Can I be with? : Negotiating play entry in a bilingual school

ELSEVIER Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 515-543

www.elsevier.nl/locate/pragma

Can I be with? : Negotiating play entry in a bilingual school*

Jakob Cromdal*

Department of Child Studies, Linkiiping University, S-58183 Linkaping, Sweden .

Received 14 April 1999; revised version 18 October 1999

Abstract ‘,

This paper examines children’s procedures for entering play activities in a bilingual school context. While most previous research has focused on individual ‘access strategies’ .and their outcomes for peer group participation, the present study argues for a dialogic approach, .par- titularly stressing the collaborative work involved in such interactions. mYdepth analyses of entry episodes highlight a number of interactive resources, some of them closely related to the bilingual setting. These resources are discussed in terms of their local anchoring in the discourse structure, as well as in terms of participants’ orientations to their functions. On this view, bilingualism is cast as a socially distributed phenomenon, managed in the local organization of play entry negotiations. 0 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Social interaction; Conversation analysis; Bilingualism; Children’s play

1. Introduction

In studies of child discourse, play routines are commonly recognized as important contexts for interpretation and production of actions (Corsam, 1985, 1986;.1997; Garvey, 1984, 1991; M. H. Goodwin, 1990; Ochs, 1988). This may’be even more pronounced among young second language learners, as pointed out by Win-Tripp (1986) and Hatch et al. (1979) who suggest that participation in .peergroup, activities should have a positive influence on children’s acquisition of a second language.

* Thanks are due to Karin Aronsson, Ann-Carita Evaldsson and Michael Tholander for helpful corn- ments on an earlier draft. Financial support-by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (Grant #96- 0639:01-02) is gratefully acknowledged. * Phone: +46 13 282907;.Fax: +46 13 282900; E-mail: [email protected]

0378-2166/01/$ - see front matter 0 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: SO378-2166(99)00131-9

516 J. Cromdal I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 515-543

Stressing the repetitive and, therefore, often predictable nature of certain games, Ervin-Tripp (1986) shows how such routines provide a ‘scaffold’ for the understanding and production of second language speech in early learners.

However, studies of monolingual children’s management of peer group activities show that children frequently protect their interactive space and activities from intruders, i.e., non-participating children (Corsaro, 1985, 1986; Garvey, 1984; Emi- hovich, 1981), sometimes resulting in elaborate negotiations of entry (see Sheldon, 1996). The study at hand deals with children’s procedures for play entry in a bilingual environment, or more specifically, in a school setting where English and Swedish are routinely used to accomplish everyday interactions. In particular, it will be demonstrated how a number of interactive resources are drawn upon in play entry negotiations, the availability of two languages being one of them.

2. Access rituals and peer group play

Ethnographic research conducted in play groups has shown that children are very restrictive in granting non-participants entry into ongoing play activities. Various explanations have been offered for these findings, for instance, the vulnerability of coordinated social events in peer groups, where shared activities easily become changed or terminated as new participants are accepted (Corsaro, 1985, 1986). Also, denying children access to play may serve to establish, sustain as well as display mutual engagement in the ongoing activity for the participants (Garvey, 1984), or to display close friendship among children (Emihovich, 1981). Whatever the reason, it seems that the child planning on entering an ongoing peer play activity is likely to face substantial difficulties, and may have to engage in socially sensitive negotiations in order to reach his/her goal. In fact, negotiations of play entry often border on disputes and other conflict situations (Putallaz and Sheppard, 1992; Sheldon, 1996).

Given this state of affairs, one would expect children to develop rather elaborate means for joining ongoing peer activities. Accordingly, in a classic study of access rituals among preschool children, Corsaro (1979) identified 15 ‘access strategies’. These strategies ranged from non-linguistic approaches like ‘Non-verbal entry’ and Producing variant of ongoing behavior’ to verbal strategies of a more negotiative character like ‘Suggesting other activity’ or ‘Reference to individual characteristics’. Since initial attempts to join an activity were frequently turned down, children often employed multiple strategies over several rounds. Closer analysis of the patterning of strategies revealed further insights into the organization of access rituals; for example, it seemed to be a consistent pattern that children initially attempted a nonverbal entry and that verbal strategies were most often employed in later phases of the access sequence. Furthermore, it was found that the best odds for gaining access to peer play were attained by producing a variant of the behavior displayed by the participants.

Somewhat similar points have been made. by several developmentally-oriented researchers. In a series of controlled studies, Putallaz (1983) and Putallaz and Gottman (198 1) investigated the relation between sociometric status and behavior in

.I. Cromdal I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 515-543 517

group entry situations. These studies are cited by Garvey (1984), who discusses a number of successful as well as unsuccessful strategies for gaining entry into peer groups. She goes on to describe some individual abilities related to successful group entry : “to understand the structuring of the group’s activities, to recognize what is going on, and to produce well-timed entry bids that accommodate the group’s involvement” (Garvey, 1984: 166). The above findings were corroborated by Dodge et al. (1983), who also present a model of children’s social competence in group entry situations. According to this model, children use one or several tactics (i.e., sets of strategies) to gain entry. When multiple tactics are used, the child will initially make use of those tactics that seem to involve a low risk of rejection (e.g., copying the ongoing activity or producing group-oriented expressions), then, if this proves unsuccessful, move on to high-risk tactics (e.g., attention getting or behaviors disrupting the ongoing activity). The most successful tactics proved to be those that “keep the focus of attention on the peer group activity while integrating the entering child into the group” (1983 : 33 1) thus supporting the findings of the other controlled studies as well as Corsaro’s (1979) ethnographic observations.

As indicated above, several researchers have addressed issues related to children’s peer-group entry, often in terms of generalized features of individuals’ social skills, or typologies of strategies employed by individual participants. In a more recent review of social psychological approaches to children’s management of conflict, Putallaz and Sheppard (1992) indicate several problems with making general descriptions of successful play entry behavior and stress the need for microanalytic approaches in the study of these and other conflict situations, suggesting that the focus be shifted to explore “how various settings and groups require different socially appropriate and desirable behaviors of children” (1992: 352). I will suggest that a further step needs to be taken, by focusing on the interactive aspects of such sequences and by viewing the negotiations as a joint accomplishment between the party seeking entry, and the party striving to protect the ongoing activity from new participants. Whether based on elicited behavior in semi-controlled studies or on ethnographic observations of children, studies dedicated to the development of tax- onomies of discourse strategies frequently neglect these aspects. Thus, while Cor- saro’s (1979) pioneering study does analyze play entry episodes in terms of access strategies and responses as sequentially organized social processes, it does not capture the co-constructive (Jacoby and Ochs, 1995) and collaborative nature of the work involved in these episodes. A further aspect of this issue may be noted in Cor- sat-o’s dichotomized classification of responses (play entry either granted or denied), which is in strong contrast to his rather elaborate categorization of access strategies. This reveals an analytical bias in favor of one party’s discourse contributions, a bias which obscures a significant part of the interaction. A more dialogic (cf. Linell, 1998) approach to play entry was presented in a study of American nursery school children’s disputes (Corsaro and Rizzo, 1990). Here, multifunctional aspects of children’s verbal actions, including issues of collaboration, are discussed, providing a deeper understanding of access disputes as shared activities.

In recent years, collaborative aspects of meaning construction have become a central issue in studies of child discourse. An important line of reasoning in these


studies is that meaning is co-constructed in discourse through children’s exploitation of various local resources, such as the sequential organization of interaction (M. H. Goodwin, 1990, 1995; Goodwin and Goodwin, 1990; Streeck, 1986; Thorell, 1998; Wootton, 1998) or various forms of participation (Goffman, 1981; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Maynard, 1986; see also Aronsson, 1996, for a general review of collaboration studies). However, few discourse analytic investigations deal explicitly with children’s negotiations of play entry. One such study is provided by Sheldon (1996), who presents an account of two girls collaborating in keeping a third girl out of their family-play by assigning her the role of a yet-unborn baby brother. Shel- don’s analysis nicely captures how power, status, but also reciprocity are subtly negotiated through coordinated oppositional moves during this play entry event. A very different picture of play entry interactions takes shape in Danby and Baker’s (1998) analysis of boys’ gatekeeping activities in the block area of a preschool classroom. Here, the boys engaged in ritualized conflicts, in which oppositional stances were collaboratively enacted, for instance through threats of violence often accom- panied by displays of bodily size, physical strength, etc. According to the authors, these gatekeeping disputes constitute gender practices through which notions of mas- culinity are constructed as well as reproduced. Collaborative issues were also discussed in Whalen’s (1995) conversational analytic account of a pretend play episode in a mixed-sex group of four children. Her detailed analysis of the interaction illustrates how children’s attempts to collaborate in a play entry episode failed, resulting in one of the players being shut off from the play materials, without explicit exclu- sion from the play activity.

3. Peer play in multilingual settings

The studies reviewed above represent a wide range of approaches to the issue of children’s group entry, with respect to theoretical interests, empirical materials, as well as analytical procedures. The one common feature of these studies is that they take place in monolingual settings. Yet, one might well wonder how children’s entry procedures are managed in contexts where the interactive resources available to participants entail more than one language.

