WP249 Language and regimes of communication: Students? struggles with norms & identities through chronotopic work

Karrebæk & Møller
2019
Collection: Key word

Abstract

Linguistic diversity is regarded as an unwelcome challenge in mainstream Danish education. In general, it is not introduced as educationally (or even socially) relevant, and there are few documented cases of successful school identities associated with minority languages. More often than not, when linguistic diversity emerges in the everyday life of classrooms, it produces difficult and paradoxical situations. In this contribution, we analyse two such situations from mainstream Danish classrooms, where linguistic resources associated with minority ethnicity are introduced in relation to platform performances. The situations offer an insight into language ideologies that was generally left implicit during the everyday school life. They do this through the illustrations of teachers? and pupils? struggles as they navigate between the well-known ideological structure and the attempts at incorporating different linguistic resources brought along by pupils in meaningful ways. Using the analytic lens of the chronotope we discuss how certain identities, linguistic norms and resources become intrinsically linked to particular activities in mainstream education. In our case studies, we show how bringing about and encouraging the use of resources associated with minority ethnicity may actually enforce a chronotopical understanding that links Standard Danish to academic success. This happens largely because the use of resources associated with minority ethnicity is framed as comical and entertaining ? or in other cases (not analysed here) problematic. In one case, the participants exploit the comical potential. In the other case, the teachers encourage the use of minority language for reasons of entertainment, which leads to uncomfortable moments.