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AcknowledgmentsThe author wishes to thank Michael Meeuwis, Frank Brisard and two anonymous referees for their useful comments. AbstractThis article argues that naming linguistic practices "ethnolectal" is a praxis with ideological consequences that sociolinguists fail sufficiently to address. It suggests that a transformation of linguistic differences into ethnolect-codes quickly falls prey to homogenizing groups and their language use, obscures speakers' styling practices as well as the relations between "ethnolect" and standard language speakers. Furthermore, "ethnolect" as an analytical concept buttresses the idea that linguistic practices are caused by ethnicity, when it is more likely to assume language use is shaped by how speakers interpret prevailing representations of ethnicity and style their language use in relation to that. As an alternative, I argue that ethnolects be viewed as representations of particular ways of speaking that do not necessarily correspond to systematic linguistic practices. Sociolinguists therefore need to investigate how local and general perceptions of ways of speaking lead to specific styling practices, and integrate these into their descriptions. In addition, they need to be aware that their own work is social action as well, which requires taking into account the concerns of who gets labeled. This is illustrated with data from a case study showing how Belgian adolescents of Moroccan background resist an ethnolectal categorization of their routine Dutch.

This paper considers the way a group of Moroccan adolescents in Belgium engages with the hegemonic structures that envelop them at school by constructing playful linguistic sabotage. Much in contrast with general stereotypes about these boysÕ supposed incompetence in Dutch, Moroccan boys could be observed styling several Dutch varieties and employing them to wrong-foot adults and authorities in situations of increased accountability. Crucial in this practice was the concept of doing ridiculous, which involved play-acting, creating ambiguity and feigning enthusiasm for schoolish, research-related or other ÔboringÕ activities. Doing ridiculous with linguistic varieties helped Moroccan boys to shape and negotiate their participation at school and challenge stereotyping identity categories and elbow-room limiting situations.

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This paper discusses data from a Dutch-medium secondary school in 8 Brussels where almost all pupils speak a different language than Dutch at home. It 9 illustrates that teachers' preference for maintaining the school's monolingual policy 10 did not preclude their creation of haphazard or humorous multilingual interstices 11 that temporarily alleviated the friction between the school language policy and the 12 reality of pupils' linguistic repertoires, and promoted the construction of an 13 agreeable classroom climate. The paper argues, however, that these multilingual 14 interstices also suggested ideal models of language use across differently valued 15 discursive zones at school, and that the inclusion of unofficial linguistic resources in 16 specific discursive slots implied their exclusion in other, more important ones. The 17 scarce openings for linguistic diversity that teachers made, in other words, at the 18 same time socialized pupils into the broader sociolinguistic hierarchy that creates 19 their own disfluency and problematization. 20 21 Keywords Classroom interaction Á Multilingualism Á Metapragmatic 22 regimentation Á Socialization Á Brussels Á Dutch-medium schools 23 24 2526 Introduction 27 Language policies have become critical tools for nation-states to reinvent 28 themselves in a time and age governed by what has come to be called late or 29 advanced capitalism. Confronted with an economy that exceeds national bound-30 aries, with supranational organizations (such as the European Union) that produce 31 linguistic policies of their own, and as they see their own turf become increasingly A1 J. Jaspers (&)