This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources – standard vs. no... more This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources – standard vs. non-standard and regional varieties – in two linguistic minority communities in Denmark. Concentrating on Turkish and Farsi mother tongue classes, the study departs from two interviews with the parents of mother tongue students. Additional ethnographic evidence from the respective mother tongue classes show when and how the two overall varieties of the respective languages are reacted to and valorized among the study participants. Two main issues are explored in this context: first, language ideological paradigms of dominance – anonymity and authenticity – and, second, the extension and expansion of language users’ ideologies regarding registers of language. The article concludes that during the encounters and discussions concerning ideological views supporting either of the overall language resources, a form for authority exists and becomes oriented to in line with the history of language...
Working Papers in Urban Language & Literacies, 2021
This paper uses the lens of language brokering to explore parent-child interaction as a migrant f... more This paper uses the lens of language brokering to explore parent-child interaction as a migrant family re-grounds itself in the new linguistic and social context. Whereas brokering is often seen as children's translating, this ethnographic study shows that children contribute with explaining, rather than only translating. These explaining activities introduce occasions for children and their parents to re/define their own role relations, and for parents to display their family ideologies while communicating the quality of family relations to self and relevant others, conveying that this family works and is putting down roots.
This linguistic ethnographic study demonstrates how children of Iranian descent in Denmark, parti... more This linguistic ethnographic study demonstrates how children of Iranian descent in Denmark, participating in Persian heritage education, draw upon their adults’ voices when they negotiate the purpose of learning and using their alleged mother tongue. The pupils range from competent language users to new speakers of Persian with basic linguistic knowledge. The study provides examples of Bakhtinian one’s or another’s words within class interactional situations in which pupils take turns and comment on each other’s involvement in language practice. Some children struggle with staying motivated. Some encourage younger and less competent classmates (including their siblings) to use and practice Persian. In doing so, they point to certain incentives of learning and using the language, such as the benefit of being able to communicate with relatives.
Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 2018
This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources – standard vs. no... more This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources – standard vs. non-standard and regional varieties – in two linguistic minority communities in Denmark. Concentrating on Turkish and Farsi mother tongue classes, the study departs from two interviews with the parents of mother tongue students. Additional ethnographic evidence from the respective mother tongue classes show when and how the two overall varieties of the respective languages are reacted to and valorized among the study participants. Two main issues are explored in this context: first, language ideological paradigms of dominance – anonymity and authenticity – and, second, the extension and expansion of language users’ ideologies regarding registers of language. The article concludes that during the encounters and discussions concerning ideological views supporting either of the overall language resources, a form for authority exists and becomes oriented to in line with the history of language policy of the countries of origin.
This paper engages with the notion of hospitality (Herzfeld, 1987; Pitt-Rivers, 1963) in order to... more This paper engages with the notion of hospitality (Herzfeld, 1987; Pitt-Rivers, 1963) in order to analyze and understand the practice of receiving visitors in two Farsi mother tongue classrooms in Copenhagen. We focus on visits by students’ friends. Although uninvited by the principal teacher, he treated the visitors as guests and provided them with exercises and attention. We argue that the relational models of hospitality and of education do not unproblematically meet in or map onto the same situation. At the same time hospitality shed light on general challenges of mother tongue education, for instance that it needs to attend to different and potentially conflicting agendas in order to exist. Data come from a longitudinal fieldwork, and we use Linguistic Ethnography as our methodological approach.
The very sensitive question: Chronotopes, insecurities and Farsi heritage language classrooms
by... more The very sensitive question: Chronotopes, insecurities and Farsi heritage language classrooms
by Martha Sif Karrebæk & Narges Ghandchi
Abstract
In this paper we engage with ideological difference, security discourse and language classrooms, on the basis of data from two Farsi heritage language classrooms, in Copenhagen, Denmark, and from the group of adult Iranian immigrants that was organized around these classrooms. The contemporary state of Iran, political and religious ideologies, and topics associated with this, were subject to taboo in class, but not so in other settings. Insecurity and surveillance gave meaning to the different time-spaces, or chronotopes (Bakhtin 1981), that were evoked, and to the understandings of community. We argue that this also partly motivates the structure and content of the classroom as the principal teacher tried to secure a neutral space for the children whose parents’ backgrounds were very different, and possibly incompatible. This in return would both be a means to free the children from their parents’ anxieties, and to secure the teacher’s job in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion.
