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Language and Education
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Hypothetical reported speech as pedagogical
practice in multilingual classrooms in India
Jessica Chandras
To cite this article: Jessica Chandras (2021): Hypothetical reported speech as
pedagogical practice in multilingual classrooms in India, Language and Education, DOI:
10.1080/09500782.2021.1981368
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2021.1981368
Published online: 02 Oct 2021.
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LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION
Hypothetical reported speech as pedagogical practice in
multilingual classrooms in India
Jessica Chandras
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
ABSTRACT
In classrooms in India where the instructional language is to be
English, speakers use reported speech in Indian regional languages
for pedagogical purposes, renegotiating the roles and statuses
among languages in the multilingual setting. Reported speech is a
form of indirect speech used when a speaker quotes another in a
way that they voice the other speaker. Reported speech of hypo-
thetical speakers presents moral arguments, negotiates roles of
status and power, and can settle disputes, but few findings point to
hypothetical reported speech for instruction in classrooms. Teachers
who claim to use only English in their secondary school and college
classrooms quoted hypothetical invented speakers using another
language for humorous colloquial speaking commonly found out-
side of the classroom. The practice distances teachers from the con-
tent of their hypothetical reported speech to maintain their roles as
authority figures in the English-only classrooms while imbuing lan-
guages with different values. Reported speech critiques and clarifies
to build rapport with students by introducing humor to maintain
classroom control, socialize student behavior, and introduce unsanc-
tioned languages into lessons within broader societal linguistic
expectations.
Introduction
In classrooms of all education levels in India where the instructional language is intended
to be English, known as English medium education, many teachers switch from using
English to Hindi or other Indian regional languages. This study, conducted in the cities of
Pune and Mumbai in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, shows that teachers who
claimed to use only English in their classrooms invented hypothetical characters to quote
using Hindi or Marathi, the regional language of the state. Teachers in Pune and Mumbai
use reported speech across education levels for humorous colloquial speaking to signal
conversational exchanges commonly found outside of the classroom, usually to exemplify
or bolster concepts and their applicability outside of the classroom and to critique student
work and performance. In multilingual communities in urban India where speakers use
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Jessica Chandras chandrj@wfu.edu Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2021.1981368
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 20 October 2020
Accepted 11 September 2021
KEYWORDS
Reported speech;
language ideologies;
educational
sociolinguistics;
multilingualism; India
2 J. CHANDRAS
and encounter multiple languages in daily life, reported speech is one way that teachers
legitimately introduce languages other than English into English-only classrooms for ped-
agogical purposes.
This article outlines impacts of using reported speech in multilingual classrooms as a
way to use humor to reinforce teachers’ roles as English-only instructors while also building
a rapport with students and socializing language ideologies about values and domains of
use for English and Indian regional languages. The invented hypothetical quoted speakers
which teachers animate use everyday colloquial speech in ways that reinforces expectations
of student behavior and language use during lessons and instruction. Hypothetical reported
speech also maintains teacher authority as teachers voice the thoughts of others and not
their own words in the unsanctioned classroom languages and uphold a hierarchy of lan-
guages in education where English is a high status language in educational settings in
comparison to Hindi and Marathi.
Reported speech
Teachers report utterances in indirect speech when a speaker enacts another person in the
interaction in a way that they voice, animate, or ventriloquate another speaker (Holt and
Clift 2006; Ochs 1988; Tannen 2010). Hypothetical reported speech helps to present moral
arguments (Svahn 2017), socialize children into communicative norms (Burdelski 2015;
Ochs 1988; Schieffelin and Ochs 1986), negotiate roles of status and power (Koester and
Handford 2018; Tannen 2010), and bring about changes in disputes (Hanks 1993; Holt and
Clift 2006; Janssen and van der Wurff 1996). However, few findings point to hypothetical
reported speech in classroom discourse (LeBlanc 2018; Moore 2014), specifically as a func-
tion of instruction or a pedagogical tool.
