This presentation explores an affective practice approach (Wetherell, 2012) to analyse language portraits (Busch, 2018). This approach can be useful to theorise the lived experience of language of multilingual children at school and contribute to wider discussions on language teaching and (in)equality. The data presented is part of a larger ethnographic study in a school in Spain. Through the analysis of two cases, I illustrate how shame and anxiety portray a monolingual habitus (Gogolin, 1997) and I suggest that a move towards a multilingual habitus (Benson, 2013) should be centred on developing affects aiming at creating "multilingual comfort".
In this presentation I explore an affective practice approach (Wetherell, 2012) to analyse language portraits (Busch, 2018). This approach acknowledges that everything we do, how we think or how we act is in part conditioned by emotions. It takes affective practices (e.g. a lump in the throat, laughter, foot shaking) as the smallest units of analysis to discuss affect and emotion (e.g. shame, anxiety). It is through the analysis of these episodes, where the body has been more intrusive than others, where there is considerable talk about emotions and feelings or where something happened that needs to be marked by the speaking subject that I discuss affect and emotion. An affective practice approach can be useful to theorise the lived experience of language of multilingual children in school and contribute to wider discussions on language teaching and (in)equality.
The data presented here is part of my PhD thesis, an ethnography of a school in the Balearic Islands, which is a region in Spain where both Catalan and Spanish are official languages. In this school I observe students that speak other languages at home (e.g. Portuguese, Tagalog, Arabic, Berber, Turkish, Romanian) and I follow them as they move from Y4 to Y6. During the ethnographic process, I used observations, language portraits and interviews to collect data. Here, I use the data collected during the making of language portraits. Language portraits are conducted in a workshop type format that generated three types of data: a) naturally occurring conversations of children during the making of language portraits; b) an individual final comment on their own portrait; and, c) a follow-up semi-structured interview/conversation with the children. Through the presentation and analysis of two cases, I illustrate how shame and anxiety are triggered by a monolingual habitus (Gogolin, 1997) that dominates the school system and I suggest that a move towards a multilingual habitus (Benson, 2013) should be centred on developing more positive affects aimed at creating a sense of "multilingual comfort".
