Call for Papers: "Lingue Migranti: The Global Languages of Italy and the Diaspora" conference, April 25-27, 2013, NYC
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: SEPTEMBER 16, 2012.
Abstracts for scholarly papers (up to 500 words, plus a note on technical requirements) and a brief, narrative biography should be emailed as attached documents, by September 16, 2012, to calandra@qc.edu, to whom other inquiries may also be addressed. There are no available funds for travel,
accommodations, or meals.
Italy as a cultural zone developed throughout the centuries with a plethora of distinct languages. Regionally-based... more
Italy as a cultural zone developed throughout the centuries with a plethora of distinct languages. Regionally-based Romance languages—e.g., Neapolitan, Sicilian, Tuscan, Venetian—and their local variants were the numerous languages spoken by illiterate peasants as well as professionals, scholars, and
creative writers. In the aftermath of unification in 1861, the state sought to impose the Tuscan dialect as the national standard in an attempt “to make Italians” in the same period that mass emigration began in earnest. Tensions emerged during that time and, with the onset of a more recent immigration, continue to
inform the interrelated spheres of language and migration, from issues concerning standard Italian versus dialects, especially along a north-south divide; to representations of “Italian” as the esteemed language of the Renaissance versus the marginalized language of working-class emigrants and their descendants; to
responses to “foreign” influences of vocabulary and literatures. This conference seeks to build on on the growing literature dealing with language and migration as it concerns Italy and the diaspora.
Urban discourses and identity in a South African township: an analysis of youth culture in Cape Town.
by ellen hurst
2007 African Studies Association 50th Annual Meeting, New York, 18th-21st October.
Since the end of apartheid removed restrictions on the movement of people, there have been increased numbers of... more
Since the end of apartheid removed restrictions on the movement of people, there have been increased numbers of internal economic migrants flooding into South Africa’s urban centres. In the Western Cape, this has been characterised by migration from the old rural ‘homelands’ of the Eastern Cape to townships on the Cape Flats, a large, mainly residential area to the east of the city.
This paper will discuss some findings from a SANPAD and South African National Research Foundation funded project on migration and language change. The paper will specifically be considering the impact on young male identities resulting from these patterns of migration. It will focus on the discourses and identities of young urban black males, and the way they relate to other cultural discourses in post-apartheid South Africa.
It is found that many young people come to Cape Town in search of work to support their families who still have land and houses in the rural communities where there are limited job opportunities. Upon arrival many factors, such as language issues, high unemployment and the competition for employment, make it difficult for young people to find work.
Due to a resultant lack of economic resources, networks and communities in the residential areas of the Cape Flats are to a large extent defined by the immediate neighbourhood. Young men may form neighbourhood social groups, and additionally may be drawn into pre-existing gangs. Identity production in these social groups revolves around brand names, lingo, and ‘moves’, or an urban ‘style’.
Urbanization and language change: logical connectors and discourse markers in urban isiXhosa
by ellen hurst
By Ana Deumert, Ellen Hurst, Oscar Masinyana & Raj Mesthrie
2006 LSSA/SAALA conference, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
Since the early 1990s, high levels of rural-urban migration from the Eastern Cape have transformed the sociolinguistic... more
Since the early 1990s, high levels of rural-urban migration from the Eastern Cape have transformed the sociolinguistic ecology of the Cape Metropolitan Area. Urbanization has not only changed Cape Town’s language demography (with isiXhosa slowly overtaking Afrikaans as the city’s dominant language), but is also affecting language use within traditionally rural isiXhosa-speaking communities.
The historically long-standing migration network connecting the Eastern and the Western Cape shows a distinct pattern of circular mobility with migrants maintaining strong rural connections, culturally, economically and linguistically. Dislocation from the rural home and integration into urban life are often partial and provisional, full of ambiguities and indeterminacies, of shifting and fluid identities. Language is an important marker of identity in such contexts: Sharp (2001), for example, noted that remaining “faithful to tradition” and rural networks implies the avoidance of urban slang in the Joe Slovo settlement in Blaauwberg (Cape Town), and Ferguson (1999) linked the acquisition and use of English to cosmopolitan, urban styles and the use of indigenous languages to rural, localist styles. Documenting the multitude of hybrid social, cultural and especially linguistic forms and structures, and the enactment of ‘alternative modernities’ in urban settlements will allow us to better understand the sociolinguistic consequences of urbanization in the African context. (Note that rapid rural-urban mobility is a general phenomenon on the continent and in the developing world in general, cf. Garau et al. 2005).
