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20230721T101520230721T1800Europe/Amsterdam[SYMP09] AILA ReN - Linguistic Challenges in Contemporary Global Migration: The Evolving Field of Migration LinguisticsHybrid Session (onsite/online)AILA 2023 - 20th Anniversary Congress Lyon Editioncellule.congres@ens-lyon.fr
Oral Presentation[SYMP09] AILA ReN - Linguistic Challenges in Contemporary Global Migration: The Evolving Field of Migration Linguistics10:00 AM - 01:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/21 08:00:00 UTC - 2024/07/21 11:00:00 UTC
Migration, among the most important sociocultural phenomena of contemporary global societies, is complex, dynamic, and multifaceted. The United Nations' International Organization for Migration (2019a) defines migration as: "The movement of persons away from their place of usual residence, either across an international border or within a State" (p. 137). In the year 2020, there were a total of 281 million international migrants, or roughly 3.6% of the total population of the world (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021). This number has increased numerically and proportionally in the recent decades (from 85 million or 2.3% of the world's population in 1970 to 281 million or 3.6% half a century after), and it has become more considerable, more rapidly than had been foreseen. And while the proportion of international migrants remains small compared to the total population of the world - only one in every 30 people are international migrants, the impact of international migrants on the rest of the world cannot be overemphasized. In 2020, there were 11 million more male migrants than female migrants (146 million:135 million).
At the heart of migration is language, though, in many cases, it is not given much attention compared to other determinants of mobility. It is often only after legal, political, and economic aspects of migration have been dealt with that language issues are considered. But language truly plays a most important role throughout the migration process, and it cannot and should not be understated. Language is the indispensable agent of migration as the whole process could be made (im)possible because language is used to bridge, to connect, and to mediate through all the other determinants and variables involved in the migration process. It is therefore not surprising that the International Organization for Migration (2019b) has said, "Language is considered one of the most central aspects for migrants' inclusion by both the receiving society and migrants themselves"(p. 192). Therefore, in the whole migration process, one sees how language is so essential that one must also realize how much more attention should be given to language in the context of migration than it normally gets.
The primary purpose of this presentation is to propose 'migration linguistics' as a new sub-discipline in linguistics. It begins with motivations for the establishment of this new sub-discipline. It defines what migration linguistics is, identifies the aims of this new sub-discipline, and lays out its parameters. A linguistic theory of migration synthesizes the dynamics of language acquisition, learning, and use in the migration process. The presentation then explains the model of the linguistic dimensions of the migration process, which specifies the various determinants and variables in the acquisition, learning, and use of language in the context of migration. It also discusses language issues across different types of migration (i.e. labor, family, educational, forced, and community). Finally, with the available interdisciplinary resources and methodologies in studying language in the context of migration, it envisages prospects for the theory and praxis in migration linguistics.
Mobility, indigeneity, invisibility: Contemplations in migration linguistics
Oral Presentation[SYMP09] AILA ReN - Linguistic Challenges in Contemporary Global Migration: The Evolving Field of Migration Linguistics10:00 AM - 01:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/21 08:00:00 UTC - 2024/07/21 11:00:00 UTC
In this talk I explore three thrusts which warrant attention and serve to inform the emerging field of migration linguistics.
First, I suggest that we move beyond migration to thinking about mobilities, in particular, the new mobilities paradigm in the social sciences (Sheller and Urry 2006; Urry 2012) which views human mobility as entailing a complex assemblage of movement, social imaginaries, and experience (Cresswell 2006). Expanding our notion of mobility beyond the geographic to also encompass social and symbolic mobility in turn enhances our appreciation of how languages are positioned in their communities.
Second, I reflect on how the current decade has its focus on the United Nations' International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL 2022-2032), which aims "draw attention to the critical loss of indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages" (UNESCO 2022). This important and welcome initiative notwithstanding, the IDIL has been noted to not be addressing the interactions between language and migration, even though this is critical to the endeavour. The subject of migration is conspicuously absent from official documentation about the IDIL and its goals, with its Global Action Plan (UNESCO 2021) mentioning migration only once. I interrogate how such initiatives can and should encompass not only those languages considered as "traditionally used within a given territory" but also indigenous/ heritage languages in a migrant, transnational context.
Finally, I tease out the tensions involved in the different waves of migration in a particular society, which result in the layering of, on the one hand, the 'old', and thus established, migrants, versus the newer migrants, comprising in particular transient populations of foreign workers and foreign domestic helpers, and, crucially, the differential statuses that these communities – and their languages – hold in society. I relation to this, I examine official language policies which, at superficial level, may present a picture of multilingualism, but which, in essence, serve to uphold a national ideology, and suppress and make invisible the authentic multilingualisms of the various migrant communities (Lim 2022).
Such contemplation of dimensions of mobility, indigeneity, and invisibility will, I believe, afford us insights as we continue explorations in migration linguistics.
