Cristin-resultat-ID: 1378543
Sist endret: 6. september 2016, 12:24
Resultat
Vitenskapelig foredrag
2016

Multilingualism in the workplace. Historical cases and modern contextualisation

Bidragsytere:
  • Florian Hiss

Presentasjon

Navn på arrangementet: Sociolinguistics Symposium 21
Sted: Murcia
Dato fra: 15. juni 2016
Dato til: 18. juni 2016

Om resultatet

Vitenskapelig foredrag
Publiseringsår: 2016

Beskrivelse Beskrivelse

Tittel

Multilingualism in the workplace. Historical cases and modern contextualisation

Sammendrag

Multilingualism in the workplace: historical cases and modern contextualisation Workplace multilingualism has been addressed by a variety of strands of sociolinguistic research. Processes of contextualisation of and through language—ranging from the interactional micro-level to larger societal frames and from application-oriented perspectives to critical stances—are the common interest of all approaches. It also seems common to a majority of studies that they focus on current economic developments, contemporary processes of globalisation and mobility, and the impact of these processes on the diversity in various workplaces—and as the factor that motivates research in this field. At the same time, a large number of sociolinguistic studies have touched upon the impact of work and economy on (present and historical) multilingual development in society and vice-versa—without making it the main focus of research. This paper discusses two cases of historical workplace multilingualism from the North of Norway. For centuries, Northern Norway and the surrounding North Calotte region have been a site of multilingual encounters between speakers of Germanic (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish), Finno-Ugric (Sámi, Kven, Finnish), and Slavic (Russian) languages. Access to natural resources and global mobility are not only the central characteristics of today’s economic development in the region. They are also apply to the two analysed cases from the 19th century: (1) Russian Merchants visited the harbours along the Northern Norwegian coast regularly during the summer season. The most extensively researched linguistic outcome of multilingual economic activities in the harbours of the region is a pidgin language called Russenorsk from the trading contacts between Pomor merchants from Northwest Russia and Northern Norwegian fishermen. (2) Industrialisation in Northern Norway started in a few places in the first half of the 19th century with the grand-scale exploitation of natural resources. The region’s first big industrial enterprise, a copper mine near the town of Alta, had a highly diverse workforce. Owned and managed by English businessmen, the Alten Copper Works employed expert workers from other parts of Scandinavia and Europe and attracted a large number of Kven-speaking immigrants. The paper analyses and discusses these multilingual workplace settings with respect to three aspects of sociolinguistic context and method: Firstly, for both historical cases, the paper reviews and discusses some of the documented materials in the light of modern sociolinguistic approaches to language practices, policies, and contextualisation in the workplace: How were multilingual resources used to accomplish work-related tasks effectively; and how do language practices and policies reflect language ideologies and social inequality? Secondly, the paper addresses the methodological challenges posed by the historical materials, ideological filters, and questions of sociolinguistic authenticity. Finally, the paper takes into account that actors in contemporary economy show an awareness of the region’s multilingual tradition. Some of them use this traditional diversity to discursively shape a coherence of their own policies, practices, and diverse workforces with the environment they are active in. Such purpose-oriented recontextualisation of multilingual traditions calls for a thorough analysis of the there-and-then conditions vis-à-vis the here-and-now contexts.

Bidragsytere

Florian Hiss

  • Tilknyttet:
    Forfatter
    ved Institutt for språk og kultur ved UiT Norges arktiske universitet
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