Within discourses on education and migration, much importance has been given to language, especially to the respective national language(s) and language(s) of instruction, both for the educational success of migrants and for their transition into certain fields of the labour market. However, educational institutions are not only prototype settings for linguistic encounters. Moreover, they represent spaces where language ideologies are taken up, modified or transformed (Heller 2011; Thoma in press). In addition, the monolingual orientation of most education systems does not only (re)construct inequalities between languages, but also between individuals and groups perceived as ‘native speakers’ and others labeled as ‘non-natives’ – regardless of the effective linguistic command of individual speakers (Bonfiglio 2010; Davies 2003; Flores 2015).

Contrary to studies which focus on particularly successful stories of second language acquisition and/or learning, the aim of this paper is to reconstruct specific biographical configurations and to retrace their situatedness within socio-cultural, socio-political, familial and institutional contexts. Therefore, special concern will be given to the importance of language ideologies (Knappik/Dirim 2014; Mar-Molinero/Stevenson 2006), as they shape national and regional spaces of biographical importance for the subjects and/or for (some members of) their families.

The paper will focus on the experiences of linguistically marginalized soon-to-be academics who are enrolled in German Studies programmes in Austria and aspire a career as teachers of the dominant language.

The following questions will be addressed:

·         What language-related power relations do students experience in institutions of education?

·         How does the institutionalized knowledge about language(s) and language acquisition interact with the biographical knowledge of the students?

·         How are the professional aspirations of students endangered by language ideologies, and which strategies do they develop to modify and resist them?

To answer these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective, the paper links biographical (Schütze 1983; Dausien 2000) with sociolinguistic (Blackledge/Creese 2014; Piller 2016) and educational (Flores/Rosa 2015; Gogolin 2008; Mecheril 2004) theories.

Empirically, the study is based on a data set of twelve biographical narrative interviews (Schütze 1983; Dausien 2000) with students of German Studies of different linguistic, national, and cultural backgrounds, who are enrolled in teacher training programmes for German teachers. The analysis was achieved by contrastive comparisons between different cases (Charmaz 2014). As a result, different variations of the meaning of language(s) are highlighted in three biographical relevant phases: the biographical phase of childhood before school enrolment, the biographical phase of school, and the biographical phase of academic studies which includes prospects regarding the future. In this paper, a special focus will be given to the meaning of marginalised languages in educational institutions.

The findings show that language biographies in migration societies cannot be understood as detached from linguistic spaces which have been relevant for the subjects or for significant family members during their migration. Thus, the language biographies have a transnational and a transgenerational dimension. Moreover, German study courses have a strong biographitizing effect: The biographical narrations follow different logics of legitimation, which suggest that the subjects are obliged to construct themselves as ‘native’ or ‘near-native’ at the university and in the interview interaction in order to be able to legitimately participate in educational institutions shaped by language ideologies. Language ideologies are therefore treated biographically by putting the personal life story in relation to the dominant language.

Blackledge, Adrian/Creese, Angela (2014). Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy. In: Blackledge, Adrian/Creese, Angela (ed.) Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy. New York: Springer. Bonfiglio, Thomas Paul (2010). Mother tongues and nations: the invention of the native speaker. New York: de Gruyter. Charmaz, Kathy (2014). Constructing Grounded Theory. 2nd edition. Los Angeles et al.: Sage. Dausien, Bettina (2000). ‚Biographie’ als rekonstruktiver Zugang zu ‚Geschlecht’ – Perspektiven der Biographieforschung. In: Lemmermöhle, Doris/Fischer, Dietlind/Klika, Dorle/Schlüter, Anne (ed.) Lesarten des Geschlechts. Zur De-Konstruktionsdebatte in der erziehungswissenschaftlichen Geschlechterforschung. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 96-115. Davies, Alan (2003). The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality. Clevedon [u.a.]: Multilingual Matters. Flores, N., Kleyn, T., & Menken, K. (2015). Looking holistically in a climate of partiality: Identities of students labeled ‘long-term English language learners’. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 14, 113–132. Flores, Nelson/Rosa, Jonathan (2015). Undoing Appropriateness: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and Language Diversity in Education. Harvard Educational Review: December 2015, Vol. 85, No. 2, pp. 149-171. Gogolin, Ingrid (2008 [1994]). Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster: Waxmann. Heller, Monica (2011). Paths to Post-Nationalism. A Critical Ethnography of Language and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Knappik, Magdalena/Dirim, İnci (2013). „Native Speakerism“ in der Lehrerbildung. In: Journal für LehrerInnenbildung 2013 (3), 20-23. Mar-Molinero, Clare/Stevenson, Patrick (Ed.) (2006). Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices. Language and the Future of Europe. Basingstoke [u.a.]: Palgrave Macmillan. Mecheril, Paul (2004). Einführung in die Migrationspädagogik. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz. Piller, Ingrid (2016). Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice. An Introduction to Applied Sociolinguistics. New York: Oxford University Press. Schütze, Fritz (1983). Biographieforschung und narratives Interview. In: Neue Praxis. Kritische Zeitschrift für Sozialarbeit und Sozialpädagogik 1983 (13), 283-293. Thoma, Nadja (in press). Sprachbiographien in der Migrationsgesellschaft. Eine rekonstruktive Studie zu Studienverläufen von Germanistikstudent*innen. Bielefeld: transcript.