Papers by Martina Zimmermann
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In this article, we analyse language education policy in two officially multilingual countries, S... more In this article, we analyse language education policy in two officially multilingual countries, Switzerland and South Africa, where the role of English has evolved vis-à-vis local "national" languages since the 1990s. Our focus is on language policy as a manifestation of social struggles and, with a particular emphasis on English, we explore current policy documents in these two very different contexts. Using "neutrality" as an analytical lens, we show that language policy goes beyond curricula and in-/exclusion of languages, and instead neutralises societal ideas in line with the vision of a "successful" future at a given sociohistorical juncture. Finally, we reflect on neutrality as a component of language ideologies, whereby specific languages are authorised for contingent and changing political goals, leading to consequences such as in-/exclusion of certain languages in education policy and unequal distribution of knowledge, resources and authority.
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Multilingual Matters eBooks, Dec 31, 2017
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ELT Journal, 2018
This edited volume presents an empirical account of how neoliberal ideas are adopted on the groun... more This edited volume presents an empirical account of how neoliberal ideas are adopted on the ground by different actors in different educational settings, from bilingual education in the US, to migrant work programmes in Italy, to minority language teaching in Mexico. It examines language and education as objects of neoliberalization and as powerful tools and sites through which ideological principles underpinning neoliberal societies and economies are (re)produced and maintained (and with that, inequality and exclusion). This book aims to produce a complex understanding of how neoliberal rationalities are articulated within locally anchored and historical regimes of knowledge on language, education and society.
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Lenguaje y Textos, 2019
This paper discusses contradictions in discourses and practices in connection with plurilingualis... more This paper discusses contradictions in discourses and practices in connection with plurilingualism in the public education system of multilingual Switzerland. First, a historical review presents under what conditions the plurilingual paradigm has found its way into Swiss curricula. Second, some examples are taken from L2 course books to illustrate how curricular ideas have been translated into practical material. Third, it is shown what contradictory ideologies persist despite these efforts to incorporate plurilingual ideas into teaching practice. This is done on the basis of a recent case, which was about banning all languages but the official (German) during recess times at a primary school. The analysis reveals what kind of normativemonolingual discourses remain strong. Shedding light on these contradictions allows the illustration of tensions between the plurilingual paradigm and monolingual norms, with which the educational context is confronted.
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Language Sciences, 2014
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La circulation des étudiants à l'intérieur de la Suisse s'accompagne souvent de création ... more La circulation des étudiants à l'intérieur de la Suisse s'accompagne souvent de création d'espaces plus ou moins institutionnalisés, comme les associations estudiantines qui ont pour fonction de fédérer les étudiants issus de régions linguistiques autres que celle de la communauté d'accueil. C'est le cas pour les Tessinois (italophones), qui, tout en s'installant en Suisse alémanique, s'insèrent dans des espaces associatifs tessinois. A l'appui d'un travail ethnographique conduit dans le cadre d'une association estudiantine tessinoise à Berne j'analyse la manière dont l'association construit la légitimité de ses publics, comment elle définit et négocie ses membres légitimes et ses langues légitimes et les tensions qui s'en dégagent (en termes d'inclusion et d'exclusion). Par ailleurs, j'examine comment des processus de négociation de la légitimité des membres ainsi que de leurs affiliations se manifestent à travers des ...
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Multilingua
In this special issue, we bring together empirical research that takes a critical perspective on ... more In this special issue, we bring together empirical research that takes a critical perspective on the relationship between language learning and individual aspirations for future success. In doing so we aim to initiate a debate on how neoliberal ideology and mode of governance permeate language learning as part of a wider neoliberal project that postulates the ideal of the competitive and self-responsible language learner. The four contributions illustrate how neoliberal desires about entrepreneurial selves play out differently within different social, political, or linguistic contexts. They do not only address different languages individuals supposedly need to teach or acquire for a successful future within a specific context, but also concentrate on the discourses and social relations shaping these entrepreneurial aspirations. Ranging from vocational training in Japan, early education in Singapore, healthcare tourism in India, to higher education in Switzerland, the contributions a...
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Multilingua
This paper investigates the conditions under which stakeholders in the higher education system in... more This paper investigates the conditions under which stakeholders in the higher education system in multilingual Switzerland link expectations of students’ future economic to the development of human capital. Drawing on ethnographic data collected in a project focusing on mobile students crossing linguistic borders within Switzerland, I examine how this expected success in the imagined future is conceptualized, i. e. what kind of learning and which multilingual repertoires are part of the prophesying marketing discourse produced by universities and students alike. I explore how dominant language ideologies are reproduced and transferred into a speculative future, without any adjustment to account for changing market conditions. Juxtaposing institutional and individual discourse, I first argue that understandings of language ideologies are shared, seen as promotional assets translatable into the imagined but unchallenged future of which students as well as universities have a joint vis...
