Languaging and languagized learning Lian Malai Madsen & Thomas Rørbeck Nørreby (50/50 bidrag) (In press) David Bloome & Richard Beach (eds.) Languaging Relations for Transforming the Literacy and Language Arts Classroom. New York: Routledge. Abstract In this chapter we discuss languaging perspectives on language learning in the light of recent problematizations of (trans-)languaging pedagogies and their critical and emancipatory ideals (Jaspers & Madsen 2016). Languaging as concept refers to the practice of using language and (trans-)languaging pedagogies often emphasize how ideas of discrete bounded languages are ideological constructs that can both obscure and restrict language practice and learning. Jaspers and Madsen (2016), however, argue that the imagining of ‘pure’ languages remains a potent symbol in everyday languagized lives and that many pupils and practitioners themselves actively orient to separate bounded codes for the benefits (symbolic or otherwise) that this can entail. Building on interactional data from language learning classes in a public and a private school in Copenhagen, we consider the impact of such investments in a bounded code understanding of language to languaging and language learning, and we argue that languaging perspectives can hardly escape, but need to incorporate such constructs. Introduction Languaging has become an influential concept both within socioculturally based educational research and in socio- and critical contact linguistics. Languaging as concept refers to the practice of using language to make meaning, and while the basic understandings of the concept within the two research strands are certainly compatible, the focal interests and the purposes of employing it 2 differ. Languaging as it is used within educational research emphasizes language use as a key mediational tool for meaning making and learning in general (e.g. Bloome & Beauchemin 2016; Beach, 2017). Within socio- and critical contact linguistics the primary interest has been the ontological theorization of the concept of language itself and the development of more precise descriptive terms for language use in linguistically diverse contexts (e.g. Møller 2009; Jørgensen 2010; Otsiju & Pennycook 2010; Wei 2011). In this chapter, we combine the two perspectives and discuss languaging in language learning situations with the twofold purpose of contributing to pedagogical approaches to language learning as well as to theoretical discussions of the conceptualization of language and linguistic diversity. We base our discussion on recent problematizations of trans-languaging pedagogies, their theoretical implications and their critical and emancipatory ideals (Jaspers & Madsen 2016; Jaspers & Madsen forthc.) developed in work that also combines educational and theoretical interests (García & Wei 2014; Flores & García 2013). Trans-languaging pedagogies often emphasize how ideas of discrete bounded languages are ideological constructs that can both obscure and restrict language practice and learning. Jaspers and Madsen (2016), however, argue that the imagining of ‘pure’ languages remains a potent symbol in everyday languagized lives and that many pupils and practitioners themselves actively orient to separate bounded codes for the benefits (symbolic or otherwise) that this can entail. First, we unpack the understanding and influence of languaging in the different research fields and sketch the main positions in the recent theoretical discussions with their ideological implications. Then, we present and attend to interactional data from language learning classes in a public and a private school in Copenhagen. Building on the observations in our data we consider the impact of investments in a bounded code understanding of language to languaging and language learning, and we argue that languaging perspectives can hardly escape, but need to incorporate such constructs. 2 3 Languaging and Sociocultural Pedagogy The challenge of traditional, structural concepts of language connects to a long and wide development in language-focused research where a discontent with the traditional concept of language has been raised in different shapes, with different aims and within different scholarly traditions. The critical voices, though, share an emphasis on language use in interaction, a concern with contextualisation and attention to how language and meaning rest on situated social (re)construction. With inspiration from the work of (among others) Vygotsky (1978, 1986) and Bakhtin (1981), Linell (1998) characterizes the shift away from viewing language as a bounded structural entity by contrasting what he refers to as a ‘dialogic’ view of language with the ‘monologic’ view characterizing the traditional code understanding. A dialogic approach sees cognition, language and communication as inherently interdependent. Communication is not seen as the use of codes existing in readymade form before communication occurs; rather communicative acts are constructed through the practice of using language, i.e. through languaging and communicative and linguistic meaning is focused in dialogue with various kinds of contexts and interlocutors (Linell 1998: 35). Communicative acts respond to and anticipate other acts, and although such acts are always situation-specific they also always ‘make manifest aspects of culturally constituted routines and ways of seeing the world’ (Linell 1998: 48, see also