Language choice as a technology of talk: A case study of Thai teacher trainees

Abstract

This paper discusses the ways Thai teacher trainees of English conceptualize their language choices inside the classroom, the affordances and constraints this creates for their learning and how it affects their identifications as teacher trainees. Drawing on data from a longitudinal ethnographic study in central Thailand, this paper describes how language choice functions as a ‘technology of talk’ (Jones 2016) that creates both affordances and constraints for our social interaction and the ways our identity is negotiated in social interaction in the classroom. It demonstrates that language choice, in societies in which our literacy practices are increasingly mediated by digital technology, is not only conceptualized through discourses on the situated appropriateness of literacy practices in the classroom, but also influenced by an extended network of digital literacy practices students engage outside the classroom. These digital literacy practices afford new ways of expressing, doing and saying in languages that are otherwise scarcely accessible outside the classroom. Engaging in these practices constructs networks of widely dispersed literacy practices forming intricate nodes between both online and offline sites and gradually permeate traditionally bounded spaces such as the classroom.