Research project
Multilingualism and Language Policy
This project investigates the languages spoken by elementary school children in Leiden: which languages or varieties do they use, what is their level of competence and in what domains do they use them?
- Duration
- 2025 - 2027
- Contact
- Gijsbert Rutten
In this project, we aim to obtain a clear picture of which languages children in Leiden use in their daily lives. This involves going to elementary schools where we teach children about multilingualism and get them to participate in various activities that require them to reflect on the languages they use in their lives (filling in a colouring page in which they indicate their language use in different domains, interviewing each other about their language use and reporting the outcome of the interviews they conducted). The scientific goal of the project is to gain more insight into the linguistic repertoires of children and how they use them. The societal goal is to normalise multilingualism in children and to be better informed on how to support them in their language use.