Bilingual Text Production as Task and Resource: Social Interaction in Task Oriented Student Groups

Abstract

The paper attempts to highlight the bilingual nature of social interaction in task-focused groups taking place in school environments where more than one language is readily available for the purpose of everyday social affairs. Specifically, the following analysis highlights three issues, central for our understanding of bilingual group work. These are:

• the linguistic organization of task-oriented actions, which will lead us to specify a socially shared division of labor between the two languages
• the use of code-switching and related bilingual practices in the pursuit of various interactional projects
• the notion of pedagogic tasks as interactional resources, exploited by the participants for a range of practical purposes (clearly, this issue is not specific for bilingual groups)

To illustrate the relevance of these matters, samples of bilingual talk-in-interaction from two different settings will be fleshed out in some detail, combining the task-oriented as well as interpersonal aspects of students’ actions, and treating the issue of language choice (and alternation) as an integral part of their social conduct.