Who Speaks What Language To Whom and When - Rethinking Language Use in The Context of European Schools

IJSL 2019; 254: 71–101
Marie Rydenvald*
Who speaks what language to whom
and when – rethinking language use
in the context of European Schools
https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2018-0034
Abstract: European Schools provide a multilingual international education for

children of EU employees. However, despite the multilingual context of these
schools, little research has been done regarding students’ multilingualism.
Employing domain theory and a dynamic perspective on multilingualism, this
sociolinguistic study investigates language use and language choice of second-
ary school students attending a European School in Belgium. The study com-
prises 56 participants and three different sources of data, i.e. questionnaire, self-
recordings, and interviews, during a period of 3½ years. Nexus analysis is used
as an analytical tool. The results suggest that the situations of language choice
which the participants constantly face appear to be influenced by a taken-for-
granted, rational multilingual context, manifested in the principles of inclusion
and “the least common denominator”. These principles imply that students
choose language based on a combination of their own, and their interlocutors’
preferences. The principles are discussed in the light of the multilingual envir-
onment of the European Schools. In addition, the results show a discrepancy
between the reported results from the questionnaire and the face-to-face inter-
action in the self-recordings. The home domain is more multilingual than
reported, and interaction with peers more monolingual. These results help to
elucidate the heterogeneity of the students’ multilingualism, while discussing
and problematizing domain theory.
Keywords: multilingual teenagers, language use, language choice, European

Schools, nexus analysis
1 Introduction
“In globalized societies, multilingual contexts are a fact of life” (Mills 2004:
290), and for many teenagers today, life itself is a multilingual context. One
*Corresponding author: Marie Rydenvald, Department of Swedish, University of Gothenburg,

Gothenburg, Sweden, E-mail: [email protected]
Open Access. © 2019 Rydenvald, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
72 Marie Rydenvald
group of multilingual teenagers that uses several languages on a daily basis

are students participating in international bilingual education. The scenario
in which they use and relate to at least three languages in their everyday
lives has become far from rare, since many of them live in a country that has
another majority language(s) than their L1(s) and attend a school where
English is the main language of instruction. In this article, the rather unique
form of bilingual international education provided by the European Schools
(e.g. Baker 2001; Hayden 2006; Baetens Beardsmore 2009; De Mejía 2002)
forms the social setting. In short, this educational establishment could be
described as a network of 14 schools closely connected to the European
Union, its member states, and its civil servants. Within the field of interna-
tional bilingual education, the European Schools hold a special position
because they are primarily intended for the civil servants of the EU. But the
European Schools also hold a special position from a linguistic point of view
since they “have been specially designed as multilingual establishments, i.e.
where more than two languages function as medium of instruction” (Baetens
Beardsmore 1995: 23).
Despite, on the one hand, the increased interest in international education
during the last decades (cf. Hayden et al. 2007), and on the other the unique
linguistic position of the European Schools, little research has been done in the
field of multilingualism in international education (cf. Carder 2007; De Mejía
2002). Rather, research focus has primarily been given to educational, curricu-
lar, social and psychological aspects (Rydenvald 2015). One of the circumstances
contributing to the sparse amount of linguistic research may be attributed to
the alleged connection between students in international education and elite
bilingualism. In previous research on elite bilingualism, the multilingualism of
teenagers who are part of the international society is viewed as uncomplicated
(Baker and Prys Jones 1998), stemming from a free choice (Paulston 1978) and
representing an unquestionable advantage (De Mejía 2002). In addition, it is also
believed that the teenagers always could return to their home country and its
linguistic context, if they experience language related educational difficulties in
the country of residence (Skutnabb-Kangas 1981). Thus, in earlier research on
elite bilingualism the multilingualism of teenagers participating in international
education is perceived to lack the struggle often attached to the multilingualism
of many other multilingual groups of teenagers (Rydenvald 2015). This view-
point tends to place them outside the “ethnic minorities’ paradigm” (Blommaert
and Rampton 2011: 1) which dominates much sociolinguistic research on multi-
lingualism. However, the group of teenagers participating in international edu-
cation is increasing in today’s globalized world. This calls for research on their
Who speaks what language to whom and when 73
multilingualism, rather than a marginalizing stance taken on the ground of its

alleged unproblematic nature.
Earlier studies regarding linguistic research in the European Schools con-
text, almost exclusively concern language learning and acquisition (Baetens
Beardsmore 1993). In the field of language use, Muller and Baetens
Beardsmore (2004) have studied communication strategies used by teachers
and pupils in a second language class at primary level. In previous studies
(Rydenvald 2015, 2016) the reported language use and language attitudes among
students at secondary school level in European Schools and international
schools were investigated. The results of these studies show that the participat-
ing students, on a daily basis, move between and within several languages and
several domains exhibiting different dominating languages and different pat-
terns of language use. Furthermore the results from Rydenvald (2015) bear
evidence of an actively dynamic multilingualism among the students in
European Schools where their linguistic resources and competences explicitly
interact.
Nevertheless, the results from these studies illustrate students’ reported
language use. In fact, we have little knowledge about the ways in which
students attending international bilingual education actually navigate in real
life in the multilingual arena that constitutes their everyday lives. Drawing on
results from self-recordings done by the participants, this article aims at inves-
tigating the language use of some multilingual secondary school students with
Swedish backgrounds attending the European School in Belgium. Not only are
the students multilingual, but they also live in a nationally and educationally
multilingual context. Multilingualism is an intrinsic fact of their everyday lives,
which forms the premises for the questions in focus for this study: how do the
participants describe their multilingualism and language use? Which patterns of
language use do they relate to? What influences the many situations of language
choice that they constantly face?
2 Educational context
In this section a brief presentation of the European Schools will be provided.
(For more thorough documentation of the European School Model see e.g.
Baetens Beardsmore 1993, 1995, De Mejía 2002; Housen 2002; Swan 1996). As
students in international education tend to be referred to as Third Culture Kids
(TCK) and categorized as elite bilinguals, I will briefly touch upon these two
notions as well.
74 Marie Rydenvald
2.1 The European School
The European School was founded in 1957 as a result of a parental initiative in

