Communicative Acts Used by Emergent Trilingual Pupils in English Classrooms in the Basque Autonomous Community

Amaia Fernández,Pilar Sagasta,Nagore Ipiña

doi:10.3390/languages4030060

Abstract

This research aims at examining the communicative acts (CA) performed by Grade 5 emergent trilingual pupils in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) in northern Spain when interacting in the English classroom. Likewise, it examines translanguaging practices when performing CA to analyze whether pupils deploy similar linguistic resources (LR) regardless of the CA they enact. Moreover, it investigates whether pupils from different sociolinguistic contexts behave similarly. Preliminary results suggest that Grade 5 pupils taking part in this study enact CA related to inviting elaboration or reasoning, expressing or inviting ideas, guiding direction of dialogue or activity, positioning and coordination, and showing understanding by using LR coming from different linguistic systems (mostly English and Basque) when interacting in the English classroom across sociolinguistic areas.

Highlights

Translanguaging is a relatively new term that was first used by Cen Williams in 1994 inWales concerning a pedagogical strategy observed in the Welsh classrooms. Baker (2011) defined translanguaging as a process to make meaning, shape experiences, acquire understanding and knowledge through the use of two languages, and Cenoz and Gorter (2017) drew the difference between pedagogical and spontaneous translanguaging
Addressing our first research question, the analysis suggests that participants in this study mostly performed communicative acts (CA) concerning inviting elaboration or reasoning, expressing or inviting ideas, guiding direction of dialogue or activity, positioning and coordination, and showing understanding
CA are closely related to the type of activities performed in the English classroom and the patterns of interaction involved in such activities

Summary

Introduction

Translanguaging is a relatively new term that was first used by Cen Williams in 1994 inWales concerning a pedagogical strategy observed in the Welsh classrooms. Baker (2011) defined translanguaging as a process to make meaning, shape experiences, acquire understanding and knowledge through the use of two languages, and Cenoz and Gorter (2017) drew the difference between pedagogical and spontaneous translanguaging. This paper focuses on spontaneous translanguaging and examines the discursive practices (Cenoz and Gorter 2017) of emergent trilinguals in the English classroom, because as Canagarajah (2011) states, research is needed to investigate how multilingual speakers combine codes in their discursive practices These trilingual pupils have three languages in the curriculum: Basque, Spanish, and English, and their schools are situated in two different sociolinguistic areas. Cenoz and Gorter (2017) analyzed translanguaging in the context of minority regional languages and examined whether it could be a threat or an opportunity for minority languages They state that spontaneous translanguaging is common practice in the case of bilingual speakers. They claim that people involved in the maintenance of these regional languages may fear that their language will lose prominence and they advocate to soften borders between languages in a sustainable way

Objectives

Methods

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Conclusion