While it has previously been suggested that participation in peer group activities is one important resource for foreign language learning (cf. Ervin-Tripp, 1986; Hatch et al., 1979), we can also imagine that such participation constitutes one important object of children's foreign language learning. Thus, it would seem reasonable that some basic skills for gaining entry into peer activities are acquired fairly early in L2 acquisition. Support for this assumption may be found, for instance, in a case study reported by Palotti (19%), who noted that many of the first phrases learned by a Moroccan child in an Italian preschool served the function of gaining access to peer interaction.

Another issue relevant to any discussion of bilingual talk is that of code-switching, or ‘the juxtaposition within the same speech exchange of passages of speech belonging to different grammatical systems or subsystems’ (Gumperz, 1982: 59).

J. Cromdal I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) SI5-543 519

Today, the predominant approach in sociolinguistic and ethnographic research is to treat code-switching as a resource for accomplishing a variety of communicative goals (e.g., Blum-Kulka, 1997; Gumperz, 1982; Heller, 1988; Mashler, 1991; Zen- tella, 1997). Although much research has been devoted to descriptions of various pragmatic functions of code-switching (see Romaine, 1995, for a review), few attempts have been made to investigate children’s use of this bilingual resource. However, in an interesting study of code-switching among Turkish immigrant children in a Danish school, Jorgensen (1998) shows how some children successfully exploited notions of minority/majority language in local struggles for power. Such modes of ‘power wielding’ were shown to serve the purpose of winning or terminat- ing disputes, organizing joint activities and controlling verbal interaction. With these findings in mind, we may ask about the strategic potential of code-switching in negotiations of play entry.

Summing up, I have claimed that most previous studies of peer group entry may be seen as monologic, in that researchers have focused on (sets of) strategies used by the children seeking entry into peer activities. Moreover, the use of such strategies has often been seen as indicative of individuals’ social competence. In contrast to such approaches, the present study will highlight the dialogic nature of entry procedures, suggesting that entering peer play is a necessarily shared activity and that any outcome must be considered a joint accomplishment.

Another branch of studies has argued for the facilitative role of peer play participation in second language acquisition, stressing, by implication, the importance of successful play entry. While fully acknowledging the merits of these pioneering studies, it may be pointed out that the very act of gaining access to peer play is a peer group activity and may be worthy of study in its own right. As will soon become evident, entry procedures frequently evolve into discourse episodes in which various issues may become subject to negotiations over a number of turns, ranging from routinely used formulae to more sophisticated and interactively coordinated (series of) arguments. Therefore, it seems reasonable to suggest that participation in these negotiations should be relevant for children’s development of social, linguistic and interactive skills, independent of the actual outcome of the negotiation. The paper at hand investigates, in some detail, the interactive and collaborative nature of play entry episodes taking place in a setting where two languages are routinely used to carry out everyday interactions. What bilingual resources are involved in play entries and what interactive work may be accomplished by their use?

4. Method

In the introduction above, a few theoretical issues were noted to motivate the study of play entry in a bilingual environment. There are also methodological reasons for this line of inquiry. First, negotiating play entry was a frequently recurring activity at the school and all children participating in the study took part in entry negotiations on several occasions. Each day in the field rendered recordings of several negotiation episodes. The task of gaining entry into play activities, thus, constitutes


an emically relevant aspect of the children’s social lives. Second, the act of negotiating play entry is socially salient. Although an entry negotiation may begin and end in a variety of ways, in practice there is seldom any doubt as to when a negotiation event is initiated or terminated, an aspect as relevant for the children as for the analyst.

4.1. Linguistic setting and participants

The study reported here was carried out in an English school in Sweden, where the local language policy promoted the use of English for interactions between children and the staff, as well as any ‘on stage’ classroom interactions. No attempts were made to control interchild conversations with regard to language choice, and such conversations were often conducted using either of the two or both languages. In essence, the school can be characterized as a highly bilingual environment.

26 girls and 14 boys aged 6 to 8.5 years participated in the project. Nearly half of the children were born in Sweden and have at least one Swedish speaking parent. The second largest group of participants comprised immigrant children from various parts of the world. These children share one linguistic feature, namely that they spent their early years in a bilingual environment, where a variety of English and a non- Scandinavian language was spoken. Another group of children were, upon their arrival in Sweden, monolingual speakers of a (European or Transatlantic) variety of English. A final group of children had experience of neither English nor Swedish, upon arrival in Sweden. At the time of the study, a majority of these children had developed sufficient English skills to be able to participate in most everyday activities. Thus, the children participating in the study represent a broad combination of linguistic backgrounds, and it is this very plurality that provides for the richness of bilingual resources in the present data.

4.2. Data collection and analysis

Data were collected by the author (henceforth JC), who followed the participating children around different locations on the schoolground, audio- and/or video-record- ing the interactions that took place during various play activities. The audio-recordings were further complemented by fieldnotes, comprising varied contextual information.

The corpus of data used in the present analysis covers approximately 20 hours of audio- and video-taped interaction in play-related episodes during recess. The entire material has been examined several times by the author and indexed for the types of activity in which the children were engaged and other properties, such as participants, the language(s) used and so on. For the present analysis, instances were selected in which children approached ongoing play activities and made contact with any of the participating children, or otherwise indicated interest in the activity. These instances were then transcribed according to recent conversation analytic conventions (e.g., Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998), with slight modifications to fit the bilingual nature of the data (see Appendix). The primary resource employed in

J. Cromdal I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 515-543 521

analyzing these interactions was their sequential organization. This analytical stance is based on the theoretical conception of human discourse as a shared activity, where mutually recognizable interactional tasks are carried out through sequentially coordinated actions, in which participants employ a variety of culturally available resources.

5. Entering peer play in a bilingual context

5.1. Negotiating role position

As noted earlier, several studies of group entry have shown that children tend to protect ongoing play activities from non-participants trying to join in (Corsaro, 1985, 1986; Garvey, 1984; Sheldon, 1996). The present data show that, whereas in many play activities this seems to be the case, other activities are not very strongly protected. This appears to be particularly true in games which entail tasks or roles that are commonly considered less desirable. Consider the following examples of playing jump rope:

(1) [mia, ma and &ta are preparing for playing jump rope.]/Vyr2; 1;560&11507/ 1 ((All three girls are laughing as Talia looses her shoe. 2 Hector approaches from behind)) 3 + Hec: hey girls can I be with? 4 Tin: o okey 5 Rit: >you get to hold.< 6 Tin: yeah you hold there 7A ((pointing at Talia’s end of 8A the rope))

(2) [ma, ma and E&a are jumping rope. Teresa joins in.] 1 ((Girls jumping and laughing)) 2 + Ter: (hej) va giir ni Fiir t&t? (hi) what’re you doing? 3 Tin: hoppar jumping 4 ((Teresa steps forward to 5 Tina and receives the end of 6 the rope))

The above transcripts show two comparatively easy entries, and I want to suggest that the reason for this ease may be found in the organization of the specific activity. To jump rope, a minimum of three players is required in order to carry out two essential tasks : twirling, which requires two children and jumping, which frequently involves a larger number of players. Examination of a number of jump rope episodes revealed that most (but not all) children preferred jumping to twirling. This preference is clearly demonstrated in excerpt (1) above, where the candidate is assigned the twirling task immediately upon acceptance (lines 5 and 6). In addition, Rita produces the first assignment in a markedly fast pace, as if to wave any hope Hector


may have of getting to jump right away. She is immediately backed up by Tina, who produces a second, more specific, assignment, pointing to the proper end of the rope. I would like to suggest that through this sequence, the two girls collaboratively show their stance on two points: (i) that twirling is less desirable than jumping (cf. Evalds- son and Corsaro, 1998) and (ii) that it is common practice to exploit newcomers as twirlers. This, I believe, should account for Hector’s comparatively easy entry into this play activity.

The second excerpt above demonstrates even more clearly the practice of using newcomers as twirlers, as Teresa takes on the task of twirling without any explicit assignment from the other participants. Note that she does not actually ask to join in. Rather she asks about the type of activity going on, something which is obvious to everybody present. Through this action, she displays her interest in joining the play. Continuing this line of argument, Tina’s response should not be seen as providing new information about their game; rather it works as a clearance for Teresa to join in.

