Positive and negative identity practices in heritage language education

Previous research into heritage language education has often focused on the connection between frequency of language use and heritage language speakers’ maintenance of their heritage language. This article expands this research into language use to additionally examine the ways in which heritage language speaking children are discursively positioned and how this positioning in turn contributes to their own positive and negative sociolinguistic identities. By having children narrate their creation of linguistic identity portraits Krumm, H. J. (2001). Kinder und ihre Sprachen – lebendige Mehrsprachigkeit. Vienna: Eviva; (2010). Mehrsprachigkeit in sprachenporträts und sprachenbiographien von migrantinnen und migranten. Der Arbeitskreis Deutsch als Fremdsprache/Zweitsprache Rundbrief, 61, 16–24, they are able to present a holistic view of how they internalise their languages, thus creating a visual artefact that reveals their embodied ideologies and multilingual identity construction and negotiation. The results of this research show that the ideologies that the students are exposed to and the ways that they are positioned at school and at home affect their ongoing positive and negative multilingual identity development and negotiation.