In sociolinguistic studies of reported speech, when speakers voice the utterances of others
they recontextualize what is originally stated to meet new conversational goals (Tannen
1989). The reconstitution of the thoughts and words of others, through a layering of voices
and quoting speakers, is common in literature, which language philosopher and literary
critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1981) explores as a use of differentiated languages and multiple
voices. Bakhtin terms the layering of voices in novels as heteroglossia and polyphony, where
a narrative voice embeds perspectives, language, and ideological stances from more than
one speaker. Similarly sociologist Erving Goffman’s (1981) Participation Framework demon-
strates how conversational contexts of spoken interactions recontextualize words and sen-
tences through different participant roles (Animator, Author, Principal, and Figure)
indirectly attributed to others through lamination or ‘structurally differentiated possibilities’
of layered functions guiding the delivery of utterances (p. 137). Goffman’s theory analyzes
multiple embedded dimensions of participant roles in interactions through speech. Along
with Bakhtin’s theories of narrative layered voices, reported speech, as indirect speech, is a
complex layering of perspectives in conversational contexts where actors speak for and as
others who are not present to meet the goals of communicative events.
Hypothetical reported speech ‘is a re-enactment of what is seen as “typical” speech, and
may be words or propositions that may have never been produced by anyone, framed in a
way that shows their hypothetical nature’ (Moore 2014, 594). Hanks (1993) explores ways
that hypothetical discourse functions to present illustrative scenarios which contextualize
speakers within different subject positions allowing for original speakers, or animators, to
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION 3
comment on or evaluate the hypothetical interaction (p. 136). Tannen (2010) calls similar
invented reported speech instances of ‘ventriloquation’ where ‘speakers borrow others’
identities and thereby temporarily assign to themselves characteristics associated with those
whose voices they borrow’ (p. 310). In Tannen’s (2010) and Ochs’s (1988) explorations of
ventriloquation, the identities assumed by speakers are often of characters who are incapable
of speech, such as very small children, unborn fetuses, dolls, and family pets.
Ventriloquation indicates speech that by its nature is invented as well as hypothetical
which serves to socialize others present for the interactional event to social and commu-
nicative norms (Burdelski 2015; Schieffelin and Ochs 1986). Teachers’ invention of hypo-
thetical characters and their expected utterances builds on Tannen’s and Ochs’s use of
ventriloquation as a means to socialize students to conversational and translanguaging
norms. In all examples in this article, speakers ventriloquate and animate previously un-ut-
tered hypothetical statements as character-types capable of speaking, either real individuals
present or characters recognizable to students, such as a thief, mother, or an elder child,
who would believably state the utterances in the languages other than English in the reported
context. These qualities position hypothetical reported speech to be both a convincing and
pedagogically useful verbal resource to teach concepts and communicative norms, while
distancing the teacher as the original author of the utterance in the English-only classroom.
In conversations that turn either defensive or are intended to build rapport, Lakoff (1973,
1975) notes that speakers prefer indirectness in service of specific interactional goals. The
way speakers distance themselves from another author while voicing their words is effective
for introducing conflicting and contrasting ideas into a conversational episode while main-
taining their status as speaker and the broader goals of the interaction. In studies of indirect
or reported speech in pedagogy, LeBlanc (2018) shows teachers speaking as students to
distance themselves from leveling direct criticism against students, and in Moore’s study
(2014), hypothetical examples of reported speech communicate correction and cultural
cues of respect to heritage language learners. In these cases of reported speech through the
animation of hypothetical speakers, the teacher’s indirectness implicitly impacts pedagogical
strategies where teachers manage student reactions to criticism and consider expectations
for conflict as authoritative figures while also meeting cultural expectations for leveling
polite criticism. Accordingly, indirectness is key for maintaining teacher authority through
rapport and classroom management in examples shown in this article. Note that it is the
hypothetical speaker who breaks the English-only rule in classrooms and not the teacher
who reports the hypothetical speech and embeds it into lessons in legitimate ways. The
patterned ways teachers use English, Hindi, and Marathi in classroom discourse examined
in this article contribute to language ideologies, or beliefs about language that motivate
behavior, that attribute values to and demarcate different functions for these languages in
connection to their use and ideas about them in broader society (Schieffelin, Woolard, and
Kroskrity 1998).
Code switching in the multilingual classroom context
Hypothetical reported speech is used by teachers in the data presented here as code switches,
alternating from English instruction to Hindi or Marathi. In educational institutions where
I collected data for this article, it was common that two or three languages (English, Marathi,
and Hindi) are part of the linguistic repertoires that teachers and students draw upon in
4 J. CHANDRAS
classrooms. As Mohanty (2019) explores, Indian education increasingly marginalizes lan-
guages other than English commonly used in broader society outside of education due to
societal pressures for English-only education for greater social and economic mobility. In
my observations, it was common that students and teachers were proficient in English and
Hindi or trilingual when including Marathi, the mother tongue or home language of many
of my interlocutors.
