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Multilingualism among Poles in Norway: Trilingual repertoires, multifaceted

experiences

Abstract:

This article examines multilingual repertoires of adult and adolescent Poles living in Norway.

The study draws on language portraits and interviews conducted with 14 adults and 12

adolescents living in and around Oslo. The article first discusses multilingualism of the research

participants through an analysis of the 26 portraits and then zooms in on the drawings and

interview data provided by one family in order to shed light on the ways the participants

experience and construct the roles of their different linguistic resources. The study demonstrates

that, in general, the research participants are multilingual and that three languages in particular

– Polish, English and Norwegian – form an important part of their repertoires. The findings

suggest that these linguistic resources and the roles they take on in the individual repertoires,

however, might be experienced very differently by the participants. Furthermore, the analysis

points to the existence of competing language ideologies among the researched cohort.

Keywords:

Multlingualism, Polish transnationals, language portrait, linguistic repertoires, language

ideologies

Word count: 8284

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1. Introduction

The recent socio-political changes in central and Eastern Europe resulted in an

intensification of both short and long-term migration from Poland. Many Polish transnationals

choose Norway as the country of destination due to its geographical proximity and favourable

working conditions. Since 2008 the Poles have been the biggest minority in the country and,

according to recent statistics, there are around 100 000 Polish transnationals currently living in

Norway (SSB 2017). Despite the big numbers, the Polish community in Norway remains

largely under-researched from a sociolinguistic perspective (cf. Bygdås, 2016; Friberg &

Golden, 2014; Kraft, 2016).

The aim of this article is to provide knowledge on multilingual repertoires of adult and

teenage Polish transnationals living in Norway and to shed light on how the participants

experience and relate to their multilingualism, focusing in particular on the ideological

dimension of their accounts. To this end, the article first provides general findings of the

analysis of 26 language portraits drawn by Polish transnationals living in Norway and then

moves on to discussing portraits and their descriptions as constructed by one transnational

family in an interview situation.

2. Linguistic repertoires and language ideologies

Recent sociolinguistic research tends to understand personal multilingualism as a

collection of different linguistic and semiotic resources rather than a high level of competence

in several ‘languages’ (Blommaert, 2010; Bristowe et al., 2014). This line of thinking brings to

the fore the notion of linguistic repertoire, originating in the ideas of Hymes (1966) and

Gumperz (1964), and recently developed by e.g. Blommaert (2010), Blommaert & Backus

(2013) and Busch (2012). Employing the notion of linguistic repertoire, sociolinguistics moves

away from focusing on languages as abstract, idealized entities and explores instead the actual

communicative resources which people employ in their daily lives.

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The individual’s linguistic repertoire is tightly connected to their biography and reflects

the dynamics of one’s life trajectories and peculiarities of experience – that is, linguistic

resources enter one’s repertoire at different stages of life, for different purposes and to different

degrees. However, as noted by Busch (2012), linguistic repertoires do not only encompass the

past and the present but also denote the future through imagination and desire related to

language. According to Blommaert (2010:102), the resources in one’s repertoire may belong

to various ‘languages’ and include varieties, registers, accents, genres, modalities (writing,

speaking, etc.) and pragmatic skills but also traces of hegemonic discourses and language

ideologies (cf. Busch 2012).

Kroskrity (2010: 192) defines language ideologies as sets of ‘beliefs, feelings, and

conceptions about language structure and use which often index the political economic interests

of individual speakers, ethnic and other interest groups and nation states’. This definition

stresses the social dimension of language ideologies and points to the fact that language

ideologies are in fact not solely about ‘language’ but have a very rich indexical potential and,

being socially and politically embedded, are closely tied to questions of identity, power and

hierarchies (Blackledge, 2000; Gal & Irvine, 2000; Woolard, 1998). As the underlying force of

linguistic categorization, language ideologies prompt speakers to differentiate linguistic

varieties, attach (contrasting) indexical values to them and create essentialising links between

varieties spoken and typical activities associated with them, as well as the social identities of

the speakers (cf. Blackledge, 2000; Gal & Irvine, 2000; Woolard, 1998). As such they are

crucial for understanding the ways speakers perceive, experience, construct and express their

linguistic repertoires and thus are essential for this study.

3. Participants, method and data

The data for this study were generated during interviews with 26 Poles living in Norway:

14 adults aged 35 – 50 and 12 adolescents aged 13-19. All participants were born in Poland and

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had lived there at least 4 years prior to migration. They all had been living in Norway between

1-12 years at the time when the research was conducted and thus could be classified as

representatives of the most recent Polish migration wave to Norway (cf. Friberg & Golden,

2014). The participants were recruited for a larger project investigating multilingualism in

Polish families in Norway through snowball sampling (Hoffman, 2013), whereby an initial

contact in the community helped recruit other participants. The participants were members of

9 families and representatives of two generations. All participants were living in/around the

capital, Oslo, and were either working or pursuing secondary education in public schools. All

participants claimed high levels of proficiency in Polish and reported it to be the main language

used at home.

