Language as a distinguishing feature or common ground? A participatory study on manifestations of intergroup relations in the lived experiences of multilingual students.

Abstract

The performative nature of language renders it a tool for the continuous negotiation of social group memberships. It serves as a medium to express one's identity, ideas, values, and beliefs, and to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships. The current study employed a qualitative participatory approach to investigate the manifestations of intergroup relations in the lived language learning and speaking experiences of 25 elementary school students attending segregated language support measures in Austrian schools. To this end, student-generated photographs were utilized to stimulate individual and group interviews, with the resulting data analyzed through thematic analysis. The results show that manifestations of intergroup relations revolve around the positioning of the self and the other, constructions of social affiliations and legitimizations of inclusion and exclusion. Specifically, participants position themselves and others in school interactions along the category of language, which is based on the perceived mixing of nationality and language and is in part strongly permeated by the internalization of monolingual ideology. The findings of this study are discussed in terms of the persistent linguistic discrimination in schools, which is closely linked to the historical roots of the use of teaching for a national, monolingual-oriented education and the resulting hierarchization of languages.