The matter of silence in early childhood bilingual education

The relationship between silence as non-speech and bilingualism in early childhood education is intricate. This article maps this relationship with the help of diverse theoretical entrances to a video-recorded everyday episode from a bilingual (Spanish–Swedish) preschool in Sweden. Though this, three alternative readings of silence are produced. Thinking with Deleuzian philosophy, the aim is to consider how the different readings of silence require different understandings of both time and language and allow different bilingual child subjectivities. The different readings present silence as development, strategy and intensity. Thinking with different dimensions of language as well as Chronos and Aion as different notions of time, the article shows that silence as development and silence as strategy are individually, chronologically and linguistically oriented readings. These allow viewing the bilingual child as more or less competent, active and powerful in relation to adults. Furthermore, silence as intensity is collectively produced as well as temporally unbounded, and produces the bilingual child, as involved in several material–semiotic relations capable of amazement. It is discussed whether, due to the evasive and inconsistent nature of silence, all three readings are equally (im)possible. Nevertheless, they produce different effects and raise different questions concerning bilingual educational practice in the early years.