Multilevel analysis of two-way immersion classroom discourse

CARRANZA, ISOLDA E.; ALATIS, JAMES E.; STRAEHLE, CAROLYN A.; GALLENBERGER, BRENT; RONKIN, MAGGIE

Linguistics and the Education of Language Teachers: Etnolinguistic, Psycholinguistic, and Sociolinguistic Aspects

Georgetown University Press

Lugar: Washington, D.C.; Año: 1995; p. 169 - 187

Ethnographic observations show concrete ways in which situations outside schools are translated into practices of the social actors inside schools. Only student-initiated exchanges are considered for an analysis of the link between Frames and code choice. Official frame: It manifests itself in talk that is itself a classroom task (e.g. an oral presentation in front of the class) or an inherent part of the performance of a classroom task (e.g. students´ talk about what they find in the textbook as answers to write on their worksheets), also in talk instrumental to the performance of a classroom task (e.g. asking for instructions), and when the official frame defines the talk as oriented to a practical outcome but not the lesson task itself. Factors influencing code choice: The influence of student´s proficiency level, addressee, and classroom rules on code choice in asymmetrical and in symmetrical interactions. The speech-event level: The ritual aspects of classroom management, Indirectness and Metatalk, and The degree of saliency of form.The language-economy level: Minority-language background students. Implications for instructional and institutional practice.The aspects described at the language-economy level touch upon issues that are at the core of diversity in the population. Contingencies in exchanges are sensitive to conditions imposed by a higher-order reality, the speech event, and the characteristics of the speech event are sensitive to the the existence of values in the language economy.