Balancing between diversity and homogenization: Investigation of language regimes at four multilingual schools
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The planed presentation aims to describe language regimes at four urban schools, where multilingualism is an everyday reality. We assume that the language regime present at schools manifests the position of the school not only according to multilingualism itself but, above all, to their (multilingual) pupils. Looking at broader context, linguistic diversity at Czech schools has increased in the last decade, and it has become a new everyday reality. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of studies investigating lived experiences with managing multilingualism at schools. Our study examines schools as multilingual social spaces in which the visible language choice on signs reveals the language regime based on ideologies, policies, and experiences. We situate our presentation according to the context of “top-down” language policy in the Czech Republic, and the essential theoretical concepts such as social space language regime will be explained. The linguistic landscapes at schools (so-called schoolscape) will be analysed and interpreted to capture schools as multilingual social spaces. The focus will be laid on (1) languages displayed on the object; (2) authorship of the object: (3) location of the object. The data from schoolscaping will be complemented by interviews with school headmasters, who are responsible for language choice decisions. The investigation took place in three state schools and one private school, each of which multilingualism and linguistic diversity play an essential role in their everyday work lives. The preliminary results indicate that despite the multilingual reality and the promotion of multilingualism, by anchoring multilingualism into the agenda of inclusion language homogenization is operative in the school. Our results should be relevant for exploring the linguistic environments and language regimes at schools, but also could reveal possible explanations of linguistic homogenization. |
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