A Child’s Development

of Interactional Competence
in a Swedish L2 Classroom
ASTA CEKAITE
Department of Child Studies
Linköping University
SE-581 83 Linköping
Sweden
Email:[email protected]

This study explores a child’s emergent second language (L2) interactional competence dur-
ing her first year in a Swedish immersion classroom. Within the theoretical framework of
situated learning, it focuses on how she acquires expertise in a specific classroom practice: mul-
tiparty classroom talk. The data cover three periods (the early, middle, and late phases) of her
first school year. The methods adopted combine a microanalytic approach with ethnographic
fieldwork analyses of L2 socialization within a classroom community. The analyses revealed
systematic changes in the novice’s interactional engagements. An interplay of language skills
and turn-taking skills influenced her participation in multiparty talk during the three periods,
casting her as (a) a silent child, (b) a noisy and loud child, and (c) a skillful student. These
changes indicate that learning cannot be seen as the unilinear development of a single learner
identity. It is argued that a detailed longitudinal analysis may provide important insights into
the relationship between participation and L2 learning. Instead of unilinear development of a
single learner identity, we may find different participation patterns linked to distinct language
learning affordances over time.

SCHOOLING IS A SIGNIFICANT PART OF old Kurdish girl’s emergent interactional compe-

children’s everyday life, and socialization into the tence during her first year in the classroom. In-
interactional management of classroom talk (e.g., teractional competence involves a range of skills
turn taking in a competitive multiparty classroom for using language to accomplish social actions,
setting) constitutes an essential part of children’s including social aspects of language use such as
learning, their ways of becoming competent mem- knowing when, how, and with whom to engage
bers of a classroom community (Mehan, 1979).1 in conversational activities (Hymes, 1972; Scheg-
As demonstrated by second language (L2) ethno- loff, Koshik, Jacoby, & Olsher, 2002). In this
graphies, participation in social activities in the study it is defined as participants’ knowledge of
classroom is related to L2 acquisition and so- the interactional architecture of a specific dis-
cialization (e.g., Bayley & Schecter, 2003; Duff, cursive practice, including knowing how to con-
1995; Hall, 1998; Morita, 2000; Willet, 1995). We figure a range of resources through which this
therefore need to study L2 learning in relation practice is created (Hall, 1999; Young & Miller,
to novice students’ interactional management of 2004). It entails knowledge of linguistic resources
classroom activities. (lexis and syntactic structures) constituting partic-
This ethnographic study tracks an L2 novice’s ular activities (Young & Miller, 2004); pragmatic
participation in a Swedish immersion classroom. skills, such as topic introduction and maintenance
Using a longitudinal design, it explores a 7-year- (Blum-Kulka, 1997); turn-taking and sequential
organization of talk (Ford & Thompson, 1996;
Markee, 2000); and the communicative roles as-
The Modern Language Journal, 91, i, (2007) sociated with the practice (Ochs, 1996).
0026-7902/07/45–62 $1.50/0 In a dialogic sense, therefore, participation and


