Safetalk Revisited, or: Language and Ideology in Luxembourgish Educational Policy

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, I first review previous research on the topic of safetalk. I then apply some of the insights derived from this discussion to a case study of the Luxembourgish primary school system. The study uses both ethnographic and discourse analysis, and focuses in particular on the role of French language varieties in a system that forces large numbers of romanophone students to go through a German-language literacy programme. The picture that emerges reveals what changes would be needed to break through restrictive safetalk practices and enable more effective and more equitable learning. However, it is argued that the difficulties of implementing such changes are compounded by a number of language ideologies that underpin both preschool and primary school education in Luxembourg. Keywords: safetalkliteracy bridgeeducational equitylanguage-in-education policyLuxembourg Acknowledgements I am very grateful to Dominique Portante, Béatrice Arend, Sylvie Elcheroth and Charles Max for sharing ideas and data with me, and to Kristine Horner for providing insightful comments and invaluable help with this paper as well as sharing with me her expertise about language debates and ideologies in Luxembourg. I would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their highly perceptive comments. Any remaining errors, of course, are my own. Notes 1. Language ideologies are 'sets of beliefs about language articulated by users as a rationalisation or justification of perceived language structure and use' or 'the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests'. These definitions, respectively by Michael Silverstein and Judith Irvine, are quoted in Kroskrity (Citation2000: 5). 2. As with all binary oppositions, the categories of 'Luxembourgish' and 'migrant' (or 'foreign') are socially constructed and highly problematic: the latter includes second and third generation 'migrant' students born in Luxembourg but whose parents or grandparents immigrated to Luxembourg, whereas the former maywell also include many whose father or mother immigrated to Luxembourg (see my comments on mixed marriages in the next section). 3. All translations are my own. As I have attempted to keep them as literal as possible, they may sound rather 'wooden' at times. 4. The notions of 'erasing' and 'erasure' refer to the 'process in which ideology, in simplifying the sociolinguistic field, renders some persons or activities (or sociolinguistic phenomena) invisible. Facts that are inconsistent with the ideological scheme either go unnoticed or get explained away. So, for example, a social group or a language may be imagined as homogeneous, its internal variation disregarded' (CitationIrvine & Gal, 2000: 38). 5. D. Portante et al. (2003-2006) Children's Multilingualism up to Nine Years: Language Diversity, Learning Luxembourgish and Emergent Literacies (Research project of the University of Luxembourg in cooperation with the National Research Foundation, setting 3b). Funding extension has been applied for until 2009. Researchers include Dominique Portante, Béatrice Arend, Sylvie Elcheroth and Jean Jacques Weber. In the data, the name David is of course a pseudonym. 6. See CitationHorner (2005) for further information about the ongoing standardisation of Luxembourgish.