Institutional “lingualism” as an interactional achievement: A sequential typology of initial language access | CU Experts

Abstract; This paper seeks to expand our understanding of mono-, bi-, and multi-lingualism through a comparative analysis across social institutions. First, we explore some of the concrete interactional practices used by institutions to enact and promote—or resist and impede—the use of different languages with members of the public. Examining data from three distinct organizations in the southwestern USA, here we ask: What does it take—interactionally—to be able to use Spanish in a given institutional context? Moving beyond claims that Spanish is “available,” what interactional work do members of society in fact have to put in to access it? Our second objective is then to offer a sequential typology of different procedural means through which language is accessed in these different institutions. Distinctions are made between what we call “proferred bilingualism,” “acquiesced bilingualism,” and “reluctant bilingualism,” as well as “coerced monolingualism,” on the part of institutions. The practice-based, comparative approach exemplified here, grounded in the details of moment-by-moment talk, is used to introduce the notion of institutional lingualism more broadly, and lay the foundations for future (critical) exploration of just how mono-/bi-/multi-lingual social institutions are, in actual practice.

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