Cresswell, T. 2006. On the move: Mobility in the modern Western world. London: Routledge. Lim, L. 2022. Defining migrants: Positioning the periphery in pioneering and pandemic times. Invited plenary panel on Mobility, Multilingualism, and Multimodality: Studies in Migration Linguistics in Southeast Asia. 21st English in Southeast Asia conference. Linguistic Society of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University. 10-12 March 2022. Sheller, M. & Urry, J. 2006. The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning 38(2): 207–226. UNESCO. 2021. Global Action Plan of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379851 UNESCO. 2022. International Decade of Indigenous Languages. https://idil2022-2032.org/ Urry, J. 2012. Sociology beyond societies: Mobilities for the twenty-first century. London: Routledge.
Acculturation Process among New Immigrants from Southeast Asia and Their Children in Taiwan
Oral Presentation[SYMP09] AILA ReN - Linguistic Challenges in Contemporary Global Migration: The Evolving Field of Migration Linguistics10:00 AM - 01:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/21 08:00:00 UTC - 2024/07/21 11:00:00 UTC
This study explores acculturation process among New immigrants from Southeast Asia and their children. Since the beginning of this century, foreign female spouses (renamed as New Residents) from Southeast Asia have been immigrated to Taiwan in great numbers due to intermarriage with Taiwanese citizens. They brought with them their own ethnic languages and cultures. Through contacts and conflicts with other groups in Taiwan, those new immigrants and their children have been going through a process of acculturation. However, to what extent they have been acculturated is yet to be investigated. This study intends to do so. A bidimensional model of acculturation is used to investigate the process of their acculturation in the past two decades. Data will be collected through questionnaires and interviews throughout Taiwan. The collected samples will be categorized in terms social factors, e.g., generations (foreign-born vs. native born), length of immigration, ages, and social status. Language behaviors, linguistic competence and cultural identity are dimensions used to examine the extent to which these immigrants and their children have been acculturated to the host culture in Taiwan. The results can inform the social and language problems they have faced, and implications can be drawn.
This study explores acculturation process among New immigrants from Southeast Asia and their children. Since the beginning of this century, foreign female spouses (renamed as New Residents) from Southeast Asia have been immigrated to Taiwan in great numbers due to intermarriage with Taiwanese citizens. They brought with them their ethnic languages and cultures, which are totally different from those of Taiwanese. Through contacts and conflicts with other groups in Taiwan, the New Residents from Southeast Asia have been going through a process of acculturation. However, the extent to which these individuals have been acculturated has yet to be investigated in Taiwan. This study intends to do so. The understanding of the degree to which they are acculturated can help us understand language and social problems faced by these groups. As New Residents from Vietnam and Indonesia are the two largest and most rapidly growing groups of the new immigrants from Southeast Asia, the impact of their acculturation on Taiwan's sociolinguistic environments should be greater than the others. Therefore, the acculturation among New Residents from Vietnam and Indonesia and their children has been chosen as the focus for this study. A bidimensional model of acculturation (i.e., integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization) is used to investigate to what extent these New Taiwanese have been acculturated in the past two decades. Language behaviors, linguistic competence and cultural identity are dimensions used to examine the extent to which this group of people have been acculturated to the host culture in Taiwan in the last two decades. Data will be collected through questionnaires and interviews throughout Taiwan. The collected data will be demographically analyzed in terms some vital social factors, e.g., generations (foreign-born vs. native born), length of immigration, ages, social status (occupations, and schooling) and residential areas. The results of the study can contribute to our understanding of the process of acculturation of these two ethnic groups, and the social and linguistic problems they have faced. An implication of how sociolinguistic changes in the host country can seriously affect the acculturation process of immigrants will be drawn.
Israel: A Multilingual Space Shaped by People, Media Technology, Policies, Ideologies, and Needs
Oral Presentation[SYMP09] AILA ReN - Linguistic Challenges in Contemporary Global Migration: The Evolving Field of Migration Linguistics03:00 PM - 06:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/21 13:00:00 UTC - 2024/07/21 16:00:00 UTC
This paper presents a newly published edited book titled Multilingual Israel: Language Ideologies, Survival, Integration, and Hybridization (Multilingual Matters), examining dimensions of Israel's multilingualism, taking Joshua Fishman's notions of language loyalty and shift as a starting point. A comparison will be made with Spolsky and Shohamy's previous exploration of the linguistic diversity of Israel in 1999 (Spolsky & Shohamy, 1999). The comparison mainly shows that numerous language communities have shrunk or nearly disappeared since 1999. On the other hand, many other language varieties that had not been previously used in Israel emerged, including languages as different as varieties of Chinese, Sudanese Arabic, Tigrinya, Yoruba, Tagalog, Igbo, Telugu, Bengali, Ukrainian, Zaghawa, Nepali, Portuguese, Fur, Kannada, Thai, Isan, and Nuer, showing diverse multilingual patterns. The presentation will discuss three aspects of Israel's multilingualism: (1) The role of language ideologies, including Hebrew-only ideologies that led to the lowering of the status of Arabic in 2018; (2) The challenges of language survival and integration in a wide range of social settings, including African asylum seekers, speakers of endangered Jewish languages, and sign language users; (3) Linguistic and cultural hybridization, mainly related to the Arabic and Russian speakers in Israel.
