to the ‘one nation, one language’ ideology. Another challenge to hegemonic ideologies in Germany can be seen in these data through the attitudes among those who speak a third language at home. Whereas there may well be pressure to minimize that language

160

Bilingual Pre-Teens

as a marker of social identity, there is clearly a sense of language as both a resource and a status symbol. The children claimed competence in languages as a matter of pride, to the point of including in their stated linguistic repertoires languages with which they had minimal or fleeting contact. This framing of multilingualism as a matter of social status begins to blur the line between immigrant and elite bilingualism, although the social class of the speakers remains a critical aspect. For those who master prestigious forms of prestigious languages (such as some variety of Standard English and Hochdeutsch ‘High German’ in Berlin), speaking other languages is icing on the cake, even if those other languages are immigrant languages with no particular prestige of their own. This is very different ff from the situation for the children in the rural Midwestern United States setting; they are left trying to prove themselves as English speakers and potentially abandoning Spanish in the struggle. In addition to all of these infl fluences of the wider society and the classroom culture, it is important to see how communities of practice and interactional factors infl fluence linguistic practices. We see that code choices have multiple meanings at diff fferent levels of identity. Macro-level identity categories such as nationality or ethnic group may be indexed through language choice or the use of a specifi fic code may be used to construct the identity of a good student, a rebellious persona, or membership in the educated middle class. These classrooms are complex arenas for identity construction. There are layers of ideologies surrounding them as well as different ff levels of identity that are relevant within them. There are important implications in these data in terms of educational philosophy, curricula, teacher training, and pedagogical practices. My research looks at the practices of pre-teens, but I argue that the implications apply to the education of all bilinguals, from preschool to university. In some ways, these implications are not solely about education but about societal perspectives on bilingualism and are therefore relevant for anyone who deals with people who speak two languages (that is, for everyone). First, I think this research shows that the philosophies about bilingual discourse that underlie bilingual curricula need to be examined in light of the fact that children do not act in the ways the creators of bilingual programs might want. They do not speak only English in English class and only German in German class. It is frankly ludicrous to expect them to, given that language is the means by which they create alignments with their peers and teachers. Further, language choice is also not just about addressee. They also do not always speak their dominant language with others who share that language. They use language in creative ways and often for purposes that adults may fi nd inexplicable. Although I understand and respect the position that enforcing the monolingual use of the minority language is the best way to support the maintenance of that language, this is simply not a natural way for human beings to operate when they master multiple languages. Insisting on a particular language choice is similar to

Conclusion

161

insisting that a person call you sir or ma’am to show respect. You can make them say it, but you can’t make them mean it. The second implication of this research for teacher training and pedagogical practices is really just an extension of the fi first; teachers need to be trained to teach bilinguals as bilinguals, not as if they were two monolinguals sharing one body. My research does not directly address pedagogical practices, but other studies have directly shown that bilingual production in speech or writing is a productive strategy in language and content material learning (e.g., Jacobson 1983; Nichols 2000; Nichols and Colon 2000; Turnbull 2001). Perhaps even more importantly, educators need to understand that there are many meanings and functions of bilingual discourse and that it is an expected outcome of bilingual education (Baker 2009: 147). Speaking Spanish in English instruction does not necessarily mean rebellion and mixing German and English does not automatically mean that you can’t speak English properly. Of course, language choice can be used rebelliously. I will not argue that children do not fill lexical gaps with words from their L1 in cases where, if pressed, they could perhaps come up with the word in their L2; therein lies the rub. But rules about language choice assume that speakers have primarily nefarious or lazy reasons for bilingual discourse and that codeswitching is a violation of all that is pure and good. This is, of course, the crux of the matter. If I have shown anything with this book, I hope to have illustrated the joy these children feel in their language abilities, the fun they have with bilingual puns and switches, and the pure pleasure there is to be had in allowing them to speak in diff fferent ways. And, perhaps, I have shown how useless it is to forbid them that freedom. Language is not just a skill or a subject to be learned in school; it is a way we make ourselves who we are.

Appendix A Transcription Key

D: /between/

letter to indicate speaker (?: indicates unknown speaker) overlap

I’m so tired I’m (hungry) xxx

small caps: emphasis words within the parentheses are unclear inaudible word

? . ! qué tipo . . .

