Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts: Exploring Methodological and Theoretical Concepts 9781788926478

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Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

RESEARCHING MULTILINGUALLY Series Editors: Prue Holmes, Durham University, UK, Richard Fay, University of Manchester, UK and Jane Andrews, University of the West of England, UK Consulting Editor: Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow, UK The increasingly diverse character of many societies means that many researchers may now find themselves engaging with multilingual opportunities and complexities as they design, carry out and disseminate their research. This may be the case regardless of whether or not there is an explicit language and multilingual aspect to their research. This book series proposes to address the methodological, practical, ethical and other options and dilemmas that researchers face as they go about their research. How do they design their research methodology to account for multilingual possibilities and practices? How do they manage such linguistic complexities in the research domain? What are the implications for their research outcomes? Research methods training programmes only rarely address these questions and there is, as yet, only a limited literature available. This series proposes to establish a new track of theoretical, methodological, and ethical researcher praxis that researchers can draw upon in research(er) contexts where multiple languages are at play or might be purposefully used. In particular, the series proposes to offer critical and interpretive perspectives on research practices and endeavours in inter- and multi-disciplinary contexts and especially where languages, and the people speaking and using them, are under pressure, pain, and tension. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

RESEARCHING MULTILINGUALLY: 5

Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts Exploring Methodological and Theoretical Concepts

Edited by Clare Mar-Molinero

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/MARMOL6461 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Mar-Molinero, Clare - editor. Title: Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts: Exploring Methodological and Theoretical Concepts/Edited by Clare Mar-Molinero. Description: Bristol, UK; Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Multilingual Matters, 2020. | Series: Researching Multilingually: 5 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: ‘This book analyses research methods and theoretical concepts for exploring multilingualism in the context of contemporary superdiversity, in environments dramatically transformed by transnational migration and movement of peoples. It examines language in urban contexts: the city as a site for experimentation and creativity in language practices’ – Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020023873 (print) | LCCN 2020023874 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788926454 (paperback) | ISBN 9781788926461 (hardback) | ISBN 9781788926478 (pdf) | ISBN 9781788926485 (epub) | ISBN 9781788926492 (kindle edition) Subjects: LCSH: Urban dialects. | Multilingualism – Research – Methodology. Classification: LCC P40.5.U73 .R47 2020 (print) | LCC P40.5.U73 (ebook) | DDC 417/.2091732 – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023873 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023874 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-646-1 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-645-4 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2020 Clare Mar-Molinero and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Riverside Publishing Solutions. Printed and bound in the UK by the CPI Books Group Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by NBN.

Contents

Acknowledgements Contributors

vii ix

Introduction Clare Mar-Molinero

1

1 Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts Clare Mar-Molinero

8

2 Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context Jessica Bradley and James Simpson

28

3 Revisiting ‘Community Language’: Arabic in a Western Global City Leonie Gaiser and Yaron Matras

52

4 Hispanic London: Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices Darren Paffey 5 Uncovering Variation Within Urban Multilingualism Petros Karatsareas

79 106

6 Language and Transgenerational Identity in Valparaíso’s Italian Community: Methodological and Theoretical Reflections Naomi Wells

131

7 Investigating Perceptions of Banlieue French: Problematising Theory and Methods Daniel McAuley and Janice Carruthers

159

8 Exploring Multilingualism in Urban Border Areas: The City of Tijuana Alfredo Escandón

183

Conclusion Clare Mar-Molinero

212

Index

219 v

Acknowledgements

This volume is an output of the MEITS project (‘Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies’, www.meits.org), a flagship interdisciplinary project in Modern Languages which is part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s ‘Open World Research Initiative’ (OWRI): AH/N004671/1. The Principal Investigator is Professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett, University of Cambridge. The editor and contributors wish to acknowledge the generous support from the MEITS project which funded both the volume and the conference that underpinned it. The conference was held at the University of Southampton in June 2017. The MEITS project brings together a substantial team of researchers working in six strands across a range of disciplines (including literary studies, history of ideas, sociolinguistics, education, language acquisition and cognitive neuroscience) and a large number of languages, including major world languages and minoritised languages. The project’s research questions centre on multilingualism, exploring its relationship with identity, culture, politics, history, education, health and wellbeing. More broadly, the project seeks to demonstrate the value of speaking more than one language to individuals, communities and society. The project involves researchers in the University of Cambridge, with partners in Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Nottingham. This volume and the conference from which is has emerged form part of the work of the sociolinguistic strand of MEITS which is based in Queen’s University Belfast (‘Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Multilingualism: Identity, Diversity and Social Cohesion’) and is led by Professor Janice Carruthers, to whom I would like to express special thanks for having invited me to lead on an aspect of the project. The strand explores linguistic and sociolinguistic questions relating to minoritised languages (notably Irish and Breton) as well as issues around variation and non-standard varieties. A particular focus is contemporary urban vernacular French (see Chapter 7 in this volume). This focus on language in the city in a French context was the original springboard for both this volume and the associated conference. I would also like to thank particular colleagues for their assistance in bringing this edited volume to fruition: for their support in running the vii

viii Acknowledgements

related conference, I would like to thank my former PhD student Daniel Morales, as well as colleagues Adriana Patiño Santos and Dick Vigers for their valuable insights as discussants which have informed ideas in the book. Thanks too to Darren Paffey for his meticulous eye in helping prepare the final manuscript of the volume. My fellow contributors have been extraordinarily cooperative with deadlines and requests from me; without them obviously this book would not have been possible. As ever I am particularly grateful to my former colleague and continuing friend, Patrick Stevenson, for his critical appraisal of early drafts of the book, and his thought-provoking contributions to the conference. Clare Mar-Molinero Southampton, 2019

Contributors

Jessica Bradley is Lecturer in Literacies in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield where she co-directs the Literacies Research Cluster. Her research is at the intersection of modern languages, linguistics and creative arts and her AHRC-funded doctoral research investigated translanguaging practices in street arts production and performance. Research projects include ‘Multilingual Streets’ (AHRCOWRI), which focuses on linguistic landscapes and uses creative arts methods to explore young people’s understandings of everyday multilingualism. She co-edited a volume which explores participatory and creative approaches to translanguaging research, Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities (2020). She co-convenes the AILA Research Network ‘Creative Inquiry and Applied Linguistics’. Janice Carruthers is Professor of French Linguistics at Queen’s University Belfast and AHRC Leadership Fellow for Modern Languages. She has published widely on the French language, particularly on orality, temporality (tense, aspect, connectors, frames), corpus linguistics. sociolinguistics, variation and on language policy. In recent years she has led funded projects on temporality in French and Occitan oral narratives (ExpressioNarration, Marie Sklodowska Curie, Horizon 2020), and on language policy in relation to modern foreign languages, indigenous languages and community languages (AHRC Leadership Fellow). She leads the Queen’s strand of the AHRC Open World Project, Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies. Recent publications include the De Gruyter Manual of Romance Sociolinguistics, co-edited with Wendy Ayres-Bennett. Leonie Gaiser is a PhD student in Linguistics and Research Assistant on the Multilingual Manchester research unit at the University of Manchester. Her PhD project aims to develop an overarching and original approach to profiling and understanding ‘community’ in globalised urban settings, exploring Arabic language practices, language maintenance as well as language provisions for Arabic in Manchester. She has ix

x Contributors

conducted research and co-authored a series of reports and publications on linguistic landscapes, the notion of ‘community’, supplementary schools and language provisions in the healthcare sector. Alfredo Escandón is Professor of English Linguistics and Gender Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Mexico. He is the author of Género y falocentrismo en la obra de Gabriel García Márquez. He was recently awarded his PhD from the University of Southampton for his work on Linguistic Landscapes and linguistic practices in the city of Tijuana on the US-Mexican border. His current research interests include sociolinguistics, border linguistic landscapes, phonetics and gender studies. Petros Karatsareas is Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Westminster, with a Ptychion in Greek Philology (University of Athens) and an MPhil and PhD in Linguistics (Cambridge). He researches on London’s Greek Cypriot diaspora and the languages of the UK’s minority ethnic communities, exploring intergenerational transmission and maintenance, specifically ideologies of monolingualism, attitudes towards multilingualism and non-prestigious linguistic varieties, as well as community language teaching and learning in complementary schools and their role in language maintenance and ideology. He is also actively involved in a range of public engagement activities raising awareness of the value of non-standard linguistic varieties and the contribution of the Greek Cypriot community to a multicultural, multilingual London. His research has received financial support from the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust and the AHRC’s Open World Research Initiative. Clare Mar-Molinero is Professor of Spanish Sociolinguistics and Director of the Centre for Mexico-Southampton Collaboration at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom. She has published books, journal articles and chapters on topics of language polices, global Spanish, language and migration and urban multilingualism, and has edited various journal special issues, focusing on Spain, Mexico and the United Kingdom particularly. She has participated in projects on multilingualism funded by the AHRC, WUN and the EU’s VI Framework. Her monographs and edited volumes include: The Politics of Language in the Spanish-Speaking World (2000); (ed. with Miranda Stewart) Globalization and Language in the Spanish-Speaking World (2006); (ed. with Patrick Stevenson) Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices (2006); (ed. with Gabrielle Hogan-Brun and Patrick Stevenson) Discourses on Language and Integration (2009). Yaron Matras is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manchester. His interests include contact linguistics and multilingualism, typology

Contributors xi

and language documentation. He is the author of Language Contact (CUP, 2009; 2nd edition 2019) and the founder of the Multilingual Manchester research unit. His other books include Romani: A linguistic introduction (CUP, 2002), Romani in Britain: The afterlife of a language (EUP, 2010) and A grammar of Domari (De Gruyter, 2012), as well as co-edited volumes including The Mixed Language Debate (De Gruyter, 2003) and Contact Languages (De Gruyter, 2013), both with Peter Bakker, Linguistic Areas (Palgrave, 2006), with April McMahon and Nigel Vincent and Grammatical Borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective (De Gruyter, 2007), with Jeanette Sakel. Daniel McAuley is a Lecturer in Linguistics at Aston University in Birmingham, United Kingdom. His main research interests are in identity construction in urban French, multilingualism, the construction and use of oral corpora and stylistic variation in urban metropolitan French and British English. He has recently published on the use of borrowed pragmatic markers for identity construction, and carried out research on perceptions of multilingually influenced varieties as part of the sociolinguistic strand of the AHRC-funded Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies research project. Darren Paffey is Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Linguistics at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom. He researches topics of language ideologies and the politics of language, as well as issues of political and media discourse, language planning, language policy and migration within the Spanish-speaking world. He has participated in funded projects on multilingualism (AHRC and EU VI Framework). He is the author of Language Ideologies and the Globalization of ‘Standard’ Spanish. His current research focuses on language ideologies among Spanish speakers in London, and the linguistic landscape of this global city. James Simpson lectures in Language Education at the School of Education, University of Leeds, United Kingdom. His research interests span multilingualism and language education, and include adult migrant language education practice and policy, and creative inquiry in applied linguistics. He is the co-author of ESOL: A Critical Guide (OUP, 2008, with Melanie Cooke), the editor of The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2011), and the co-editor of three further books. He is active in migrant language education policy formation nationally, regionally and locally. He was a Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project ‘Translation and Translanguaging’ (2014–2018). Naomi Wells is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Translingual Communities and Digital Humanities at the Institute of Modern Languages Research (School of Advanced Study, University of London)

xii Contributors

on the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council project ‘CrossLanguage Dynamics: Reshaping Community’ (part of the Open World Research Initiative). Her current research focuses on London’s Latin American communities, and digital practices of communication and representation. She was previously a Research Fellow on the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded ‘Transnationalizing Modern Languages’ project, where her work and recent publications focus on the linguistic and cultural practices of contemporary and historic migrant communities to and from Italy.

Introduction Clare Mar-Molinero

This volume seeks to contribute to the rapidly expanding literature on urban multilingualism in the context of contemporary superdiversity in environments that are being transformed by transnational migration. This involves considering theoretical frameworks in which to examine these practices, but in particular, it focuses on how we do or could do research into these language practices and their users. What methodologies are we using to understand urban linguistic contexts? What do we want to learn from reflecting on these methodologies? The chapters explore complex and challenging situations: capturing the evolution of new forms of language practice and changing attitudes to language in the city. The chapters represent research in a diverse range of sites, of different sizes and in different contexts, from global cities (e.g. London, Paris), to large metropolitan centres (Manchester, Marseille), to smaller urban areas which also attract transnational migration (Leeds, Southampton, Valparaiso) and a particular border conurbation example (Tijuana). These are snapshots of examples of the challenges of investigating how languages operate in contemporary urban contexts; there is therefore no claim to be comprehensive in geographical or linguistic coverage. However, it is the case that the majority of the cities studied are from what is commonly referred to as the Global North (Collyer, 2018) – even in the case of the two exceptions, Valparaiso is a port city in Chile, part of the Global South but one of Latin America’s most economically developed countries, and Tijuana, in Mexico, which is usually defined as part of the Global South, is a North-South border city due to its relationship with the United States. It is to these Global North urban centres, where so many globalisation processes that dominate the world’s economy and geo-politics are based, that migrants from poorer and less-privileged regions are drawn, creating the superdiverse environment of those cities. The vastly populated cities found in parts of the Global South, which are not discussed here, have a different kind of social and linguistic density, with their own kind of multilingualism, equally worthy of research and exploration. Exploring their multilingualism will share aspects of research methodology 1

