1,721,024 research outputs found
Language and Migration in a Multilingual Metropolis: Berlin Lives
No full textBerlin is a multicultural and multilingual city in the heart of Europe. But what do we know about the number of languages spoken by its inhabitants and how they are used in everyday life? How do encounters with different languages impact on the experience of migration? And how do people use their experiences with language to shape their life stories? This lively and engaging book is a story about stories and story-telling. Set in the historical context of centuries of migration and multilingualism in Berlin, it invites the reader to accompany the author on a research expedition that leads to an apartment building in the inner city district Neukölln. Its inhabitants come from different parts of the world and relate their experiences – their Berlin lives – in ways that reveal the complex and intricate relationships between language and migration
Language and German disunity: a sociolinguistic history of east and west in Germany, 1945-2000
No full textThis book investigates the history of national disunity in Germany since the end of the Second World War from a linguistic perspective: what was the role of language in the ideological conflicts of the Cold War and in the difficult process of rebuilding the German nation after 1990? In the first part of the book, Patrick Stevenson explores the ways in which the idea of 'the national language' contributed to the political tensions between the two German states and to the different social experiences of their citizens. He begins by showing how the modern linguistic conflict between east and west in Germany has its roots in a long tradition of debates on the relationship between language and national identity. He then describes the use of linguistic strategies to reinforce the development of a socialist state in the GDR and argues that they ultimately contributed to its demise.The second part considers the social and linguistic consequences of unification. The author discusses the challenges imposed on east Germans by the sudden formation of a single 'speech community' and examines how conflicting representations of easterners and westerners - for example, in personal interactions, the media, and advertising - have hindered progress towards national unity.German division and re-unification were crucial to the development of Europe in the second half of the twentieth century. This fascinating account of the relationship between language and social conflict in Germany throws new light on these events and raises important questions for the study of divided speech communities elsewhere. The book will interest sociolinguists, historians, sociologists, and political scientists
SprachGeschichten mit Migrationshintergrund: demografische und biografische Perspektiven auf Sprachkenntnisse und Spracherleben
No full textUm der zunehmenden “diversification of diversity”, die die sozialen Verhältnisse vor allem in vielen westlichen Großstädten kennzeichnet, gerecht zu werden, wird seit einiger Zeit der Begriff “Superdiversität” verwendet. In diesem Zusammenhang haben sich sozialwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen vornehmlich mit unterschiedlichen Migrationsmustern bzw –praktiken befasst, wobei verschiedene soziale Dimensionen im Mittelpunkt stehen. Die sprachliche Diversität als Merkmal dieses Phänomens wurde bis jetzt aber relativ wenig beachtet. Allerdings bieten sogenannte “home language surveys” in bestimmten deutschen Städten Einblicke in die Komplexität der sprachlichen Zusammensetzung einzelner urbaner Gesellschaften. Weder auf nationaler Ebene noch für die Bundeshauptstadt Berlin aber liegen amtliche Statistiken über die Sprachkenntnisse von Migranten in Deutschland vor. In Wien und in London dagegen wurde anhand groß angelegter Erhebungen umfassende Daten über die in der österreichischen bzw britischen Hauptstadt verwendeten Familiensprachen gesammelt und im Falle Londons sogar kartografisch dargestellt. Doch auch solche umfangreichen und ausführlichen Untersuchungen vermitteln nur einen Teilaspekt der sprachlichen Superdiversität: Schließlich geht es um mehr als Zahlen. In diesem Beitrag wird also zuerst ein kritischer Blick auf den gegenwärtigen Stand der Datenlage im Bereich der Sprachkenntnisse von Migranten in Deutschland geworfen. Anschließend wird vorgeschlagen, dass diese quantitative, demografische Perspektive durch einen qualitativen, biografischen Ansatz ergänzt werden kann. Im Sinne von Busch (2010) wird dabei exemplarisch das Spracherleben von zwei Bewohnern eines Berliner Mietshauses untersucht. Diese Analyse einzelner “SprachGeschichten” ist somit auch eine Antwort auf den Aufruf von Gogolin (2010), die “sprachliche Textur von Migrationsgesellschaften” näher zu untersuchen<br/
The language question in contemporary Germany: the challenges of multilingualism
No full textThis article addresses the complex relationships between political discourses, demographic constellations, the affordances of new technologies, and linguistic practices in contemporary Germany. It focuses on political and personal responses to the increasingly multilingual nature of German society and the often-conflicting ways in which “the German language” figures in strategies promoting social integration and Germany’s global position. In order to do this, the idea of “the German language” is contextualized in relation to both internal and external processes of contemporary social change. On the one hand, changes to the social order arising from the increasingly complex patterns of inward migration have led to conflicts between a persistent monolingual ideology and multilingual realities. On the other hand, changes in the global context and the explosive growth of new social media have resulted in both challenges and new opportunities for the German language in international communication. In this context, the article explores internal and external policy responses, for example, in relation to education and citizenship in Germany, and the embedding of German language campaigns in strategies promoting multilingualism; and impacts on individual linguistic practices and behaviors, such as the emergence of “multiethnolects” and online multilingualism
Orders of multilingualism in central Europe: linguistic regimes, social categorization and belonging
