Code switching in student-student interaction; functions

and reasons!

Rita Amorim
[email protected]
CAPP/ISCSP/Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (Portugal)

ABSTRACT: Today’s students of English will communicate mostly with non-native

speakers, in predominantly non-native speaking environments. English teachers know
that if they are to realistically prepare students for international communication, they
must focus on speaking activities that promote communicative competence and fluency.
Presence of mother tongue in communicative exchanges is frequently detected by teachers
in EFL classrooms. This study analyses student-student interaction during a group-work
speaking activity, to uncover some of the reasons for code switching (CS). It also presents
participants’ perspectives revealing mixed feelings towards this linguistic behaviour,
which is sometimes intentional and sometimes unconscious. The aim of this paper is to
illustrate how EFL students alternate between foreign language and native language to
perform certain pragmatic functions and counter-balance for language deficiencies. It also
considers the relationship between students’ language level and the functional character
of their switches.

KEY-WORDS: EFL, student interaction, fluency, code-switching.

1. Introduction
Around the world, English is increasingly being learnt to be used as the
international, common, functional language. One of the main aims of EFL
(English Foreign Language) teachers is to get students speaking as much
as possible, as it is known that «to promote communicative competence,
learners must get practice in communicative exchanges in the classroom»
(Hancock 1997: 217). Learners must be able to speak fluently if they are
to communicate effectively in international English. Pair and group-work
speaking activities are excellent opportunities for maximizing speaking
time and acquiring fluency. In such communicative exchanges, using own
language and target language interchangeably is common and attested by
many studies and authors: «Alternation between languages in the form of
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code switching is a widely observed phenomenon in foreign language

classrooms» (Sert 2005: 1). The limited scope and range of this qualitative
study does not allow us to draw conclusions on whether code switching (CS)
should be banned from EFL classrooms, or introduced as a resource. The aim
is to provide other ELT (English Language Teaching) teachers with a better
understanding of this linguistic phenomenon, as a «heightened awareness
of its use in classroom discourse will obviously lead to better instruction
of either eliminating it or dominating its use during the foreign language
instruction» (Sert 2005: 1). This paper uncovers some of the reasons and
functions of CS from two sources. First, the transcription and analysis of
selected extracts of students’ “naturally-occurring language use” and second,
participants’ perspectives on their own CS. Students’ interactions and their
voices reveal that CS is a strategy that learners resort to, intentionally or
unconsciously, to achieve their communicative objectives. It also seems
possible to establish a connection between the language level of the students
and the functional character of their switches. An unexpected finding of
this study revealed by students in their interviews is that their teacher also
alternates between the two codes when giving instructions or teaching new
grammar and vocabulary. This confirms Sert’s (2005: 1) belief that «In ELT
classrooms, code switching comes into use either in the teachers’ or the
students’ discourse».

2. Code-switching, a growing worldwide phenomenon

The term CS is used to refer to the choice to alternate between two or
more codes within the same sentence or conversation, or the use speakers
make of “more than one language in the course of a single episode” (Heller
1988:1). Nunan & Carter (2001: 275) define it as «a phenomenon of switching
from one language to another in the same discourse». This behaviour
implies the use of one main, host or matrix language, and a secondary,
guest or embedded language (Sridhar 1996 apud Mc Kay, Hornberger 1996:
57). Although some linguists feel that languages “should be kept strictly
demarcated” (Eldridge 1996: 303), or separated inside speakers’ heads, CS
may occur naturally, unconsciously, and even go unnoticed, suggesting
there is involuntary mixing. CS can also be wilfully used to show solidarity,
to include or exclude, to mark one’s roles and rights, and to express an idea
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quicker or more accurately. Most studies on CS, or at least those involving

English, relate to bilingual communities, as this is a natural phenomenon
among immigrant groups, particularly in the second generation. In the
21st century, as English continues its spread around the world as the
most internationally-used language, CS is becoming a natural universal
consequence of globalization and multilingualism. In most countries, there
is evidence of CS with English as one of the language pairs, in a wide variety
of sociolinguistic settings as the internet, music, media, advertising, business
and every day conversation. This subsequently leads to a subtle but constant
borrowing and assimilation of English words and expressions into many
languages. Jenkins (2009: 95) states: “...speakers who have more than one
language available to them code-switch/mix as a matter of choice and for a
range of pragmatic and expressive reasons (...).

