This paper examines how children exercise their agency vis-à-vis their mother's beliefs and practices of bilingualism, especially code-switching, at home and elsewhere. The data were mainly collected through audio-recordings of family conversations both with and without the presence of the researcher and semi-structured interviews conducted during 19 visits to two families with Japanese-speaking mothers and 12-year-old English-Japanese bilingual children. An analysis of the data reveals that, despite there being a difference in language practices and backgrounds, both children discursively negotiate and construct their bilingual positions at home through their flexible use of the two languages. Furthermore, their language practices are not a passive response to their mothers' beliefs, but an exercise of their agency through contestation, negotiation and redefinition of the mothers' beliefs. In particular, this study has identified two types of agency: (1) construction of the positive self-image and negotiation of the parent-child relationship through the active use of English; and (2) resistance to the mother's monolingual policy through a flexible use of the two languages. The data also provide insight into the situated and multidimensional nature of agency by showing changes in the children's practices depending on the context, such as in conversations with the researcher.
This study investigates the development of pragmatic strategies in study abroad among a group of upper-intermediate to advanced second language (L2) learners studying in English as a lingua franca (ELF) context. For this purpose, their use of epistemic stance markers (EMs) was observed before, during, immediately after, and six months after their study abroad over a period of two years. An analysis of our qualitative results found significant inter-speaker variations in the use of EMs. This close analysis demonstrates that learners with lower-level speaking skills relied more on lexical verbs and adverbs when expressing their epistemic stance than those with higher-level speaking skills. This finding is in accordance with previous studies. Furthermore, our qualitative analysis of two learners demonstrates their pragmatic development through a more nuanced hedged assertion, as well as the non-linear and complex nature of their development. In addition, the pedagogical implications of this study are discussed from the ELF perspective.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.