2  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

employed by contributors here, but it could be expected that they will also deserve their own particular approaches. The majority of the research here is qualitative in orientation, often ethnographic.1 A wide range of methodologies are employed in the research projects: for example, using key participants and their role as a pole around which encounters cluster; exploring multimodality (and particularly Linguistic Landscapes), as an essential element in any holistic view of so-called translanguaging; developing digital research tools; employing ‘sensory ethnography’ (Pink, 2015); encouraging creativity paralleling innovative language practices; discovering nonverbal performances as a communicative tool; locating those spaces where translanguaging is possible and empowering. Our central focus is on the role of the researchers in their contact with the context and participants that they are investigating, which requires the researchers to find ways of sharing linguistic repertoires and discovering ways to communicate multilingually. Unsurprisingly the different contributing authors bring different styles and approaches to their texts. However, I have resisted my initial reaction to seek conformity. Having asked the contributors specifically to reflect on the challenges their research presented to them in terms of the methodological approaches they employed, I believe it is essential to leave these diverse responses as they unfold. Each in their way represents a particular stance and engagement with the research process and objects; to try to make them more uniform would deprive the volume of some of its potential richness. In the first chapter I offer an exploration of some current discussions of urban multilingualism, reviewing some of the relevant key concepts associated with this – such as definitions of the ‘city’, debated meanings of superdiversity, examples of complex linguistic practices, relevant language ideology and policy orientations – as a framework for the following chapters. I pose the underlying research question of the volume: how do we/should we research language in superdiverse urban contexts, with some evidence also extracted from my own experience of researching in the city of Southampton, United Kingdom. The following chapter by Jessica Bradley and James Simpson draws upon a large study of urban multilingualism from the AHRC-funded Translation and Translanguaging (TLANG) project (2014–2018). Multilingual people in migration contexts typically ‘translanguage’ as a matter of course, drawing upon a linguistic repertoire as appropriate for a particular situation, as their TLANG data demonstrate. Bradley and Simpson begin by showing how the main or dominant language of the new host country is evidently part of individuals’ multilingual repertoires, but might not always be the most important in social or work life. They then go on to describe how their conception of translanguaging has developed over the project to encompass a focus

Introduction 3

on trans-discursive translanguaging and on multimodal or transsemiotic translanguaging across place and space (Baynham et al., 2015). Throughout the chapter they refer to linguistic and visual ethnographic data from the main TLang project in Leeds, and from associated research in Ljubljana, Slovenia, with a focus on language use in the home and in social environments. In the next chapter Leonie Gaiser and Yaron Matras introduce a holistic model to describe the position of an immigrant minority language in a superdiverse city, drawing on the example of Arabic in Manchester. The model links ethnography in families, community institutions and public services, with analyses of statistical data and imagery, and a structural interpretation of repertoire choices made by language users. They focus on Arabic as a global language that has recently been associated with discourses of world trade as well as securitisation and integration. It is at the same time the fastest growing community language in Manchester, receiving strong support from community institutions, with a complex network of users ranging from home language speakers of a variety of different dialects hailing from different countries, with a variety of statuses (professionals, students, refugees and so on). Its complexity in regard to both structure and sociolinguistic distribution makes an interesting test case to study the challenges of superdiversity in respect of individual languages. Gaiser and Matras reflect on these challenges as well as on the role of the civic university in developing tools and raising public awareness, and on problems of defining and demarcating language ‘communities’. Darren Paffey’s chapter continues the focus on large global cities as he reflects on fieldwork carried out in London which seeks to capture both the visual linguistic environment and the language practices of Spanish speakers in this capital city. Questions are asked arising from the experience of studying the visual environment around the city using methodologies developed within the field of Linguistic Landscapes. The discussion reflects on how this approach helps us to understand issues of visibility and ‘making presence’ (Sassen, 2005), and how we can see language not just marking and indexing local contexts, but also ‘transform[ing] the social landscape’ (Vertovec, 2007: 1028). In what ways do those who speak and use Spanish on different levels make claims on these multilingual spaces, and to what extent can/do sociolinguistic methods and practices show us how this takes place in such a rapidly changing context? The chapter will bring together considerations of (supra-national, national and local) policy studies and language attitudes, asking how these interact in the linguistic environment, and how language ideologies inform and interact with the language motivations of a wide range of Spanish speakers particularly in a superdiverse context such as London.

4  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

Petros Karatsareas, in Chapter 5, critiques the fact that while all languages have different varieties defined in terms of geographical or social factors is uncontested, community languages are still talked about using broad-brush labels such as Arabic, Greek, Spanish, Turkish. In his chapter he argues that this sweeping approach obscures the multiplicity of sociolinguistic issues that arise from the use of different varieties of these languages – both standard and non-standard – in a wide array of contexts of private and public diasporic life. Drawing on evidence from recent work on Cypriot Greek (Karatsareas, 2018, 2020), Cypriot Turkish (Çavuşoğlu, 2010) and Maraş Kurdish (Yılmaz, 2016), he shows that community languages in diasporic settings reflect the diversity found in the countries of origin of their speakers. Different ethnolinguistic minorities do not only or necessarily speak the standard or majority language of their homelands (see also Gaiser & Matras, this volume; Wells, this volume). In many cases, they speak non-standard varieties as well as languages that have minority status. In their countries of origin, the use of these linguistic varieties is mediated by language ideologies that index relations of power inequality between (groups of) speakers that use ‘good’ linguistic forms and structures and (groups of) speakers that use ‘bad’ ones. Karatsareas argues that such diaspora-internal transformations of language ideologies as well as the implications they have for the intergenerational transmission and maintenance of community languages and therefore the future shape of the linguistic profile of modern cities can only be studied if sociolinguists of urban multilingualism incorporate linguistic diversity as a key element of their theoretical and methodological approaches. While superdiverse urban environments are often presented as uniquely contemporary phenomena and analysed from a synchronic perspective, Naomi Wells argues that the concepts and approaches associated with superdiversity have the potential to shed new light on the enduring linguistic and cultural effects of earlier migration histories. In her chapter, she bridges methodological and theoretical reflections on fieldwork conducted with members of the contemporary Italian community in the city of Valparaíso (Chile), now made up of predominantly third and fourth generation Italo-Chileans. Adopting an ethnographic perspective, she combines interview data with analysis of other forms of emplaced engagement with spatial, material and sensory environments of collective and individual importance. While paying specific attention to language, particularly in relation to the author’s own positioning, the chapter addresses the limitations of an isolated focus on language in relation to community identity and cultural memory. In particular, Wells shows how applying a superdiverse lens to historic migrations can allow us to go beyond linear narratives of language loss to uncover instead more complex and elusive forms of material and immaterial heritage.

Introduction 5

In the following chapter by Daniel McAuley and Janice Carruthers, the research centres on perceptions of and attitudes towards nonstandard contemporary urban vernacular speech (CUV) among sectors of the French public. It assesses the attitudes of the general public towards these markedly urban and multicultural varieties of French, through using focus groups in Paris and Marseille, attempting to represent listeners of various socio-demographic categories. Listeners from a rural background are also included in order to see if they perceive CUV as an ‘urban’ variety/style. Responses from focus groups, a matched guise test and questionnaire are examined. Participants particularly targeted are those whose attitudes towards this variety could potentially have an impact on how speakers who use it are treated, such as gatekeepers to employment or police officers. They conclude by offering a critical perspective on key features of the research design, proposing ideas for future research design in this field. In the final chapter Alfredo Escandón examines the particular challenges of exploring language in urban border zones, building on previous such research in border studies, such as, Relaño-Pastor (2007) and Zentella (2009). To do this, the chapter draws on Linguistic Landscapes methodology in a similar way to the methodology outlined in Paffey’s chapter. The research stems from a five-year study of the linguistic landscape and linguistic practices in Tijuana, a large Mexican city bordering on California. This city, along with San Diego, is part of one of the world’s largest transborder agglomerations that civic and business leaders often refer to as the ‘CaliBaja Binational Mega-Region’. Such a populous conurbation is subject to migratory and labour market flows made up by transborder commuters who cross the border to work either in the United States or in Mexican Baja California, as well as border crossers who divide their time between the United States and Mexico for an array of reasons that range from family ties, shopping, and tourism to education. In addition to its permanent population, Tijuana has significant migration from other parts of Mexico, with a sizable floating population estimated as more than 50,000 deportees (IMPLAN, 2013), and migrants who see Tijuana as a transit point. The city also has a large US-born population and other foreign nationals. The diverse demographic characteristics of an urban border area are further amplified by binational and bicultural traits, a fact that offers an opportunity to analyse language contact, language practices, language attitudes and linguistic identity among other topics that lend themselves also to exploring challenges to the research methodology. All the contributions have certain common theoretical and/or contextual frames underpinning their research which will be discussed in Chapter 1. There is also a strong focus on collaborative research and a recognition of the need for constant reflexivity by the researcher. The volume therefore ends with a brief Conclusion offering a series of

6  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

reflections by the authors on their positionality as researchers of urban multilingualism. Lessons and conclusions from their research reinforce the thoughts of Gogolin et al. (2013: 7) who write: For research on linguistic super-diversity, the inclusion of multi-method approaches is crucial. Temporal and developmental aspects have to be considered, as well as potentially relevant contextual variables that may influence a certain language development or practice. … Thus, disciplinary approaches from linguistics and social science should be combined and developed further to provide new techniques which will in turn enable a thorough investigation of the actual linguistic complexity.

This volume sets out to make a contribution to seeking these new techniques and employing wider disciplinary approaches. In particular, it seeks to expand the methodologies available for research into urban linguistic superdiversity from the focus throughout on author reflexivity and the sensitivity to the researcher-researched relationship that this promotes. Note (1) For a detailed discussion of researching urban multilingualism from a more quantitative perspective, and with examples of a particular method applied to three European cities, see King and Carson (2017).

References Baynham, M., Bradley, J., Callaghan, J., Hanusova, J. and Simpson, J. (2015) Language, Business and Superdiversity in Leeds. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP. 4). See https://tlang.org.uk/working-papers/. Çavuşoğlu, Ç. (2010) ‘The trouble with Turkishness’?: (Invisible) Turkish Cypriots in a Turkish school in London. PhD thesis, King’s College London. Collyer, F.M. (2018) Global patterns in the publishing of academic knowledge: Global North, Global South. Current Sociology 66 (1), 56–73. Gogolin, I., Siemund, P., Schulz, M. and Davydova, J. (2013) Multilingualism, language contact, and urban areas. Multilingualism and Language Diversity in Urban Areas: Acquisition, Identities, Space, Education 1 (1), 1–16. Karatsareas, P. (2018) Attitudes towards Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek in London’s Greek Cypriot community. International Journal of Bilingualism 22 (4), 412–428. Karatsareas, P. (2020) From village talk to slang: The re-enregisterment of a nonstandardised variety in an urban diaspora. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2020.1767115. King, L. and Carson, L. (2017) (eds) Multilingual Identities: A Study of Attitudes towards Multilingualism in Three European Cities. London: The Language Company. IMPLAN (2013) Instituto Metropolitano de Planeación de Tijuana (2013) Boletín VII: Migración. See http://www.implan.tijuana.gob.mx/pdf/boletines/Boletin%20VII.pdf (accessed November 2018). Pink, S. (2015) Doing Sensory Ethnography (2nd edn). London: Sage Publications.

Introduction 7

Relaño-Pastor, A.M. (2007) On border identities: Transfronterizo students in San Diego. Diskurs Kindheits und Jugendforschung [Journal of Childhood and Adolescence] 3, 263–277. Sassen, S. (2005) The global city: Introducing a concept. Brown Journal of World Affairs 11, 27–43. Vertovec, S. (2007) Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30, 1024–1054. Yilmaz, B. (2016) Learning ‘my’ language: Moments of languages and identities among Kurds in the UK. PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Zentella, A.C. (2009) Transfronterizo Talk: Conflicting Constructions of Bilingualism. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvrO1jHkcUg (accessed November 2018).

1 Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts Clare Mar-Molinero

Introduction: Multilingual Southampton Almost all shopkeepers, restaurateurs and hoteliers speak English as their main and only language in Southampton, so do not expect people to be bilingual and fluent in other languages, such as French, Spanish or Italian. All signposts are shown only in English, although attractions and car parks are clearly indicated by symbols. There is a definite south county feel in the London-sounding accents of Southampton locals, although it is easy to understand and there are no unusual or colourful colloquialisms to worry about. If your English is only basic, do bring a translating dictionary or similar, so that you make the most out of your visit. (World Guides)

This extract is from an online tourist guide available for those interested in visiting the city of Southampton in the United Kingdom. As a long-time resident of the city this guide and its instructions to visitors about the language environment of Southampton left me both shocked and yet unsurprised. It emphasised to me the gap that often exists between the imagined and real linguistic environment we live in and how it is perceived by some of its population. Despite the growing volume of research on urban linguistic superdiversity, some of which is discussed below, it is timely to remember that researchers’ observations are not always equally shared by the very populations being investigated, or at least, not by all sections of these populations. I am, therefore, opening this chapter with some comments on the particular example of urban multilingualism in Southampton which I experience in my daily life in order to bring to the fore some of the challenges that face anyone seeking to analyse and interpret this kind of linguistic environment. In particular, I hope with this example to raise some of the issues that a researcher of urban multilingualism needs to bear in mind as they seek to embed themselves in their chosen environment. I will then follow this with an overview of some of the key theoretical and methodological concepts that underpin the kind of research which is explored throughout this volume. 8

Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts  9

Returning to the opening extract: firstly, it is, unsurprisingly, not true to say that English is the ‘main and only language’ of ‘shopkeepers, restaurateurs and hoteliers’ in Southampton. As with so many modern urban centres, the city has a large migrant population, who have arrived over the past century from different parts of the world bringing with them their diverse linguistic resources. Again, common to other contemporary high streets and tourist areas, the frontline personnel in restaurants, cafés, bars and shops represent a wide range of ethnicities and linguistic varieties. Indeed, very many of these people will be at least bilingual or multilingual across many languages. It is interesting too that ‘French, Spanish and Italian’, all Western European languages, are those selected as examples of the authors’ expectations in terms of bilingual competence. Why these languages? It is certainly true that signage is almost entirely in English, which aligns with the beliefs apparently underlying this extract: that Southampton (as with most of the United Kingdom) has an unwritten/ unspoken language policy of monolingualism in the use of English in the public domain; that any other language is invisible; that language – the English language – is considered essential to any sense of British identity. All this represents a common language ideology that privileges the dominant state (national) language and encourages monolingualism. Moreover, it demonstrates also an adherence to standard language ideology (see, Lippi-Green, 1997; and in this volume: Gaiser & Matras; Karatsareas; McAuley & Carruthers) as the guide reassures the possibly concerned visitor that the ‘London-sounding accents’ are ‘easy to understand’. The English of the national capital city and affluent Southern (‘south counties’) England surrounding it is considered more likely to be accessible and comprehensible, unlike that of other varieties which might have ‘unusual and colourful colloquialisms’. In just this one short extract we see unfolding beliefs about and attitudes to language that represent prevalent language ideologies and might be summarised as: considering monolingualism the norm; knowledge of any other language restricted to the kind of European languages taught in UK schools; public language use limited to the dominant language; and placing non-standard forms of the dominant language in a lower status, as difficult to understand and a ‘worry’. All of these beliefs demonstrate a clear ideological positioning, and yet they are not the words of a politician or public policymaker, but of a (anonymous) member of the public attempting to ‘sell’ the city to visitors. Does the author believe that the visitor they seek to attract would prefer the safety of monolingualism and feel more comfortable with standard English? Most likely, yes. What does this really tell us about language(s) in Southampton? As researchers, what do we want to know about language in cities like Southampton? On the one hand we may find this a depressing lack of understanding of language

