When Plurilingual Speakers Encounter Unilingual Environments

The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) is a partner in the interdisciplinary project “Plurilingual speakers in unilingual contexts. Migrants from African countries in Vienna: Language practices and institutional Communication”. Through a cooperation of Applied Linguistics, African studies and human rights research it pursues following objectives:

1. Raising awareness of authorities and courts for multilingualism, language rights and migration

2. Visualising both the importance of plurilingual repertoire for administrative or judicial precedures and associated language ideologies

3. Preparing the area of communication with authorities and courts

4. Forming cooperations among these players and improving communication conditions

5. Filling research gaps: (a) What relevance do plurilingual repertoires have for functional communication with migrants from Africa in public administration and judiciary? (b) How do the participating agents assess this issue? (c) How and by what means can the topic of plurilingualism be promoted within the leading socio-political discourse in Vienna?
For Details please see Factsheet and PluS (German)