Language and Migration in a Multilingual Metropolis

This lively and engaging book, set in the historical context of centuries of migration and multilingualism in Berlin, explores the relationship between language and migration. Berlin is a multicultural city in the heart of Europe, but what do we know about the number of languages spoken by its inhabitants and how they are used in everyday life? How do encounters with different languages impact on the experience of migration? And how do people use their experiences with language to shape their life stories?To investigate these questions, the author invites the reader to accompany him on a research expedition that leads to an apartment building in the highly diverse district of Neukölln. Its inhabitants come from different parts of the world and relate their experiences their Berlin lives in ways that reveal the complex and intricate relationships between language and migration.

Explores language and migration in a social context, by drawing on the case of Berlin Draws on research based on conversational interviews with many individuals across the city, and focuses in detail on the life stories of 5 inhabitants of a single building Findings hold implications for ongoing migration trends in today's globalized world

Autorentext
Patrick Stevenson is Professor of German and Linguistics at the University of Southampton. He has published widely on German sociolinguistics, the politics of language and European multilingualism. His previous books include Language and German Disunity, Language and Social Change in Central Europe (with Jenny Carl), Discourses on Language and Integration (co-edited with Gabrielle Hogan-Brun and Clare Mar-Molinero), Language, Discourse and Identity in Central Europe (co-edited with Jenny Carl) and Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices (co-edited with Clare Mar-Molinero).

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction: finding a way in.- Chapter 2: Berlin: city of migrations.- Chapter 3: Berlin: city of multilingualisms.- Chapter 4: Multilingual Mietshaus: language (hi)stories at Mareschstraße 74.