Code switching in the Indian multilingual context are marked switches between two
or more languages that speakers and the interactional domain define as distinct codes
(Gardner-Chloros 2009; Myers-Scotton 1993). These instructional speech patterns are
ubiquitous across education levels and thereby indicate broader contexts of translanguag-
ing, where translanguaging refers to an integrated communication system of multiple
codes (Canagarajah 2011; García 2009a, 2009b; García and Wei 2013; MacSwan 2017). I
examine multilingual classroom discourse in this article from perspectives of speakers’
integrating languages in a process of meaning-making as contexts of translanguaging. I
also address code switching within these contexts of translanguaging as a hegemonic
linguistic practice that upholds language hierarchies in education by considering class-
rooms as communicative and ideological domains (García, Flores, and Woodley 2012).
Code switching in English-only classrooms through reported speech is therefore under-
taken by authority figures in a way that imbues languages normally reserved for use
outside of classrooms with a purpose equal to English. However, the authority figure’s
code switches introduce non-English languages in a marked and distinct form that rein-
forces societal values indicating a hierarchy of languages where English is a prestige
language in education and other languages by comparison are low-status languages in
classrooms in these specific instances of instruction.
An analysis of hypothetical reported speech in English medium classrooms allows for
implementation of the English-only language policy but also meets appropriate translan-
guaging expectations of the broader speech community by integrating colloquial speech
forms into classroom discourse. There are particular translanguaging practices in English
medium classrooms within a linguistic context that includes the use of multiple integrated
languages that speakers are socialized to use (Canagarajah 2011; García 2009a, 2009b; García
and Wei 2013). Code switching, as undertaken by authority figures, presents a marked
change in interactional context. When code switching is intentional, speakers choose when
to alternate between languages for specific reasons even though the act of code switching
can be negatively received as breaking communicative norms in some social settings
(Gumperz 1971).
As a form of intentional code switching, marked codes as switched words or phrases
carry specific meanings, values, or interactional purpose when switched into from another
code. In opposition to unmarked codes, where a word may be a loan word subsumed into
the interactional norms, marked codes can signal aspects in a speech event such as deference,
anger, solidarity, eloquence, or distance (Myers-Scotton 1993). In classrooms, marked code
switching can be used as a pedagogical tool to discipline and socialize students into societal
language norms where the code switch verbally signals a move from lesson content to a
disciplinary correction, a transition between subjects, or questions from instruction (Levine
2011; Merritt et al. 1992; Probyn 2009; Rose and van Dulm 2006).
In the case I present here, local language ideologies value English as an educational
language in formal lessons and only members of an authoritative status group can legitimize
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION 5
the use of other languages through speech patterns like reported speech without conse-
quence. A patterned use of multiple languages indicates a socialized form of language use
in multilingual classrooms in urban Maharashtra which takes shape through ‘differentiated
ways of speaking [that] index social groups’ in an unequal distribution of power (Irvine
1989, 248). As it is common to find teachers switching between multiple languages though
code switches in the cases I present here, the switches are valued differently than the ones
students engage in. When students engage in code switching it often results in parallel
language exchanges where teachers would respond in English to a student’s question posed
in Hindi or Marathi, or students were scolded for using a language other than English.
Unequal code switching practices such as these indicate that the status of the speaker is a
key element in how code switching impacts the values attributed to languages in classroom
discourse in response to linguistic hierarchies in multilingual settings.
Data and methodology
Data for this analysis is drawn from recording transcriptions, jottings, and ethnographic
field notes collected in four classrooms from three schools in English medium lessons over
the 2016–2017 academic year.
To collect data when I visited each institution, I would sit towards the back of the class-
rooms with a notebook and a recorder observing how teachers and students interacted with
each other in lessons, activities, and during transitions between classes. My presence as a
researcher was noted but I quickly became a fixture in each class as initial curiosity subsided.
In this way, I was able to capture mundane and minute details of multilingual classroom
interactions in ethnographic detail through qualitative methods.