This paper is based on research conducted by Monash University between 2002 and 2005, and current work-in-progress at the University of Cape Town. A number of sociolinguistic processes will be discussed on the basis of survey and interview data:
(a) second language acquisition (of English and Afrikaans) and indicators of incipient language shift within the urban environment,
(b) convergence and borrowing as a result of language and dialect contact among isiXhosa speakers, and
(c) the formation of new urban speech varieties (especially among second generation migrants).
The implications of this research are relevant not only for linguistic theory (and especially our understanding of convergence phenomena in language contact), but also for language policy. The paper throws new light on our conceptions of what constitutes the norm(s) of isiXhosa and argues that language planning will need to recognise the sociolinguistic changes in South Africa’s indigenous languages which are brought about by urbanization.
Local villages and global networks: language and migration narratives of a group of skilled migrant African scholars.
by ellen hurst
2012 Conference paper at American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL), Boston, 24th-27th March.
There has been a focus in international literature on skilled migration to developed countries from developing... more
There has been a focus in international literature on skilled migration to developed countries from developing countries, resulting in ‘brain drain’. However, skilled migration also takes place between developing countries in the global south. This research unpacks a series of narratives of migration and language by a group of thirteen African scholars currently working at a South African university.
It emerges that in the process of migration from their home countries (Zambia, Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, DRC, Kenya, Uganda & Zimbabwe) all but one of the participants have taken an indirect route through one or more ‘developed’ countries prior to settling in South Africa, primarily the UK, the USA and Europe; and that these routes are connected to language, resources, and identity. African skilled migrant academics are caught, physically and metaphorically between the ‘local’: represented by village and the ‘global’ represented by network. In language terms, this implies particular responsibilities for home languages on the one hand, and English as a transnational language on the other. This research has implications for the way we think about the dynamics of African skilled migration.
Project Report:Skilled Migration and Global English: Language, Development, and the African Professional Funded by the Worldwide Universities Network, …
by ellen hurst
Lead PI: Suresh Canagarajah, Director Migration Studies Project, Penn State University, USA.
Co-PI‘s: Adrian Bailey, Leeds University, UK;
Frances Giampapa, Bristol University, UK;
Margaret Hawkins, University of Wisconsin, USA;
Ellen Hurst, University of Cape Town, South Africa;
Ahmar Mahboob, University of Sydney, Australia;
Paul Roberts, York University, UK;
Sandra Silberstein, University of Washington, USAi.
Skilled migrants (SM) are important agents for development. Harnessing the economic and social benefits of remitting... more
Skilled migrants (SM) are important agents for development. Harnessing the economic and social benefits of remitting while minimizing social and political costs represents an important locus of international policy discussion. The Migration-Development nexus has engendered useful partnerships between governments and skilled diaspora groups, e.g., Global Scot. However, the role of the African skilled diaspora for development is not particularly well established or studied, and needs more attention.
While much discussion extols the benefits of knowledge circulation and brain gain, little systematic attention has been given to the role of language. Neo-classical frameworks regard fluency as an important input for individual migrants’ economic success in destination settings. As most SM move to labor markets where English is the language of business, acquisition of English is seen as an important element of human capital. A lucrative English as Second Language industry has emerged globally, furthering the dominance of Global English. What remains unexamined is the role of language for SM who may contribute to development work which involves simultaneous engagement with developed English-language host communities, multilingual global labour markets, and non-English African communities that are targets of development. Also unexamined is the fact that English language constitutes different varieties globally, and generates considerable challenges in inter-community relations.
WUN Pilot Study
The research reported below is part of a larger study funded by the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN). Here, we report on three research questions:
1. How does English shape the flow of SM and trajectories of migration?
2. In what ways does English shape the levels of success of SM?
3. How does English affect SM role in development?
Led by the Penn State University, researchers from 8 international universities focused on SM from sub-Saharan Africa, working in the US, UK, Australia, South Africa, and Uganda. Uniquely, the researchers used a common survey (adjusted for origin/destination contexts) to collect ethnographic data on how language affects migration and development.
