“I Am Bernese and Proud of It”: Regional Linguistic Identity and Translanguaging in Teacher Education in Switzerland

Abstract

In addition to the four official languages, Switzerland is shaped by various migrant languages and dialects such as the dialectal variations of Swiss German (e.g., Bernese, the Swiss German dialect spoken in the canton of Bern). Although there is growing awareness of the need to include multilingualism and translanguaging in primary and secondary classrooms, translanguaging is still not very common in Swiss teacher education. The study discussed in this article aimed to investigate the individual language use of future teachers by applying a participative ethnographic approach. The participants observed and documented their linguistic practices using autoethnographic protocols, the linguistic homescape, and oral and written communications via WhatsApp. Analysis of their ethnographic data generated translanguaging profiles which revealed that future teachers’ linguistic practices differ significantly depending on the contexts examined, namely everyday private life, learning at university, and teaching in school.

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