Bakhtin 1981). Language is seen as a sociocultural artefact and, as such, mediating cognition and communication (Vygotsky 1978). A sociocultural perspective incorporating a dialogic approach like this sees learning as a contextually situated interactional achievement and places particular emphasis on language as mediational tool (Säljö 2003). From this perspective languaging in a basic sense refers to how we linguistically articulate and negotiate meaning in communication and a crucial part of learning is how we in this way language the objects of learning, the communicative events we engage in, as 3 4 well as our participation in these. Bloome and Beauchemin (2016), for instance, study how students language personhood in the classroom and Beach (2017) studies how literacy activities are languaged. Languaging as verb (rather than language as noun) signals that language itself is a practice and that exact meaning is not inscribed or encoded a priori in language, but created in its situated use. At the same time languaging mediates and thereby shapes how and what we know and share. Thus, a case of meta-languaging becomes apparent in situations where language is the object of learning. Swain (2006) quotes Becker (1991:229) stating that ‘languaging about language is as everyday as languaging about everything else’ and she argues that such (meta-)languaging is one of the ways in which we learn a second language to an advanced level (Swain 2006: 96, meta- is our addition). Scholars in education are interested in languaging as crucial to learning, but in the field of socio- and critical contact linguistics the dominating interest has been what the situated use of linguistic signs teaches us about language as phenomenon and the primary concern has been the ontology of language itself as well as its ideological implications. Languaging and Sociolinguistic Theory From a practice-focused and dialogic understanding, language as a bounded, structural entity is a highly problematic theoretical construct. It has been pointed out that rather than being an objective conceptualization of human means of communication language is a sociocultural and ideological creation. Integrationists like Harris (1980, 1998) have referred to the traditional conceptualization of language as a ‘myth’ (Harris 1998) and have called linguists ‘languagemakers’ (Harris 1980) and linguistic anthropologists have traced how the common idea of ‘a language’ has been formed through consistent representations of languages as associated with 4 5 particular national communities (Bauman and Briggs 2003; Makoni and Pennycook 2008; Heller 2007). In critical contact linguistics, studying heterogeneous language situations and practices have brought to bear the challenges that result from working with the concept of ‘codes’ or ‘languages’ when faced with observations of complex linguistic realities and practices (Auer 1998). The concern has been ontological and descriptive. Noticing how speakers may identify, and meaningfully alternate, a range of unofficial varieties and styles that can themselves be mixed and breach proposed syntactical constraints, the key argument of Auer’s (1998) edited volume is that language use should be approached with close attention to its conversational function and to participants’ perspective on the relevant linguistic variation. In addition, the studies in this volume point out that hybrid linguistic practices are far from always a sign that speakers are creatively and deliberately alternating between codes (more or less mixed) of which they have elaborate competence. It is demonstrated how such practices do not exclusively serve to project particular social identities, but may also result from restricted competence, from temporary ‘crossing’ into linguistic forms not seen to be part of one’s usual repertoire (cf. Rampton 1998) or they may serve the sequential organization of talk (e.g. Meeuwis & Blommaert 1998). Facing the challenges of defining and separating codes, studies of linguistically diverse communication have also embraced languaging as an ontological term for language practice. Jørgensen (2008: 169) defines languaging as ‘language users employ[ing] whatever linguistic features are at their disposal with the intention of achieving their communicative aims’. Moreover, a couple of prefixed languaging labels, notable poly- and trans-languaging, have derived from this perspective and gained popularity as descriptive and pedagogical terms for a particular kind of languaging that transgresses, transforms or resists established models of languages, registers or styles. To a large extent replacing existing code-switching terminology the new terms are meant to 5 6 signal a reconceptualization of the hybrid linguistic practices as well as of language as such in tune with the approach sketched above. Poly-languaging according to Jørgensen and Møller (2014: 73) involves ‘the use of linguistic features associated with different ‘languages’ in the same production, regardless of the fact that some people believe that the features do not belong together’. Translanguaging originates in a pedagogical strategy that similarly involves the functionally integrated use of different ‘languages’ (Baker 2011), but the term is also inscribed in a vision of critical social transformation: [t]ranslanguaging for us refers to languaging actions that enact a political process of social and subjectivity transformation