2.1 Code switching in ELT

CS has been regarded by some members of the ELT community, as negative,
undesirable behaviour, “a failure to use and learn the target language or
unwillingness to do so” (Elridge 1996: 303), leading to a lowering of standards
(Bailey & Nunan 1996). It has even been considered a “sign of laziness or
mental sloppiness and inadequate command of the language” (Sridhar 1996
apud McKay, Hornberger 1996: 59). In EFL contexts where students share
the same L1and only use English inside the classroom, exclusive use of L2
in class is unrealistic, as the two languages are active inside the learners’
heads and will influence each other. Furthermore, learners tend to converse
inside the class in their mother tongue as naturally as they would outside
the class because their sense of identity is inevitably bound with their native
language. For Tarone (1977) (cited in McDonough 1995: 23), a language
switch is a communicative strategy, just like literal translation, appeal for
assistance, mime, paraphrase, or avoidance. McDonough (1995: 25) refers
to it as an ‘achievement strategy’ that learners resort to, to compensate for
their lack of language competence. There are both opposing and supporting
views of the use of CS in classroom instruction as a form of effective learning
strategy. Cook (2002: 333) believes that in multilingual classrooms CS could
be a problem as students do not share the same mother tongue. According
to Sert (2005), students should share the same native language if CS is to be
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applied in instruction. The most recent researchers of English as a Lingua

Franca defend that CS and mixing can no longer be considered interference
errors or fossilization, but ‘bilingual resources’ (Jenkins 2006, Seidlhofer
2001). Jenkins (2009: 95) recently stated that because “almost all Asian-
English speakers are bi- or multilingual and make extensive use of CS and
code mixing, it seems logical to include this phenomenon in grammars and
dictionaries of Asian English”.

2.2 Types of code switching

A switch can be spontaneous, natural and unintentional, and work
in the same way as fillers, hesitations, pauses, repetition of words, and
speech marks as ‘er’, ‘uhm’, ‘ahm’, that students resort to, to keep a turn
and avoid breakdowns in communication. Unintentional slips in the
mother tongue that are unconscious and natural function as discourse
markers in the L2, as ‘right’, ‘yeah’, ‘so’, ‘you know’. Martin-Jones (1995:
99) describes discourse-related switching as a speaker-oriented resource
used to accomplish different communicative acts at certain moments
within the interaction, and participant-related switching as listener-oriented
because the speaker takes account of the “hearer’s linguistic preferences
or competences”. For Milroy & Muysken (1995), single-word switches are
generally concerned with an unknown word, and are predominantly intra
sentential, as they happen inside a sentence. Phrase-switches and clause-
switches depend on the purpose or function of the switch but are mostly
inter sentential because they take place between sentences. Hancock (1997)
considers off-record discourse as negotiation between students as they
are behaving as their normal selves, as opposed to on-record discourse,
when they are putting on an act. Off-record discourse which may happen
in the L1 is named metatask if it concerns the task, and metalanguage if it
concerns language or vocabulary. Self-address (Hancock 1997), when a
student speaks to himself and prompting or modelling, which are requests
and offers of unknown words, may also take place in the L1. For Eldridge
(1996), examples of functional switches are: equivalence, the use of or
elicitation of an equivalent in the other language; floor holding, making
use of stopgaps; reiteration, to reinforce, emphasize or clarify messages;
group membership, switches that occur as in-group identity markers; and
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alignment, switches to mark rights or roles of speakers.

