Estructura organizacional

After having created the data sets, which – asas outlined above – involved a lot more effort than I had originally anticipated, I then proceeded to do a first level analysis of the data sets by extracting all the utterances of Stevie and Piper over the span of all data sets and putting them within one single document. I then sought to analyse the record of these two participants only, firstly by using language shifts as contextualisation cues within their linguistic repertoire, derived from Gumperz’ notion of contextualisation cues (1982). It is argued by Nilep (2006, p.9) that language shifts, like contextualisation cues, may “provide a means for speakers to signal how utterances are to be interpreted”. It is acknowledged that contextualisation cues derive from the field of code-switching

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and this study has signalled a shift in theoretical lens at the beginning, with language not being viewed as a monolithic bound entity, but instead as a fluid, dynamic system. The term ‘linguistic repertoire’ requires an understanding not of the usage of separate linguistic codes themselves. Instead, when analysing the linguistic repertoire, one is engaged with the process of showing how different functions of the codes are appropriated and activated by the individual in their simultaneity, each having dialogical interrelations with the other in the meaning-making process. The reference to a “dialogic between codes” is perhaps an overstated analytical device which purists of ‘linguistic repertoire’ studies might argue is more a characteristic of the analyser of the data than of the user of the data.

Since this study challenged the dominant structuralist linguistic paradigm and moved on to a more holistic perspective of how the linguistic repertoire of the multilingual learner develops, the ethnographic perspective overrode the linguistic perspective. As a matter of fact, Blommaert and Jie (2010, p.9) contend that “questions about language take the shape of questions of how language works and operates for, with and by humans-as-social beings”. Moreover, as was highlighted in Chapter Two, this study sees the linguistic repertoire as being embedded within a whole and not existing as a vacuum, as the repertoire is seen to be part of an individual who in turn is embedded within the society at large. Consequently, the deliberate decision was taken to foreground the individual that is the user of the linguistic repertoire rather than the use of the linguistic repertoire in order to generate a fresh perspective on the phenomenon. This resulted in representing the case studies as case studies of the individual’s linguistic repertoire, therefore offering nuanced textured personal accounts, thereafter leading to the abstraction of the linguistic elements. Thus, Stevie and Piper’s world has been represented and analysed taking into account their own individualities. It should also be highlighted that the purpose of a case study is definitionally to be generative rather than present a generalisable finding for all Mauritian learners which is why the data of only two learners were chosen.

The case studies were constructed at two levels. The first level dealt with an impressionistic portrait of the participants by relying largely on my field notes. It went to some extent towards locating the background of the learner participants from the available information within the site of the school context. I interwove into the portraits the teachers’ impressions of the targeted learners as well as the brief profile that the initial teacher who had helped identify the children as potential participants. I also constructed portraits of the secondary participants, i.e., the teachers who

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interacted with the targeted learners, generated from my observations of their classroom interaction, especially with Stevie and Piper.

I have chosen to present these portraits for two main reasons. Firstly, I choose to recreate a feel (Sikes, 2005, p.87) of how their teachers and myself saw Stevie and Piper, and how the relationship between researcher and researched developed. This constituted my own reflexive “memories of field experience” (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000, p.143), engaging with a little more critical summative distance after fieldwork was completed. These portraits had the challenge of representing the learners’ past, the researcher’s (and their teachers’) involvement in the ethnographic moments of production (present) and the more critical (future) oriented interpretation and analysis of the participants.

Martin (2012) argues that one of the difficulties with the representations of written ethnographies of children is “that of giving voice to the participants and representing their emic perspectives” (Martin, 2012, 315). The notion of voicing entails addressing matters about choosing how to present the viewpoints of the children to avoid any hegemony of power distribution. He advises that the researcher/analyser in this research context should be “well-positioned to discern and explain the ways in which asymmetries of power are played out in the lives of (the) participants (…) and to offer pointers as to how to mediate” with this problematic (ibid.).

I chose to do so by not erasing my own voice and signature (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000, p. 149) and by representing the narrative portraits to include my acknowledged role assertively as the first- person narrator allowing my own positonalities to mediate how the context and the situation were being interpreted. In so doing, I also took responsibility as a linguistic ethnographer for the construction of this account (Heller, 2012, p. 251) which is embedded within my own “historically and socially situated subjectivity”. Secondly, I tried to “open (…) up” (Rampton, 2004, p.4) the interpretations produced, by bringing into focus my own and other interpretations of the participants. These significant others included the teachers, the learners and their peers who consolidated the data generated in the fieldwork. Our multiple voices were consciously presented in these representational analyses.

Albeit looking at the learners’ individualities, an attempt was also made to draw out a comparison between the two case studies. The particularity of a linguistic ethnography study being the use of discourse analysis strategies at the data analysis stage, various linguistic ethnographers have chosen to work with distinctive discourse analysis strategies depending on the phenomenon under

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study (Maybin and Tursting, 2011). For this study, I made use of the nexus analysis of the Scollons (2001, 2004, 2008), which focuses on how discourse is mediated through the intersection of language, semiotic as well as material tools. For this study, I chose to use more specifically their concept of bodies. Thus, ‘(b)odies’ as a term was appropriated from the Scollon and Wong Scollon’s (2007) theory of Nexus analysis, which was used as analytical framework in this study and their usage of the term ‘historical body’. According to Blommaert (2013, p.30), ‘the Scollons’ preference for material aspects of discourse “(..) makes them choose the body rather than the mind as the locus for (…) individual experiences”. The concept of “historical bodies” was deemed appropriate to this study as within each interaction that occurred in this study, bodies came in contact, ‘bring(ing) along their own skills, experiences and competences’ together (Scollon & and Wong Scollon, 2004, p.46). Recognising each body as “the life experiences of the individual social actors” (ibid.)’ enriches the understanding of how the linguistic repertoire develops. Thus, in this study, the learners as well as the teachers were seen as historical bodies bringing with them their life trajectories and histories which in turn shaped their utterance when they interacted with each other, also explaining the choice of foregrounding the representationrepresention of the individuals’ linguistic repertoire as case studies rather than extracting the purpose, contexts as well as interlocutors within which the utterance was produced.

