Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 1313
Part of Session 151: Language and Hyperdiversity in the Global City (Other abstracts in this session)
Linguistic action spaces crossing urban spaces – theoretical concepts and empirical findings
Authors: Redder, Prof. Dr. Angelika; Scarvaglieri, Claudio
Submitted by: Scarvaglieri, Claudio (Hamburg University, Germany)
Starting points for discussion will be the linguistic notion of “action space” and the pragmatic concept of “chains of multilingual speakers and hearers” (Rehbein 2010). The purpose is to contribute to a deeper insight into the complexity of urban contexts and to discuss dimensions of the so-called hyperdiversity from a critical point of view (Heller 2011).
Reality is an action space constituted through societal formation. Modern societies are characterized through a far-reaching institutionalization of their practice, even of their linguistic practice. In accordance with Functional Pragmatics as an action theoretical approach to language (Redder 2008), in institutions, the action spaces of actants are frequently separated in a characteristic manner: agents realize institutional purposes and act on the basis of institutional knowledge; clients, on the other hand, are actants who avail themselves of institutional purposes for their individual goals and act on the basis of practical experience. It is in these institutional settings that intercultural discourse may emerge, if agents and clients don’t share cultural and linguistic knowledge (Bührig 2009).
We want to put this finding one step further: It is rarely at the centre (Moyer 2011) but at the borderlines of institutional settings that clients and agents negotiate or try out innovative forms of multilingual communication and thus adapt action spaces to the new reality of urban multilingualism (Redder fc.). Our hypothesis is: The linguistic action space within institutional settings is mutually re-constructed from its periphery in order to fit the needs for both groups, clients and agents. And this will be managed by a non-additive view of multilingualism and language choice.
Empirical evidence will be given from entering and opening-up constellations of institutional settings where ubiquitarian linguistic speech acts like questions or even smaller linguistic exchanges like back channels in different languages serve to open up the gates of institutional interaction. Relying on those basic linguistic actions that fulfil the communitarian function of language, innovative, so-called hybrid means for more specified teleological functions of language can be evolved. The data stem from our pilot-study in the cluster of excellence (LIMA Hamburg).
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Heller, M. (2011) Paths to Post-Nationalism. Oxford: UP
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