3. The study
3.1 Participants and Procedure
This study was carried out during the academic year of 2004/2005 (Pre-
Bologna) at the Institute of Social and Political Sciences (ISCSP), which
belongs to the Technical University of Lisbon. Twenty-one Portuguese
Media Studies undergraduates were placed in groups of three for a sixty-
minute lesson. This was a mixed-abilities class because students did not take
a placement test and were grouped according to their degree, regardless
of their level of English. All students carried out the same communicative
activity for the compulsory subject of ‘English for the Social Sciences II’.
Their task was to discuss ‘Gender discrimination at work’, one of the topics
on the syllabus, and they could use the previously studied article ‘Germany’s
glass-ceiling’ (Time Magazine, May 08, 2000). The aim of the activity was
to boost communication and develop fluency. Three groups were chosen
randomly and recorded for forty minutes, but were not told the purpose to
ensure naturalness. The nine students were all girls of approximately the
same age (19 to 21), whose level of English ranged from pre-intermediate to
upper-intermediate:

Group I- Rita= Ri, Hilda= Hi, Nadia= Na. (Appendix A)

Group II- Fátima= F, Cristina= C1, and Carla= C2. (Appendix B)
Group III- Raquel=Ra, Sónia= So, and Fernanda= Fe. (Appendix C)

The three recordings, a total of forty minutes, revealed 46 instances of

CS. The total corpus selected for transcription and analysis consists of three
extracts of twenty-minutes each which revealed 28 switches (see Appendix
A, B and C). These were analysed according to Eldridge and Hancock’s
previously mentioned categorizations. Two weeks after the recordings, semi-
structured group interviews were carried out with the nine participants. Each
group listened to their recording with the help of a copy of the transcript and
answered questions as: Do you remember speaking in Portuguese? Did you
notice at any time you were using both languages? Why do you think you
used a Portuguese word? Do you notice anything about what comes before
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or after that Portuguese word? Students’ views, feelings, and opinions were
recorded and used to complement my analysis.

3.2 Key for Transcription

(.) = short pause

(…) = long pause
(inaud.) = unable to understand
( ) = additional commentaries
Italics= L1
(= ) = translation into English
< = overlapping talk

4. Findings and Analysis

Group I (Appendix A)
The following samples of functional CS are requests for help with unknown
words in the foreign language, translation appeals or examples of “elicitation
of an equivalent item in the other code” which Eldridge (1996:305), calls
Equivalence. These are intra-sentential samples of prompting:

Line 7 Hi It’s like the now ab … (unfinished word) er (…) er how can
we say ahm… aborto (=abortion) in English

Line 35 Hi sometimes sometimes it’s from it’s like to uhm how can I
(…) to (.) when we have to er uhm to uhm impor (=impose)

Lines 42 Hi and they have (.) womens to (.) to take their (.) they have
ahm (.) how can I say (.) they have (.) er horário (=schedule)