Although children seldom face any objections when attempting to join the rope jumping, for the reasons suggested above, they still engage in some form of entry procedure minimally involving an entry bid from the candidate. Such minimal entry procedures show routine-like properties and have to do with a general preference for solicited entry when joining ongoing peer play. By producing entry bids even when attempting to join an activity where entry refusals are rare, children publicly orient to this preference. Although nonsolicited entries were quite rare in the present material, when they did occur they were always reprimanded, as exemplified below:

(3) [Andreas, bdor and hderik are playing on a jungle gym. ml is approaching, followed by &nrik]/Vinf; 1;00250-00420/ 1 Fre: ((climbing down)) I’m the shark 2 ((Andreas is climbing up again; as 3 he reaches the top Paul comes up 4 at the foot)) 5 And: huh ye:ah 6 + Pau: I’m playin with you gu:ys (1.5) 7 ((looking up at Andreas)) that’s 8 dangerous. (.) I’m not sure if I 9 can do that 10 + Hen: I cando that. 11 ((Henrik comes up and starts climbing)) 12 Teo: HE:Y We’re so much (.5) this is 13 OUrbQ&

14 Hen: (I’ll) be n?i:ce (1) >I’m gonna get 15 up there I’m gonna get up there< 16 ((Teodor climbs down, standing in 17 the sand, next to the gym)) 18 Teo: (you) didn’t ask us if you’re wi:th 19 Pau: ((to Andreas)) I can’t do that 20 And: I can do that ((starts climbing)) 21 see it’s easy 22 ((Hemik climbs down from the jungle gym))


Although the boys in the transcript above play together on an almost daily basis, we can see that prior to mounting the jungle gym, Paul produces an entry bid in line 6. This is followed by a pause, during which any objections from the other participants may be raised. As this does not happen, he starts to climb the jungle gym, commenting on Andreas’ success in reaching the top (lines 7-g). This topic is taken up by Hemik, who has just come up to the climbing frame. Starting to climb, he declares that he can in fact climb to the top (line 10). However, he immediately meets resistance from Teodor, who objects to his entry, justifying the objection by stating that the jungle gym is getting overcrowded. This is not really true, and the fact that there is plenty of empty space is obvious to everyone present. This may account for Teodor’s expansion of the refusal (this is our boat), through which he wards off a possible argument in the next turn. Although it would be easy for Hen- rik to dispute Teodor’s initial claim in line 12 by pointing to the obvious, that there is in fact plenty of room, Teodor’s new definition of the jungle gym complicates matters for Hemik. Who is to decide on the capacity of a boat? Certainly, it would seem a difficult task for a non-participant to argue about this matter. Thus, Teodor’s definitional maneuver substantiates his first claim, i.e., that the place is occupied. Moreover, it implies that he, as part of the crew, is in a position to make this kind of decision. This manifestation of rights is clearly acknowledged by Henrik, who does not argue Teodor’s position in this matter. Rather, using a soft tone of voice, he com- mits himself to being nice while on the boat. The absence of objections during a second-long pause following this commitment is interpreted by Hemik as a ‘green light’ for joining the play, as he returns to climbing the ‘boat’, declaring at the same time that he is heading for the top. On seeing this, Teodor climbs down. Standing in the sand, which may parenthetically be seen as a ‘time out’ with respect to the boat play, he accuses Hemik of not asking for permission to join in.

Obviously, Teodor’s problem with Henrik’s participation no longer concerns the capacity of the boat. Rather, in contrast to Paul, who joined in just seconds earlier, Henrik seems to have violated some aspect of what the children consider a proper entry. What differences then, can be observed between the two boys’ entry procedures? Although many reasons might be offered, e.g., in terms of interpersonal rela- tions, I would like to suggest two differences related to the very procedures employed in negotiating entry into this particular play activity. It is clear that whereas Paul’s entry bid is followed by a pause (lines 6-7), during which he looks up at the other players before starting to climb, Hemik does both things simultane- ously, that is, he produces what may be seen as an indirect entry bid (Z can do that) as he steps up onto the jungle gym. Thus, although nothing was actually said in response to Paul’s bid, his pause provided the other children an opportunity to respond. As such it was not merely an empty pause; rather, it filled a significant interactive purpose, related to the set of values that informs the children’s everyday conduct, namely that children engaged in joint play have the right to decide if a non- participant may enter the activity. In contrast to Paul, Henrik’s entry left no time for the participants to acknowledge the bid and was subsequently responded to as a violation of a shared preference. A second explanation may be offered: although the data suggest that Paul’s I’m playing with you guys is treated as an acceptable entry


bid, we should consider the possibility that Henrik’s I can do that is not only badly timed with respect to his climbing actions but also too indirect to be interpreted as an entry bid altogether. If this is the case, Henrik’s actions may be seen as those of a legitimate participant. Without this status being granted by the others, his entry may be seen as illicit. I see no empirical basis for supporting one interpretation over the other, as Teodor’s accusation in line 18 supports both interpretations. Whether we accept the explanations separately or in combination, it is clear that Henrik’s actions cause a conflict related to the appropriate procedures for entering peer

play. So far, it has been demonstrated that not all play activities are hard to enter. Thus,

the claim that children routinely “attempt to protect the activity and interactive space from the access attempts of other children” (Corsaro, 1985: 238) may be somewhat refined by taking into account the local organization of the play activities and, more specifically, children’s preferences as to the tasks/actions that constitute these activities. It has also been shown that, even when entering play activities where little or no resistance is made by the participants, candidate children orient, through their entry procedures, to a shared preference, namely that the participants should be given the opportunity to respond before play is entered. It has finally been demonstrated in some detail how a violation of this preference may be sanctioned. Although the present data provide numerous examples of very uncomplicated play entry sequences, a majority of the cases shows that somewhat more elaborate negotiations are called for when entering activities in progress. The rest of this paper will deal exclusively with such sequences.

5.2. Agent work in play entry

The following excerpts illustrate collaboration phenomena related to the notion of different participation formats (cf. Goffman, 1981) in entry negotiations, for which I propose the label ‘agent work’. In the simplest case, a child (or, on extremely rare occasions, an adult) may act as agent to argue a candidate’s case during entry procedures. Consider the transcript below:

(4) [kna, Alice, Rachel, my and &ne are playing princesses, as &tra, J&anna and another girl slowly approach]/Vyrl; 1;05910-10013/ 1 Rat: I’m up ((climbing the railing)) 2 Ire: okej (S) jag iinskar (S) att okey (S) I wish (.5) that 3 jag 6) I 6) 4 + Pet: GEENA (.) f&r dom va me: GEENA (.) can they play 5 Gee : “(-) 6 ((the three girls gather around 7 the railing, occupied by Irene 8 and Rachel)) 9 Grl: riktiga princesser kan ocks6 real princesses can 10 (hoppa). (jump) too 11 Ire: “(e du me)’ ‘(are you playin)” 12 Pet: jahhh yehhh

13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

J. Cromdd I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 51.5-543 525

Gee: DOM TVA E OCKSA PRINCESSOR DA

Ali: dom tvi ocksii? Grl: ((shouts))

THESE TWO ARE PRINCESSES TOO THEN these two as well?

Gee: <dam tv4 e ocksb (.) <these two are also> (.) [princessor [princesses [((shouting as Petra falls down the railing))

Jen: PETRA (.5) dumma Petra PETRA (.5) silly Petra

As Petra, Johanna and a third girl are approaching the group, Petra calls out to one

of the participants, Geena, asking for pexrnission to join in, on behalf of the other girls (line 4). Note that she is not merely including the two girls in an attempt to enter the play herself, rather she is excluding herself from the bid. In other words, she is acting as an agent on the other girls’ behalf. This is also how the request is interpreted by Geena; when granting access to the play in line 5, only the two other girls are included, as becomes evident in lines 13-20. Although Petra is actually offered entry to the play and accepts (lines 11 and 12), this is not recognized by the other girls, perhaps due to the low audibility of Irene’s invitation. Jn effect, when Petra starts playing on the railing, she is reprimanded by Jenny in line 20. Paren- thetically, it can be mentioned that this evolves into a more serious problem, eventu- ally resulting in Rachel and Jenny leaving the play.

Although the kind of entry exemplified above occurred on several occasions in the present study, a more common form of agent work is demonstrated in the next example, in which the agent includes himself in the deal:

(5) &nrik, Robert, mf and &II are playing ‘king’, which is a variant of the more widely known ‘foursquare’. Other participants: Meas, U.]/Vyrl; 1; 13924- 14410/ 1 ((Teodor approaches the court)) 2 Rob: ((from a distance)) but I sa [id (x) 3 Teo: [can I 4 be with? 5 Ala: YTE:H 6 ((as Teodor enters an empty square, 7 Andreas bounces his basketball a bit off 8 the court)) 9 Rob: I’m not out (.) I said so 10 Ala: (x) you & to be out 11 ((Robert enters the court and Teodor 12 steps out. At the same time, Andreas 13 is approaching the boys, still 14 bouncing the ball)) 15 Rob: (I’ve said it) a hundred times (,) 16 remember 17 Ala: ((to Teodor)) (xx) and then you’re in 18 ((Andreas crosses the court, bouncing


19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

his ball and stops on the other side next to Robert’s new square, watching the game about to be resumed))

Ala: ((turns mockingly at Henrik, who is about to pick his opponent)) MISTU:R

Hen: ((throws at Alan’s square)) ONE TWO THREE FOUR (.)HE: [‘S OU: :T

010: [HE’S OU: :T Rob: HE’S 0U:T (.) YEA:H

((Teodor jumps into Alan’s square)) Rob: no (Olof goes in there) (.) not

you (.S) that’s the one ((points at ‘first’ square)) ((Andreas walks around the court holding his ball))

Ala: (xxx) ((stands next to first square)) ((Adam comes up next to Andreas and turns to the other boys))

+ Ada: (you) want to play king with our ball? Teo: ((pointing at the other players))none

of you wants Ala: ((points at Andreas)) oh & (can)=

Hen: =((turning to Alan)) you’re not (to tell) you’re not (in)

Rob: get him out ((points at Olaf))

In the transcript above, we can see how Andreas is doing what Corsaro (1979) labeled encirclement. Thus, he is moving around close to the foursquare court (lines 7-37), producing no verbal action that would count as an entry bid and that might initiate a negotiation. On one occasion he actually enters the court between play turns (lines 18-19), bouncing his basketball a few times. Since the game is currently being played with a flat plastic ball, Andreas’ actions could be understood as an offer to share the basketball in exchange for a place in the game. While this might seem like a rather strong nonverbal bid for entry, it does not occasion any response from the players. However, Andreas’ indirect actions are explicated by Adam in line 38, in which he offers Andreas’ ball to the players. Implicit in this offer is a bid for both boys’ entry into the game, which is immediately recognized by the players. While not responding directly to Adam, Teodor tells the other players that they should not accept the offer. While, on the surface, Teodor’s turn relates exclusively to the issue of the ball, it also urges the other players not to accept the entry bid. In line 41, Alan ratifies this interpretation, by orienting to Teodor’s implicit action in the preceding lines. Displaying disagreement using an initial oh-particle (see Her- itage, 1998, for a related account of the use of this object), he suggests, pointing at Andreas, that he can take part in the game. Thus, he orients to Adam’s and Teodor’s previous turns as though they were not simply dealing with the issue of a new ball, but with the question of new participants to the game.


