Pluralist discourses of bilingualism and translanguaging talk in classrooms

Abstract

This paper examines student and teacher talk 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 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.