Multilingual literature in a Swedish classroom : A sequential analysis regarding code-switching in This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

Sammanfattning: This essay explores sociolinguistic implications in the novel This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz. I investigate this literary work of Diaz in terms of the usage of code-switching by applying an adaptation of conversation analysis and a theoretical framework provided by Brown and Levinson (1999) that suggests that code-switching can be used to achieve interactional goals with other speakers. Also, I argue for widespread support of allowing multilingualism to be a more significant part of learning in the Swedish classroom. The conclusion drawn from this study tells us more about how politeness and code-switching can be applied in literary form and that different switches are used in different speech acts depending on which face is being threatened.  I have also presented examples of how teachers can use Diaz’s novel to conduct a literary or linguistic project using multilingual literature to raise awareness of sociolinguistics and language variations in alignment with The Swedish National Agency for Education (2011) directives