Startseite Linguistik & Semiotik Chapter 12 Questioning the questions: Institutional and individual perspectives on children’s language repertoires
Kapitel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

Chapter 12 Questioning the questions: Institutional and individual perspectives on children’s language repertoires

  • Nadja Kerschhofer-Puhalo und Nikolay Slavkov
Veröffentlichen auch Sie bei De Gruyter Brill
Erkunden Sie dieses Fachgebiet So veröffentlichen Sie bei uns
The Changing Face of the “Native Speaker”
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch The Changing Face of the “Native Speaker”

Abstract

This chapter discusses institutional practices of asking questions about children’s “native” or “home” language(s) as well as individual perspectives of children describing their own multi/plurilingual repertoires. Data from two separate studies - one on school registration forms in Canadian elementary schools and the other on children’s verbal and visual representations of their plurilingual repertoires - show difficulties and incompatibilities between the experiences of children living in transnational and multilingual families and educational practices of language profiling and institutional categorization, which are strongly oriented towards monolingualism and singleness rather than plurality. The Canadian study illustrates school language background profiling that asks parents to identify their children’s “first language”, “home language”, and “other” languages and discusses the underlying ideologies that these categories imply. This top-down institutional perspective is contrasted with bottom-up qualitative data from a corpus of Austrian migrant children’s verbal and visual representations. The bottom-up approach reveals how children position themselves towards various criteria, such as origin, affiliation, language use, or proficiency, to qualify as a “native speaker”. We discuss the ideological dimensions and practical limitations of questions about the “first”, “home”, or “dominant” language as well as some dilemmas that children face in finding answers to questions about their complex and dynamic language repertoires.

Abstract

This chapter discusses institutional practices of asking questions about children’s “native” or “home” language(s) as well as individual perspectives of children describing their own multi/plurilingual repertoires. Data from two separate studies - one on school registration forms in Canadian elementary schools and the other on children’s verbal and visual representations of their plurilingual repertoires - show difficulties and incompatibilities between the experiences of children living in transnational and multilingual families and educational practices of language profiling and institutional categorization, which are strongly oriented towards monolingualism and singleness rather than plurality. The Canadian study illustrates school language background profiling that asks parents to identify their children’s “first language”, “home language”, and “other” languages and discusses the underlying ideologies that these categories imply. This top-down institutional perspective is contrasted with bottom-up qualitative data from a corpus of Austrian migrant children’s verbal and visual representations. The bottom-up approach reveals how children position themselves towards various criteria, such as origin, affiliation, language use, or proficiency, to qualify as a “native speaker”. We discuss the ideological dimensions and practical limitations of questions about the “first”, “home”, or “dominant” language as well as some dilemmas that children face in finding answers to questions about their complex and dynamic language repertoires.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction: The changing face of the “native speaker” 1
  4. Part one: Conceptual discussions
  5. Chapter 1 Why the mythical “native speaker” has mud on its face 25
  6. Chapter 2 The multilingual and multicompetent native speaker 47
  7. Chapter 3 New speakers: New linguistic subjects 71
  8. Part two: Practices and representations
  9. Chapter 4 Is there a native speaker in the class? A didactic view of a problematic notion 103
  10. Chapter 5 On the paradox of being native speakers of two “competing” languages: Turkish as the mother or the father tongue of Greek nationals 133
  11. Chapter 6 What kind of speakers are these? Placing heritage speakers of Russian on a continuum 155
  12. Chapter 7 The out-of-sight of “native speaker”: A critical journey through models of social representations of plurilingual identities 179
  13. Chapter 8 Practice-proof concepts? Rethinking linguistic borders and families in multilingual communication: Exploiting the relationship between intercomprehension and translanguaging 209
  14. Part three: Policies and controversies
  15. Chapter 9 Provenance and possession: Rethinking the mother tongue 233
  16. Chapter 10 The pluricentricity and ownership of English 253
  17. Chapter 11 “I want to be bilingual!” Contested imaginings of bilingualism in New Brunswick, Canada 285
  18. Chapter 12 Questioning the questions: Institutional and individual perspectives on children’s language repertoires 315
  19. Afterword 347
  20. Index 353
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501512353-013

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction: The changing face of the “native speaker” 1
  4. Part one: Conceptual discussions
  5. Chapter 1 Why the mythical “native speaker” has mud on its face 25
  6. Chapter 2 The multilingual and multicompetent native speaker 47
  7. Chapter 3 New speakers: New linguistic subjects 71
  8. Part two: Practices and representations
  9. Chapter 4 Is there a native speaker in the class? A didactic view of a problematic notion 103
  10. Chapter 5 On the paradox of being native speakers of two “competing” languages: Turkish as the mother or the father tongue of Greek nationals 133
  11. Chapter 6 What kind of speakers are these? Placing heritage speakers of Russian on a continuum 155
  12. Chapter 7 The out-of-sight of “native speaker”: A critical journey through models of social representations of plurilingual identities 179
  13. Chapter 8 Practice-proof concepts? Rethinking linguistic borders and families in multilingual communication: Exploiting the relationship between intercomprehension and translanguaging 209
  14. Part three: Policies and controversies
  15. Chapter 9 Provenance and possession: Rethinking the mother tongue 233
  16. Chapter 10 The pluricentricity and ownership of English 253
  17. Chapter 11 “I want to be bilingual!” Contested imaginings of bilingualism in New Brunswick, Canada 285
  18. Chapter 12 Questioning the questions: Institutional and individual perspectives on children’s language repertoires 315
  19. Afterword 347
  20. Index 353
Jetzt anmelden und 20% sparen
Institutioneller Zugang
Wie funktioniert Authentifizierung?
Haben Sie eine Idee, wie wir unsere Website verbessern können?
Bitte schreiben Sie uns.
© 2026 De Gruyter Brill
Heruntergeladen am 4.2.2026 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781501512353-013/html?lang=de
Button zum nach oben scrollen