Power and Play in a Multilingual Carnivalesque Classroom: A Discourse Analysis of Linguistic Play

• In Event: Multilingual Education Across Global Contexts

Proposal

Background & Perspectives

A culture of power where teachers establish what is normal in the classroom is all too common in U.S. classrooms, where English-only policies and a test-centric educational culture influence teacher and multilingual learner student experience (Delpit, 1995; Milner, 2020). What happens when the traditional classroom roles unravel and curriculum design and pedagogy position students as the bearers of knowledge? Using phenomenological and grounded theory lenses (Charmaz, 2000; Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012; Guest et al., 2013), this study investigates how teacher efforts to invite translanguaging, or the fluid movement between all language resources by multilingual individuals, into the classroom can unseat existing power dynamics (García, 2009; García & Kleifgen, 2019).

To ground this inquiry, we turn to the theoretical construction of carnival (Bakhtin, 1984). Some studies capitalize on the multidimensionality of Bakhtin’s conception of carnival, highlighting the benefits of play for second language learning (DaSilva Iddings & McCafferty, 2007). One strand of carnival pertinent to this work is the upheaval of authoritarian rules and structures (Bakhtin, 1984). Carnival’s “opposition to official culture and political authority” (Renfrew, 2014, p. 134) resonates with the ways curriculum and pedagogical decisions can turn into a playful form of protest, blurring language boundaries. In this study, we examine discourse episodes during a lesson utilizing a translanguaging curriculum in which the teacher’s pronunciation of a Spanish word spurred a linguistically unexpected and playful interaction worth investigating further.

Study Context

This discourse data study is situated within a larger pre-existing project, working with teachers of upper elementary and middle grade multilingual students to enact translanguaging curriculum in their classrooms. The context is an after-school Reading Club of fifth grade multilingual students and their teacher in the southeastern United States. Ms. Gerri (pseudonym used to preserve anonymity) is a White female, educator who values translanguaging practices, and is passionate about working with multilingual students. Ms. Gerri’s first language is English and she is learning Spanish but would not call herself bilingual.

The students were either born outside of the United States or in the United States into families from other countries. Students have roots in Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kurdistan, and the United States. Some of the languages spoken in the class other than English are Spanish, Arabic, Somali, Tigrinya, and Ge'ez. These cultural, and by extension linguistic facets of student identity are important to consider when working with discourse data as students enter conversations from these varying contexts.

Within the focal interaction of the transcript (Lines 10-88), the teacher's pronunciation of 'perrito' (‘little dog’ in English) is mistaken for 'pedo' (meaning "fart" in English). In this interaction, we focus on the use of translanguaging and language play as a catalyst for hierarchy and classroom dynamic change.

Methods - Data Sources, Collection, and Analysis

The full learning session is a video record of hour and six-minutes. From the larger session, I chose to select clips where the video recording was directly facing the participant speaking or interacting to ensure that I could analyze the audio alongside any visual components that would provide a fuller description of the scene. Analysis included narrowing data excerpts based off potential themes for analysis. Discourse analysis techniques from Gee (2014) and Fairclough's (2015a) help parse to operationalize codes that captured the multivoiced, multilingual, and multimodal learning taking place in the classroom.

Findings

The playful linguistic exchange during the language lesson revealed characteristics of carnival in this classroom that disrupt traditional classroom norms. The shifts of power stemming from linguistic banter engage different community members and allow for the emergence of translanguaging that is unstructured or spontaneous to emerge. Drawing on Fairclough's (2015b) construct of interpretation for discourse analysis, coding aimed to situate what is going on, who is involved, and to interrogate the role of language.

In this episode, we see a role reversal as the teacher works to make sense of a word in a language other than English. Through questions, Ms. Gerri looks to her students as knowledge bearers. Mirroring social interactions during carnival, there was a suspension of rank, and those who were usually separated by social class, age, and property gathered together in their common humanity (Bakhtin, 1984). Here we see at least a temporary suspension of status and traditional school hierarchy. The teacher is looking for confirmation from students that the name of her dog is in fact not ‘fart’ by learning how to say this word in another language. In this case, students hold the linguistic knowledge the teacher seeks.

Meanwhile, the responses to Ms. Gerri’s question (Line 20) are not the answer she is looking for but instead students begin to add their own linguistic resources to the conversation. It is said that “carnival existed not as a form of agency, but as a reminder that agency was possible” (Renfrew, 2014, p. 135). Gyasi agentically shares "annaz” is the translation of ‘fart’ in his home language, an Arabic dialect. The students act as language contributors, displaying their variety of member resources, and generating interpretations based upon their own understandings (Fairclough, 2015b). The power dynamics at play in this carnivalesque classroom context formed through collaborative practices such as humor, laughter, embodiment, and linguistic exchange.

Significance

The focal discourses stemming from the misinterpretation of a word pronunciation, ultimately lead to translanguaging, which stimulated a shift in the traditional teacher student dynamic. Seemingly, it is the word ‘fart’ spoken in an array of languages that reminds us that learning is unpredictable. Each student enters the environment with different language histories and understandings, which offers opportunity for playful exchanges. Bakhtin writes, “carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; They live in it, and everyone participates because its very idea embraces all the people” (Bakhtin, 1995, p. 198). The playful discourse led to this very heightened participation. This signifies translingual pedagogies and practices as catalysts for classroom functionality, disrupting these cultures of power that exist and embracing student cultural and linguistic repertoires.

Authors

• Rachel Marie Siegman, Vanderbilt University

• Emily Phillips Galloway, Vanderbilt University