Download (.pdf)Categorizar a través del habla: la construcción interactiva de la extranjeridad
by Eva Codó
Co-authored with Virgina Unamuno, published in Discurso & Sociedad, 2007
Partimos del supuesto teórico y metodológico de que el estudio del lenguaje aporta una mirada fundamental a la... more
Partimos del supuesto teórico y metodológico de que el estudio del lenguaje aporta una mirada fundamental a la comprensión de los fenómenos sociales. Este supuesto implica, por un lado, trabajar de forma precisa con datos lingüísticos, y por otro, evitar la reducción o simplificación de los procesos discursivos que materializan los procesos sociales (Heller, 2001a). En el presente trabajo, estudiamos la construcción de la extranjeridad (Mondada, 1999) en interacciones entre personas nacidas en Barcelona y personas provenientes de fuera del territorio español, en el marco de dos contextos a priori diversos: la escuela y el servicio de documentación de extranjeros. Para llevar a cabo este análisis, partimos del estudio de la orientación y el tratamiento interaccional por parte de los locutores de las formas de habla propias y ajenas. Al focalizar la construcción local de la experticia lingüística, nos adentramos en diferentes procedimientos que los interlocutores ponen en práctica para hacer relevante o para rechazar la categoría “extranjero”, como por ejemplo, el extrañamiento del habla, y la asignación o la negación de competencias en lengua, sean autóctonas o en lengua franca. Según nuestro análisis, la viabilidad de estos procedimientos no sólo depende de cuestiones intrínsecamente conversacionales, sino también de relaciones de poder que se materializan discursivamente y que exhiben relaciones complejas entre lengua, categorías y exclusión social.
We depart from the theoretical and methodological assumption that the study of language throws fundamental light onto the understanding of social phenomena. This assumption implies, on the one hand, that we need to examine linguistic data in detail, and on the other, that we must avoid the simplification of the discursive processes that materialize social processes (Heller, 2001a). In the present study we investigate the construction of the category “foreign” (Mondada, 1999) in interactions between individuals born in Barcelona and others born outside Spain in two a priori different contexts: a school and a foreigners’ documentation service. In our analysis, we investigate the ways in which speakers orient to their own and others’ forms of speech and how they handle them interactionally. By focusing on the local construction of linguistic expertise, we try to elucidate what procedures are put into practice to make the category “foreign” relevant or reject it, such as “strangifying” speech, and allocating or denying language competence, either in a local language or in a lingua franca. In our analysis, the success of these procedures does not depend on conversational aspects only but on power relationships which become materialised discursively and which show complex relationships between language, categories and social exclusion.
The making of "workers of the world": language and the labor brokerage state
First proof, not the final version
Lorente, B.P. (2011). The making of workers of the world: language and the labor brokerage state. In A. Duchene & M. Heller (Eds.), Pride and profit: language in late capitalism (pp.183 – 206). London and New York: Routledge.
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Mapping English linguistic capital: The case of Filipino domestic workers in Singapore
Unpublished PhD dissertation, 2007 , National University of Singapore (Basis for book project under contract with Multilingual Matters: "Scripts of servitude: language, labor migration and domestic work")
Excerpt from book proposal:
This book will examine the linguistic practices that constitute the unequal... more
Excerpt from book proposal:
This book will examine the linguistic practices that constitute the unequal relationship between sending and receiving countries, between employers and migrant workers, in transnational domestic work. Transnational domestic work is the product of the international division of reproductive labor in which migrant women from developing countries perform the reproductive labor of class-privileged women in industrialized ones even as they leave their own to other women who are too poor to migrate (Parreñas, 2003). As such, it provides a powerful lens with which to look at the inequalities of globalization and the particular ways in which these inequalities are (re)produced and challenged on the terrain of language (Blommaert, 2010, 2005; Heller, 2003). In this book, the linguistic practices that constitute transnational domestic work are examined by tracing the production and performance of scripts of servitude across institutional and subject levels. These scripts of servitude are normative ways of doing language (eg. Cameron, 2000), prescribed for and contested by transnational domestic workers, and embedded in the disciplining processes (Foucault, 1979) that turn women from developing countries into transnationally mobile bodies that serve in domestic work. Through these scripts, global relations of inequality are normalized and embodied in quotidian linguistic practices (Bourdieu, 1977, 1991). These scripts are also central in social processes of flows and stratification.