C 2007 The Modern Language Journal
the accomplishment of social action in particular
46 The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
communities of practice depend on a realm of He (2003) criticized the idea of L2 learners as be-
tacit interactional competencies associated with ing a homogenous group, and examined the inter-
recurrent social activities. This study focuses on actional processes through which learners in class-
how a child novice acquires expertise in a specific room interactions adopt or are positioned into
classroom practice: multiparty classroom talk. A varied speech roles within classroom interactions.
detailed longitudinal case study of an L2 speaker’s In an ethnographical study of individual L2 learn-
socialization to the interactional management of ers in an English elementary classroom, Toohey
classroom multiparty talk can afford important (1998) similarly demonstrated how the teacher’s
insights into the ways in which interactional com- notions of learning (and language learners’ abil-
petencies are developed and deployed in situated ities) led to constructions of a positive or prob-
interactions. One of the keys to understanding lematic learner identity for each child, which in
L2 learning and novices’ emergent interactional turn shaped the learning affordances the teacher
skills is attending to learners’ management of made available to each child (Hawkins, 2005).
the turn-taking system and to the allocation of Until now, relatively few classroom studies have
turns within specific discursive practices (Hall, considered the genesis of child novices’ L2 in-
1998; Mondada & Pekarek Doehler, 2004; Young teractional competence over time, including de-
& Miller, 2004).2 We will focus specifically on tailed mappings of language and pragmatic inter-
resources the child novice employed when self- actional resources (but see Pallotti, 2001; Willet,
selecting in teacher-led multiparty conversational 1995). Such a focus entails close examination of
activities, and on the interplay between emergent the varied ways in which individual learners partic-
language skills and turn-taking skills. ipate and are positioned in communicative prac-
This study draws on the theory of legitimate tices, and how these processes influence novices’
peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991), interactional repertoires (e.g., Schieffelin & Ochs,
which argues that learning is evident in novices’ 1996; Watson-Gegeo, 2004).3
changing participant status and their move from In a language socialization study of novice L2
peripheral to increasingly active participation in learners during 1 year in an American elementary
a given activity. Learning is linked to assistance classroom, Willet (1995) explored how 3 girls ap-
and scaffolding by more experienced partici- propriated and elaborated the interactional rou-
pants (Vygotsky, 1978), and participant observa- tine of phonics seatwork and were able to create
tion (Ohta, 1999; Rogoff, 2003) is manifested a peer learning community that facilitated their
through different forms of peripheral participa- L2 acquisition. As their L2 competence grew, ear-
tion. Peripheral participation has been shown to lier forms of formulaic language associated with
be a key part of socialization to a given community, the particular activity were employed in a syntac-
including in educational settings (Ohta, 1999). tically new manner, allowing for more language
The theory of situated learning includes the sit- play and restructuring of language and interac-
uatedness of school, which implies that learning tional resources.
can never be considered “culturally ‘free stand- An L2 novice’s participation in informal mul-
ing’” (Bruner, 1996, p. 28). Thus focusing on tiparty conversations was examined in a study of
how novices negotiate access to a variety of class- a 5-year-old Moroccan girl’s first year in an Ital-
room activities, as well as on what skills and com- ian preschool (Pallotti, 2001). When joining mul-
petencies are cultivated and recognized as val- tiparty encounters, she relied extensively on ex-
ued, is central to our understanding of classroom ternal appropriations, that is, repetition of utter-
learning. ances addressed to someone else. Such devices
Studies on children’s socialization in L2 ed- allowed her to produce topically relevant con-
ucational settings have primarily explored the tributions although her linguistic skills were still
teacher’s role in socialization processes and orga- limited.
nization of classroom practices (for a detailed re- In a longitudinal study of children’s social-
view, see Watson-Gegeo, 2004). As demonstrated ization of interactional skills in a Japanese im-
by He (2000) in her language socialization study mersion classroom, Kanagy (1999) demonstrated
of Chinese-language heritage classrooms for chil- how the teacher carefully staged performance
dren (4−8 years old), participation in an educa- of scripted, that is, fairly predictable classroom
tional setting involves not only socialization to the events (e.g., interactional routines of taking atten-
cultural norms of the target culture, but also so- dance, greetings, and leave-takings), thereby scaf-
cialization into the interactional norms and prac- folding children’s individual performances. Class-
tices appropriate to a specific classroom activity. room routines with a scripted, fairly predictable
Asta Cekaite 47
interactional organization enabled and supported pation in teacher-fronted activities involves more
the L2 novice’s participation in learning activities than the skills to produce linguistically elaborate
from early on. contributions and to interpret adequately ongo-
Similarly, research on the acquisition of ing talk. Getting a turn at talk also requires that
L2 pragmatics among school-age children (7− students recognize classroom turn-taking proce-
16 years old) has suggested that L2 novices are dures, including rules for self-selection. Although
able to accomplish pragmatic actions (specifi- the projectability of talk (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jef-
cally, requests) in an L2 in a socially appropriate, ferson, 1974), including foreseeable grammatical
polite manner, even if their grammar skills are and pragmatic features of turn composition, pro-
very limited (Ellis, 1992; Walters, 1980). Accord- vides participants with resources to locate an up-
ing to the two-dimensional pragmatic model (Bi- coming place to begin speaking at a possible turn
alystok, 1993), children need initially to acquire transition point (Ford & Thompson, 1996), stu-
analytic representations of pragmatic knowledge, dents also need to employ a winning turn de-
and more or less fully develop them by school sign and to know how to complete turns (Snow
age, whereas adults may rely on universal prag- & Blum-Kulka, 2002).
matic knowledge, acquired through participation Many of these skills must be acquired through
in a variety of communities of practice (for more implicit socialization, namely, through novices’ re-
on the universal pragmatic mode, see Kasper & peated participation in multiparty classroom prac-
Rose, 2002). What the profession needs now is tices. By focusing on how novices’ self-selections
a detailed study of the situated interplay between are introduced and organized and how they are
language and pragmatic competencies, as they are negotiated, accepted, or rejected, we can get a
displayed and co-constructed in children’s L2 in- glimpse of the sociocultural patterns and tacit
teractions. norms that guide social interaction in a language
Recurrent communicative events based on pre- classroom.
dictable patterns of language use constitute an In this article, we explore in detail an L2
important locus for language socialization and novice’s changing participation patterns during
learning, both in first language (L1) and L2 set- multiparty conversational activities in a Swedish
tings (Kanagy, 1999; Peters & Boggs, 1986; Wil- immersion classroom. The study presented here
let, 1995). Educational settings also involve less adds to the literature on children’s L2 socializa-
scripted, albeit recurrent, conversational activities tion in educational settings. However, the primary
such as multiparty conversations. focus is not on the teacher’s organization of learn-
As demonstrated by Tsai and Garcia’s (2000) ing practices, but on the longitudinal microge-
longitudinal study of 2 Chinese novices’ partici- nesis of the child’s interactional competence in
pation in whole-group activities in a U.S. multilin- the classroom. By examining her self-selections
gual preschool, such activities present a challenge over a year’s time, we will investigate the emergent
for L2 novices because their participation may be nature of interactional skills. Specifically, we will
severely curtailed by limited L2 skills (see also Platt focus on the situated interplay of emergent lan-
& Troudi, 1997). Whole-group conversational ac- guage skills and turn-taking skills, and how this in-
tivities are organized around children’s verbal terplay, in turn, affects participation in classroom
contributions, and talk constitutes the primary activities.
means of participation. In language classrooms,
such activities are intended to provide practice of
METHOD
conversational skills in the L2 (e.g., Hall, 2004),
and students’ active participation is prompted Setting
through opportunities for self-selection.4 In his
seminal work on first-graders’ participation pat- The data consist of video- and audiorecordings
terns in monolingual classrooms, Mehan (1979) of everyday interactions in a Swedish immersion
demonstrated that in order for students’ initia- class for refugee and immigrant children in a
tives to be incorporated into multiparty instruc- mottagningsklass (literally: ‘reception classroom’).
tional activities, the contribution had to be coher- The present group included children in grades
ent and relevant to the conversation at hand. It 1 to 3 (7–10 years old). The class met 5 days a
also had to be interesting and original. week, for 4 to 6 hours a day. All children in this
Furthermore, for L2 novices, “accessing the class of 9 students (4 girls and 5 boys) were be-
