This paper explores bilingual peer interaction during classroom activity transitions—defined as unstructured temporal and spatial configurations between scheduled lessons or other activities. Drawing on audiovisual recordings from a first-grade (Grade 1) “English-only” classroom in Japan, the study employs multimodal conversation analysis (CA) to examine how children mobilize two languages (Japanese and English) along with a range of multimodal resources to engage in (i) improvised performances and (ii) imaginary play with objects. The analysis shows that these transitional moments serve as a vehicle through which children perform heteroglossia and create a “translanguaging space.” In doing so, they display their bilingual competence, challenge the “English-only” language policy, reproduce and transform the classroom’s moral order, and socialize peers—thereby constituting the bilingual peer group. Data are in Japanese and English.
AmirAMuskN (2013) Language policing: Micro-level language policy-in-process in the foreign language classroom. Classroom Discourse41(2): 151–167.
2.
AronssonKGottzénL (2011) Generational positions at a family dinner: Food morality and social order. Language in Society40: 405–426.
3.
BaileyB (2012) Heteroglossia. In: Martin-JonesMBlackledgeACreeseA (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism. Routledge, pp.499–507.
4.
BatemanAChurchA (2017) Children’s use of objects in an early years playground. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal25(1): 55–71.
5.
BatemanAKernA (2025) Translanguaging in Welsh early years traditional storytelling activities. Discourse Studies27(6): 1070–1092.
6.
BaumanR (2012) Performance. In: BendixRFHasan-RokenG (eds) A Companion to Folklore. Wiley-Blackwell, pp.94–118.
7.
BertramTCPascalHLyndonJ, et al. (2025) EECERA ethical code for early childhood researchers. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal33(1): 4–18.
8.
BlommaertJDe FinaA (2016) Chronotopic identities: On the timespace organization of who we are. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies153: 1–26.
9.
BurdelskiM (2020a) Embodiment, ritual, and ideology in a Japanese-as-a-heritage language preschool classroom. In: BurdelskiMJHowardKM (eds) Language Socialization in Classrooms: Culture, Interaction, and Language Development. Cambridge University Press, pp.200–223.
10.
BurdelskiM (2020b) ‘Say can I borrow it’: Teachers and children managing peer conflict in a Japanese preschool. Linguistics and Education59: 100728.
11.
BurdelskiM (in press) Co-construction of competence in language socialization. In: SmithBBermanE (eds) Handbook of Language Socialization. Oxford University Press.
12.
BurdelskiMCekaiteA (2020) Control touch in caregiver-child interaction: Embodied organization in triadic mediation of peer conflict. In: CekaiteAMondadaL (eds) Touch in Social Interaction: Touch, Language and Body. Routledge, pp.103–123.
13.
BurdelskiMHowardKM (eds) (2020) Language Socialization in Classrooms: Culture, Interaction, and Language Development. Cambridge University Press.
14.
BurdelskiMMoritaE (2017) Young children’s initial assessments in Japanese. In BatemanAChurchA (eds) Children’s Knowledge-in-Interaction: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Springer, pp.231–255.
15.
CanagarajahS (2011) Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues for research and pedagogy. Applied Linguistics Review2: 1–28.
16.
CekaiteAEvaldssonA-C (2008) Staging linguistic identities and negotiating monolingual norms in multiethnic school settings. International Journal of Multilingualism5(3): 177–196.
17.
CekaiteAEvaldssonA-C (2017) Language policies in play: Learning ecologies in multilingual preschool interactions among peers and teachers. Multilingua36(4): 451–475.
18.
CliftRHelaniF (2010) Inshallah: Religious invocations in Arabic topic transition. Language in Society39(3): 357–382.
19.
CorsaroWA (1992) Interpretive reproduction in children’s peer cultures. Social Psychology Quarterly55(2): 160–177.
20.
CreeseABlackledgeA (2010) Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching?The Modern Language Journal94(1): 103–115.
21.
CromdalJ (2004) Building bilingual oppositions: Code-switching in children’s play. Language in Society33(1): 33–58.
22.
CromdalJAronssonK (2000) Footing in bilingual play. Journal of Sociolinguistics4(3): 435–457.
23.
DrewPHoltE (2005) Figurative pivots: The use of figurative expressions in pivotal topic transitions. Research on Language and Social Interaction38(1): 35–61.
24.
EvaldssonA-C (2022) Examining children’s peer play-in-action: Micro dramas and collaborative play performances. IJREE—International Journal for Research on Extended Education9(1): 69–86.
25.
FatiganteMLiberatiVPontecorvoC (2010) Transitions in and out of games: How parents and children bracket game episodes at home. Research on Language and Social Interaction43(4): 346–371.
26.
FilipiAMarkeeN (2017) Conversation Analysis and Language Alternation: Capturing Transitions in the Classroom. John Benjamins.
27.
GafarangaJ (2001) Linguistic identities in talk-in-interaction: Order in bilingual conversation. Journal of Pragmatics33(12): 1901–1925.
28.
GarcíaOLiW (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Palgrave Pivot.
29.
GarrettPBaquedano-LópezP (2002) Language socialization: Reproduction and continuity, transformation and change. Annual Review of Anthropology31: 339–361.
