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Communicating Identity in Intercultural Communication 429

2.2. Formations of “us” and “them” by communicative style
Communicative style (see chapter 9 by Kotthoff in this volume) is another
possibility to index and/or symbolize a certain social identity. There are many
studies of how young people in urban settings use vernacular, linguistic creativ-
ity, playfulness, polyphony, and bricolage as resources for “acts of identity” (Le
Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985, Irvine 2001). Distinctive patterns of bilingual
speech among adolescents frequently make use of stylized immigrant speech
varieties that function as group consolidating resources (Androutsopoulos and
Georgakopoulou 2003). In contemporary multi-ethnic urban environments ‘lan-
guage crossing’ can be observed, i.e. the use of minority languages or language
varieties which do not belong to the speaker, e.g. German youths using English
or Turkish (Auer and Dirim 2003), Anglo youths using varieties of Jamaican
Creole in England or African-American vernacular English in the USA (Ramp-
ton 1995, Cutler 1999). As an interactional practice, language crossing fore-
grounds ethnic group relations and at least partially challenges traditional con-
ceptions of ethnicity.
As an example of the development of a socio-cultural identity through a
communicative style, we summarize an ethnographic and interaction analytic
study of a group of Turkish girls made by Keim (2003, 2004, forthcoming). The
girls, who grew up in a typical Turkish migrant neighborhood in the inner city
of Mannheim, Germany, categorize themselves as ‘power-girls’. On the basis
of biographical interviews with group members and long-term observation of
group interactions, Keim reconstructs the formation of an ethnically-defined
ghetto clique and the group’s development into educated, modern German-Tur-
kish young women. She describes a change in the stylistic repertoire of the girls
that is closely related to key experiences of their social life relevant to the
group’s changing socio-cultural identity.
Keim (forthcoming) summarizes that many migrant families have been liv-
ing in Germany for over 30 years, and most of their children view Germany as
their home country. In the course of time, migrant ‘ghettos’ emerged and stabil-
ized in many inner city districts. Preschool institutions and schools were and
still are badly equipped for the instruction of children from various cultural and
linguistic backgrounds (see chapter 16 by Scherr in this volume). Many teachers
in Germany saw, and still see, migrant children as double semi-linguals with
serious deficits. A high percentage of migrant children are not successful in
school and have few opportunities in the German job market. Out of frustration
with their children’s educational and professional failure and out of fear that
they would become more and more estranged from ‘their culture’, many Turkish
parents tried to educate their children with increasing rigidity in their own tradi-
tional norms and values. One of the central problems for young migrants has
been coming to terms with their parents’ traditional demands and, at the same
time, experiencing failure in and exclusion from more advanced educational and