This paper deals with linguistic diversity as it occurs in a conversation over dinner between three young Turkish–Danish men living in Denmark. I argue that terms like bilingual or multilingual are inappropriate in order to describe this verbal interaction because these terms presuppose that linguistic production is divided in categories in advance. Instead I suggest the term polylingual as more sufficient in describing the fluent use of linguistic features which are locally constructed as categories of linguistic features, regardless of how linguistic features are categorised in society at large. Using sequentially based micro analysis I show how polylingual behaviour is used for a range of linguistic purposes. I focus on the interplay between polylingual behaviour and other linguistic resources used in e.g. performance in order to negotiate local identity and power relations.
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