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Didactica
Reseña de: Kalaja, P., Melo-Pfeifer, S. (Editores) (2020). Visualising Multilingual Lives: More T... more Reseña de: Kalaja, P., Melo-Pfeifer, S. (Editores) (2020). Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words. Bristol: Peter Lang.
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Lenguaje y Textos, 2019
This paper discusses contradictions in discourses and practices in connection with plurilingualis... more This paper discusses contradictions in discourses and practices in connection with plurilingualism in the public education system of multilingual Switzerland. First, a historical review presents under what conditions the plurilingual paradigm has found its way into Swiss curricula. Second, some examples are taken from L2 course books to illustrate how curricular ideas have been translated into practical material. Third, it is shown what contradictory ideologies persist despite these efforts to incorporate plurilingual ideas into teaching practice. This is done on the basis of a recent case, which was about banning all languages but the official (German) during recess times at a primary school. The analysis reveals what kind of normative monolingual discourses remain strong. Shedding light on these contradictions allows the illustration of tensions between the plurilingual paradigm and monolingual norms, with which the educational context is confronted.
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The aim of this chapter is to offer my reflections on multi-sited ethnography and its implementat... more The aim of this chapter is to offer my reflections on multi-sited ethnography and its implementation when studying student mobility in multilingual contexts. The focus is on research into student mobility across the language regions of Switzerland. Marcus (1995) was the first to develop multi-sited ethnography and he initiated an on-going debate on methodological changes in the design and practice of fieldwork. Due to the broad shift in the social sciences towards the study of the processes involved in globalization, and due to growing interest within the field of sociolinguistics in the study of the changes in linguistic and social practices and processes ushered in by the mobility of people, a multi-sited approach is increasingly being leveraged in ethnographic fieldwork.
My chapter is organized as follows: First, I discuss the role of multi-sited ethnography in studies focussing on mobility, sketching out some of the benefits that accrue from the decision to go beyond a single site and pointing to some of the issues that arise. In the second part, I give an account of how and why I turned towards multi-sited ethnography in my own work in Switzerland. I show how this approach enabled me to follow students from the region where Italian is spoken (the Ticino) and to track their trajectories, across linguistic borders, to universities in areas of Switzerland where Swiss German and standard German are spoken. I will demonstrate how this allowed me to build an account of social and discursive processes, occurring across different sites that were connected in complex ways and how it enabled me to view the social and linguistic practices mobile students, and their language ideologies, in the light of a more general discourse produced by institutional actors within the higher education system. Finally, I will offer some concluding remarks on multi-sited ethnography and on the benefits associated with it for sociolinguistic research projects. In particular, I will highlight its value as a means of taking into account the use of different languages, in different spaces and at different times. In particular, I will stress its potential of widening the traditional ‘single tribe, single scribe’ way of doing ethnographic research and when attempting to identify social, linguistic and ideological processes at a higher level, beyond a single social groups.
To be published in 'Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Approaches' edited by von Marilyn Martin-Jones and Deirdre Martin (Taylor & Francis Ltd)
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Language Sciences, 2014
This article traces the birth of two different pink categories in western Europe and the
lexical... more This article traces the birth of two different pink categories in western Europe and the
lexicalization strategies used for these categories in English, German, Bernese, Danish,
Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic with the cognate sets pink, rosa, bleikur, lyserød, ceris.
In the 18th century, a particular shade of light red established itself in the cultural life of
people in Western Europe, earning its own independent colour term. In the middle of the
20th century, a second pink category began to spread in a subset of the languages.
Contemporary experimental data from the Evolution of Semantic Systems colour project
(Majid et al., 2011) is analysed in light of the extant historical data on the development of
these colour terms. We find that the current pink situation arose through contact-induced
lexical and conceptual change. Despite the different lexicalization strategies, the terms’
denotation is remarkably similar for the oldest pink category and we investigate the
impact of the advent of the younger and more restricted secondary pink category on the
colour categorization and colour denotations of the languages.