Returning to Adam’s actions in lines 36-38, we may note that, in contrast to Andreas, he is bidding for play entry directly upon arrival at the court. Through this conduct, he aligns himself with Andreas, both verbally with regard to the ownership of the ball (line 38) and in terms of spatial proximity, by standing close to his ally. While this alignment is not ratified by Andreas, who indeed does not respond at all, the players do recognize this alignment and treat the entry bid as a collaborative ven- ture between the two boys, as seen in the subsequent turns. This is in line with May- nard’s (1986) suggestion that non-rejected collaboration offers count as accepted. Thus, while Adam may be seen as exploiting Andreas’ possession of a better ball to gain entry into the game, through a negotiation in which Andreas takes no active part, he self-selects as agent, representing both boys’ interests in the negotiation.

A final transcript will serve to illustrate the mutual coordination of actions in negotiation, as well as demonstrate some highly sophisticated agent work. Consider excerpt (6), in which three boys give proof of different, yet mutually dependent, approaches to entering a soccer game:

(6) [Meas, mia and mf are playing soccer, as several other children approach, including ml, Lq and bdor] /Vyrl; 1; 11715-l 19501 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Teo: Pau : Lar:

JC:

Pau: JC:

(what’re) you gonna play

Lar: Pau : Teo:

Ann: Teo: Lar:

you’re just playing without a goal. where’s the ?a ((running)) ANNIKA: (.5) (va e de) du ska leka ((to Paul)) hey you said you were gonna take a court. (.5) huh (.5) paul (2) that one they’re over here are they (.5) oh yeah (.5) they are ((the boy is discussing something with Am&a)) you all against me ((pointing)) *II: are> much older yeh so you better (x) ((Larry turns his head to face Annika)) no: [(xx)

Ann:

[((screaming)) ((turning to Michale and Olaf)) everybody >everybody< agai [nst

WJ-JERE

Lar: Pau:

ARE YOUR FRIBNDS E[VERY

Lar: Ann: 010:

Lar:

[(xx) (play) with your friends we’re much younger than you. mTuch [younger

[GET THE BALL yeh you’re class three (.) we’re class two that’s only a ((raises index finger))


30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 41 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

difference [(l) one (.5) I’m only one= 010: LX: 010 : Lar:

lyeh =year older than you [(.5) that’s not=

lyeh =a big difference ((puts his arm on Olaf’s shoulder)) that’s a ((points with index finger))

(1) only m ((points with index finder again)) (1) one is too & ((shows with thumb and index how tiny the difference is)) uh m (.) (on [ly) one

010: [heh

Lar: 010:

Pau :

Lar:

010: Pau : 010:

Lar:

((Larry is waving one finger closely in front of Olaf’s face)) to: :NE hhuhu (.5) to: :ne ((Olof is waving one finger in front of Paul’s face)) hehe (5) I‘O::NE ((Paul is waving one finger in front of Olof’s face, then does the same to

Larry)) huOl‘: :hNEhh ((holding one finger before Olof and then before Paul)) [hehe [hehehe hh okey (.) and then in one more year you gonna be (older) ye:s so? ((the three of them run off towards the football field))

The transcript above begins about twenty seconds into a soccer game, which for some reason started before the players have had time to team up, or even reach the soccer/basketball court, giving a somewhat erratic impression. In lines 34, Larry is approaching shouting out to Am&a, and bidding indirectly for entry by asking the obvious (cf. discussion of excerpt 2). The subsequent exchanges between the two children are obscured by JC talking with Paul. In line 12, however, Larry volunteers to play against all the other children by himself, thus, supposedly, offering them more than a fair chance to win. This offer is rejected by Paul on the grounds that Larry is older than the rest. Now, merely pointing out an age difference does not necessarily implicate an opposing stance towards an interlocutor. However, young children tend to orient to issues of age and bodily size as relevant for their everyday conduct (cf. Danby, 1996). In the present context, where Paul’s assessment of Larry is produced as a relevant response (Schegloff, 1972) to Larry’s invitation to play against him, it clearly works as a rejection, Let us consider this in some interactional


detail. In producing his response, Paul employs multiple prosodic cues (slower pace and emphasis), coordinating the verbal actions with a pointing sequence directed at Larry, in which Paul’s index finger distinctively stresses the lexical units you and much (see C. Goodwin, in press, for a detailed account of how pointing is integrated in interaction). Arguably, these coordinated micro-actions contextualize (Auer, 1992; Gumperz, 1982, 1992) Paul’s response as a rejection. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, the oppositional status of this turn is ratified by Teodor in the subsequent turn (yeh so you better (x)). In effect, Paul and Teodor have collaboratively declined Larry’s invitation, or entry bid, and provided a reason for this action. One of the effects of this move is that they cast themselves as capable of deciding who is to be accepted in the game and who may be refused. By implication, they are simul- taneously casting themselves as legitimate participants in the soccer game, since the right to accept or deny other children’s entrance into a play activity is exclusive to its participants.

Turning his gaze toward Annika without responding, Larry can be seen to resist Paul’s and Teodor’s refusal, questioning, by implication, their right to decide about new participants. However, in line 16, Annika declines Larry’s bid, ratifying Paul’s and Teodor’s decision. In other words, she has collaborated with the two boys in establishing their status as participants and legitimate decision makers. This does not necessarily mean that Paul and Teodor are officially accepted in the football game; Annika, and indeed the other players, may still object to this when the game starts again. For the moment, however, the two boys have at least been accepted as negotiators on the team’s behalf. Accordingly, in the following exchanges, and in collaboration with two of the players, Annika and Olof, Paul continues to argue against Larry’s entry into the game. Teodor, on the other hand, rushes off with the other players to take over the soccer/basketball court after a group of older boys.

But how is it, we may ask, that two non-participating children, but potential candidates, may enter a negotiation, arguing the other side’s position? Several plausible explanations may be offered here. For example, one might claim that by aligning themselves with the ‘players’ cause’, Paul and Teodor are displaying their loyalty to the players and/or the game. Thus, one might expect this move to increase their chances of being accepted on the team, at least in comparison to the third candidate, Larry, who might be seen as the two boys’ competitor. However, I would like to propose another explanation, equally plausible, but somewhat better supported by the data, namely that the exact wording of Larry’s bid (you all against me) not only makes relevant an oppositional response, but it also casts everyone present as a potential next speaker (Sacks et al., 1974), or as a ratified participant (Goffman, 1981) in the negotiation. In other words, anybody within hearing distance may provide the response to line 12, and legitimately join the negotiation. Thus, when Paul and Teodor take this opportunity to enroll as agents for the team’s side by exploiting the design of Larry’s turn, it becomes an interactively more complicated task for the team’s negotiators (Annika and Olaf) to resist this alignment, should they wish to do so, and at the same time to oppose Larry’s entry bid.

Returning to the transcript, we see that after Annika turns down Larry’s offer with a plain IZO: in line 15, he turns his attention back to Paul, again bidding for entry by


offering to play against the other children alone (line 19). This time, however, he makes use of an extreme case formulation (Pomerantz, 1986). There is a subtle difference between you all and everybody in this context, in terms of the generosity of his offer: if you all can be taken to mean the children present in the group (i.e., ‘all of you’), then everybody can include an even larger number of people. This formulation is duplicated in line 19, possibly to stress or even increase the effect of the revision of the bid in line 12. However, Larry never actually completes his second bid, due to Annika’s overlap (line 20). Here, she changes her line of argument from simply opposing Larry’s bids, to indirectly questioning the appropriateness of Larry’s playing with them, by introducing the issue of his friends. Larry tries to ignore this (line 22), but is interrupted by Paul, who ties the issue of other friends, raised by Annika, to that of age difference. It may be noted that this time, Paul employs a self-assessment (‘we’re m&z younger’) to oppose Larry’s attempt to enter, and not an assessment of Larry, as in the earlier exchange (line 13). Note that this choice enables Paul to create a contrast between the rejection and the account provided for it: (play) with your friends vs. we’re much younger than you. In responding, Larry completely ignores the rejection account, choosing instead to disagree with the assessment part of Paul’s turn. By repeating the part of Paul’s turn he finds debatable, but with slight modification (different intonation), he manages to produce an opposing turn (cf. M.H. Goodwin, 1990; Pomerantz, 1997) in line 25, which is immediately ratified and expanded by Olof in line 27, where he points out that Larry is in the class above Paul and the other children. This leads to a lengthy declaration of the age difference being small, not big as Paul tried to suggest. In fact, Larry claims that the difference is too small to count (line 40). During these lines, Larry exploits a rather elaborate arsenal of gestures demonstrating the irrelevance of the difference, carefully coordinating the gestures with his words. In fact, from line 41 on, he exaggerates the gestures so much (waving his index finger, almost touch- ing Olaf’s nose) that Olof begins to laugh and the argument is subsequently trans- formed into humorous play (cf. M.H. Goodwin, 1998) with words and gestures. Notably the success of this is so great that Larry’s opponents not only join in laughing, but actually start waving their index fingers in front of one another’s noses, shouting 0:NE (lines 48-57). When the laughing settles down, however, Olof attempts to restart the argument by ending the joking sequence (hh okey, followed by a short pause) pointing out that in one year Larry is going to be even older. By tying this statement to the previous debate over the age difference between the boys, Olof seems to imply that this difference will grow with time. However, this is not followed up by Larry, and when the other soccer players announce that they now have a court to play on, all three boys run off to join the game.

