Cambios de código en niños mientras juegan videojuegos

The article analyses the code-switching of bilingual children in the context of video game playing. Interaction analysis is carried out on an integrated corpus consisting of a pair of siblings (4 and 8 years old) of Mexican descent whose parents have lived in the United States of America for ten years. The corpus consists of data taken while they were playing videogames during holidays taken in Mexico, therefore there is not only interaction between the siblings but also with their cousins. Two types of code-switching can be identified within the context of videogame playing: changes with internal orientation (related directly with the videogame) and changes with external orientation (not directly related to the game). The study interrogates the usefulness of these categories and proposes that the code-switching may form a part of the repertoire of communicative resources which the children use as they are learning within this new context and therefore proposes that this may be of interest from a didactic perspective.