The Language Portrait: the visual representation of multilingualism and relevance of linguistic hierarchies

Linguistic and cultural diversity in modern societies is rapidly intensifying, generating the necessity for educational systems to deal with the coexistence of several languages in the classroom. Language portraits have become a widespread method among teachers and language researchers over the past few years (Kasap, S. 2021). Language portraits consist of the outline of a body silhouette, which language users have to color and customize in order to create a visual representation of their linguistic repertoire. In addition, students can explain their portraits with a written or verbal interpretation to allow a deeper understanding of their thoughts. The data collected from the portraits and the interviews provides an interesting insight into the language experiences of these people. The aim of this paper is to explore how universities manage cultural diversity, whether it is enhanced or ignored, for the purpose of raising students’ awareness of their linguistic identities and encouraging a critical analysis of teachers’ approaches towards linguistic diversity. To this end, the present study uses language portraits as a tool to investigate language hierarchies in multilingual students, as a result of their background and education.