Interactional Order in Talk in Two Languages: Organisational Explanation

Abstract

In Chapter 3, we saw that, at the grammatical level, language alternation can be seen as an issue of order because it runs counter to the Uniform Structure Principle. In Chapter 5, we saw that, under identity-related perspectives, language alternation is an issue of order for it runs counter to the One-Situation-One-Language Principle. Therefore, at the organisational level, for language alternation to be seen as an issue of order, there must be an organisational principle counter to which language alternation can be seen as running. In the literature, two related and yet different principles have been proposed. These are the ‘Preference for Same Language Talk’ as adopted by Auer (1984, 1988, 1995) and the ‘Preference for Same Medium Talk’ as adopted by Gafaranga (1998, 1999, 2000b, 2005) and Gafaranga and Torras (2001, 2002). These two principles correspond to the two approaches to language alternation which, in Table 5.1, are listed under the node ‘organisational explanation’. It is to these approaches that I now turn.