Luxembourg (Housen 2002). Today, the European School is primarily intended
to cater to the schooling of the children of EU employees. Currently, there are 14
European Schools in 7 different countries, comprising approximately 25,000
students (Euresc 2015) of which a little over 600 are Swedish (Ottosson 2017).
All European Schools follow the same curriculum, leading to a European
Baccalaureate. In accordance with the language policy of the Council of
Europe (Ecml 2015), the European School aims at maintaining the students’ L1
and strive towards academic literacy in at least two languages (Baetens
Beardsmore 1993; De Mejía 2002). As part of The European School’s multilingual
education two or more languages function as languages of instruction (Baetens
Beardsmore 1995); English, French and German are offered as languages of
instruction together with the students’ L1. The schools are divided into language
sections (Euresc 2016), and depending on the school, Swedish is taught as a
subject or used as a language of instruction. In the latter case, mathematics,
natural sciences and philosophy are taught in Swedish. In total, roughly 16
lessons per week are taught in Swedish.
2.2 TCK and elite bilinguals
The students in European Schools, like students in international education in

general, are often characterized as globally mobile children (e.g. Baetens
Beardsmore 1979; Hayden 2012). During the last decades, the term Third
Culture Kids (TCK) has become a common and widely used term for the group
of children and teenagers growing up in the international community. The term
itself (TCK) refers to the belief that TCK grow up neither in their parents’ home
culture (first culture), nor in the culture of the host country (second culture) but
in the international society’s conglomerate of cultures, the “third culture”
(Pollock and Van Reken 2009).
In addition, TCK do not only grow up in multicultural international
environments, but also in the presence of several languages. It is not unusual
that TCK in general, and especially TCK with a non-English-speaking back-
ground, often are required to relate to three languages in their everyday lives.
An example of such a circumstance would be a student who is part of
international education with English as language of instruction in a country
in southern Europe and whose parents are native speakers of Swedish and
Japanese.
As mentioned earlier, it is not unusual that students in international educa-

tion, i.e. TCK, serve as an illustration of elite bilinguals. The term elite bilinguals
often applies to voluntary migrants who have become multilingual by their own
free choice (Skutnabb-Kangas 1981; Romaine 1995; Boyd 1998) and who are well-
educated and proficient in at least one of the languages spoken by the interna-
tional community (De Mejía 2002). Elite bilingualism (Paulston 1978) tends to be
seen rather as a status-driven investment (Butler and Hakuta 2004) towards
future access to the global market of work and higher studies, rather than a life
sustaining necessity. As de Meija puts it, “elite bilingualism may be seen as a
valuable personal possession which is consciously chosen and worked for”
(2002: 41). Baker and Prys-Jones go as far as to argue that elite bilinguals
“have continuously accepted that bilingualism causes no problems in thinking,
academic achievement or cultural acceptance” (1998: 16). However, contradic-
tory to Baker and Prys-Jones’ claim, my previous research shows that “the
alleged free choice and privileged social class of TCK, and elite bilinguals, do
not result in a multilingualism more superfluous and less complicated than that
of other multilingual teenage groups” (Rydenvald 2015).
3 Multilingualism and language use

This section discusses some perspectives, terminologies and theoretical models
of multilingualism that relate to the international globalized society that the
participating teenagers in this study are part of.
3.1 Multilingualism and related terminological issues
In the wake of the increased mobility of globalization, the understanding of

multilingualism has changed. Aronin and Singleton claim that “[b]ecause multi-
lingualism and globalization are so inextricably intertwined, all the major
attributes of the globalization phenomenon characterize multilingualism as
well” (Aronin and Singleton 2012: 56–57). One of the keywords of globalization
is mobility, which also is found in contemporary sociolinguistics together with
keywords such as dynamics, interplay, complexity and unpredictability
(Blommaert 2012: 12). In line with the changing perspective, multilingualism
has gone from being perceived as a parallel, dualistic (cf. Matarese 2013: 294)
system of separate codes which have additive or subtractive effects on each
other (Lambert 1977), to being perceived as a dynamic process. With the term
76 Marie Rydenvald
dynamic multilingualism, García (2009) aims at describing how multilingualism

is developed through an interplay between the individual’s linguistic resources
and competences as well as the social and linguistic contexts she/he is a part of.
In the earlier dualistic perspective on bilingualism and multilingualism
there was a certain focus on proficiency in defining the concepts. However, in
contemporary research on multilingualism there is a tendency to highlight
language use as one of the defining criteria, as the following quote clearly
illustrates:
‘Multilingualism’ is here taken to be the use by individuals, groups, organizations or

countries in more than one language in everyday life; this includes second, third or
multiple languages. ‘Bilingualism’ is a subcategory thereof and is taken to be any real-
life use of more than one language rather than the equally proficient use of more than one
language. (Radein Initiative Aalberse et al. 2011).
In this article, I use the term multilingualism as an umbrella term for bilingual-
ism and multilingualism. Secondly, I define multilingualism in accordance with
the usage based perspective presented in the quote above and define multi-
lingual teenagers as teenagers who in their daily lives encounter and need to use
two or more languages regardless of their proficiency in them (cf. Axelsson et al.
2005: 8). In this article, I will touch upon proficiency on a couple of occasions,
but otherwise I will focus on the usage of language.
Generally, multilingual individuals have at least one L1 and one L2. Both
terms, together with the related term native speaker are difficult, and have been
criticized by many scholars (e.g. Coulmas 1981; Rampton 1990; Firth and Wagner
1997; Fraurud and Boyd 2011). Rampton (1990) for instance, suggests a replace-
ment of the terms native speaker and mother tongue, in order to make transpar-
ent the connotations of various belongings, e.g. ethnic, national and linguistic,
attached to the terms. He instead proposes the terms language expertise, lan-
guage affiliation and language inheritance, where “language affiliation refers to
the attachment or identification they [ESL students] feel for a language whether
or not they nominally belong to the social group customarily associated with it”
(Leung et al. 1997: 555).
The term L1 is used in this article to denote the first language/languages
learned by the participants from their parents. The term mother tongue is not
used, in order to avoid the ideological issues attached to the term. Neither is the
term first language used, since it within the scientific field of international
education also is used to denote the language the individual has the highest
proficiency in (De Mejía 2002). It is not unusual for multilingual individuals who
have done their schooling in another language than their L1 to become more
proficient in the language of instruction than in their L1.
The term L2 is often used to denote the languages the individual has
learned after the L1/L1s has/have been established. Moreover, the term L2
often implies that the language in question is a majority language in the
society where the individual lives. The individual learns the language because
she/he needs it in daily life, as opposed to, e.g. foreign languages learned in
school context (Hyltenstam 2004: 37). In today’s globalized world and espe-
cially with the increased use of English it is not entirely unproblematic that L2
is used as a cover term for L3, L4 etc. (cf. Cenoz and Jessner 2000), neither are
the borders between L2 and foreign languages clear cut and uncomplicated
(Jessner 2008: 271), which is clearly illustrated by referring to English as a
lingua franca in a general sense (cf. House 2003). The terminology simply does
not seem to be able to fairly describe the life situation of multilinguals in
today’s globalized world. Hammarberg (2010: 102) writes that the terms
become “misnomers, suggesting a too narrow conception of the notions they
stand for”. The participant group could be used as an illustration of
Hammarberg’s claim, since in many cases their languages do not fit these
categories.
3.2 Domain theory
Within the vast research fields of language use and language variation early
theories tended to aim at “ordering the diversity” (Hymes 1972: 71) of human
interaction by explaining its nature and delineating underlying premises, e.g.
Hymes (1972) concept of speech events, summarized in the acronym taxon-
omy SPEAKING, speech accommodation theory (SAT) (Giles et al. 1987: 14)
and the audience design theory (Bell 1984). An early theory that describes
bilingual language use through a model which organizes, categorizes and
operationalizes human interactional behavior is Fishman’s domain theory
(Fishman 1965; Fishman 1971; Fishman 1972a; Fishman 1972b). One contribu-
tion put forward by the domain theory is the view of bilingualism as a stable
condition rather than a temporary transit period between monolingualism in
the native language in the one end, and the target language at the other end
(Fishman 1965). In his theoretic model, Fishman refers to the five essential
domains of family, friendship, religion, education, and work. These domains
are “commonly associated with a particular variety or language” (Fishman
1972a: 44). He defines them in terms of place, subject and the role-relations
of the participants (Fishman 1972a: 37). Domains are often referred to as
either formal, e.g. religion and work, or informal, e.g. family and friendship.
In multilingual settings the majority language is often seen to be related to
78 Marie Rydenvald
the language use in more formal domains and the minority language to the
more informal ones (Hyltenstam and Stroud 1991: 47). Fishman also argued
that in a multilingual context one language often becomes dominant in a
domain, where he equaled dominant language with most frequently used
language (García et al. 2006: 12).
Domain theory applies a macro-perspective on language use, also pointed out
by Fishman: “Domains are particularly useful constructs for the macro-level (i.e.,
community-wide) functional description of societally patterned variation in ‘talk’
within large and complex diglossic speech communities” (Fishman 1972b: 44).
The macro-level perspective implies a top-down function which describes norms
of language behavior, rather than allowing a bottom-up perspective which exam-
ines how multilinguals actually use their languages. Seen through the lens of the
macro-perspective the domains appear as rather static, i.e. one single language is
palpably dominating each domain and the boundaries between the domains are
clear and firm.
However, the language use of multilinguals has proved to be more dynamic
than the domain theory suggests. Not only do multilingual individuals use
different languages in domains, but they also use different languages in the
same domain. The premises for the participation in and belonging to different
domains are likely to change during a lifetime (e.g. García 2009; Grosjean 2001;
Skutnabb-Kangas 1981). The borders between the domains are thus blurred and
the domains overlap. For instance, the school domain does not only relate to
education but also social life between peers, resulting in the domains of school
and friendship domains to be, to a large extent, interwoven. Furthermore, in the
super-diversity (Vertovec 2007) that characterizes the globalized society the
interpretation of a domain is liable to vary, e.g. the perception and the scope
of the family domain. Another aspect that concerns contemporary society are the
multitudes of networks an individual participates in, and the fact that networks
can stretch over domains, e.g. religion could be practiced at home with friends.
The IT-revolution over the last couple of decades in general and, in particular,
the explosion of social media have also blurred the boundaries between official
and intimate domains.
Despite the fact that domain theory appears to be out of tune with a society
characterized by mobility as well as contemporary research on multilingual-
ism, “[d]omains continue to be used as an organizing principle” (Bell 2014:
134). As an instrument for categorization on the macro-level domains may
serve a function. However, domain theory is not a sufficient model for describ-
ing the complexity of the multilingualism and language use of the participants
in this study, and, I argue, nor multilingualism in general in today’s globalized
world.
4 Methodology and analytical framework

