Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 375

Part of Session 158: Language biographies and migration experiences in urban contexts (Other abstracts in this session)

Berlin stories: multilingualism in Mareschstr. 74

Authors: Stevenson, Patrick
Submitted by: Stevenson, Patrick (University of Southampton, United Kingdom)

Research on the increasing complexity of urban societies has highlighted a range of dimensions of diversity in terms of language knowledge and linguistic practices. On the one hand, for example, comprehensive ‘home language surveys’ reveal the vast range of languages used in major European cities (Extra and Yağmur 2004, Brizić and Hufnagl 2011) and Eversley et al (2010) map the 233 languages attested by London schoolchildren to show their spatial distribution. On the other hand, many studies have been devoted to research on innovative styles of ‘mixed’ language use (‘ethnolects’, ‘languaging’ etc), both in face-to-face interaction and in mediated forms (e.g. Freywald et al 2011, Pennycook 2010, Androutsopoulos 2006). In this paper, I suggest that these demographic and interactional approaches should be complemented by a biographical perspective in order to develop a more refined, multi-dimensional understanding of the ‘linguistic texture of multilingual societies’ (Gogolin 2010).

The paper draws on a current project in inner city districts of Berlin characterized by a high degree of migration and multilingualism. It is concerned with ways in which individual migrants reflect on how their ‘experience with language’ (Busch 2010) has shaped their ‘life worlds’. Individuals’ repertoires and their reflections on them are then seen as characteristics of ‘superdiverse subjectivities’ (Blommaert and Backus 2011) in highly dynamic social contexts: ‘Repertoires are biographically organized complexes of resources, and they follow the rhythm of human lives’ (see also Franceschini 2010).

Inspired by Liebmann (2002) and others (e.g. Block 2006), I explore these ideas through the language biographies of inhabitants of a single apartment block, which in its ethnic and linguistic composition is a kind of microcosm of the city. My aim is to show how the individuality of language experiences arising from different migration patterns is an important and necessary counterweight to larger scale investigations of language knowledge and language use.

References

Androutsopoulos, Jannis (2006) ‘Multilingualism, diaspora, and the Internet: Codes and identities on German-based diaspora websites’, in Journal of Sociolinguistics 10: 520-47

Block, David (2006) Multilingual Identities in a Global City (Palgrave)

Blommaert, Jan and Ad Backus (2011) ‘Repertoires revisited: “knowing languages” in superdiversity’, Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies 67 (London: King’s College).

Brizić, Katharina and Claudia Lo Hufnagl (2011) Multilingual Cities ‘Wien’ Bericht zur Sprachenerhebung in den 3. und 4. Volksschulklassen (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften)

Busch, Brigitta (2010) ‘Die Macht präbabylonischer Phantasien. Ressourcenorientiertes sprachbiographisches Arbeiten’, in Zeitschift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 160: 58-82.

Extra, Guus and Kutlay Yağmur (eds) (2004) Urban Multilingualism in Europe (Multilingual Matters)

Eversley, John et al (2010) Language Capital: Mapping the languages of London’s schoolchildren (CILT).

Franceschini, Rita (ed) (2010) Sprache und Biographie Special issue of Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 160.

Freywald, Ulrike et al (2011) ‘Kiezdeutsch as a multiethnolect’, in Kern and Stelting (2011) Ethnic Styles of Speaking in European Metropolitan Cities (Benjamins), 45-73.

Gogolin, Ingrid (2010) ‘Stichwort: Mehrsprachigkeit’, in Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft 13, 529-547.

Liebmann, Irina (2002) Berliner Mietshaus (Berlin Verlag).

Pennycook, Alastair (2010) Language as a Local Practice (Routledge).

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

Berlin stories: multilingualism in Mareschstr. 74