The data set consists of 26 language portraits and ca. 21 hours recorded semi-structured

interviews. At the beginning of each interview the participants were given a blank silhouette of

a body (figure 1) and a set of colourful pens. The instruction was to reflect on the languages

and ways of speaking which are relevant in their lives, which were relevant for them in the past,

which they see as relevant for their future and to represent them on the body silhouette provided.

Thereafter, the participants were asked to explain the drawing to the researcher. The interviews

lasted between 30 minutes and 2.5 hours and were conducted at the convenience of the

participants. This meant that some of them took place at home with all family members present,

while others were conducted at cafés and cafeterias with individual family members. The

interview topics included multilingualism in the participants’ families and lives, as well as their

migration experiences.

Figure 1

The data analysis involved several steps. Firstly, the drawings were analysed as a

separate data set in order to capture general trends in the ways the researched cohort represented

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their multilingualism. The analysis of the portraits was inspired by Rose, (2016) compositional

interpretation of pictures adapted to the needs of the research and was guided by the questions:

what languages and ways of speaking do the participants represent in their portraits? How are

the languages and ways of speaking represented in the drawings (colours, symbols, etc.)? How

are the drawings organised spatially? Secondly, the individual portraits were scrutinised against

the backdrop of the verbal descriptions in order to verify the researcher’s understanding of the

visual data. The third step involved a detailed interpretive analysis of interview excerpts

describing the language portraits produced by one family, whom I introduce in detail in section

5. It needs to be noted that neither the interview data nor the language portraits can be treated

as factual representations of participants’ linguistic repertoires and language practices. As noted

by de Bres (2017), the accounts which we are able to access thanks to the drawing tasks are

subjective and situational but nevertheless shed light on the relationships of the multilingual

individuals towards their languages. Here, they are understood as co-constructions achieved

between the researcher and the interviewees in the concrete interview situation (Busch, 2012a,

2016; de Bres, 2017; Purkarthofer Judith, 2017).

4. Participants’ multilingualism and its representations

The analysis of the language portraits showed that the participants are and/or aspire to

be very multilingual. Altogether, 20 different languages were represented in the portraits, while

individual participants mentioned between three and eleven languages as relevant in their lives.

It needs to be stressed that the participants did not necessarily have competence in the different

languages they named but that they, for one reason or another, found them important (e.g. a

given language was the first language of a partner or a friend, or simply a language they would

like to learn in the future). That said, most of the participants used two or three languages daily

and all of the 26 drawings included Polish, Norwegian and English. In the cases in which

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trilingualism was not the daily practice, it was at least desired and aspired to by the participants

for their ideal future multilingual self (see interview excerpts below).

The use of the different languages turned out to be complex and not entirely domain-

specific. Most of the families reported Polish to be the language most often used at home.

Nevertheless, three families reported that the children sometimes used Norwegian among

themselves. Three further families reported that they have tried or at least considered using

Norwegian at home but gave up in the process. The school domain was rendered as a seemingly

exclusive realm of Norwegian, both for the adolescents and for the adults; however, further

probing revealed that the schools also offered space for multilingualism (not only in the form

of language classes but also informal chats with fellow students). The work life of the adults

was also complex linguistically - most of the participants reported using at least two languages

at work, which usually involved Polish, Norwegian and/or English, and in some cases Russian.

The free time of the adults was dominated by Polish as most of them reported socialising mostly

with Poles, reading Polish books, watching Polish TV and browsing Polish websites. The

adolescents on the other hand tended to use Norwegian, Polish and English in their free-time,

depending on the type of activity.

Considering the whole set of language portraits, I identified the following ways of

representing languages in participants’ drawings: colours, flags, emblematic greetings (such as

‘hi’, ‘hallo’, ‘ciao’), labels referring to the names of the languages, symbols and descriptions.

Adults most commonly represented the languages with labels referring to the names of the

languages, whereas the teenagers had equal preference for the use of flags, labels and symbols.

When it comes to the spatial organization of the portraits, I would like to focus here on the

placement of the three languages invariably occurring in every single portrait and interview,

thus allowing for some degree of generalization – Polish, English and Norwegian. In most

portraits of both adult and teenage participants, Polish was placed in the chest or head area of

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the silhouette as the ‘language of the heart’ or ‘the language of thoughts’. English and

Norwegian were most commonly depicted in the hands and arms area as the ‘work languages’.

Busch, (2010:65) notes that body-metaphors play a big role in the language-portrait exercise

and points out that different body parts can carry various meanings in the drawings. In the

current study languages carrying high emotional value often occupied central areas of the

silhouette such as head and heart, whereas languages typically associated with accomplishing

practical tasks of learning and working were often placed in the hands and arms area.

