“Ganchulinas” in “Rainbowli” Colors: Young Multilingual Children Play With Language

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

Abstract

This paper examines the language practices in a bilingual Head Start classroom in order to learn more about the ways in which young multilingual children develop and learn language from each other. I focus on two emergent bilingual girls and the ways in which their language practices are influenced by and influence their peers. Each of the girls introduces an invented word to the classroom, ‘ganchulina’ and ‘rainbowli’. In this paper I examine the ways in which the girls introduce the words into the classroom, how their classmates and teachers adopt and utilize the words and how the language ideologies in the classroom community allow children to draw upon their linguistic resources in flexible ways to support their language development.

Author

• Ysaaca Axelrod, Clemson University