Marie Rickert

I am a Linguistic Anthropologist specializing in Linguistic Diversity. Currently, I am a final year PhD candidate at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University and the Institute of Dutch Philology, University of Münster. My research approaches social interaction as mediated by and simultaneously producing experiences, identifications and ideologies, grounded in the intersection of language and culture. I am interested in the ways in which multilingualism takes shape in sociocultural contexts, with a specific emphasis on regional and other minority languages, language practices in educational settings, and the role of language in shaping processes of identification.

My current project focuses on children’s and teachers’ participation in language practices in in linguistically diverse Early Childcare and Education on both sides of the German-Dutch border. The project is conducted in the scope of LIMES, funded by the European Commission’s Marie-Curie COFUND programme. It examines how language policies, language ideologies and language hierarchies mutually shape each other as well as toddlers’ linguistic socialization, against the background of the region’s linguistic diversity. I explore this this by means of ethnography; combining long-term fieldwork in Early Childhood Education and Care, participant observation and interviews with audio and video recordings, drawing on linguistic anthropology and multimodal conversation analysis.

I hold a M.Sc. Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam and a B.A. in Cultural Studies with a minor in Educational Sciences from the University of Bremen.

News

Oct 1, 2023	New paper in Internationale Neerlandistiek
Aug 1, 2023	All four papers of PhD dissertation published
Mar 21, 2023	Children’s book ‘Zing je mee/Singst du mit‘ out now!
Mar 1, 2023	Upcoming talk at EELCE 9
Feb 16, 2023	NL Lab lunch lecture on "Emotions in the L2 Classroom"

Selected Publications

Singing in semiotic assemblages. Pre-schoolers’ use of songs in interaction

Marie Rickert

Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 2022

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This paper analyzes toddlers’ spontaneous singing of songs in non-formalized interactions in pre-school from a language socialization perspective. Songs are highly intertextual resources which are interrelated with specific sociocultural contexts and/or communities. My analysis of instances selected from audio recordings and field notes from 4.5 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a pre-school in the Netherlands shows that spontaneous singing can take on interactional functions and reflects socialized knowledge. Closely investigating song-choice and particular times when children chose to engage in singing, it becomes clear that the practice gains meaning as part of co-created assemblages in which material objects, bodies and place stand in inter-relation with the deployed musical and other linguistic resources. The way children draw on songs as a resource resonates with the sociocultural environment of the pre-school, where singing comprises a meaningful social practice in formalized interaction between teachers and children.
Bidialectal pre-school: enacting participation frames through linguistic and other semiotic means

Marie Rickert

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 2022

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This paper analyses how teachers and toddlers enact participation frames in bidialectal early education in Limburg, the Netherlands. Teachers’ language choice is often context-bound as they use the national language, Dutch, for instruction and the regional language, Limburgish, for playful or social-emotional situations with individual children. Drawing on ethnographic data generated during 4.5 months of fieldwork in a bidialectal pre-school, I address how teachers and toddlers use the two language varieties, respectively, as well as other semiotic means to shape situational participation in multiparty interaction. My multi-modal analysis of selected video- and audio-recordings of interactions of two teachers and the target child Felix as well as varying other participants shows that teachers may use Limburgish to move into a personal conversation amongst colleagues in front of the children. In contrast, they use Dutch to stage conversations which they intend to be overheard by the children. Closely investigating children’s orientation towards participatory statuses and their interactional consequences, it becomes evident that children co-create participation frames initiated by the teachers at times and subvert them at other times.