The diversity in student ages, educational level, and location of the schools show the
ubiquity not only of English-only rules across multiple classrooms in urban Indian settings
but also how English medium instruction is subverted. After I completed the data collection
portion of my research, I transcribed classroom recordings and coded my typed transcrip-
tions, handwritten jottings, and typed field notes by highlighting instances of code switching
from English instruction to any other language represented in these documents. I then
categorized the compiled the code lists into separate documents created for different forms
of code switching. One category of switched language that emerged from the entire body
of data was hypothetical reported speech used by instructors when talking to students, of
which all instances I represent in this article. These samples represent a larger body of data
on multilingual practices in education that demonstrate ways authority figures in classrooms
uphold and socialize language ideologies.
Institution and Location
Mumbai Public School,
Mumbai
Aksharnandan School,
Pune
Dr. Bhanuben Nanavati
College Of Architecture For
Women, Pune
Total Hours Observed 3 × 5 hour visits in 2017 10 hours/week, 2016–2017
academic year
4 × 2 hour visits in 2017
Sample Set Represented 9th grade Civics lesson Transition into 10th grade
English literature lesson
Student feedback sessions
in two Masters level
design lessons
Classroom members
present
2 teachers, 34 students 1 teacher, 40 students 1 instructor, 18 students
6 J. CHANDRAS
Hypothetical reported speech as multilingual pedagogy
Instances of Marathi or Hindi are excused from breaking the English-only rules in class-
rooms when it is another speaker animated through reported speech who uses a language
other than English, where other transgressions are marked by scolding or an explicit state-
ment of rule-breaking. Within instruction in English medium classrooms, teachers often
quote other speakers and many times these speakers are quoted in Hindi or Marathi. The
quoted speakers, as hypothetical speakers where the teacher invents what the speaker says
in situations outside of the lesson or classroom setting, therefore communicates a specific
message intended through 1) a marked code switch and 2) content of the switch, while also
maintaining the English-only rule in classrooms. The English-only rule is often explicitly
enforced by teachers themselves.
The first examples (1 and 2) show teachers voicing hypothetical statements as students,
or speaking as if their students were making the invented statements. While examples 3 a,
b, and c are also hypothetical reported speech, the instructor in those instances is voicing
an outside participant through the quoted talk by bringing perspectives from outside the
classroom into the lesson. The ways in which teachers quote hypothetical characters func-
tion to either assist in comprehension of concepts from lessons, manage classroom behavior,
and use humor to critique and correct student work, while circumnavigating the English-
only rules in place in the English medium institutions and classes. It is important to note,
I never observed instances of students using these code switching practices in classes and
often, student’s code switching from English to Hindi or Marathi was addressed as trans-
gressive behavior and corrected by the teachers in lessons, who therefore evaluate and value
students switching languages differently than when an authority figure does so.
Example 1: comprehension and connection
In a lesson in the ninth grade at the Mumbai Public School (MPS), an English medium
government school in Mumbai, the teacher, Akash (A), explained a civics lesson about
public services. Akash and his co-teacher were Teach for India (TFI) fellows, the Indian
counterpart of Teach for America in the United States where the program sends novice
teachers to intervene in low-performing classrooms or schools. TFI has a strict English-only
instruction rule that does not account for, nor accommodate, complex linguistic diversity
in many low performing schools in urban India. Akash and his co-teacher have worked
hard to raise the English proficiency levels of their students, who come from non-English
speaking low-socioeconomic backgrounds in Mumbai. My aim for visiting their classroom
was to gain a comparative perspective on language use in classrooms in Mumbai as I was
often told that Marathi is not used as much in Mumbai as it is in Pune though both are
large cities in Maharashtra. In the classroom at MPS, I observed students speaking Hindi
amongst themselves and when Akash and his co-teacher Ruhan used a language other than
English, they used Hindi, which was not often in the lessons I observed. Therefore, reported
speech allows for a space to use Hindi within the language expectations of an English
medium lesson.
In a civics lesson about democracy and public services at the end of the day, students’
attention wanes. To engage students, Akash and Ruhan walk back in forth in front of the
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION 7
class and through the rows of desks as they teach and they incorporate humor into their
lessons. Here, Akash makes a joke to try and rouse the students at the end of the day and
to show how sometimes electricity gets shut off in one’s house, an exceptionally common
occurrence in the students’ humble homes.
A: … what about the electricity? Sometimes you’re home and, “Mummy, light nahi aati hai!”
(Mom, the light isn’t coming!)
(Makes an motion like he’s turning off and on a light switch.)
