This presentation examines how the use of heritage or so-called ‘migrant’ languages by children whose first language is not German is characterized in public discourse. This is achieved through analysis of data collected from online reader comments at daily and weekly German newspapers of record.
Migrants are often portrayed in the media as a burden or blamed for complex socioeconomic problems in the host country. Sociolinguistic analysis has shown that ‘migrants,’ ‘asylum seekers,’ and ‘refugees’ are often depicted as the foreign ‘other’ who threaten core societal values and norms (Viola and Musolff 2019). A lack of perceived integration also leads individuals ‘with migration background’ in Germany to be labeled as the foreign ‘other’ despite the fact that some have lived in the country over multiple generations or hold German citizenship (Fuller 2019). One sign of successful integration is German language fluency. This is particularly true for children in educational settings, in part, because pedagogical theory and practice in Germany often characterizes migration-driven linguistic diversity as an aberration rather than the norm (Karakayalı, et. al. 2017). Also, German is the dominant unmarked standard in classroom instruction and educational practice. Nevertheless, the majority of Europeans of the so-called second and third generation are bilingual: they speak the standard language of their country of residence, as well as a heritage language (Nortier and Svendsen 2015). This presentation examines how the use of heritage or so-called ‘migrant’ languages by children whose first language is not German is characterized in public discourse. This is achieved through analysis of data collected from online reader comments at daily and weekly German newspapers of record. The perceived language deficiencies of students ‘with migration background’ first caused a media firestorm in 2001 following the results of the first PISA learning assessment. More recently, it again became front-page news when Carsten Linnemann, the Deputy Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary political alliance, told the Rheinische Post, a major regional daily newspaper that, “a child who barely speaks and understands German has no business yet at an elementary school.”