which resists the asymmetries of power that language and other meaning-making codes, associated with one or another nationalist ideology, produce. (García & Wei, 2014, p. 43) A consequence of such conceptualizations of hybrid languaging as transgressions (and transformation) of established models for language, seems to be that languagers must in these cases observably orient to their practices as transgressions, and this in its turn implies to some extent orienting to the established models in order to transgress them (Jaspers and Madsen 2016). If transgression of these models is, for instance, accidental (Ritzau and Madsen 2016), or in cases where speakers practice habitual languaging that may look ‘mixed’ from a separate codes view of language, but may not be experienced as such by the speakers, this kind of languaging can hardly be described as the use of different ‘languages’ or as transgressive. A case in point is the speech style of urban youth in Copenhagen (by some its users referred to as “street language” or “slang”), which includes linguistic forms from a variety of different languages, but is experienced and talked about as a distinct register (Madsen 2013; Nørreby 2018). In this sense the concepts of poly- and translanguaging as well as the practices they are seen to describe seem to depend on the idea of separate 6 7 languages as a pre-existing (ideological) construction (cf. Orman 2013; Otsuji and Penncyook 2010: 244; Jaspers and Madsen 2016). The hybrid linguistic practice observed in various language contact situations has received particular scholarly attention because it questions otherwise often taken-for-granted understandings of language as phenomenon, but all language use-- more or less explicitly--meta-linguistically and meta-pragmatically constructs language. In this sense, both the linguistic practices observed and scholars’ descriptions of these practices typify linguistic signs and project particular conceptualizations of language albeit some more durable, authoritative and/or transgressive than others. In other words, they contribute to languaging language, and a crucial part of the way language is languaged (which is hard to escape no matter whether it is reaffirmed or resisted) is the idea that some linguistic forms belong together while others do not. Languaging Language A basic dynamic in our languaging of language is what Agha (2003; 2007) refers to as processes of enregisterment that is practices through which specific (linguistic) signs become recognized by larger groups of people as belonging together and forming particular cultural models (registers). Enregisterment involves explicit languaging about language such as talking about linguistic forms and ways of speaking in certain ways or labeling language use (not least scientific labeling). However, enregisterment also includes more implicit linguistic typification through the meta-pragmatic acts we perform by repeatedly using particular language forms in combination with others for certain purposes and certain situations. Through repeated use as well as more explicit meta-pragmatic discourse linguistic signs come to point to or index stereotypical images of types of people, acts, values etc. Once such semiotic links become more widespread they are also accessible 7 8 for people to draw on for particular communicative purposes (Agha 2007; Silverstein 2003). In this way, prevalent and stereotypical indexical meanings of linguistic or other semiotic forms can be brought about in interaction with situational effects and thereby wider circulating symbolic value ascriptions can be reproduced or challenged. Bakhtin describes language in use as entailing two forces operating at once: A centripetal force drawing features, structures, and norms towards a central unified point, and a centrifugal force working in the opposite direction drawing away from the central unified point towards variation in all directions (Bakhtin 1981: 667-68). This is to be understood at the level of linguistic processes at large, centripetal forces resulting in language standardization and register formation in Agha’s sense, and centrifugal forces resulting in language variation, but the forces also work within every single utterance: “Every concrete utterance of a speaking subject serves as a point where centrifugal as well as centripetal forces are brought to bear” (Bakhtin 1981: 668). Languaging thereby always involves both fluidity and fixity (Otsiji and Pennycok 2010; Jaspers and Madsen forthc.). Sometimes fluidity and mixing itself comes to be seen as a key trait of what is treated as a recognizable register. An example of this is the urban vernacular in contemporary Copenhagen described by the young people using it as characterized by mixing languages (Madsen 2013), but also treated and employed as a distinct register and given names such as ‘slang’ and ‘street language’ by the adolescents, ‘gangster’ and ‘ghetto’ language in mass media (and by rap artists) or ‘contemporary urban vernacular’ by sociolinguists (Madsen 2016). While all language users contribute to the enregisterment of the language forms they use, some individuals and institutions of course are ascribed more authority, have wider public appeal and have the potential of becoming more influential than others. Educational institutions are among the powerful forces when it comes to widespread enregisterment and their languaging of language is