Dwelling and house metaphors

Michael Reich

Explanation

“I am at home in this language” connects expression with familiarity and the ability to move without constant self-monitoring. It can name more than lexical competence. It can also suggest that a person must have one true linguistic residence and enter others only as a guest. Beelmann's reference distinguishes dwelling as an everyday subject, philosophical reflection on it and its metaphorical use in orienting thought. Keeping those levels apart prevents residence, citizenship and language from becoming one necessary identity. Multilingual life is not homelessness by definition. The productive inquiry concerns what a linguistic setting permits: questioning, mistakes, disagreement or trying a new form. A seemingly generous host who decides which voices may only be tolerated can expose the other side of shelter. The house image can make security and control visible together.

Movement of thought

1. Identify a description of linguistic or theoretical orientation as inhabiting a place. 2. Specify familiarity, shelter and access conditions in that description. 3. Distinguish having agency within the space from being merely admitted as a guest. 4. Test multiple affiliation and other ways of organising linguistic experience. 5. Return to at-home experience without turning it into an obligatory origin story.

Scientific use case

Sociolinguistic research could examine home, guest and belonging imagery in language biographies. Self-description and institutional access would require separate evidence. Metaphor choice cannot serve as an automatic proficiency score.

Example

An invented multilingual reading group finds different resources across its languages: argument, technical precision and consolation are not equally familiar in each. It describes those affordances instead of choosing one authentic home. The example is not claimed as a typical multilingual biography.

Counterexample

Uncertainty in a language implies neither diminished dignity nor an inability to think. A territory or family name cannot establish an individual's linguistic competence. The metaphor may illuminate experience without proving a natural allocation of people to languages.

Distinction

Language community and identity are broader concerns. Boundary imagery foregrounds separation; dwelling adds continued residence, arrangement and control. Path imagery foregrounds movement, which need not be incompatible with having more than one linguistic home.

Effect on thought and perception

Language appears as a possibility of living rather than an instrument alone. The same framing can nevertheless convert a felt security into a rule about where other people belong.

Resonance

An initially unfamiliar expression may become inhabitable without displacing earlier attachments. Returning to a familiar language can then disclose assumptions previously taken for granted. No loss of one true home is required.

Etymology

The English heading joins ordinary words into a descriptive image-field. It neither names a newly discovered historical school nor infers a complete language theory from a word's formation.

Provenance

DE/EN editorially accepted on 15 October 2026. Historical context, language comparison and source status are shown separately in the full entry.

Cite this entry

Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Dwelling and house metaphors“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-ADD-20261015-0038. ATLAS 259, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-ADD-20261015-0038

https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-ADD-20261015-0038

The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.

Guiding question

What does being at home in a language make possible, and who controls entry into that imagined home?

Five coordinate questions

These descriptions explain the entry. They are not yet controlled register values and generate no shared register results.

Where can the process be observed?: Images of home, dwelling, guests and belonging in language.
What happens to the material?: Distinguish having agency within the space from being merely admitted as a guest.
At what level does a change occur?: Experienced familiarity, scope for action and access conditions.
What temporal structure is involved?: Inhabitation, familiarisation and movement between places may each matter.
How can the description be tested?: Test multiple affiliation and other ways of organising linguistic experience.

Historical context

The consulted reference moves from ordinary dwelling towards several levels of philosophical reflection and metaphorical transfer. The present multilingual application is independently developed, not attributed retrospectively to every historical thinker discussed there.

Cross-language distinction and terminology

Home, house and dwelling can foreground felt familiarity, a building or an activity of inhabitation. Using several terms prevents one English word from being treated as a complete equivalent of every German Wohn- or Haus-expression.

Scholarly relations: explained reading links

Each relation is named and explained. These reading links are neither shared register results nor newly canonised relation edges.

Speech community · Comparison and distinction
Language community and identity are broader concerns. Boundary imagery foregrounds separation; dwelling adds continued residence, arrangement and control. Path imagery foregrounds movement, which need not be incompatible with having more than one linguistic home.
Identity · Comparison and distinction
Language community and identity are broader concerns. Boundary imagery foregrounds separation; dwelling adds continued residence, arrangement and control. Path imagery foregrounds movement, which need not be incompatible with having more than one linguistic home.
Boundary metaphors · Comparison and distinction
Language community and identity are broader concerns. Boundary imagery foregrounds separation; dwelling adds continued residence, arrangement and control. Path imagery foregrounds movement, which need not be incompatible with having more than one linguistic home.

Proposed thought pathway