Anne Franziskus

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I am a PhD candidate in sociolinguistics. My research interests are multilingualism, code-switching, language use in public space, discourse analysis. My PhD project focuses on the linguistic practices of cross-border workers in Luxembourg. I’m interested in the ways in which these daily commuters deal with the linguistic diversity at their workplace. I have conducted ethnographic research at three workplaces in Luxembourg, asking 5 cross-border workers at each workplace to record themselves while interacting with colleagues. The data was collected at a supermarket, an IT company, and a company distributing office material. The data collection lasted for nearly a month at each workplace, during which I did extensive participant observation. I also complemented the more interactionally focused data with follow-up interviews with participants and management of the companies. The analysis focuses on two main aspects. On the one hand, I investigate the linguistic practices cross-border workers adopt in order to deal with multilingual situations at work. Such practices comprise accommodating to their interlocutor, drawing upon multilingual colleagues for translation, using small routines in other languages (for example greeting a colleague in his/her language), or talking in a receptive mode where each colleague speaks his/her own first language. On the other hand, I am also interested in the ways in which cross-border participants negotiate their own positioning within their multilingual workplace environment. I analyse the ways in which participants challenge, renegotiate or reinforce the linguistic norms of their community of practice or of the global sociolinguistic situation in Luxembourg through their metalinguistic discourse (i.e. the ways in which they talk about languages in their interactions with colleagues).

last modified:13 Apr 2012