Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

198 Part 3: Language and Variation
lead to high amounts of on-task activity (see also Dubberley, 1993; Woods,
1976) – though it must be added that students who did not manage to ‘do
ridiculous’ could be effectively marginalised by their peers into the wings
of the classroom stage.
One of the tools with which ‘doing ridiculous’ was done, moreover,
was by playing with language and linguistic varieties, and this brings us
back to the second example I mentioned in the introduction of this chapter
(‘so you are a repeater’), which can inform us about the relevant symbolic
markets for the students in my research. Signifi cantly simplifi ed and translated
from Dutch, the interview extract this stylisation comes from is as
follows (see Jaspers (2006) for a detailed transcript and discussion):
JJ: when do you think you will be needing
Standard Dutch?
Adnan: well, you learn to talk better, so that when you
go apply for a job or something, at least you
won’t be making a fool of yourself
Moumir: that was last year, uh, I could write a letter like
that, I’ve done such – such an application letter
JJ: yeah
Moumir: and uh, and this year we’re also going to be
writing one, isn’t it? isn’t guys? And uhm, so
uhm, yeah . . .
Adnan and Mourad: [laughing]
Mourad: [very close to
the microphone:] so you are a repeater
[laughter]
Mourad: Moumir Talhaoui, 22 years old!
[laughter]
JJ: but, but, right, when you uh, when you take a
look at [etc.]
Mourad comments on Moumir’s contribution to make fun of him: the
latter has unexpectedly and to the amusement of his mates exposed himself
as a grade repeater (and as someone who’s ashamed of it) by talking
about ‘last year’, which Adnan and Mourad cannot of course confi rm.
Mourad does this in a stylised Standard Dutch, using careful pronunciation,
and also making sure that it will certainly be recorded by speaking
directly into the table-top microphone. Interestingly, Mourad self-selects
here, which is usually only the prerogative of turn-allocating authorities
such as teachers and interviewers, and this naturally adds to the evaluative
and authoritative quality of his comment. Mourad thus very aptly
and humorously highlights a stigmatised school identity in a teacher-like
voice. But clearly, that it was also understood in this way by the other
interview participants and that it caused some appreciative laughter is