10  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

in Southampton, demonstrating a blindness and deafness to its multilingualism, which begs the question of who is Southampton for the writer of this guide. At the same time, as researchers we will want to unpick the statements in this short extract to help us understand better language ideologies in Southampton (and many other UK cities besides). Clearly this extract does not represent the kind of source that academic researchers would normally turn to in order to acquire data about language and languages in Southampton. Official statistics of the languages spoken (arrived at largely through counting the languages spoken as mother tongues amongst school children, or self-reporting in national censuses) might be one such source (see, for example, National Statistics Census 2011). However, we should be cautious of ‘official statistics’ which at times reflect the underlying ideologies of those that collect them (see Duchêne & Humbert, 2018). In Chapter 3 of this volume Gaiser and Matras describe a much more nuanced and holistic method of collating statistical data on languages that has been developed in Manchester. Exploring the city’s history of migration and settlement and plotting where this is found in the city might be another (see, for example, Kushner & Knox, 1999; Patterson, 1970, on migration to Southampton). Reviewing other scholarly publications on the subject is necessarily a starting point (for Southampton, see, for example, Cadier, 2013; Cadier & Mar-Molinero, 2012, 2014). And from a more empirical perspective, examining the linguistic and audio landscapes, as well as acting as participant observers, are increasingly favoured methods to build a picture of local multilingualism. These sources would reveal, in contrast to the original extract, an abundance of different languages and an increasing mixing and translanguaging (see below for discussion of this term) among their speakers. Interviewing policymakers and educators and studying official documents can also explain how a city’s local government sees and reacts to language. When asked what Southampton’s language policy is, different answers from its local government officers and politicians have been given at different points in time, no doubt reflecting contrasting party political regimes, both locally and nationally. In 2010 Southampton City Council drew up an Accessible Communications Position Paper which in terms of translation and interpreting services clearly signalled the need to focus on all Southampton residents learning English.1 This document stated, … we will NOT [emphasis in original] pro-actively translate information into community languages. The exception to this is where there is a clear requirement to do so, in view of the specific nature of the information or the intended audience. This position does not negate our commitment to respond to customer requests for information in another language … (Southampton City Council, 2010)

Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts  11

After a lengthy section giving the reasons for not proactively translating council documents, the Position document states, In addition; the council recognises that translation of information is not a substitute for learning English. The council is committed to working with partners in the city to improve English skills in all communities, through the provision of English as a second language (ESOL) classes and other opportunities. This approach will help to build cohesion and integration of communities in Southampton. (Southampton City Council, 2010)

This ideology was still clearly articulated in 2012, when the then Leader of Southampton City Council remarked: We made a conscious decision not to publish [documents] in other languages. Promotion of the English language is the key to everything, to better employment, social enrichment. It’s the key to the identity of the UK; it’s the bedrock of our culture. (public communication)

This Herderian idea of one nation-one language (see, for example, Barnard, 1969), as well as endorsing dominant language monoling­ ualism, present also in the opening extract, is certainly not unique to Southampton. In Southampton this sentiment has been somewhat softened and nuanced since the publication of the Position document in 2010 by different political regimes and policies. Nonetheless, a recent reply from a Southampton City Council officer about language policy started with references to the availability of translation and interpreting services for those who do not speak English. Such services are offered purely as support for access to and integration into the public life of the city through English; no such services are available in the other direction for monolingual English speakers to understand the mother tongues of many of their co-residents. Nor would the city’s local government officers, politicians or, indeed, the majority of the city’s educators, even consider the need or desirability of offering services of the latter sort. There are of course also strong financial considerations that motivate what services might be made available, but I would argue that the English-as-integration belief overwhelmingly underpins any local (and national) language policies. Understanding the language ideologies, attitudes and policies held and practised by a city’s population is of course as important to the research into multilingualism as any collecting of data and statistics, which as already noted, can indeed be affected by the former. For example, it might be argued by those who promote English-asintegration beliefs that monolingual ideologies indicate that there is a need to control language(s), from which it follows, in the strongest interpretation, that multilingualism and those who speak other languages need to be controlled, if not excluded. This cameo of

12  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

Southampton – often cited as the typical average UK medium-sized city – demonstrates how essential it is for researchers of urban multilingualism to ensure they are employing the most appropriate methods to fully see and hear the environment they are examining, including the need to leave expectations and preconceptions behind as they understand the linguistic attitudes, performances and repertoires through which they wander. As an insider to Southampton’s linguistic environment I have sought to be aware of this need to distance myself from any preconceptions and to engage as researcher with the researched and respect the importance of that relationship (see Cadier & Mar-Molinero, 2014). This awareness and relationship are also underpinning much of the volume edited by Gardner and Martin-Jones (2012), whose focus is more generally on contemporary multilingualism, not specifically superdiverse cities. In their introduction they highlight the need for: reflection (…) on the role of researchers as socially-situated actors, with their own biographies and subjectivities, within the research process and on the fluid and negotiated nature of the researcher-researched relationships that are formed in and out of the field. (Martin-Jones & Gardner, 2012: 1) Key Concepts in Urban Superdiverse Mutlilingualism

The research in this volume examines examples of multilingualism in the context of contemporary superdiversity (see below for discussion of this term) in environments that have been and are being transformed by transnational migration. It explores language in urban contexts: the city as a site for experimentation and creativity in language practices. This involves considering theoretical frameworks and appropriate methodologies to examine such practices. Before moving to the specific case studies and critical discussions in the following chapters, some consideration here is given to recurring concepts that underpin the research throughout this volume. Most of these concepts have been widely analysed in the literature by scholars working in the areas, but my aim here is to navigate amongst these discussions to present interpretations that align with the approach we share as authors in this volume. The studies here build on and reference the growing and important literature already available in the area of multilingualism in the city, and related transnational migration, superdiversity and globalisation processes (for example, Blackwood & Tufi, 2015; Block, 2006; Blommaert, 2013; Extra & Yağmur, 2004; Gardner & MartinJones, 2012; Gogolin et al., 2013; Holmes et al., 2013; Horner & Weber, 2017; King & Carson, 2016; Mac Giolla Chríost, 2007; Martin-Jones & Martin, 2017; Shohamy et al., 2010; Smakman & Heinrich, 2017; Stevenson, 2017; Yağmur & Extra, 2011).

Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts  13

In the sections below I will consider what we discover the ‘city’ to be in our research and its relationship with language, a term itself which will also be problematised in the context of current so-called superdiversity. I will examine ways of identifying and describing linguistic practices in contemporary superdiverse urban environments and explore the language ideologies that underpin these and the policies that can impact on them. Finally, I will consider the methodological approach that lies at the heart of this volume, exploring how the contributors in this volume examine the range of methods available to them to research this linguistic environment, and how we reflect on our research methods. Throughout, I will thread through examples from my own research in the city of Southampton. Language and the City The city is a discourse and this discourse is truly a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak our city, the city where we are, simply by living in it, by wandering through it and looking at it … it is in relation to personal histories that urban texts are interpreted and reinterpreted. (Barthes, 1997: 168)

As Barthes suggests the relationship between language and the city is and always has been intricately intertwined. Traditionally, criteria to define the city, particularly the global city, have included hosting economic, political, cultural and transport hubs, characterised by the diverse nature of their large populations who originated from many different linguistic and ethnic backgrounds (Sassen, 1991). Sassen, a pioneer in exploring the meaning of the global city, recognises how deterritorialised the modern city has become, creating networks that cross geographical boundaries and bring together what she describes as, ‘the transnationalization of labor and the formation of translocal communities and identities’ (2005: 38). She goes on to write, The global city and the network of these cities is a space that is both place-centered in that it is embedded in particular and strategic locations; and it is transterritorial because it connects sites that are not geographically proximate yet are intensely connected to each other. If we consider that global cities concentrate both the leading sectors of global capital and a growing share of disadvantaged populations (immigrants, many of the disadvantaged women, people of color generally, and, in the megacities of developing countries, masses of shanty dwellers) then we can see that cities have become a strategic terrain for a whole series of conflicts and contradictions. (Sassen, 2005: 39)

Many of the authors in this volume question the notion of the city, and demonstrate that the ‘city’ – and language in it – is a problematic

14  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

concept: with the ever-expanding boundaries of the city, the megalopolis versus micro and local, such as the London of ‘villages’ (see Paffey, this volume); and the role of language in making a home and feeling ‘at home’ in the city. Is it merely the order of magnitude, or is it the layers of complexity and diversity, which may also be found in much smaller sites (such as Southampton), that equate to ‘city’? The cross-cutting social categories of work, social life, home and online communications, what Timms describes as a ‘mosaic of social worlds’ (Timms, 1971: 1), also problematise where the ‘city’ is – where it begins, where it ends. The research in this volume examines languages in contact in volatile, dynamic situations and is looking for and devising methods to capture that. Much of the research here offers a synchronic analysis. This may be because the city has been considered by some commentators as a consequence of modernity and therefore as having ‘less’ history, or that constant innovation or reinvention destroys historical traces. And yet, what is already there is as important as what is brought by members of the community (or communities) to the neighbourhood. Migration experience shaped by a language regime and the lived experience of language (Busch, 2015) and the speaking subject becomes a historical figure (see, for example, Stevenson, 2017; Wells, this volume). Simultaneously language is refashioned and repurposed to respond to the demands of a new environment. At the same time, multilingual resources in the repertoires of the existing inhabitants in cities and urban spaces create a major contributory factor to its superdiversity. The receiving/host community is itself often not monolingual. Instead, it is increasingly diverse, forming part of the complexity of superdiversity. Nonetheless analysing the multilingual city has over the years been largely driven by research embedded in Western concepts of ‘national’ languages, and indeed ‘bounded’ languages, which I will return to below. As Smakman and Heinrich (2017: 3) argue, referring largely to research published in English, … sociolinguistic theories were predominantly developed on the basis of case studies conducted in the US, Britain and Western Europe. They thus incorporated influences of European-model nation building ideology in that they studied, for example, speech communities that were typically constituted of people with a shared ethnicity, identity and often locality.

And they conclude from this that, There exists, in a word, a double bias in the study of language in the city; a ‘Western’ one and a ‘monolingual national’ one in which minorities and migrants ‘disturb’ the dominant language-ethnicity-identity ideology. (Smakman & Heinrich, 2017: 4)

Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts  15

The contributors to this volume seek to avoid this bias and contribute to new understandings of urban multilingualism, accepting the notion of ‘city’ as fluid and changing. Language in the city manifests itself in a wide range of ways, from the existence of an abundance of different and diverse languages, creating traditional multi-lingualism (i.e. many languages living side by side), to more complex mixing and shifting codes, which we will discuss later. It also creates challenges for civic as well as individual communications, with the result as King and Carson note, … two major communication phenomena affect this diversity in sometimes counterbalancing ways. English is increasingly used as a lingua franca throughout the globe, with an impact on communication choices, language diversity and maintenance, while there is also a remarkable growth in new communication technologies, such as voice recognition and synthesis, and increasingly viable machine translation, digital networked technology and social media. (King & Carson, 2016: 2) Superdiversity

The city and urban centres generally have been the focus of migration for centuries, creating multi-ethnic and multicultural populations. Sometimes this leads to cities within cities, towns within towns: ‘Little Italy’, Chinatown, ‘Little Havana’, etc. At times cultural spaces can exist in parallel and when they become visible to each other, their ‘contact zones’ can clash and collide (Pratt, 1991) fostered by distrust of the stranger, racism and prejudice. Thus we see the mixing of local and global cultures, languages and communities to create what has recently been labelled superdiversity (e.g. Arnaut et al., 2016; Blommaert & Rampton, 2011; Creese & Blackledge, 2018; Vertovec, 2010). Superdiversity is a concept that is referred to and is accepted by the majority of this volume’s contributors (see, for example, discussion of the concept in Bradley & Simpson, this volume). While this is now a widely used term, it is not unproblematic and has been hotly contested by some (see Pavlenko, 2018). The main criticism aimed at the term is that it is a vacuous concept used as a fashionable label to describe a phenomenon which is not new and has existed for years, if not centuries. Indeed, the impact of migration, which produces superdiversity, has been felt as long as migration has existed. This impact increased especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What is largely different, it is argued, with twentyfirst century migration and its impact is a series of new characteristics and contexts: firstly, migration nowadays is increasingly by smaller groups of nationals from a far wider range of different countries. The numbers may be similar to those in the past; the diversity is greater. Secondly, the norm whereby migrants arrived at a destination and settled permanently (or for a long time before returning home) has changed to far more transnational migration where new arrivals come and go, passing through or returning

16  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

home, greatly helped by modern transport options. Linked to this is the role of modern technology which has so dramatically transformed society. It has led to a far higher degree of (often complex) interconnectivity, a ‘compression of time and space’ (Coupland, 2003) and a blurring of boundaries and sense of place (Lynch, 2019). High speed trains, aeroplanes, cars and motorways and telephones and television begun this transformation in the twentieth century. Now the technology brings migrant groups together instantly, able to keep in touch with families and home cultures, in their places of origin or in diasporic communities, through the internet and above all, social media. This has created more complex and ever-changing populations whose effect is both instant and layered. Smakman and Heinrich (2017: 8) taking this further write, The result of – or the solution to – ever-growing diversity has not simply been a new level of attention towards ‘assimilation’ or ‘ethnic segregation’, but it has also involved a new level of ‘individualisation’. In other words, we are witnessing an increasing independence of individuals from their physical socio-cultural environment – a trend enhanced by virtual communities and new communication technology.