In order to explore how the participants use their languages in face-to-face
interaction, and the underlying discourses that influence their choice of lan-
guage, nexus analysis (e.g. Scollon and Scollon 2004) is used as an analytical
framework. Nexus analysis is closely related to mediated discourse analysis
(MDA), one of the differences being that MDA represents the theoretical side of
the paradigm while nexus analysis represents a methodological and practical
side (cf. Hanell and Blåsjö 2014; Norris and Jones 2005). MDA focuses primarily
on the actions taken, and, secondly, on the underlying discourses (Norris and
Jones 2005: 9), which corresponds well to the purpose of the study which
focuses on the action of language use and language choice of the participants.
The study will also compare the reported results from earlier studies (Rydenvald
2015, 2016) that show the participants’ perception of their language use in regard
to different domains. In this case the bottom-up micro perspective of nexus
analysis functions as a complement to the top-down macro perspective of
domain theory.
4.1 Nexus analysis
Nexus analysis engages exploration of “social action at the intersection of three

main elements” (Scollon and Scollon 2004: 19). The three elements consist of
discourses in place, interaction order and the historical body. Central to nexus
analysis is that nothing happens in a social vacuum, and therefore everything is
linked to earlier actions and will result in new actions. Social action Scollon and
Scollon (2004: 12) see as “any action taken by an individual with reference to a
social network”. The social action in this study is the language choice taken by
the participants in the networks linked to school and home.
“All places in the world are complex aggregates (or nexus) of many dis-
courses which circulate through them” (Scollon and Scollon 2004: 14). In nexus
analysis the element discourses in place refers to all discourses that are relevant
for the social action, and not only spoken discourses but those in the form of e.g.
architectural styles or different material (Scollon and Scollon 2004: 14) as well. In
this study I will use the element of discourses in place to denote the participants’
thoughts about the reasons for their language choice (cf. Palviainen and Boyd
2013) as they describe them in the interviews.
The element interaction order, originating from Goffman (1983), is in nexus
analysis (Scollon and Scollon 2004) used:
80 Marie Rydenvald
to talk about any of the many possible social arrangements by which we form relationships
in social interaction. Our interest in the interaction order grows out of the fact that people
behave differently depending in part whether they are alone when they act or if they are
acting together in consort with other people as they might in having a conversation
between friends, taking a university class, or consulting with a lawyer or medical doctor.
(Scollon and Scollon 2004: 13)
Metaphorically, interaction order could be described as a genre where certain

interactional behavior is expected in the social activities we engage in. In this
study I am interested in the language behavior of the multilingual participants,
i.e. what languages they use in the certain social arrangements. Interaction
order refers here to the social activities between peers in school as well as on
their way to and from school, and social activities taking place outside school
involving family or friends. In this study interaction order refers to the patterns
of language in the self-recordings and in the questionnaire.
The third element is the historical body, which refers to the habits, experi-
ences, beliefs and attitudes accumulated by an individual (Palviainen and Boyd
2013; Scollon and Scollon 2004) during the course of her/his life time. The
concept of historical body concerns the issue of how the “participants all
come to be placed at this moment and in this way to enable or to carry out
this action” (Scollon and Scollon 2004: 160). Thus, the historical body does not
simply describe the individual’s background, but also incorporates the experi-
ences mounted and embodied by it. The reported results from the survey
(Rydenvald 2015, 2016) and the interviews performed in this article describe
the participants’ historical bodies.
4.2 Data and participants
Another advantage granted by nexus analysis is that both reported quantitative

