• Organisation

In trying to understand how identity can be constructed in the face of diversity, plurilingual families are a focal point of interest, since they live between different cultures and identities. In our article, we assume along with Bucholtz and Hall (2005) that identity encompasses macro-level demographic categories, local ethnographically specific cultural positions as well as temporary, interactionally specific stances and participant roles. Based on this theoretical assumption, we will describe how plurilingual families construct their identity by comparing two different regions: the officially monolingual German federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg and the officially trilingual Autonomous Province of Bolzano/South Tyrol. The analysis in this article is based on semi-structured interviews with and self-recordings of plurilingual families in Baden-Wuerttemberg and South Tyrol.