5. Language Portraits of a Transnational Family

Having outlined the general findings from the language portraits of 26 adult and teenage

participants, I would now like to turn to portraits produced by a Polish transnational family

living in Norway, whom I will refer to as Family X here. Family X moved to Norway quite

recently and followed a migration path quite typical for Polish transnationals in this country:

the father, Marek, was the first one to move to Norway, his wife, Aga, and two adolescent

daughters, Kasia and Maja, joined him one year later, using the family reunification program.

At the time of the interview, Marek had been living in Norway for three years and the rest of

the family for two years. The parents, Marek and Aga, were both in their mid-forties and worked

as an engineer and a kindergarten assistant, respectively. Kasia (18) and Maja (15) both attended

state secondary schools. The interview took place at the family’s home on a Friday evening

around the table in the living room with the whole family present, and lasted 2 hours and 15

minutes. The interview excerpts below and the analysis focus on how the participants

constructed their relationships with Polish, English and Norwegian – the three languages

present in all the language portraits collected for this study.

5.1 Aga – the wish to be invisible

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Aga was the first one to complete the portrait (Fig. 1). Her drawing shows a fully dressed

person, with a detailed outfit but no details of the face. Later in the interview, Aga added the

inscription to the right of the silhouette:

‘The knowledge of the language of a given country gives me a sense

x of security

x self-worth

x I feel dressed when I use these lang.’

Figure 2

In the conversation about the drawing Aga mentioned Norwegian, Italian, English and Polish

as languages relevant for her in her life. In her account Polish was associated with the family

domain, Norwegian was the language of work and migration, Italian belonged to past student

times and English was a lingua franca with which Aga struggles a bit. In the interview excerpt

below (1), Aga constructs her relationship with Norwegian.

Excerpt 1

1. Aga: {wskazując kapelusz} głowa, bo wszystkie siedzą tu @

{pointing to the hat} Head because they all sit here @

2. Researcher: mhm

3. Agaa:@@ ja posługuję się teraz norweskim, cały czas się go uczę, ponieważ

mieszkamy tutaj od

@@ I use Norwegian now, I am learning it all the time, because we have been

living here for

4. dwóch lat y: znajomość języka daje mi poczucie takiej własnej wartości

two years u:m the knowledge of the language gives me a sense of this self-worth

5. R: mhm

6. Aga: ponieważ no nie wyobrażam sobie siedzieć w domu więc musze

pracować (.)

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Because well I cannot imagine sitting at home so I must work (.)

7. żeby pracować to musze trochę (.) posługiwać się tym językiem.

in order to work I must use (.) this language a bit

8. R: mhm

9. Aga: więc zależy mi na tym żeby (.) nauczyć się tego języka w miarę

poprawnie.

so I find it important (.) to learn this language sort of correctly.

Aga starts describing her drawing by pointing to the hat on the head of the silhouette

and stating that all her languages are ‘stored’ in her head. This belief differentiates her from the

majority of the accounts in the study, in which the participants allocated particular areas of the

drawings to different languages. In the following turns Aga describes the significance of

Norwegian in her life. First of all, in line 5 Norwegian is presented as a language used and

learnt daily by Aga, who thus constructs herself as a language learner. From this point on, her

account gets a more ideological touch as the knowledge of Norwegian becomes the gateway to

both positive self-evaluation (line 7) and to social success, here rendered as access to the

Norwegian job market (lines 8-9). In Aga’s words Norwegian becomes a useful tool and an

index of inclusion, prosperity and empowerment. Constructing Norwegian in this way suggests

Aga’s alignment with the discourses commodifying languages (cf. Cameron, 2000; Duchêne &

Heller, 2012; Gonçalves & Schluter, 2016), which see languages in terms of their economic

value. Interestingly, Aga does not have a very normative approach to her competence in

Norwegian – it is enough to know the language ‘a bit’ and ‘sort of correctly’.

As we continued are conversation, the woman went on to describe her relationship to

Polish and English.

Excerpt 2

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1. Aga: […] no i oczywiście angielski język. który (.) ogólnie dostępny dla

wszystkich.

and of course the English language, which (.) is generally accessible to all.

2. a: ciężko mi jest się wypowiadać w języku angielskim, ale dużo rozumiem.

Um: it is hard for me to speak English but I understand a lot.

3. R: Mhm

4. Aga: natomiast w domu, my jesteśmy polska rodzina,

But at home, we are a Polish family

5. mieszkamy tutaj krótko, wiec posługujemy się wszyscy językiem polskim (.)

and we have been living here for a short time so we all use Polish (.)

6. i poza tym mi się wydaje ze to jest tez istotne bo jesteśmy Polakami i nigdy

nie (.)

and anyway I think that this is important because we are Poles and we will

probably never (.)

7. chyba nie będziemy s, próbowali stać się Norwegami.