data and qualitative data from face-to-face interaction can be incorporated in the
same analysis. Within MDA, triangulation is preferably accomplished with
data from the following four sources: (1) participants’ generalization, e.g. inter-
views or surveys where the participants makes statement about their actions;
(2) “neutral” observations, e.g. recordings of actions; (3) individual participants’
experiences, e.g. life histories from interviews; and (4) observer’s interaction
with participants, e.g. discussions with participants about results from earlier
data collection (Scollon 2001; Blåsjö 2013). As will become evident from the
discussion below, data from these four sources constitute the material in the
present study. (1) In the survey the participants have answered questions about
language use, attitudes and preference in regard to different domains. In the
interviews the participants also discuss their actions in the recordings. (2) The
participants have recorded their own language use in different social settings.
(3) In the interviews the participants describe, for instance, how their multi-
lingualism has changed over their lives. The background questions in the survey
also constitute a form a life history concerning language use, migration and
schooling. (4) During the years of the data collection, I have had an ongoing
dialogical interaction with the participants, presenting and discussion results.
The data in this study thus consists of self-recordings, interviews and a
questionnaire. The data has been gathered over a period of 3½ years. The
participants in the study consist of 56 secondary school students in a Swedish
section in a European School in Belgium. They were between 15–19 years old at
the time the data was gathered. All but one have at least one parent who has
Swedish as L1, and the majority (N = 32) come from families where both parents
have Swedish as L1
The purpose of the questionnaire was to provide an overview of the parti-
cipants’ perception of their multilingualism and language use. It was answered
by 49 participants in October 2012. As a complement to this reported data, self-
recordings of face-to-face interaction were done by the participants. The second
data source thus consists of self-recordings done by a subset of 15 students from
the population of the survey in December 2014. Of these, 7 had not answered the
questionnaire at the previous occasion but did so by this data collection session.
The 15 students recorded conversations in school, at home, on their way to and
from school, and in their spare time activities. In school, recordings were done
in corridors, recreation areas, canteen, and school yard. Only one recording took
place in class, as the school administration was not receptive to recordings done
during lessons. The self-recordings cannot be regarded as representations of the
participants’ entire repertoire. Rather, they represent a sample of their repertoire.
The participants did 72 recordings that comprise a total of 20 hours 46 minutes
and 51 seconds. The recordings were analyzed with regard to where the con-
versations had been held, whether the interlocutors present in the conversation
came from networks of family or friends, and what languages were used. Simple
transcripts were made of some passages.
The third data source consists of semi-structured individual and group
interviews conducted with a subset of students that participated in the self-
recordings. The interviews take their starting point in the language use from the
self-recordings, but they also generate a general discussion about multilingual-
ism and language use. The interviews were made in March 2016 with 9 students
and then transcribed. These 9 students were a subset of the population of the 15
students in the self-recordings. The individual interviews were made with the
students, whose self-recordings revealed a multilingual situation in the home
82 Marie Rydenvald
domain, comprising a total of 6 interviews with 4 students. Group interviews

were done on two occasions with all 9 students. Together the individual and
group interviews comprise a total of 2 hours, 30 minutes and 26 seconds, divided
into individual interviews (1 hour, 16 minutes, 20 seconds), and group interviews
(1 hour, 14 minutes, 6 seconds). The interviews have been transcribed. In
connection to each data gathering session the informants have given their
permission to participate and for the data to be used. The informants and
other participants in the recordings as well as the interviews have been anon-
ymized. They have been given new names that, like their own given names,
function in a Swedish, English, and French context. The excerpts used in this
article have been translated into English.
As mentioned, throughout the 3½ years of data gathering, I have had an
ongoing discourse with the students, their Swedish teacher as well as teachers in
other subjects, the school principal and responsible authorities in Sweden, e.g.
the Swedish National Board of Education. At the time for the third data collec-
tion visit the study based on the survey was finished and had resulted in a
publication (Rydenvald 2015), which was presented to and discussed with the
students and the principal. The students participating in the self-recordings and
their teachers have also read and commented on this article.
5 Results and analysis

As accounted for in the previous section, the social action in this nexus analysis
is defined as the language choice taken by the participants in the nexus of
family and friends in the social settings of home and school. The analysis of the
results will be performed in relation to the three elements that intersect in the
social action; historical body, interaction order, and discourses in place. Figure 1
describes how these elements correspond to the data in the study.
5.1 Historical body
The historical body aims at explaining why the participants actually are in the
site of engagement executing the social action. The European School is primarily
intended for the children of the civil servants in the European Union, and thus
the parents’ work constitutes an important common feature among the partici-
pants. In addition to the parents’ professional connection with the EU, the
participants show similarities in socioeconomic family background; 92% live
Historical body Interaction order

Informants’ Informants’ interactional
background behavior in regard to patterns
Questionnaire of language use
Self-recordings
Discourses in place
Informants’ reasoning Social action
about their language choice The language choice
Interviews taken by the participants
Figure 1: Nexus analysis as used in this article.
with both their parents, 88% of the parents work and 89% of the parents have a
university education (Rydenvald 2015). They also show similarities in their
migrational background as the majority of the participants was either born in
the country of residence (N = 11/56) or immigrated there before the age of six
(N = 33/56).
Moreover, the participants share a common linguistic family background.
The majority (N = 32/56) of the participants have Swedish as their only L1 or
together with another L1. In the families (N = 23/56) where the parents have
different L1’s, the majority language of the country where they live is only
present in six families. The exception being one participant who comes from a
family in which neither of the parents have Swedish as L1. This participant was
born in Sweden and was raised there until eight years of age when the family
emigrated from Sweden to the country of residence. This participant reports
Swedish as L1 together with the parents’ L1. All participants report a close
contact with Sweden which could be seen as a linguistic extension of the family.
The majority reports several visits to Sweden each year, the majority have
summer residences in Sweden where they also spend a period of at least three
weeks during the summer.
Finally, the participants share an educational background. The majority
(N = 36/56) has had their whole schooling in the European School. Another
four started in Year 2 at primary level and yet another two have been away as
exchange students for one year. In sum, 75% of the participants have attended
the European School in which data has been collected since their second school
year. The school is situated in a European country where French is a national
majority language. However, in school the participants belong to the Swedish
84 Marie Rydenvald
section; one of the nine language section in the school. The participants have
Swedish as their L1 language of instruction, and the majority of them has
English as their L2 language of instruction. Thus, linguistic and national belong-
ings interact in the participants’ historical background and the interviews show
that they are aware of this interplay, which excerpt (1) exemplifies:
(1) Maud: yes but if I for example say should say I am Swedish but I have
never lived in Sweden then they ask eh where have you lived and I
was born and grew up in Belgium okay yes do you speak Belgian
then
The majority of the participants have been raised outside Sweden, in one or
several countries. Many students participating in international education, i.e.
TCK, lead mobile lives (Pollock and Van Reken 2009), which also applies to the
participants in this study. The results show that 43% of the students have lived
in one or more countries in addition to the country of birth and the country of
residence. The pattern of migration for these families follows two paths: either
they have lived in a series of countries before moving to Belgium, or have
Belgium as a residential base which they leave for another country for a period
of years before returning. In both cases, the majority of the countries concerned
have been hosting major EU institutions.
To sum up, both the quantitative results from the survey and qualitative
results from the interviews show that the participants share many features in
their historical bodies, e.g. family background, relating to parents’ professional
careers as well as linguistic and migrational aspects, and educational aspects.
The majority of the participants have done the entire or most of their schooling
in the European School, with Swedish and English as languages of instruction.
5.2 Interaction order
The interaction order could be described as an interactional behavior within a

