Social identities and language alternation in non-formal institutional bilingual talk: Trilingual service encounters in Barcelona

Abstract

Identity-related accounts of language alternation among bilingual speakers have traditionally drawn on the social values of the languages involved in specific communities (Gumperz 1982, Myers-Scotton 1993). However, recently researchers have expressed reservation against this approach (Wootton and Sebba 1998, Li Wei 1998, 2002). Following from this, Gafaranga 2001 argues that, in order to account for the orderliness of language alternation, language preference (Auer 1984) must be seen as a membership categorization device (Sacks 1966, 1974). In developing his argument, Gafaranga draws on instances of ordinary everyday conversation among bilingual speakers. In this paper, we take Gafaranga's argument a step further and look at language alternation in first-time trilingual service encounters collected in the Barcelona area. The languages involved are Catalan, Castilian, and English. Analysis of these data reveals that, in addition to doing service-relevant tasks, participants accomplish “medium-related activities” (Gafaranga 2001) drawing on their various linguistic identities. Therefore, the analysis confirms the need to see linguistic identities as social identities in their own right.

Children’s agency in language choice: a case study of two Japanese-English bilingual children in London

“…Following Auer (1984Auer ( , 1988Auer ( , 1995Auer ( , 1998, Torras and Gafaranga (2002) argue that language preference is related to either linguistic competence or episode-external ideological factors. Although any conclusive remark on this shift cannot be made due to its complex nature, Naomi's interview suggests that her language shift is mostly a competence-based one; the growing gap between her English and Japanese proficiencies has pressed her towards this language shift, rather than a conscious desire to challenge her mother's beliefs.…”

“…However, he or she may deliberately choose a less proficient language based on political considerations. Naomi's choice of non-switching here may be considered to be ideology based rather than competence based (Torras and Gafaranga 2002). There, she strictly keeps a Japanese-only approach without code-switching, as Makiko says.…”

Korean American College Students’ Language Practices and Identity Positioning: “Not Korean, but not American”

“…These learners insert Korean terms to describe Korean traditions, food, and kinship into English-based sentence structures. This act of code-switching has been discussed as being derived from a local linguistic problem at the moment of interaction, sometimes reflecting their frustrations and struggles with a language that they used to be familiar with, as is often observed in bilingual speakers' communication strategies (Gumperz, 1982;Torras & Gafaranga, 2002). Furthermore, each code has a separate domain in the Korean American learners' linguistic repertoire, which is compatible with Mills' (2001) …”

‘Medium of instruction’ vs. ‘medium of classroom interaction’: language choice in a French complementary school classroom in Scotland

“…Thus Torras (2005;Torras and Gafaranga 2002) has applied it in her study of service encounters in Barcelona and Cromdal (2005) has adopted the concept in his study of EnglishÁSwedish alternation in dyadic learner interaction. It is following these initial successes that we propose the notion of medium of classroom interaction as the 'scheme of interpretation' (Garfinkel 1967) for language choice acts at La Colombe and, by implication, in bilingual classroom interaction in general.…”