In earlier research into the city of Southampton, we described superdiversity as ‘a mosaic of flows, challenging the traditional connections between ethnic, linguistic, cultural and territorial features’ (Cadier & Mar-Molinero, 2012: 151). We further argued that ‘Such physical and virtual mobility facilitates movement and interactions, allowing individuals to negotiate multiple identities in family, work, social networking, and education, as well as in residential, cultural and religious roles’ (Cadier & Mar-Molinero, 2012). In clear contradiction to the statement with which this chapter began, two informants from our research into multilingualism in Southampton gave us accounts of the daily superdiversity they lived (and delighted in). I’m talking Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, English, Greek, Turkish, Albanians. It’s a mix, you have no idea it’s incredible, just people from all over the world, just in a little circle, it’s incredible, ‘cos that’s how we started … we sat down at a table, in M’s just all of us eating and drinking and people from, we covered the whole world in one table. (Mario, restaurant worker, interview, 7 March, 2011) Asian communities keep their connections right across the globe now because, I mean, when I look at myself, I have family in Kenya, I have family in Canada, in America, in Hong Kong, in Japan, in India, in Pakistan, wherever. Yes, I come from Kenya myself. My husband is from Uganda, so we have all this family all over the world. So not only do we link on, every week with everybody, but when there are major decisions to be made in the family we link with them too. (Southampton City Councillor, personal communication, 7 July, 2010)

Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts  17

Language: Translanguaging and (Post) Multilingualism

We have already seen that the notion of the contemporary ‘city’ is a fluid one. Likewise, we will problematise the meaning of ‘language’, especially the idea of a discrete, bounded language, linked to a specific national people. I have previously argued, [The] constant, intense and complex movement of peoples has destabilised many of the conventional labels that in the past have been considered permanent. Identities and networks shift and adapt to their surroundings, recognising power structures, ideologies and the value of varied cultural and social capital of the context they find themselves in. A significant label that we argue shifts and adapts in transnational migration is that of ‘language’, particularly discrete standard national languages. Just as migrant identities merge and shift during a transnational journey, so too do languages and linguistic practices. These can be positive, creative resources that enable social contact and advancement, or they may be negative contestations within linguistic ideological hierarchies. (Mar-Molinero & Paffey, 2018: 15)

In a similar way Li Wei (2018: 22) writes, No single nation or community can claim the sole ownership, authority and responsibility for any particular language, and no individual can claim to know an entire language, rather bits of many different languages. What is more, the association between a language and a nation or a community can change over time, just as an individual can also give up a language and adopt another.

Superdiverse environments ‘generate complex multilingual repertoires in which often several (fragments of) ‘migrant’ languages and lingua francas are combined’ (Blommaert & Dong, 2010: 370). This is particularly the case in the modern city as we have noted. As Smakman and Heinrich (2017: 5) remark, ‘Language diversity is not just a large number of languages, but more crucially also the diversity within and amongst these languages’. Among the linguistic practices that Blommaert and Dong refer to, translanguaging (García & Wei, 2014), transidomatic practices (Jacquemet, 2005) and metrolingualism (Otsuji & Pennycook, 2010) are particularly appropriate approaches to understand transnational and superdiverse repertoires. In order to reflect the increasing complexity and diversity referred to above, these concepts challenge earlier ones such as code switching and code mixing that have long been used to discuss bi- and multilingual contexts, considering these latter too simplistic and reductive. Translanguaging is identified as a linguistic practice at work in their particular research environment by many of the contributors to this volume, particularly Bradley and Simpson, whose work derives

18  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

from the ground-breaking research of the AHRC TLang project where translanguaging underpins the linguistic environments studied (see Chapter 2).2 García and Wei (2014: 22), leading early proponents of translanguaging, argue that: Translanguaging differs from the notion of code-switching in that it refers not simply to a shift or a shuttle between two languages, but to the speakers’ construction and use of original and complex interrelated discursive practices that cannot be easily assigned to one or another traditional definition of language, but that make up the speakers’ complete language repertoire.

Translanguaging questions the basic concept of a named discrete language, normally closely aligned to a specific nation state. Identifying translanguaging challenges the bounded sense of nation and national language and those to whom a language is said to belong. Otsuji and Pennycook (2010) when observing similar linguistic practices in contemporary urban contexts describe such activity as ‘metrolingualism’, which they understand in the following way, ‘… people from different and mixed backgrounds use, play with and negotiate identities through language: [metrolingualism] does not assume connections between language, culture, ethnicity, nationality and geography, but rather seeks to explore the contingencies of these categories; its focus is not on language systems but on languages as emergent from context of interaction … including a much broader view of contexts of translingual activity’ (Otsuji & Pennycook, 2010: 246).

In previous work on Southampton (Cadier & Mar-Molinero, 2012, 2014) we saw many instances of this kind of use of linguistic resources that Otsuji and Pennycook identify. Interestingly, too, is the awareness (and perceived value) of this kind of linguistic interaction that our informants display. For example, [Mario, Madeiran restaurant worker] describes what he sees as the common migrant experience, ‘if you don’t understand you ask or you just make fun or you just mix everything, Spanglish, Spanish, Portuguese, English …’ (Mario, personal communication, March 7, 2012)

Like others working in his sector, he shows how this playing with language or ‘performing’ language is essential for work. When working in a Spanish restaurant he comments, ‘you play the game [pretending to be Spanish], it meant they [the customers] were happy. It meant tips … manager happy’ (Mario, personal communication, March 7, 2012) (in Cadier & Mar-Molinero, 2012: 152). Jacquemet’s concept of transidiomatic practices (2005), is discussed in his findings from his case study of Albanian migrants and complements

Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts  19

and echoes the notions of translanguaging and metrolingualism. He argues that, transidiomatic practices describe the communicative practices of transnational groups that interact using different languages and communicative codes simultaneously present in a range of communicative channels, both local and distant. This triangulation of linguistic activities, indexicality, and semiotic codes needs to be complexified to account for how groups of people, no longer territorially defined, think about themselves, communicate using an array of both face-to-face and long-distance medias, and in so doing produce and reproduce social hierarchies and power asymmetries. (Jacquemet, 2005: 264)

Importantly, such varied and innovative linguistic practices challenge traditional meanings of ‘multilingualism’. No longer should we assume that ‘multilingual’ only encompasses ‘many languages’, if indeed we do, but conveys as well, or instead, the diversity and intensity of linguistic practices and resources referred to above. As Pennycook notes (2010: 2), The notion of language as practice takes us away from a notion of language as a pre-given entity that may be used in a location, and looks, by contrast, at language as part of diverse social activity.

Li Wei (2018) describes this situation as ‘post-multilingualism’. He argues, We are therefore entering a post-multilingualism era where simply having many different languages is no longer sufficient either for the individual or for society as a whole, but where multiple ownerships and more complex interweaving of languages and language varieties, and where boundaries between languages, between languages and other communicative means and the relationship between language and the nationstate are being constantly reassessed, broken or adjusted. (2018: 22)

In contemporary superdiverse urban centres to ask (in censuses or to children at school) what languages people speak could ignore this complex and sophisticated range of communicative practices that exists in much modern multilingualism (see also, Gaiser & Matras, this volume). Only counting discrete, bounded languages in investigating a city’s linguistic repertoire ignores the much greater richness and versatility of its speakers, but also sets up limitations of the information accessed and therefore of the potential support on the part of authorities such as local and national governments. Language Ideologies and Language Policy

Throughout this chapter I am referring to ‘language ideologies’ in the sense first defined by Silverstein (1979: 193) as ‘sets of beliefs about language articulated by users as a rationalization or justification of

20  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

perceived language structure and use’. Or, with a more socially oriented focus Irvine (2012) writes, Language ideologies are conceptualizations about languages, speakers, and discursive practices. Like other kinds of ideologies, language ideologies are pervaded with political and moral interests and are shaped in a cultural setting. To study language ideologies, then, is to explore the nexus of language, culture, and politics. It is to examine how people construe language’s role in a social and cultural world, and how their construals are socially positioned.

Earlier, in the example of Southampton, I have made the link as to how language ideologies, consciously or unconsciously, influence policies that affect language services and attitudes. I have also referred to the lack of an explicit language policy nationally in the United Kingdom, unlike in many other states where language policy is enshrined in national constitutions. The literature on language policy (LPP) is enormous and growing (for a good, if somewhat dated, overview, see, Ricento, 2006), since the early days of rather mechanical notions of Language Planning in postcolonial situations (for example, Haugen, 1959; Rubin & Jernudd, 1977). Recent interesting discussions around concepts of language policy include Shohamy (2006) who emphasises that such policies are implicit as well as explicit and are carried out at informal individual as well as formal societal levels. Barakos and Unger (2016) understand language policy as a discursive space in which valuable resources are at stake, and argue that language policy is an ‘interdisciplinary field of inquiry that offers a variety of theoretical frameworks, methodologies, analytic approaches, and empirical findings’ (2016: 1–2). Their edited volume promotes ‘critical’ language policy (see Johnson, 2017), and emphasises new methods of LPP research, particularly those employing varieties of (critical) discourse analysis (see Escandón, this volume). As one of the contributors to the Barakos and Unger volume, David Cassels Johnson, writes … both micro and macro discourses, and both structure and agency can emerge in a single discursive event and shape a single policy document. Policy texts, discourses and practices are heterogenerous, and ideologies are multiply layered, and all can change from context to context over time. … [D]iscourse analysis techniques empirically uncover how LPP processes can lead to both social change and hegemony. (Johnson, 2016: 18)

Particularly relevant for research into contemporary superdiverse urban multilingualism is Spolsky (2012) who describes language policy as a ‘chaotic non-hierarchical system’ and suggests that the model of

Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts  21

top-down to grass-roots hierarchy is outdated in the negotiation of superdiverse organisational and workplace discourses. He claims, In essence the classical model [of Language Policy] was a ‘top-down’ only process, tending to ignore any demographic practice. To make this over-simplification work, many scholars tried to identify competing forces, which they labelled ‘bottom up’, perhaps not realising that one is dealing with a complex and chaotic non-hierarchical system. Each domain within a sociolinguistic ecology has its own variety of language policy, and each influences and is influenced by all the other domains. (Spolsky, 2012: 3)

In the case studies presented in this volume some of the authors dig deep to uncover this ‘sociolinguistic ecology’ and to identify the existence of language policies influencing this. In doing so, the researchers are exploring public ideologies, attitudes and beliefs about language and linguistic resources. Engaging with the public thus about the ‘value’ of languages involves influencing public opinion and policymakers about language and developing language sensitisation. We reported how such sensitisation occurred whilst working collaboratively with a range of organisations in Southampton to uncover implicit or explicit language polices in the workplace and/or to introduce such polices (Cadier & Mar-Molinero, 2014). This approach emerges very strongly in some of the chapters here where there are clear action/participatory research approaches being employed effectively, combining outreach and social responsibility with research that demonstrates high impact, for example, brokering dialogue among stakeholders. Examples are given that emphasise the importance of social justice, and prolonged engagement in projects focusing on poverty and precarity, in some cases producing new communicative and semiotic resources for those without ‘voices’, or without ‘presence’ as I discuss further below (see also, Patiño-Santos, 2020). Researching Multilingualism; Researching Multilingually

In seeking to bring together yet another, it might be claimed, edited volume about urban multilingualism, I have been influenced by the relatively new research methodological paradigm developed by those proposing the approach of researching ‘multilingually’3 (for example, Holmes et al., 2013, 2016; Stelma et al., 2013). As I have been underlining throughout this chapter, this approach requires the researcher to think intensely about their relationship between the researcher and researched, and in ways that put language at the core. Holmes et al. (2013), in their position paper on this approach, describe what they term ‘relationality’ as considering: … who is involved, what function or purpose relationships have, how relationships are negotiated and managed; and which languages are in

22  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

play in these researcher-researched relationships. Researchers rarely work alone, instead sharing multiple relationships (e.g. with supervisors, participants, translators, interpreters, transcribers, editors, funders). How these relationships are managed interpersonally and linguistically, and what languages are privileged within and across these relationships, all influence research processes and outcomes. Researchers exercise linguistic agency as they negotiate trust, ethics, power, and face over questions of who may enter the discourse, who speaks for whom, and how, when and where…

Holmes et al. conclude their paper by posing the following questions where we can see the role of language in multilingual research is linked to many of the concepts mentioned already in this chapter: for example, language as power; language and ideologies/policies; negotiating linguistic resources. They write, Several questions (…) emerge: questions of power (between researcher and researched in negotiating language choices); questions of inclusion (which participants and which researchers get included in which research processes); questions of meaning-making (particularly concerning the role of mediators and translators as they construct meaning through and across languages); and questions of institutional constraints (where policies, practices, and preferences determine how researchers – and in some instances, which researchers – report and represent the researched). (Holmes et al., 2013)

These questions are reflected upon in different ways throughout the chapters of this volume. Most (for example, Gaiser & Matras; Karatsareas; Paffey; McAuley & Carruthers; Wells, this volume) explicitly address the issue of what language(s) they have conducted their research in and why. This often leads to them considering the power relationship the choice of interview language might signify (Karatsareas, this volume). Others, particularly Bradley and Simpson, and Paffey (this volume), consider these power relationships as an opportunity to give their informants a voice. At the same time we should heed the comments of Patiño-Santos (2020: 216) when she writes, The dialogical and polyphonic character of ethnography obliges us to search for the ‘fairest’ ways to represent the various voices that we have captured, including our own, as well as the situations that we have documented.