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La circulation des étudiants à l’intérieur de la Suisse s’accompagne souvent de création d’espace... more La circulation des étudiants à l’intérieur de la Suisse s’accompagne souvent de création d’espaces
plus ou moins institutionnalisés, comme les associations estudiantines qui ont pour fonction de fédérer
les étudiants issus de régions linguistiques autres que celle de la communauté d’accueil. C’est le cas
pour les Tessinois (italophones), qui, tout en s’installant en Suisse alémanique, s’insèrent dans des
espaces associatifs tessinois. A l’appui d’un travail ethnographique conduit dans le cadre d’une
association estudiantine tessinoise à Berne j’analyse la manière dont l’association construit la
légitimité de ses publics, comment elle définit et négocie ses membres légitimes et ses langues
légitimes et les tensions qui s’en dégagent (en termes d’inclusion et d’exclusion). Par ailleurs,
j’examine comment des processus de négociation de la légitimité des membres ainsi que de leurs
affiliations se manifestent à travers des pratiques sociales dans cette situation de mobilité et comment
ces processus sont en lien avec une variabilité situationnelle résultant des divers intérêts des
membres de l’association estudiantine tessinoise.
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Language Sciences, 2015
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Conference Presentations by Martina Zimmermann
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Books by Martina Zimmermann
Quelles sont les approches scientifiques et méthodologiques sur lesquelles se base la didactique ... more Quelles sont les approches scientifiques et méthodologiques sur lesquelles se base la didactique des langues dans un pays comme la Suisse, où chaque canton décide de manière plus ou moins autonome des langues « étrangères » qui y sont enseignées et dans quel ordre ? Quels sont les concepts fondamentaux, les notions et les épistémologies retenus et légitimés par les curricula de formation ? Telles sont les questions qu’aborde l’ouvrage.
Welche wissenschaftsmethodischen und inhaltlichen Positionen sind im Bereich Fremdsprachendidaktik in einem Land wie der Schweiz aktuell, wo jeder Kanton mehr oder weniger autonom darüber entscheidet, welche Fremdsprachen in welcher Reihenfolge unterrichtet werden? Welche Epistemologie bzw. welche theoretischen Konzepte und Begriffe finden Eingang in Curricula der Lehrer*innenbildung? Diesen Fragen geht der vorliegende Sammelband nach.
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Papers by Martina Zimmermann
My chapter is organized as follows: First, I discuss the role of multi-sited ethnography in studies focussing on mobility, sketching out some of the benefits that accrue from the decision to go beyond a single site and pointing to some of the issues that arise. In the second part, I give an account of how and why I turned towards multi-sited ethnography in my own work in Switzerland. I show how this approach enabled me to follow students from the region where Italian is spoken (the Ticino) and to track their trajectories, across linguistic borders, to universities in areas of Switzerland where Swiss German and standard German are spoken. I will demonstrate how this allowed me to build an account of social and discursive processes, occurring across different sites that were connected in complex ways and how it enabled me to view the social and linguistic practices mobile students, and their language ideologies, in the light of a more general discourse produced by institutional actors within the higher education system. Finally, I will offer some concluding remarks on multi-sited ethnography and on the benefits associated with it for sociolinguistic research projects. In particular, I will highlight its value as a means of taking into account the use of different languages, in different spaces and at different times. In particular, I will stress its potential of widening the traditional ‘single tribe, single scribe’ way of doing ethnographic research and when attempting to identify social, linguistic and ideological processes at a higher level, beyond a single social groups.
To be published in 'Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Approaches' edited by von Marilyn Martin-Jones and Deirdre Martin (Taylor & Francis Ltd)
lexicalization strategies used for these categories in English, German, Bernese, Danish,
Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic with the cognate sets pink, rosa, bleikur, lyserød, ceris.
In the 18th century, a particular shade of light red established itself in the cultural life of
people in Western Europe, earning its own independent colour term. In the middle of the
20th century, a second pink category began to spread in a subset of the languages.
Contemporary experimental data from the Evolution of Semantic Systems colour project
(Majid et al., 2011) is analysed in light of the extant historical data on the development of
these colour terms. We find that the current pink situation arose through contact-induced
lexical and conceptual change. Despite the different lexicalization strategies, the terms’
denotation is remarkably similar for the oldest pink category and we investigate the
impact of the advent of the younger and more restricted secondary pink category on the
colour categorization and colour denotations of the languages.
plus ou moins institutionnalisés, comme les associations estudiantines qui ont pour fonction de fédérer
les étudiants issus de régions linguistiques autres que celle de la communauté d’accueil. C’est le cas
pour les Tessinois (italophones), qui, tout en s’installant en Suisse alémanique, s’insèrent dans des
espaces associatifs tessinois. A l’appui d’un travail ethnographique conduit dans le cadre d’une
association estudiantine tessinoise à Berne j’analyse la manière dont l’association construit la
légitimité de ses publics, comment elle définit et négocie ses membres légitimes et ses langues
légitimes et les tensions qui s’en dégagent (en termes d’inclusion et d’exclusion). Par ailleurs,
j’examine comment des processus de négociation de la légitimité des membres ainsi que de leurs
affiliations se manifestent à travers des pratiques sociales dans cette situation de mobilité et comment
ces processus sont en lien avec une variabilité situationnelle résultant des divers intérêts des
membres de l’association estudiantine tessinoise.