significant to our linguistic socialization. We shall now turn to look closer at how the processes of 8 9 fixity and fluidity play a part in language learning situations in two different educational institutions in Copenhagen. Two Different School Settings We have collected our data in two schools in Copenhagen, Denmark. The one school is an average urban public school in the sense that its pupils are predominantly from working-class or lower middle-class homes and approximately a third of the pupils are of minority ethnic backgrounds. This school according to its legal status is officially monolingual while the other is an officially bilingual (French-Danish) private school. This school can be considered to have academic elite status and most of its pupils are from upper middle class homes. Demographically, the two schools reflect the diversity of the surrounding society by both housing pupils with a wide variety of linguistic and ethno-cultural backgrounds. Their ways of dealing with this linguistic diversity and the multilingual repertoires of their pupil groups are vastly different (see also Nørreby 2018). At the public school the official language is Danish (as in all Danish public schools). As we have learned from several studies (e.g. Karrebæk 2013; Møller 2015; Stæhr & Madsen 2015) this means that the teaching and the school curriculum is anchored in a predominant language ideology that positions standard Danish as the overriding means for achieving educational (and professional) success. At the same time, it means that a lot of the pupils´ “home languages” are ascribed very little educational value. The data presented from this school were collected in a third-grade class. On this level, the only non-Danish national language register that is ever officially welcomed into the classroom is English, and this only occurs when the class schedule reads “English”. This means that more than 30 linguistic backgrounds are being left out of all school activities and thereby being preserved for either peer-to-peer interaction in the breaks or for family interaction in the pupils´ respective homes (Ag & Jørgensen 2013). Since most of the pupils have at least one Danish speaking parent and most of them were born and raised in Denmark (coupled up with the school´s 9 10 language ideological anchoring as well as of course the pupils´ own desire to invest in Danish themselves), Danish is the language that the pupils use the most. The circumstances at the private school are quite different. The official language of the school is French which means that all lessons that are not language lessons of English, Spanish, Danish, etc. are taught in French. As a French/Danish school, it is driven partly within the framework of the Danish Ministry of Education and partly within the framework of the Agency for French Education Abroad and it provides its pupils with the possibility of taking a French-Danish “Baccalauréat” which, as the school proudly states on its website, “qualifies the pupils for advanced education […] everywhere in the world” (our translation). This type of statement furthermore mirrors a tendency at the private school to foster a discourse of cosmopolitanism that projects multilingual repertoires and multicultural identities as educationally valuable and which thereby stands in contrast to the monolingual mindset at the public school (for more see Nørreby 2018). That this school is able to implement such a view on linguistic (and cultural) diversity is of course related to its status as a private school which allows for escaping the political thrust that faces the Danish public schools. This makes the school able to act more freely when it comes to the construction and implementation of its language policy, although its legal status as a partly Danish school of course still forces it to let Danish language feature as a significant part of the curriculum. As a result, the predominant standard Danish language ideology that generally shapes what goes on in terms of curricular activities in the public school is not to be found at the private school and this is also reflected in the pupils´ internal communication in the breaks where several national registers are used frequently. However, as we have shown elsewhere (Nørreby & Madsen 2018), this does not mean that the school has a more liberal approach to the pupils’ language use when in class. The general pattern in the language classes at this school is that the target language is the only language used. To ensure this the 10 11 teachers make frequently use of different language policing practices such as the English teacher asking a question (in English) and then adding “no French no Danish” or the French teacher being reacting to some of the pupils speaking Danish in a French lesson by exclaiming: “Je ne veux pas entendre de danois (.) parlez une vraie langue, quoi “ Eng :I don’t want to hear any Danish speak a real language all right Although such ideologies of linguistic purity govern most practices in the language classrooms there are also exceptions. Occasionally, the French teacher will ask what a term is called in English or Danish and in the English classes, pupils are sometimes allowed to turn to Danish or French if they do not know a particular term in English. As illustrated in one of the data examples in this study, the English teacher will also at times make use of code switching. However, this is usually when