The English equivalents ‘to impose’ and ‘timetable’ are modelled by

colleagues and used by Hi in her following turns. She is one of the weakest
students in the class who is eager to talk in order to improve her English. Hi
manages long turns, holds the floor, and achieves the aim of the activity. In
the interview, she says CS was not intentional as she does remember using
Portuguese to request her colleagues’ help. There are two possible reasons
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why Hi is the only code switcher in the group. First, she has a more relaxed
attitude about choice of language which is functional and justified: ‘I wanted
to give my opinion, to talk and to talk and talk, if I don’t know one word, I
don’t have the vocab to get the right words, I ask people in the group to help
me’. Second, she is a weaker, pre-intermediate learner who lacks vocabulary
and code switches to compensate for lack of language competence. She
comments that she has learnt three new words, suggesting language
acquisition. In the previous utterances there are hesitations, pauses, repetition
of words, and speech marks as ‘er’, ‘uhm’, ‘ahm’, all contextualization cues.
Na believes that these represent: ‘thinking time needed to speak in English’. In
fact, Ri mentions that she could tell at these moments, that Hi was “in trouble”
searching for words. Ri modelled the word ‘impose’ and then self-corrected
to ‘to impose’. She commented: ‘I wanted to give her the correct grammar
form for what she was trying to say’. Hi wants the equivalent for ‘horário’,
Na suggests ‘schedule’ and Ri suggests ‘timetable’. In Ri’s opinion she was
feeding Hi a simpler word. She is one of the strongest, upper-intermediate
students in the class who uses her language advantage to take on a teacher-
like role in this group, hence the modelling. Ri and Na who are stronger
students whisper and giggle together at one time, suggesting their perception
that CS is a deviation from the expected linguistic behaviour. In the interview
this is confirmed. Ri ends by saying it was a good thing Hi was able to get help
but she should try and explain herself in English instead. Hi is not too happy
about this comment and explains that in the past she had a Spanish teacher
who taught her that when one does not know a word, one should naturally
ask for it and she sees no harm in that. In this group, the stronger students
who do not switch hold a negative view of it, unlike the weaker student who
switches but is not upset because she believes it is functional.

Group II (Appendix B)
This group performs several utterances which illustrate that both codes
are available and used naturally:

Line 26 C2 they think that they er take they take er in the kind of
licença de parto (= maternity leave) that there are women
women should
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Line 37 C1 to to change the diaper go to mummy when it’s time to er (…)
er fazer o biberon (= warm the baby’s bottle) go to mummy

Line 40 C1 when they cry at night go to mummy depois entretanto

(= then in the meantime) they get tired go to mummy.

In the previous inter-sentential switches the students do not expect any

modelling. They switch due to lack of vocabulary, but continue speaking in
the other code within the same stretch of talk.

Line 16 C2 pois (=right)

Line 32 C2 diapers é isso (= that’s it) (whispers)

It is highly unlikely that C2, an intermediate/upper- intermediate student,

did not know the words pois and é isso in English, suggesting the latter as
unintentional slips of the tongue.

Line 10 C1 for me (.) he don’t know the places of er er (…) the places
pratos (=plates) er
F plates

Line 29 C1 nã nã nã (=no no no) hã hã hã (sounding ironic) two months

in the house taking the baby giving him food changing the
er the er fraldas (=nappies) (giggles)
F diapers acho que é (=I think it is) diapers

In the previous cases of Equivalence, F models the words plates and

diapers suggesting that she acknowledges CS as functional. However, in
the interview, this intermediate/upper-intermediate student excuses and
justifies her colleagues’ linguistic behaviour: ‘We are all Portuguese,
we all know the language, if we don’t know it in English, we say it in
Portuguese’. She smiles and insists that this is normal. We find two samples
of metalanguage, off-record discourse about the language, ‘diapers acho
que é’ and ‘diapers é isso’. C1 refers to what she calls the ‘diaper incident’,
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as something which should be avoided, but then acknowledges CS as

functional: ‘Sometimes I cannot remember the word and want to get on
with the task’.

Line 13 C1 talheres (=cutlery) because he er he (…) ele não tem medo

para mim é rídiculo e agora já estou a falar em Português
(=he’s not afraid for me it’s ridiculous and now I’m speaking
in Portuguese)

In line 13, C1, an intermediate-level student raises her voice censoring

herself for using Portuguese. This ‘self-reprimand’ could be one of the following;
on-record discourse to be heard by a potential audience, a case of alignment
to keep to the rules, or an instance of self-address, as she seems to be talking
to herself. In the interview, she is very upset about the amount of Portuguese
she spoke and excuses herself: ‘the tape recorder was running and no one was
speaking, so Portuguese slipped out’. C1 switches the most but also speaks the
most, suggesting that CS is connected to her effort to hold the floor and maintain
the flow of communication. This weaker student believes CS should be avoided
and reprimanded, while her stronger colleague excuses and justifies it.

