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Modernist language ideologies, indexicalities and identities: Looking at the multilingual classroom through a post-Fishmanian lens

Modernist language ideologies, indexicalities and identities: Looking at the multilingual... This paper focuses on the construction of immigrant minority pupils’identities in a regular multicultural primary school classroom in the Netherlands. It presents three ethnographic data sets. The first set features the evaluative discourse of a Dutch medium primary school teacher and it focuses on the ways in which this class teacher indexes pupils’ identities on an axis of (linguistic) disorder versus order on the basis of an attributed monolingual upbringing. The sec- ond set features the evaluative discourse of Moroccan girls of both Berber and Arabic-speaking origin. Although the Dutch language is a given in their lives, their identity belongings are strongly anchored on the axis of purity versus im- purity, established on the basis of their language skills in the immigrant minority language. The third set features a sabotage move perpetrated by two pupils of Turkish background, who assert the validity of ’international’ languages as op- posed to their home language and who use ‘fake’ Arabic to escape the pressure exerted on them by the classroom researcher. The paper concludes by proposing a revisited understanding of multilingualism that can give justice to the com- plexity of the pupils’ own sociolinguistic repertoires and identity performances. This renewed understanding is http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Applied Linguistics Review de Gruyter

Modernist language ideologies, indexicalities and identities: Looking at the multilingual classroom through a post-Fishmanian lens

Spotti, Massimiliano
Applied Linguistics Review , Volume 2 (2011): 22 – May 16, 2011
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References (39)

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © by Walter de Gruyter GmbH
ISSN
1868-6303
eISSN
1868-6311
DOI
10.1515/9783110239331.29
Publisher site
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Abstract

This paper focuses on the construction of immigrant minority pupils’identities in a regular multicultural primary school classroom in the Netherlands. It presents three ethnographic data sets. The first set features the evaluative discourse of a Dutch medium primary school teacher and it focuses on the ways in which this class teacher indexes pupils’ identities on an axis of (linguistic) disorder versus order on the basis of an attributed monolingual upbringing. The sec- ond set features the evaluative discourse of Moroccan girls of both Berber and Arabic-speaking origin. Although the Dutch language is a given in their lives, their identity belongings are strongly anchored on the axis of purity versus im- purity, established on the basis of their language skills in the immigrant minority language. The third set features a sabotage move perpetrated by two pupils of Turkish background, who assert the validity of ’international’ languages as op- posed to their home language and who use ‘fake’ Arabic to escape the pressure exerted on them by the classroom researcher. The paper concludes by proposing a revisited understanding of multilingualism that can give justice to the com- plexity of the pupils’ own sociolinguistic repertoires and identity performances. This renewed understanding is

Journal

Applied Linguistics Review – de Gruyter

Published: May 16, 2011

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