the traditional frame of teacher-led instruction and IRE-dialogue is loosened, such as when they sit on the floor in a circle freely discussing a book they are reading or when they leave the classroom to engage in activities outside or as we shall see below in relation to moments of jocular exchange in between the curricular activities in the classroom. So even though the school officially celebrates and fosters multilingualism, the common approach to language use reflects a bounded code understanding of language as fixed and separate entities. We collected the data from the public school as part of a team ethnographic effort in relation to a collaborative research project on everyday languaging among children and youth in Copenhagen (see Madsen et. al. 2016). The field work at the private school has been exclusively carried out by us throughout a period of 18 months stretching from the beginning of 2015 till the end of the school year in 2016. The data presented from the private school has been collected in a 6ième class (with the children being at the age of 11-12). For the purposes of this study we focus analytically on excerpts from both schools that have been collected through the use of mp3 11 12 recorders that the pupils have worn in class and we also draw on ethnographic field notes that we have written as part of our field work. Data and methodology We approach our data from the methodological perspective of linguistic ethnography (e.g. Rampton et. al. 2004, Copland & Creese 2015) combining analysis of micro-level interaction and ethnographically based accounts of the sociocultural and wider discursive contexts in which they take place. Linguistic ethnography is a suitable method for this because it builds on an epistemological conviction that “[…] language and social life are mutually shaping and that close analysis, and that close analysis of situated language use can provide both fundamental and distinctive insights into the mechanisms and dynamics of social and cultural production in everyday activity.” (Rampton et al. 2004: 2). The type of data we collect and our analysis reflect an approach to language and languaging as a three partite phenomenon consisting of form, use and ideology (Silverstein 1985) i.e. a social tool of action that produces both referential and indexical meaning. The data excerpts we discuss in this chapter are all from second or foreign language lessons. The pupils in focus are between the age of 9 and 11. At this age both groups of pupils are taught English as an additional language, and we shall look closer at two episodes from their English lessons. In addition, the pupils at the French-medium school are taught Danish, but since most of the participants from this school have at least on Danish speaking parent, its status as additional language is debatable, and we will return to this below in the discussion of the example. All three examples involve what could be considered meta-pragmatically potent moments and they all illustrate how both dimensions of language fixity and fluidity play a part in the languaging of language, bus as we shall see in different ways. 12 13 Languagized Language Learning The first example is from an interaction during an English lesson in the 3rd grade at the Danish public school. The pupils have been told to engage in an exercise where they are working in pairs and one of them is carrying a card. The person holding the card is told to explain to her or his partner what the card says without using the word that is written on the card. Excerpt 1 ”Pardon” The English teacher (Tea), Thomas (Tho), Ida (Ida) 01 Tea: sidste gang havde vi Tea: the last time there were 02 rigtig mange der many of you who 03 kom hen og sagde came up to me and said 04 åhh (!) jeg kan ikke ohh (!) I am not able 05 forstå hvad der står på to read what it says on 06 kortet hvad skal jeg the card what am I 07 gøre nu (.) og det supposed to do now (.) 08 handler noget om at man and that has to do with 09 skal lytte (!) og tage listening (!) and taking 10 imod det den anden taking in what the other 11 fortæller (.) og hvis (!) one is saying (.) and in 12 det er man ikke hører det case (!) you don´t hear 13 hvad siger man så↑ it whay do you then say↑ 14 Tho: xxx Tho: Xxx 15 Tea: hvad var det nu Tea: what was it 16 Thomas↑ 17 Tho: what↑ Tho: what↑ 18 Tea: ja eller say it again Tea: yes or say it again 19 please (.) what det er please (.) what that is 20 sådan lidt uhøfligt ik↑ kind of impolite right↑ Thomas↑ 13 14 21 hva (!) what (!) 22 Ida: man kan også sige 23 pardon <teacher: xxx> 24 Tea: ja pardon kan du 25 også sige (1.0) also say (1.0) 26 say it again please say it again please 27 eller pardon [markeret or par:don [marked 28 britisk udtale] British pronunciation] Ida: you can also say pardon <teacher: xxx> Tea: yes par:don you can The English competence of the pupils at this age is limited and we can see how the teacher predominantly speaks Danish to give instructions to the exercise which is quite common. In line 1113 she addresses in Danish English as the object of learning asking the pupils if they know how to ask for clarification if they have not heard what their partner said. Thomas’ suggested answer “what” (line 17) then leads to the meta-pragmatic comments by the teacher who characterizes it as “kind of impolite” (sådan lidt uhøfligt) and then repeats “what” in Danish (‘hva’, line 21) to illustrate this point. As an alternative