Language values and identities: Code switching in secondary classrooms in Malta

Abstract

This article looks at language practices in secondary classrooms in Malta. It shows how teachers and learners employ code switching between Maltese and English as a communicative resource in constructing knowledge across the curriculum, in interacting with monolingual English texts, and in building relationships with one another. The article also places these bilingual discursive practices against the historical and social background of the islands. It shows how teachers attend to the symbolic values associated with Maltese and English in their classroom conversations with learners. It shows that they do so in two ways. First, Maltese is used to convey friendliness and warmth and to reduce the social distance between the teacher and the learners, although English remains the language of the textbook, and its use increases the social distance between the participants. Secondly, because exclusive use of Maltese is associated with linguistic purism in the Maltese context and exclusive use of English is associated with snobbism, code switching constitutes a means of avoiding being dubbed as either purist or snob. Code switching by the Maltese teachers in the classroom contexts considered here needs to be seen not only as a communicative resource for accomplishing lessons but also as a means of constructing specific professional identities: using enough English to appear “educated” but, at the same time, espousing a Maltese identity.