8. try to become Norwegian

9. R: Mhm

10. Aga: musimy się z nimi zgrać, musimy działać na tych prawach, które tu

obowiązują,

We have to play along, act according to the rules that apply here

11. ale no zawsze pozostaniemy Polakami, wiec ten język ojczysty pozostanie w

nas

but well we will always remain Poles so the mother tongue will remain in us

12. i i nie wypieramy go @ z siebie

13. and we don’t push it out @ of ourselves

At the beginning of this excerpt Aga constructs English as a democratic resource accessible to

everyone (ogólnie dostępny, line 1). In line 2 we might infer, however, that English is not

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completely accessible to her and its active use poses a challenge. Aga admits that her passive

knowledge of English exceeds her active skills but nevertheless she considers the language to

be a part of her repertoire. English is also foreseen to be significant in Aga’s future, as she later

on in the interview expressed the wish to improve her speaking skills in English in the near

future.

In lines 4-5 Aga moves on to describe the role of Polish in her life, which she constructs

here first and foremost as the family language. Initially, Aga motivates the practice of speaking

Polish at home in two ways: firstly, by explicitly referring to the family’s Polish ethnicity and

secondly, by the shortness of their stay in Norway. The first reason implies the normalization

of the indexical links between ethnicity and language practices and has an ideological character,

while the second one is much more practical (the short stay results, for example, in not enough

exposure to the host society’s language and thus to limited competence). After a pause, Aga

continues with reinforcing the indexical connection between ethnicity and language practices

throughout lines 6-13. In line 6 she explicitly evaluates the practise of speaking Polish as

important (istotne) and creates a causal link between being and speaking Polish. Changing this

language practice is implicitly linked in Aga’s account to ‘becoming Norwegian’ (line 7).

This changes in lines 10-13 as illustrated by the modal verb musimy (we have to)

expressing the necessity of adaptation to the life in Norway, and the unhedged use of the future

forms of the verb pozostać (‘remain’) expressing the certainty as to keeping a Polish identity

and the Polish language despite migration. Here, Aga further reinforces and naturalises the

indexical link between Polish ethnicity and the use of the Polish language, as an inherent and

core characteristic of being Polish. This belief places Aga’s account within the one nation one

language ideology, which assumes the existence of ‘natural’ links between a nation and its

language (Johnson, 2013; Weber & Horner, 2013; Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994) and in which

language becomes an indispensable element of national identity. Aga’s choice of lexis stresses

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this link and implies that losing the language would actually require some effort - it would

have to be actively ‘pushed out’, thus the image of language as an integral part of one’s identity

is emphasised again. Importantly, Aga refers to Polish as język ojczysty (‘mother tongue’),

employing the ideologically laden term which in Polish is tightly connected to patriotic

discourses on language maintenance and transmission. As noted by e.g. Dąbrowska (2008) the

Polish language used to fulfil important integrational and formative functions during the

partitions of Poland (1795-1918), the second world war and under communism (1945-1989).

Over time the language gained a symbolic status and came to be viewed as the foundation that

kept the oppressed community together. Thus, as described by Duszak (2006) it became a

‘national imperative’ to protect the language and keep it intact. These protective beliefs are still

alive in the public discourses in Poland as illustrated by e.g. the popularity of linguistic TV

shows such as Ojczyzna-polszczyzna or Słownik polsko@polski promoting ‘correct’ usage of

Polish; and by official documents such as the Act on the Polish Language passed by the Polish

Parliament in 1999, in which the language is referred to as ‘the fundamental part of the national

identity’ requiring special protection and care in the times of globalization. Aga’s account

constructing an explicit link between Polish nationality and the practice of using and

maintaining Polish seems to reconstruct these beliefs.

5.2 Kasia – the desire for self -expression

The next person to describe her portrait was Kasia, the older daughter of the couple.

According to the family, Kasia is the person in the family who can communicate best in

Norwegian but at the same time is the one who struggles most with the experience of migration.

Kasia’s portrait (Fig. 3) depicts a simple figure with a heart in the colours of the Polish flag in

the middle of the silhouette and a cross instead of the mouth. The heart in Polish national

colours suggests the Polish ‘core’ and national belonging and, on the other hand, signals

alignment with the Western discourses of the nation states (Billig, 1995; de Bres, forthcoming).

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The cross in place of the mouth implies muteness and being silenced. A second striking element

in Kasia’s drawing is the speech bubble in which we see the same word written in the three

languages that Kasia speaks: możliwosci, muligheter, possibilities, as well as a book

symbolising knowledge, literature and culture and a flowery object which remained unspoken

of in the interview. Kasia mentioned Polish, Norwegian and English as languages most present

in her daily life at the time of the interview and expressed the wish to learn to read French

and/or Russian in the future to be able to access philosophical and literary works produced in

these languages.

Figure 3

In the excerpt below Kasia tells about her portrait.

