This study examines how boys from San Antonio Aguas Calientes, Guatemala develop their own perspective about what it means to be moral human beings in the world via discursive practices that contrast enregistered voices within an emergent performance genre that simultaneously doubles as socio-dramatic play-frame. This emergent genre exhibits both mimesis and alterity; children have appropriated a popular adult genre, within which their participation, originally, was highly circumscribed. In their own productions, however, they occupy the main character roles and enact re-accented “voices” of king and kin in highly competitive, proselytizing discourse. The resulting performance is a subversion of the social order where ‘the challenge’ of good defeating evil is undone, reflecting a child-centric critical stance. To wit, the boys refuse to be convinced by the authority of an overly patriarchal-colonial moral order. I build upon Sawyers’ (1995) model of play-as-improvisation to develop a synthetic framework in analyzing indigenous children’s play and childhood(s). The approach I espouse draws upon ethnographically informed studies of peer talk-in-interaction, verbal art as performance, and semiotic functionalism to examine how children “do heteroglossia” in and out-of-play frames of interaction as they construct selves capable of confronting the social order.
Annis, Sheldon (1987) God and production in a Guatemalan town. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Agha, Asif (2003) The social life of cultural value. Language and communication 231: 231-273. BoP
Agha, Asif (2005) Voice, footing, enregisterment. Journal of linguistic anthropology 151: 38-59.
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1981) The dialogic imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1984) Rabelais and his world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Bateson, Gregory (1972) Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine.
Bauman, Richard (1982) Ethnography of children’s folklore. In Perry Gilmore and Allan A. Glatthorn (eds.), Children in and out of school: Ethnography and education.Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, pp. 172-186.
Bauman, Richard (1984) Verbal art as performance. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc.
Bauman, Richard (1996) Transformations of the word in the production of Mexican festival drama. In Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban (eds.), Natural histories of discourse. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 301-327.
Bauman, Richard (2001) The ethnography of genre in a Mexican market: Form, function, variation. In Penelope Eckert and John Rickford (eds.), Style and sociolinguistic variation. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 57-77.
Bauman, Richard, and Charles L. Briggs (1990) Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual review of anthropology 191: 59-88. BoP
Bricker, Victoria Reifler (1973) Ritual humor in highland Chiapas. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Brown, R. McKenna (1998) Case study two: San Antonio Aguas Calientes and Quinizilapa Valley. In Susan Garzon, R. McKenna Brown, Julia Becker Richards, and >Wuqu’ Ajpub’ (Arnulfo Simón) (eds.), The life of our language: Kaqchikel Maya maintenance, shift, and revitalization. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 101-128.
Canclini, Néstor García (1995) Hybrid cultures: Strategies for entering and leaving modernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Castañeda, Quetzil E. (1996) In the museum of Maya culture: Touring Chichén Itzá. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Casaus Arzú, Marta Elena (1992) Guatemala: Linaje y racismo. San José, Costa Rica: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales.
Cook-Gumperz, Jenny (1995) Reproducing the discourse of mothering: How gendered talk makes gendered lives. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds.), Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self. New York: Routledge, pp. 401-420.
Cook-Gumperz, Jenny, and John J. Gumperz (1978) Context in children’s speech. In Natalie Waterson and Catherine Snow (eds.), The Development of Communication. New York: Wiley, pp. 3-23.
Corsaro, William A. (1985) Friendship and peer culture in the early years. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.
Corsaro, William, and Doug W. Maynard (1996) Format tying in discussion and argumentation among Italian and American children. In Dan I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, Amy Kyratzis, and J. Guo (eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 157-74.
de León, Lourdes (2006) Ritual, humor, fantasía y relato: Desarrollo de competencias comunicativas en niños tzotziles de Zinacantán. Plenary Lecture. VIII Jornadas Lingüísticas de la Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia. México, D. F. April 2006.
de León, Lourdes (2007) Parallelism, metalinguistic play, and the interactive emergence of Zinacantec Mayan sibling’s culture. Research on language and social interaction 40.4: 405-436.