she suggests “say it again please” and also verifies and repeats Ida’s suggestion “pardon” (line 23, 24 and 27). As opposed to the predominant strategy to language teaching at the French school where mostly only the target language is allowed, the teacher here uses what could be characterized as a trans-languaging strategy alternating between Danish and English forms (although Danish dominates). We see how English thereby in one sense is treated as a bounded code different from Danish and as an object to talk about rather than the means of communication, but also that different registers of politeness and the connotational and indexical meanings - and thereby variation within the ‘code’- are drawn into the classroom discussion when some English forms are deemed more appropriate than others. This meta-pragmatic dimension, however, is not elaborated on, explained any further or connected to communicative contexts 14 15 outside the classroom. Moreover, it can be argued that the marked British pronunciation of “pardon” with its stereotypical indexical associations of poshness is of little relevance to most communicative situations the young Danish pupils will encounter. Thus, in this small episode from the English class in the Danish school the languaging of language involves both dimensions of fixity and fluidity (or variation). English is treated as a distinct object that can be discussed in Danish. At the same time though English is not just English seeing how different expression forms are associated with different degrees of politeness. Yet, apart from the comment that “what” is impolite, the potential meta-linguistic and meta-pragmatic discussion this episode invites is not picked up by the teacher. The perspectives of how we ascribe social meaning to particular language forms and how such meaning may vary in different contexts are left an implicit part of the learning situation. The next example illustrates a different type of trans-languaging practice on one of the relatively rare occasions during the English lessons at the private school where language forms other than English are brought into the English teaching. The episode occurs in more causal talk leading up to the main activity of the day’s lesson a “mega dictation” exercise. During a collection of papers prepared by the pupils at home, the English teacher (rather suddenly) includes a number of German features in her talk: Excerpt 2a “Bad bad boy David” The English teacher (Tea), David (Dav), Simon (Sim), Unidentified pupil (Pup) 01 Tea: more papers↑ Tea: more papers 02 Dav: I forgot it at home xxx Dav: I forgot it at home xxx 03 can I bring it tomorrow 04 Tea: ja↑ [tysk udtale] 05 xxx can I bring it tomorrow↑ Tea: yes↑ [German pronunciation] xxx 15 16 06 ba:d bad boy David ba:d bad boy David 07 ((småsnak og fnisen)) ((chit-chat and giggling)) 08 ba:d ba:d ((fniser)) boy ba:d ba:d ((fniser)) boy 09 xxx (1.0) xxx (1.0) 10 haben sie eh have you eh 11 nein↑(!) no↑(!) 12 xxx xxx 13 okay okay 14 xxx 15 was sagst du↑ what are you saying↑ 16 xxx (2.0) xxx (2.0) 17 are we good↑ are we good↑ 18 Sim: yes <pup: ja> yes <pup: yes> 19 Tea: you know what↑ you know what↑ 20 Pup: mega dictation mega dictation 21 take a piece of take a piece of 22 paper [stiliseret britisk paper [stylized British 23 udtale] pronunciation] 24 Sim: paper [efterligner paper [mimics the 25 udtalen] pronunciation] 26 Tea: yeaiih(!) yeaiih(!) 27 danke schön danke schön I just need to xxx After this sequence she also refers to the pupils as, ”cutie pies” and she reacts to a mistake of her own with an “oh mayn” (a frequently used slang expression among the pupils) underlining both her jovial mood and the casual atmosphere. The episode ends with the teacher pretending to leave the room and return again greeting the pupils in Danish: 16 17 Excerpt 2b “Bye bye” The English teacher (Tea), Unidentified pupil (Pup) 27 Pup: ((nyser)) Pup: ((sneezes)) 28 Tea: bless you Tea: bless you 29 bye bye bye bye 30 ((forlader lokalet)) ((leaves the room)) 31 ((latter)) ((laughter among the pupils)) 32 ((kommer ind igen)) ((re-enters the room)) 33 hej [dansk udtale] hej [Danish pronunciation] 34 ((latter)) ((laughter)) As we can see the trans-languaging in these excerpts is not part of the official instructional talk or of meta-linguistic discussions. Rather, the sequence that they are part of is characterized by being casual playful talk before the scheduled activity begins. The teacher giggles and the pupils also react jocularly by contributing to the playful languaging with stylized British pronunciations (line 20-22) and with laughter (line 31 and 34). With this playful trans-languaging the teacher (temporarily) abandons the usual language policy that encourages the pupils to only use English. Apart from using German and Danish herself, she also uncharacteristically accepts Danish answers at several points during the session. Thus, the languaging of language in this episode, compared to excerpt 1, does not involve explicitly treating language as a bounded object in metalinguistic and meta-pragmatic discussion. The teacher here enacts linguistic hybridity through the use of different forms traditionally associated with different languages as well as exaggerated, stylized linguistic performances. These practices are accompanied by laughter and other jocular and “silly” actions (such as leaving the room and forgetting one´s paper at home). So, in one sense