right thing to say, on-line, when it counts, as in ginning learners who had recently arrived in Swe-
the case of an ongoing conversation, is crucial” den. Time spent in Sweden and in this class var-
(Bardovi-Harlig & Salsbury, 2004, p. 222). Partici- ied, however, and the children differed in their
48 The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
L2 proficiency. The children in the immersion selections as ratified contributions (see Goffman,
class came from Iraq, the Kurdistan in Iraq, the 1981).
Kurdish part of Turkey, Lebanon, and Thailand. Classroom life entailed, thus, a great deal of im-
As their first language, they spoke Kurdish (Fusi, provisation, and often deviated from what can be
Hiwa, and Sawan), Arabic (Abdi, Layla, Rana, and seen as an official pedagogic agenda. The teacher
Miran), and Thai (Nok). Swedish was the lingua and Fare were both greatly appreciated by the stu-
franca of schooling. The main teacher, Vera, was dents. The lenient atmosphere of the classroom
a native speaker of Swedish. She was an experi- did not, however, evolve into chaotic behavior.
enced teacher who had worked with children for The students’ classroom conduct was guided by a
many years. A teacher’s aid, Fare (Swedish–Arabic set of tacit (at times, explicitly articulated) norms.
bilingual), assisted Vera. The names of the teach- For instance, the children needed to show respect
ers, as well as the names of all the students, have to other students’ verbal contributions. The teach-
been changed to ensure anonymity. ers occasionally disciplined the students for overly
The present case study concerns Fusi, a 7-year- loud and competitive interactional behavior by re-
old Kurdish girl from Iraq. She had no prior minding them to think before speaking and to
schooling experience and was one of the youngest listen to what others were saying.
children in the group. Fusi was one of the latest
arrivals in the class and an L2 novice with very Recordings and Data
limited skills in Swedish. She had mastered some
Arabic, although her native language was Kurdish. The children’s classroom interactions as well
School was her primary source of contact with as their play activities were videorecorded dur-
Swedish and Swedish society. Fusi came from a ing three periods, covering an early (autumn),
large family with many siblings. Her elder sisters middle (winter), and late phase (late spring) of
helped her with her homework. When I began the school year. A total of 90 hours of recordings
my recordings, Fusi had spent about 2 months at were obtained. The main data for this study are
school in Sweden. recordings of teacher-led, whole-group conversa-
tional activities, which have been transcribed by
Classroom Activities the author. The translations were done by a na-
tive speaker of English. Our ambition has been
Vera and Fare employed teaching techniques to preserve the children’s original style of speak-
that were centered on active student participa- ing to the greatest extent possible, including er-
tion. The activities ranged from teacher-led book rors (e.g., omitted verb copulas as in Jag åtta år
reading or storytelling, sharing time, and singing, ‘I eight years old’ and jag klar alla ‘I done every-
to individual work on tasks such as writing, math- thing’). Recurring patterns of Fusi’s interactional
ematics, and aesthetic activities (e.g., drawing). In exchanges were found through detailed analysis
order to maintain the children’s home languages of selected videotaped classroom activities. The
as well to facilitate their participation in the L2 conversations used in the present study were se-
immersion, home language teachers worked with lected to represent Fusi’s emergent interactional
the children in the classroom at least once a week skills.
(translating the teacher’s instructions and inter-
acting with the children). Methodological Considerations
The teacher, Vera, organized classroom activi-
ties in order to create what she called språktillfällen The choice of longitudinal naturalistic data
‘occasions for speaking Swedish’ (see Hall, 2004, was inspired by studies within language social-
on activities for practicing speaking Spanish). She ization paradigms (e.g., Garrett & Baquedano-
was attentive to the children’s initiatives, and fo- Lopez, 2002; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1996). The anal-
cused her instructions and spontaneous whole- ysis is also influenced by conversation analysis
group talk on their topics of interest. The chil- (Heritage, 1984) and its detailed attention to in-
dren frequently contributed their spontaneous teractional processes, explored through partici-
comments. Speakership was primarily distributed pants’ sense-making orientations on a turn-by-
through students’ self-selections. Such organiza- turn basis.
tion of communicative activities created a great Integrating microanalyses of data with an
deal of uncertainty over who would speak when ethnographic approach allows us to analyze more
a turn ended, resulting in turn-taking competi- fully the children’s interactional contributions,
tions and simultaneous talk. The teacher’s coop- which in many cases were comprehensible only
eration was needed to establish the students’ self- in the light of the shared interactional biography
Asta Cekaite 49
of the classroom community and the classroom- In Example 1 (see Appendix for transcription
specific interactional arrangements (Peräkylä, conventions), the children are working on indi-
1997). All in all, longitudinal data collection, com- vidual drawing tasks. The teacher is standing at
bined with a microanalytical approach, enabled some distance from Fusi’s desk.
exploration of Fusi’s performances over time as
well as documentation of the microgenesis of her EXAMPLE 1
interactional competence, locating changes in a Vera, the girls Fusi and Nok, and the boys Hiwa and
deeply contextualized account of interactional ac- Sawan
tivities in the classroom (see Kasper & Rose, 2002;
->1 Fusi: Vera titta här! ((holds her drawing
Schieffelin & Ochs, 1996).
half-upraised and walks across to Vera))
Vera look here!
2 Vera: ((returns to her chair, not noticing
EARLY PHASE: DYADIC EXCHANGES
Fusi))
In this section, I will briefly describe the ways in -> 3 Fusi: Vera ((follows Vera holding out her
drawing))
which Fusi participated in the everyday life of the
-> 4 Fusi: Vera (1) titta här ((standing close to
classroom community at the outset of the school Vera))
year, that is, during her early phase in the immer- Vera (1) look here
sion classroom. Fusi was generally silent and ap- 5 Vera: ojdå! vilken fin bil du har. ((about Fusi’s
peared to be uninterested during teacher-fronted drawing))
interactional activities, which were based on quick wow! what a nice car you have.
and competitive multiparty talk. Her active vocab-
ulary included the Swedish numbers ett ‘one’ to
tio ‘ten’ and words such as titta ‘look’, här ‘here’, While summoning the teacher to look at her
hejdå ‘bye-bye’, and nej ‘no’. She recurrently com- drawing, Fusi shows it to her. She also leaves her
bined these words in conventionalized phrases desk, heading toward Vera, who does not respond.
such as summonses, simple displays of disagree- Vera instead moves back to her place in front of
ment, leave-taking, and greeting routines. Know- the classroom (line 2), and Fusi follows after her
ing a handful of conventionalized phrases allowed (lines 3 and 4). It is only when she has positioned
her to join routine classroom activities (e.g., song herself close to the teacher that Fusi gets a re-
and rhyme performances, greetings, or asking for sponse, in the form of a comment and a posi-
a hug from the teacher before leaving the class- tive evaluation (line 5). Hence, meaning making
room). is heavily embedded in a visual activity context:
However, Fusi was mostly on her own, both in Fusi’s display of a classroom artefact, the draw-
the classroom and on the playground, and she ing, indicates the communicative content of her
recurrently tried to get the teacher’s and the chil- summons.
dren’s attention by pretending to run away from
the schoolyard or by pretending to cry in the class- Language Choice: Choosing an Appropriate
room (seated with her face in her hands). How- Recipient
ever, her peer group and teachers rather quickly
As previously mentioned, even Fusi’s under-
became bored with her staged escapes. Fusi com-
standing of rather simple issues of classroom life
plained to Fare that she did not want to live in
required extensive explanations and negotiations.
Sweden, and she was quite unhappy.
Therefore, Vera recurrently relied on the other
Kurdish children and on Fare to translate her in-
Drawing on the Visual Modality in Summoning the structions to Fusi. Fusi often employed Kurdish in
Teacher class, as well as some basic Arabic.
Example 2 involves Fusi’s using Arabic. Vera
At the outset of the year, Fusi’s verbal par- had just decided that the children needed to
ticipation was limited to individual work-on- change their seating arrangements in the class-
task (e.g., drawing, building, coloring cartoon room. After moving their desks around the class-
houses), where talk was only one of the means room, and after some commotion, the children
of participating (Goffman, 1963). Together with engaged in play formatted on the current class-
nonverbal actions, Fusi deployed a limited set of room activity. When one child moved to another
basic interactional moves, such as summoning the child’s desk, he or she laughingly claimed the
teacher by name, or used directives (e.g., asking identity of that child. For instance, Nok said jag
to look at a given classroom artefact). Karwan ‘I Karwan’. This play was usually greatly
50 The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
appreciated by the children. Fusi reintroduced her. Consequently, Fusi primarily initiated dyadic
this play activity somewhat later, and she placed talk rather than joining in rapid multiparty ex-
herself on Vera’s chair and playfully addressed changes.
Ahmed, an Arab boy. At the time, some other chil-
dren were seated on the floor in front of Vera’s MIDDLE PHASE: INTERACTIONALLY
chair. INAPPROPRIATE SELF-SELECTIONS