Rising intonation at the end of an utterance falling intonation at the end of an utterance animated intonation bold print: utterance in a second language

‘what type. . .’ inf

translation of utterance (into English) infi fi nitive marker (in morpheme-by-morpheme translation)

pl {laughter}

plural marker (in morpheme-by-morpheme translation) words within curly brackets are descriptions of speech or actions pause of less than one second

(.) (1), (2), etc. Ba:d [I]

pause of 1, 2, etc. seconds colon indicates elongated vowel words within square brackets are inserted to create coherence in translation

  =

rising intonation falling intonation latching—this utterances comes very quickly after the previous one

Una luz roja j *

language contact infl fluenced structure explanation to follow the example

Appendix B Classroom Codes

SPANISH-ENGLISH CLASSROOM CODES 1. All of the Spanish-English data is taken from the 4th /5th /6th grade classroom at Montville Elementary School. 2. First letter denotes if the people in the recording are male (M), female (F), or a mixed sex group (X) 3. The fi rst digit of the 3-digit number denotes the grades of the children: 4th (4), 5th(5), 6th (6), or children from diff fferent grades (0) 4. The fi nal two digits is the number of the recording; for example, the fi rst recording of 4th grade males is M401, the 18th recordings of a group of boys from diff fferent grades is M018, etc.

GERMAN-ENGLISH CLASSROOM CODES 1. This analysis relies primarily on data from a 5th grade classroom at the Charles Dickens School. However, a comparison is made to data from a 5th grade classroom at the John F. Kennedy School. Both of these are public schools in Berlin, Germany. 2. The initial number denotes the grade of the classroom: 4th (4), 5th (5) 3. The fi rst pair of letters denotes if the recording was made in a classroom of English Mother Tongue children (MT), English Partner Tongue children (PT), or a mixture of the two (AT) 4. The second pair of letters denotes the school at which the recording was made, the John F. Kennedy School (KS) or the Charles Dickens School (DS). 5. The number and letter combination following the second pair of letters denotes the number of the recording and the sex of the speakers. For example, the fi rst recording of girls in the 5th grade Mother tongue class at the Dickens School is 5MTDS1g, the fifth fi recording of boys in the 4th grade class at the Kennedy School with both English Mother Tongue and Partner tongue children would be 4ATKS5b.

166 Appendix B 6. Some examples are also taken from fieldnotes. fi In this case, the examples are simply labeled with the classroom designation, e.g., 5MTDS would be an example written down while observing the 5th grade English Mother Tongue children at the Dickens School.

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Index

A alignment. See stance; stancetaking. assimilation, 23–24, 32, 49, 91–94, 97–98 authenticity, 12, 100–101, 103, 135, 155, 173 authority: institutional, 12; of the offi fficial language, 19, 100–101; language as a source of, 54, 72–76, 152, 154 authorization, 12–13

B bilingual discourse: definition fi of, 2–4; linked to ethnic or cultural hybridity, 15; as stigmatized behavior, 21–22, 26, 103–104; as resistance, 90; and humor, 134–135. See also codeswitching, bilingual norm bilingual education, 17 bilingual norm, 38, 50, 69–71 borrowing, 4, 15, 27, 103–109, 113, 122–125. See also loanwords

C calques, 27, 28, 135. See also loan translations codeswitching: as an unmarked choice, 3–6, 42–45, 71, 77–79, 80, 86, 91, 136, 142–143, 154; flagged, 3–6, 22, 128–135; intrasentential, 28, 30, 77, 83, 122, 125, 136, 142. See also bilingual discourse community of practice, 71, 80 context-renewing, 10 context-shaping, 10

convergence, 134, 147 Critical Discourse Analysis, 7–8 critical theories, 7–9

D denaturalization, 12 Denglish, 101–103, 169. See also Dinglish Dinglish, 101–107, 113. See also Denglish. dialect: versus language, 94. See also standard, non-standard diff fference, 12, 14–15, 50, 52, 47–48, 58, 141. See also similarity Discourses, 6–7 display(s) of knowledge, 53, 54, 90–91 divergence, 146–147 dual immersion, 17 dual language program, 17, 33

