Mezi jazykovou politikou a žitou zkušeností aneb Mnohojazyčnost, která (ne)existuje
Between Language Policy and Lived Experience or Multilingualism Which Does (Not) Exist

Summary/Abstract: The article examines managing language diversity at four urban schools in the Czech Republic, particularly it focuses on the contradictoriness between real-life experiences with languages and language policy. Czech language education is characterized by pursuing the European policy so-called “Mother Tongue + 2” and by maintaining national ideology at school. As result is that the language monitoring system provides data, that perceive languages as discreet entities, that are hierarchized in order to Mother Tongue + 2 ideology. The aim of the study was to explore how three schools focusing on languages perceive languages present in their space in comparison to how these languages are perceived by selected pupils. The study was carried out in a qualitative design, which included three interviews with school headmasters (representing the perspective of three selected schools) and an analysis of six language profiles (representing the perspective of pupils). Based on qualitative empirical approach, which includes three interviews with headmasters, is in this article argued, that real-live experiences with languages differ from the perception of languages by language policy (especially in categories foreign languages, Czech for foreigners and pupils-foreigners), but it follows frames of language policy. The analysis of the language profiles suggests a pupil’s understanding of languages (home languages, school languages, friends’ languages, and languages they wish to know or like) that is based on the use of languages in social interaction with different actors in different places and situations. Based on our results it can be assumed that the increasing language diversity at schools calls for reconceptualization of the Czech language policy (top-down and bottom-up) toward flexible approaches to multilingualism, derived from current linguistic and pedagogical findings based on lived experiences with languages.

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