Cover not available
Article published In:
Language, Culture and Society
Vol. 4:1 (2022) ► pp.22–46

Warum Deutsch lernen?

Constructions of German language learning identities on the Goethe Institute website

 | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
 | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
In the present study, we explore the discursive construction of German language learning identities on the Goethe Institute website. With this aim, we depart from critical sociolinguistic approaches to multilingualism and draw on an analytical framework which views discourse as a lens through which one can examine the ways identities are actively accomplished in particular contexts. From the analysis, it appears that on the central body of the Institute website, the German language learners are constructed as elite, global and mobile multilinguals. In contrast, the recipients of the Institute portal “Mein Weg nach Deutchland” are attached to the local and non-elite multilingual identities of immigrants / refugees. Thus, the Goethe Institute website is a socially constructed space invested with hierarchical meanings about “where” German language is an elite multilingual skill and “where” it is not.
Keywords: Germanness, globality, elitenesss, mobility, multilingualism, discourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Linguistic commodification and banal nationalism / cosmopolitanism
  • 3.The Goethe Institute and its website
  • 4.Analytical framework
  • 5.Analysis of the website section “Why Learn German?”
    • 5.1Exceptional identities of Germanness
    • 5.2Privileged identities of multilingualism
      • 5.2.1German language learners as global actors
      • 5.2.2German language learners as elite actors
      • 5.2.3German language learners as mobile actors
  • 6.Analysis of the portal “Mein Weg nach Deutschland”
    • 6.1Mundane identities of Germanness
    • 6.2Folk identities of multilingualism
      • 6.2.1German language learners as local actors
      • 6.2.2German language learners as non-elite actors
      • 6.2.3German language learners as cultural and linguistic other
      • 6.2.4German language learners as one-way mobile actors
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 June 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.21017.sta
References (64)
References
Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Angouri, J. (2014). Multilingualism in the workplace: Language practices in multilingual contexts. Multilingua, 33(1–2), 1–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Mineapolis. MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Barakos, E., & Selleck, C. (2019). Elite multilingualism: Discourses, practices, and debates. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 40(5), 361–374. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beck, U. (2006). Cosmopolitan vision. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
(2011). Cosmopolitanism as imagined communities of global risk. American Behavioral Scientist, 55(10), 1346–1361. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Block, D. (2014). Social class in applied linguistics. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
(2017). What on earth is “language commodification”? In S. Breidbach, L. Küster, & B. Schmenk (Eds.), Sloganizations in language education discourse (pp. 121–142). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, J., Collins, J., & Slembrouck, S. (2005). Spaces of multilingualism. Language & Communication, 251, 197–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4 / 5), 584–614. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cameron, D. (2012). The commodification of language. English as a global commodity. In T. Nevalainen, & E. C. Traugott (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the history of English (pp. 352–364). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cheshire, J., & Moser, L. (1994). English as a cultural symbol: The case of advertisements in French‐speaking Switzerland. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 15(6), 451–469. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cresswell, T. (2010). Towards a politics of mobility. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 281, 17–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Groot, A. M. B. (2011). Language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals: An introduction. New York-Hove: Psychology Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Del Percio, A., Flubacher, M., & Duchêne, A. (2016). Language and political economy. In O. Garcia, N. Flores, & M. Spotti (Eds.), Oxford handbook of language in society (pp. 55–75). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
De Mejía, A. M. (2002). Power, prestige, and bilingualism: International perspectives on elite bilingual education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duchêne, A., & Heller, M. (Eds.) (2012). Language in late capitalism. Pride and profit. 1st ed. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duell, N., & Vetter, T. (2020). The employment and social situation in Germany. Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies, European Parliament. Retrieved from [URL] (Last accessed on 12.03.2022).
Eckert, P. (2001). Style and social meaning. In P. Eckert, & J. R. Rickford (Eds.), Style and sociolinguistic variation (pp. 119–126). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, J. (2004). Multilingualism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
European Commission (2006). ELAN study: Effects on the European Union economy of shortages of foreign language skills in enterprise. Retrieved from [URL] (Last accessed on 11.03.2022).
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
(2003). Analyzing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gao, S., & Park, J. Y. S. (2015). Space and language learning under the neoliberal economy. L2 Journal, 7(3), 78–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grin, F. (2003). Language planning and economics. Current Issues in Language Planning, 4(1), 1–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (2nd edn). London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Hassemer, J., & Garrido, M. R. (2020). Language as a resource with fluctuating values: Arabic speakers in humanitarian and social work. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2641, 137–161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heller, M. (1999). Linguistic minorities and modernity: A sociolinguistic ethnography. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