Ervin-Tripp, Susan (1977) Wait for me, roller skate! In Susan Ervin-Tripp and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan (eds.), Child discourse. New York: Academic Press, pp. 165-188. BoP
Fein, Greta (1987) Pretend play: Creativity and consciousness. In D. Gorlitz & J.F. Wohlwill (eds.), Curiosity, imagination, and play: On development of spontaneous cognitive and motivational processes.New York: Oxford, pp. 82-94.
Ferguson, Charles A. (1994) Dialect, register, and genre: Working assumptions about conventionalization. In Douglas Biber and Edward Finegan (eds.), Sociolinguistic perspectives on register. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 15-30.
Flores, Richard R. (1994) “Los pastores” and the gifting of performance. American ethnologist 21.2: 270-285.
French, Brigittine (2010) Mayan ethnolinguistic identity: Violence, cultural rights, and modernity in highland Guatemala. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press.
Garrett, Paul B. (2005) What a language is good for: Language socialization, language shift, and the persistence of code-specific genres in St. Lucia. Language in society 341: 327-361. BoP
Gaskins, Suzanne (2006) The cultural organization of Yucatec children’s social interactions. In X. Chen, D. French, and B. Schneider (eds.), Peer relations in cultural context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 283-309.
Glick Schiller, Nina (2003) The centrality of ethnography in the study of transnational migration: Seeing the wetlands instead of the swamp. In Nancy Foner (ed.), American arrivals: Anthropology engages the new immigration.Santa Fe: School of American Research, pp. 99-128.
Goldman, L.R. (1998) Child’s play: Myth, mimesis and make-believe. Oxford and New York: Berg.
Goldstein, Daniel M. (2004) The spectacular city: Violence and performance in urban Bolivia. Durham: Duke University Press.
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1990) He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among Black children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. BoP
Gossen, Gary (1976) Verbal dueling in Chamula. In Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (ed.), Speech play: Research and resources for studying linguistic creativity.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 121-146.
Harris, Max (2000) Aztecs, Moors and Christians: Festivals of reconquest in Mexico and Spain. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Hill, Jane (1998) “Today there is no respect”: Nostalgia, “respect”, and oppositional discourse in Mexicano (Nahuatl) language ideology. In Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language ideologies: Practice and theory. New York: Oxford University Press, pp.68-86.
Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger (1992) The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hoyle, Susan M. (1993) Participation frameworks in sportscasting play: Imaginary and literal footings. In Deborah Tannen (ed.), Framing in discourse. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 114-145.
Hoyle, Susan M. (1998) Register and footing in role play. In Susan M. Hoyle and Carolyn Temple Adger (eds.), Kids talk: Strategic language use in later childhood.New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 47-67. BoP
Inoue, Miyako (2006) Vicarious language: Gender and linguistic modernity in Japan. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Irvine, Judith T., and Susan Gal (2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Paul V. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities.Santa Fe: School of American Research, pp. 35-83.
Iwamura, Susan G. (1980) The verbal games of preschool children. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Jakobson, Roman (1960) Closing statement, linguistics and poetics. In T. Sebeok (ed.), Style in language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, pp. 398-429.
Kearney, Michael (2000) Class and identity: The jujitsu of domination and resistance in Oaxacalifornia. In Dorothy Holland and Jean Lave (eds.), History in person: Enduring struggles, contentious practice, intimate identities.Santa Fé, NM: School of American Research Press, pp. 247-280.
Kroskrity, Paul V. (2000) Regimenting languages: Language ideological perspectives. In Paul V. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities.Santa Fe: School of American Research, pp. 1-34. BoP
Kyratzis, Amy (2007) Using the social organizational affordances of role playing in American preschool girls’ interactions. Research on language and social interaction 401: 321-352. BoP
Kyratzis, Amy (this volume) Latino girls’ peer play interactions in a bilingual Spanish-English US preschool: Heteroglossia, frame-shifting, and language ideology. Pragmatics 201.4.
Kyratzis, Amy, T. Marx, and E.R. Wade (2001) Preschoolers’ communicative competence: Register shift in the marking of power in different contexts of friendship group talk. In H. Marcos (ed.), Early pragmatic development (spec. issue). First language 211: 387-431.