One final comment will be made with respect to the important changes that the three boys accomplish here. Up to line 17, the negotiation can be described as a sequential ordering of opposing moves related to the issue of Larry’s participation in play, whereupon follows a sequence in which the focus is redirected to a debate over the relevance of the age difference between the children (lines 2543). Whereas these two sequences may be taken as instantiations of competitive interaction, in the sense that the participants align with opposing positions, displaying this alignment

J. Cromdal I Journal of Pragmutics 33 (2001) 515-543 531

through their actions, the next part of this episode (lines 44-58) might be characterized in terms of cooperation, in that it does not comprise oppositional actions. Rather, it shows a collaborative performance of a word/gesture game, which involves all three boys. What has hopefully become obvious during the last sections is that not only were these distinct interactive projects jointly constructed, but that the interactional changes taking place in this episode must also be seen as collaborative achievements: Paul’s and Olaf’s alignment with the team in the negotiation of Larry’s entry was made possible by Larry’s inclusive formulation of the bid (line 12). In the following shift of argument, while the issue of age difference was raised by Paul already in line 13, the new focus was not established until lines 20-25, through the jointly coordinated contributions of An&a, Paul and Larry. And finally, the playful sequence in lines 40 through 58 was jointly established by Larry and Olof, with Paul joining in subsequently.

5.3. Cross-linguistic borrowing and bilingual routines

The previous sections illustrated how children jointly accomplish play entry negotiations, drawing on a variety of interactive resources. The rest of this paper is an attempt to highlight some bilingual aspects of such exchanges, presenting first a locally established expression - with bilingual connotations - that was used on a routine basis in play entry procedures.

As the observant reader will have noticed, one peculiar entry bid recurs in the transcripts (excerpts 1 and 5 above and 7 and 9 below), namely the direct question can I be with?, which is an elliptic construction for ‘can I be/play with you?‘. This construction may be discussed as a special instance of cross-linguistic transfer, namely borrowing (see Ellis, 1994; Harding and Riley, 1993; and Romaine, 1995, for presentations of relevant terminology and research findings), in that it constitutes a literal translation of the Swedish entry bid fa”r/kun jag vara med? (cf. excerpts 4,7 and 8). Although this phrase will be recognized as non-idiomatic in most monolingual English speaking communities, in the present setting it was used on a daily basis among the children, regardless of individual language background and preferences. Indeed, on a few occasions I witnessed several teachers, all with some variety of English as a first language, using the expression when talking to the children about prior activities (e.g., did you ask them if you could be with?). In other words, can I be with? has been locally established as belonging to the repertoire of English idioms.

In the present data, a Swedish or an English version of this bid was present in over two thirds of the play entry events. But what can we say about its interactional properties? Merely stating its frequency of occurrence reveals nothing about the way it is used in the fine-tuned interplay with other discourse contributions in entry negotiations. We may begin pursuing this question by noting that as an entry bid, it should be seen as a direct ‘yes/no’ question. We may also note that it draws the focus of attention from the current activity to the child seeking entry. Looking back at the studies presented in the initial sections of this paper (e.g., Corsaro, 1979; Dodge et al., 1983; Garvey, 1984), we might think of this bid as (part of) a high-risk

532 J. Cromdal /Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 515-543

strategy. As such, we would not expect it to appear early in a negotiation event, since according to the model put forward by Dodge et al. (1983), children are prone to begin an entry attempt with low-risk strategies, so as to avoid early rejection. This line of reasoning is also present in Corsaro’s (1979) study. However, a quick glance at excerpt (1) reveals that this bid occurs very early in the sequence; it actually ini- tiates the entry procedure. In fact, the present data reveal a number of similar instances, and almost 90% of these initially placed bids are granted. In contrast, when used in later phases of an entry procedure, these bids are frequently refused. It seems plausible to suggest that although the can I be with ? bid may be used in vary- ing sequential environments, it is only positioned initially in a negotiation sequence when the candidate has some (locally situated and obvious for all interlocutors) reason for expecting that her/his entry bid will be granted. In an earlier section of this paper, I discussed episodes in which minimal, routine-like negotiation was needed prior to play entry. I would now like to propose that the initial can I be with? bid constitutes such a routine.

With respect to the previous studies, it can be concluded that a priori classifica- tions of negotiation strategies may be deceptive. What is needed is an endogenous understanding of the participants’ conduct, something which can be reached only by attending to the meanings shaped interactively in each specific case. Nevertheless, I have suggested a generalized feature with respect to the sequential placement of one particular type of entry bid. According to this claim, in starting an entry negotiation, children make public their current understanding of the situation, including for instance the type of activity and the child’s expectations regarding her/his own chances of gaining entry. By initiating the entry procedure with a can I be with? - routine, children display their belief that their chances as fairly good. In a large majority of cases, this is confirmed in subsequent turns in which the candidate child is accepted to play. Although this claim is based on recurrent observations of children’s use of this routine, the explanation relevant to each instance may only be found by studying participants’ conduct in each particular case.

5.4. Code-switching in play entry

Gumperz’ (1982) influential work on interactional strategies suggests that the effects of conversational code-switching may be understood partly in terms of the cultural values associated with each language and partly in terms of a linguistic contrast created by the switch. In this way, code-switching is said to contextualize speakers’ talk, so as to enhance interlocutors’ inferences. Informed by Gumperz’ work on contextuulization cues, Auer (1984) presents a conversation analytic approach to the study of code-switching-in-interaction. On this view, code-switching is analyzed in terms of its participant-related aspects (such as individual language preferences and/or proficiency) and its discourse-organizing functions (such as initiating side-sequences, marking changes in participants’ footing, etc.).

In the realm of participant-related code-switching, we may consider lines 3-12 of excerpt (6) above, in which Larry switched from Swedish to English after his first address to Annika, when he realized that the activity in progress was being carried


out in English. This is a rather typical instance of language adaptation with respect to other interlocutors’ preferences (i.e., a participant related switch), motivated, at least in part, by a preference for same language talk (cf. Auer, 1984) that seemed to pervade the present children’s interactions. A further example may be seen below:

(7) [A group of children is standing at a puddle of water, discussing the best location for a

drain-ditch. Participants: &n, hd, &@a, Tina, other children]/2Vyr2;32; 11557-

1 18401 1 Boy: ((to one of the girls)) 2 fir ja I&na din pinne? can I borrow your stick? 3 (.) ja de f&r ja. (.) yes I can 4 ((reaches out to take stick)) 5 Grl: niie:j (1) ntiej s:I&p no:: (1) no: let w 6 Kaj : ((approaching the group)) 7 + can I be with? 8 Boy: no::= 9 Bra: =NE: J NO:

[Kajsa turns to leave but remains in the vicinity of the group, paying close attention to the ensuing play at first, then beginning to dig out a small puddle nearby. Two minutes later, she approaches Alan and Tina, who left the group to ditch out a nearby puddle. According to the group’s plans, the drains of the two puddles are then to be interconnected]

10 + Kaj: ((approaching)) kan ja va me? can I play? 11 Ala: ((to Sofia)) (xx) den under (xx) one underm 12 (.) eller ja fick en bgttre (.) or I have a better 13 ide vi kan anviinda en stock idea we can use a log 14 s% f&r de rinna igenom stocken and it can run through the & 15 Kaj : “(hiir ni)” (.) kan b va me? “(you guys)” (.) can I be with? 16 Ala: ((looks up from the puddle)) 17 nne: j ((hesitating voice)) nno: 18 (2.5) inte (.) h&r fiir du inte (2.5) no (.) you can’t play here 19 va me 20 Kaj : (varfiir inte)= (why not)= 21 Ala: =nii du (fiir) gi &t ((pointing)) =you (have to) go over W 22 bort o fr&ga om du fiir va me

h&m: ((moves aside)) and ask if you can play

23 Kaj : 24 Ala: ((stands up)) diir borta we’re working 25 jobbar vi ockso (.5) du f&r there too (.5) you’ll have to 26 sticka niin annanstans go somewhere else

Kajsa’s entry bid in English (line 7), deviates from the language that has been established for this activity. Her language choice may be accounted for by the fact that she has just arrived at the scene of play, unable to ‘check things out’ before asking. This should also account for the fact that she chose a ‘high risk’-strategy for attempting entry, which proved to be a mistake, as her bid was immediately rejected by two of the participants. In line with the discussion above, this is one of the few examples of initial use of the can I be with ?-routine, in which play entry is denied.

