Multilingual language trainers as language workers: a discourse-ethnographic investigation

ABSTRACT

This article examines language trainers as language workers in an Austrian language education company. The study interrogates what the trainers’ discourses, ideologies and practices about the nature of their work are, and how these reside within the logic and discursive practices of their employer. A close analysis of interview, ethnographic and institutional data reveal that trainers get caught up between privileged and precarious working conditions. The findings emphasise that trainers identify shifting demands in language training that require them to act reflexively, empathetically and be able to connect the linguistic with the cultural and interpersonal. The results also suggest that the institutional discourse of the education company attempts an inclusive and emancipated diversity agenda but reproduces homogenous views of language, culture and the trainers’ work. This paper contributes to growing critical scholarship on the intersection of language, education and work in the globalised knowledge economy.

Dieser Artikel untersucht SprachtrainerInnen als SpracharbeiterInnen in einem österreichischen Spracheninstitut. Der Fokus der Studie liegt darauf, bestehende Diskurse, Ideologien und Praktiken der TrainerInnen bezüglich ihrer täglichen Arbeit aufzuzeigen, und diese mit institutionell verankerten Diskursen und Praktiken zu vergleichen. Mittels Daten aus der Feldforschung und des Spracheninstituts (Interviews, Feldnotizen, Webpage) wird aufgezeigt, dass sich die TrainerInnen in einem Spannungsfeld von privilegierten und prekären Arbeitsverhältnissen bewegen. Die Ergebnisse heben ebenfalls die sich verändernden Anforderungen an das TrainerInnenprofil hervor. Die TrainerInnen empfinden ein reflexives, empathisches Arbeiten und die Verbindung von sprachlichen und kulturellen Aspekten im Training als wichtig. Schließlich zeigen die Resultate, dass der Diskurs des Spracheninstituts von einem offenkundig inklusiven und emanzipierten Diversitäts-Programm gekennzeichnet ist. Dieses weist jedoch eine banale und homogene Betrachtung von Sprache, Kultur und der TrainerInnenarbeit auf. Diese Studie repräsentiert ein wachsendes Forschungsfeld, das kritisch die Interaktion von Sprache, Bildung und Arbeit in der globalen Wissensgesellschaft beleuchtet.

KEYWORDS:

• Discourse
• intercultural communication
• linguistic diversity
• ideology
• ethnography
• language work

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers of the paper for their encouraging comments and invaluable insights which contributed to making this paper and its arguments much stronger. Warm thanks also to Nathan Page, Gertrud Reershemius and Rachelle Vessey for reading earlier versions of the paper, and for the valuable feedback received when presenting aspects of this research at the International Symposium for Bilingualism in Limerick 2017. I also wish to thank all my study participants and the company for agreeing to carry out my research. All misunderstandings and shortcomings are of course my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Elisabeth Barakos works as Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Aston University. Her major research interests are in multilingualism in education and the multicultural workplace, language policy, critical discourse studies and critical sociolinguistics to investigate questions of identity, power and ideology in a range of educational and workplace settings. She completed her PhD in minority language policy at Vienna University and spent extended research periods at Manchester University, Lancaster University and University of Toronto. She recently co-edited Discursive Approaches to Language Policy with Palgrave and published in Current Issues in Language Planning and Multilingua.

ORCID

Elisabeth Barakos http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0231-4372

Notes

1 The interview transcriptions are based on the VOICE (Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English) conventions. See http://www.univie.ac.at/voice/documents/VOICE_mark-up_conventions_v2-1.pdf.

Transcription conventions key:

CAPS = capital letters for words or phrases with particular prominence and emphasis

<fast> = speaking mode (e.g. fast, soft)

I = interviewer

(.) = brief pause in speech (up to a half second)

<1sec> = longer pauses

[Lingua] = anonymised name of institution

<@> = laughter

[…] = situational noise

2 Pseudonyms are used for all cited informants and the institution throughout the paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Vienna University of Economics and Business through the WU small-scale project fund for junior faculty.