S: (Laugh)
A: Kabhi bijli bandh ho jati hai. (Sometimes the electricity is turned off.) So, you know,
sometimes it happens that the electricity is turned off at home.1
Akash makes this joke to also engage the students who have lower English fluency who
may lose attention for the lesson later in the day. Since he is making up a hypothetical sit-
uation that would occur at home, he uses a reported speech pattern in Hindi reinforcing
that Hindi is a language that students use at home rather than during instruction in school.
Hindi spoken by a teacher using reported speech signals that Akash is speaking about
something occurring outside of class which reinforces language ideologies about Hindi but
also pedagogically connects a classroom concept to students’ ‘funds of knowledge’ that
legitimizes experiences from their home lives in the classroom setting (Moll and González
1997). This use of Hindi in reported speech also indicates a goal of TFI fellows to socialize
students to use English in educational settings. Hindi, in this case, does not have high social
value in a classroom setting and signals a language appropriate in informal settings such as
the home. Though later in the interaction he code switches by explaining his point in Hindi
and then translates it into English, maintaining the rule that lesson content is to be delivered
in English.
Example 2: classroom management and socialization
In an English class in the tenth grade at the Pune-based Marathi medium Aksharnandan
School, an instance arose where a student committed a social error as class was beginning.
Up until this point, I had only seen the teacher, Sangeeta (SA), use English in her classes.
At the tenth grade level, the students (S) have high English comprehension skills and also
usually use only English in their English lessons. On this day as the students entered the
classroom, a student, Madhav (M), tells his classmate, Ruchita (R), that she is in his seat in
English.
M: Get up! Get out of my seat!
R: (Looks alarmed)
SA: That isn’t nice!
M: But that’s my place! (Turning to R) Please move!
R: (Picks up her bag and moves one bench over)
M: (Tosses his backpack over a student seated on another bench to his now open seat)
8 J. CHANDRAS
Sangeeta uses the opportunity, with reported speech in Marathi, to show him how to use
a more socially appropriate way to complete the interaction in English. Correcting him,
Sangeeta models bad behavior in Marathi even though the student follows the English-only
rule in this class and uses English in his initial error. As he is walking to the seat he claimed
to be his, he passes Sangeeta at the front of the classroom and she stops him by putting her
hands on his shoulders.
SA: Is this how you are supposed to act in class? (Mimicking him in a curt manner) Jhalla,
ja! Pude ja, chal! Kam kar! (Finished, go now! Go forward, move! Do your work!)
S: (Laugh in chorus)
SA: No, go back to your place. Do it again. Why is this behavior not ok? (Question directed
to the entire class.)
S 1: Because in the class we should be formal.
SA: I don’t use those kinds of words in the class and [if I do] you don’t like that but what if I
had never been taught?
Sangeeta scolds him and then uses reported speech in Marathi to mock his actions. She frames
her use of reported speech in Marathi as unacceptable and rude. By using Marathi this way she
shows that she does not act in class the way her speaking signifies and therefore the students
should not either, although Madhav originally made his error in English. Sangeeta appropriates
Marathi to communicate the attitude as informal and inappropriate for the classroom.
M: (Repeating the exchange. Motioning for Ruchita to change seats by not speaking)
R: (Moves seats from her original seat to her new one)
SA: Being polite doesn’t mean being dumb [mute].
M: Please can you move from that seat? It is my seat.
R: (Looks to Sangeeta for approval and then moves seats)
When Madhav does the exchange again, he does not use any language to indicate to
Ruchita that he is requesting his seat back and only motions with his head and hands.
Sangeeta then comments on how one can use language to be polite. She implicitly intends
for Madhav to speak in English again, though in a different way. Madhav, on a third attempts,
obliges and calmly requests to have his seat back from Ruchita. Ruchita seeks approval for
the exchange from Sangeeta and then changes seats as per the more polite request in English
from Madhav. However, most important is that Madhav made his initial request, though
rude, in what was basic, rudimentary English, but when Sangeeta used reported speech to
mock his request and expose it as rude, she used curt Marathi. Marathi is therefore associ-
ated in these exchanges ideologically and pedagogically with negative, subversive, and
uncouth social situations as a low status language in formal and polite interactions.
Example 3 a, b, and c: critique
During student presentations in Professor Satbhai’s design class near the end of the semester
at the Dr. Bhanuben Nanavati College Of Architecture For Women (BNCA) in Pune, the
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION 9
only time he switched from English into another language while addressing the entire class
was when he used Hindi in hypothetical reported speech. These examples take the form of
a hypothetical unknown speaker, rather than the instructor voicing hypothetical speech
from students as in the previous examples.
