Lost in diglossia? (Un-)doing difference by dealing with language variations in Swiss kindergartens

ABSTRACT

Language policy in German-speaking Swiss kindergartens recently has been subject to change. While dialect traditionally was spoken to kindergartners, the use of High German has been established to promote the integration of migrant children and equality of opportunity. In this contribution, we look at how kindergarten teachers translate the new diglossic language policy into language practices. Drawing on data from an ongoing ethnographic study, we examine four logics of language use concerning when to speak dialect or High German. As teachers’ use of language differs not only according to situations and pedagogical sequences but also due to children’s social and migrant backgrounds, we ask – drawing on the theoretical concept of (un-)doing difference – how different linguistic addressing reflects (and affects) children’s positions in the social order.

KEYWORDS:

• Kindergarten ethnography
• language practice
• diglossia
• doing/undoing difference
• early childhood education

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at a colloquium of the Zurich University of Teacher Education and during a workshop of the research network FreiFriZH. Valuable feedback resulted from this. We owe special thanks to our colleagues at the Research Centre Children – Childhood – Schooling (Anja Sieber Egger, Gisela Unterweger, Christoph Maeder, and Fränzi Buser), and to two unknown reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Alex Knoll http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3884-6015

Ursina Jaeger http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3294-9208

Notes

1 Extracts from fieldnotes, conversation transcripts and policy documents were translated into English. To display the two different German language variations, we add the original citations and highlight linguistic sequences in High German with CAPITALS (e.g. DIENSTAG), and those in dialect in italic (e.g. Zischtig).

2 There are many local and regional Swiss German dialects spoken in German-speaking Switzerland, which differ substantially from each other. Because neither the education act nor the curriculum specifies the term ‘dialect’, we simply refer to it as such for consistency.

3 This team-ethnographical research project investigates practices of differentiation in Swiss kindergartens based on Butlers thinking on recognition. It is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF (Grant N^o 100019 159328). Anja Sieber Egger, Gisela Unterweger and Christoph Maeder lead the study; the authors were scientific collaborators.

4 The research design of the overall study is comparative. For more information, see Sieber Egger and Unterweger (2018).

5 This corresponds to findings from Luxembourg, where preschool teachers speak Luxemburgish if language use is linked to pedagogical ambitions (Neumann 2011).

6 Kassis-Filippakou and Panagiotopoulou (2015) equally found, for the canton of Basel-Country, that High German is usually used for stronger lead classroom formats, like circle sequences, whereas dialect is spoken in the breaks, at lunch time and during free play.

7 However, when considering other linguistic aspects than just the use of language variations, one may argue that the generational difference remains in force because teachers would not scold adults the way they scold children.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung [grant number 100019 159328].