How to protest through language in times of unprecedented migration and (neo-)nationalist movements

• In Event: Protesting through and with language

Proposal

Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Polish society has played a leading role in managing the humanitarian crisis. The geographic and linguistic proximity between Poland and Ukraine is often used as an argument in favor of ostensibly facilitated migration processes. Yet whether this is truly the case and can lead to a successful long-term integration of Ukrainians and other migrants into Polish society merits a more profound, critical empirical examination. This examination is also needed to understand why refugees from other ethnic/national backgrounds have received a less favorable treatment. This proposed presentation’s scientific goal is precisely to engage in this critical examination by analyzing migration processes and new forms of individual and societal multilingualism. As a state-of-the-art, interdisciplinary study firmly anchored in scholarly literature and methodology in applied linguistics and education and migration research, it will investigate linguistically, ethnically, and socially diverse students and instructors at the University of Warsaw, their language practices, experiences with language, migration, and (neo-)nationalism, and overt/covert language policy. This is considered significant due to unprecedented migration and globalization processes on the one hand and problematic incidents on the other: the assault on a professor on Warsaw’s tram for speaking German or far-right protests organized by the Młodzież Wszechpolska [All-Polish Youth] demanding UAM dla Polaków [Adam Mickiewicz University for Poles] to protect the local university from incoming students. Understanding the underlying universal mechanisms thereof will allow their applicability to other institutional/national contexts where they are also urgently needed. While the media and political scientists have debated these issues, a substantial gap remains in applied linguistics and language education. This study intends to fill exactly this gap through interdisciplinary, qualitative research based on the following research hypotheses:
• Monolingual language policies and practices impede incoming students’ identity construction, power, agency, and investment and exacerbate sustainable integration into Polish society.
• (Neo-)nationalist ideologies cause protectionist behavior, delegitimize incoming students as Polish speakers and residents in society depending on their incorporated prestige and ethnic/linguistic backgrounds, and impede the construction of belonging.
• Greater awareness of the social, linguistic, and ethnic diversity due to migration and globalization processes can help deconstruct and reduce pernicious (neo-)nationalist ideologies.
Adopting a critical ethnographic sociolinguistic approach, the following research questions are asked:
1. What are new daily multilingual realities at UW?
• What are students’ and instructors’ language practices?
• How do they negotiate languages in different contexts and with different interlocutors?
2. How do covert and overt language policies impact:
• individuals from diverse social, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds differently?
• learning and teaching practices?
• students’ and instructors’ social identities, in particular their power, agency, and investment, students’ academic trajectories and social integration?
• individuals’ sense of legitimacy and belonging?
• already existing power relations in society?
3. What are students’ and instructors’ perspectives on (neo-)nationalism, multilingualism, and migration?

The study contributes to much-needed scientific knowledge on micro-level processes of the interplay of language, migration, and (neo-)nationalism through in-depth, in situ ethnographic investigations, interviews/focus groups with participants from diverse social, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds, and the analysis of covert and overt language policy and practices. It helps better understand how to counteract these alarming social trends, how to prepare educators and policy makers, and how to contribute to a mentality change against hatred, racism, and other forms of discrimination in favor of equity, democracy, and diversity.

Author

• Anna Becker, Polish Academy of Sciences