No full textMy starting point in this paper is Jan Blommaert’s injunction to explore ‘the various forms of interconnectedness between levels and scales of sociolinguistic phenomena’ in the process of establishing a ‘sociolinguistics of globalisation’. My particular focus is on ways in which ideologies of linguistic differentiation are refracted through various discursive layers in talk about language in the context of the EU: from the institutionalised privileging of a certain kind of multilingualism in EU strategies through national policies on language and citizenship to individual perceptions and evaluations of linguistic experience. National governments of member states sign up to multilingual strategies which are predicated on the unquestioned legitimacy of ‘national languages’ but at the expense of other linguistic varieties (whether or not they are identified as ‘European’) which lack their currency or authority. Discourses around the German language are emblematic of this process of elision: it is promoted above English as the language with the highest number of ‘mother-tongue’ speakers in the EU, it is the ‘national language’ of more than one member state and of the driving force of the EU economy, its embodiment of the cultural heritage of ‘central Europe’ gives it a special place in the emergence of the new European space. But it occupies a different position in the European ‘linguascape’ (Coupland) depending on the vantage point of the observer. In Germany and Austria, standard German anchors the idea of a national language, neutralising problematic processes of social categorisation, but simultaneously creates potentially exclusionary obstacles to the construction of new conceptions of citizenship; in neighbouring eastern states, the same standard language ideology underpins the foreign cultural policy of German and Austrian governments but requires a realignment or recalibration of the repertoires of German-speaking minorities.My paper is framed by the encompassing discourses of multilingualism in national and European institutions, but it incorporates illustrative analyses of individual encounters with the politics of language in everyday life under different social and historical conditions in central Europe
The German language and the future of Europe: towards a research agenda on the politics of language
No full textMost accounts of nationalism and national identity include the idea of a ‘national language’ as a foundational element and key organising principle, yet even before the advent of new technologies of communication these defining codes were rarely, if ever, contained within national boundaries. The coexistence of what are perceived as distinct linguistic varieties (‘languages’) is therefore the normal condition of the nation-state. This contradiction between the multilingual reality of individuals and communities and what Ingrid Gogolin calls the ‘monolingual habitus’ is fundamental to Susan Gal’s (2006) discussion of the ironies of linguistic regimes in contemporary Europe that continue to be based on Herderian principles in spite of the pluralising rhetoric of European institutions.
In this paper, I start from Gal’s observations on migration, minorities, and multilingualism in Europe and consider their implications for a research agenda on the politics of language that takes account of the multiple layers of language policy on the one hand and the complexity of individual experiences with language on the other. I then illustrate this agenda with reference to a project on the present relationship between the German language and different forms of social identification in central Europe
Language, migration, and spaces of representation
No full textThe study of relationships between language and place has a long tradition in the context of Germanic languages, from 19th century dialect geography to late 20th century contact linguistics. However, the contemporary processes of migration, coupled with the emergence of new communication technologies and structural changes in the economies of states and regions, have created challenges for the study of linguistic practices and their place in the lives of individuals and social groups. The preceding papers in this volume take these challenges as an opportunity to reflect in new ways on past migrations. This concluding paper discusses the contributions they make to the study of language, migration, and place in relation to (speakers of) Germanic language varieties in North America and suggests ways in which they open up different spaces of representation
'National' languages in transnational contexts: language, migration and citizenship in Germany and Austria
No full textRepresentation in the articulation of language policy objectives
No full textThe formulation of language policy in the European context entails not only an abundance of documentation
(position papers, reports, guidelines, strategies, legislative proposals etc) but also the involvement of many individual
political actors operating at different levels within civil society: officials and advisers in the Commission
and other supranational bodies (such as the Council of Europe), government ministers, civil servants, directors of
government-funded agencies (such as the Goethe Institute or the Instituto Cervantes), representatives of minority
groups and so on. While policy documents are scrutinised by political and linguistic analysts in terms of their
content and the discourses in which it is embedded, the articulation of policy objectives by diverse individual actors,
which prefigures and shapes the policies, generally remains unobserved below the level of public statements
by politicians. It may inform the analysis of published policy, but is not typically subjected to analysis itself.
In this paper, we will suggest that an analysis of ways in which language policy objectives are articulated
in discussion is an important but often neglected dimension of the investigation of language policy development.
Drawing on interviews with individuals involved in the formulation of policy in relation to German in
central Europe (in particular in Hungary and the Czech Republic), we will look at how government officials
(both in Germany and Austria and in their neighbouring states), functionaries in government-funded agencies,
representatives of German minority associations, and German language teachers position themselves as both a)
individuals, who have their personal experiences with and opinions on the subject, and as b) representatives of
a wider community with certain vested interests.
Our attention will focus on ways in which our interviewees repeatedly move between expressions of their
personal motivations and the goals of the community they speak for. The question then is how these two dimensions
- the personal/micro and the collective/macro - relate to one another, how they influence each other, and
whether they strengthen or conflict with each other. Using the conceptual framework of positioning theory, we
will try to shed light on the discursive ‘mechanics’ of the interplay between individual and collective positions
adopted by these representative figures
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