• The Conference
  • Home
  • Programme
  • Venue & directions
  • Organizing Committee
  • Scientific Committee
  • Exhibitors & sponsors
  • Satellite events
  • Conference Party
• Past & future
  • Previous symposia
  • Finland 2014
  • Spain 2016
• About FU Berlin
  • University homepage
  • Humanities at FU

Programme: accepted abstracts

Search for abstracts --- authors title abstract

---

Abstract ID: 268

Part of Session 119: Prefixing lingualism (Other abstracts in this session)

languaging and poly-languaging

Authors: jørgensen, j. normann; møller, janus spindler
Submitted by: jørgensen, j. normann (university of copenhagen, Denmark)

This presentation defines and describes two key terms, namely languaging and poly-languaging (Jørgensen et al. 2011, Jørgensen 2008, 2010), and places the concepts in the research context where they were developed by the Copenhagen school of Sociolinguistics, particularly two longitudinal studies, the Køge Project and the Amager Project.

In brief, languaging covers the human activity of using language to achieve social and interactional aims. Human beings use language intentionally and context-bound, and the term focuses on human agency, not on language as structure, particularly not on languageS as pre-determined sets of features. Poly-languaging is a term which captures the practices in which human beings employ linguistic features associated with different "languages" regardless of the widespread norms of purism. The term is intended to substitute terms such as "bilingualism" and "trilingualism", etc., and likewise it covers phenomena which have been termed crossing (Rampton 1995), code-switching, etc. The term poly-lingualism is parallel to Hewitt's (1991, 30) term poly-culture.

This terminology has been developed in the study of the development of linguistic practices and linguistic awareness among adolescents in Danish schools, the Køge study (1987-2007, see Jørgensen 2010 and Møller 2009) and the Amager Study (2008- , see Madsen et al. 2010, Jørgensen et al. 2011). In order to show how our terminology has developed from our empirical work we will present characteristic examples of linguistic interaction among youths involved in our projects.

The Amager and Køge Projects belong to a wave of sociolinguistic studies which have realized the need for a new approach to the analysis of linguistic practices in late modern societies (Rampton 2006, Blommaert 2010, Pennycook 2010), and in our presentation we place the understanding of language developed in the Køge and Amager projects in this context.

References:

Blommaert, J. (2010): The Sociolinguistics of Globalization, CUP.

Hewitt, R. (1991): Language, Youth and the Destabilisation of Ethnicity. In: C. Palmgren, K. Lövgren & G. Bolin (eds.): Ethnicity in Youth Culture, Stockholm University, 27-41.

Jørgensen, J. N. (ed.) (2008): Polylingual Languaging Around and Among Children and Adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism, vol. 5:3 (special issue).

Jørgensen, J. N. (2010): Languaging. Nine years of poylingual development of Turkish-Danish grade school students, vol. 1-2. Copenhagen Studies in Bilingualism, the Køge Series, vol. K15-K16.

Jørgensen, J. N., M. S. Karrebæk, L. M. Madsen, J. S. Møller (2011): Polylanguaging in Superdiversity. In: Diversities Journal Fall 2011, 32-54.

Madsen, L. M., J. S. Møller, J. N. Jørgensen (2010): "Street Language" and "Integrated": Language Use and Enregisterment Among Late Modern Urban Girls. In: Madsen, L. M., J. S. Møller, J. N. Jørgensen (eds.): Ideological Constructions and Enregisterment of Linguistic Youth Styles. Copenhagen Studies in Bilingualism vol. 55, 81-113.

Møller, Janus (2009): Poly-lingual interaction across childhood, youth and adulthood. University of Copenhagen.

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

Rampton, B. (1995): Crossing. Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents. Longman.

Rampton, B. (2006): Language in Late Modernity. CUP.