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I S S U E N O . 50 [
December 2 0 1 0]
Susanne
Günthner
The dynamics of communicative
practices in transmigrational contexts
This paper focuses
on identity constructions in interactions among migrant youth in Germany. It
addresses the following questions: How do participants construct particular
cultural and social identities through communicative practices? How do they
use linguistic heterogeneities to position themselves in everyday
encounters? What is the relation between the construction of "otherness" and
the construction of speakers' own identity? I.e. in what ways is the
"dis-course of alterity" connected to the "discourse of identity"?
This
study of social and linguistic consequences of transmigrational contexts is
based on informal interactions as well as on narrative interviews collected
between 2003 and 2008 among young men (15 to 23 years old) of migrant
background in German youth centres in Münster, Rheine, Solingen and Hamm.
The analysis focuses on communicative practices – such as 'insulting
remarks' and stylized forms of reported speech – used in doing identity
work. It will be argued that these practices are related to linguistic
ideologies; furthermore, they reflect on diversified belongings in a
multi-cultural environment.
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