Article published in:
Heteroglossia and language ideologies in children’s peer play interactions
Edited by Amy Kyratzis, Ann-Carita Evaldsson and Jennifer Reynolds
[Pragmatics 20:4] 2010
► pp. 557–586

Latina girls’ peer play interactions in a bilingual Spanish-English U.S. preschool

Heteroglossia, frame-shifting, and language ideology

The current English-only educational climate in California presents children with polarizing discourses about national belonging (Bailey 2007). This study uses language socialization theory (e.g., Garret and Baquedano-López 2002) and Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of “heteroglossia” to examine how members of a peer group of linguistic minority children attending a bilingual Spanish-English preschool in California used bilingual practices among themselves to respond to such polarizing discourses and organize their local peer group social order. The peer group was followed over several months during free play in their preschool classroom using methods of ethnography and talk-in-interaction. An extended episode of birthday play was examined. The children use code-switching as a resource to negotiate locally shifting “frames” (Goffman 1974) and participation frameworks (C. Goodwin 2007; M.H. Goodwin 1990a; 2006) during their play interaction. Through their language practices, group members reflexively portray the tension between their languages (Bakhtin 1981), and inscribe some domain associations (Garrett 2005; Paugh 2005; Schiefflin 2003) for English and Spanish (e.g., using English for references to aspects of birthday parties relevant to U.S. consumer culture; Spanish for topics of food and family). These practices reproduce hierarchical and gendered rankings of the languages inscribed in monolingual discourses of the dominant U.S. society. However, the children also challenge regimented patterns, through using, at moments, unmarked forms of code-switching, often within single utterances. These hybrid utterances blur boundaries across frames and groups of players, affirming “linguistic and cultural hybridity” (Haney 2003: 164) within the peer group.
Keywords: Peer interaction, Multilingual peer group, Language Ideology, Code-switching, Spanish, Language socialization
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 01 December 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.20.4.04kyr
References
Auer, Peter
(1984) Bilingual conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.  BoP CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1998) Introduction: Bilingual conversation revisited. In Peter Auer (ed.), Code-switching in conversation: Language, interaction, and identity. London: Routledge.  BoP CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Benjamin
(2007) Heteroglossia and boundaries. In Monica Heller (ed.), Bilingualism: A social approach.New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 257-274. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail M
(1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Beach, Wayne, A
(1993) Transitional regularities for ‘casual’ “Okay” usages. Journal of Pragmatics 191: 325-352. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan, and Jef Verschueren
(1998) The role of language in European nationalist ideologies. In B.B. Schieffelin, K.A. Woolard & P.V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language ideologies: Practice and theory. Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics 16.Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 189-210.Google Scholar
Briggs, Charles, and Richard Bauman
(1992) Genre, intertextuality, and social power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 21: 131-72. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Butler, C., and Ann Weatherall
(2006) ‘No, we’re not playing families’: Membership categorization in children’s play. Research on Language and Social Interaction 391: 441-470. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cromdal, J., and Karin Aronsson
(2000) Footing in bilingual play. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4.3: 435-457. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Cummins, Jim
(2000) Foreword. In Roseann Dueñas González & Ildikó Melis (eds.), Language ideologies: Critical perspectives on the Official English movement. Vol. 1: Education and the Social Implications of Official Language. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, pp. ix-xx.Google Scholar
de León, Lourdes
(2005) La Llegada del Alma: Lenguaje, Infancia y Socialización entre los Mayas de Zinacantán. [The arrival of the soul: Language, childhood, and socialization among the Mayans of Zinacantan]. Mexico City, Mexico:CIESAS-INAH-CONACULTA.Google Scholar
(2007) Parallelism, metalinguisitc play, and the interactive emergence of Zinacantec Mayan siblings’ culture. Research on Language and Social Interaction 40.4: 405-436. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, Susan M., and Iliana Reyes
(2005) Child-code-switching and adult content contrasts. International Journal of Bilingualism 91: 85-102. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Evaldsson, Ann-Carita
(2002) ‘Boys’ gossip telling: Staging identities and indexing (non-acceptable) masculine behaviour. Text 22.2: 1-27. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2005) Staging insults and mobilizing categorizations in a multiethnic peer group. Discourse and Society 16.6: 763-786. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2007) Accounting for friendship: Moral ordering and category membership in preadolescent girls' relational talk. Research on Language and Social Interaction 40.4: 377-404. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Evaldsson, Ann-Carita, and Asta Cekaite
this volume) Subverting and reproducing institutionalized norms for language use in multilingual peer groups. Pragmatics 201.4.
Gal, Susan
(1988) The political economy of code choice. In M. Heller (ed.), Code-switching: Anthropological and sociolinguistic perspectives.New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 245-264. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
García-Sánchez, Inmaculada
this volume) Serious games: Code-switching and gendered identities in Moroccan immigrant girls’ pretend play. Pragmatics 201.4.
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 34.3: 327-361. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Paul
(2007) Language socialization and the (re)production of bilingual subjectivities. In Monica Heller (ed.), Bilingualism: A social approach.New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 233-256. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Paul B., and Patricia Baquedano-López
(2002) Language socialization: Reproduction and continuity,transformation and change. Annual Review of Anthropology 311: 339-61. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
(1974) Frame Analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper and Row.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1978) Response cries. Language 541: 787-815. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving (Erving Goffman
1979) [1981] Footing. Semiotica 251: 1-29. (Reprinted in 1981, Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 124-159). Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Charles
(2007) Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse & Society 18.1: 53-73. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie H
(1990a) He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among black children. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1990b) Tactical uses of stories: Participation frameworks within girls’ and boys’ disputes. Discourse Processes 131: 35-71. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1993) Accomplishing social organization in girls’ play: Patterns of competition and cooperation in an African-American working class girls’ group. In S.T. Hollis, L. Pershing, & M.J. Young (eds.), Feminist theory and the study of folklore. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 149-165.Google Scholar
(1996) Shifting frame. In D.I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratzis, & J. Guo (eds.), Social Interaction, Social Context, and Language: Essays in Honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 71-82.Google Scholar
(2002) Building power asymmetrics in girls’ interaction. Discourse & Society 13.6: 715-730. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2006) The hidden life of girls: Games of stance, status, and exclusion. Oxford: Blackwell. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie H., and Amy Kyratzis
(2007) Children socializing children: Practices for negotiating the social order among peers. In M.H. Goodwin & A. Kyratzis (guest eds.), Children Socializing Children: Practices for Organizing the Social and Moral Order Among Peers [Special Issue]. Research on Language and Social Interaction 40.4: 1-11. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
in press) Peer socialization. In A. Duranti, E. Ochs, & B.B. Schieffelin (eds.) The Handbook of Language Socialization Oxford, U.K Blackwell
Griswold, Olga
(2007) Achieving authority: Discursive practices in Russian girls' pretend play. Research on Language and Social Interaction 40.4: 291-319. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Gumperz, John J
(1982) Conversational code-switching. In John J. Gumperz (ed.), Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 59-99.  BoP CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gumperz, John J., and Jenny Cook-Gumperz
(2005) Making space for bilingual communicative practice. Intercultural Pragmatics 2.1: 1-24. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Haney, Peter C
(2003) Bilingual humor, verbal hygiene, and gendered contradictions of cultural citizenship in early Mexican American comedy. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 13.21: 163-188. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Jane H., and Kenneth C. Hill
(1986) Speaking Mexicano: Dynamics of syncretic language in central Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Hutchby, Ian., and Jo Moran-Ellis
(1998) Introduction. In I. Hutchby & J. Moran-Ellis (eds.), Children and social competence: Arenas of action. London: Falmer, pp. 1-25.Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith T., and Susan Gal
(2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P.V. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities and identities.Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, pp. 35-83.Google Scholar
Jorgensen, J.N
(1998) Children’s acquisition of code-switching for power-wielding. In Auer, P. (ed.), Code-switching in conversation: Language, interaction, and identity.London: Routledge, pp. 237-258.Google Scholar
Keim, Inken
(2007) Socio-cultural identity, communicative style, and their change over time: A case study of a group of German-Turkish girls in Mannheim/Germany. In P. Auer (ed.), Style and Social Identities: Alternative Approaches to Linguistic Heterogeneity. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 155-185.Google Scholar
(2008) Linguistic variation, style of communication, and socicultural identity: Case study of a migrant youth group in Mannheim, Germany. In V. Lytra and J.N. Jorgensen, (eds.), Multilingualism and Identities across Contexts: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Turkish-Speaking Youth in Europe. Copenhagen Studies in Bilingualism, Vol. 451.Copenhagen: Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen, pp. 178-226.Google Scholar
Kyratzis, Amy
(2004) Talk and interaction among children and the co-construction of peer groups and peer culture. Annual Review of Anthropology 331: 625-649. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2007) Using the social organizational affordances of pretend play in American preschool girls’ interactions. Research on Language and Social Interaction 40.4: 321-353. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kyratzis, Amy, Traci Marx, and Evelyn 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 [Special issue]. First Language 211: 387-431.Google Scholar
Kyratzis, Amy, and M. Ervin-Tripp
(1999) The development of discourse markers in peer interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 311: 1321-1338. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kyratzis, Amy, Jennifer F. Reynolds, and Ann-Carita Evaldsson
this volume) Introduction: Heteroglossia and language ideologies in children’s peer play interactions. Pragmatics 201.4.
Kyratzis, Amy, Ya-ting Tang, and S.B. Köymen
(2009) Codes, code-switching, and context: Style and footing in peer group bilingual play. In J. Cook-Gumperz (ed.), Bernstein in the 21st century: Re- examining Class, Codes and Language [Special Issue]. Multilingua - Journal of Crosscultural and Interlanguage Communication 281: 265-290. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Minks, Amanda
(2006) Mediated intertextuality in pretend play among Nicaraguan Miskitu children. Texas Linguistic Forum (SALSA) 491: 117-127.Google Scholar
this volume) Socializing heteroglossia among Miskitu children on the Caribbean Coast of Nicarague. Pragmatics 201.4.
Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi B. Schieffelin
in press) The theory of language socialization. In A. Duranti, E. Ochs, & B.B. Schieffelin (eds.) The Handbook of Language Socialization Oxford, U.K Blackwell Crossref
Paugh, Amy L
(2005) Multilingual play: Children’s code-switching, role play, and agency in Dominica, West Indies. Language in Society 341: 63-86. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pujolar, Joan
(2007) Bilingualism and the nation-state in the post-national era. In Monica Heller (ed.), Bilingualism: A social approach.New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 71-95. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, Jennifer F
(2007) Buenos Días/ ((Military Salute)): The natural history of a coined insult. Research on Language and Social Interaction 40.4: 437-466. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2008) Socializing puros pericos (little parrots): The negotiation of respect and responsibility in Antonero Mayan sibling and peer networks. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18.1:82-107. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
this volume) Enregistering the voices of discursive figures of authority in Antonero children’s socio-dramatic play. Pragmatics 201.4.
Rindstedt, Camilla, and Karin Aronsson
(2002) Growing up monolingual in a bilingual community: The Quichua revitalization paradox. Language in Society 311: 721-742.  BoP CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey
(1992) Lectures on conversation, vol. 21. Oxford: Blackwell.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi B
(1994) Code-switching and language socialization: Some probable relationships. In J.F. Duchan, L.E Hewitt, R.M. Sonnenmeier (eds.), Pragmatics: From theory to practice.New York: Prentice Hall, pp. 20-43.Google Scholar
(2003) Language and place in children’s worlds. Texas Linguistics Forum (SALSA) 451: 152-166.Google Scholar
Szymanski, Margaret H
(1999) Re-engaging and dis-engaging talk in activity. Language in Society 28.1: 1-23. Crossref  BoPGoogle Scholar
Urciuoli, Bonnie
(1996) Exposing prejudice: Puerto Rican Experiences of Language, Race, and Class. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn
(1998) Introduction: Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In B.B. Schieffelin, K.A. Woolard & P.V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 16. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Zentella, Ana Celia
(1997) Growing up bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York. Oxford: Blackwell.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1998) Multiple codes, multiple identities: Puerto Rican Children in New York City. In S.M. Hoyle & C.T. Adger (eds.), Kids Talk: Strategic Language Use in Later Childhood.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 95-111.Google Scholar

Full-text

Latina girls’ peer play interactions in a bilingual Spanish-English U.S. preschool
Cited by

Cited by 38 other publications

No author info given
2014.  In Language and Muslim Immigrant Childhoods, ► pp. 311 ff. Crossref logo
Baffy, Marta
2017. Shifting frames to construct a Legal English class. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 25 ► pp. 58 ff. Crossref logo
Bengochea, Alain & Mileidis Gort
2020. Translanguaging for varying discourse functions in sociodramatic play: an exploratory multiple case study of young emergent bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Benitez, Viridiana L., Marissa Castellana & Christine E. Potter
2022. How Many Palabras? Codeswitching and Lexical Diversity in Spanish-English Picture Books. Languages 7:1 ► pp. 69 ff. Crossref logo
Cekaite, Asta
2020.  In Handbook of Early Language Education [Springer International Handbooks of Education, ], ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Cekaite, Asta
2022.  In Handbook of Early Language Education [Springer International Handbooks of Education, ], ► pp. 143 ff. Crossref logo
Cekaite, Asta & Polly Björk-Willén
2013. Peer group interactions in multilingual educational settings: Co-constructing social order and norms for language use. International Journal of Bilingualism 17:2 ► pp. 174 ff. Crossref logo
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. Crossref logo
Choe, Hanwool
2020. Talking the cat: Footing lamination in a Korean livestream of cats mukbang. Journal of Pragmatics 160 ► pp. 60 ff. Crossref logo
Cohen, Lynn E.
2015. Layers of Discourse in Preschool Block Play: An Examination of Children’s Social Interactions. International Journal of Early Childhood 47:2 ► pp. 267 ff. Crossref logo
de León, Lourdes
2019. Playing at being bilingual: Bilingual performances, stance, and language scaling in Mayan Tzotzil siblings' play. Journal of Pragmatics 144 ► pp. 92 ff. Crossref logo
Deniz Tarım, Şeyda & Amy Kyratzis
2012.  In Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People [Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, 15], ► pp. 193 ff. Crossref logo
Flynn, Erin E.
2021.  “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Lanza Tu Pelo ”: Storytelling in a Transcultural, Translanguaging Dialogic Exchange . Reading Research Quarterly 56:4 ► pp. 643 ff. Crossref logo
Fuller, Janet & Aimee Hosemann
2015. Latino Education. Language and Linguistics Compass 9:4 ► pp. 168 ff. Crossref logo
García-Sánchez, Inmaculada M.
2010. Serious games. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 20:4 ► pp. 523 ff. Crossref logo
García-Sánchez, Inmaculada M.
2016.  In Friendship and Peer Culture in Multilingual Settings [Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, 21], ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Goodwin, Marjorie H. & Amy Kyratzis
2011.  In The Handbook of Language Socialization, ► pp. 365 ff. Crossref logo
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness & Amy Kyratzis
2014.  In The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality, ► pp. 509 ff. Crossref logo
Gordon, Cynthia
2015.  In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ► pp. 324 ff. Crossref logo
Halpin, Emily & Gigliana Melzi
2021. Code-switching in the narratives of dual-language Latino preschoolers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 24:9 ► pp. 1271 ff. Crossref logo
Hammer, Carol Scheffner, Erika Hoff, Yuuko Uchikoshi, Cristina Gillanders, Dina C. Castro & Lia E. Sandilos
2014. The language and literacy development of young dual language learners: A critical review. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29:4 ► pp. 715 ff. Crossref logo
Kyratzis, Amy
2017. Peer ecologies for learning how to read: Exhibiting reading, orchestrating participation, and learning over time in bilingual Mexican-American preschoolers’ play enactments of reading to a peer. Linguistics and Education 41 ► pp. 7 ff. Crossref logo
Kyratzis, Amy & Jenny Cook-Gumperz
2015.  In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ► pp. 681 ff. Crossref logo
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. Crossref logo
Kyratzis, Amy & Marjorie Harness Goodwin
2017.  In Language Socialization, ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Kyratzis, Amy & Marjorie Harness Goodwin
2017.  In Language Socialization, ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Kyratzis, Amy & Marjorie Harness Goodwin
2017.  In Language Socialization, ► pp. 123 ff. Crossref logo
Lin, Ching-Ching
2017.  In Inclusion, Diversity, and Intercultural Dialogue in Young People’s Philosophical Inquiry, ► pp. 85 ff. Crossref logo
Lytra, Vally
2015.  In Discourse and Education, ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Lytra, Vally
2017.  In Discourse and Education, ► pp. 161 ff. Crossref logo
Rodríguez, Esmeralda & Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon
2019.  In Handbook on Promoting Social Justice in Education, ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Rodríguez, Esmeralda & Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon
2020.  In Handbook on Promoting Social Justice in Education, ► pp. 2107 ff. Crossref logo
Rowe, Lindsey W.
2019. Constructing language ideologies in a multilingual, second-grade classroom: A case study of two emergent bilingual students’ language-use during eBook composing. Linguistics and Education 52 ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Smith-Christmas, Cassie
2022. Double-voicing and rubber ducks: the dominance of English in the imaginative play of two bilingual sisters. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 25:4 ► pp. 1336 ff. Crossref logo
Tarım, Şeyda Deniz
2019. Shifting frames: Turkish immigrant children's rescaling practices in two school settings in Arizona. Journal of Pragmatics 144 ► pp. 141 ff. Crossref logo
Troyan, Francis John, Nicole King & Ahmed Bramli
2021. Enacting culturally sustaining immersion pedagogy through SFL and translanguaging design. Foreign Language Annals 54:3 ► pp. 567 ff. Crossref logo
Zheng, Bingjie
2021. Scaling bi/multilingualism through dual language education: a multi-sited study of diverse learners’ views. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Zheng, Bingjie
2021. Translanguaging in a Chinese immersion classroom: an ecological examination of instructional discourses. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 24:9 ► pp. 1324 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 april 2022. 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.