ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the procedures used by two children to construct their participation in two pair-work pedagogical tasks; they have to conduct one in English and the other one in Catalan. We will focus on the way language choices and alternations shape the interactional context. In order to do that, we depart from the theoretical assumption that the sociolinguistic context is co-constructed sequentially by speakers during the execution of tasks. This vision of ‘context’ challenges the idea that there exist patterns of sociolinguistic usages speakers evoke to interact appropriately accordingly to a pre-established social order.
Language choices and language alternations are analysed here as context-building resources plurilingual speakers rely on to shape the scenarios in the course of their communicative activity. The results show that school tasks constitute a social environment in which language alternation signals context shaping and context renewing. As all tasks are done through plurilingual modes of interaction as a continuum, it becomes interesting to observe what indexes language alternations.