It has led me to reconsider my own research in Southampton in the light of the emphasis on how we can and should research multilingually. With a retrospective look at the research I carried out with a team in 2009–2011 (reported in Cadier & Mar-Molinero, 2012, 2014) I am very aware of the limitations the team had in terms of language competence. While able to operate in many European languages, including besides English, the major ones found in Southampton, such as Polish, Spanish, Portuguese and (to a much lesser extent) Greek, as a team we completely

Researching Multilingual Urban Contexts  23

lacked knowledge of and competence in any non-European language. The South Asian languages are those most spoken in Southampton after English and Polish; Chinese is also increasingly apparent. We were not able to develop personal relationships using these languages, and had to depend on interpreters and translators. And yet, our mediators were quite often unexpected and key to our research in that we quickly discovered the linguistic competence and ease of many of our (European) informants to move between languages including, for example, Urdu or Somali, translanguaging with their linguistic skills and resources. We observed and shared in our informants’ practices of translanguaging and metrolingualism, to negotiate understandings between researcher and researched in a fluid and productive way. In this sense, our informants, the researched, became sometimes our gatekeepers and facilitators. As Blommaert writes, … we see very fragmented and ‘incomplete’ – ‘truncated’ – language repertoires (...). We also see how many communication tasks are accomplished collaboratively, by combining the resources and skills of several people. (2010: 9)

We learned to work collaboratively. We identified the linguistic landscape in terms of whether information was directed generally and therefore in more than one language, or at a specific linguistic client group. We ‘played’ with language as did our informants. Far more challenging is to consider the issues of power and control that as researchers we may have (and continue to have) over our informants. With senior managers and policymakers we can negotiate a complicated kind of equal footing. I am personally viewed by the latter as an academic and a tax payer, to be engaged with and treated with respect. I can and maybe do exploit this relationship to persuade and cajole for information I seek. I can play the media and invoke my voter status. The ethics clearance I am required to complete by my university to carry out empirical research with informants does not begin to explore these kinds of relationships, or even, perhaps, recognise them as issues (see, Copland, 2018: 136). On the other hand, surmounting the challenges of inequality in relationships with our informants amongst the migrant communities is much more delicate and difficult if we wish to avoid always seeming to be representing ‘authority’. Clearly, these are challenges all ethnographers face and much has been discussed about the ways of working ethnographically in the fairest and most unobtrusive manner (e.g. Blommaert, 2018; Blommaert & Dong, 2010; Tusting, 2020; Wells, this volume). As Wells reminds us: While ethnography is often discussed in relation to specific fieldwork practices such as participant observation, it can never be reduced to a

24  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

fixed set of methods (Blommaert, 2018: 2) due to its emphasis on the negotiation of knowledge as a context-specific process which is shaped by both researcher and those with whom they research (this volume: 134)

Researching ‘multilingually’ does allow us to consider the importance of language in these relationships and how by embracing the opportunities of language, we may actively seek to reduce the more thoughtless and unacceptable arrogance that research into those from different linguistic, social and cultural backgrounds from ours, as researchers, may seem at times to produce. The authors of the following chapters seek throughout to manage the relationships they have with those they are researching through a sensitivity to and respect for their informants’ linguistic skills and resources. The stories that unfold of language practices in this series of cities we believe contribute to furthering our understanding of what happens in the linguistic mosaics of urban environments and how we can explore and analyse them. Notes (1) This document was originally drawn up and published internally within Southampton City Council (SCC) and available on their website in 2010 by their Stronger Communities and Equalities Team and Communications Division. The link to SCC’s current website no longer shows this document and the team has had many subsequent iterations. When I asked a SCC official (August 2019) responsible for communications he had not heard of the document and admitted it had ‘probably long since ceased to be available’ [personal communication]. (2) It should be noted that there has recently been significant criticism from certain commentators as to the validity of the concept of translanguaging (Jasper, 2017; Jasper & Madsen, 2019). I have not engaged with this criticism here as it is largely directed at the use of translanguaging to underpin criticial pedagogy and educational practices in multilingual settings. (3) As with many other concepts reviewed here, such as translanguaging, superdiversity, metrolingualism, to claim them as truly ‘new’ and ‘different’ is wrong. Many of the theoretical and methodological approaches discussed have echoes going back historically and reflect the impact of migration and movement of peoples over centuries, as well as how people have studied them. Finding new names or labels, however, helps identify the contemporary contexts and the snapshot of the moment and challenges us to interrogate the way we most effectively describe linguistic practices.

References Arnaut, K., Blommaert, J., Rampton, B. and Spotti, M. (2016) (eds) Language and Superdiversity. New York: Routledge. Barakos, E. and Unger, J. (eds) (2016) Discursive Approaches to Language Policy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Barnard, F. (1969) Herder on Social and Political Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barthes, R. (1997) Empire of Signs. Cambridge: Totem. Blackwood, R.J. and Tufi, S. (2015) The Linguistic Landscape of the Mediterranean: French and Italian Coastal Cities. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Block, D. (2006) Multilingual Identities in a Global City: London Stories. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Blommaert, J. (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. (2013) Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes : Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J. (2018) Dialogues with Ethnography: Notes on Classics, and How I Read Them. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J. and Dong, J. (2010) Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Beginner’s Guide (1st edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2011) Language and superdiversity. Diversities 13 (2), 1–21. Busch, B. (2015) Linguistic repertoire and spracherleben: the lived experience of language. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies, 148. London: Kings College University. Cadier, L. (2013) Exploring translocality: negotiating space through the language practices of migrant communities. PhD, University of Southampton. Cadier, L. and Mar-Molinero, C. (2012) Language policies and linguistic super-diversity in contemporary urban societies: The case of the city of Southampton, UK. Current Issues in Language Planning 13 (3), 149–165. Cadier, L. and Mar-Molinero, C. (2014) Negotiating networks of communication in a superdiverse environment: Urban multilingualism in the city of Southampton. Multilingua 33 (5–6), 505–524. Copland, F. (2018) Reflecting on the ethics of researching communication in superdiverse contexts. In A. Creese and A. Blackledge (2018) (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (pp. 132–146). Abingdon: Routledge. Coupland, N. (2003) Introduction: Sociolinguistics and globalisation. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7 (4), 465–472. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (eds) (2018) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Abingdon: Routledge. Duchêne, A. and Humbert, P.N. (eds) (2018) Special issues: Surveying speakers and the politics of census. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 252. Extra, G. and Yagmur, K. (eds) (2004) Urban Multilingualism in Europe Immigrant Minority Languages at Home and School. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. García, O. and Wei, L. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Gardner, S. and Martin-Jones, M. (eds) (2012) Multilingualism, Discourse and Ethnography. Abingdon: Routledge. Gogolin, I., Siemund, P., Schulz, M. and Davydova, J. (2013) Multilingualism, language contact, and urban areas. Multilingualism and Language Diversity in Urban Areas: Acquisition, Identities, Space, Education 1 (1), 1–16. Haugen, E. (1959) Planning for a standard language in Norway. Anthropological Linguistics 1 (3), 8–21. Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J. and Attia, M. (2013) Researching multilingually: New theoretical and methodological directions. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 23 (3), 285–299. Available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ijal.12038. Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J. and Attia, M. (2016) How to research multilingually: Possibilities and complexities. In Research Methods in Intercultural Communication: A Practical Guide (pp. 88–102). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. Horner, K. and Weber, J-J. (2017) Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach. London/New York: Routledge. Irvine, J. (2012) Language Ideologies. Oxford Bibliographies. See https://www. oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-97801997665670012.xml accessed 09.09.19.

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Jacquemet, M. (2005) Transidiomatic practices: Language and power in the age of globalization. Language and Communication 25, 257–277. Jaspers, J. (2017) The transformative limits of translanguaging. Working Papers in Urban Languages & Literacies 226. King’s College London. Jaspers, J. and Masden, L. (eds) (2019) Critical Perspectives on Linguistic Fixity and Fluidity: Languagised Lives. New York: Routledge. Johnson, D.C. (2016) Theoretical foundations. In E. Barakos and J. Unger (eds) (2016) Discursive Approaches to Language Policy (pp. 11–21). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnson, D.C. (2017) Critical ethnography of language policy. In M. Martin-Jones and D. Martin (eds) Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives (pp. 105–121). London: Routledge. King, L. and Carson, L. (eds) (2016) The Multilingual City: Vitality, Conflict and Change. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Kushner, T. and Knox, K. (1999) Refugees in an Age of Genocide: Global, National and Local Perspectives during the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge. Lippi-Green, R. (1997) English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London /New York: Routledge. Lynch, A. (ed.) (2019) The Routledge Handbook of Spanish in the Global City. Abingdon/ New York: Routledge. Mac Giolla Chríost, D. (2007) Language and the City. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mar-Molinero, C. and Paffey, D. (2018) Transnational migration and language practices: the impact on Spanish-speaking migrants. In W. Ayres-Bennett and J. Carruthers (eds) Manual of Romance Sociolinguistics (pp. 745–768). Berlin: De Gruyter. Martin-Jones, M. and Martin, D. (eds) (2017) Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives. London: Routledge. National Statistics Census 2011 (2011) Local Authority Profiles: Southampton See https:// www.southampton.gov.uk/council-democracy/council-data/statistics/2011-censusdocuments.aspx. Otsuji, E. and Pennycook, A. (2010) Metrolingualism: Fixity, fluidity and language in flux. Journal of Multilingualism 7 (3), 240–254. Patiño-Santos, A. (2020) Reflexivity. In K. Tusting (ed.) (2020) The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography (pp. 213–228). Abingdon: Routledge. Patterson, A.T. (1970) Southampton A Biography. London: Macmillan. Pavlenko, A. (2018) Superdiversity and why it isn’t: Reflections on terminological innovation and academic branding. In B. Schmenk, S. Breidbach and L. Küster (eds) Sloganization in Language Education Discourse: Conceptual Thinking in the Age of Academic Marketization (pp. 142–168). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Pennycook, A. (2010) Language as a Local Practice. London: Routledge. Pratt, M.L. (1991) Art of the contact zone. Profession 91, 33–40. Ricento, T. (ed.) (2006) An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method. Oxford: Blackwell. Rubin, J. and Jernudd, B.H. (eds) (1977) Can Language be Planned? Sociolinguistic Theory and Practice for Developing Nations. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii. Sassen, S. (1991) The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sassen, S. (2005) The global city: Introducing a concept. Brown Journal of World Affairs 11, 27–43. Shohamy, E. (2006) Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. London: Routledge. Shohamy, E., Ben Rafael, E. and Barni, M. (2010) Linguistic Landscape in the City. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Silverstein, M. (1979) Language structure and linguistic ideology. In P. Clyne, W.F. Hanks and C.L. Hofbauer (eds) The Elements: A Parasession on Linguistic Units and Levels. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

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Smakman, D. and Heinrich, P. (eds) (2017) Urban Sociolinguistics: The City as a Linguistic Process and Experience. London/New York: Routledge. Southampton City Council (2010) Accessible Communications Position Statement. Southampton: Southampton City Council. Spolsky, B. (2012) Family language policy – the critical domain. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 33 (1), 3–13. Stelma, J., Fay, R. and Zhou, X. (2013) Developing intentionality and researching multilingually: An ecological and methodological perspective. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 23 (3), 300–115. Stevenson, P. (2017) Language and Migration in a Multilingual Metropolis: Berlin Lives. Palgrave Macmillan. Timms, D.W.G. (1971) The Urban Mosaic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tusting, K. (ed.) (2020) The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography. Abingdon: Routledge. Vertovec, S. (2010) Towards post-multiculturalism? Changing communities, conditions and contexts of diversity. International Social Science Journal 61 (199), 83–95. Wei, L. (2018) Linguistic (super)diversity, post-multilingualism and translanguaging moments. In A. Creese and A. Blackledge (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (pp. 16–29). Abingdon: Routledge. World Guides, Southampton Life and Visitor Travel Tips. See http://www.southampton. world-guides.com/southampton_life.html. Yağmur, K. and Extra, G. (2011) Urban multilingualism in Europe: Educational responses to increasing diversity. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5).

2 Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context Jessica Bradley and James Simpson

Introduction

In this chapter we track the development of a key and contested concept in the sociolinguistics of mobility and migration, translanguaging (see also Mar-Molinero, this volume). Translanguaging is the term increasingly used to describe how people bring into interaction their different histories, biographies and repertoires as they communicate ­ with one another in linguistically and culturally diverse urban centres. We examine how – over the course of a four-year multi-site team ethnography which took place in the UK – methodological ­innovation and a growing understanding of context supported the progress of our thinking about the concept. We draw upon examples from research undertaken in the course of that project, Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities (2014–2018, and henceforth TLANG).1 Our starting point for this discussion relates to questions posed by Canagarajah (2017: 10) about scope and focus in the study of language and migration: • Scope of analysis: What is the scale, scope or boundary of the interaction that should be analysed? • Focus of analysis: What verbal and semiotic features should be included in our analysis? These are significant questions for researchers working in contexts characterised by migration and mobility, and ones to which we returned continually over the course of the TLANG project. They pertain not only to methodology but also to theoretical development. In this chapter we respond to them under the broad question: What could and should be included as context? To address this issue we adopt a dual perspective, 28

Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context  29

describing and explaining how our understanding of translanguaging as a concept evolved over the course of our research and how our methodology, together with our understanding of context, similarly progressed. We consider the dialogue between the methodology and the project’s theoretical advancement and suggest how this might inform future research design. We begin the chapter with an overview of the TLANG project. We then turn our attention to the problematic nature of context in an investigation carried out with participants who are distinguished by being on the move. The TLANG research was located in the sociolinguistics of contact, with an interest in the mobility of people and of their communication. Moreover, working as we were in the paradigm of linguistic ethnography, we – as researchers – remained sensitive to the distance travelled between an original intention and an eventual consequence. Kell (2009, 2011), and subsequently Budach et al. (2015), differentiate between a scripted and an emergent trajectory. In the case of our research processes and practices, and the development of our use of the translanguaging concept in response to changing contexts, the trajectory occupies both descriptions, and later we elaborate on the notion of scripted emergence (Bradley, 2018), as applied to the theoretical and methodology trajectories we discuss. The central part of this chapter has five sections, each one corresponding to a phase of the TLANG project itself. With exemplification from data from across the project, in each section we explain how we extended beyond our logocentric starting point. In each case we then go on to describe the parallel methodological course we plotted in the course of our multi-site ethnography. In these parts of the discussion we describe the short, intensive periods of observation and engagement with research sites within the broader context of longerterm collaborations (e.g. Bradley, 2020), our increasing attention on and recognition of the salience of the visual, and the participatory turn in our growing understanding of the positionality of the ‘researched’. TLANG Project

The TLANG study took place over four years, with case studies located in four UK cities: Birmingham, Leeds, Cardiff and London. In this chapter we refer directly to the research carried out by the Leeds case study team. Leeds is a large city in the northern English county of West Yorkshire. Much of the Leeds-based research took place in the innercity ward of Gipton and Harehills, a district which binds together two suburbs which are in fact quite different from each other (Callaghan, 2015: 2). We spent much time in Harehills, home to a changing population of over 80 nationalities and a wide range of services catering

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for new arrivals, including shops, letting agents, law firms and advocacy organisations. During the project we described ethnically and linguistically diverse Harehills as superdiverse (Vertovec, 2007, 2019). Superdiversity, as a key concept or ‘summary term’ (Blackledge et al., 2018: xxiii), seeks to describe a mobility and movement which goes beyond what has been experienced previously (see also Mar-Molinero, this volume). For Vertovec, it is not intended to be a theory (Meissner & Vertovec, 2015). Instead it serves to offer a lens through which particular trajectories and movement(s) can be viewed: Coined to draw attention to complex patterns in migration, super­ diversity entails emerging and specific configurations of, among other dimensions, national and racial or ethnic background, gender, age, language, socio-economic status, legal status, and migration channel. (Blackledge et al., 2018: xviiii)

The notion of superdiversity offers insights into the complexity of mobile lives. Vertovec (2019) maintains that, while it is sometimes taken up in misleading ways, it nonetheless serves as a highly useful concept for understanding ‘new complexities’ (2019: 136) and, importantly, focuses attention on inequalities. In a similar way, Blackledge et al. suggest that ‘superdiversity requires a political and ethical consciousness’ (2018: xli). TLANG comprised four main phases, with research focusing in turn on specific but sometimes overlapping areas of activity: business, heritage, sport and law. As the project progressed, a further domain became salient, arts practice. This topic was mutually informing and informed by the doctoral research project connected to TLANG (Bradley, 2018). Working with a specific key participant in each main phase, our research in Harehills and the surrounding area enabled us to conduct detailed observations of the kinds of practices involved in navigating everyday lives at work and in social life. The methodology was designed to allow for the complexity of the everyday in the superdiverse city to emerge. The themes of business, heritage, sport and law served to not only provide a backdrop to the interactions under investigation but, as Blackledge et al. explain, they would ‘profoundly structure the project, going beyond background context to become disciplinary foci in themselves’ (2018: xxxvii, emphasis added). Subject specialists in the four themes participated in the project at strategic points and interdisciplinary partners were also embedded in the project design. These methodological decisions, responsive to the superdiversity on the ground, disrupted traditional views of context. As Blommaert et al. (2018) note, and as we discuss further in the next section, ethnographically informed studies of social interaction are well placed to critique the very idea of context, drawing attention to its nature as never stable, always dynamic and not necessarily shared.