ABSTRACT This paper presents an insight into two Farsi complementary language classrooms in Copen... more ABSTRACT This paper presents an insight into two Farsi complementary language classrooms in Copenhagen, Denmark, characterised by political sensitivities. We illustrate a number of characteristic features of the classrooms concerning language use, pedagogical methods and cultural phenomena, which were related to key adults’ preferences, and we consider possible interpretations of them as indexical signs. In particular, we emphasise ideological interpretations (e.g. the monolingualism norm and language purism) and we relate the classroom characteristics to the contemporary state of Iran as well as to the time and place in which the classes occurred. We analyse both explicit metapragmatic messages and implicit ways of indicating ideologies, and see both types as characterised by avoidance of particular referents, that is, by unmentionables.
This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources – standard vs. no... more This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources – standard vs. non-standard and regional varieties – in two linguistic minority communities in Denmark. Concentrating on Turkish and Farsi mother tongue classes, the study departs from two interviews with the parents of mother tongue students. Additional ethnographic evidence from the respective mother tongue classes show when and how the two overall varieties of the respective languages are reacted to and valorized among the study participants. Two main issues are explored in this context: first, language ideological paradigms of dominance – anonymity and authenticity – and, second, the extension and expansion of language users’ ideologies regarding registers of language. The article concludes that during the encounters and discussions concerning ideological views supporting either of the overall language resources, a form for authority exists and becomes oriented to in line with the history of language...
Working Papers in Urban Language & Literacies, 2021
This paper uses the lens of language brokering to explore parent-child interaction as a migrant f... more This paper uses the lens of language brokering to explore parent-child interaction as a migrant family re-grounds itself in the new linguistic and social context. Whereas brokering is often seen as children's translating, this ethnographic study shows that children contribute with explaining, rather than only translating. These explaining activities introduce occasions for children and their parents to re/define their own role relations, and for parents to display their family ideologies while communicating the quality of family relations to self and relevant others, conveying that this family works and is putting down roots.
This linguistic ethnographic study demonstrates how children of Iranian descent in Denmark, parti... more This linguistic ethnographic study demonstrates how children of Iranian descent in Denmark, participating in Persian heritage education, draw upon their adults’ voices when they negotiate the purpose of learning and using their alleged mother tongue. The pupils range from competent language users to new speakers of Persian with basic linguistic knowledge. The study provides examples of Bakhtinian one’s or another’s words within class interactional situations in which pupils take turns and comment on each other’s involvement in language practice. Some children struggle with staying motivated. Some encourage younger and less competent classmates (including their siblings) to use and practice Persian. In doing so, they point to certain incentives of learning and using the language, such as the benefit of being able to communicate with relatives.
Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 2018
This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources – standard vs. no... more This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources – standard vs. non-standard and regional varieties – in two linguistic minority communities in Denmark. Concentrating on Turkish and Farsi mother tongue classes, the study departs from two interviews with the parents of mother tongue students. Additional ethnographic evidence from the respective mother tongue classes show when and how the two overall varieties of the respective languages are reacted to and valorized among the study participants. Two main issues are explored in this context: first, language ideological paradigms of dominance – anonymity and authenticity – and, second, the extension and expansion of language users’ ideologies regarding registers of language. The article concludes that during the encounters and discussions concerning ideological views supporting either of the overall language resources, a form for authority exists and becomes oriented to in line with the history of language policy of the countries of origin.
