Codes, code-switching, and context: Style and footing in peer group bilingual play

Abstract

According to Bernstein (1972), middle-class parents transmit an elaborated code to their children that relies on verbal means, rather than paralinguistic devices or shared assumptions, to express meanings. Bernstein's ideas were used to argue that working-class and linguistically diverse children in the United States were socialized to use a restricted code. Since peer groups as well as parents can be a source of valuable socialization experiences, the present study examines the communicative resources used among members of a peer group of immigrant children of predominantly Mexican heritage enrolled in a bilingual Spanish― English Head Start preschool in California, while the children are engaged in pretend play. The examples illustrate how the children use a range of communicative resources, both explicit verbalization and more paralinguistic means (e.g., code-switching), to signal for one another what constitutes the common activity they are engaged in and the alignments or 'footings' (Goffman 1979) they take to that activity and to each other during the play. The children's communicative resources do not readily fall into a categorization system of 'elaborated' and 'restricted'. The examples suggest ways in which letting bilingual immigrant children use their own peer group style and communicative resources in classrooms may support the children's transition to school-based ways of communicating.