Hypothetical reported speech as pedagogical practice in multilingual classrooms in India

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2021

Abstract

In classrooms in India where the instructional language is to be English, speakers use reported speech in Indian regional languages for pedagogical purposes, renegotiating the roles and statuses among languages in the multilingual setting. Reported speech is a form of indirect speech used when a speaker quotes another in a way that they voice the other speaker. Reported speech of hypothetical speakers presents moral arguments, negotiates roles of status and power, and can settle disputes, but few findings point to hypothetical reported speech for instruction in classrooms. Teachers who claim to use only English in their secondary school and college classrooms quoted hypothetical invented speakers using another language for humorous colloquial speaking commonly found outside of the classroom. The practice distances teachers from the content of their hypothetical reported speech to maintain their roles as authority figures in the English-only classrooms while imbuing languages with different values. Reported speech critiques and clarifies to build rapport with students by introducing humor to maintain classroom control, socialize student behavior, and introduce unsanctioned languages into lessons within broader societal linguistic expectations.

Publication Title

Language and Education

Volume

36

Issue

4

First Page

297

Last Page

311

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2021.1981368

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