Conference Presentations by Martina Zimmermann
Books by Martina Zimmermann
Welche wissenschaftsmethodischen und inhaltlichen Positionen sind im Bereich Fremdsprachendidaktik in einem Land wie der Schweiz aktuell, wo jeder Kanton mehr oder weniger autonom darüber entscheidet, welche Fremdsprachen in welcher Reihenfolge unterrichtet werden? Welche Epistemologie bzw. welche theoretischen Konzepte und Begriffe finden Eingang in Curricula der Lehrer*innenbildung? Diesen Fragen geht der vorliegende Sammelband nach.
My chapter is organized as follows: First, I discuss the role of multi-sited ethnography in studies focussing on mobility, sketching out some of the benefits that accrue from the decision to go beyond a single site and pointing to some of the issues that arise. In the second part, I give an account of how and why I turned towards multi-sited ethnography in my own work in Switzerland. I show how this approach enabled me to follow students from the region where Italian is spoken (the Ticino) and to track their trajectories, across linguistic borders, to universities in areas of Switzerland where Swiss German and standard German are spoken. I will demonstrate how this allowed me to build an account of social and discursive processes, occurring across different sites that were connected in complex ways and how it enabled me to view the social and linguistic practices mobile students, and their language ideologies, in the light of a more general discourse produced by institutional actors within the higher education system. Finally, I will offer some concluding remarks on multi-sited ethnography and on the benefits associated with it for sociolinguistic research projects. In particular, I will highlight its value as a means of taking into account the use of different languages, in different spaces and at different times. In particular, I will stress its potential of widening the traditional ‘single tribe, single scribe’ way of doing ethnographic research and when attempting to identify social, linguistic and ideological processes at a higher level, beyond a single social groups.
To be published in 'Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Approaches' edited by von Marilyn Martin-Jones and Deirdre Martin (Taylor & Francis Ltd)
lexicalization strategies used for these categories in English, German, Bernese, Danish,
Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic with the cognate sets pink, rosa, bleikur, lyserød, ceris.
In the 18th century, a particular shade of light red established itself in the cultural life of
people in Western Europe, earning its own independent colour term. In the middle of the
20th century, a second pink category began to spread in a subset of the languages.
Contemporary experimental data from the Evolution of Semantic Systems colour project
(Majid et al., 2011) is analysed in light of the extant historical data on the development of
these colour terms. We find that the current pink situation arose through contact-induced
lexical and conceptual change. Despite the different lexicalization strategies, the terms’
denotation is remarkably similar for the oldest pink category and we investigate the
impact of the advent of the younger and more restricted secondary pink category on the
colour categorization and colour denotations of the languages.
plus ou moins institutionnalisés, comme les associations estudiantines qui ont pour fonction de fédérer
les étudiants issus de régions linguistiques autres que celle de la communauté d’accueil. C’est le cas
pour les Tessinois (italophones), qui, tout en s’installant en Suisse alémanique, s’insèrent dans des
espaces associatifs tessinois. A l’appui d’un travail ethnographique conduit dans le cadre d’une
association estudiantine tessinoise à Berne j’analyse la manière dont l’association construit la
légitimité de ses publics, comment elle définit et négocie ses membres légitimes et ses langues
légitimes et les tensions qui s’en dégagent (en termes d’inclusion et d’exclusion). Par ailleurs,
j’examine comment des processus de négociation de la légitimité des membres ainsi que de leurs
affiliations se manifestent à travers des pratiques sociales dans cette situation de mobilité et comment
ces processus sont en lien avec une variabilité situationnelle résultant des divers intérêts des
membres de l’association estudiantine tessinoise.
Welche wissenschaftsmethodischen und inhaltlichen Positionen sind im Bereich Fremdsprachendidaktik in einem Land wie der Schweiz aktuell, wo jeder Kanton mehr oder weniger autonom darüber entscheidet, welche Fremdsprachen in welcher Reihenfolge unterrichtet werden? Welche Epistemologie bzw. welche theoretischen Konzepte und Begriffe finden Eingang in Curricula der Lehrer*innenbildung? Diesen Fragen geht der vorliegende Sammelband nach.