Transience and Tunnel Esperanto: A study of multilingualism, work and relationship-building on a tunnel mining project

Kamilla Kraft

doi:10.1515/ijsl-2020-2098

Article

Transience and Tunnel Esperanto: A study of multilingualism, work and relationship-building on a tunnel mining project

Kamilla Kraft

Published/Copyright: August 17, 2020

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From the journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language Volume 2020 Issue 264

Abstract

This paper investigates multilingualism as language and communication discourses and practices in a Copenhagen metro tunnel construction project. This project is characterized by transience: continual time-space changes of work organization and staff relations combined. In this scenario, a highly international and multilingual staff composition puts focus on language and communication. Based on interviews with managers and workers from one of the project’s contractors, as well as observations of daily work in the tunnels, the analysis demonstrates participants’ discursive constructions of language and communication, sometimes linking these concepts to work, sometimes to relationship-building. I argue that these constructions are closely interlinked with the workplace’s transient status and conditions, and draw out how they have empowering as well as exploitative implications for the workers.

Keywords: multilingualism; relationship-building; solidarity; transience; work

Corresponding author: Kamilla Kraft, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, E-mail: kamillakraft@hum.ku.dk

Acknowledgments

First of all I would like to thank all of the participants who made this study possible. I should also like to thank Hartmut Haberland for generating the data for this article with me, as well as for all of our fruitful discussions and his insightful comments about the tunnel workers and their linguistic practices. Also thanks to Louise Tranekjær, Carsten Levisen and Steffen Haurholm, as well as the TMC team – Katherine Kappa, Spencer Hazel, Dorte Lønsmann and Janus Mortensen – for discussions on transience, and MX90 for inspiring conversations on solidarity. Finally, I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers as well as Alexandre Dûchene and Jaqueline Urla for their insightful comments that have considerably improved and developed this paper. Last but far from least, thanks to Mi-Cha Flubacher who agreed to embark on this project with me and who has remained supportive and critical throughout. All remaining shortcomings of this article are my responsibility alone.

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Published Online: 2020-08-17

Published in Print: 2020-08-27

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https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2020-2098

Keywords for this article

multilingualism; relationship-building; solidarity; transience; work