Narrative circulation, disputed transformations, and bilingual appropriations at a public school “somewhere in La Mancha”

Ana María Relaño-Pastor

doi:10.1515/ijsl-2017-0057

Article

Narrative circulation, disputed transformations, and bilingual appropriations at a public school “somewhere in La Mancha”

Ana María Relaño-Pastor

Published/Copyright: March 2, 2018

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From the journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language Volume 2018 Issue 250

Abstract

This article addresses the narratives of bilingualism that emerged in ethnographic interviews with members of Sancho’s Primary in La Mancha city (Spain), whose prestige as the first MEC/British bilingual school in town has been disputed, transformed and eventually socially accepted as competitively eligible in the global market for two decades. By bringing to the fore a perspective of heteroglossia, the article discusses stakeholders’ stancetaking towards the salient tensions and dilemmas related to bilingualism in the region of Castilla-La Mancha. The analysis discusses how Sancho’s stakeholders by means of indexical meanings and heteroglossic resources come to terms with bilingualism as ideology and practice regarding who the legitimate teacher of English is, whose English-es are legitimated, which classroom practices are most valued and who can guarantee the status and prestige of bilingual programs in this region. In addition, the analysis emphasizes the validity of narratives emerging in interviews as situated, context-dependent, and contextualizing practices shaped by the conditions of linguistic ethnography, while shaping the researcher and participants’ significant values, beliefs and ideas about bilingualism and bilingual programs in Castilla-La Mancha.

Keywords: interview narratives; bilingualism; heteroglossia; stancetaking; reflexivity

Acknowledgments

This publication was possible thanks to the research stay at the University of Bristol (September–December 2015), funded by the Research Mobility Grant Program “Salvador Madariaga” (Subprograma Estatal de Movilidad del Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2013-2016), Spanish Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte). Data presented in this article belongs to the Project “The Appropriation of English as a Global Language in Castilla-La Mancha Schools: A multilingual, situated and comparative approach” -APINGLO-CLM- (Ref.: FFI2014-54179-C2-2-P), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), 2015-2018. I am particularly indebted to Sancho’s Primary School for kindly sharing with me the narratives included in this article.

Appendix: Transcription conventions (adapted from Sacks et al. 1974)

↑: rising intonation
↓: falling intonation
CAPS: louder than surrounding talk
.: at the end of words marks falling intonation
,: at the end of words marks slight rising intonation
-: abrupt cutoff, stammering quality when hyphenating syllables of a word
!: animated tone, not necessarily an exclamation
> <: speech faster than normal
____: emphasis
:::: elongated sounds
∙ hh: inhalations
ha ha: indicates laughter
uhm uh: shows continuing listenership
° °: soft talk
(0.3): time elapsed in tenths of seconds
(.): micropause
[ ]: overlapping speech
(( )): nonverbal behavior
( ): non audible segment
=: no interval between adjacent utterances

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Published Online: 2018-3-2

Published in Print: 2018-3-26

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2017-0057

Keywords for this article

interview narratives; bilingualism; heteroglossia; stancetaking; reflexivity