ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by discussing Panjabi’s use in broadly conflictual interactions, and focuses on to illustrate Panjabi crossing in settings that were more cooperative. It examines two issues of interaction structure: the framework of participation directly invoked by Panjabi and the relationship between this and other participation frameworks. Stylized Indian English (SAE) was occasioned at the edges of interactional enclosures, generally suggesting to its adult recipients that in spite of their overall institutional control, adolescent participation might be less than full-hearted. SAE was more exclusively implicated in adult-adolescent relations, providing an opportunity for disruption beneath the guise of deference. The micro-relations surrounding Panjabi reflected larger debates about cultural pluralism, SAE interactional relations were structured in the politics of assimilation. At the micro level, codeswitching into Panjabi was more creative than SAE, capable of generating new lines of adult conduct, and this coincided with its larger role in local institutional negotiations.