EXAMPLE 2 By the middle of the year, Fusi had become

much more visible in the classroom and on the
The girls Fusi and Nok, and the boys Ahmed and playground. She often volunteered during on-task
Abdi
individual work and tried to position herself as a
-> 1 Fusi: ana Vera (2) Ahmed Ahmed ana competent student by claiming that she had done
Vera. all the exercises. She thereby engaged in a popu-
I Vera (2) Ahmed Ahmed I Vera. lar practice among the children: comparing aca-
2 Ahmed: ((no response)) demic achievements. Fusi used a great deal of Ara-
3 Nok: he he he bic, and she attempted to become a part of the
4 Abdi: får jag (sitta) snälla (1.2) får jag? group of Arabic children, albeit without success.
((standing close to Fusi))
These children usually treated her as a tag-along
may I (sit) please (1.2) may I?
and a nuisance, assigning her the least desirable
5 Nok: hej hej he he ((waves with a toy to
Fusi))
position in their play activities. Sometimes, they
hi hi he he
even ridiculed and teased her.
During individual on-task work, Fusi frequently
talked loudly, almost screaming, and her con-
Fusi addresses Ahmed in Arabic (line 1). He tributions were recurrently marked as unmiti-
does not respond, but Nok, who is Thai, responds gated disagreements, which often resulted in con-
with appreciative laughter (line 3). Yet another flicts with the teachers or with the other chil-
child, Abdi (an Arab boy) notices Fusi’s playful dren. When calling for a teacher, she used loud,
action. He code-switches to Swedish, the official brusque talk with an assertive intonation, and she
language of the classroom, thereby making the repeatedly left her desk without permission. Such
play activity transparent to nonspeakers of Arabic, moves were accepted when she was still a new-
and he asks Fusi to let him sit in her chair (line comer (see Example 1). During the second phase,
4). With her greeting hej hej and laughter (line 5), however, such actions were usually negatively
Nok again acknowledges the play frame invoked sanctioned.5
by Fusi. Fusi’s Swedish vocabulary covered a limited
Although Fusi’s choice of Arabic indicates that though growing range of semantic domains, in-
she accommodates to Ahmed’s native language, cluding glosses for participating in recurrent ba-
her use of Arabic may be doing other interac- sic interactional activities ( Jag klar ‘I done’, jag
tional work as well. At the time, Fusi did not use klar alla ‘I done all’, kom ‘come’), polyfunc-
the Swedish word jag ‘I’. Her choice of ana (‘I’ tional words, simple adverbials, and deictics. Yet
in Arabic) therefore provides her with linguistic her vocabulary still lacked inflectional morphol-
means to achieve this play activity. By taking Vera’s ogy: Her verb forms were primarily infinitives
place, Fusi appropriates the teacher’s identity. and imperatives, such as nej skriv! ‘no write!’
It is important to note that Fusi’s self-selections and här skriv! ‘here write!’. She probably mod-
during the first period were based on fairly pre- eled these utterances on the teacher’s directives
dictable summons sequences during individual in classroom management talk (on classroom
on-task work. During such activities, however, all recyclings; see also Cekaite & Aronsson, 2004,
the children were involved in separate lines of 2005). These linguistic resources—imperatives—
action. When they called for the teacher’s in- rendered her talk with the teachers and with her
volvement, they were usually not engaged in any classmates assertive and confrontational. Meaning
joint conversational activity. Moreover, Fusi’s re- making depended heavily on Vera’s scaffolding by
liance on the visual mode for making meaning means of turn-expansions and collaborative cross-
had implications for the design and timing of her turn propositions (see Ochs & Schieffelin, 1983).
self-selections. For instance, one was Fusi secur- When participating in dyadic exchanges with the
ing the teacher’s attention by moving toward her, teacher, Fusi frequently relied on partial repeti-
or by calling Vera when she was already close to tions of Vera’s utterances.
Asta Cekaite 51
Planned Discourse in Teacher-Fronted Activities classroom hierarchy (line 9), but Fusi is teased by
Miran (line 12).
During the middle period of the study, Fusi still Here we can see that opposition and dis-
rarely attempted to join in on rapid multiparty agreement imply control of conversational space
conversations, and she largely relied on turns because Nej lilla ‘No little’ not only responds to
allocated to her. She volunteered primarily during the previous action, but also creates sequential
teacher-fronted examinations of language drills, expectations for a subsequent action, clearly invit-
homework assignments, and children’s rhymes. ing a response to Fusi’s opposition (see Goodwin,
Such activities were based on routines that Fusi 1983). Fusi thereby prolongs her participation in
could deal with linguistically (see Pallotti, 2001). classroom talk, holding the floor for several turns.
She continuously invested herself in doing home- Fusi also tried to join spontaneously evolving
work and learning songs and rhymes, and then multiparty classroom talk. However, producing
used public recitations of such knowledge to gain linguistically novel contributions in a fraction of
participation in classroom interactions. In Exam- a second was still difficult for her. She therefore
ple 3, the students had just identified the current relied primarily on interactional routines in the
month and day of the week. Fare then asked the classroom. In Example 4, the teacher is about to
class to name the current season. begin giving whole-group instructions about the
In line 3, Fusi volunteers a correct answer to classroom aquarium.
the teacher’s question. She thus interrupts Sawan, Fusi’s announcement overlaps the teacher’s in-
who has already started to answer the question structions to the class (line 6). The timing of
(lines 2 and 3). My ethnographic field notes sug- her self-selection reveals that Fusi does not quite
gest that her self-selection can be characterized as follow the overall drift of the teacher’s previous
an instance of planned language (see Ochs, 1983) talk, namely, her repeated attempts to launch in-
in the classroom, such as pre-patterned sequences structions overlapping Abdi’s story about his mag-
of months, days, and children’s songs. nifying glass (lines 2 and 4). Instead, Fusi ties
In response to Fare’s positive evaluation (line into Abdi’s off-task contribution and presents a
4, “very good little Fusi”), Fusi formulates a dis- markedly loud play invitation, jag heter Rana ‘my
agreement, including a repetition of his endear- name is Rana’ to Vera (Fusi is seated in Rana’s
ment “no little” (lines 5 and 7). The teacher ac- place). Yet there is no uptake from the teacher,
knowledges her positioning as a “big” girl in the who continues her instructional talk (line 7).
EXAMPLE 3
Fare, the girls Layla and Fusi, and the boys Hiwa, Sawan, Abdi, and Miran
1 Fare: vilken årstid är det?
what is the season?
2 Sawan: e-
-> 3 Fusi: det vinter!
it winter!
4 Fare: vinter! my:cket bra lilla Fusi ((smiley voice)). ser ni!
winter! ve:ry good little Fusi. you see!
-> 5 Fusi: nej lilla! ((determined))
no little!
6 Fare: a: du är lilla. du är bara sju år eller hur? ((smiley voice))
yea:h your are little. you are only seven years old aren’t you?
-> 7 Fusi: NEJ lilla! ((angry voice))
NO little!
8 Hiwa: he he
9 Fare: du är stora Fusi.((smiley voice))
you are big Fusi.
10 Fusi: a.
yeah.
11 Fare: bra.
good.
12 Miran: en häst Fusi! wi: tukdik tukdik ((pretend ‘riding’ sounds))
a horse Fusi! wi: tukdik tukdik
13 Fare: nej nej! hon är bara sju år.
no no! she is only seven years old.
52 The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
EXAMPLE 4
Vera, Kurdish language teacher Souzan, the girls Layla, Fusi, Nok, and Rana, and the boys Hiwa, Sawan, Abdi,
and Miran
1 Abdi: VERA (.) titta det här är visst [mycket (.) den här är visst
VERA (.) look this one is sure a lot (.) this one is sure
2 Vera: [det här ((to the class))
that one here
3 Abdi: mycket [jag kan x se. jag kan se på den=((shows his toy))
a lot I can x look. I can look at it
4 Vera: [det h-
that o-
5 Vera: =◦ mh◦ ((to Abdi)). det hä[r ((to the class))
=◦ mh◦ that one here
-> 6 Fusi: [JAG HETER RANA! ((looks at Vera))
MY NAME IS RANA!
7 Vera: titta här ((to the class))
look here
-> 8 Fusi: Vera jag ◦ heter Rana◦
Vera my name ◦ is Rana◦
9 Vera: det här är till <växterna>. vad är växter för någonting?
this one here is for the <plants>. what are plants?
((several turns of instructional talk omitted))
14 Souzan: ((enters the classroom))
15 Fusi: ((moves from her desk to Souzan))
16 Vera: hej ((to Souzan))
hello
17 Souzan: hej ((kindly, to Fusi))
hello
18 Vera: a hej. bra att du kom. kan du se hur mycket har hon förstått.
oh hello. good that you came. can you check how much she has
understood.
((to Souzan about Fusi))