It is worth noting that Kajsa’s subsequent actions represent quite an elaborated second attempt at entering the play. Here, she takes the time to investigate the


organization of the ongoing activity, and to display her understanding of its features, before asking again to join. In fact, had this been a first attempt at entering the group, we might have said, recalling the findings of previous studies (e.g., Corsaro, 1979; Dodge et al., 1983; Putallaz and Gottman, 1981), that Kajsa is doing play entry ‘by the book’. However, for the present discussion suffice it to say that Kajsa adapts to the ongoing activity in part by choosing Swedish for her second verbal bid. In other words, we may see the option of switching language as one resource for play candidates to publicly display their behavior as attentive and, in many cases, adaptive to that of the group’s. The first part of excerpt (8) provides a somewhat similar example (line 12), while also illustrating some discourse-related functions of code-switching:

(8) [A number of girls are playing hide-and-seek. uer has been cruising the play-area for a few minutes. The transcript begins at the end of a play turn, where Beatrice is the only girl yet to be found and ‘captured’ by ma. Other participants: Linda, C&ace,

&a]/2Vyr4; 38; 23956-240261 1 Rit: 2 3 Lin: 4 Rit: 5 Lin: 6 Rit: 7 8 9 + Rog: 10 Bea: 11 +Rog: 12 Lin: 13 14 15 Tin: 16 Rog: 17 18 Rit: 19

((running b,ack to home base)) >ETT TVA TRE panta< BEA: >ONE TWO THREE capture< B&A: VAR nbstans? WHERE? ha? huh? var?= where?= =dlir =there ((points in the direction of Beatrice’s hideout)) you have to say w you are ((quick head turn)) ha? huh? f&r ja va me? can I play? ((to all)) okej f&n o me nu okay from now on mLte vi @a VART (.> we have to say WHERE (.) personen e the person is aa &ht >f&r ja va me f&r ja va me xan I play can I play fiir ja va me fiir ja va me< can I play can I play< ((to Grace)) e du me? you playin? ((to Linda)) ska hon va me? is she playin?

20 Lin: ,uhnaej inga mer d[r va me uhgIIP: : no more ca[n play 21 Rit: ((to Grace)) [inga mer [no more 22 ska [va me can [play 23 Rag; [f&r ja va me? [can I play? 24 + Bea: no mrry byBY: :E ((waving)) 25 ((Roger turns to leave))

Having spent &era1 minutes within the play area before attempting to enter the game, Roger is able to discover that there is some ambiguity as to whether the location of the hidden players has to be publicly announced upon capturing or freeing them. In line 9 he clearly chooses to enter the interaction at a point when this issue is at stake, by explaining the ‘localization-rule’ to Rita, who seemed to overlook it in

J. Cromdal 1 Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 515-543 535

previous play. Seen as an entry bid, Roger’s turn has the potential of displaying his knowledge of the rules of the game, as well as of the fact that not everyone in the playing group attends to the localization rule. This then allows him to claim a position in the negotiation of rules and, by implication, to cast himself as a participant in the game, since non-participants would not normally be expected to debate over the rules (although this may occur in games that typically entail an audience, cf. Evalds- son, 1993; Evaldsson and Corsaro, 1998; M. Goodwin, 1995, 1998). It is, I think, in this light that we must view Roger’s use of English in this turn. Whereas at a first glance the code-switch seems to contrast with the talk of the other players so bla- tantly that we may think of it as non-adaptive with respect to the ongoing interaction, I would like to suggest that it has the potential of highlighting the oppositional stance taken by Roger against Rita’s manner of playing (i.e., her non-observation of the localization-rule), giving it a discourse-related function. Thus, Roger’s code-switch may be seen as a means of highlighting his offer to collaborate with the players who are trying to establish the localization-rule in this game.

However, nobody accepts this token of collaboration. Moreover, in the subsequent turn, Beatrice quickly snaps ‘huh? ‘, which may be seen as questioning, if not disqualifying, Roger’s contribution. In fact, it may be seen as not merely disqualifying Roger’s action, i.e., taking sides in the rule negotiation, but actually questioning his right to interact altogether. While Roger’s entry bid in line 12 suggests that he chose the first interpretation, the non-responsiveness of the other players in the subsequent lines (13-24) seems to favor the latter one, suggesting that the children do not wish to consider his attempts to interact. It should be noted that in responding to Beatrice’s challenge, he switches to Swedish, thus publicly adapting to the language of the group. In sum, the transcript above illustrates the potential of code-switching for displaying social stance; depending on its sequential location it may serve to highlight or to downplay social opposition among parties in entry negotiations.

So far, code-switching has been discussed as a resource for candidates in negotiating play entry. However, the option of code-switching is not exclusive to any single party in interaction, and children frequently exploit this possibility to resist entry bids, as in the latter part of excerpt (8) above. Here we may see that after strenuous attempts to draw attention to his entry bid (cf. the reduplicated bids at lines 17-l@, Roger finally receives a negative response from Beatrice, which puts an end to the negotiation. While the content of Beatrice’s response may be seen as locally anchored in a group decision not to accept additional players, thus contributing to its definitive character, I want to suggest that the format in which this response is deliv- ered also helps to ultimately stop Roger’s attempts to enter the group. To begin with, we may note that the three lexical units in Beatrice’s turn are designed to achieve three different ends: no responds to Roger’s bid; sorry marks this response as dispreferred (Heritage, 1984), possibly also implying that the decision was not hers, thus referring to the previous speakers (lines 21-22); byBY: :E clearly marks that no further interaction is needed, or desired, its effect further stressed by the associated gestural play (waving ‘farewell’). It could well be argued that the message of Beat- rice’s turn is clear enough and that further stressing seems redundant. However, research on contextualization (Auer, 1992; Gumperz, 1982, 1992) indicates that


contextualization cues tend be multiplied at points of particular interest for the ongoing talk. Since the termination of an interactive exchange must be considered such a point, we may see Beatrice’s code-switch as discourse-related in that it contextual- izes the termination of her interaction with Roger. Specifically, I want to suggest that the code-switch to English marks the end of Beatrice’s alignment with respect to the joint interactive task of negotiating entry.

A final example will serve to illustrate this last point. The excerpt is taken from one of the recurring koja-play episodes (Eng: ‘shack, treehouse’), in which a group of children occupy a specified territory, a koju, (in this particular instance, a cleft in a rock) and defend this territory against a team of aggressors. In the transcript below, the entry negotiation starts with a disagreement over a stick, which was lost by Steven during a preceding attack on the koja.

(9) [The transcript starts as Jolanta picks up the stick, looking up at Steven who is standing

outside the koja. Other participants: &@alena]/vyd; 1; 75 l-8561 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27

28 29 30

Jol: Ste :

Mag :

Ste : Jol:

THAnk you ve:rv much! ahrn (.) I’m telling the [teacher

Mag:

Jo1 :

Ste : Jol:

Mag :

[TATTLE tale (.) tattle tale tattle tale give it &k the- the ?‘boys always call the girls tattle tale

(1) if you: promise to leave us alone

(1.5) you can sit there but you can’t keep on screaming at us like that (I can do) worse (.) if I want > give ((beginning to hand over the stick)) an you promise that you wi[ll not ((to Jolanta) [well don’t give it BACK (-5) bovs are not allowed to have sticks. (.) okTey

Jo1 : ((withdrawing the stick)) boys a[re stu:pid Ste: [you kno: w

Jol: Mag :

Ste: Jo1 :

I’ll steal &l your sticks we do?‘t have any= =du FAR inte tillbakapinnen (.> &&tar you can’t HAVE the stick

back (.) don’t [du inte de [you get it [(xx) Xet du< du tf& ljnte tillbaka den= >y’know< you [can’t have

it back= Ste : Jo1 : =du fA:r inte de

[(xx) listen (.) listen (x) =you can’t

((to Magdalena)) (ska vi) ge den (till honom) (shall we) give it (to him)


31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38 + 39 40 +

((to Steven) (om du lovar) (xx) (if you promise) (xx) Ste: <yeah: but: u:[h::> Mag : [<YEAH: BUT:> zig (ia) du &: fii (din pinne) gight) you’ll g& (your Btick)

DA (dl f&r du) d Phere @IOW you m&)&w

((the girls jointly hand over the stick)) (2.5)

Ste: just give me an answer (.) can I be with or not

Mag: no you can’t.

This excerpt presents an interesting episode trajectory (Hopper, 1992) in the dispute between the two girls in the koja and the boy seeking entry. For the sake of brevity, only the last part of the transcript will be discussed at some detail. Note, however, that in the first half of the transcript (lines l-23), the two parties (i.e., Steven vs. Magdalena and Jolanta) engage in a joint construction of oppositions (M.H. Goodwin, 1990), where the girls’ teases (lines 4-5 and 20) and bids to settle the dispute (lines lo-12), are responded to with threats (lines 13 and 22). It may also be noted that the girls invoke gender categories to form their opposition (lines 7-8; and 18-20), by (re)casting institutionalized playground rules (no sticks allowed for play) as applying only to boys (lines 18-19) as well as by ascribing boys certain practices (lines 7-8) and traits (line 20).

