Young children performing linguistic varieties: comparing classroom and play-time language use in the bidialectal context of Cyprus

This study examines young speakers’ language use in the bidialectal context of Cyprus. It focuses on children’s language use of their two language varieties, namely Standard Modern Greek and Cypriot Greek, and how they are being socialised to use these two varieties in the classroom environment and at home. The data collected from kindergarten formal education and the home environment via observations and voice recordings suggest that children socialise in their activities by making use of both varieties and their decisive factor in terms of favouring one more than the other is not merely space (class versus home) but also the topics involved in the interaction and the values attached to these which seem to be expressed via habitual linguistic practices.