Fusi then makes another attempt to elicit a limited range of conversational topics, and Fusi’s
playful dialogue with the teacher (line 8). Her self-selections were often ignored or judged as ir-
self-selection demonstrates her orientation to- relevant or even disruptive to the ongoing class-
ward possible points of entry into the talk. Gen- room activity.
erally, Vera’s instructions were conducted at a
slow pace and with pauses. Fusi’s initiative is Aggravated Turns of Disagreement
suited to fill an empty turn following Vera’s in-
structional talk, involving a sequential position In the following episode, I will explore Fusi’s
available for the children’s activity-relevant self- self-selections, here in the form of aggravated
selections. However, Fusi’s play invitations consti- turns of disagreement. As I have pointed out ear-
tute a digression from the main classroom activity lier, managing the interactional organization of
and are not acknowledged by the teacher. More- the classroom in order to select an appropriate
over, she apparently doubts whether Fusi has un- conversational slot is a key condition for participa-
derstood any of her previous talk. This doubt may tion in whole-group discourse. Vocabulary train-
be seen when, some turns later, she asks Souzan ing practices involving the teacher’s reading of
to check what Fusi has understood (line 18). picture books and journals allowed for children’s
This episode, like the episode in Example 2, is a spontaneous and, at times, elaborate contribu-
type of identity play that has become a routinized tions located in the turn following the teacher’s
interactional genre. When compared with Fusi’s production of labels or pictures.6 In Example 5,
similar play invitation in Arabic at the outset of Vera begins by labeling; she says the word hund-
the year (in Example 2), Fusi’s initiatives in Exam- valpen ‘the puppy’ while demonstrating a picture
ple 4 demonstrate her emerging language skills: of a puppy and its reflection in a puddle of water.
She can now perform the formula in Swedish. Abdi and Fusi both try to fill the sequential
However, such contributions still covered a rather slot for self-selection available after the teacher’s
Asta Cekaite 53
EXAMPLE 5
Vera, the girls Layla, Fusi, Nok, and Rana, and the boys Hiwa, Sawan, Abdi, and Miran
1 Vera: <hundvalpen>
<the puppy>
2 Abdi: VER[A S(E-)
VERA L(OO-)
-> 3 Fusi: [NEJ EN HUND! TVÅHUND HÄR!
NO ONE DOG! TWO DOG HERE!
4 Vera: det är [en hund här] ((firmly))
there is one dog here
-> 5 Fusi: [STOPP. NEJ!] ((angry voice))
STOP. NO!
6 Vera: jag ser bara en hund här. ((determined, tense voice))
I only see one dog here.
-> 7 Fusi: titta Vera ((goes to Vera)) x (.) titta
look Vera x (.) look
8 Vera: NEJ! NEJ! = ((angry voice))
NO! NO! =
-> 9 Fusi: =här=
=here=
10 Vera: =här [är en hund ((determined, tense voice))
=here is one dog
-> 11 Fusi: [◦ här två◦
◦
here two◦
12 Vera: nej! här är en hund. ((tense voice))
no! here is one dog
-> 13 Fusi: a här ((agrees))
yeah here
14 Vera: a här är en hund. varsågod och sitt.
yeah here is one dog. please sit down.