Labov, William (1972) Rules for ritual insults. In David Sudnow (ed.), Studies in social interaction. New York: Free Press, pp. 120-169.
Limón, José E. (1983) Western Marxism and folklore: A critical introduction. The journal of American folklore 96.379: 34-52.
Mendoza-Denton, Norma (2008) Homegirls: Language and cultural practice among Latina youth gangs. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Minks, Amanda (2008) Performing gender in song games among Nicaraguan Miskitu children. Language and communication 23.1: 36-56. BoP
Nagengast, Carole, and Michael Kearney (1990) Mixtec ethnicity: Social identity, political consciousness, and political activism. Latin American research review 251: 61-91.
Nájera-Ramírez, Olga (1999) Of fieldwork, folklore, and festival: Personal encounters. The journal of American folklore 112.444: 183-199.
Nash, June (1970) In the eyes of the ancestors. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group.
Ochs, Elinor (1992) Indexing gender. In Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking context: Language as interactive phenomenon.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 335-358.
Offit, Thomas A., and Garrett Cook (2010) The death of don Pedro: Insecurity and cultural continuity in peacetime Guatemala. The journal of Latin American and Caribbean anthropology 15.1: 42-65.
Paugh, Amy L. (2005) Multilingual play: Children’s codeswitching, role play, and agency in Dominica, West Indies. Language in society 34.1: 63-86.
Porrúa, Miguel Angel (ed.) (1994) Los doce pares de Francia: Historia para teatro campesino en tres noches. Morelos: Gobierno del Estado.
Pujolar, Joan (2000) Gender, heteroglossia and power: A sociolinguistic study of youth culture. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. BoP
Reynolds, Jennifer F. (2002) Maya children’s practices of the imagination: (Dis)Playing childhood and politics in Guatemala. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California,Los Angeles.
Reynolds, Jennifer F. (2008) Socializing puros pericos (little parrots): The negotiation of respect and responsibility in Antonero sibling and peer networks. Journal of linguistic anthropology 18.1: 82-107.
Reynolds, Jennifer F. (2009) Shaming the shift generation: Intersecting ideologies of family and linguistic revitalization in Guatemala. In Paul V. Kroskrity and Margaret C. Field (eds.), Revealing Native American Language Ideologies: Beliefs, Practices, and Struggles in Indian Country.Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, pp. 213-308.
Reynolds, Jennifer F. (2010) La socialización del lenguaje entre grupos de pares: La elicitación de contribuciones en el juego de el Rey Moro. In Lourdes de León, (ed.), Lenguajes y culturas infantiles: Estudios transculturales sobre socialización y aprendizaje.México: CIESAS, pp. 355-387.
Rogers, Mark (1999) Spectacular bodies: Folklorization and the politics of identity in Ecuadorian beauty pagents. Journal of Latin American anthropology 31: 54-85.
Rogoff, Barbara (1981) Adults and peers as agents of socialization: A highland Guatemalan profile. Ethos 9.1: 18-36.
Rogoff, Barbara (2003) The cultural nature of human development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rouse, Roger (1991) Mexican migration and the social space of postmodernism. Diaspora 11: 8-23.
Sawyer, R. Keith (1995) A developmental model of heteroglossic improvisation in children’s fantasy play. Sociological studies of children 71: 127-153.
Sawyer, R. Keith (2001) Play as improvisational rehearsal: Multiple levels of analysis in children’s play. In Artin Göncü and Elisa Klein (eds.), Children in play, story and school.New York: Guilford Press, pp. 19-38.
Sawyer, R. Keith (2003) Levels of analysis in pretend play discourse: Metacommunication in conversational routines. In Donald E. Lytle (ed.), Play and educational theory and practice. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, pp. 137-157.
Schegloff, Emmanuel A., and Harvey Sachs (1973) Opening up closings. Semiotica 81: 289-327.
Silverstein, Michael (1993) Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function. In John A. Lucy (ed.), Reflexive Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 33-58.
Silverstein, Michael (2003) Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and communication 231: 193-229. BoP
Steck, Francis Borgia (1951) Motolinia’s history of the Indians of New Spain. Washington: Academy of American Franciscan History.