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Scripted emergence

Returning to Canagarajah’s questions, we consider here the central issue of context. In established understandings of language in use in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, the meaning of language is not fixed or autonomous but is contingent upon context (Cook, 1989; Brown & Yule, 1983; Widdowson, 1984). Context however is a slippery thing. For sociolinguists the ‘community’ has, in the past, served as a useful contextual basis. Hymes notes that for an adequate approach to language: one cannot take linguistic form, a given code, or even speech itself, as a limiting frame of reference. One must take as context a community, or network of persons, investigating its communicative activities as a whole, so that any use of channel and code takes its place as part of the resources upon which the members draw. (Hymes, 1974: 4)

This perspective, however, assumes a certain stability of community, and does not do justice to the relative position of text and context when the text is on the move – as it inevitably is in the conditions of migration and mobility which characterise the lives and trajectories of the TLANG participants. Here, communication happens in social spaces which Pratt (1991) calls contact zones, ‘where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power’ (1991: 34). In the United Kingdom, as elsewhere, rapidly altering patterns of migration and mobility have affected the composition, distribution and status of migrant and settled communities alike. In the contact zones where the TLANG research took place, we witnessed what Blackledge and Creese (2010), drawing on Vertovec (2007), describe as the ‘meshing and interweaving of diversities’. In these contact zones, factors including ethnicity, nationhood, social class and, of course, language, intersect and influence the highly differential composition, social location and trajectories of various groups (see also Blackledge et al., 2018). An alternative way of thinking about context therefore is to regard it in relation to mobilities and trajectories, both of participants and of texts. As Blommaert has it, a sociolinguistics of mobility recognises that ‘communication is shaped by mobile resources not immobile languages’ (2010: 49). Budach et al. (2015), citing Kell (2009, 2011), describe an unfolding communicative event as following either a scripted or an emergent trajectory. They suggest that in public institutions, communication follows a particular path: it is in some sense scripted. Emergent trajectories, on the other hand, ‘tend to occur in domains of activity where processes are not yet formalised and genres are flexible’ (2015: 392). In our research, parameters existed but were not all pre-defined: our focal domains of practice were decided at the outset, as were the

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details of the time-bound stages of our fieldwork and analysis. However, our partnerships with participants were not determined in advance, and – this being a naturalistic study – nor were the types of interaction we would observe and examine. The trajectory of the research was in equilibrium, emergent but controlled and therefore necessarily bounded. The space afforded by this scripted emergence (Bradley, 2018) enabled us to develop the central concept of translanguaging in relation to new and different partners with practices and purposes which we had not foreseen at the outset of our work. Translanguaging: The trajectory of concept and methodology

For the TLANG project we observed interactions typical in the contact zones of the UK’s urban spaces. Our prior conception of translanguaging led us to focus initially on how speakers deploy their multilingual repertoires in their meaning making, but over the course of the study and beyond, our understanding of translanguaging evolved. In this section we discuss and demonstrate this trajectory with reference to examples from the five phases of the project, and explain how our relationships with our Key Participants (KPs) in the sites and settings of their interactions contributed to the development of the concept. The project underwent full ethical review at the University of Leeds and names of people and organisations have been anonymised. Business

The first phase of TLANG (2014–2015) focused on the domain of Business and Enterprise (Baynham et al., 2015; Creese et al., 2016). The KP was Klára, a self-employed Czech-speaking community interpreter working with advocates primarily concerned with assisting Czech and Slovak Roma migrants in Leeds with their settlement in a new country. Their living conditions are often precarious: like many others, both new arrivals and established residents alike, they are dependent upon low-pay employment and – in many cases – financial benefits provided by the state. Our study extended into Klára’s home and social life, and we also examined her electronically mediated communication, much of which exemplified the blurring of boundaries between work, family and social interaction in online communication. Our data demonstrated how recent migrants facing challenging circumstances engage with support provided by bodies such as local government authorities and the National Health Service. Our analytical focus in Klára’s workplace interaction was on the interpreter-mediated support she gave. We witnessed many examples of the typical pattern in a triadic interpreting event (Li, 2011). Here, movement between languages was predictable, associated as it was with the purpose of the

Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context  33

interaction and the respective aims that each participant might have. The two data extracts below are from interaction between Klára, clients and employees of the advocacy organisation Migrant Counsel. In the first extract, M is the advocate, K the interpreter and N the client. The basic structure of this mediated interaction is: M, who doesn’t share a language with N, communicates with N by means of K, who shares both M and N’s languages: M: do you intend to claim reduction of your council tax? K: zažádala ste si o snížení council tax? N: ne K: ne nežádala ste si když ste si žádala o housing? K: she says no (Baynham et al., 2015: 43; see also Simpson, 2017)

M asks a question, which Klára interprets in Czech. N replies and Klára relays her answer in English. In the Czech utterances, the key bureaucratic lexis, council tax and housing are in English, unsurprising because they were learned by both K and N in the United Kingdom. Borrowings of this kind are – as Auer (forthcoming) points out – one of the best-known bilingual practices of migrants. He contends that these and other types of linguistic behaviour familiar in the literature on code switching ‘certainly do not require a new terminology’. We would concur if indeed our prime attention was upon linguistic codes, and on language systems. However, our focus was on the KP and her communicative practice (including but not restricted to languaging), and this distinguishes it from studies of code switching. We oriented our empirical gaze ethnographically to Klára, her ways of knowing, how these were evident in her communicative practice and how in turn they enabled her to carry out her work, as well as operate in social and home life. Our knowledge of Klára’s life history was important in making sense of her ability to translate not only across languages but across discourses – what we came to call trans-discursive translanguaging. Here, we saw how she used the fullness of her own understandings, gained through experience, of how things are done in the United Kingdom. In our second example, the discourse of Equal Opportunity Monitoring needs to be negotiated. Klára is interpreting for Mr T. Because Mr T is a new client, he is asked (by the manager, S), to complete the Equal Opportunity monitoring section of the registration form, which includes a question on religion: S: religion Christian, yea? K: máte ňáký náboženství, nebo ne? (do you have any religion, or not?) T: tak, normální (well, normal)

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K: T: K: T: K:

(laughs) tak, normální je? He said ‘normal’. ((laughs) well, normal is? He said ‘normal’) Žádný … katolík. (none … Catholic) Katolík. Tak žádný nebo katolík? (Catholic. So, none or Catholic) Katolík, nó … (Catholic, yea) (still laughing) he said normal, which one is normal? (Baynham et al., 2015: 56; see also Baynham & Hanušová, 2018)

Religiously Mr T is ‘normal’, which appears to mean somewhere between ‘nothing’ and ‘Catholic’, the unmarked religion in the Czech Republic. Mr T is not within the discourse of Equal Opportunities Monitoring in the UK third sector, but the other participants are. This triggers Klára’s mediating work we see in the extract. So trans-discursive translanguaging can be understood as mediating or interpreting a discourse, that of Equal Opportunities Monitoring, to someone who is outside it. Working with KP Klára

In the first phase of the project we established our pattern of working closely with one Key Participant, and of orienting the fieldwork around that KP. Our relationship with Klára was professional, and as with all our KPs, she received a fee for her work with us. The main affordance of working with one KP is that they become an access point for individuals and organisations. In the case of Klára we were able to establish links with the charity with which she worked, Migrant Counsel, and also the Local Authority-funded Roma Advice Service. To capture records of her interactions we drew upon established methods of linguistic ethnography and the sociolinguistic study of institutional discourse, including observational fieldnotes, open-ended interviews and informal conversations, and audio recordings of interaction. On this last point however, we encountered an ethical issue. In one of Klára’s two workplaces, a community centre which hosted the Roma Advice Service, we were allowed to observe but not audio-record, despite our requests to the managers of the local authority’s translation service. The sensitivity around audiorecording might be explained at least in part by moves in the UK’s immigration policy around that time. A set of legislative measures collectively known as the ‘hostile environment policy’, including a new Immigration and Naturalisation Bill (2014), were designed to make staying in the United Kingdom as difficult as possible for people without official permission to be in the country. As we progressed through the project, we understood more clearly that our attention was not code focused (upon hybridity or the mixing of different languages within the same exchange, for example), but oriented toward our participants and the places and spaces where they live, work

Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context  35

and interact. This became clearer still in the next phase, taking place in the domain of Heritage. Heritage

In the second phase of our project (2015–2016), we considered how visibility and voice are enabled, or not, in particular spaces and at particular times. We posed the question: What constitutes heritage – that is, what do people value, protect and wish to preserve – in a time and space characterised by complexity, mobility and unpredictability? In our examination of heritage practices through a linguistic ethnographic lens we worked closely with Key Participant Monika, a young Slovak Roma woman living and working in inner-city Leeds (Baynham et al., 2016; Creese et al., 2017; Bradley & Simpson, 2019). Monika aspired to setting up cultural spaces for Roma people in Harehills. We followed Monika as she attempted to bring her ideas into being. With the support of others, Monika tried to transform her available cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1991) into something that would preserve and consolidate heritage but would also earn her a living. She did this by starting to set up a socially beneficial business called a Community Interest Company, for which she needed to write a business plan. As her plan moved through stages of transformation, she experienced her dreams and aspirations becoming tangible and at the same time constrained. In our study of Monika’s movement through the third sector funding system, we became interested in how communication is enabled, disabled or constrained across languages and discourses, and within and between different spaces. We viewed her business plan form and its completion as a nexus, a point in spacetime ‘at which historical trajectories of people, places, discourses, ideas, and objects come together to enable some action which in itself alters those historical trajectories in some way as those trajectories emanate from this moment of social action’ (Scollon, 2001: viii). Scollon’s Nexus Analysis thus introduced both historical and spatial dimensions into our study, allowing us to connect one event with many others at different scales of time and place. Early in the process of developing the business plan, in the course of an interaction with a local authority advisor, Monika suggested a long list of activities that she might carry out: a dance school; some office where I can support clients with my advocacy; do some parties; people will come to me and I can help them call job seekers; I will do like drop-ins; my job’s gonna be get them some ESOL classes; zumba classes; carnival; advising them; take them somewhere; support them to go to GP; to be their hand. (Baynham et al., 2016: 39; see also, Bradley & Simpson, 2019)

36  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

These ideas represented different aspects of her past, her present and her perceived future, and followed her own trajectory, a physical movement from Slovakia to the UK. The business plan would help her to make at least one of these many ideas fundable. She faced immediate constraints: the plan not only had to be written in standard English and in a specialised register, but it also had to be communicated and discussed in English. This threw light on the relative valuing of her communicative resources. Following Bourdieu (1991), Blommaert (2005) notes how the linguistic resources built up at some expense in one place are valued very differently in other places. In relation to this, the mobility of superdiversity was problematic for Monika, immobile not necessarily in geographical terms, but certainly in socioeconomic ones. In our analysis, we saw how Monika’s linguistic and discursive resources were not the ones privileged in the bureaucratic spaces of local government and third sector support offices, or in the discursive spaces that emerge in the unfolding interactions that take place there. The communicative resources that she brought with her on her migration trajectory, and had accrued since coming to the UK, were found to be adequate for some things but not others. She was therefore constrained as she struggled to achieve the socioeconomic stability that she needed for herself and her family. Working with KP Monika

Working with Monika was a highly participatory endeavour, bringing us into contact with her family and many others supporting her. Moreover, the range and extent of our data collection reached its peak in this phase, with extensive fieldnotes, interviews, audio-recordings and photographs in work, social and home environments, along with social media (principally Facebook) posts. The situation in which she found herself – that of having to prepare a business plan – entailed a compatible way of working with researcher Jolana Hanušová. Over the observation period, Jolana attended meetings with Monika, socialised with her and her siblings and spent many hours in the family home. Jolana’s role became one which moved from that of observer to that of an advisor. Wills (2012), writing about her research on London Citizens, talks of an ‘epistemology of engagement’ (2012: 120), and of the insights she gained from her insider positioning. Jolana’s increasing involvement allowed for what Wills describes as a ‘more emotional style of learning’, which, in turn, also characterised our own team discussions around and analysis of the data. Jolana’s shift in role extended to assisting, advising, making suggestions towards and even typing up Monika’s business proposal, as we see in the extract below. Here, Monika is grappling with a question on the form which asks her to articulate her ‘personal aims and

Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context  37

objectives’. She is speaking to Jolana, who is typing the responses into the form on her laptop: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

M

J M J

and I wanna show them they can change (.) they can be same like me working look after family and be strong (.) I mean this way I don’t mean like me I’m not good role model (.) some ways (sighs) ((typing, muttering)) community and you know what I mean ((typing)) manage to find my way to employment ((reading out what she’s just written)) I have been in in a similar situation like many people in the community and I managed to find my way to employment (Baynham et al., 2016; see also Bradley & Simpson, 2019)

Jolana (10-11) translates Monika’s talk into the language of the business plan (similar situation … many people in the community … managed to find my way to employment). For Wills, the epistemology of engagement is aligned with that of Gibson-Graham and their call for ‘performative ontological’ projects (2008: 613), which seek to explore our own resources and methodologies as researchers and the possibilities for these when conducting research outside the academy. Our close work and insider positioning with Monika aligns with this call, as does our involvement with Tiago, the KP in the third research phase. Sport

As we encountered new types of interaction in different domains of practice, so our view of translanguaging extended to encompass interconnectedness beyond the spoken and written language, acts of languaging and the linguistic repertoire, to the multimodal. In the third phase of our research (2016–2017) the focus was on sport: we observed the interplay of spoken and written, visual and gestural and we encompassed in our analysis the embodied and spatial practices which are an inherent part of communication. In a domain where the visual is so salient, we used video to research the visual/verbal/embodied interaction which goes into coordinating sport activity. We followed Tiago, a young man originally from Mozambique, and his life-shaping involvement in two activities, basketball and the Brazilian martial dance Capoeira (Baynham et al., 2017; Callaghan et al., 2018). In this chapter our main attention is on Capoeira, a complex activity which can be seen simultaneously as cultural transmission, a dance practice and a martial art.

