| dc.description.abstract | This paper examines Norwegian-Tamil multilingual third culture kids in Norway enrolled under LK06, particularly focusing on their relationship to their language of inheritance and/or affiliation, in a Norwegian multilingual context. They are former students of the Annai Poopathi Tamil School in Norway, which is also regarded as a heritage language/community language school.
With the overarching research question: what relationship do Third Culture Kids have to their language of inheritance and/or affiliation in a Norwegian multilingual context? I taking a poststructuralist approach to language learning, and this qualitative case study draws on investment theory (Norton, 2013; Darvin & Norton, 2015), with regard to “imagined communities” (Anderson, 1991), “habitus”, “symbolic power”, “symbolic violence” and forms of “capital” (Bourdieu, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1995) to understand the informants’ attitudes and beliefs (investment) towards their language of inheritance and/or affiliation in Norway.
Qualitative semi-structured interviews with 6 members of the Tamil heritage language/community language school in Norway has been held. The findings challenges the notion of what it means to Norwegian “norsk” in Norway. It is revealed that Norwegian-Tamil multilingual’ that has been part of the Tamil school in Norway have several benefits that transforms to the mainstream (educational) setting; metalinguistic awareness, investment in the language and literacy practices and academic affordances. In general, the possibility to build symbolic capital (secure identity) that has a higher potential for building cultural, social, and economic capital than is expected from language minority individuals within a Norwegian monolingual culture. However, in the mainstream (education) setting several informants to varied degrees were not able to liberate themselves from this monolingual ideology, often underpinning the Norwegian mainstream schools. The findings suggests that second generation Norwegian-Tamils’ that are children of war migrants live in quite diverse contexts compared to for instance those of work migrants. Many Norwegian-Tamil multilinguals’ are structured to express their identities based on two completely different cultural foundations.
In Norway, it seems that we are still tied to the idea that in order to be Norwegian, you need to have set aside other languages. It is not possible to be Tamil and Norwegian in a mainstream context. One of the consequences is that Tamil schools is becoming less relevant, and students may not have the opportunity to re-invest in their language (identity) of inheritance and/or affiliation for the future with regard to the multilingual turn. For Tamil Schools to remain relevant for the current and next generation, as well as preparing English teachers to the multilingual turn, it is essential we conduct more research into how we can build imagined communities (Anderson, 1991) that transcend linguistic barriers. | |