Double-voicing and rubber ducks: the dominance of English in the imaginative play of two bilingual sisters

ABSTRACT

Through analysis of a video recording of two bilingual siblings playing with rubber ducks, this article explores the concept that imaginative play can serve as a potential site for language shift. The article argues that the siblings use English as a means to ‘double voice’ (Bakhtin, M. M. (1981[1963]). The Dialogic Imagination (C. Emerson and M. Holquist). Austin: University of Texas Press) their imaginary narrative, thus transmuting the adult world and demarcating their play from the ongoing interaction with their mother. By triangulating this microinteractional analysis with interviews with the siblings’ mother and Irish immersion pre-school leader, the paper further argues that the dominance of English in imaginative play may relate in part to the pro-Irish Family Language Policy (FLP) enacted by their mother and the robust Irish language ethos of the pre-school; in other words, the siblings’ sense of agency is heightened by using English, the language they are not ‘supposed’ to speak. The paper concludes by discussing the conundrum this explanation poses for language maintenance efforts, as it is only through initiatives such as pro-minority language FLPs and minority language immersion classrooms that children are able to acquire the minority language in the first place.

KEYWORDS:

• Imaginative play
• code-switching
• double-voicing
• Irish
• family language policy

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank Mia and her daughters for taking part in this study. Also, my deepest gratitude to Orlaith Ruiséal for all her help and to Dr. Eílis Flanagan for our many stimulating discussions on imaginative play together. This research was made possible by an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (GOIPD/2016/644). It was also additionally supported by a fellowship with the Smithsonian Institute with the ‘Sustaining Minoritized Languages in Europe’ (‘SMiLE’) initiative. Thank you also to my two anonymous reviewers, who provided many helpful comments and insights. All mistakes are of course my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This is alternatively referred to in the literature as pretend play, role play, or sociodramatic play.

2 Mia, Máire, and Sorcha are pseudonyms.

3 The term ‘Gaeltacht’ is used to refer to an area officially designated by the Irish state as ‘Irish-speaking,’ the first geographical definition being that offered by the Gaeltacht Commission of 1926, which suggested core areas where over 80% of the population spoke Irish and surrounding areas where between 25% and 79% spoke Irish. The current Gaeltacht boundaries date from 1956, with some minor additions in in 1967, 1974 and 1982 (Ó hIfearnáin 2009). Having Gaeltacht status entails certain statutory obligations toward the language, such as compulsory education through the medium of Irish. The number of daily speakers of Irish outside the education system—which is taken to mean the number of speakers for whom Irish functions to some degree as their home language—in the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht is 1,928 daily speakers, which comprises 28.7% of the total population of 6,708 people aged three and over (Census 2016).

4 The language between Mia and her ex-husband was English, and the father speaks English to Máire and Sorcha.

5 Interviews were conducted in English with the Irish caregivers in the project due to my limited ability in Irish at the time.

6 Mia has a postgraduate degree in language planning and minority languages.

7 Because of Sorcha’s interjection of ‘Mommy,’ it is impossible to hear what Máire is saying here. However, as in Irish syntax, most adjectives follow the noun they modify, Máire is most likely providing a noun (most likely ‘mór ‘big’ from Turn 10) to clarify which duck she means.

8 In looking at another video which comprises the dataset, this narrative the ducks ‘have no rooms’ may come from the fact that in this other video, the ducks are arranged in the large dollhouse and indeed do have rooms.

9 From a linguistic point of view, there appears to be linguistic transfer in that Sorcha uses the verb ‘put’ instead of ‘take’ in English (‘put this back to Grannie’ which is a direct translation of the Irish ‘cuir sin thar n-ais go Grannie’). It is also worth noting that that appears to be an echo of what Mia has said earlier in Excerpt 1, Turn 7, where she talks of returning the ducklings to Nan’s house.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Irish Research Council: [Grant Number GOIPD/2016/644].

Notes on contributors

Cassie Smith-Christmas

Dr. Cassie Smith-Christmas is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Fellow with the project 'Language, Families, and Society' (LaFS; Grant No. 794800) at the National University of Ireland, Galway. This project follows from fellowships with the Smithsonian Institute and the Irish Research Council (commenced at the University of Limerick). She is author of Family Language Policy: Maintaining an Endangered Language in the Home (Palgrave, 2016) and co-editor of New Speakers of Minority Languages: Linguistic Ideologies and Practices (Palgrave, 2018) and Gaelic in Contemporary Scotland: The Revitalisation of an Endangered Language (Edinburgh University Press, 2018).