The enormous linguistic diversity of many medium-sized cities in Germany has hardly been investigated to date. In this teaching project, we want to use the city of Delmenhorst as an example to explore the linguistic diversity of such a city. Together with stakeholders in Delmenhorst - schools, authorities, churches, associations, NGOs, museums - we will get a picture of the city's linguistic landscape, its history and origins as well as its current modes of expression and examine the significance of the languages for their speakers and the city as a whole.

In their own small research projects, students will explore language repertoires, linguistic strategies, language biographies, language attitudes, language experience and language policy on the part of both individuals and institutions in Delmenhorst. For example, we examine who speaks which languages with whom, when and where, the origins and history of the languages we find in Delmenhorst, what the speakers associate with these languages, how they maintain them and what they want for them, how communication takes place between generations, among neighbours, with public authorities and which languages are visible and audible on the streets. Participants learn how to prepare, conduct and present their own linguistic research projects.

The teaching project is primarily aimed at students of linguistics degree programmes, but is also open to students of other disciplines.

Participation in the following course can be credited in the area of specialisation: 10.34.011 Multilingualism in a medium-sized city - the example of Delmenhorst

If you have any questions or are interested, please contact:

Prof Dr Jan Patrick Zeller (jan.patrick.zeller@uol.de)

The project is being carried out together with Prof Dr Yaron Matras, currently a visiting professor at the University of Hamburg(https://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/afrika/personen/matras.html), who has been active in the field of multilingualism and the documentation of smaller languages for many years. The project is supported by the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst and the city of Delmenhorst.