Linguistic road works ahead: a commentary on language, integration and unfulfilled obligations

Authors

  • Axel Fanego Palat Goethe University Frankfurt
  • Nico Nassenstein University of Mainz

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18716/ojs/the_mouth.3097

Abstract

Intended as a critical commentary, this afterword asks academia to react to the debate on language and integration. What is the actual practicability and realizability of linguistic findings and decisions (in immigration offices, for mass media, in public discourse etc.)? And how can linguistics try to link current movements and debates around integration with academic insights into fluid multilingualism, dynamic language repertoires and, for instance, with recent findings in the field of raciolinguistics? The promotion of language to a key to integration has, despite a growing body of scholarly literature, shown to be a topic of complicated political dispute, a matter of public controversy, and, in particular, it has become subject to a media discourse that may teach us a lot about prevailing perceptions of language in society among the German public.

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Published

2025-01-07