Excerpt 3

1. R: To powiedz mi co masz

So tell me what you’ve got

2. Kasia: no ja generalnie no: język jest dla mnie w ogóle bardzo ważny, ale

Well I generally we:ll language is very important for me in general, but

3. R: mhm

4. Kasia: no polski zostanie dla mnie najważniejszy tak myślę i: (.)

Well Polish will remain the most important [one] for me I think a:nd (.)

5. dużo dużo generalnie czytam też po polsku

generally I read a lot a lot in Polish as well

6. i to jest jedyna dla mnie możliwość tak naprawdę

and for me this is honestly the only possibility

7. wypowiedzenia tego, co myślę <i strasznie mnie męczy>

to express, what I think <and it is awfully tiring for me>

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8. Marek: <póki co>

<For the moment>

9. Kasia: strasznie mnie (.) myślę że (.) raczej tak zostanie

Awfully (.) I think (.) it will remain like this

10. strasznie mnie męczy to, że w szkole się nie potrafię się wypowiedzieć tak jakbym chciała.

It is awfully tiring for me, that at school I cannot express myself the way I would like to

11. R: mhm

12. Kasia: bo mieszkamy tu jednak dwa lata

Because well we have been living here for two years

13. i: no i nie mówię po norwesku tak, żeby móc powiedzieć to co myślę tak naprawdę.

A:nd well and I don’t speak Norwegian [well enough] to say what I really think.

14. i to jest (.) to jest dla mnie okropne bo: no: język jest bardzo dla mnie istotny.

And this is (.) this is horrible for me becau:se we:ll language is very important for me

15. R: mhm

16. Kasia: oczywiście uczę się norweskiego wciąż i no jednak chodzę tu do szkoły

Of course I am still learning Norwegian and well I go to school here

17. wiec wiec uczę się norweskiego i cieszę się, że będę mówić trzema językami.

So so I am learning Norwegian and I am glad, that I will speak three languages

18. R: mhm

19. Kasia: no bo jedak też po angielsku mówię i i łatwiej mi.

Because I also speak English and and it is easier for me.

20. czuję się pewniej rozmawiając po angielsku niż po norwesku mimo wszystko wciąż.

I still feel more secure speaking English than Norwegian in spite of everything

21. R: mhm e a co to jest ten symbol tutaj?

Mhm a:m u: what is this symbol here?

22. Kasia: to właśnie to ograniczenie związane z językiem.

This is exactly this limitation regarding language.

23. że nie potrafię się: y; wyrazić tak jakbym chciała. i czuję się głupio po prostu

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that I cannot u:m express myself the way I would like to. And I simply feel stupid.

24. czuję się strasznie głupio jak rozmawiam po norwesku w szkole czy w ogóle. Także: (.)

I feel horribly stupid when I speak Norwegian at school or in general. So:

My first turn invites Kasia to elaborate on her portrait. In response, Kasia initially states

that ‘language’ in general is important to her, a statement that was repeated several times by

her in the interview. Throughout lines 4 - 7 Kasia constructs Polish as the most important

language in her repertoire and as the only one that allows her to express her thoughts. In line 8

Marek interrupts the girl suggesting that her problems are only temporary. Kasia, however,

promptly dismisses the comforting words and in lines 10 – 14 constructs herself as a

disempowered and helpless user of Norwegian through the use of negatively laden verb phrases

strasznie mnie męczy (‘it is awfully tiring for me’) and nie potrafię się wypowiedzieć (‘I cannot

express myself) describing her limited competence in the language. In line 15, however, Kasia

moves the focus of the talk towards her future trilingualism, which she perceives as something

positive, as indicated by the reflexive verb cieszę się (‘I am glad’). As noted by Gal (2012),

personal trilingualism consisting of the ‘mother tongue’, a lingua franca and another language

of choice has been promoted as the aspired norm for European citizens by the organs of the

European Union since the 2008 “Final Report of the High-Level Group on Multilingualism” of

the European Commission. Following the EU guidelines the Polish government introduced

obligatory learning of two foreign languages for students aged 13-19 in 2009. Having grown

up in Poland and having attended Polish public schools until the age of 16, Kasia could have

been exposed to the European discourses on trilingualism and might have been influenced by

them in her thinking about personal multilingualism.

In lines 19 and 20, the girl moves on to English which emerges here, in juxtaposition

to Norwegian, as a language that poses less of a challenge and gives Kasia a feeling of safety.

Answering my question about the cross on the body silhouette, Kasia continues to construct

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Norwegian as the language that exposes her vulnerability and limits her self-expression (lines

22-24). In general, the two most striking elements in Kasia’s account are the overwhelming

desire for self-expression and the enforced silence in which the girl is trapped due to her

‘insufficient’ competence in Norwegian. Blommaert (2010), Blommaert & Backus (2013) and

Blommaert, Collins, & Slembrouck (2005) talk about the truncated character of linguistic

repertoires pointing to the fact that no one at any point in time is able to control all of the

resources belonging to a ‘language’ – individual’s competence in any ‘language’ is always

partial. Kasia, however, unlike her mother, experiences the limits of her repertoire as something

deeply negative.

