A Migrant’s Chronotopic Identities in Playful Talk in a Classroom

Abstract

This case study investigates a migrant adult’s identity work in playful talk occurring spontaneously in a classroom for Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults (LESLLA). Based on 12 hours of video-recorded interactions among four learners and their teacher, I identified five playful episodes. This paper focuses on two episodes instigated by a woman who told stories of her outside lives. Discourse analysis was performed through the lens of chronotope (timespace) to examine how she navigated multiple chronotopes, including the front-region classroom chronotope, to negotiate identities and how playful language was related to her chronotopic identity work. Playfulness began in the periphery of the classroom chronotope; then the playful language in it led to the playful formulation of outside-life chronotopes where her agentive identity was constructed. Her full semiotic behaviours blurred the boundaries between the classroom chronotope and the outside chronotope so that the other participants could witness her agency. The study concludes that the classroom chronotope itself showed signs of change in a forward-looking direction.