This paper engages with the notion of hospitality (Herzfeld, 1987; Pitt-Rivers, 1963) in order to... more This paper engages with the notion of hospitality (Herzfeld, 1987; Pitt-Rivers, 1963) in order to analyze and understand the practice of receiving visitors in two Farsi mother tongue classrooms in Copenhagen. We focus on visits by students’ friends. Although uninvited by the principal teacher, he treated the visitors as guests and provided them with exercises and attention. We argue that the relational models of hospitality and of education do not unproblematically meet in or map onto the same situation. At the same time hospitality shed light on general challenges of mother tongue education, for instance that it needs to attend to different and potentially conflicting agendas in order to exist. Data come from a longitudinal fieldwork, and we use Linguistic Ethnography as our methodological approach.
The very sensitive question: Chronotopes, insecurities and Farsi heritage language classrooms
by... more The very sensitive question: Chronotopes, insecurities and Farsi heritage language classrooms
by Martha Sif Karrebæk & Narges Ghandchi
Abstract
In this paper we engage with ideological difference, security discourse and language classrooms, on the basis of data from two Farsi heritage language classrooms, in Copenhagen, Denmark, and from the group of adult Iranian immigrants that was organized around these classrooms. The contemporary state of Iran, political and religious ideologies, and topics associated with this, were subject to taboo in class, but not so in other settings. Insecurity and surveillance gave meaning to the different time-spaces, or chronotopes (Bakhtin 1981), that were evoked, and to the understandings of community. We argue that this also partly motivates the structure and content of the classroom as the principal teacher tried to secure a neutral space for the children whose parents’ backgrounds were very different, and possibly incompatible. This in return would both be a means to free the children from their parents’ anxieties, and to secure the teacher’s job in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion.
ABSTRACT This paper presents an insight into two Farsi complementary language classrooms in Copen... more ABSTRACT This paper presents an insight into two Farsi complementary language classrooms in Copenhagen, Denmark, characterised by political sensitivities. We illustrate a number of characteristic features of the classrooms concerning language use, pedagogical methods and cultural phenomena, which were related to key adults’ preferences, and we consider possible interpretations of them as indexical signs. In particular, we emphasise ideological interpretations (e.g. the monolingualism norm and language purism) and we relate the classroom characteristics to the contemporary state of Iran as well as to the time and place in which the classes occurred. We analyse both explicit metapragmatic messages and implicit ways of indicating ideologies, and see both types as characterised by avoidance of particular referents, that is, by unmentionables.
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Papers by Narges Ghandchi
by Martha Sif Karrebæk & Narges Ghandchi
Abstract
In this paper we engage with ideological difference, security discourse and language classrooms, on the basis of data from two Farsi heritage language classrooms, in Copenhagen, Denmark, and from the group of adult Iranian immigrants that was organized around these classrooms. The contemporary state of Iran, political and religious ideologies, and topics associated with this, were subject to taboo in class, but not so in other settings. Insecurity and surveillance gave meaning to the different time-spaces, or chronotopes (Bakhtin 1981), that were evoked, and to the understandings of community. We argue that this also partly motivates the structure and content of the classroom as the principal teacher tried to secure a neutral space for the children whose parents’ backgrounds were very different, and possibly incompatible. This in return would both be a means to free the children from their parents’ anxieties, and to secure the teacher’s job in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion.
Books by Narges Ghandchi
by Martha Sif Karrebæk & Narges Ghandchi
Abstract
In this paper we engage with ideological difference, security discourse and language classrooms, on the basis of data from two Farsi heritage language classrooms, in Copenhagen, Denmark, and from the group of adult Iranian immigrants that was organized around these classrooms. The contemporary state of Iran, political and religious ideologies, and topics associated with this, were subject to taboo in class, but not so in other settings. Insecurity and surveillance gave meaning to the different time-spaces, or chronotopes (Bakhtin 1981), that were evoked, and to the understandings of community. We argue that this also partly motivates the structure and content of the classroom as the principal teacher tried to secure a neutral space for the children whose parents’ backgrounds were very different, and possibly incompatible. This in return would both be a means to free the children from their parents’ anxieties, and to secure the teacher’s job in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion.