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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Kristina Humonen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
This paper explores the in situ negotiation of in/exclusion in and through language in a multilingual professional setting, paying special attention to the relationship between language and space. We argue that multilingual practices and material space are co-constitutive; individuals enact group membership and professional roles spatiolinguistically and re/produce in/visible social and material boundaries. Despite the well-established literature on in/exclusion, the ways in which it is negotiated in asymmetrical, emplaced, workplace encounters is still underexplored. We introduce topographies of practice as a framework to show how professional asymmetries are enacted in and through language choice and language use in the multilingual workplace. We take an Interactional Sociolinguistic approach and report on the analysis of 23 h of interactional data and 42 h of ethnographic observations from a professional, multilingual kitchen in Finland. We show patterns that are un/marked in the data and constitute the norms in this particular workplace. We argue that topographies of practice are topographies of in/exclusion enacted in and through situated encounters; we pay special attention to the role of employees who are legitimised to cross visible and invisible boundaries and we close the paper with recommendations for future research.
Author(s): Angouri J, Humonen K
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication
Year: 2023
Volume: 42
Issue: 1
Pages: 55-82
Online publication date: 09/06/2022
Acceptance date: 29/05/2022
Date deposited: 04/08/2022
ISSN (print): 0167-8507
ISSN (electronic): 1613-3684
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2021-0156
DOI: 10.1515/multi-2021-0156
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