Congratulations on your funding! What are you going to examine?
Thanks a lot! We believe that the segregation spread across our cities today is not only spatial and socio-economic, but also linguistic and symbolic. Language conveys our thoughts, feelings and actions, it creates, recreates and challenges boundaries, identities and power structures. This applies in everyday life as well as in politics and in the development of our cities.
How do you intend to approach the task and what does the project schedule look like?
We have received a research environment grant, which means that we will carry on for six years. Also, we will announce a PhD position. The plan is to examine the language of segregation in four different ways. With the aid of the Språkbanken, we will analyse how conversation involving segregation has developed and changed in Sweden over the past fifty years.
We will concoct a policy analysis of how segregation is posed as a problem and then which solutions are presented to counteract it, as well as of the role of multilingualism in communication. We will analyse how segregation materializes in the public space, for example on signs of various kinds. In addition, we will ethnographically investigate how residents in socioeconomically vulnerable as well as privileged areas talk about and experience segregation, as well as how they negotiate multilingualism in their everyday lives.
What is your area of focus?
We will collaborate in the various sub-studies, while I am primarily tasked with interviewing and observing people in different parts of Gothenburg. This is a way of conducting research that I am used to from previous studies.
What outcome do you anticipate from this project?
Research on segregation has rarely included linguistic perspectives, so I believe that our interdisciplinary approach will be able to make an important contribution. Without an understanding of the role of language, measures put in place to counter segregation run the risk of failing. Our focus on multilingualism is also unique.
Written by Erik Pedersen
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Interview with Johan Järlehed, who researches multilingualism at the Department of Swedish, Multilingualism and Language Technology. He is also the main applicant for the research environment. Note that the interview is in Swedish.