given social activity. The interactional behavior differs depending on which sort
of social activity the interlocutors engage in. Furthermore, the interactional
behavior changes depending on where the social action takes place and the
relation to other interlocutors and the numbers of interlocutors participating in
the conversation. Finally, our historical body plays a part in our interactional
behavior, in that our previous knowledge, experience, and beliefs about the
interaction order have an impact on our behavior. In this study the interaction
order is concerned with the different languages the participants use in different
social activities. The social activities referred to in the nexus analysis are those
that are present in the self-recordings done by the participants. Comparisons are
also made with the reported results from the questionnaire.
The majority of the self-recordings are done in participants’ homes, in
school or on their way to or from school. Some recordings are done in the
homes of friends or relatives, in stores or when the participants are out walking
with friends or dogs. In the recordings done at home the participants talk with
parents, siblings and pets, but also with friends, girlfriends and boyfriends. In
some cases they talk to friends of their parents. The recordings done in school
mostly consist of conversations among friends and peers. The majority of the
conversations took place in either groups, i.e. four or more interlocutors, or in
pairs.
5.2.1 Interaction orders at home
The results from the self-recordings display an interaction order in the homes of
the participants which is more dynamic than the results from the survey on the
reported language use in the home domain. According to the results from the
survey, 85% of the participants report that parents most frequently use their L1
as means of communication with the participants. The recordings are to a
certain extent contradictory to this interaction order. Swedish appears to func-
tion as a default language, but this interaction order tends to be valid only as
long as all interlocutors present understand the language and/or have enough
command of the language to engage in a conversation. The tendency in the
results from the self-recordings is that the participants’ language use at home is
more multilingual than the results from the survey expected.
The recordings the participants have done in their homes reveal that the
family members may use the same language for communication, but this inter-
action order is changed when non-family members are present. On the one hand
Swedish could be interpreted as a default language, but on the other hand
Swedish only is spoken in the recordings in the families where both parents
have Swedish as L1 and when no other people are present. Eric and Robin, who
come from families where both parents have Swedish as L1, serve as examples of
this interaction order, as well as the discrepancy between the results from the
questionnaire and the recordings.
In the questionnaire, Eric and Robin answer that they and their parents use
Swedish as language of communication. However, Robin’s parents divorced
and his mother has a new partner, José, who lives with her, Robin and his
sister. In the recordings Robin uses English with José and also with his sister
86 Marie Rydenvald
when she is part of the conversation. When José is not involved in the
conversation, the siblings use Swedish between them. Robin uses Swedish
with his mother but she answers him back in English most of the time. All
family members speak French with the dog. Robin also uses English at home
with friends. For example, in one of the recordings Robin goes to his room,
after having dinner with the family, in order to do his homework in physics in
Swedish. While doing that he calls a friend on the computer and chats with
him in English.
Eric uses Swedish with his mother in the recordings done at home, but when
his non-Swedish speaking girlfriend is present they all use English. In one
recording done by Eric they are looking at the finals of the Swedish version of
the TV-show “Idol”. The program is in Swedish but Eric and his mother are
discussing, commenting and explaining what goes on in the program in English
since the girlfriend does not understand Swedish.
5.2.2 Interaction orders in school
Also the recorded data in the school domain shows a slightly different result
than the reported results. The results from the survey of the reported language
use with friends show that the participants have a multilingual language prac-
tice with their friends. Around 80% of the participants report that they most
frequently use several languages with friends in school as well as in their spare
time. Furthermore 46% report that they most frequently use Swedish in school.
The majority of the self-recordings outside the participants’ homes are done in
school. The results from the self-recordings indicate an interaction order where
Swedish is used with two or three peers, and English is used in groups of three
or more peers. Very little French is used in the recordings, but according to the
results from the interviews the participants use French with friend in their spare
time, i.e. outside the school domain. In the recordings the participants use
English to a substantially larger extent than what they have reported in the
survey.
The recordings done in school take place outside the classroom in recreation
areas, corridors and the canteen. The communication is mostly done in groups
with friends. There are no adults present in these recordings. Some recordings
are done on the participants’ way to and from school, and the majority of these
conversations takes place in pairs. In the typical scenario a group of students
leave school and then split up in different directions, where the participant who
is recording continues with one friend on the bus, the metro, or by foot. In many
recordings they pass by a grocery store on their way home.
The general patterns of language use with friends in the school displayed in
the recordings are that the participants use English as language of communica-
tion in groups. Swedish is typically used when the participants are together with
only Swedish speaking peers. The most common example of this scenario in the
recordings is when a participant has a conversation with one friend on their way
to or from school. The interaction order displayed in the recordings also indi-
cates that the language use of the participants cannot be neatly tucked and
packed into different domains. The domains interact, e.g. the social life with
friends is not something that takes place in a domain of its own but is part of
both the school and home domain. Furthermore, the participants use several
languages together with their friends and peers, as well as in public spaces like
streets and grocery stores. Finally, it becomes relatively clear that the perception
of the minority language as a dominating language in intimate domains, such as
home, is more of a top-down theoretical construct than a reality in the partici-
pants’ lives. Swedish may be seen as a default language in private contexts, but
other languages frequently enter the home domain. In line with this argument
expressions such as home language could be questioned.
5.3 Discourses in place
The third element of the nexus analysis that influences the social action is
called discourses in place, referring to all discourses that are relevant for the
social action, which in this case is the language choice of the participants. In
this study the discourses appear mainly through the interviews with the
participants based on the language use in the self-recordings. From the ana-
lysis, two principles emerge that dominate the discourses in place, namely the
principles of inclusion and, what I metaphorically define as, “the least common
denominator”.
5.3.1 The principles of language choice
In the case of the participants, language choice is of interest as multilingu-

alism is a firm part of their historical bodies as well as the interaction orders
they are likely to meet in their everyday lives. They are multilingual, they live
in an officially bilingual country, their parents work for a supranational
multilingual institution and they are students of a bilingual educational
form. On the one hand their multilingualism provides them with the possibi-
lity to choose, but on the other hand the multilingual context they are part of
88 Marie Rydenvald
requires language choice. In excerpt (2) below, Robin’s language choice could
be said to be based on the principle of “the least common denominator”. His
aim is to keep the conversation going as smoothly as possible, which he
assesses to be done the most successfully in French with the interlocutor in
question.
(2) Marie: when you are about to initiate a conversation or address someone
how do you choose language then
Robin: then I use the language that the person I am talking with knows
the best so if I am going to talk to my Italian friend Fabio who I use
to talk French with all the time because he knows French best and
I don’t speak Italian
Marie: I see
Robin: and he knows French better than English so then I choose French
with him
Marie: okay eh and the reason for you to do that is that it’s easier you said
it’s easier
Robin: it flows better if like the person you are talking with understands
straight away what you are saying the conversation flows sort of
better
Robin is proficient in Swedish, English and French, which enables him to

