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‘Who was the best?’: Power, knowledge and rationality in bilingual girls’ code choices 1

2005; Wiley; Volume: 9; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1360-6441.2005.00279.x

1467-9841

Agnes Bolonyai,

EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning

This paper examines how pre‐adolescent bilingual girls employ linguistic choices to construct relations of dominance and subordination in a competitive exchange of knowledge and expertise in a pretend‐school activity. Quantitative and qualitative analyses demonstrate that code choices used by the girls to constitute and exploit different sources of power are systematically related to the construction of currently salient identities, prevailing structural constraints, and individual goals and desires. It is argued that even young children act as rational, social actors who actively make strategic and meaningful linguistic choices with the overall aim to achieve optimal outcomes in a given interaction.