38  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

In our more recent theorisation of multimodal spatial practice, and informed by our study of arts practice (see below), we drew upon the concept of the assemblage as a means of accounting – conceptually and analytically – for the fullness of communication. Capoeira relies on the body, language, training, music, objects and spatial positioning of the participants. In other words it is an activity that depends upon a deployment of the spectrum of the communicative semiotic repertoire. The assemblage refers to the non-hierarchical constellation of human and non-human bodies, materials, actions, enunciations, signs and the dynamic relationships between them (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Bennett, 2010), which exists at any point during a practice. We identified focal assemblages through close examination of data via thematic analysis of fieldnotes, linguistic and multimodal interaction analysis of audio, photographic and video data and narrative analysis of interview data. Here we link to a short extract of archived video data from an observation of a Capoeira session in Leeds, chosen for inclusion because it demonstrates how music, song, dance, rhythm, movement and spatial arrangement come together in the practice. In the extract, Tiago is playing with a visiting Capoeira leader, Mestre João. Link for video: https://vimeo.com/205044136 Password: TLANG

Capoeira sessions, rodas, are always accompanied by live music. Music determines not only the speed, but also the characteristics of the particular game to be played. For each rhythm, there is a corresponding style of Capoeira. Capoeira can appear as a dance to an external observer because the moves follow the music and the two players move in a synchronised way. Capoeira, though, originated in colonial Brazil, and in the story of its origins slaves brought fighting practices from Africa that could be disguised as a dance, letting training in the techniques pass unnoticed by colonial masters. This notion of dance as a disguise is present in today’s Capoeira. The difference between Capoeira and a dance is that Capoeiristas are in a state of alertness; they know that an attack might come at any point, and there is a constant sense of potential violence. In the video extract, the move being carried out is chamada. Literally a ‘call’, chamada is a strategic, ritualistic sub-game. The two players walk back and forth close to one another, which is the source of the potential danger. Although chamada might look like a friendly break in the game, its purpose is to test the opponent’s alertness, and either of the players may suddenly try to take their opponent down at any point. Mestre João invites Tiago to a chamada, but within a few seconds tests his alertness with a feigned cabeçada (head stroke). The close analysis of videos of repeated activity over time was complemented by another facet of our ethnographic approach, whereby

Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context  39

we participated in the activity itself and came to know Tiago and his fellow Capoeiristas informally. Working with KP Tiago

Through getting to know Tiago, we came to understand the role of Capoeira in the trajectory of his own life history. To study Tiago’s communicative practice, TLANG researchers Jolana Hanušová and Mike Baynham attended his weekly Capoeira sessions, audio- and videorecording the activity on an iPad, and carried out informal interviews with the group’s regular leader Mestre Leandro, Tiago himself and the other members of the group. Jolana and Mike joined in and socialised: many of the informal interviews took place in bars after the sessions. Through this ethnographic approach we came to know not only the details of the practice of Capoeira itself, but also the importance of Capoeira in Tiago’s identity formation in his Mozambique childhood. He first encountered Capoeira in the capital, Maputo, as a 14-year-old: his cousin was a member of the first Capoeira group in Mozambique. ‘I hear the sound and then I look to the window I saw guys training … oh that’s very cool you know’. Some members of Tiago’s family had hoped he would become a professional basketball player, and in their own imagined future for him, he might even have moved to the United States to pursue a lucrative career. Capoeira however won out. In this transcribed interview extract, we gain a sense of Tiago’s passion for Capoeira. We see how the activity had a relevance to his everyday life as a teenager in Mozambique, helping him to deal with the difficulties he was experiencing when he was growing up, and in particular with his sense of loss as a result of not knowing who his father was, and his loneliness after moving away from his early home. T: So I just erm but capoeira was very first love for me because on my story and my you know my childhood in terms of how I was live because on that time didn’t know which my father and I was live with the other family so it’s different when you when you live with other family, the way how they treat the kids from their house is different how they was treat me so, capoeira was kind of, hmm, consolo? Consolo in English … consolo M: consolation T: consolation yea (Baynham et al., 2017: 107)

Through our prolonged engagement with the research site, and through working closely and informally with Tiago, we gained insights into how he felt he discovered his own identity as an individual and as a Mozambiquan, gained confidence and developed an interest in cultures and languages. So while the affordances of visual methods are clear when we describe Tiago’s practice, the benefits of our ethnographic approach

40  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

are likewise evident in that they give us an insight into the trajectories of the individuals who take part in the practice. Law

In the final phase of the TLANG project, the domain of legal advice (2017–2018), we worked with KP Lucy. Lucy, a trained immigration lawyer, ran a weekly drop-in immigration legal advice session at City Mission Leeds, a charity which (from its website) ‘provides practical assistance to those in need – irrespective of ideology, faith, ethnicity, age or gender’ (Baynham et al., 2018: 22; Simpson, 2020). In the absence of government provision for initial immigration advice other than that relating to asylum claims, City Mission stepped in to fill the gap. Because of the sensitivity and confidentiality of Lucy’s advice sessions we had no access to visual data (unlike with Tiago or Monika), and worked with transcribed audio-recordings of Lucy’s interactions with her clients. Each one was a short bounded interactional space where Lucy supported meaning making using a range of shared communicative resources, including informal interpreting and translation tools on mobile apps. Hence we re-oriented towards the importance of language, discourse and ideology to consider translanguaging on the frontline of language ideological debates. The data for this aspect of the TLANG project comprised fieldnotes documenting sessions over three months, short informal and longer extensive interviews with Lucy, her colleagues and her managers at City Mission, and audio recordings of 49 consultations, Studies of interaction in immigration law settings (courtroom hearings, appeals, interviews with lawyers) typically highlight the power relations between participants, and how language and literacy are implicated in asymmetrical encounters. Blommaert (2001), for example remarks on the complexity of interactional inequality in the Belgian asylum system, where administrative procedures require highly developed literacy skills as well as access to a standardised variety of language. In this phase of the TLANG project, clients’ interactions were with a cooperative lawyer in a welcoming and informal space. The power asymmetry between advisor and client was nonetheless evident in terms of language and of knowledge. A characteristic of Lucy’s interactional behaviour with her clients lay in her attempts to flatten these inequalities through the flexible use of her linguistic and discursive repertoires and other communicative resources available to her. She adopted a particular stance towards her clients and the themes of their concerns, whereby she opened up interactional spaces within which the potential for meaning making was enhanced (see Simpson, 2020). In the extract below, we see how Lucy shifts between legal language and more everyday language to communicate a complex matter effectively to a client. Lucy is explaining to Cara the consequences of her

Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context  41

son’s deportation order for his chances of re-entering the country. Cara is from Malawi and speaks fluent English, drawing attention to a factor identified in the Business phase of the research: that a communicative repertoire comprises not only societally recognised languages but language varieties and registers, as well as the array of non-linguistic resources required for meaning making. Translanguaging as meaning making is a feature of all communication, including but not restricted to that between expert and non-expert users of a particular language. Cara’s son had come to the United Kingdom aged 12. At 16 he was arrested and charged with attempted robbery, for which he received a prison sentence. Upon his release, aged 18, he was deported to Malawi where he has been for three years, and Cara wants to know if there is any way of him being allowed to return to the United Kingdom. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

L:

C: L:

(.) the grounds for revoking a deportation order are that something in the situation is now significantly different to warrant the Home Office opening that (.) [that up [back up so if nothing is changed if he’s if he’s still in the same situation and you are (.) it’s not gonna be successful (.) (Simpson, 2020; see also Baynham et al., 2018: 40)

Throughout the extract, Lucy uses specific legal terms as she explains the consequences of the decision: a deportation order; revoke; grounds for; warrant. This language needs to be manageable for Cara, who is an expert user of English but not necessarily of specialised legal discourse. At points, Lucy’s mediational work across registers involves rephrasing the legal language in more everyday language. In (4) for example, she uses a technical phrase (‘warrant the Home Office’), then makes a shift to more everyday language, explaining what the result or consequence will be using terms which Cara will understand, in an everyday register. She does not avoid using complex legal language when she is confident (through listening to Cara’s responses) that her client understands what she means; when she is unsure, she still uses these terms, but uses a more informal register to rephrase them. As with our work with Klára in the first phase of the project, we noticed how translation occurs not only between societally defined languages but also between discourses (the formal and informal registers that are associated with legal and everyday discourse). Lucy’s talk was rich with examples of trans-discursive movement between specialised registers and discourses and everyday English, in an endeavour to render the complex language of the immigration law process in language that clients could understand.

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Working with KP Lucy

Our fieldwork with Lucy happened to straddle the pivotal point in June 2016 when the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. The Brexit referendum gave the content and tone of many of Lucy’s interactions with her clients a very particular flavour, and raised the question of how people navigate the very fast-moving immigration law to which they are subject. The relevance of the political moment was clear to Lucy’s clients before the referendum, as was Lucy’s fear of its consequences. We interviewed Lucy three weeks before the Brexit vote. In this previously unpublished extract she described how she felt about the implications of leaving the European Union: disastrous in a word disastrous as as a human rights lawyer our human rights ( ) (convention) of human rights which is a separate matter to being in EEA but from what we’ve heard from the Brexiteers they what they want is to change it to a British bill of rights so to essentially revoke the human rights act which brought the European convention into a law and replace it with like America has a bill of rights erm but the- there’s no legal precedent in the UK for that ‘cause we don’t (have a) constitution it’s it’s all very very scary-shaped ground and for somebody that you know 70 80 percent of the work I do for people who claim asylum (once they’ve) failed is relying on human rights so if I didn’t have that mechanism to use I don’t know what I’d do.

The day-to-day interactions which Lucy has with her clients relate in the most immediate way to political moves at various scales. For Lucy and her clients, the context of the interaction – navigating immigration law in a hostile environment – is far from a background issue. This again suggests the affordance of the ethnographic approach, which makes visible the relationship between an interactional event, the life history trajectories of participants and the broader socio-political milieu. Extending to the arts

We now consider research in arts and creative practice which developed alongside – and in dialogue with – the main study. The impetus for this strand of activity was a doctoral research project funded by a studentship attached to the project. The TLANG team included two doctoral researchers, one based at Cardiff University (Piotr Wegorowski) and one at the University of Leeds, Jessica Bradley, co-author of this chapter. Her research focused on community arts, and she considered translanguaging and translation processes across stages of production and performance in street arts (Bradley, 2018; Bradley & Moore, 2018). Themes arising from the TLANG project and the doctoral research underpinned a number of associated extension projects, including Migration and Home: Welcome in Utopia (see McKay & Bradley, 2016),

Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context  43

a follow-on project Migration and Settlement: Extending the Welcome, and LangScape Curators, an educational engagement project (see Bradley et al., 2018; Bradley & Atkinson, 2020). Here, we describe the doctoral research, and how it informed and was informed by the developing concepts of the main project. Bradley’s research was with street arts performers in West Yorkshire who were developing collaborative projects with a street arts theatre in Ljubljana, Slovenia. During this time, the performers were developing a production based on a traditional folk story from the Slovenian Alps. As with the TLANG project as a whole, the doctoral research was conceived as linguistic ethnographic in approach, with a focus on translanguaging practices. In attending to street performance Bradley observed the following: • The performers deployed multiple languages from their wide-ranging communicative repertoires as they worked together to make puppets, props and to devise a production. • Being highly mobile was crucial for the performers and they needed to be multilingual to be able to traverse the festival circuit, to move across country borders and to collaborate with other street performers. • The languages spoken by the performers were not considered by them as bounded – translanguaging was normal and unremarkable (see García, 2009). Language, or languaging, was therefore central to the doctoral study. However, language was not considered by the performers to be at all important in the context of the arts practice under investigation, i.e. theatre in the street. The artistic director even suggested that there was not much of interest in their art practice for a language researcher as they did not really use language as such. Questions which arose therefore included whether a sociolinguistic study focusing on spoken and written language could account for the diversity and richness of the communicative practice being observed. It seemed that so much could and would be potentially lost. Despite language being considered inconsequential by the arts organisation, the PhD data-set (audio recordings, video recordings, photographs, emails and observation notes) documented rich use of spoken and written language. Over the course of the production process the performers talked (face to face or by phone or Skype), they communicated by email, they wrote scripts and scenarios, which were then shared and adapted by others within the group, and made notes in sketchbooks and notepads. These multiple and multiplying texts, as traces of communication, circulated and travelled and propelled the production towards its end point: the performance. But for the performers, language was not foregrounded in the way that their

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(non-spoken and highly visual) performances were. The visual and sound production – and its performance across multiple sites – was the goal. Language was secondary and backstage, used in the studio during the preparation period, with the performance itself intended to be without (spoken) language. Posthumanism, and in particular the work of Karen Barad (2007) and Maggie MacLure, helps to account for this analytically, and to enable the research to respond to the performers’ movement beyond language, decentring it, rethinking its place: Language is deposed from its god-like centrality in the construction and regulation of worldly affairs, to become one element in a manifold of forces and intensities that are moving, connecting and diverging. (MacLure, 2013: 660)

