Resumen de Learning how to be a tähti: A case study of language development in everyday situations of a 7-year-old multilingual Finnish child

Anna Slotte-Lüttge, Michaela Pörn, Fritjof Sahlström

• The aim is to study how a multilingual girl develops her understanding and use of the Finnish word tähti “star” and, in so doing, to contribute to the understanding of children’s language learning in multilingual settings. In recent understandings of learning and development, interaction is considered as constitutive of learning. Learning is not restricted to educational settings but occurs in different contexts. The multilingual setting in this article is a Swedish-language preschool class in a Finnish-dominated area in Finland. The analytic work is done within conversation analysis. The empirical material used consists of weeklong longitudinal video recordings of a 7-year-old multilingual child’s, Sara’s, everyday interaction at preschool, at postschool programs, and for large parts of the day at home. Through an analysis of 14 consecutive situations in which the word tähti is used, the article shows how Sara is being taught, how she learns, and how she uses a new concept. Furthermore, the analysis shows how her understanding of tähti is local and situated and does not extend beyond the contexts of use in the peer group. Through demonstrating how a close analysis of interaction can empirically substantiate claims of language learning, the article also contributes to the general understanding of language learning in multilingual settings.