choose between the three languages. His multilingualism could be described
as a pool of linguistic resources (cf. Fought 2006: 21) from which he chooses
the language which he assumes to best suit the conversation and its partici-
pant(s), which in this case is French. This pool of linguistic resources and the
possibility to choose the language assumed to best facilitate the interaction
could be seen as a parallel to the theoretical view on multilingualism as
dynamic.
As excerpt (2) shows, Robin does not only assess aspects of the inter-
locutor’s repertoire, but also assess his own repertoire in order to find the
best mutual language. This is further illustrated in excerpt (3) below where
Maud explicitly includes both the perspective of the interlocutor and herself
in the language choice based on the principles of “the least common denomi-
nator”. Maud says that in the language choice her command of the language
as well as her feeling of being comfortable with the language are taken
into consideration. She is not prepared to choose a language preferred
by the interlocutor, but which she herself is not comfortable with. Excerpt
(3) illustrates that choice of language is a joint action rather than an adjust-
ment to other interlocutors.
(3) Maud: if it is someone who speaks Swedish I want to speak Swedish with
that person if it is someone who prefers to speak English I speak
English and if it is someone who prefers to speak French I can
speak French with that person
Marie: now you say what that person prefers
Maud: yes those which I am
Marie: able to
Maud: am comfortable with like I can talk
Marie: so it’s partly based on that you are comfortable with the languages
and then you can steer into [a language] you think believe the
other person is the most comfortable with
Maud: yes
Closely connected to the principle of “the least common denominator” is the

principle of inclusion, which excerpt (4) below exemplifies. In this excerpt (4)
Eric explains that one reason he speaks English with his mother, although he in
the survey answered they speak Swedish, is that his mother has explicitly
requested everyone to speak English when Eric’s girlfriend Sheila is present.
He believes this interaction order to be based on consideration for Sheila, and
her feeling of being included in the conversation. Vincent supports the idea of
language choice based on inclusion. Both Eric and Vincent express the goal to
be that of understanding, In Eric’s case this goal is directed to the interlocutor’s
view and in Vincent’s case towards the subject.
(4) Eric: so I suppose that’s why I often speak English with my mum why
we use that [English] when it’s just us talking but it’s mostly
because she wants me to speak English with her when she
[Sheila] is there that’s it I suppose but then
Marie: maybe it’s a stupid question in a way but why does your mum
want you to speak English when Sheila is there
Eric: I don’t know but I suppose she wants her to feel included sort of
I don’t really know
Vincent: but you know that’s at home also if you are at someone else’s
house and their parents use another language than the person
you are with it’s bett.. it is more fun for you and nicer for you if
you understand what they are talking about
Besides Eric’s mother, who wants the family to use English when Sheila is
around, few parents have explicitly voiced an interaction order at home.
Nevertheless, the interviews show that the participants agree to the
90 Marie Rydenvald
interaction order where they at home are expected to use a language that
everyone present can understand, i.e. to use the strategies of inclusion and
“the least common denominator”. In Louise’s family the parents have not
explicitly formulated a language policy for the family, but the parents have
acted toward the OPOL strategy, i.e. One Person One Language (cf. Palvianen
and Boyd 2013). Louise’s father mainly uses his L1 French with the children
and her mother uses her L1 Swedish. Her father understands Swedish and her
mother has a good command of French. One exception to the interaction
order of the parents are when Louise’s mother says something important
which is vital that the whole family understands, then she speaks French.
Excerpt (5) could be seen as an example where the language policy, albeit
implicit, has to yield for the principles of inclusion and “the least common
denominator”.
(5) Marie: oh yeah but is it also AT HOME do you have any explicit like
rules about using one language with one parent for instance
Swedish has your mum said that you should speak Swedish
with me
Louise: no it’s more like she ALWAYS has spoken Swedish with us and
dad has ALWAYS spoken French with us of course they cheat and
would just all of a sudden have a discussion in Swedish between
the two of them and dad says Louise something in Swedish but
otherwise it is
Marie: but hey ah but apart from that what language do you use at home
if you are together all of you if you are having dinner together do
you have a common language or is it like you
Louise: it’s not one single language so it’s not one language around the
dinner table but sometimes mum says now I am going to use
French to all of us just because ah dad has to listen to this too it is
important and then she doesn’t have to say it twice
Implicitly in the excerpt Louise also touches on the exception to the principle
of inclusion in language choice that tends to be accepted by the participants:
if you don’t expect a person to be interested in the topic you don’t need to
adhere to the strategy of “the least common denominator”. Eric and his
father make another example of this exception. They are engaged in a sport
on elite level, and when they discuss this sport they usually use Swedish
even when Eric’s girlfriend Sheila is present since Eric says the subject is of
no interest for her.
5.3.2 The languages in place
As already mentioned, there is a discrepancy between the participants’ reported

language use and their language use in the recordings. In the home domain the
participants use less Swedish than reported, and in the school domain their
language use tends to be less multilingual than reported. Partly the principles of
inclusion and of “the least common denominator” contribute to this discre-
pancy. For example, excerpt (3) above where Maud explains the basis for her
language choice, does not only serve as an example of the principles of inclu-
sion and “the least common denominator”, but also illustrates an interaction
order of languages which tends to be valid for several of the participants. Maud
starts the excerpt by saying: “if it is someone who speaks Swedish I want to
speak Swedish with that person if it is someone who prefers to speak English I
speak English and if it is someone who prefers to speak French I can speak
French with that person”.
As Maud phrases it, in accordance with the interlocutor’s preferences she
wants to speak Swedish, neutrally states that she speaks English and says that
she can speak French. As discussed earlier, Swedish can on the one hand be
perceived as a default language, but on the other hand the opportunities to use
Swedish as means of communication are fairly limited. The principles of inclu-
sion and “the least common denominator” tend to limit the conversations to
situations where only Swedish speaking peers, parents or other persons are
present in small groups.
(6) Victor: in most cases English if I don’t talk to any of these guys [Swedish
peers]
Eric: if there is just one Swedish person I address them in Swedish or if
it’s only the two of us it’s going to be Swedish if we are several
people and there is someone who is sort of like my girlfriend then I
address them in English and then… it’s the fact that I almost never
address someone who is not Swedish in any other languages than
English
In the self-recordings mostly Swedish and English are used. As Maud says in
excerpt (3) above that if anyone prefers to speak French she can do that. The
majority of the informants can speak French and in the interviews Daniel,
Louise, Maud, Robin, Scott, and Stella, say they use French with friends in
their spare time, which the following excerpt (7) illustrates:
92 Marie Rydenvald
(7) Daniel: I wake up and speak Swedish with my family get here [school]
speak mostly English and Swedish and then I get back home and
speak Swedish and then I meet my friends and speak French
French is one of the national languages in the country where the participants live.
In a strict sense French is thus an L2 for the majority of the participants. Despite
the status French has as an L2 for the participants and the fact that the majority
knows and uses French, there is not much French spoken in the recordings done
at home or in school, Louise’s recordings being the exception as French is an L1
for her. One recording, however, is done in a sports activity, where the language
used is French. Parallels could be drawn to the results from the survey (Rydenvald
2015) where 41% report that they participate in sports activities in French. In
excerpt (8) below Eric says that not participating in a sports activity has had a
negative impact on his French, which is also confirmed in excerpt (6) above where
he says he very seldom chooses French to start a conversation.
(8) Eric: but now I don’t play football any longer so my French has deterio-
rated quite a lot and I hardly speak any French at all
Regardless the participants’ proficiency levels of French or frequency of use, the