Group III (Appendix C)

In group III, Ra is the only code switcher. The strongest student in the class,
she performs the longest stretches of talk and switches in eleven out of sixteen
utterances. She only becomes aware of this when listening to the recording,
feels embarrassed and apologizes. She is the class representative who is
always surrounded by colleagues and has a motherly-like attitude. This can be
seen in the following samples of participant-related switching, as Ra is using
CS to gear her colleagues through the activity. This is off-record discourse in
the mother tongue to show solidarity or group membership. It is also a case of
metatask as the student is evaluating, commenting and managing the activity:

Line 2 Ra (...) vá mais (= so what else?)

Line 5 Ra ahm portanto (= so)

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Line 6 Ra vá (= c’mon)

Line 38 Ra 
então (= so) so we can say the school system in the majority
of countries

Ra is an upper-intermediate student, who is loud and dominating and

takes on a teacher-like role. She sometimes summarizes what others say
or does not let them finish their turns. The following are examples of off-
record discourse, suggestions or instructions to manage the language of
the activity.

Line 1 Ra still happening acho que fica melhor (= I think it sounds

better)

Line 4 Ra let me just read this não tou a ver (= I can’t find this)

Line 30 R a this could onde é que está esta parte? (= where is this
part?)

In the following turns, Ra speaks Portuguese and then manages to say it in

English. She is probably taking into account her colleagues’ weaker English,
as speakers “take into account perceptions of their own proficiency and the
proficiency of the interlocutors in (...) (i.e. psycholinguistic considerations)”
(Myers-Scotton & Jake 2001: 86). Fe and So are both pre-intermediate
students.

20 Ra the career ladder I think we can say that não? (=no)

21 Fe I don’t know
22 Ra quando querem subir de posição? (= when they want to move
up the career ladder)
23 women feel a lot of prejudice especially when they want to
reach to the top
24 management
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She confirms this in the interview: ‘All elements in the group are Portuguese,
sometimes I say the Portuguese word followed by the English equivalent
então (=so) so, então is like ‘you know’ in English’. In all her turns Ra
switched to hold the floor and keep the low of communication but she
believes she was being careless.

5. Conclusion
This paper concludes that in the EFL classroom, when learners activate
one language they do not necessarily deactivate the other. It is sometimes
impossible, even unrealistic, for students to shut out or switch off their own
language as it is an important part of their identity. The participants of this
research all shared Portuguese and one student referred to it as a ‘positive
common asset’. This study illustrates that CS is a sign that both codes are
active inside a learner’s head, and that interaction is taking place caused by
“the very involvement that is so valuable to language acquisition” (Hancock
1997: 233). Natural ongoing communication is also attested by a fair amount
of overlapping talk, fillers and hesitations, pauses and repetition of words,
giggles and whispers. The presence of the tape recorders and a potential
audience may have led the students to alternate between on-record (English)
and off-record (Portuguese) discourse. To get information conveyed students
switched codes, avoiding breakdowns in communication and performing
longer turns. CS was used to fill in lexical or grammatical gaps in the target
language, to negotiate language and meaning and to manage the activity and
the other participants. This means that, whether intentional or unconscious,
CS helped students perform different pragmatic functions in relation to the
task they were carrying out. It is not possible to state that CS should be
incorporated into the classroom in a mechanistic way or banned as we
don’t know what we are banning along with it (Zentella apud Hornberger
1996: 466). However, EFL teachers promoting fluency will encounter CS in
student-student interaction in the same way as speech marks and mistakes.
Being aware of its reasons and functions will help them deal with it in their
classrooms. Students’ perspectives add an enriching dimension to this study.
Most considered CS unintentional and unnoticed, and overtly or covertly,
all acknowledge it as functional and helpful. Although for some learners
more speaking means more switching, the scope of this study does not allow
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for any generalisations. It is possible that if learners are aware that their
negotiation takes place in the mother tongue, they may “in the long term do
more of their off-record negotiation in the target language” (Hancock 1997:
224). Learners revealed mixed feelings towards their use of Portuguese,
but it is not possible to establish a connection between holding a negative
or positive view and the frequency of the switches. CS was found in the
discourse of students with different levels of English and there seems to be a
pattern between level of English and the functional character of the switches.
There seems to be a tendency for the weaker learners (pre-intermediate /
intermediate) to use L1 as a translation appeal, a mechanism to prompt and
clarify information or to counterbalance for perceived deficiencies. The
stronger learners (intermediate/upper intermediate) tend to use L1 to manage
and comment the activity and to gear and help colleagues by modelling. All
students, weaker or stronger, alternated between the two codes to hold the
floor and manage turn taking, working towards communication.