language is treated as a fluid means of playful communication, but the very fact that the hybridity is part of creating a causal, amusing and unserious atmosphere underlines the transgressive character 17 18 of this behavior and thereby also implicitly invokes the conceptualization of language it transgresses, i.e. the “one bounded code at the time” understanding of language. Finally, the communicative context for this kind of languaging as part of the causal in-between-tasks talk contributes to meta-pragmatically typifying such practices as informal and playful rather than academically relevant and official (see also Beauchemin this issue). The final example we will discuss is from a Danish class at the French school. Since French is the official medium of instruction at the school, Danish is taught as a second or foreign language. For most of the participants in our study, however, Danish is spoken by at least one of their parents and to all but one pupil in the class it is also their own preferred language in most contexts outside formal classes (which was not the case for all pupils at the school). This makes the language lessons of Danish appear as a hybrid between advanced Danish as second language lessons and Danish as first language as taught in the public Danish schools. Moreover, the Danish lessons were strikingly different from all other lessons we observed. Especially the noise level and the casual atmosphere stood out, but also the more liberal approach to what kind of language use was acceptable in schoolwork was characteristic as well shall now see. In the excerpt 3 below, the pupils have read “The Sweathearts” by the famous Danish fairytale writer H.C. Andersen and they are asked to imagine what the ball would say if a mirror was held in front of it after it had been left in the gutter for years. The sequence begins with their Danish teacher, Søren, clarifying what they are expected to write: Excerpt 3 ”Oh my God” The Danish teacher (Tea), Celine (Cel), unidentified boy (Pup), Marie (Mar), Pierre (Pie) 01 Tea: shh aj I skal ikke ø:h (.) 02 prøv lige at lyt fordi Tea: shh ah you shouldn’t e:h (.) just try to listen because 18 19 03 I har ikke helt you have not quite 04 forstået åbenbart understood apparently 05 ((larm fra snak og ((ongoing noise from talk and 06 nynnen i klasserummet)) humming around the classroom)) 07 I skal ikke skrive en(.) you should not write a (.) 08 <lyt> <listen> 09 Cel: jeg har forstået Søren Cel: I got it Søren 10 Tea: ja men så øh så tier man bare Tea: yes but then eh then you just 11 stille (.)og går I gang↓ stay quiet (.)and start↓ 12 I skal sådan set I skal you should not actually you 13 ikke skrive en histor↑ie should not write a sto↑ry 14 I skal ligesom skrive hvad you have to like write what 15 vil den sige til sig selv would it tell itself 16 hvis den man den lige if it one it 17 forestiller sig lige just imagines just 18 pludselig får et spejl sat op suddenly has a mirror put up 19 Pup: <må vi gerne skrive nye 20 navne og ord> 21 Tea: <xxx> 22 ja I behøver ikke skrive yes you do not have to write 23 øh gammeldags eh old-fashioned 24 Mar: må vi gerne skrive 25 oh my God [pron: gαd] 26 Pie: oh my Go:d [pron: gα:d] 27 ((forvrænget stemme)) 28 Pup: oh my God [pron: gↄd] Pup: oh my God [pron: gↄd] 29 Pup: oh my f’ing God [pron: gↄd] Pup: oh my f’ing God [pron: gↄd] Pup: <are we allowed to write new names and words> Tea: Mar: <xxx> can we write oh my God [pron: gαd] Pie: oh my Go:d [pron: gα:d] ((distorted voice)) 19 20 The Danish lessons were predominantly carried out in Danish and as mentioned above most of the pupils had advanced competence when it came to spoken Danish vocabulary and fluency. Occasionally, translations into French would be used by the teacher for clarifying purposes and some pupils would sometimes explain to classmates in French. In this situation (like in general during Danish lessons), the pupils talk a lot about topics unrelated to the work at hand, and the teacher is interrupted when he tries to explain the assignment. After the explanation of the task a meta-pragmatic discussion occurs when one of the boys asks if it is ok to write “new names and words” (lines 19-20) and when it is confirmed that they do not have to write “old-fashioned” (lines 22-23), supposedly referring to the style of writing in the fairytale, Marie responds to this by asking if they are allowed to write “oh my God”. “Oh my God” is a frequently-used exclamation by the pupils in peer to peer interaction outside the classroom. As we can see the question attracts particular attention and is repeated by others with different marked pronunciations (line 26-29). The indexical association to peer talk is furthermore underlined in the last utterance where one of the boys combines the expression with a swear word (line 29). When the pupils read aloud their answers a while later, some of them have used the expression “oh my God” and this is accepted by the teacher. This last excerpt is not meant to illustrate trans-languaging strategies. “Oh my God” could of course from a structural point of view be categorized as an English expression, but since it was so commonly used in youthful and causal (otherwise mostly Danish) talk, it is probably more suiting to consider this a slang expression associated with a casual peer register (Nørreby & Madsen 2018). The point we want to draw attention to regarding the languaging of language here is that it