production of the label (lines 2 and 3). Abdi’s teacher and Fusi persist in their competing ver-
turn is overrun by Fusi, who speaks at a markedly sions, formulated as aggravated or at least unmit-
high volume, apparently treating this situation as igated disagreements (lines 6−12).
a turn-taking problem in need of repair (French Fusi leaves her desk and approaches Vera, prob-
& Local, 1983). When Abdi cuts short what he is ably intending to demonstrate her reading of the
saying, Fusi continues, almost screaming. picture and thereby account for her identification
Fusi’s turn “No one dog! Two dog!” is designed of two dogs lines 7, 9, and 11. Fusi’s actions dis-
as a disagreement with the teacher’s labeling (line play her adequate understanding of Vera’s prior
3). In mundane adult conversations, a conven- turn, but leaving her desk is not accepted. Vera
tionalized way of producing disagreement (a dis- responds with yet another outright opposition,
preferred action) is to delay disagreement and aggravated through repetition, high volume, and
first to account for the disagreement (Pomerantz, an angry tone of voice (line 8). It is only after re-
1984). The production format of Fusi’s turn: a peated opposition to her erroneous labeling that
turn-initial polarity marker “No” together with Fusi accepts the teacher’s correction (line 13).
the immediately following correction (“two dog”), The linguistic features of Fusi’s talk during
challenges the teacher’s labeling of the picture the second phase reveal that she drew on a
and indexes Fusi’s actions as an unmitigated op- rather limited repertoire of words, connected
positional stance (see Goodwin, 1983), to which by pragmatic principles of discourse organiza-
the teacher responds with further disagreement tion (see Perdue, 2000). For instance, she com-
(line 4). monly used nonstandard nej + x ‘no + noun’,
Fusi’s “Stop” and contradictory “No” in a imperatives, and adjectives recycled from the pre-
screaming angry voice (line 5) may be seen vious speaker’s turn to dispute his or her utter-
as an aggravated restatement of disagreement, ance (see Example 3). Such direct disagreements,
designed to interrupt the teacher—a turn- chiefly characterized by the occurrence of no,
competitive incoming in the middle of the have been documented in adult L2 English as
teacher’s turn (French & Local, 1983). Both the initial disagreement formats, although in adult
54 The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
conversations, downgraders like maybe, qualifiers, contributions, and they were recurrently incorpo-
playfulness, and explanations mitigate disagree- rated into subsequent discourse.
ment (Bardovi-Harlig & Salsbury, 2004). Chil-
dren’s socialization into conversational participa-
tion in formal learning settings involves learning Defending a Controversial Standpoint
not only what to say, but also how to say it. Chil-
dren must also learn which registers may be used As we saw in Example 5, a self-selection contain-
with which addressees and acquire rules of def- ing a controversial piece of information elicited
erence (e.g., Snow & Blum-Kulka, 2002).7 Fusi’s a negative response. Knowing how to defend
failure to get the teacher’s positive acknowledg- one’s standpoint and how to display disagree-
ment may result from an interplay of the linguis- ment seemed to be of crucial importance to se-
tic and pragmatic features of her turn production curing the teacher’s positive acknowledgment. In
format. It is, however, paradoxical that these very Example 6, Fusi successfully self-selects with a new
features may secure Fusi’s speakership, relying on topic and is, moreover, able to defend her contro-
the teacher’s responsibility to correct incorrect versial statement. The teacher and the children
classroom contributions. There are, nevertheless, talk about dogs, discussing whether it is objection-
potential dangers in employing such marked fea- able to dock dogs’ tails.
tures of disagreement; Fusi risked being seen as Hiwa and Fusi both self-select in a simultaneous
an unobservant or socially inept student. start after the teacher’s turn completion (lines 2
and 3), and Fusi wins the turn. Let us look at how
Fusi’s self-selection is designed (line 3). The state-
THE LATE PHASE: PARTICIPATING AS A ment “I eight years old” introduces a new topic.
COMPETENT COMMUNITY MEMBER Fusi’s precision-timed initiative displays her un-
derstanding of the ongoing development of the
By the third period (at the end of the year), current sequence (child-centered free conversa-
Fusi’s position in the classroom community had tion). Her statement is probably modeled on self-
changed radically. The teachers paid attention to presentation routines—for example, Jag är x år
Fusi’s initiatives and engaged in conversational ‘I’m x years old’—that were well rehearsed in
exchanges with her. Fusi usually did not leave this classroom. It also involves a controversial an-
her desk without the teacher’s permission, and nouncement: Fusi claims that she is 8 years old,
she did not contradict the teachers as often as although she is, in fact, only 7 years old.
she did during the second phase. Moreover, Fusi Fusi accompanies her self-selection with an
was no longer the object of her peer group’s iconic gesture, displaying eight fingers within the
teasing. teacher’s view. Although her gesture may be seen
Although Fusi was still a speaker of a basic vari- as redundant, as the number is also indicated ver-
ety of Swedish (see Klein & Perdue, 1997), she bally, it not only embellishes her self-selection,
clearly demonstrated an emergent creative use but also disambiguates the possible interpretation
of the Swedish language. Her lexicon covered of her not knowing numbers and age in Swedish
broader semantic domains, and she had devel- (e.g., Goodwin, 2000).
oped simple tense markings and abandoned poly- As may be seen from the teacher’s clarification
functional verb imperative forms. In a variety of request (line 4), issued with a surprise intonation,
ways, she successfully positioned herself as a com- Vera immediately abandons the main classroom
petent member of the classroom community, by activity—talking about dogs. Fusi’s age ascription
performing actions indexing a competent student now becomes the official business of the class-
identity (Ochs, 1996). She actively demonstrated room. Vera corrects Fusi’s misinformed contribu-
her academic knowledge, commented on class- tion (line 8). Although Fusi’s next turn (line 9)
room events, and displayed other valued compe- contains a turn-initial opposition marker nä ‘no’,
tencies such as literacy skills in Arabic and Swedish indicating a direct disagreement, it is prosodically
(she frequently borrowed books from the school neutrally marked and is followed by an explana-
library). Fusi had by now abandoned her loud tion that legitimates her initial age description,
and overly assertive interactional style, and she thereby modulating her disagreement. Vera does
was treated as a thoughtful, observant, and well- not dismiss Fusi’s account. Instead, she moves to
organized student. Although far from all of her the note board to check the information concern-
numerous self-selections were picked up by the ing Fusi’s age, and once again states that Fusi will
teacher, Fusi was successful in introducing her turn 8 years old in August (lines 10−12). Fusi’s
Asta Cekaite 55
EXAMPLE 6
Vera, Fare, the girls Layla, Fusi, Nok, and Rana, and the boys Hiwa, Sawan, Abdi, and Miran
1 Vera: det gör ju väldigt ont och är otrevligt.
it hurts a lot and is unpleasant.
2 Hiwa: [VERA (.) min pappa
VERA(.) my dad
-> 3 Fusi: [VERA (.) jag åtta år ((shows eight fingers))
VERA (.) I eight years old
4 Vera: va? ((surprised))
what?
-> 5 Fusi: jag åtta år. (.) jag kommer till x år.
I eight years old. (.) I come to x years.
6 Vera: är du åtta år?
are you eight years old?
-> 7 Fusi: mh
8 Vera: när blev du åtta år då? du är sju år.
when did you turn eight then? you’re seven years old.
-> 9 Fusi: nä:: (.) min mamma hon säger åtta år.
no:: (.) my mother she says eight years old.
10 Vera: säger din mamma åtta år? får jag läsa på pappret vad jag har
does your mother say eight years old? may I read the paper that I
11 skrivit här. [xxxxx ((from far away, reading))
have written here. [xxxxx
12 Vera: i augusti är du åtta år.
in August you are eight years old.
-> 13 Fusi: <ne:j jag åtta år, jag kommer till nie år>
<no: I eight years old, I come to nine years>
14 Vera: jaja, då kanske din mamma räknar det här året när man ligger i
yeah yeah, then maybe your mother counts the year when you were
15 magen
in her belly
16 Fare: nej nej, det- det är såhär så att man- man börjar och räkna (.)
no no, it- it’s like this that you- you start counting (.)
17 när man fyllt år (.) då börjar man räkna nästa året direkt.
when somebody has a birthday (.) then you count the next year immediately.
18 hon har fyllt sju, så säger man (.) hon är åtta.
she turned seven, then you say (.) that she’s eight.
-> 19 Fusi: [ja Vera
yes Vera
20 Vera: [jaså! så når man fyller sju, så säger man åtta?
really! so when you turn seven, then you say eight?
21 Fare: mh:
22 Vera: ojdå!
wow!