This book will do this by looking at one of the largest and widest flows of contemporary female migration, that of women from the Philippines who leave the country to work as domestic workers in the affluent economies of Asia, the Middle East, Western Europe and North America (Tyner, 2004). In a departure from a tendency in studies of language and migration to focus on receiving countries viewed as lands of permanent settlement (e.g. Block, 2006; Extra, Spotti & Van Avermaet, 2009; Menard-Warwick, 2009; Slade and Mollering, forthcoming), this book will center on the flow of Filipino domestic workers to Singapore, a highly developed, multilingual city-state where these migrant Filipino women are temporary and disposable labor. It analyzes how institutions, i.e. the Philippine and Singapore states and maid agencies, form globalized and interconnected systems of control that allow the women to be mobile precisely because they are marginal. They condition and regulate the circulation of migrant women by calibrating their linguistic resources to ensure their mobility, flexibility and transience as laboring bodies that can be marketed easily in different countries. Using data from my interviews with Filipino domestic workers in Singapore, this book then delineates how migrant women inhabit these scripts of servitude. It looks at various aspects of the linguistic practices they employ to create spaces of agency and what consequences these practices have.
Integration durch Sprache? Eine Analyse von gegensätzlichen Diskursen in der Schweiz.
Flubacher, Mi-Cha (2010). Integration durch Sprache? Eine Analyse von gegensätzlichen Diskursen in der Schweiz. In: Galliker, E. & Kleinert, A. (eds.): Vielfalt der Empirie in der Angewandten Linguistik. Beiträge von Nachwuchsforschenden zu den 5. Tagen der Schweizer Linguistik. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren. (Sprachenlernen Konkret! 10). 71-88.
Dieser Beitrag untersucht zwei Gesetzestexte zur Integration: auf nationaler Ebene das neue Ausländergesetz und auf... more Dieser Beitrag untersucht zwei Gesetzestexte zur Integration: auf nationaler Ebene das neue Ausländergesetz und auf kantonaler Ebene das Integrationsgesetz des Kantons Basel-Stadt. Dabei werden die Gesetze in der Schweizer Integrationsdebatte situiert und der Begriff der Integration beleuchtet. Besonders die diskursive Verbindung der Integration mit der Sprache wird thematisiert. In einem zweiten Schritt werden die Gesetzestexte textlinguistisch betrachtet und intertextuell und inhaltlich analysiert: Die Verwendung des Begriffs der Integration wird nachgezeichnet. Sowohl die Intertextualität als auch die begrifflichen Verwendungen lassen Rückschlüsse darauf zu, wie Integration in der Schweiz und im Kanton Basel-Stadt konzipiert wird und inwiefern Sprache in diesem Konzept als Integrationsindikator verstanden wird.
L1 and L2 accents: Where the action is.
With Dennis Preston and Rebecca Roeder. In. Lingua y migración/Language and Migration 2,1:5-20. 2009.
Regional Variation in Chicano English: Incipient Dialect Formation Among L1 and L2 Speakers in Benton Harbor, Michigan
PhD Dissertation, Michigan State University. 2010.
This ethnographic investigation of the vowel system of Mexican Americans in Southwest Michigan addresses several holes... more This ethnographic investigation of the vowel system of Mexican Americans in Southwest Michigan addresses several holes in the literature, including the lack of research on Mexican Americans outside in the American South and the interaction of their dialect with regional variation. Sociolinguistics has a long tradition of exploring both the language use of political minorities and the regional variation of those who considered among the mainstream population, but it often ignores interaction between the two. This work addresses such interaction among Mexican Americans in Benton Harbor, Michigan, a town which is 95% African American, in terms of both their production and their perception of vowels. This population, composed mostly of former migrant workers, is only beginning to form a community, but linguistic patterns similar to Roeder’s (2006) study of an established community of Mexican Americans in Lansing, Michigan, are already emerging. Contrary to Labov’s (1994) claims that groups like Latinos do not participate in regional variation, the vocalic patterns of Mexican Americans in Benton Harbor and Lansing demonstrate accommodation to the Northern Cities Shift (NCS), a regional change found among whites in the Inland North. This work also addresses claims about substrate Spanish effects in the vowel system, showing several of the claims about confusion patterns might be overstated. Finally, it addresses the social situation that is conditioning the developing dialect, addressing racial tensions and patterns of movement that might contribute to these speakers’ partial adoption of the NCS as opposed to other available local norms.