5.3 Marek – languages as tools

The next person to present their portrait was Marek. The most prominent elements in

his picture are the flags representing languages.

Figure 4

In the centre of Marek’s portrait, we see a Polish flag covering most of the chest area of the

silhouette and indicating, just like in Kasia’s case, the Polish ‘core’. To the left, there is a speech

bubble with the Union Jack suggesting English as Marek’s language of communication. The

thought bubble above the figure’s head depicts the Icelandic flag, which as it turned out later in

the conversation, was actually meant to be the Norwegian flag and symbolise the unfulfilled

dream of learning Norwegian. In Excerpt 4 below, Marek describes his portrait:

Excerpt 4

1. R: jakie ty masz tutaj też (.) polski widzę? w środku?

Which [ones] do you have here as well (.) I see Polish? In the middle?

2. Marek: tak, tak. no w środku polski, no bo jestem Polakiem

Yes, yes. Well in the middle there is Polish because I am Polish

3. i to jest jednak najważniejszy język i najlepiej nim operuję

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and this is the most important language and I can use it best

4. R: mhm

5. Marek: mówię po angielsku no bo z racji tego że (.)

I speak English well because of this reason that (.)

6. żeby się porozumieć w pracy, muszę w jakimś języku mówić.

In order to communicate at work, I have to speak some language.

7. R: mhm

8. Marek: trochę się kiedyś uczyłem angielskiego ale tak naprawdę

I used to learn English a bit some time ago but for real

9. to się y: douczyłem tutaj bo nie było innej możliwości.

I learnt it [more] here because there was no other option

10. R: mhm

11. Marek: (.) a a a ta chmurka symbolizuje marzenie

(.) uh uh and this cloud symbolises a dream

12. R: @ tak?

@ yeah?

13. Both: @@@@

14. Marek: o nauce norweskiego bo z norweskiego znam tylko jedno zdanie @@@

About learning Norwegian because I just know one sentence in Norwegian @@@

15. no może nie jedno, ale @@@

well maybe not one, but @@@

16. R: aha czyli nie? @

Aha so you don’t? @

17. Marek: nie, nie mówię po norwesku aczkolwiek cały czas jest jest

No, no I don’t speak Norwegian however there is is always

18. ambitny plan żeby w końcu zastartować (.)

an ambitious plan to finally start (.)

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In lines 2-4 Marek makes an explicit link between the Polish language and his ethnicity

explaining the language’s central place in the portrait with feelings of national belonging –

jestem Polakiem (‘I am Polish’). Like Aga, Marek, seems to be drawing on the essentialist

ideologies equating nations and languages (Weber & Horner, 2013; Woolard, 1998; Woolard

& Schieffelin, 1994) in making the connection between being Polish and speaking Polish.

Marek evaluates Polish as the most important language in his life and the one that he is most

proficient in (line 3).

In lines 5-9, he moves on to discussing the role of English which he constructs as a

practical utility enabling the accomplishment of work-related tasks in the context of

immigration. It was not Marek’s language of choice but of necessity – nie było innej możliwości

(‘there was no other option’) – as without English he would not be able to communicate at his

workplace. Here English becomes not only the lingua franca like in Aga’s account, but also the

gateway to a professional life abroad and thus also to social inclusion and success. Thus, Marek

constructs English as linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) which both affords him symbolic

power and yields good return. In lines 13-20, Marek moves on to talking about Norwegian and

constructs the language as belonging to the realm of dreams, symbolised by the thought bubble

in the picture. Despite the fact that Marek explicitly states that he has no competence in

Norwegian, the language plays a role in his linguistic repertoire through the desire to speak it

(Piller, 2002; Piller & Takahashi, 2006) and the imagined future self who might eventually

learn the language.

5.4 Maja – the fusion of the three languages

The last person to talk about their drawing was Maja. Drawing and painting are in fact Maja’s

hobbies and she is thinking of studying art in the future. At the time of the interview, Maja was

struggling with learning Norwegian and whenever she could, she would resort to using Polish

or English. Her language portrait depicts a human figure covered with red and blue flowers and

19

green leaves springing from the figure’s head. The interview excerpt below explains the

symbolism behind the drawing.

Figure 5

Excerpt 5

1. Maja: a: no z jednej strony są to czerwone kwiaty, które kojarzą mi się z Polską

u:m so on the one hand there are red flowers which I associate with Poland

2. a kwiaty dlatego że natura odgrywa jednak dużą rolę w moim życiu i bardzo lubię

kwiaty

and flowers because nature plays a very important role in my life and I like flowers a lot

3. R: Mhm

4. Maja: a z drugiej strony kolor niebieski który za równo kojarzy mi się z językiem agielskim

and on the other hand the blue color which I associate both with the English language

5. jak i jezykiem norweskim

and the Norwegian language

6. R: Mhm

7. Maja: no a na górze jest kwiatek który jest połączeniem tych trzech języków

well and on top there is a flower which is a fusion of the three languages

8. który jest po prostu moja głową która eksploduje

which is simply my head which is exploding

9. R: eksploduje?! @

is exploding?! @

10. Marek: tak, ja zauważyłem jak ona z koleżankami rozmawia ona połowicznie po angielsku

yes I noticed when she speaks with her friends she speaks half in English

11. [jest to totalna przeplatanka]

[it is a total mix]

12. Maja: [tak (.) tak (.)]

[yes (.) yes (.)]