E elite bilingualism, 16, 26, 33, 92, 105, 111–114 elite closure, 105 elite education, 17 emergence principle, 11 English Only: ideology, 22, 24; legislation, 23; movement, 16; as a classroom policy, 104 erasure, 19–25, 41, 93–94, 101, 104, 114 ethnic Germans, 15, 95, 105. See also German ethnicity ethnicity: as a social construct 8–9, 13–14, 71, 95–98, 155, 158; Latino, 158; German, 9, 95–99, 130, 155 ethnonational ideology, 155

176

Index

F

N

femininity, 134

Neudeutsch, 103–105, 109 new racism, 24 nonce borrowings, 3–5 normative monolingualism, 16, 18–20, 93, 101. See also language ideology

G German-only, 98

H hegemonic ideologies, 18; See also hegemony hegemony: definition fi of, 8; See also hegemonic ideologies hybridity, 14–15, 26, 29, 103 hyphenated American, 14

I

O offi fficial language: of Germany, 100– 101; of the U.S., 19, 23 one nation, one language, 93–94, 98–99, 103, 113, 159. See also language ideology

iconicity, 19, 26, 94, 100 identity: American, 12–13; bilingual, 70, 125, 147, 154; construction, 6–7, 11–13, 42, 50, 54, 58–62, 65, 78, 128–129, 147, 158–161; cultural, 129; ethnic, 8, 95; German, 9, 100, 150, 155, 159; good student, 24, 54–58, 68, 70, 90, 130–131, 156, 160; hybrid, 14–15, 170; Mexican, 29, 55, 89; national, 9, 12, 41, 95–96, 129, 150, 156; transnational, 89 illegitimation, 12–13, 150 immigrant bilingualism, 24, 33, 62, 92, 113–114, 154 immigrant education, 17 indexicality principle, 11

P

L

R

language ideology, 18–22 Leitkultur, 93–94 lexical gaps, 78, 125, 161 lexical gap hypothesis, 123–125 Limited English Profi ficiency (LEP), 17, 31–35, 38 linguistic community, 19 linguistic ethnography, 17, 37 linguistic pluralism, 19. See also pluralism loan translation, 28. See also calque loanword, 3–5, 103, 109, 113. See also borrowing

race: as a social construct, 8–9; coded as culture, 24; linked to language, 95, 96–97; linked to national identity, 95, 155. See also ethnicity recursiveness, 19–20, 41, 93 relationality principle, 11

M masculinity, 54, 82, 131–132 Mock Spanish, 19, 27–30 mother tongue, 95; criteria for determining, 111–113, 115–116 Multikulti, 93–94

partialness principle, 11–13 partner tongue, 111 peer culture, 150. See also youth culture peer group, 5, 13, 49, 86, 90, 130, 133, 147, 154 performativity, 7 pluralism, ideology of 18–19, 22, 24, 33, 159 positionality principle, 11, 150 post-structuralism, 6–7, 10 post-structuralist theory 6–7, 10 power, 7, 8, 15, 19, 25, 55–58, 61–62, 72–79, 91–92, 103, 113, 131– 132, 136–138, 143–144, 146, 149–151, 154, 158, 168–169

S Sachfach Unterricht, 105 semantic shifts, 28 similarity, 10, 12, 42, 47, 52, 61–63, 87, 115, 141. See also diff ff erence social inequality, 19, 28, 30 social class, 2, 23, 32–33, 54, 91, 130–33, 141, 154, 158–160 stance, 5–7, 10–11, 42, 49, 54, 74, 79, 91, 100–101, 127, 130–131. See also stancetaking

Index stancetaking, 10 standard language: hegemony of, 8; as a uniform single entity, 20; as highly valued, 41; as part of speaker authority, 54; ideologies, 99–101 student roles, 53–54 subjectivities, 7

T Theodore Roosevelt, 23

transnational, 15, 89, 155 two-way immersion, 17 transitional bilingual education, 17

U universality, 100–104

Y youth culture, 74, 89, 149, 154. See also peer culture youth language, 89, 99

177