Summary and Conclusion

Abstract

My main aim in this book has been to find common grounds among studies of language alternation. The common ground I have identified and clarified is that they all address essentially the same issue, namely the orderliness, that is the possibility of language alternation in talk in two languages. In turn, the notion of order I have adopted comes from Ethnomethodology, where order is defined as the very possibility of social action. According to Ethnomethodology, without order, social action is impossible. This notion of order goes hand in hand with that of social norm, itself defined as any ‘scheme of interpretation’ (Garfinkel, 1967). Social norms are schemes of interpretation for any action points to a norm that has made it possible and with respect to which participants make sense of that action. In this perspective, an act refers to a relevant social norm in either of two ways. An act can be a direct application of the norm (normative behaviour), but it can also be an instance of deviance from it (deviant behaviour). In turn, two types of deviant behaviour can be observed. Deviance from the norm is either repairable or functional. These ideas of the orderliness and normativity of social action have found their way into CA, the study of the organisation of talk itself as social action.