20

In lines 1-5, Maja explains the symbolism of the colours used in her drawing, stating

that red stands for Poland (and the Polish language, as may be inferred the context), while blue

for Norwegian and English. The languages are represented by the colourful flowers on the

figure’s body due to the importance of nature in Maja’s life, which also suggests the importance

of languages in the girl’s life. The most interesting part of Maja’s account occurs in lines 7-8,

where the girl describes her experience of multilingualism. Maja refers to the biggest blue and

red flower at the top of the picture as the ‘fusion’ of her three languages and simultaneously her

‘exploding head’. In line 9, I express my surprise at Maja’s choice of words, which prompts

Marek to explain his daughter’s account in lines 10-11. Marek refers to Maja’s language

practices as a ‘total mix’. In the overlapping turn in line 12, Maja confirms her father’s report

and later on in the interview she declared that her use of Polish, Norwegian and English in

conversations with her friends is flexible, depending on the context of the interaction and her

interlocutor. At the same time, Maja admitted that learning new languages is not easy for her

and reported to experience her new multilingual life as overwhelming at times.

Maja’s account differs significantly from the ones produced by the other family

members. Instead of separately depicting and then reporting on the meaning of each of her

linguistic resources, the girl describes the totality of her lived language experience. Although

in the drawing the differently coloured flowers do symbolise different linguistic resources, the

distinctions are not very clear-cut (e.g. blue represents both English and Norwegian) and, in

addition, all of the resources merge in the figure’s head to represent Maja’s bodily experience

of her multilingualism. Furthermore, Marek and Maja’s reports on the girl’s translingual

language practices suggest her greater flexibility in terms of language choice and may in fact

describe what is now referred to in sociolinguistics as translanguaging (see e.g. Blackledge &

Creese, 2017; Li Wei & Zhu Hua, 2013; Li Wei, 2011).

6. Discussion

21

In the interview situation all four members of Family X constructed their repertoires as

trilingual ones consisting of Polish, Norwegian and English, thus reflecting the general trends

in the whole cohort (cf. Section 3). Nevertheless, the interview excerpts discussed above show

that the same linguistic resources play different roles in the multilingual repertoires of the

individual family members. Despite having the same first language, sharing one migration

history and being members of the same family, the participants experience their languages and

multilingualism in very different ways. In the interview accounts, Polish emerged as an index

of Polish ethnicity for Aga and Marek, a family language for Aga and the only means of the

desired self-expression for Kasia. English was constructed as a universal lingua franca by Aga

and Marek, a gateway to successful life abroad by Marek and a language providing a sense of

security in the immigration situation by Kasia. Norwegian, on the other hand, was seen as an

empowering resource by Aga, as a threat and exposure by Kasia and as a slightly unreal dream

by Marek. Maja, on the other hand, instead of focusing on individual linguistic resources,

stressed the overwhelming totality of her multilingual experience.

These different perceptions and constructions of participants’ repertoires may be related

to the ideological underpinnings of their accounts. We can identify several ideological

constructs in the interview excerpts: the ethnolinguistic sentiment expressed by both of the

parents and hinted at by the flag symbols in Kasia and Marek’s drawings; language as a resource

approach expressed by the parents in relation to English (both of them) and Norwegian (Aga);

language in service of the self (Kasia and Aga talking about Polish and Norwegian

respectively); language as a bodily experience (Maja).

The ethnolinguistic beliefs were activated most prominently in the conversations with

Aga and Marek. The couple displayed strong identification with the Polish language as a marker

of their national identity and reconstructed an indexical link between Polish nationality and the

practice of speaking Polish along the lines of ‘one nation one language’ ideology (Weber &

22

Horner, 2013; Woolard, 1998; Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994). This ideology was further

reinforced by the Polish flags and national colours surfacing in the family drawings. Billig

(1995) points out that ideological habits through which nations are reproduced remain unnamed

and inconspicuous [p.6]. An example of such an ideological habit can be the explicit

representation of national belonging and specific language practices with the help of national

symbols, such as flags.