(2003). Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of language and identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 473–492. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006) (Ed.). Bilingualism: A social approach. Hampshire: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Heller, M., & Pujolar, J. (2009). The political economy of texts: A case study in the structuration of tourism. Sociolinguistic Studies, 3(2), 177–201. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hélot, C. (2007). Du bilinguisme en famille au plurilinguisme à l’école. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Holliday, A. R. (2005). The struggle to teach English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hornsby, M. (2019). Positions and stances in the hierarchization of Breton speakerhood. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 40(5), 392–403. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Igarashi, H., & Saito, H. (2014). Cosmopolitanism as cultural capital: Exploring the intersection of globalization, education and stratification. Cultural Sociology, 8(3), 222–239. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaworska, S., & Themistocleous, C. (2018). Public discourses on multilingualism in the UK: Triangulating a corpus study with a sociolinguistic attitude survey. Language in Society, 47(1), 57–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaworski, A., & Thurlow, C. (2009). Taking an elitist stance: Ideology and the discursive production of social distinction. In A. Jaffe (Ed.), Stance: Sociolinguistic perspectives (pp. 195–226). New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lanshina, T. (2015). The Goethe Institute and soft power. International Organisations Research Journal, 10(1), 86–104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Martin-Jones, M. (2000). Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research. Language Teaching, 331, 1–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin-Jones, M., Blackledge, A., & Creese, A. (2012). Introduction: A sociolinguistics of multilingualism for our times. In M. Martin-Jones, A. Blackledge, & A. Creese (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of multilingualism (pp. 1–26). Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Muth, S., & Del Percio, A. (2018). Policing for commodification: Turning communicative resources into commodities. Language Policy, 17(2), 129–135. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norris, S. (2011). Identity in (inter)action: Introducing multimodal (inter)action analysis. Göttingen: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nye, J. (2005). Soft power: The means to success in world politics. New York: Public Affairs Books.Google Scholar
Paulston, C. B. (1980). Bilingual education: Theories and issues. Massachusetts: Newbury House Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012). Language and mobility: Unexpected places. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Piller, I. (2001). Identity constructions in multilingual advertising. Language in Society, 301, 153–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017). Intercultural communication: A critical introduction. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Piller, I. & Takahashi, K. (2006). A passion for English: Desire and the language market. In A. Pavlenko (Ed.), Bilingual minds: Emotional experience, expression and representation (pp. 59–83). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. R. (1976). A classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society, 51, 1–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Selleck, C., & Barakos, E. (2019). Elite multilingualism. In K. Tusting (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of linguistic ethnography (pp. 286–298) London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, M. (1976). Shifters, linguistic categories and cultural description. In K. H. Basso, & H. A. Selby (Eds.), Meaning in anthropology (pp. 284–306). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Tabiola, H. B., & Lorente, B. (2016). Neoliberalism in ELT aid: Interrogating a USAID ELT project in Southern Philippines. In M. Flubacher, & A. Del Percio (Eds.), Language, education and neoliberalism: Critical studies in sociolinguistics (pp. 122–139). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Takahashi, K. (2013). Language learning, gender and desire: Japanese women on the move. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thurlow, C., & Jaworski, Α. (2010). Tourism discourse: Language and global mobility. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Thurlow, C., & Jaworski, A. (2017). Introducing elite discourse: The rhetoric of status, privilege, and power. Social Semiotics, 27(3), 243–254. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Dijk, T. A. (2016). Critical discourse studies: A sociocognitive approach. In R. Wodak, & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse studies (3rd edn) (pp. 62–85). London: Sage.Google Scholar
Veltz, P. (2000). Le nouveau monde industriel. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Woolard, K. A. (2008). Language and identity choice in Catalonia: The interplay of contrasting ideologies of linguistic authority. In K. Süselbeck, U. Mühlschlegel, & P. Masson (Eds.), Lengua, nación e identidad. La regulación del plurilingüismo en España y América Latina (pp. 303–323). Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert / Madrid: Iberoamericana.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Stamou, Anastasia G. & Konstantina Katrana
2024. Migrant voices in ‘antiracist’ video clips in Greece. In Exploring the Ambivalence of Liquid Racism [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 341], ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.