Example 3a
Professor Satbhai (Sb) was joking with a few students (S) who had presented a design of a
hanging planter. He used the voice of a hypothetical customer who may look at a project
made by this group of students and think it is a copy of a common design.
Sb: And what is this? The customer may say, “Yeh copy hai kya?” (What copy is this?)
S: (Laugh)
Professor Satbhai used reported speech to humorously tell the students that their design
was not original enough by appropriating the voice of a future customer to comment on
how the group used a popular and common model in their presentation which made their
device look like a copy.
Example 3b
A group of students are presenting results from a survey they collected from potential
customers. Some of the answers are unclear and Professor Satbhai tells a group of students
that the surveys about jewelry were flawed.
Sb: Here it seems the people didn’t understand. If they’re wearing for a special occasion then
what if it’s on a weekend. Weekend, from the survey, then means they think, “Me ghar
pe padega (I’ll stay at home)” (Making a stretching movement like he’s relaxing).
S: (Laugh)
Exposing another flaw in the survey, Professor Satbhai points out that respondents would
not prefer a material of lower quality, such as cotton to silk or velvet, and would always want
to have the best materials for the products.
Sb: Nobody is going to say, “Nahi nahi, mereko cotton hi chahiye! (No no, I want this made
of cotton!)”
In these examples, Professor Satbhai appropriates the voice of a survey respondent to
show flaws in the survey to his students and to voice how the respondents must have been
thinking. First he mimics a hypothetical respondent showing that they must have under-
stood the survey question, ‘Do you wear jewelry on the weekend,’ as staying home and
relaxing on weekends and not attending forma events such as weddings. He speaks as a
respondent and uses Hindi to do so, not translating his utterance into English as it is assumed
that the entire class understands Hindi. Another aspect of Professor Satbhai’s reported
speech is to show that when relaxing and at home, one perhaps would be more likely to use
Hindi. Then, he shows how a respondent would not ask for a material of lesser quality by
again appropriating the voice of a Hindi speaker to state the utterance and using an
10 J. CHANDRAS
unmarked code switch for cotton, as it is common to use the English loan word in Hindi
exchanges.
Example 3c
A different group of students presents their design for a jewelry box and Professor Satbhai
pauses when they come to the results from their survey on the preferred material for the
jewelry box. When they mention a majority of their survey respondents would like a box
made of ceramic, Professor Satbhai points out the flaws in this design.
S1: 75% responded with ceramic.
Sb: Ceramic?
S1: (Nods)
Sb: If I design a box out of ceramic, then for a thief, it’s like a piggy bank. “Ha, sub kuch
milega! (Yes, I will get everything!)” (Making an action as if he were to drop the object on
the ground to break it.)
In this instance of reported speech, Professor Satbhai appropriates the voice of a hypo-
thetical thief using Hindi, to demonstrate through an invented situation how impractical
a jewelry box made out of ceramic would be to keep items safe. The switch from English
to Hindi and the utterance shows that Professor Satbhai takes on the voice of a character
different from himself to make his point. Doing so, he distances himself from the comments
as they do not come from him, but may be thoughts and utterances of other hypothetical
speakers, to offer critique of the student’s design assignment. These examples of a prevalent
form of code switching from English into Marathi or Hindi from my observations in dif-
ferent educational institutions show that while languages other than English are legitimately
used by teachers in English medium classrooms with rules for English-only instruction,
the ways high status individuals (teachers) use these non-English languages reinforce lan-
guage ideologies of low status language domains. However teachers’ use of code switching
through hypothetical reported speech also signals norms for translanguaging in this mul-
tilingual setting where speakers make sense of their surroundings through communicating
with a language repertoire that includes multiple codes.
Discussion
In this article, marked code switching in classroom discourse is a pedagogical tool that
disciplines and socializes students into societal language norms (Levine 2011; Merritt et al.
1992; Probyn 2009; Rose and van Dulm 2006) while also reconfiguring the value of the
appropriate use of languages in specific settings. Hypothetical reported speech used by
teachers in English medium classrooms in Mumbai and Pune as a pedagogical tool is a
way to offer critique, manage behavior, socialize students into linguistic norms, and clarify
lesson concepts by creating a rapport between students and teachers as authority figures
but also members of the same multilingual speech community with shared linguistic expec-
tations. The ways the reported speech pattern in Hindi and Marathi emerges across dif-
ferent education levels and urban settings in Maharashtra indicates a ubiquity of reported
speech as a multilingual pedagogical tool in English language instruction (Mohanty 2019).