participants consistently position themselves towards French in the interviews.
They comment on e.g. who they speak French with, if they can or cannot speak
French and if their friends and parents speak French. In the interviews it
becomes evident that French is a language in the participants’ multilingualism
irrespective of their knowledge of the language. They have an affiliation to the
language (cf. Rampton 1990). Tentatively, the participants’ affiliation to French
could also be a contributing factor to the discrepancy between the results from
the survey indicating a language use with friends that is multilingual to a larger
extent than the language use in the self-recordings. English is a frequently used
language in the recordings, and as the analysis of the interaction order above
showed, the participants use more English in the self-recordings than what they
have reported in the survey. The most frequently used language in the record-
ings done in school is English. As excerpt (9) below illustrates, the participants
also confirm this interaction order.
(9) Scott: ehum yes depending on who I am talking with but usually it is
Swedish and English it is often people from school
Louise: because English I often speak in school with friends who don’t
speak Swedish or French
Theo: eh phu yeah since English then is like it is you know so to speak
the majority it takes over sort of I can’t imagine a situation where I
sort of have to think that now I have to speak another language
Regardless the participants’ multilingualism and the fact that the major dis-
courses in place consist of the principles of inclusion and the least common
denominator, English tends to be a safe common language to land in for the
participants. The prime reason for this, I claim, is not that English is a lingua
franca in the international society, but the dominating second language in the
European School which the participants attend. In the excerpt (10) below Stella
shows an awareness that English functions as an L2 in school.
(10) Stella: then most people have English as a second language [L2] in school
not always but in most cases you can presume that the person
knows English better than French so then maybe it becomes sort of
slightly more natural to speak English
In the European School the participants attend there are nine different language
sections which the students are grouped in according to their L1’s. In addition,
in the year group of the participants 75% of the students have English as their L2
language of instruction. In this light, an underlying discourse could be that
English, as the dominating second language, becomes a language which most
students are supposed to be able to speak. Not only is English chosen according
to the principle of “the least common denominator”, but it also safe to use
English as a common language. The choice of English would probably not
endanger the conversation, nor create any awkward situations between the
interlocutors.
The status of English as a dominating L2 could also tentatively be linked to
the international society, which the participants are a part of, and to which
English is attributed a common language. Whether or not English could be seen
as a lingua franca, in the sense of “a useful instrument for making oneself
understood in international encounters” (House 2003: 559), in the international
society could be discussed, but for the participants it becomes more than a
lingua franca through its status as an official L2 in school.
In excerpt (11) below, English is given an unquestioned priority over
French which, besides the principles of inclusion and “the least common
denominator”, might illustrate its prevailing position as the default language
of the international society. In Maud’s family all speak French except her
father. If Maud has French speaking friends at home, the family speaks
94 Marie Rydenvald
French. If her father is present they all, including the French speaking friends
switch to English in order to include him in the conversation. It appears to be
an uncriticized, legitimate switch. As such, it could be perceived as a position-
ing in regard to the power of the discourse (Harré et al. 2009) of English as
dominating L2.
(11) Maud: then everyone changes over to English but in my family we all
speak French except my dad so then if I invite someone home no
matter if the person speaks French or English we speak English
because he can’t speak French
Furthermore, the interviews display a tension between English and French,

where French is pictured by the participants as a language spoken in school
mainly by the students that are native speakers of French or other Romance
languages. This tension might be related to the presence of an international
society parallel with the national majority society. In the excerpt (12) below
Robin is of the opinion that the native French speakers do not need English as
much as other (non-francophone) speakers.
(12) Robin: the French and the Italians seem to be the only ones that manage
well without necessarily speaking that much English there are
many French many Italians and very often you hear them speak
only French they can communicate with others too in French since
we live in Belgium yes they don’t need English in the way many
others do
In the excerpt (13) Robin also indicates that for many non-francophone
students in international education English is a necessary language. Students
in international education, i.e. TCK are often referred to as elite bilinguals. As
mentioned, elite bilingualism (Paulston 1978) tends to be regarded as a volun-
tary (Romaine 1995) and uncomplicated (Baker and Prys-Jones 1998: 16) form of
bilingualism which has the function of a status driven investment (Butler and
Hakuta 2004) resulting in future access to the global market of work and higher
studies, rather than a life sustaining necessity. In excerpt (12) above, Robin
contradicts this opinion as he implies that being a part of the international
society requires knowledge of English. English might be an investment for the
future, but it does not appear to be as voluntary and uncomplicated for TCK as
claimed.
Paradoxically, the status of English as dominating L2, could also provide

one plausible explanation to the existing discourse in place of inclusion, as well
as adding an explanation to why the participants position themselves as more
multilingual in the survey than they give proof of in the self-recordings. The
European Schools offer a bilingual international education. In the school of the
participants there are nine official first languages, a situation that sets the
multilingual normativity. English and French constitute L1 languages among
these languages, i.e. they are included within the nine L1 languages. But the
English native speakers do not own the English language as it is a dominating
L2. The shared ownership of English as L2 allows an inclusion in a language that
belongs to everybody.
A tentative comparison could be made with international schools, where
English also often becomes a dominating language. Unlike European Schools,
international schools are firmly anchored in the English-speaking world; often
the curriculum is modelled from an English-American foundation, school lea-
ders and teaching staff are English native speakers and English is used as the
single language of instruction (Carder 2007). The picture given is that English in
international schools holds the position of an L1 language to strive towards,
rather than, as in the European Schools, a dominating L2 offering a common
language to meet in. Implicitly, using English as the dominant language of
instruction may also place the students’ L1’s in an inferior position, signaling
that multilingualism is less valued than native-like proficiency in English.
Carder goes as far as to argue that international school students’ “bilingualism
is often incidental” (Carder 2007: xii), which is not, as becomes clear in this
study, the case of European School students.
6 Conclusion
I summarize below the main findings in relation to the questions addressed in
the study. How do the participants describe their multilingualism and language
use? Which patterns of language use do they relate to? What influences the
many situations of language choice they constantly face? The social action
(Scollon and Scollon 2004) investigated in this study is the language choice of
the participants. Nexus analysis shows that their language choice is primarily
influenced by the principles of inclusion and, what I metaphorically define as,
“the least common denominator”. Concerning the principles, two aspects
deserve to be noted. First, the rational and efficient nature of the discourses in
place (Scollon and Scollon 2004). Surprisingly, no ideological discourses seem
96 Marie Rydenvald
to be connected to the language choice of the participants. Rather their language

