Polylingual development among Turkish speakers in a Danish primary school -: a critical view on the fourth grade slump

TY - JOUR

T1 - Polylingual development among Turkish speakers in a Danish primary school -

T2 - a critical view on the fourth grade slump

AU - Møller, Janus Spindler

AU - Jørgensen, J. Normann

AU - Holmen, Anne

PY - 2014/1

Y1 - 2014/1

N2 - In this paper we report on a longitudinal study of the linguistic development among Turkish-speaking children in Denmark. A series of data were collected from a group of children attending a public school in Køge during the period 1989-1998 and from the same group - now in their 20s - in 2006-2007. The data set has been analyzed from a number of linguistic and educational perspectives (e.g. second language acquisition, code choice in interaction, language attitudes among teachers and students). In this paper we combine the main lines of the different analyses into a discussion of which terms to use when studying linguistic development in an increasingly diverse world. In particular, we focus on the theoretical distinction between deficit and resource-oriented views on minority children's language development, and we discuss the empirical underpinning of the so-called 4th grade slump which places school underachievement solidly within the children's mastery of specific features of academic majority language. In general, we argue that terms such as 'bilingualism' or 'multilingualism' are insufficient as descriptive tools. Instead we propose the term polylanguaging to account for our informants' language use in post-modern, superdiverse Danish society.

AB - In this paper we report on a longitudinal study of the linguistic development among Turkish-speaking children in Denmark. A series of data were collected from a group of children attending a public school in Køge during the period 1989-1998 and from the same group - now in their 20s - in 2006-2007. The data set has been analyzed from a number of linguistic and educational perspectives (e.g. second language acquisition, code choice in interaction, language attitudes among teachers and students). In this paper we combine the main lines of the different analyses into a discussion of which terms to use when studying linguistic development in an increasingly diverse world. In particular, we focus on the theoretical distinction between deficit and resource-oriented views on minority children's language development, and we discuss the empirical underpinning of the so-called 4th grade slump which places school underachievement solidly within the children's mastery of specific features of academic majority language. In general, we argue that terms such as 'bilingualism' or 'multilingualism' are insufficient as descriptive tools. Instead we propose the term polylanguaging to account for our informants' language use in post-modern, superdiverse Danish society.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - The Køge project

KW - Bilingualism

KW - Superdiversity

KW - poly-languaging

KW - 4th grade slump

U2 - 10.1080/13670050.2012.735221

DO - 10.1080/13670050.2012.735221

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1367-0050

VL - 17

SP - 32

EP - 54

JO - International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

JF - International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

IS - 1

ER -