Thirteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

This ethnographic case study examines sociolinguistic functions of language usage during learning interactions of bilingual children in a fifth-grade English classroom of a urban public school in the USA. The study framework is formed by critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2014; Wodak, 2015) as theory and method. Focal participants are six Spanish-English bilingual students, three girls and three boys. Data were collected during a one-year period and encompassed observations of children’s interactions twice a week in the English Language Arts ninety-minute block. These interactions were audio-recorded and complemented with detailed field-notes. Data also included audio-recorded and transcribed semi-structured interviews of focal students. Data comprised documents too, such as the fifth-grade English curriculum, students’ work samples, and test scores. Data analysis consisted of open coding (sorting of patterns of language use) and analytic coding (thorough breakdown of themes and of language functions). Data findings suggested that language, English and Spanish, functioned to repair speech perceived as flawed, and to bestow or withdraw authority on the language source. Additionally, language became a site of power struggles and ideological “turmoil” in the classroom micro-cosmos embedded within society’s sociocultural and political macro-cosmos. Educational and research implications are considered.