The concept of bodies was also merged with the linguistic landscape (LLS) framework of Blommaert (2014). Blommaert (2013) claims that

physical space is also social, cultural and political space: a space that offers, enables, triggers, invites, prescribes, proscribes, polices or enforces certain patterns of social behavior: a space that is never no-man’s-land, but always somebody’s space; a historical space, therefore, full of codes, expectations, norms and traditions: and a space of power controlled by, as well as controlling, people (p.3).

He further goes on to expound on the theory of a genuinely materialist theory of signs within the linguistic landscape analytical framework, defining it as a theory of the

semiotics that sees signs not as primarily mental and abstract phenomena reflected in ‘real’ moments of enactment, but (which) sees signs as material forced subject to and reflective of conditions of production and patterns of distribution, and as constructive of social reality, as real social agents having real effects in social life (Blommaert, 2013, p.38). The classroom was seen as such a space, a space which has been historically constructed and which constructs set patterns and norms for the bodies which occupy it; therefore, this concept was used when analysing the interactional data that was produced. Space as well as the bodies present,

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namely the learners, the teachers as well as the semiotised object/feature that characterised the speech of each learner within the interactional speech acts were looked deeply into. Moreover, the classroom linguistic landscape was also analysed keeping in mindmind the argument of Blommaert, Collins and Slembrouck (2005) who claim that situations which are defined by how space and place are construed of and constructed influence the language practices of individuals. These frameworks helped to come up with the different categories at the level of the context which shaped the utterance. Hence, the concept of space and bodies led to the categories of the two domains within which the utterance was produced and the interlocutors which formed part of the speech act.

Also, the concept of “the semiotised object/feature”,” which refer to a dominant use of a particular chosen linguistic form that the participants favoured, was set up as the third category shaping the learners’ linguistic repertoire. Within the category of space, a distinction was made between the formal domain – which was further classified into the different taught lesson environments, led by different teachers – and informal domains, which refer to utterance produced within and outside of the classroom. This variety of spaces allowed the breadth and scope of the learners’ linguistic repertoires to be presented. Table Three (See Part Two) shows the variety of contexts within which the data was produced, as well as the interlocutors present and how they will be represented in the following chapters.

Thus, thet first level analysis which looked at language shift as contextualisation cue was in the case of Stevie analysed within different categories created for him and which took into account the different spaces within the school where it was produced, notably within the KM classroom and the EP classroom. Further categories were then created to look at the data in light of the different speech interlocutors of the interaction, with notably the four teachers who worked with the participants, their classmates and myself, to be able to study the diverse instances of production language practices (To be discussed in Chapter Four). In Piper’s case, the analysis has been broken down into one category which looks at instances of her interaction with the four teachers who taught her regardless of whether it was a KM or EP class, and another category which will look at Piper’s language practices in an episodic way (To be discussed in Chapter Five).

In the case of this study, after having analysed atthisat the first level the contextualisation cues and categorised them as explained above, this study also moved on to an eclectic mix of analytical strategies. Hence, I used the Bakhtinian (1981, 1986, 1994) concept of heteroglossia and voice to

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deepen the scope of the analysis. Bakhtinian discursive analysis sees language as a living and dynamic entity and looks at the “co-existence and struggle between diverse social languages and between centripetal and centrifugal forces” (Blackledge and Creese, 2010, p.126). Moreover, Bakhtin’s notion of voice sustains that within an utterance, the voices of others are brought forward to demonstrate how voices relate to other voices (Blackledge: 2005; Luk, 2008; Blackledge and Creese, 2010). Blackledge and Creese (2010, p.126) argue that according to Bakhtin, all our discourses are already embedded within the discourses of others and that our voices contain voices of others and that “discourse bears the traces of the voices of others, is shaped by them, responds to them, contradicts them or confirms them, and in one way or the other evaluates them”. Therefore, the dialogicality within the different discourses embedded within the discourse of the learners was one of the foci of the analysis. This therefore ensured moving to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon under study, and allowed me to identify the different macro- contextsmacrocontexts which shaped the data.

Furthermore, the theory of discourse genres was also used to look at the interactional acts of the learners. According to Lefstein and Snell,“discourse genres encompass multiple social and semiotic dimensions. These include thematic content, compositional structure, styles, lexical items, interactional roles and norms, interpersonal relations, and evaluative frames, among others. (2011, p.41).”

Moreover, basing themselves on the way Bakhtin used the term, they argue that discourse genres “serve both as resources for fashioning utterances and as constraints upon the way those utterances are understood and judged by others” (ibid.). Consequently, the genres that shaped the repertoire of the learners were also looked into whilst analysing the data produced.

Hence, the data has been analysed within this eclectic mix of analytical frameworks to be strongly engaged with the context within which the multiplicity of meaning has been produced. Consequently, these various frameworks of Bakthtin, Blommaert and Scollons provide a means to probe the data to shed light on the critical questions asked by this study. In the next section and in a reflexive attempt to show how the data was produced, I will put forth my own positioning in the study. This will be done to ensure better validity, reliability and trustworthiness.