subsequent disagreement in line 13, similar to her of Fare’s explanation. After several turns of ex-
disagreement in line 9, contains a turn-initial op- planations (lines 20−21), the teacher Vera at last
position marker and an account. The teacher then acknowledges her understanding of this specific
agrees, orienting to Fusi’s mother as the authority age system (line 22).
(lines 14−15). As can be seen in Example 6, Fusi’s oppositional
At this point, Fare explains how age categories turns were designed as direct disagreements. Yet
work in Kurdistan, and why Fusi’s age ascription due to her emerging interactional skills, namely,
is, in fact, correct (lines 16−18). Here, Fusi makes the use of relevant lengthy accounts and prosodic
another entry into the conversation and acknowl- cues, she provided an acceptable explanation of
edges Fare’s explanation (line 19). She does so her stance and modulated her opposition. We
at an interactionally appropriate place, displaying may therefore note changes over time in how Fusi
precision timing in relation to the development expressed disagreement and defended her point
of Fare’s talk as well as sensitivity to the content of view; these changes had implications for how
56 The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
she was treated as a conversational partner (cf. their planned shape and type” (p. 71). I Irak (or
Examples 3 and 5). Fusi’s ungrammatical “Irak,” line 7) constituted
a conventionalized turn-initial phrase in the chil-
First Things First: Marking the Newsworthiness of dren’s initiatives employed when self-selecting in
Self-Selections overlap-sensitive sequential positions, and served
to indicate the newsworthiness of conversational
At times, the children’s contributions during material.8 Here it is also emphatically marked by
picture labeling activities involved rather lengthy raised volume. The dislocated element is there-
narratives concerning their personal experiences, fore defined as a thematic focus of the turn in
a specific genre of exploratory epistemic talk con- progress. Just before this episode, Vera had heard
necting the students’ experiences (e.g., from their several dramatic accounts of the children’s expe-
homeland) to the pedagogical content of what was riences in their home countries (shooting some
being taught (Boyd & Maloof, 2000). Generally, dangerous animal in a bathroom or discovering a
the teacher ratified and responded to such self- scary lizard in the living room). Although Fusi’s
selections. In Example 7, we explore Fusi’s use contribution to this exchange does not involve
of interactional resources immediately enabling dramatic elements, she is able to add some new
her to frame her self-selection as exploratory epis- information to the ongoing topic by generalizing
temic talk. When the episode starts, the teacher previous narratives about lizards in Iraq.
has just shown a picture of a lizard, and several In her request for confirmation (line 8), Vera
children volunteer related stories from Iraq. reformulates Fusi’s utterance syntactically and
In line 4, Fusi overlaps the teacher’s question provides a gloss for her generalization såna det
with the location marker Iraq. Upon finding her- ‘like it’. Thus, at the end of the year, by repeating
self in overlap, Fusi cuts off, waits for the teacher’s Fusi’s contributions as well informed and relevant,
turn completion, and secures her speakership by the teacher offers Fusi more rights to participa-
summoning the teacher. It is noticeable that Fusi’s tion, thereby co-constructing Fusi as a competent
restart begins exactly at the point where her talk and motivated student (e.g., Cekaite, 2006; Lave
is no longer in overlap. She thereby avoids si- & Wenger, 1991; Young & Miller, 2004).
multaneous talk with the teacher. Moreover, by
using the turn-initial location marker Iraq, she Stealing a Turn
immediately makes a link to the topic of Vera’s
and Hiwa’s conversation, framing her contribu- Interactional participation in this classroom re-
tion according to the genre of exploratory epis- currently involved children’s co-opting of turns al-
temic talk. As pointed out by Schegloff (1987), located to other speakers. Example 8 exemplifies
“[t]urns project, from their beginning, aspects of such thematically coherent, linguistically novel,

EXAMPLE 7
Vera, the girls Fusi and Nok, and the boys Hiwa and Sawan
1 Vera: vad säger du! en ödla! ((to Hiwa, playfully surprised))
what do you say! a lizard!
2 Hiwa: det var xx ((gestures ’climbing up’))
it was xx
3 Vera: aha:. var det [på vä]ggen?
yea:h. was it on the wall?
-> 4 Fusi: [IRAK]
IRAQ
-> 5 Fusi: VERA
6 Vera: mh
-> 7 Fusi: IRAK finns det mycket (såna) det ((makes a big gesture))
IRAQ there are much (like) it
8 Vera: finns det mycket ödlor i Irak?
are there many lizards in Iraq?
9 Fusi: a
yeah
10 Vera: a
yeah
Asta Cekaite 57
EXAMPLE 8
Vera, the girls Layla, Fusi, Nok, and Rana, and the boys Hiwa, Sawan, Abdi, and Miran
1 Vera: <jag undrar om nån ät- har ni ätit frukost i dag då?>
<I wonder if someone ha- have you had breakfast today then?>
2 Children: [a
yeah
3 Miran: [a Vera jag ätit så mycket så ((smiley voice))
yeah Vera I had so much to eat
4 Nok: (där)
(there)
5 Vera: a (.) då får du klippa där (.) har Nok ätit frukost?
yeah (.) then you may cut there (.) has Nok had breakfast?
6 Miran: >Vera alla da:g.<
>Vera all day:.<
-> 7 Fusi: jag ät-=
I eat- =
8 Nok: =ne:=
=no:=
-> 9 Fusi: =jag äter lite lite frukost ((smiling))
=I have a little a little breakfast
10 Vera: a det är bra att du äter [lite frukost
yeah that’s good that you have a little breakfast
11 Miran: [Vera alla dagar jag äter
Vera every day I have
12 [frukost. jag kan inte gå till skolan
breakfast. I cannot go to school
13 Abdi: [>Vera titta<
>Vera look<
14 Vera: har Nok ätit frukost?
has Nok had breakfast?
15 (1)
16 Vera: i:ngen frukost?
no: breakfast?
17 (1)
18 Vera: <lilla Nok kan du inte dricka- [äta lite frukost>
<little Nok can’t you drink- have a little breakfast>
19 Abdi: [JAG OCKSÅMÄTT
I’M ALSO FULL
-> 20 Fusi: jag dricker mjölk Vera ef- (.)◦ efter frukost◦
I drink milk Vera af- (.)◦ after breakfast◦
21 Vera: a:
yea:h

