Cultural Orientation and Language use among Multilingual Youth Groups: 'For me it is like we all speak one language'

Abstract

This paper approaches the linguistic setting of a European inner-city, an area with a long history of migration from a sociological and linguistic perspective. After a qualitative-heuristical research and (ethnomethodological) conversation analysis, we are able to present a description of sociolingual conditions and the process of their transformation. In the first part we focus on the relationship between language, culture, identity and social structure. We argue that old structures are breaking up, and that new patterns of speech-communities are developing. We shall come out against common ideas about lingual transformation in the Federal Republic of Germany: against the 'assimilatonist view' (the language of origin disappears with the third generation of migrants) and the 'view of difference', this is connected with the concept of 'ethnic revival' and observes the revitalisation of the languages of origin). Our argument will be put forward in an exploration of phenomenon of 'mixed language' (that's what the interviewees called their way of speaking) in the world of inner-city juveniles. By embedding these linguistic practices in the ethnographical concept of 'liminality', we tried to understand the loosening process of the relationship between linguistic practices, identity through nationality and social structure. The usage of language appears as a means of constructing their social position among adolescents in the location of research where social structure is embodied.

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