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Appendix A
Group I
1 Na I think men won’t give up their career to (.) to help women in (.)
home things and
2 Hi < it’s the
3 question we have to change it
4 Na not men and I think they won’t change
5 Ri < perhaps
6 Hi < it’s like the now ab… (unfinished word) er
7 (…) er how can we say ahm(…) aborto (=abortion) in English
8 Na I (.) don’t know
9 Ri what? ahm (whispers, giggles)
10 Hi we have a lot of mens discussing these things but why (.) is the
women the
11 principal affected about these things (…)
12 Na (inaud.)
13 Hi and this is for me to change (…) because we need to have womens
talks about
14 women things (laughs) in my opinion
15 Ri uhm but I don’t think as you are saying that men have to give up
their career (.)
16 because perhaps if uhm women and men helped each other none
of them would
17 have to give up their carrers (.) uhm they both could have their
carrers and then
18 Na < yes yes but the problem
19 is that men are educated to be ahm I don’t know how to say it (…)
like ahm
20 women in the kitchen and men in the job like that
21 Ri yes yes and men sitting down and watching T.V.
22 Na <yes yes that’s it
23 Ri and reading the newspaper but that’s where the school uhm comes
in and even
24 the women they have to to be able to teach those values to their children
25 Na <yes yes
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26 Ri it’s not right to say hey women have rights and then they go and
they have a
27 daughter and a son and act in the same way
28 Hi <that’s it I talked about (.) we have to change things of
29 society ahm in our education at schools in our house that’s it it’s
not to talk
30 about equality uhm all about discussions about womens womens
womens we
31 have we don’t have anything (.) in fact
32 Na < if anything changes (inaud.)
33 Ri that’s it that’s what I think ahm I think I think we have to stop
discussing
34 Hi < sometimes sometimes it’s from it’s like to uhm
35 how can I (…) to (.) when we have to er uhm to uhm impor
(=impose) (all laugh)
36 Ri impose to impose
37 Hi to impose something because in parliament about some parliaments
in Europe
38 have imposed a number of womens of womens they need and
sometimes they can
39 get from this way it’s not just talk about oh we have some countries
we have to
40 teach womens from the parliaments from the governments and this
is (…) and
41 they have (.) womens to take their (.) they have ahm (.) how can I
say (.) they have
42 (.) er horário (=timetable)
43 Na schedule
44 Ri timetable schedule
45 Hi <ok they have timetable er (.) and they can change…