and precision-timed contributions to rapidly cases when the answer of the allocated speaker is
evolving multiparty talk. This episode began when not forthcoming, as in the present example, the
Vera asked the whole group if everyone had eaten self-selectees’ contributions appear in an empty
breakfast. On numerous occasions, Vera had dis- sequential position.
cussed with the children the importance of eating Let us look more closely at how Fusi’s self-
breakfast to being alert and receptive at school. selections (lines 7−9) are designed. First, they
After students’ choral responses (see Lerner, are tied to the spontaneous multiparty talk; her
1995), the teacher specifically addresses Nok (line self-selection in line 9 is also more verbally elab-
5), but other students appropriate her turn. Here orate and syntactically close to Swedish language
we can see that speaking rights in this particu- norms. Fusi self-selects in the clear, starting her
lar classroom are relatively free, and Miran and answer after Miran’s turn, which is an intona-
Fusi immediately self-select to discuss their break- tionally complete turn-construction unit. Second,
fast habits. One way of attaining speakership is Fusi produces her utterance with a smiley voice
to self-select at an empty conversational slot. In and laughter tokens. Together with the linguistic
58 The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
markers of affect “little little” (so-called quan- tricate ways in which participation in classroom
tifiers, Ochs, 1996), her utterance displays the conversational activities is highly dependent on
affective stance of a diligent pupil who complies the L2 learner’s mastery of the local institutional
with the approved norms of student identity for norms of interaction.
the current classroom community (see Kyratzis, Fusi’s noisy personality shifted markedly from
2004). Note the teacher’s affective affiliation with an incompetent, unobservant, and immature 7-
Fusi as she incorporates little into her response year-old during the second phase of fieldwork to a
(line 10). skillful, mature language learner by the end of the
When Vera issues an implicit directive to Nok year. Instead of offering an individual psycholog-
(line 18), the unaddressed children again seize ical interpretation, I focus on Fusi’s learner iden-
the opportunity to launch their accounts of break- tity as evidenced by her linguistic and turn-taking
fast habits (Abdi, line 19; Fusi, line 20). Fusi’s choices, and suggest that they had consequences
self-selection is precisely timed to appear at the for Fusi’s participation in classroom interactions.
turn transition point of the teacher’s turn (line These resources worked together to help her gain
20). Fusi elaborates thematically on “drinking membership in the classroom community.
milk after breakfast,” that is, another feature of During the first phase of fieldwork, Fusi was
good breakfast habits. This elaboration adds a new mostly silent and participated only very marginally
dimension to Fusi’s display of her actions as a com- in classroom interactions. She met expectations
petent student. for her limited interactional performance, in
In the present case, the timing of Fusi’s self- that she rarely interrupted or disturbed other
selections may be seen to indicate her emerging speakers. She was thus seen as an unproblematic
competencies, in that precision timing involves student.
the speaker’s language processing skills (Ervin- During the second phase of fieldwork, Fusi’s
Tripp, 1979), including pragmatic, syntactic, and Swedish language skills were emerging, and she
prosodic analysis of ongoing talk (Ford & Thomp- was eager to participate in classroom activities.
son, 1996). Her external appropriation (see Pal- However, she repeatedly employed inappropri-
lotti, 2001) of dricka ‘drink’ and her focusing of ate production formats by failing to locate her
her contribution on this new theme demonstrate initiatives at appropriate sequential slots or by
Fusi’s growing language production skills, which designing her contributions as aggravated direct
allow her to produce a novel and relevant con- disagreements. During simultaneous talk with the
tribution in a split second. Fusi’s deployment of teacher, she attempted to win turns by markedly
linguistic and paralinguistic devices for marking raising her voice (see Example 6). Fusi, as a good
an appropriate affective stance (see Ochs, 1996) language learner (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990), was
are also important in eliciting the teacher’s posi- seeking out opportunities for talk in the class-
tive acknowledgment. room, but breaches of the interactional norms for
classroom discourse often resulted in reprimands,
CONCLUDING DISCUSSION teacher discipline, or peer group teasing.9 The
teacher’s nonresponses or disciplining moves, as
This study demonstrates how an L2 novice well as peer self-selections, provided explicit and
was socialized into competent participation in implicit socialization by demonstrating socially ap-
teacher-fronted classroom talk during her first proved and inappropriate self-selections (see Lave
year of school. The analyses have focused on how & Wenger, 1991).
teacher-led multiparty communicative practices During the third phase of fieldwork, Fusi mas-
constitute a distinct interactional setting that, in tered a more elaborate Swedish repertoire and
specific ways, structures L2 novices’ opportuni- developed interactional skills allowing her to par-
ties for conversational participation, thereby pro- ticipate in spontaneously evolving whole-group
viding affordances for acquiring conversational conversational activities, which in turn shaped in-
and linguistic skills. In prior longitudinal work teractional learning affordances. Her timely self-
on children’s L2 socialization in classrooms, the selections involved more than anticipating turn
language acquisition of novices has been consid- completion points; she was able to self-select at the
ered a result of their participation in classroom right moment, thereby displaying her knowledge
events, shaped by teachers’ interactional organi- of the sequential organization of classroom activ-
zation of learning practices and the micropolitics ities.10 Through everyday participation in class-
of classroom interactions. In this study, detailed room activities, Fusi learned how such initia-
analyses of how the novice’s self-selections were tives were to be designed. She began indexing
negotiated, accepted, or rejected revealed the in- her initiatives with appropriate affective stances
Asta Cekaite 59
and shaping her self-selections in a way that plishment of speaker change is indicative of learn-
immediately indicated the newsworthiness of her ers’ discourse-pragmatic abilities, or their knowledge
contributions. In cases of simultaneous talk with of turn-taking in a particular speech exchange system
the teacher, she would cut off her contributions (Kasper & Rose, 2002). Changing patterns of participa-
tion in a formal learning activity (writing session) were
(see Examples 6 and 7). Therefore, at the end of
conceptualized in terms of the adult learner’s increasing
the year, Fusi performed as a socially competent
interactional skills of turn-taking management (Young
actor who, at least in part, had acquired the capac- & Miller, 2004).
ity to self-select and to participate in whole-group 3 For a longitudinal microanalytic study of adult L2
activities in accordance with the cultural expec- interactional competence (development of expressions
tations of the immersion classroom (see Bruner, of alignment in Japanese), see Ohta (1999).
1996). 4 Self-selections are typical of teacher-fronted ex-

This trajectory, from a silent and compliant changes in child-centered educational settings in Swe-
child (Phase 1), to a noisy student (Phase 2), den, and are viewed as methods by which active students
and finally to a skillful student (Phase 3), demon- who take responsibility for their own learning are
strates that learning and participation cannot be socialized.
seen as a unilinear development toward full par- 5 In an informal interview during this period, the

ticipation, nor as a unidirectional development teacher characterized Fusi as an immature 7-year-old.

of one unified learner identity. Over time, one 6 In general, such labeling procedures not only pro-

and the same L2 learner can position himself or vided a correct lexical and phonological model, but also
herself very differently within the classroom com- required that the participants practice or display their
munity, depending in part on his or her inter- linguistic skills: lexicosemantic, phonologic, word find-
actional skills. Rather than studying the learner ing, and narrative.
identity of L2 novices as fixed entities, dissociated 7 Fusi’s present way of highlighting disagreement

from their participation in classroom activities, we bears resemblance to procedures found among chil-
need to conduct more longitudinal work on the dren in various peer group interactions, indicating that
social dimension of participation and L2 learn- in some children peer group conflicts “can provide a
ing in multiparty classroom settings. Instead of primary way of dealing with coparticipants in interac-
unilinear development, we may find different tra- tion” (Goodwin, 1983, p. 658; see also Evaldsson, 2004;
jectories linked to distinct interactional language Kyratzis, 2004).
learning affordances over time. 8 The competitive multiparty conversations thereby

shaped Fusi’s L2 learning by providing affordances for

syntactic analysis of the turn elements, for instance,
which elements may be foregrounded.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 9 For a problematization of the good language learner

as an individual concept, see Norton (2000).

10 As indicated in the analyses, Fusi was able to project
An earlier version of this article was presented at the
14th World Congress of Applied Linguistics (AILA), the turn transition point in simple dyadic exchanges
July 24−29, 2005, in Madison, Wisconsin. Thanks are from early on. Her limited participation in whole-group
due to Karin Aronsson, Ann-Carita Evaldsson, Polly activities during the second phase may be indicative of
Björk-Willén, Jakob Cromdal, Ben Rampton, Sally her difficulties in locating turn transition point during
Sieloff Magnan, and three anonymous reviewers, for an ongoing multiparty conversation.
their helpful comments on an earlier draft. Financial
support from the Swedish Research Council is gratefully
acknowledged. REFERENCES

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Salsbury, T. (2004). The organi-

NOTES
zation of turns in the disagreements of L2 learn-
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APPENDIX
Transcription Key
: : prolonged syllable
[] : demarcates overlapping utterances
(.) : micropause, in other words, shorter than (0.5)
(2) : numbers in single parenthesis represent pauses in seconds
YES : relatively high amplitude
× : inaudible word
(××) : unsure transcription
what : word in English
jala : word in Arabic
◦ ◦
: denotes speech in low volume
(()) : further comments of the transcriber
>< : quicker pace than surrounding talk
<> : slower pace than surrounding talk
? : denotes rising intonation
. : indicates falling terminal intonation
= : denotes latching between utterances
Fare : sounds marked by emphatic stress are underlined
he : indicates laughter

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