Multiple Languages as Resources

Abstract

It would be surprising if a book about the language use of Canadian Germans did not include a chapter on the use of multiple languages as resources in the construction of identities and spaces. For most of our participants, both English and German varieties are important resources in their daily lives. These languages are also resources for them in the conversational interviews, on which a large part of the analysis for this book is based. Almost none of these conversational interviews are in English only, and even in the cases of the few which are, all of the participants nonetheless have experience with German or one of its varieties, and this is nearly always expressed in the interviews in some way or another. Even in the cases of those participants who do not themselves speak a German variety, the impact can be seen through the link between language and culture (cf. Chapter 6 on non-language resources) and are alluded to in other ways in this book and in this chapter.