Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1424

Part of Session 153: Working in the City (Other abstracts in this session)

Multilingualism and Work Experience in Germany

Authors: Buehrig, Kristin (1); Rehbein, Jochen (2)
Submitted by: Buehrig, Kristin (Universitaet Hamburg, Germany)

During the last decade, multilingualism at the workplace has been dealt within the conceptual framework of ‘diversity management’. Nowadays the benefit of multlingualism is a matter of interest for several scientific, societal and economic groups. But what are the multilingual workers’ and employees’ experiences?

At the workplace of multilingual workers “empractical” (Bühler) language in monolingual German (as a lingua franca) is required, but in international enterprises, a multilingual communication with a variety of discourse types appears.

In the constellation of narrativity as reproduction of workplace experience “reflexive language” with commenting, reasoning, laughter, knowledge structures etc. creates distraction and relief from the pressures of the workplace. The paper outlines three types of “reflexive language” workers and employees use when speaking about their multilingual work experiences.

The data stem from biographical interviews with migrants working in the eighties and employees of more recent international enterprises taken in their homes. A combination of pragmatic and ethnomethodological methods is applied to analyse story telling fragments selected from transcribed recordings in German, Turkish and English (about 20 sessions of 2-3h each). Knowledge structures, discourse types, and linguistic devices of rendering of workplace structures are concepts by which “language of reflexion“ is characterized.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

Multilingualism and Work Experience in Germany