involves explicit meta-pragmatic attention in the sense that different ways of writing Danish are addressed and referred to with the terms “new” and “old-fashioned” that appear to be recognized by 20 21 all participants. It is not explicitly discussed what characterizes the different registers, but as it occurs sequentially in the interaction “oh my God” is associated with “new” and not “oldfashioned”. The terms used by the pupils and the teacher in this episode suggest that the registers discussed are defined by time rather than level of formality, but the question about the slang expression and the way it is reacted to appear to invoke this dimension as well. Again, the potential for further discussion of the registers, their characteristic forms, associated values and contexts of use is not exploited. In contrast to the other two examples, however, the teacher’s approval of a youthful slang expression as acceptable in a Danish writing task somewhat breach traditional style and genre differences although without directly accounting for this. So where the other excerpts illustrate how the teachers’ actions contribute to typifying some language forms as inappropriate for formal school work, the teacher in this last excerpt appears to have a more liberal approach to the languaging of academically relevant language. Conclusion In this chapter, we set out to examine language learning in two different schools to discuss trans-languaging pedagogies with their theoretical implications and critical, emancipatory ideals and to consider the impact of investments in a bounded code understanding of language to these practices and ideologies. Theoretically, we have argued that languaging language involves both centrifugal forces creating language variation and hybridity and centripetal forces forming ideas of bounded codes or distinct registers. We have analyzed three examples from language learning lessons and demonstrated how the languaging of language in these cases in different ways invoked both of these forces when the distinct and bounded character of codes and registers was 21 22 simultaneously transgressed and reaffirmed (since the transgression itself implies the constructs it transgresses). Trans-languaging has been presented as an emancipatory pedagogical strategy of languaging language and language learning in a way that resists asymmetries of power and leads to subjectivity transformation because it transgresses traditional imagining of languages as bounded codes (e.g. Garcia & Li Wei 2014, see discussion in Jaspers & Madsen 2016). Based on our theoretical and empirical accounts, however, we argue that we cannot escape dynamics of fixity, code constructions and register formations, as they form a basic part of our languaging of language. Language learning is itself languagized and a languaging perspective needs to incorporate such constructs. Common to all three examples we have discussed is that they all involve meta-pragmatically potent moments, but in all the cases the learning potential of these moments was not fully exploited leaving the meta-pragmatic typification to a large extent implicit in the actions and responses of the teachers (and pupils). The pedagogical lesson to learn from our theoretical and empirical observations, we suggest, is that we might benefit from more explicit, reflexive language awareness in language teaching (see also Rymes 2014). That such awareness can be fruitful for language learning is no new point. Van Lier (1994: 69), for example, argues that “[…] an overt stimulation of […] linguistic consciousness, including awareness of language use in relevant settings, of learning processes, [and] of the power of language to enslave or liberate” will benefit both language teachers and learners by ensuring that the teaching is based on a more adequate and holistic view of what language is and how it works in social life. The impact of the concept of languaging in educational research has certainly also led to more reflexive awareness with respect to how the object of, participatory roles in and contexts of learning are linguistically mediated. However, the tendency within (trans)-languaging approaches to language as the object of learning has been to emphasize a deconstruction of the taken-for-granted 22 23 assumptions about traditional conceptualizations of language that are often dismissed as an ideological construction and therefore faulty and enhancing power asymmetries. But a celebration of linguistic hybridity and fluidity is no less ideological than its counterpart and reflexive awareness in language teaching should therefore include fixity as well as fluidity. If teachers reflect on how they implicitly typify language use through their practices and judgments and invite students to notice and question how particular language forms are seen as belonging or not belonging together as well as how and why such forms become associated with particular situations, social identities and value ascriptions, it will illuminate the languagized nature of language and language learning. In our view, the benefit of such pedagogical strategies is twofold: It can avoid the uncritical reproduction of taken-for-granted language constructions while at the same time refraining from disguising ideological debate by merely dismissing such constructs as irrelevant and incorrect. 23 24 References Ag, A. & J. N. 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