The Ruhr Area is a metropolitan region in the north of Germany with 5.3 million inhabitants. It has seen several waves of migration which resulted in ‘super diverse’ cities (Vertovec 2007) and particular settlement patterns. A key feature of residential segregation in the Ruhr Area is the north-south divide along the A 40 motorway, the so-called ‘social equator’, which divides the cities into ethnically diverse and less diverse, poor and less poor, educated and less educated neighbourhoods (Cindark/Ziegler 2016).
This paper presents findings obtained in a preparatory study for a project on “Migration in the Ruhr Metropolis: Language(s) and language attitudes in interaction”, which pays attention to these social and spatial characteristics by investigating language use and attitudes from speakers with different ethnic backgrounds living in neighbourhoods north and south of the motorway A 40 in the cities of Essen and Dortmund. A preliminary data set of narrative interviews of speakers with German, Turkish and Arabic roots has been recorded to analyse the relationships between language use and aspects of stance-taking towards the respective ‘other’ languages and ethnic groups. Following questions are adressed: Which categories are used to present the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, how are ‘mixed identities’ talked into being, what stereotypes are common in talking about one’s own group and other groups, how are languages evaluated and, finally, what role does the north-south divide along the A 40 motorway play for the speakers?
The results so far reveal that the variable immigrant generation (IG) is a crucial factor in using and evaluating ethnic categorizations such as “migrant” or “migration background”. Whereas informants of the first IG are indifferent to these ethnic concepts, informants of the second IG perceive them as highly stigmatizing. Informants of the third IG exhibit a playful approach in defining themselves as migrants, often in the context of constructing a hybrid identity.
Cindark, I./Ziegler, E. (2016): Mehrsprachigkeit im Ruhrgebiet: Zur Sichtbarkeit sprachlicher Diversität in Dortmund. In: Ptashnyk, S. et al. (eds): Gegenwärtige Sprachkontakte im Kontext der Migration. Heidelberg: Winter, 133-156.
Vertovec, S. (2007): Super-diversity and its implications. In: Ethnic and Racial Studies 29 (6), 1024-1054.