choice seems influenced by a taken-for-granted, rational multilingual context.
They choose language in order to facilitate the conversation itself as well as the
participation of all interlocutors in the conversation.
Second, there is a striking consensus among the participants regarding the
principles of inclusion and “the least common denominator”. One plausible
explanation for their consensus could be found in the similarity of school
background in their historical bodies. The vast majority of the participants
have attended the European Schools for their entire, or nearly entire, school
history. In short, through their socialization into the school milieu they have a
shared frame of reference, through which they also learn interaction orders from
each other, as well as discourses about language behavior, attitudes, and
beliefs. Moreover, the participants’ parents’ employment by the EU, in addition
to the participants attending the European School, is liable to reinforce the
family’s belonging to the international society.
One interesting result brought forward by the nexus analysis is the discre-
pancies between the participants’ reported patterns of language use and the
patterns of language use displayed in the recordings by the same participants. In
the recordings done in the participants’ homes, the parents’ L1s, but Swedish in
particular, are used to a lesser degree when compared to the reported results.
Swedish could be considered as a default language at home, but the self-
recordings show that it consistently yields to other languages that are brought
into the homes, primarily by other sources than family members. Secondly, the
reported results from the survey portray the participants as engaging in a
thoroughly multilingual practice with their friends, while, in the recordings
English is to a large extent used as a language of communication between
friends and peers.
These discrepancies could be discussed in the light of domain theory
(Fishman 1965, 1972a) and the principles of language use. In the questionnaire,
domain theory has been used as an organizing principle, i.e. the questions relate
to inter-domain subjects, places and role-relations of individuals, e.g. food,
home and siblings in case of the home domain. Relying on the domain theory
and its top-down macro-perspective (cf. Fishman 1972b) restricts the possibilities
to investigate language use as it might be performed in face-to-face interaction.
Already the reported results indicate a heterogeneous language use within the
domains, but the reported results do not account for external factors, e.g.
languages brought into the domain, that have an impact on the language choice
in the domains, since only domain specific factors are asked for. The top-down
perspective inherent in domain theory attributes a static quality to the domains.
This is not compatible with the perspective of dynamic multilingualism (e.g.
García 2009; García and Wei 2014), which has gained currency within contem-
porary research on multilingualism. The static perspective of language use could
bring forth participant bias in the reported results: the participants answer in
accordance to general beliefs of domain related language behavior, i.e. they
answer towards the norm. Interestingly enough, the triangulation of data in the
nexus analysis shows that, in the case of the participants, the bias works in both
directions. In the recordings, the home is more multilingual than reported, and
the interaction with peers more monolingual. In sum, domain theory does not
appear to be sufficient for describing the patterns of language use the partici-
pants relate to.
The discrepancy concerning language use with friends and peers could also
be discussed in relation to the principles of inclusion and “the least common
denominator”, as well as the status English holds in the European Schools. In
the self-recordings, English is used in conversations with friends and peers to
higher degrees than is shown in the reported results. English is also the major L2
in the school of the participants. When, in facing a language choice, the
participants assess their linguistic repertoires as well as the other interlocutors’
linguistic repertoires, English becomes a safe and convenient language to meet
in, as the majority of the school’s students speak it. Furthermore, the status
English has as L2 in school could imply that the students do not have to live up
to native speaker norm. Finally, English is also the lingua franca of the inter-
national society (Seidlhofer 2011) which both the participants and their parents
are part of through school and work. Tentatively, English is incorporated in
many of the interaction orders (Goffman 1983) encountered by the participants
in their everyday lives, which may add to the acceptance of English as a
common language for mutual interaction.
Paradoxically, the fact that English is officially an L2 in the European
Schools (Euresc 2016) could also contribute to an explanation of why the
participants, according to the reported results, perceive themselves as having
a more multilingual practice with friends than they actually give proof of in the
self-recordings. The school promotes multilingualism and recognizes all stu-
dents’ L1s through the language sections. The languages are thus not consigned
to the position of minority languages. The participants also live in a country that
has more than one official language. Their parents work for the EU, which is a
multilingual institution. Some of the participants have parents with different
L1’s. Multilingualism is thus represented in all elements of the nexus (Scollon
and Scollon 2004), i.e. historical body, interaction order and discourses in place.
It is highly probable that multilingualism becomes the norm for the participants.
As multilingualism constitutes the norm, the participants are likely to act
towards that norm, and as a result include all the languages they have to relate
98 Marie Rydenvald
to regardless the frequency of use. For example, French is a national language

and an official L2 in school, and in the interviews the participants clearly show
that they relate to French, no matter how little they use it. However, the
affiliation (Rampton 1990) of the participants to French could be viewed as a
manifestation not only of their multilingualism, but also of their attachment and
identification (Leung et al. 1997) with the francophone setting of their interna-
tional lives.
Students in international education are often categorized as elite bilinguals.
As such they have not attracted much attention in research on multilingualism.
This lack of interest is presumably linked to the believed voluntary (cf. Paulston
1978; Romaine 1995) and unproblematic (Baker and Prys Jones 1998) nature of
their multilingualism. However, this study shows that multilingualism is an
inextricable part of participants’ lives where they are required to use several
languages on a daily basis, i.e. a common language situation shared by many
teenagers around the world. Linguistic research, conducted beyond the biased
notion of elite bilingualism, on the multilingualism of students in international
education would not only deepen our understanding of their multilingualism,
but also of multilingual teenagers in general.
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IJSL 2019; 254: 71–101

Abstract: European Schools provide a multilingual international education for

Keywords: multilingual teenagers, language use, language choice, European

*Corresponding author: Marie Rydenvald, Department of Swedish, University of Gothenburg,

group of multilingual teenagers that uses several languages on a daily basis

multilingualism, rather than a marginalizing stance taken on the ground of its

2.1 The European School

The European School was founded in 1957 as a result of a parental initiative in

2.2 TCK and elite bilinguals

The students in European Schools, like students in international education in

As mentioned earlier, it is not unusual that students in international educa-

3 Multilingualism and language use

3.1 Multilingualism and related terminological issues

In the wake of the increased mobility of globalization, the understanding of

dynamic multilingualism, García (2009) aims at describing how multilingualism

‘Multilingualism’ is here taken to be the use by individuals, groups, organizations or

3.2 Domain theory

4 Methodology and analytical framework

4.1 Nexus analysis

Nexus analysis engages exploration of “social action at the intersection of three

Metaphorically, interaction order could be described as a genre where certain

4.2 Data and participants

Another advantage granted by nexus analysis is that both reported quantitative

domain, comprising a total of 6 interviews with 4 students. Group interviews

5 Results and analysis

5.1 Historical body

Historical body Interaction order

Figure 1: Nexus analysis as used in this article.

5.2 Interaction order

The interaction order could be described as an interactional behavior within a

5.2.1 Interaction orders at home

5.2.2 Interaction orders in school

5.3 Discourses in place

5.3.1 The principles of language choice

In the case of the participants, language choice is of interest as multilingu-

Robin is proficient in Swedish, English and French, which enables him to

Closely connected to the principle of “the least common denominator” is the

5.3.2 The languages in place

As already mentioned, there is a discrepancy between the participants’ reported

Regardless the participants’ proficiency levels of French or frequency of use, the

Furthermore, the interviews display a tension between English and French,

Paradoxically, the status of English as dominating L2, could also provide

to be connected to the language choice of the participants. Rather their language

to regardless the frequency of use. For example, French is a national language

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