In short, the exchange in lines l-23 may be described as a successive escalation of the conflict. In fact, the dispute is escalated to the point that the two girls switch to Swedish (line 24), a language that Steven does not speak. Of course, being his classmates, the girls know this. I would therefore claim that the girls exploit their bilinguality, and their antagonist’s lack of it, in order to build yet another opposition on the level of language choice (cf. Maschler, 1994). This may be seen as an instance of ‘polyvalence’ in code-switching (Auer, 1984), in that the function of this switch has both participant- and discourse-related features. Although Steven and Jolanta may have arrived at some form of agreement in lines 31-32, Magdalena continues the offensive in line 33 and she switches back to English, challenging Steven by reproducing his words, with a notable difference in amplitude and a slightly mod- ified voice, giving the utterance a teasing quality. With this last turn, however, the oppositions seem settled as Jolanta decides to return the stick, in agreement with Magdalena (line 35).

On receiving the stick, Steven then asks to join the girls’ play, prefaced by an explicit request for an answer (line 38). Magdalena responds by declining Steven’s entry bid and this exchange is terminated as Steven begins to withdraw. However, the last three lines of this transcript are interesting for a number of reasons. First, they bear witness to a changed orientation in the interaction. From engaging in what might be seen as highly oppositional interaction, using different languages (lines 24-31) and challenging the interlocutor’s turns in line 33 (not merely opposing them as in the earlier parts of this transcript), Steven and Magdalena have turned to a joint negotiation of a new issue, namely that of Steven’s participation in the play. The

538 .I. Cromdal I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 515-543

new focus is set off from prior turns by a rather prolonged pause (line 37), comprising, needless to say, a shared silence. Also, the new interactive focus is further displayed in Steven’s preface to the entry bid. In responding to this bid, Magdalena displays her orientation to this new interactive focus. Interestingly, she now switches back to English, i.e., the language Steven evidently prefers. In this position then, the code-switch may be seen as a display of Magdalena’s alignment to the new interactive task. Incidentally, the fact that Magdalena declined Steven’s request bears witness to the multifaceted interactive work carried out in this turn: she accepts the interactive task of negotiating entry but resists Steven’s position in this activity.

To sum up, we have seen how the children jointly turned a negotiation of goods into a stalled dispute and then returned to a negotiation with a new focus. In this conduct, the children have drawn on various resources to carry out social actions and, through these actions, to display their orientation to the type of activity at hand. I have tried to show how the discourse-related functions of code-switching (e.g., in building oppositional turns or displaying alignments to interactive task) have merged with participant-related aspects (i.e., switching into preferred or dispreferred language) in order to achieve this end. As has hopefully become clear, such an analysis of interaction has the benefit of explicating the local sensitivity of children’s use of bilingual resources. Switching between languages at precisely coordinated points in the interaction, it has been argued, displays children’s recognition of relevant aspects of the context, such as the escalating conflict, the participants’ language preferences, and shifting communicative focus. And, of course, these actions become part of the context for subsequent interaction (Schegloff, 1995). So, by providing a relevant response at line 32 (and possibly at line 28), Steven not only displays a preference for English (i.e., by not following the code-switch) and a passive understanding of Swedish, but he also resists being silenced by the dispreferred code-switch.

From this point of view, the interesting thing to note in excerpt (9) is not that Steven only possesses receptive skills in Swedish, while the two girls seem to mas- ter both languages considerably better; rather the point of the analysis is to show that all parties involved orient to one another’s language preferences (which may or may not correspond to mental structures comprising linguistic knowledge) and use them as a resource for accomplishing social actions. Therefore, taking the analytic point of departure in bilingual interaction, we may speak of bilingualism as a socially distributed phenomenon, managed in the turn-by-turn organization of social actions, rather than an individual’s mental capacity to formulate communicative intentions using two linguistic systems.

6. Concluding discussion

This study set out to investigate how negotiations of play entry are accomplished by school children in a bilingual context. To this end, play entry episodes have been examined in some detail, making it possible to uncover some of the means children use to negotiate issues of participation in peer play. In keeping the analytical focus on the interaction, rather than, e.g., on matters of individuals’ competence, the study


has drawn on assumptions, perspectives, and methods often found in ethnomethod- ologically-oriented research on discourse processes (cf., Clayman and Maynard, 1995; Garfiiel and Sacks, 1970; C. Goodwin and Heritage, 1990; Heritage, 1984; Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998; Silverman, 1998).

Thus, instead of relying on aggregated frequency data of certain (categories of) individual access strategies, the present analysis has focused on the local dialogic properties of single negotiation events, allowing for an understanding not of which strategies prove most successful and which tend to lead to rejection, but of the interactional processes underlying the outcome of the negotiation. For instance, I have shown how children arguing their position exploited turn-taking mechanisms in various ways (cf. excerpts 3, 6, 8 and 9), so as to strengthen their case. Furthermore, children made relevant notions of age (excerpt 6) and gender (excerpt 9), knowledge of play rules (excerpt 8) as well as possession of desirable play equipment (excerpt 5), by orienting to (and often invoking) these issues in the negotiations.

Another benefit of focusing on locally situated interactions in the study of play entry is that such a procedure makes visible the collaborative aspects of these events. In this vein, I have strived to show that issues of when to attempt entry, with whom, and indeed through whom to negotiate are relevant matters for the outcome of entry negotiations. By explicating the fine-tuned coordination of the children’s interactive moves, it has been suggested that children display a sensitivity to such matters. At the very least, these findings render individualistic approaches problematic, since any outcome of an entry negotiation must be seen as a joint accomplishment and not merely the result of a single actor’s social competence.

As a last annotation in relation to previous research on play entry, it has been shown that not all types of play activities were protected by participants. In relation to this finding I have argued that in order to understand the rationale for the differ- entiation displayed by the children, we need to attend to the situated practices that organize these activities.

Finally, the interaction analytic perspective adopted in the present study has important implications for the treatment of childhood bilingualism. The role of bilingualism as a resource for play entry negotiators has been discussed along two lines: one concerning crosslinguistic transfer (borrowing) of a routinely occurring entry formula and one dealing with code-switching practices. In the present analysis, matters of children’s individual skills in the two languages have been largely left aside. In contrast to much prior research on childhood bilingualism, where children’s mental representations of (and access to) the two languages are in focus, I have chosen to treat children’s bilinguality as an accomplishment in sia. On this view, bilingualism is cast in terms of observable linguistic, and inherently social actions, rather than as a set of mental prerequisites for such actions. This view of bilingualism has previously been advanced by Auer (1984), who - informed by ethnomethodologists’ emphasis on displayed interactional work (e.g., ‘doing understanding’, ‘doing hostil- ity’, etc., see Sacks, 1992, vol. 2) - investigates language alternation practices as interactants’ ways of ‘doing being bilingual’ (Auer, 1984: 7). In a similar vein, the excerpts above were intended to give some notion of the children’s resources for accomplishing bilingual negotiations. If we are to study bilingual interaction (i.e., a

540 .I. Cromdal I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 51.5-543

social accomplishment) in its own right, as opposed to studying bilingual competence (i.e., a mental state) through interaction, as is the case in much of the previous SLA research (e.g., Gass et al., 1998; Kasper, 1996; Oliver, 1998; see also Firth and Wagner, 1997, for a critical review of SLA research and the following debate in the Modern Language Journal), we may think of bilingualism as a feature of discourse, displayable only through participants’ situated actions. Bilingual displays, like any other actions, may then become relevant for the ensuing interaction. For example, they may be exploited by interactants for various ends, such as forming alliances or building oppositions, suggesting that bilingualism may be seen as a socially distributed interactional resource. Accordingly, as the empirical illustrations of these points have suggested, there are various ways of ‘doing bilingual negotiation’.

Appendix A : Transcription key

(2)

I:,, [ 1 = gx) + drop hd HELLO

“( 1” T1 ?

>< <> hi; ha; he; ho; hh svenska

numbers in single parentheses represent pauses in seconds micropause, i.e. pause shorter than (S) investigator’s comments indicates start/end of overlapping speech indicates latching between utterances inaudible word inaudible words highlights a particular feature discussed in the text prolongation of preceding sound sounds marked by emphatic stress are underlined capitals represent markedly increased amplitude embeds talk markedly lower in amplitude indicates rising/falling intonation in succeeding syllable(s) indicates rising terminal intonation indicates falling terminal intonation embeds talk that is faster than surrounding speech embeds talk that is slower than surrounding speech indicate varieties of laughter talk in Swedish in bold script

References

Aronsson, Karin, 1996. Collaboration in dialogues. In: Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Gstman, Jan Blom- maert and Chris Bulcaen, eds., Handbook of Pragmatics 1996, 1-12. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Auer, Peter, 1984. Bilingual conversation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Auer, Peter, 1992. Introduction: John Gumperz’ approach to contextuahzation. In: Peter Auer and Aldo

di Luzio, eds., The contextualization of language, l-37. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, 1997. Dinner talk: Cultural patterns of sociability and socialization in family

discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Clayman, Steven E. and Douglas W. Maynard, 1995. Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. In:

Paul ten Have and George Psathas, eds., Situated order: Studies in the social organization of talk and embodied activities, l-30. Washington, DC: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Con- versation Analysis and University Press of America.