Language as a resource approach ( cf. Ruíz, 1984) manifested itself in Aga and Marek’s

beliefs about English and in Aga’s discourse on Norwegian. Here the participants displayed a

rather practical approach towards the languages which were viewed primarily in terms of their

usefulness in enabling communication (English as a lingua franca) and facilitating the access

to the job market (both English and Norwegian). These beliefs construct languages as linguistic

capital (Bourdieu, 1991) which can bring concrete social and economic advantages. Seeing

languages and personal multilingualism as essential elements for personal advancement is not

uncommon in multilingual family contexts. Sociolinguistic studies of family multilingualism

in diverse settings showed that discourses of linguistic capital take a prominent role in parental

accounts (cf. Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; King & Fogle, 2006; Piller, 2001).

The language in service of the self approach was most conspicuous in the conversations

with Kasia and Aga. What transpired most in Kasia’s account was the belief in languages’

capacity to successfully transmit thoughts and enable self-expression. In the girl’s account,

language becomes not so much a tool for communication but the vessel of the self allowing

one’s voice to be heard. Lack of necessary competence, however, may silence the individual

and render the self mute – a condition that Kasia experiences painfully when faced with the

hegemony of Norwegian in the host society. Attempts to break this silence can also be

traumatising as the ‘imperfect’ competence in Norwegian exposes the self and makes the girl

feel ‘stupid’. In Aga’s case, the language in service of the self approach manifested itself very

23

differently. The underlying belief in Aga’s account was that competence in certain varieties,

here – Norwegian, can actually protect the self (like the clothes in the portrait) and make it

blend in in the host society. This ideology was intertwined in Aga’s account with seeing

languages as resources. Both Kasia and Aga in making the link between language and the self

point to the meaning of the subjective experience of language and language use. Kramsch

(2009) draws our attention not only to the importance of individual’s experience of the

subjective aspects of language but also to the transformative power of the process of acquiring

a language. As noted by Kramsch this power might sometimes be resisted and experienced as

threat, which seems to be the case in Kasia’s experience of Norwegian and her clinging to Polish

as the main means of self-expression. Aga, on the other hand, seems to embrace the process

and welcomes Norwegian as a means of constructing a more powerful position for herself in

the migration reality.

The three approaches to language constructed by the parents and the older daughter in

the interview may fundamentally differ from one another; however, they can be seen as

belonging to one and the same axis of differentiation (Gal 2009, Gal&Irvine 2000), the opposite

poles of which I propose to call ‘identity’ vs. ‘utility’. In the process of differentiation,

contrasting indexical values are attached to linguistic resources – in the excerpts above, Polish

indexes pride in one’s national belonging, while Norwegian and English point to social success.

The Polish language becomes the language of ‘the true self’, most suited for communication at

home and for expressing thoughts and emotions, while English and Norwegian are the

languages meant for the outside world and achieving concrete social goals. In this process other

possible uses of the linguistic resources are erased: the usefulness of Polish in professional life

is implicitly denied and so is the possibility of using different languages in the home domain.

Of course, these are not true representations of the participants’ linguistic practices but

ideological constructions formulated in the specific interview situation.

24

Against this backdrop, Maja’s account stands out. The girl, instead of differentiating

between her linguistic resources and attaching particular meanings and values to them, focuses

rather on her total experience of multilingualism. Busch (2012), following Merleau-Ponty

(2009 [1945]), draws attention to the importance of the body in relation to language and speech,

which are viewed here as a recurrent, intuitive and embodied practice. According to Busch,

linguistic repertories are thus also inscribed in bodies and the traces of these inscriptions can

surface in speakers’ narratives triggered by spur of the moment perceptions. It seems that the

interview situation and the language portrait activity inspired Maja to invoke precisely these

bodily inscriptions of her linguistic repertoire.

7. Conclusions

This article investigated multilingualism among Norway’s most numerous minority – the

Poles by exploring the language portraits drawn by 26 adult and teenage participants during

semi-structured interviews. The article showed that the life-worlds of Polish transnationals in

Norway are considerably multilingual and that three languages in particular play an important

role in the participants’ repertoires: Polish, Norwegian and English. The visual data suggested

that participants represent and experience their multilingualism in various ways, pointing to a

multitude of underlying ideological orientations. The subjective experiences, representations

and ideological underpinnings of participants’ accounts were explored further in a close

analysis of four exemplary language portraits and accompanying interview data produced by

one transnational family from the researched cohort. The combined data set suggested a huge

diversity in terms of how the participants experience their multilingualism and illustrated the

existence of competing language ideologies among the researched cohort. Methodologically,

this article contributes to the growing body of work pointing to the usefulness of the language

portrait method in sociolinguistic research on multilingual repertoires and language ideologies.

25

Transcription conventions:

(.) pause

, brief pause

. Falling intonation

? rising intonation

<…> overlapping speech

[…] deleted passage

: elongated sound

{…} author’s comment

@ laughter

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Figure 1. Language portrait template. Source: heteroglossia.net

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Figure 2. Aga’s language portrait

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Figure 3. Kasia’s language portrait

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Figure 4. Marek’s language portrait.

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Figure 5. Maja’s language portrait.