Appendix B
Group II
1 F and even the women felt that they should do that because it’s er their
2 C2 <their job
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3 C1 yes their er the job to take care of the children the fields and the
house and for me
4 C2 I’m totally against
5 C1 < and why er why don’t men er why are us that can that should do
6 their these functions why don’t men er (.) get home and do their
meal (giggles) and
7 (.) they are they don’t
8 C2 < their view they feel
9 C1 < they feel even today my brother she had 26 year old
10 and she and he don’t do their bed his bed for me (.) he don’t know
the places of er
11 er (…) the places pratos (=plates) er
12 F plates
13 C1 talheres (=cutlery) because he er he (…) ele não tem medo para
mim é ridiculo
14  e agora já estou a falar em Português (= he’s not afraid for me it’s
ridiculous and
15 now I’m speaking in Portuguese) (volume is up and loud giggles)
16 C2 pois (=right)
17 C1 so (…) ah this is a serious problem er
18 F yes a serious problem uhm
19 C1 > and we are (inaud.) in this article
20 April 2000 four years ago and
21 F I think it’s because of the justice
22 C1 <you know that Germany is a developed country and
23  we know that and how can er the situation is in developing
countries it’s shocking
24 F it’s justice that there are no
25 C2 yeah (inaud.) children er to educate to educate we see we
26 see they think that they er take they take er in the kind of licença
de parto
27 (=maternity leave) that there are women women should could
choose two for her
28 and two for their husband but I don’t think that their husband who
prefers to be
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29 C1 nã nã nã (=no no no) hã hã hã ( sounding ironic) two months in

the house taking
30 the baby giving him food changing the er the er fraldas (=nappies)
(giggles)
31 F diapers acho que é (= I think it is) diapers
32 C2 diapers é isso (= that’s it) (whispers)
33 C1 er no not really (.) today
34 C2 uhm I don’t get er I don’t knew anyone like that
35 F <but it’s ridiculous because they are also their children
36 C1 oh but in our days er fathers in my opinion er a lot of them even
today er they they
37 love their babies but when it’s time to to change the diaper go to
mummy when
38 it´s time to er (…) er fazer o biberon (= warm the bottle) go to
mummy
39 F <when they cry at night
40 C1 when they cry at night go to mummy depois entretanto (= then in
the meantime)
41 they get tired go to mummy.

Appendix C
Group III
1 Ra gender discrimination at work is still happening acho que fica
melhor (= I
2 think it sounds better) (…) vá mais (= c’mon what else) (all giggle
softly)
3 Fe so women feel the prejudice
4 Ra ahm let me just read this não estou a ver ahm (= I’m
5 not getting this) ahm portanto (=so) women women feel (.) a lot of
prejudice ahm
6 vá (=c’mon) women feel a lot of prejudice
7 So <at work ahm especially at management
8 Ra < especially
9 when they want to reach
10 Fe < operate operate
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11 Ra or they want to reach to higher or the top top positions

12 Fe yes
13 Ra at work management positions exactly (…) so women feel a lot of
prejudice
14 especially (.) when they want to reach (.) to ahm the top reach to
(.) the top
15 management positions to (…) áh ou (= ah or) we can say when
they want to ahm
16 how do we say climb the (.) the work ladder não (=no)
17 So to work with men?
18 Ra when they want to succeed how ca we say (…) jump the
19 Fe jump yes
20 Ra the career ladder I think we can say that não? (=no)
21 Fe I don’t know
22 Ra quando querem subir de posição? (= when they want to move up
the career ladder)
23 women feel a lot of prejudice especially when they want to reach
to the top
24 management
25 Fe <jobs?
26 positions
27 Fe I I said (inaud.)
28 Ra ahm reflect this will reflect this will reflect (giggles)
29 So you said something (to Fernanda)
30 Ra this could (whispers) onde é que está esta parte? (= where is this
part?)
31 Fe school state system antiquated
32 Ra á então (= ah so) the school system in the majority of
33 countries is old fashioned
34 Fe < yes
35 Ra so what can we say from this? that
36 So <that ti is not the way women are treated at work
37 but also in all society (.) especially in it’s the reflect of some ides
38 Ra então (=so) so we can say the school system in the majority of
countries is old
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39 fashioned ahm (laughs)

40 Fe uhm how can we say?
41 Ra então (=so) women are not ahm (…) valo (unfinished word)
valorizadas (=valued)
42 So valued (general volume goes down)
43 Ra are not (.) então (=so) não sei como é que se diz desvalorizadas
(= I don’t know
44 how to say undervalued)
45 So undervalued?
46 Ra onde é que está esta parte aqui? (= where is this part here?)