This paper presents a newly published edited book titled Multilingual Israel: Language Ideologies, Survival, Integration, and Hybridization (Multilingual Matters), examining dimensions of Israel's multilingualism. Taking Joshua Fishman's notions of language loyalty and shift as a starting point, the exploration of languages in Israel today shows that its language varieties have become more diverse and go beyond named languages and the hegemony of Hebrew. A comparison will be made with Spolsky and Shohamy's previous exploration of the linguistic diversity of Israel in 1999. The comparison mainly shows, on the one hand, that numerous language communities, mainly used by Jewish speakers, have shrunk or nearly disappeared since 1999, because of the hegemony of Hebrew. On the other hand, many other language varieties that had not been previously used in Israel emerged, including languages as different as varieties of Chinese, Sudanese Arabic, Tigrinya, Yoruba, Tagalog, Igbo, Telugu, Bengali, Ukrainian, Zaghawa, Nepali, Portuguese, Fur, Kannada, Thai, Isan, and Nuer, showing diverse multilingual patterns.. The presentation will discuss three aspects of Israel's multilingualism: (1) The role of language ideologies, including Hebrew-only ideologies that led to the spread of Hebrew and the lowering of the status of Arabic from "official" to "a special language" in 2018; (2) The challenges of language loyalty, survival, and integration in a wide range of social settings, including African asylum seekers, Jewish immigrants, speakers of endangered Jewish languages, and sign language users from various communities; (3) Linguistic and cultural hybridization, mainly related to the Arabic speakers, exploring the concept of "Israeli Arabic" and looking into Hebrew-based and English-based hybrids, as well as examining Russian culture in Israel through the lens of folkloric tales that originated in Islamic culture, survived the Soviet revolution, and were imported by immigrants from the former Soviet Union into Israel.
Lived experiences of unequal Englishes of Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong
Oral Presentation[SYMP09] AILA ReN - Linguistic Challenges in Contemporary Global Migration: The Evolving Field of Migration Linguistics03:00 PM - 06:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/21 13:00:00 UTC - 2024/07/21 16:00:00 UTC
In this paper, I investigate the lived experiences with English of Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong from roughly 30 hours of recorded ethnographic interviews and fieldwork with 28 key participants talking about language in relation to their living and working experiences. Employing linguistic ethnographic approaches to analysis, I describe recurring accounts reflecting the tension between doing being an English-proficient and an English-deficient other: a tension that emanates from enabling and constraining sociolinguistic conditions in the workplace and the host society, and informed by participants' experiences and education from their home country. I demonstrate how participants seem to locate themselves in the imagined hierarchy of English speakers: on the one hand, as better English speakers in the household-workplace, commanding respect and being accorded family language policy decision-making powers; while on the other, as of lesser English speaking abilities and rights than native English speakers, choosing to be silent or aloof, and passing negative judgement to fellow Filipinos who deploy stylized English in communication situations.
Research on the role of English in transnational migrant work have largely investigated how the language is instrumentalized by institutions, employers, and migrants alike within the framework of the unequal global flow of economic capital and opportunities. Holborow (2018) regards these efforts as one addressing the 'prism of management speak'. Though such studies are significant in unmasking the vulnerabilities of people engaged in precarious work conditions (such as the domestic labor sector), Holborow reminds us about the importance of subject-level analyses that would 'allow the agency of the worker and language speaker to come to the fore' (p. 65).
In this paper, I investigate the lived experiences with English of Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong. Filipinos comprise more than half of the foreign domestic worker population in Hong Kong. They are said to be often hired by employers who have school-aged children due to their higher level of education and perceived proficiency in English. Drawn from ethnographic interviews and fieldwork for a larger project conducted in Hong Kong between 2016 and 2020, the data set mainly consisted of roughly 30 hours of recorded interviews with 28 key participants talking about language in relation to their living and working experiences.
Employing linguistic ethnographic approaches to analysis, I describe recurring accounts reflecting the tension between doing being an English-proficient and an English-deficient other: a tension that emanates from enabling and constraining sociolinguistic conditions in the workplace and the larger host society, and informed by participants' experiences and education from their home country. I demonstrate how participants seem to locate themselves in the imagined hierarchy of English speakers: on the one hand, as better English speakers in the household-workplace, commanding respect and being accorded family language policy decision-making powers; while on the other, as of lesser English speaking abilities and rights than native English speakers, choosing to be silent or aloof, and passing negative judgement to fellow Filipinos who deploy stylized English in communication situations.
By showing these accounts, I wish to contribute to the bourgeoning research on the effects of unequal Englishes (Tupas, 2015; Tupas & Salonga, 2016) contingent with the living and working experiences of transnational migrant workers, such as the Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong.
References Holborow, M. (2018). Language, commodification and labour: The relevance of Marx. Language Sciences, 70, 58–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.02.002 Tupas, R. F. (2015). Unequal Englishes: The politics of Englishes today. Palgrave Macmillan. Tupas, R. F., & Salonga, A. A. (2016). Unequal Englishes in the Philippines. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 20(3), 367–381.
Presenters Nicanor Guinto Associate Professor, Southern Luzon State University
Nicanor Guinto
