Moving stories: writing Berlin lives

Stevenson, Patrick (2019) Moving stories: writing Berlin lives. In, Schneider, Britta, Heyd, Theresa and von Mengden, Ferdinand (eds.) The Sociolinguistic Economy of Berlin. (Language and Social Life, 17) Berlin. De Gruyter, pp. 347-368.

Abstract

In recent years, research on the increasing complexity of urban societies has highlighted a range of dimensions of diversity in terms of language knowledge and linguistic practices (Blommaert 2010, 2013; Rindler Schjerve and Vetter 2012). On the one hand, for example, census data on languages at national and regional levels has been complemented by comprehensive ‘home language surveys’ that have revealed the vast range of languages used in European cities such as Göteborg, Hamburg, The Hague, Brussels, Lyon, Madrid and Vienna (Extra and Yağmur 2004, Brizić and Hufnagl 2011). And in Language Capital, Eversley et al (2010) map the spatial distribution of the 233 languages attested by London schoolchildren in their survey. On the other hand, many studies have been devoted to research on hybrid urban vernaculars (or ‘multiethnolects’), blending features of different languages-in-contact in particular urban settings to create new language varieties; to innovative styles of language use (‘translanguaging’), spontaneous mixing of different languages to achieve particular communicative effects, both in face-to-face interaction and in mediated forms; to improvised ‘convivial’ strategies for bridging gaps in shared language knowledge; and to visual manifestations of language in the dynamic construction of cityscapes. (On these various topics see, for example, Androutsopoulos 2007, 2013, Busch 2004, Eley 2015, Freywald et al 2011, García and Li Wei 2014, Jaworski and Thurlow 2010, Keim 2008, Kern et al 2011, Kosnick 2007, Pennycook 2010, Pennycook and Otsuji 2015, Rampton 2015, Shohamy et al 2010; Wiese 2012).
So we are developing a deeper awareness and understanding of the scope and complexity of linguistic diversity in cities and we have gained many insights into the creative practices which have arisen as a result of intense and sometimes fleeting language contacts. We have a better appreciation of the possibilities afforded by multilingualism that offset the obstacles it is often considered to present and we have a more refined feel for what Gogolin and Meyer (2010) call the ‘linguistic texture of migration societies’.

This chapter proposes the addition of a biographical dimension to these demographic, interactional and representational studies, taking an approach that is sensitive to individual responses to particular historical conditions and social circumstances (Burck 2005, Franceschini and Miecznikowski 2004). Set in the highly diverse inner city district of Neukölln, the chapter explores ways in which individuals with personal histories of migration reflect on how their ‘lived experience of language’ (Busch 2010, 2015) has shaped their transnational life worlds and ways in which they structure their life stories around these experiences, both in the present and in the past.


Androutsopoulos, Jannis (2007) ‘Ethnolekten in der Mediengesellschaft: Stilisierung und Sprachideologie in Performance, Fiktion und Metasprachdiskurs’, in Fandrych and Salverda (2007), 113-155.

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