I am an advocate of 'compassionate linguistics': for me, this involves efforts to move away from linguistics as a means to categorize (standard vs. non-standard, grammatical vs. non-grammatical, monolingual vs. bilingual) towards making use of linguistics to support a heterogeneous and inclusive society. In our research and teaching, my team members and I investigate multilingualism with respect to language development, literacy/ies, and socio-economic conditioning. Language use by soccer fans, reading development, learner biographies in Cologne schools or the high Atlas Mountains - our wide range of linguistic interests is motivated by calling into question traditional epistemes about descriptivism and separateness of languages in the individual mind.

Email: chris.bongartz@uni-koeln.de