The need for an “experimentum linguae” in didactics. on the clas-sifying, manipulating, integrating and segregating functions of language. This article explores the boundaries of language, and how language serves both to include and to exclude. Following Agamben’s view of language my presentation unfolds in three movements. First, I explore Agamben’s use of infancy in order to grasp the limits of language by illuminating the split between language and discourse. The second part includes voices on participation, which are analysed through the metaphors of “us and them” and “doors and bridges” to illustrate the segregating and integrating functions that language performs. Finally, I return to Agamben’s view of language and his notion of an “experimentum linguae” in order to criticize and challenge didactic perspectives that cling to a discourse which keeps ambivalence at bay, inasmuch as the “experimentum” opens up the very space of ethics.