Sutton-Smith, Brian (1981) The folkstories of children. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tetreault, Chantal (2009) Mocking in mock French: Social uses of stylized voicing by Muslim French teenagers. Language in society 381: 201-231.
Vygotsky, Lev S. (1967) Play and its role in the mental development of the child. Soviet Psychology Vol. V. No. 3: 6-18.
Warren, Kay (1978) The symbolism of subordination: Indian identity in a Guatemalan town. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Warren, Kay B. (1998) Indigenous movements and their critics: Pan-Maya activism in Guatemala. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Williams, Raymond (1977) Marxism and literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wolf, Dennie, and Deborah Hicks (1989) The voices within narratives: The development of intertextuality in young children’s stories. Discourse processes 121: 329-351. BoP
Cited by (18)
Cited by 18 other publications
Nasi, Nicola
2022. Indexing authority in the classroom. Research on Children and Social Interaction 6:1
Minks, Amanda & Ana María Ochoa Gautier
2021. Music, Language, Aurality: Latin American and Caribbean Resoundings. Annual Review of Anthropology 50:1 ► pp. 23 ff.
Mirvahedi, Seyed Hadi & Francesco Cavallaro
2020. Siblings' play and language shift to English in a Malay‐English bilingual family in Singapore. World Englishes 39:1 ► pp. 183 ff.
Bodó, Csanád, Gergely Szabó & Ráhel Katalin Turai
2019. Voices of masculinity: Men’s talk in Hungarian university dormitories. Discourse & Society 30:4 ► pp. 339 ff.
Cekaite, Asta & Ann-Carita Evaldsson
2019. Stance and footing in multilingual play: Rescaling practices and heritage language use in a Swedish preschool. Journal of Pragmatics 144 ► pp. 127 ff.
Kyratzis, Amy & Lourdes de León
2019. Framing, footing, and language scaling practices in children's multilingual peer and sibling-kin group interactions: An introduction. Journal of Pragmatics 144 ► pp. 70 ff.
Paugh, Amy L.
2019. Negotiating language ideologies through imaginary play: Children's code choice and rescaling practices in Dominica, West Indies. Journal of Pragmatics 144 ► pp. 78 ff.
Kyratzis, Amy & Marjorie Harness Goodwin
2017. Language Socialization in Children’s Peer and Sibling-Kin Group Interactions. In Language Socialization, ► pp. 123 ff.
Kyratzis, Amy & Marjorie Harness Goodwin
2017. Language Socialization in Children’s Peer and Sibling-Kin Group Interactions. In Language Socialization, ► pp. 1 ff.
Kyratzis, Amy & Marjorie Harness Goodwin
2017. Language Socialization in Children’s Peer and Sibling-Kin Group Interactions. In Language Socialization, ► pp. 1 ff.
Gardner, Sheena & Aizan Bt Yaacob
2016. Role Play and Dialogue in Early Childhood Education. In Discourse and Education, ► pp. 1 ff.
Gardner, Sheena & Aizan Bt Yaacob
2017. Role Play and Dialogue in Early Childhood Education. In Discourse and Education, ► pp. 283 ff.
Clemensen, Nana
2015. Staging an Educated Self: Linguistic Displays of Schooling among Rural Zambian Children. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 46:3 ► pp. 244 ff.
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness & Amy Kyratzis
2014. Language and Gender in Peer Interactions among Children and Youth. In The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality, ► pp. 509 ff.
Reynolds, Jennifer F.
2013. Refracting articulations of citizenship, delicuencia and vigilantism in boys’ sociodramatic play in postwar Guatemala. Language & Communication 33:4 ► pp. 515 ff.
Duranti, Alessandro & Steven P. Black
2011. Language Socialization and Verbal Improvisation. In The Handbook of Language Socialization, ► pp. 443 ff.
Goodwin, Marjorie H. & Amy Kyratzis
2011. Peer Language Socialization. In The Handbook of Language Socialization, ► pp. 365 ff.
[no author supplied]
2014. References. In Language and Muslim Immigrant Childhoods, ► pp. 311 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.