Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:57:24.612Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Children’s Perception of Their Multilingualism

from Part Two - Cognition and Faculties in Multilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2022

By
Brigitta Busch
Edited by
Anat Stavans  and
Ulrike Jessner
Anat Stavans
Affiliation:
Beit Berl College, Israel
Ulrike Jessner
Affiliation:
Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Austria
Get access

Summary

This chapter deals with how children reflect upon their linguistic repertoire, their language use and their lived experience of language. It draws on art-based approaches, mainly on the presentation and discussion of children’s language portraits. Language portraits have been employed for many years in educational settings as language awareness activities, as well as in research on multilingualism, calling on multilinguals to visualize their linguistic repertoire by coloring in the template of an empty body silhouette and to comment on their drawing. A close reading of language portraits produced in different workshops by children 6 to 11 years old shows that they perceive their multilingual repertoires less in terms of competences that they ‘have’ than in terms of ‘doing’ things with language, on being able to relate with others and position themselves with regard to established, sometimes competing language ideologies present in their immediate environment.

Keywords

language portraitmultilingual repertoirevisual methodscreative approachesprimary school
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Childhood Multilingualism , pp. 215 - 234
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bakhtin, M. (1981). Discourse in the novel (1934–35). In Bakhtin, M., The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. by Holquist, Michael. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 259–422.Google Scholar
Bristowe, A., Oostendorp, M., & Anthonissen, C. (2014). Language and youth identity in a multilingual setting: A multimodal repertoire approach. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 32(2), 229–45.Google Scholar
Burck, C. (2005). Multilingual Living: Explorations of Self and Subjectivity. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Busch, B. (2010). School language profiles: Valorizing linguistic resources in heteroglossic situations in South Africa. Language and Education, 24(4), 283–94.Google Scholar
Busch, B. (2012). The linguistic repertoire revisited. Applied Linguistics, 33(5), 503–23.Google Scholar
Busch, B. (2014). Building on heteroglossia and heterogeneity: The experience of a multilingual classroom. In Blackledge, A. & Creese, A., eds., Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy. New York: Springer, pp. 21–40.Google Scholar
Busch, B. (2017). Expanding the notion of the linguistic repertoire: On the concept of Spracherleben – the lived experience of language. Applied Linguistics, 38(3), 340–58.Google Scholar
Busch, B. (2018). The language portrait in multilingualism research: Theoretical and methodological considerations. Working Papers in Urban Language & Literacies, 236, 2–13.Google Scholar
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” London/ New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Clark, A., & Moss, P. (2011). Listening to Young Children. The Mosaic Approach, 2nd ed. London: NCB.Google Scholar
Coffey, S. (2015). Reframing teachers’ language knowledge through metaphor analysis of language portraits. Modern Language Journal, 99(3), 500–14.Google Scholar
de Jager, A., Tewson, A., Ludlow, B., & Boydell, K. M. (2016). Embodied ways of storying the self: A systematic review of body-mapping. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research FQS, 17(2), Article 22.Google Scholar
Farmer, D., & Prasad, G. (2014). Des jeunes (se) racontent! Approches créatives visuelles mises au profit d’élèves issus de la diversité linguistique et culturelle au Canada. Diversité, l’école et les langues, 176(2), 151–57.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. J. (1964). Linguistic and social interaction in two communities. American Anthropologist, 66(6), 137–53.Google Scholar
Ioannidou, E. (2017). Performing registers and registering performance: Young children’s linguistic practices during play in the Greek Cypriot context. Language & Communication, 56, 55–68.Google Scholar
Irvine, J. T., & Gal, S. (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Kroskrity, P., ed., Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities and Identities. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, pp. 35–83.Google Scholar
Jacquemet, M. (2005). Transidiomatic practices: Language and power in the age of globalization. Language and Communication, 25, 257–77.Google Scholar
Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and poetics. In Sebeok, T. A., ed., Style in Language. New York: Wiley, pp. 350–77.Google Scholar
Jessner, U. (2008). Teaching third languages: Findings, trends and challenges. Language Teaching, 41(1), 15–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalaja, P., & Melo-Pfeifer, S., eds. (2019). Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Kalaja, P., & Pitkänen-Huhta, A. (2018). ALR special issue: Visual methods in applied language studies. Applied Linguistics Review, 9(2–3), 157–76.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. (2009). The Multilingual Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. (2019). Foreword. In Kalaja, P. & Melo-Pfeifer, S., eds., Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. xix–xx.Google Scholar
Krumm, H.-J. (2003). “Mein Bauch ist italienisch …” Kinder sprechen über Sprachen. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht, 8(2/3), 110–14.Google Scholar
Kusters, A., & De Meulder, M. (2019). Language portraits: Investigating embodied multilingual and multimodal repertoires. FQS, 20(3), Article 10.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Langer, S. (1948). Philosophy in a New Key. A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Leszcynska-Koenen, A. (2016). Das geheime Leben der Worte. Über das Finden der Sprache in der Psychoanalyse. Psyche, 70, 905–22.Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Mitchell, W. J. T. (1987). Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Molinié, M., ed. (2009). Le Dessin réflexif. Élément pour une herméneutique du sujet plurilingue. Cergy-Pontoise: CRTF.Google Scholar
Moore, D. (2010). Multilingual literacies and third script acquisition: Young Chinese children in French immersion in Vancouver, Canada. International Journal of Multilingualism, 7(4), 322–42.Google Scholar
Neumann, U. (1991). Ideenkiste: Ich spreche viele Sprachen. Die Grundschulzeitschrift, 43, 59–75.Google Scholar
Pietikäinen, S., Alanen, R., Dufva, H., Kalaja, P., Leppänen, S., & Pitkänen-Huhta, A. (2008). Languaging in Ultima Thule: Multilingualism in the life of a Sami boy. International Journal of Multilingualism, 5(2), 79–99.Google Scholar
Pink, S. (2012). Advances in visual methodology. In Pink, S., ed., Advances in Visual Methodology. London: Sage, pp. 3–16.Google Scholar
Prasad, G. (2018). “How does it look and feel to be plurilingual?”: Analysing children’s representations of plurilingualism through collage. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 23(8), 902–24, https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2017.1420033.Google Scholar
Purkarthofer, J. (2012). Abschlussbericht. Schulregionenprofil Weiz und Begleitung der Schulentwicklung im Rahmen der SPIN Regionen des OeSZ. Research report, Vienna, November 2012.Google Scholar
Rose, G. (2001). Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Rymes, B. (2014). Communicating Beyond Language. Everyday Encounters with Diversity. New York/London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Statistik Austria (2019). Bildung in Zahlen. Vienna: Statistik Austria.Google Scholar
Vološinov, V. N. (1929/1973). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, trans. Matejka, Ladislav & Titunik, I. R.. New York: Seminar Press.Google Scholar
Winnicott, D. W. (1971/1991). Playing and Reality. New York: Brunner-Routledge.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×