Pluralist Discourses of Bilingualism and the Local Ecology of Talk in Classrooms

• In Event: Roundtable Session 59
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Language and Social Processes in Linguistically Diverse Settings

Abstract

This paper examines student and teacher talk and in a first grade classroom in a Two-Way Immersion school in Central Texas. Drawing on audio and video data from a year-long study in a first grade two-way classroom and using a methodology that fuses ethnography and discourse analysis, the authors will explore how pluralist discourses are constructed and lived in by bilingual students and teachers. These findings have implications for understanding the ways in which teachers and students are influenced by language policy, as well as how they might either support or undermine that policy.

Authors

• Deborah K. Palmer, The University of Texas - Austin

• Leah Duran, The University of Texas - Austin