J. Cromdal / Journal of Pragtnatics 33 (2001) 515-543 541

Corsaro, William A., 1979. ‘We’re friends right ?‘: Children’s use of access rituals in a nursery school. Language in Society 8: 315-336.

Corsaro, William A., 1985. Friendship and peer culture in the early years. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Corsaro, William A., 1986. Routines in peer culture. In: Jenny Cook-Gumperz, William A. Corsaro and

Birgen Streeck, eds., Children’s worlds and children’s language, 231-251. Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.

Corsaro, William A., 1997. The sociology of childhood. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge. Corsaro, William A. and Thomas A. Rizzo, 1990. Disputes in the peer culture of American and Italian

nursery-school children. In: Allen D. Grimshaw, ed., Conflict talk: Sociolinguistic investigations in conversation, 21-66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Danby, Susan, 1996. Constituing social membership: Two readings of talk in an early childhood classroom. Language and Education 10: 151-170.

Danby, Susan and Carolyn Baker, 1998. How to be masculine in the block area. Childhood 5: 151-175. Davidson, Judy A., 1990. Modifications of invitations offers and rejections. In: George Psathas, ed.,

Interaction competence. Lanham, MD: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversa- tion Analysis and University Press of America.

Dodge, Kenneth A., David C., Schlundt, Iris Schocken and Judy D. Delugach, 1983. Social competence and children’s sociometric status: The role of peer group entry strategies. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 29: 309-336.

Duranti, Alessandro and Charles Goodwin, 1992. Rethinking context: An introduction. In: Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin, eds., Rethinking context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ellis, Rod, 1994. The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Emihovich, Catherine A., 1981. The intimacy of address: Friendship markers in children’s social play.

Language in Society 10: 189-199. Ervin-Tripp, Susan M., 1986. Activity structure as scaffolding for children’s second language learning.

In: Jenny Cook-Gumperz, William A. Corsaro and Jiirgen Streeck, eds., Children’s worlds and children’s language, 337-366. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Evaldsson, Ann-Carita, 1993. Play, disputes and social order: Everyday life in two Swedish after-school centers. Linkijping Studies in Arts and Science 93.

Evaldsson, Ann-Carita and William A. Corsaro, 1998. Play and games in the peer-cultures of preschool and preadolescent children: An interpretive approach. Childhood 5: 377401.

Firth, Alan and Johannes Wagner, 1997. On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental con- cepts in SLA research. The Modem Language Journal 81: 285-312.

Garfinkel, Harold and Harvey Sacks, 1970. On formal structures of practical actions. In: John C. McK- inney and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds., Theoretical sociology: Perspectives and developments. New York: Appelton-Century-Crofts.

Garvey, Catherine, 1984. Children’s talk. Oxford: Fontana. Garvey, Catherine, 1991. Play. London: Fontana Press. (First edition published 1977.) Gass, Susan M., Alison Mackey and Theresa Pica, 1998. The role of input and interaction in second lan-

guage acquisition: Introduction to the special issue. The Modem Language Journal, 82: 299-305. Goffman, Erving, 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, Goodwin, Charles, in press. Pointing as situated practice. In: Sotaro Kita, ed., Pointing: Proceedings of

the Nijmegen Max Planck Conference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodwin, Charles and Marjorie H. Goodwin, 1990. Interstitial argument. In: Allen D. Grimshaw, ed.,

Conflict talk: Sociolinguistic investigations of arguments in conversations, 85-117. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Goodwin, Charles and Heritage, John, 1990. Conversation analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 283-307.

Goodwin, Marjorie H., 1990. He-said-she-said. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Goodwin, Marjorie H., 1995. Co-construction in girl’s hopscotch. Research on Language and Social

Interaction 28: 261-281. Goodwin, Marjorie H., 1998. Games of stance. In: S. Hoyle and C.T. Adger, eds., Kids talk: Strategic

language use in later childhood, 23-46. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Gumperz, John J., 1982. Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Gumperz, John J., 1992. Contextualization revisited. In: P. Auer and A. di Luzio eds., The contextualization of language, 39-53. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Harding, Edith and Philip Riley, 1993. The bilingual family: A haudbook for parents. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press.

Hatch, Evelyn, Sabrina Peck and J. Wagner-Gough, 1979. A look at process in child second language acquisition. In: E. Ochs and B. Schieffelin, eds., Developmental pragmatics, 269-278. New York: Academic Press.

Heller, Monica, 1988. Strategic ambiguity: Codeswitching in the management of conflict. In: Monica Heller, ed., Codeswitching: Anthropological and sociolinguistic perspectives, 77-96. Berlin: Mou- ton.

Heritage, John, 1984. Garfinkel and etnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press. Heritage, John, 1998. Oh-prefaced responses to inquiry. Language in Society 27: 291-334. Hopper, Robert, 1992. Telephone conversation. Bloomington, LN: Indiana University Press. Hutchby, Ian and Robin Wooffitt, 1998. Conversation analysis: Principles, practices and applications.

Cambridge: Polity Press. Jacoby, Sally and Elinor Ochs, 1995. Co-construction: An introduction. Research on Language and

Social Interaction 28: 171-183. Jorgensen, Normann J., 1998. Children’s acquisition of code-switching for power-wielding. In: P. Auer,

ed., Code-switching in conversation: Language, interaction and identity, 237-258. London: Rout- ledge.

Kasper, Gabriele, 1996. Introduction: Interlanguage pragmatics in SLA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18: 145-148.

Lave, Jean and Etienne Wenger, 1991. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Linell, Per, 1998. Approaching dialogue: Talk, interaction and contexts in dialogical perspectives. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Mashler, Yael, 1991. The language games bilinguals play: Language alternation at language game boundaries. Language and Communication 11: 263-289.

Mashler, Yael, 1994. ‘Appreciation ha ‘araxa ‘o ha ‘aratsa ? ’ : Negotiating contrast in bilingual disagreement talk. Text 14: 207-238.

Maynard, Douglas, 1986. Offering and soliciting collaboration in multi-party disputes among children (and other humans). Human Studies 9: 261-285.

Ochs, Elinor, 1988. Culture and language development: Language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oliver, Rhonda, 1998. Negotiation of meaning in child interactions. The Modem Language Journal 82: 372-386.

Pallotti, Gabriele, 1996. Towards an ecology of second language acquisition: SLA as a socialization process. In: E. Kellerman, B. Weltens and T. Bongaerts, eds., EUROSLA 6: A selection of papers, 121-134. Toegepaste taalwetenschap in artikelen 55. Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij.

Pomerantz, Anita, 1997. Conversation analysis: An approach to the study of social action as sense making practices. In: Teun A. van Dijk, ed., Discourse as social interaction, 64-91. London: Sage.

Pomerantz, Anita, 1986. Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies 9: 219-229.

Putallaz, Martha, 1983. Predicting children’s sociometric status from their behavior. Child Development 54: 1417-1426.

Putallaz, Martha and John M. Gottman, 1981. An interactional model of children’s entry into peer groups. Child Development 52: 986-994.

Putallaz, Martha and Blair H. Sheppard, 1992. Conflict management and social competence. In: C. Shantz and W. Hartup, eds., Conflict in child and adolescent development, 330-355. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Romaine, Susan, 1995. Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell. Sacks, Harvey, 1992. Lectures on conversation. Edited by Gail Jefferson. Oxford: Blackwell. Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson, 1974. A simplest systematics for the organi-

zation of turn taking for conversation. Language 50: 696-735.

J. Crondal I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 515-543 543

Schegloff, Emanuel A., 1972. Sequencing in conversational openings. In: J.J. Gumperz and D. Hymes, eds., Directions in sociolinguistics, 346-380. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Schegloff, Emanuel A., 1995. Discourse as an interactional achievement III: The omnirelevance of action. Research on Language and Social Interaction 28 : 185-211.

Schegloff, Emanuel A., Harvey Sacks and Gail Jefferson, 1977. The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53: 361-382.

Sheldon, Amy, 1996. You can be the baby brother, but you aren’t born yet: Preschool girl’s negotiation for power and access in pretend play. Research on Language and Social Interaction 29: 57-80.

Silverman, David, 1998. Harvey Sacks: Social science and conversation analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.

Streeck, Jtirgen, 1986. Towards reciprocity: Politics, rank and gender in the interaction of a group of schoolchildren. In: J. Cook-Gumperz, W.A. Corsaro and J. Streeck, eds., Children’s worlds and children’s language, 295-326. Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.

Thorell, Mia, 1998. Politics and alignment in children’s play dialogue. Linkoping Studies in Arts and Science 173.

Whalen, Marilyn R., 1995. Working towards play: Complexity in children’s fantasy activities. Language in Society 24: 315-348.

Wootton, Anthony J., 1998. Interaction and the development of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press.

Zentella, Ana C., 1997. Growing up bilingual. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Jakob Cromdal is about to finish his Ph.D. thesis at the Department of Child Studies, Linkoping Uni- versity, Sweden. His main research focuses on bilingual interaction, notably language alternation, among school children. A wider field of interests includes situated approaches to discourse in a range of insti- tutional settings.

Can I be with? : Negotiating play entry in a bilingual school

Documents