Swiss Multilingualism and Global English: Bourdieusian Capitals in Contestation

This paper reports on a small-scale research study into the beliefs of teenagers in Switzerland Swiss national languages and their status relative to English. High school students (n = 232) French-speaking city Lausanne completed questionnaire about economic, social, cultural symbolic value German, Italian The data was then analysed quantitatively by computing means, standard deviations, significance, effect sizes, interpreted relation capitals Bourdieu. findings corroborate previous studies widespread shared high ascribed English for purposes. They also reveal, however, solid respect support multilingualism. thus suggests that students’ estimation is not at expense languages, German Italian. Even though multilingualism, they nevertheless rank economic capital higher than Finally, apparent accommodation beside explained regard multilingual tradition.