“Can you teach me some Pakistani?” – Ethnolinguistic cornering among Copenhagen youth
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Janus Spindler Møller
Abstract
In this article I present the notion of ethnolinguistic cornering as an outcome of the Everyday Languaging project and argue for its relevance in ethnographic and interactional sociolinguistics. The Everyday Languaging project is a long-term cooperation with a Copenhagen school where a team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen has conducted language-centered ethnographic fieldwork involving different student groups. The school is situated in a linguistically heterogeneous area of Copenhagen and the students represent a high variety of different linguistic family backgrounds. The data presented in the paper involve a student group who were followed from their first year in the public school system in 2010 through nine years until 2019. Ethnolinguistic cornering denotes moments in interaction where people ascribe each other identities based on assumptions about language and social life, and these ascribed identities are rejected or in other ways treated as negatively charged. I argue that instances of ethnolinguistic cornering deserve particular attention in sociolinguistics because they provide a lens for investigating how the paradox of monolingual standard regimes within multilingual societies is constructed, reproduced and challenged in ongoing interaction.
Abstract (Danish)
I denne artikel præsenterer jeg begrebet etnolingvistisk cornering som et resultat af Projekt Hverdagssprogning og argumenterer for dets relevans inden for etnografisk og interaktionel sociolingvistik. I Projekt Hverdagssprogning har et forskerteam fra Københavns Universitet gennem længere perioder indsamlet etnografiske data blandt eleverne på en skole i København. Skolen er beliggende i et sprogligt heterogent område, og eleverne repræsenterer en bred vifte af forskellige sproglige familiebaggrunde. Artiklens data er fra samarbejdet med en elevgruppe, der blev fulgt fra deres første år i folkeskolen i 2010 og frem til 2019. Etnolingvistisk cornering refererer til en type samtalebegivenhed, hvor mennesker bliver positioneret ud fra en antagelse om en bestemt sammenhæng mellem sprogbrug og etnisk identitet og efterfølgende afviser eller problematiserer denne positionering. Artiklen argumenterer for, at tilfælde af etnolingvistisk cornering fortjener særlig opmærksomhed indenfor sociolingvistik, fordi de fra et deltagerperspektiv giver indblik i, hvordan flersprogede kan opleve at deres sproglige kompetencer bliver behandlet som et stigma, der udmelder dem fra et fællesskab.
Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank all researchers and participants of the Everyday Languaging Project for their invaluable cooperation and support over the years. A special thanks goes to Andreas Candefors Stæhr, Lian Malai Madsen, and Anne Larsen for their careful reading of earlier versions of this paper. I am also deeply grateful to Isabelle Léglise and Valelia Muni Toke (SeDyL CNRS, Paris), as well as Heini Lehtonen (University of Helsinki), for providing me with opportunities to present and discuss this project on multiple occasions. Finally, I extend my sincere appreciation to the editors of Multilingua and the two anonymous peer reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions and constructive critique.
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Competing interests: The author declare none.
Transcription key
- [overlap]
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overlapping speech
- (>)(<)
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direction of overlapping speech
- ((comment))
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my comments
- (.)
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short pause
- (0.6)
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timed pause
- !
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exclamation
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