30.
GibsonJJ (1977) The theory of affordances. In: ShawRBransfordJ (eds) Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology. Erlbaum, pp.67–82.
31.
GoffmanE (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday.
32.
GoffmanE (1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Harvard University Press.
33.
GoffmanE (1981) Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press.
34.
GoodwinC (1996) Transparent vision. In: OchsESchegloffEAThompsonS (eds) Interaction and Grammar. Cambridge University Press, pp.370–404.
35.
GoodwinC (2017) Co-Operative Action. Cambridge University Press.
36.
GoodwinMH (1990) He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Indiana University Press.
37.
GoodwinMHAlimHS (2010) “Whatever (neck roll, eye roll, teeth suck)”: The situated coproduction of social categories and identities through transmodal stylization. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology20(1): 179–194.
38.
GoodwinMHKryatzisA (2007) Children socializing children: Practices for negotiating the social order among peers. Research on Language and Social Interaction40(4): 279–289.
39.
GreerT (2012) Accomplishing multiethnic identity in mundane talk: Half-Japanese teenagers at an international school. Pragmatics23(3): 371–390.
HeritageJ (2012) The epistemic engine: Sequence organization and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction45(1): 30–52.
42.
JaffeA (2009) Introduction: The sociolinguistics of stance. In: JaffeA (ed.) Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Oxford University Press, pp.3–28.
43.
JeffersonG (1984a) On stepwise transition: From talk about a trouble to inappropriately next-positioned matters. In: AtkinsonJMHeritageJ (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge University Press, pp.191–222.
44.
JeffersonG (1984b) Transcript notation. In: AtkinsonJMHeritageJ (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge University Press, pp.346–369.
45.
KeevallikL (2010a) Pro-adverbs of manner as markers of activity transition. Studies in Language34(2): 350–381.
46.
KeevallikL (2010b) Bodily quoting in dance correction. Research on Language and Social Interaction43(4): 401–426.
47.
KeisanenTRauniomaaMSiitonenP (2017) Transitions as sites of socialization in family interaction outdoors. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction14: 24–37.
48.
KoshikI (2002) Designedly incomplete utterance: A pedagogical practice for eliciting knowledge displays in error correction sequences. Research on Language and Social Interaction35(3): 277–309.
49.
KrugM (2025). Coordinating multiactivity transitions in dance rehearsals: Spatial configurations and instructional practices. Frontiers in Communication10: 1520005.
50.
KyratzisA (2007) Using the social organization affordance of pretend play in American preschool girls’ interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction40(4): 321–352.
51.
KyratzisAReynoldsJEvaldssonA-C (2010) Introduction: Heteroglossia and language ideologies in children’s peer play activities. Pragmatics20(4): 457–466.
52.
LefebvreH (1991 [1974]) The Production of Space. (Nicholson-SmithD., Trans.). Blackwell.
53.
LiW (2018) Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics39(1): 9–30.
54.
MehanH (1979) Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Harvard University Press.
55.
MondadaL (2013) Interactional space and the study of embodied talk-in-interaction. In: AuerPHilpertMStudenbrockA, et al. (eds) Space in Language and Linguistics: Geographical, Interactional and Cognitive perspectives. De Gruyter, pp.247–275.
56.
MondadaL (2018) Multiple temporalities of language and body in interaction: Challenges for transcribing multimodality. Research on Language and Social Interaction51(1): 85–106.
57.
NevileMHaddingtonPHeinemannT, et al. (eds) (2014) Interacting with Objects: Language, Materiality, and Social Activity. John Benjamins.
58.
OchsESchieffelinB (1989) Language has a heart. Text9(1): 7–25.
59.
PaughAL (2014) Playing with Languages: Children and Change in a Caribbean Village. Berghahn.
60.
RamptonB (1995) Language crossing and the problematization of ethnicity and socialization. Pragmatics5(4): 485–513.
ReynoldsJ (2007) “Buenos días/((military salute))”: The natural history of a coined insult. Research on Language and Social Interaction40(4): 437–465.
63.
RileyKC (2011) Language socialization and language ideologies. In: DurantiAOchsESchieffelinBB (eds), The Handbook of Language Socialization. Wiley-Blackwell, pp.493–514.
64.
RobinsonJDStiversT (2001) Achieving activity transitions in physician-patient encounters: From history taking to physical examination. Human Communication Research27(2): 253–298.
65.
SacksHSchegloffEAJeffersonG (1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation. Language50: 696–735.
66.
SawyerRR (1997) Pretend Play as Improvisation: Conversation in the Preschool Classroom. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
67.
SchieffelinBBOchsE (1986) Language socialization. Annual Review of Anthropology15: 163–191.
68.
StevanovicMPeräkyläA (2012) Deontic authority in interaction: The right to announce, propose, and decide. Research on Language and Social Interaction45(3) 297–321.
69.
TarimSDKyratzisA (2012) Challenging and orienting to monolingual school norms in a Turkish American children’s peer disputes and classroom negotiations at a U.S. Turkish Saturday school. In: DanbySTheobaldM (eds), Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People. Emerald, pp.193–219.