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION 11
Through humorous hypothetical statements voiced as other speakers, teachers, in posi-
tions of authority over their students, are able to traverse the linguistic boundaries of accept-
able and sanctioned classroom languages to offer indirect critiques of assignments and
behavior (Lakoff (1973; 1975; LeBlanc 2018). Reported speech therefore solves problems
of classroom control in areas of socialization and clarifying instruction in a way that evades
the English-only rule in many educational institutions (Burdelski 2015; Schieffelin and
Ochs 1986). When I first approached teachers and students for interviews about the lan-
guages they use in their classrooms, most said that they only use English. In my observations,
I found this only somewhat true as teachers invent characters to voice through ventrilo-
quation and layering voices for introducing non-English languages into their English
medium lessons (Bakhtin 1981; Goffman 1981; Ochs 1988; Tannen 2010). While the
medium of instruction when lecturing and discussing concepts in lessons is largely English,
some teachers and students use Marathi or Hindi when explaining concepts or sentiments
which they believed could not be fully translated into English or whose effect in English
would be diminished or overlooked. Similarly, teachers commonly make clarifications
through translating the material to another language other than English (Levine 2011;
Merritt et al. 1992; Probyn 2009; Rose and van Dulm 2006). The marked code switched
reported speech demonstrates that the teacher can connect with students on a more intimate
level through the languages used and the colloquial form of humor, while also maintaining:
first, their authority as rule abiders and enforcers; second, the norms of an English-only
classroom; and third, decorum tied to expectations of behavior in educational domains.
In each example, teachers use reported and code switched speech as a pedagogical tool.
In the first example, Akash elaborates on public services with the specific example of elec-
tricity and how electricity is sometimes turned off. To try and hold the attention of the
students, he uses a Hindi phrase to position students in their own homes when they expe-
rience the electricity getting shut off. His movements switching on and off an invisible light
switch indicate that he is supposed to be in a room other than the one he is in, which had
no lights. His use of reported speech to address a mother in that instance intends to speak
as one of the students or their peers who would find themselves at home with a parent,
connecting the lesson content to students’ ‘funds of knowledge’ that legitimizes and valorizes
language use in students’ home contexts (Moll and González 1997). His use of the reported
speech in Hindi clarifies a concept he was teaching and bridges a generational, socioeco-
nomic, and linguistic divide between him and the students.
In the final examples, Professor Satbhai, also uses a language most familiar to students
outside of the classroom, Hindi, to advance his pedagogy in his design lessons. Just as Akash
incorporated hypothetical reported speech into the lesson and accompanied the reported
speech with a code switch translating a following portion of his lesson, Professor Satbhai
introduces Hindi as a means to clarify real-world implications of the design features from
the students’ projects. Professor Satbhai’s use of Hindi also manages his position as an
authority figure and the only male in the classroom at a women’s college, to ‘provide author-
itative criticism of student work while also being emotionally supportive’ (LeBlanc 2018,
150). Just as LeBlanc explores the gender expectations of female teachers to level criticism
against students in indirect ways to manage social standing and authority, Professor Satbhai
faces a delicate balance of gender dynamics in the class as a young, male professor intending
to create a comfortable level of rapport in his classes of female students close to his age. His
critique of student projects then is offered in humorous ways via a hypothetical speaker
who softens the blame on Professor Satbhai of harshly critiquing student assignments.
12 J. CHANDRAS
Sangeeta, in the second example, also critiques a student similar to Professor Satbhai in
the third set of examples, though her use of hypothetical reported speech criticizes the
student’s behavior and is a solution to remedying a social conundrum—how to ask a class-
mate to move from another student’s seat. It is not therefore a critique on class material,
but an effort to socialize student behavior and manage expectations of future behavior in
the classroom similar to Moore’s (2014) study where reported speech is used to socialize
language learners to cultural norms. In both the first and second examples, the teachers
voice hypothetical statements by speaking as students and shift their subject positions from
authority figures to that of a student. As Hanks (1993) explores, Sangeeta’s use of a hypo-
thetical student perspective presents an illustrative scenario of a breach in conduct indicated
by use of Marathi and reported speech which allows her to evaluate and remedy the trans-
gression as the teacher and authority figure. Humorous hypothetical reported speech makes
sense within the particular translanguaging practices Sangeeta and her students use in
broader society but also support rapport-building practices appropriate for interactants
with distinctly different status positions in the classroom.
