Bidialectal pre-school: enacting participation frames through linguistic and other semiotic means

Abstract

This paper analyses how teachers and toddlers enact participation frames in bidialectal early education in Limburg, the Netherlands. Teachers’ language choice is often context-bound as they use the national language, Dutch, for instruction and the regional language, Limburgish, for playful or social-emotional situations with individual children. Drawing on ethnographic data generated during 4.5 months of fieldwork in a bidialectal pre-school, I address how teachers and toddlers use the two language varieties, respectively, as well as other semiotic means to shape situational participation in multiparty interaction. My multi-modal analysis of selected video- and audio-recordings of interactions of two teachers and the target child Felix as well as varying other participants shows that teachers may use Limburgish to move into a personal conversation amongst colleagues in front of the children. In contrast, they use Dutch to stage conversations which they intend to be overheard by the children. Closely investigating children’s orientation towards participatory statuses and their interactional consequences, it becomes evident that children co-create participation frames initiated by the teachers at times and subvert them at other times.