The element of code switched student language is different in Sangeeta’s example from
the examples from Professor Satbhai’s and from Akash’s speaking as a student hypothetically
would with their mother. Sangeeta switches from English to Marathi to demonstrate the
student’s behavioral error even though the student spoke in English during the social trans-
gression. Impacts of the code switched language are two-fold: (1) The student’s behavior is
brought forward in humor as an error in proper classroom conduct and (2) Marathi is
reinforced as a transgressive classroom language, since Sangeeta’s marked switch from
English to Marathi signals a change from not only the language medium of the class but
also a switch from the language that the student used in the initial error. Her use of trans-
gressive and humorous Marathi in the English-only class, as she hypothetically voices
reported speech as the student who made the social gaffe, further confirms that English,
accompanied by proper classroom behavior, is to be used in her lessons. In this way, the
use of hypothetical reported speech through code switches within English-only educational
spaces subtly and powerfully manage classroom behavior and language use while also social-
izing translanguaging expectations by domain and context (Moore 2014). Notably, Sangeeta
can make this code switch in a sanctioned way as an authority figure in the classroom.
My data reveals that teachers use Marathi, a marked and prohibited code in many
English-only educational settings, as a disciplinary tool to socialize students to speak and
respond to English while also signaling to students that a behavioral rule has been trans-
gressed or to level criticism that would be harsh if given directly. Students are therefore
re-socialized to associate Marathi or Hindi with educational transgressions or pedagogy
outside of formal instruction, such as the moments of transition between lessons and sub-
jects, and a deviation from content instruction, as seen in the reported speech examples
provided here. Similarly, the reported speech statements make sense in the translanguaging
contexts of Pune and Mumbai when reported in languages that the utterances would nat-
urally occur in outside of the classroom domain (Mohanty 2019). As it is common to draw
upon multiple languages in translanguaging settings found outside of an educational
domain, students and teachers commonly use forms of marked code switching to meet
specific needs within the context of classrooms and the associations languages have to
different settings in broader society.
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION 13
Conclusion
Analysis of classroom discourse provides key insights into investigations of education mod-
els and socializing processes through language in education. Ways of using language are
therefore imbued with power and power dynamics become apparent in settings where code
switching is marked and used as a strategic tool (Myers-Scotton 1993). Classrooms and
schools are spaces where relationships among teachers and students foster social condi-
tioning and socialization, which leads to instilling broader notions of educational goals and
interactional expectations tied to language (Benei 2005). Students are re-socialized into
language ideologies that associate subversive languages with educational transgressions and
a deviation from content instruction and instructional language while teachers, through
hypothetical reported speech, maintain their status and roles as rule-enforcers and abiders.
Whereas languages deemed to be subversive maintain value for educational purposes and
student-teacher rapport when reframed through hypothetical reported speech.
The subversive use of transgressive languages is recontextualized through the
reported speech of non-present speakers as part of broader translanguaging classroom
language repertoires in sanctioned and necessary ways. Unsanctioned languages become
legitimate classroom languages when introduced through means of indirect speech,
such as hypothetical reported speech. Teachers find a solution in reported speech to
mediate the rules of English-only classrooms, a prevalent rule in education in urban
India, and the translanguaging expectations of broader society. Analyzing speech pat-
terns in the context of classrooms not only reveals dynamic pedagogical shifts in posi-
tions of status and authority between students and teachers, but also ways that prevailing
language practices and ideologies in urban Indian society influence classroom discourse
and pedagogy.
Note
1. The version of the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) for Marathi and
Hindi transliterations includes my own modifications excluding diacritics, showing nasals by
using the letter n, and using double vowels in the Roman script for vowel modifiers in
Devanagari, following the conventions for writing that my interlocutors use.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the late Dr. Marilyn Merritt for unwavering encouragement throughout the
process of writing this article. I am also deeply grateful to my colleagues at Kenyon College for con-
structive feedback and for the teachers and students in the Indian educational institutions for allowing
me into their classrooms.
Disclosure statement
The publication of this article presents no conflicts of interest.
ORCID
Jessica Chandras http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7311-2327
14 J. CHANDRAS
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