As far as the street performance was concerned, language was deposed. This presented a methodological quandary: language was the focus but at the same time considered irrelevant by participants. The performers held strong ideological positions about street arts as art without language and about street arts as language. How could these ideas, integral to street arts puppetry, be incorporated into a linguistically oriented analysis? The initial linguistic ethnographic approach had felt insufficient and partial (see Bradley, 2020) and raised other questions about the extent to which the frameworks used to analyse spoken and written language might support analysis of communicative practices that do not involve language. Any approach risked being reductive, with the material, embodied and sensory nature of the research seeming in some ways at odds with the perceived necessity of isolating words from the circumstances of their production for the purposes of analysis. The framework had to extend to incorporate the multimodal, the material, the embodied, while not losing the focus on language, which is itself always embodied and personal (see also Harvey, 2019). The performers conceptualised the street performance as completely non-verbal, with the story narrated by puppetry with visuals, sound and movement. They worked with a professional puppet maker to design and create giant puppets made from found and junk materials, including tent poles and raincoats. The complexity of the story, the giant puppets, the street spaces of the setting and the performers’ own physicality were all entangled. The performers decided it was too complex to be told (and understood) without dialogue, and during the devising process re-introduced spoken language. Language was no longer ‘deposed from its god-like centrality’, but still not entirely central. A script was negotiated, drafted and written, and through this script spoken language(s) were woven into the production. Discussion took

Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context  45

place over which (named) languages should be used (English? Slovene? Italian?) and with these questions when, where, by whom and why. Eventually the words of only one of the three central characters, the Italian merchant, traversed languages other than the English and Slovene used by the narrators. Another central character, the Farm Girl, used no words at all, only exaggerated gestures and sound. Pink and Morgan (2013) describe how ethnographic research takes on characteristics of the people and places under investigation, following the rhythm of what is being observed. The performers’ practices mirrored the theoretical development of Bradley’s study, where she extended the lens of translanguaging to incorporate wider semiosis, building on its multimodal affordances and drawing upon work by researchers including Blackledge and Creese (2017), Kusters et al. (2017), Li (2018) and Pennycook (2017), as well as the TLANG project in Leeds. Considering translanguaging through the lens of the Baradian concept of intra-action enabled this expansion to incorporate objects, spaces and non-linguistic items – the multimodal and also the embodied – while also retaining a focus on language(s). Discussion: Scripted Emergence

In this chapter so far we have considered the four phases of the TLANG project research, as undertaken in the Leeds case study. We then turned our attention to an arts-based project, also part of TLANG activity, which both informed and was informed by the core research. We have described the dialogue between the theoretical development of translanguaging – from observable multilingual practice to conceptual framework – and the methodologies guiding the project. Earlier we introduced the concepts of scripted and emergent trajectories (Kell, 2009, 2011; Budach et al., 2015), bringing them together as scripted emergence. We return to these now. In her research into production processes and creative practices, Bradley (2018) observed how the creative practitioners she worked with made space for emergent trajectories through scripting. The idea of a scripted and an emergent trajectory enables us to attend to the participants’ lives in an analysis and the ways in which they negotiate predictable (scripted) trajectories in bureaucratic encounters and more emergent ones. We see scriptedness across the phases of the main TLANG study. Klára’s work involved interpreting in a bureaucratic encounter, a practice which would be familiar to all the participants, as she mediated the interaction of clients navigating the benefits system and advisors supporting them. Likewise Lucy’s familiarity with both immigration law and the nature of the concerns which her clients brought to her enabled an efficient and rapid advice-giving session: sometimes she would see as many as 20 clients in a three-hour period. Tiago’s sport of basketball is

46  Researching Language in Superdiverse Urban Contexts

played to strict rules; Capoeira, though more fluid, is also bound in terms of the tight connection between music, singing and the symbolic purpose of a type of dance. And Monika’s institutional interactions entailed the completion of a form with spaces for her to complete, and her future direction was subject to funding constraints: a grant to start a small business would pay for some things but not for others. Yet in some interactions, what is scripted and ‘well worn’ for some is emergent for others, and spaces in emergent trajectories can be observed even in what might appear to be highly scripted contexts. Newcomers are new in many ways, and certainly do not share knowledge of the intricacies of third sector funding, or of the UK’s complex and arcane immigration law. We discussed the difficulty of getting things done when one is ‘outside’ a particular discourse, when we introduced the concept of trans-discursive translanguaging. Klára’s client Mr T knew, in broad terms, what type of advice he needed, and that he would be able to find it in an interpretermediated interaction at Migrant Counsel. He was not, however, prepared for the Equal Opportunities monitoring form: when this was introduced, the interaction took – for him at least – an unexpected turn. Monika, constrained by the expectations of funding regimes and (inevitably monolingual) bureaucratic literacy practices, was unable to articulate her argument for a business grant in a way which would be audible, without the support of the more bureaucratically aware Jolana. Tiago’s family had attempted to map out a career path for him as a professional basketball player. He rejected their script, turning instead to his ‘first love’, Capoeira. And the nature of the advice that Lucy’s clients received depended not only on her knowledge of immigration law and of their concerns. The accuracy and utility of the advice was contingent upon her knowledge of the unpredictable and rapidly changing detail of immigration law in a time of socio-political change and uncertainty, as well as her ability to mediate that knowledge to those outside legal discourse. Our understanding of translanguaging itself was also one of scripted emergence, developing as it did in response to our methodology, which in turn unfolded responsively to the new practices, spaces and places of interaction which we were privileged to observe. The TLANG project as a whole provided a clear time-bound, aim-driven framing structure in which the research was to be undertaken. But within this structure, across the four stages and the doctoral research described in this chapter, we observed multiple practices, met participants with varied life experiences and learned about domains of activity that had hitherto (for us) been unfamiliar. We adjusted and extended our ways of seeing accordingly. We paid increasing attention to the visual, recognising its salience in much communicative practice. We followed a participatory turn with regard to the positionality of the ‘researched’, enabling the activities of our KPs to shape our fieldwork and analyses. This contributed to how we grew in our understanding of translanguaging. We began by

Translanguaging Across Space and Place: Concept and Context  47

considering it as a means of describing the fluid multilingualism of the UK’s urban spaces. Our work on Klára’s institutional interpretermediated interaction led us to encompass translation not only between languages but across discourses as translanguaging practice. Observing Monika’s attempts to get her social enterprise off the ground enabled us to recognise heritage as repertoire, to be deployed – as with any other communicative resource – to get things done. Watching and becoming involved in Tiago’s sport practice obliged us to account for the visual in our analysis, and to consider the assemblage of multimodal as well as multilingual resources as constitutive of meaning making. Lucy’s legal advice-giving sessions at a time when life was difficult, politically, for migrants suggested to us that she adopts a translanguaging stance: the space she opens up in interaction to explain the complex processes and practices of immigration law also becomes an interactional space where translanguaging is allowed and enabled. Moreover our partnerships with our KPs were formed through a similar pattern of scripted emergence. The design of the project required us (in Leeds) to work with a Czech and Slovak-speaking multilingual researcher, but we did not know the identities of our KPs at the outset. TLANG researcher Jolana Hanušová also happened to be an expert user of Portuguese, which allowed us to research multilingually with not only Klára and Monika (in Czech and Slovak), but Tiago (in Portuguese). In a similar way, the project design dictated the four focal domains of activity (business, heritage, sport and legal advice), but not the details of the particular occupations, interests and concerns of our individual KPs: these became relevant only after we had met and started working with them. Finally, doctoral researcher Jessica Bradley’s thesis was shaped, as her project progressed, by her interest in arts practice and her decision to work with street arts performers. Conclusion

To conclude, we make some comments about the TLANG project research in Leeds. First, we return to Canagarajah’s questions about the scope and focus of analysis. The ethnographic approach underpinning the TLANG project enabled us to identify key interactional moments. These are the nexuses, the points in space and time where individual historical trajectories, practices and discourses come into contact, where something is enabled or constrained, where the communication is both scripted and emergent, and which has significance for the future of the trajectories. At the same time, we worked on close analyses of these points, taking into account the participants’ life stories, and broadening out our understanding of translanguaging as we did so. There are many affordances of a large-scale, multi-site ethnography of this kind. The project formed a catalyst for other projects stemming from

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the work, opening up other possible directions and new collaborations. Additionally, there were also opportunities for the theorising associated from one phase of the project to feed back, iteratively, into other phases. So, for instance, the understanding of the assemblage which was so helpful in the analysis of the Sport phase data was informed by Bradley’s doctoral research and our other work in arts practice (see Bradley et al., 2018). Over the course of the research, our ethnographic approach enabled us to develop a growing acknowledgement of the visual and the multimodal, and therefore the decentring of language as the prime matter of concern at any one point. This is particularly evident in analyses of the spatial and musical practices of focal interactions in our work with Tiago, and in our visual analyses of the linguistic landscapes of our KPs’ lives (Callaghan, 2018). There is an obligation in ethnography to be flexible in terms of methods and techniques. This requires researchers to adopt a post-modern stance that is responsive to different and potentially novel and emergent types of interaction and social groupings. It also means that analytical approaches are selected carefully and contingently, as we have sought to demonstrate above. Examples of these are multimodal discourse analysis, a focus on the assemblage, and nexus analysis to complement the more predictable interactional sociolinguistic analysis of institutional talk and narrative analysis of life history interviews. Finally, it is important to underline that researching the superdiversity of communication ‘requires a political and ethical consciousness’ (Blackledge et al., 2018: xli). Our work highlighted for us that the emancipatory affordances of superdiversity might be a little over-stated. To an extent we might justifiably take a celebratory position, for example when we work with the multilingual, multimodal, culturally diverse Capoeira practice and participants and the street arts performers. However, so much of our research brings us into contact with people subject to severe economic precarity and experiencing the withdrawal of government services and support associated with a policy of austerity: linguistic and cultural diversity maps closely onto various and multiple indices of social deprivation. It also foregrounds the way that mobile, transnational people in the United Kingdom, along with everyone else, are caught up in the uncertainties of political belonging in the run-up to the EU referendum and its chaotic aftermath. Note (1) Translation and Translanguaging: This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, as a Large Grant in the Translating Cultures theme, ‘Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities’ (AH/L007096/1) The project was led by Angela Creese. The Leeds-based team comprised Mike Baynham, Jessica Bradley, John Callaghan, Jolana Hanušová, Emilee Moore and James Simpson.

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References Auer, P. (forthcoming) ‘Translanguaging’ or ‘doing languages’? Multilingual practices and the notion of ‘codes’. In J. MacSwan (ed.) Language(s): Multilingualism and its Consequences. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press. Baynham, M. and Hanušová, J. (2018) On the relationality of centers, peripheries and interactional regimes: Translanguaging in a community interpreting event. AILA Review 30, 144–166. Baynham, M., Bradley, J., Callaghan, J., Hanušová, J. and Simpson, J. (2015) Language, business and superdiversity in Leeds. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP4). See www.tlang.org.uk. Baynham, M., Bradley, J., Callaghan, J., Hanušová, J., Moore, E. and Simpson, J. (2016) Heritage with no fixed abode: Transforming cultural heritage for migrant communities in inner-city Leeds. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP. 15). See www.tlang.org. Baynham, M., Bradley, J., Callaghan, J., Hanušová, J., Moore, E. and Simpson, J. (2017) Transformations through sport: The case of capoeira and basketball. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP. 22). See www.tlang.org.uk. Baynham, M., Callaghan, J., Hanušová, J., Moore, E. and Simpson, J. (2018) Translanguaging immigration law: A legal advice drop-in service. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP. 33). See www.tlang.org.uk. Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London: Bloomsbury. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2017) Translanguaging and the body. International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3), 250–268. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A., Baynham, M., Cooke, M., Goodson, L., Zhu, H., Li, W., Malkani, B., Phillimore, J., Robinson, M., Rock, F., Simpson, J., Tagg, C., Thompson, J. and Trehan, K. (2018) Language and superdiversity: An interdisciplinary perspective. In A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) (pp. xxi–xlv) Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity. Abingdon: Routledge. Blommaert, J. (2001) Context is/as critique. Critique of Anthropology 21 (1), 13–32. Blommaert, J. (2005) Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J., Smits, L. and Yacoubi, N. (2018) Context and its complications. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies (208). Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bradley, J. (2018) Translation and Translanguaging in Production and Performance in Community Arts. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leeds. Bradley, J. (2020) Ethnography, arts production and performance: meaning making in and for the street. In A.K. Koistinen, T. Lähdesmäki and V. Čeginskas (eds) Ethnography with a Twist: Methodological and Ethical Challenges and Solutions in Contemporary Research. Abingdon: Routledge. Bradley, J. and Atkinson, L. (2020) Translanguaging and bricolage: Meaning making and collaborative ethnography in community arts. In E. Moore, J. Bradley and J. Simpson (eds) Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bradley, J. and Moore, E. (2018) Resemiotization and creative production: Extending the translanguaging lens. In A. Sherris and E. Adami (eds) Making Signs, Translanguaging

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Ethnographies: Exploring Urban, Rural and Educational Spaces (pp. 91–111). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bradley, J. and Simpson, J. (2019) Translanguaging in the contact zone: Mobility and immobility in inner-city Leeds. In K. Horner and J. Dailey-O’Cain (eds) Multilingualism, (Im)mobilities and Spaces of Belonging. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bradley, J., Moore, E., Simpson, J. and Atkinson, L. (2018) Translanguaging space and creative activity: Theorising collaborative arts-based learning. Language and Intercultural Communication 18 (1), 54–73. Brown, G. and Yule, G. (1983) Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Budach, G., Kell, C. and Patrick, D. (2015) Objects and people in trans-contextual communication. Social Semiotics 25 (4), 387–400. Callaghan, J. (2015) Changing Landscapes: Gipton and Harehills (Leeds) - A superdiverse inner-city ward. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP. 7). See www. tlang.org. Callaghan, J. (2018) Transmitting and translating cultures in the domestic landscape. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP 37). (www.tlang.org). Callaghan, J., Moore, E. and Simpson, J. (2018) Coordinated action, communication and creativity in basketball in superdiversity. Language and Intercultural Communication 18 (1), 28–53. Canagarajah, S. (2017) Introduction. In S. Canagarajah (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Migration and Language (pp. 1–28). Abingdon: Routledge. Cook, G. (1989) Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Creese, A., Baynham, M. and Trehan, K. (2016) Language, business and superdiversity: An overview of four case studies. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP1). See www.tlang.org.uk. Creese, A., Blackledge, A. and Robinson, M. (2017) Translanguaging: Heritage for the Future. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP21). See www.tlang.org. Deleuze, G., and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell. Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2008) Diverse economies: performative practices for ‘other worlds’. Progress in Human Geography 32 (5), 613–632. Harvey, L. (2019) Beyond translanguaging: On the arts, decentring language, and the affordances of not understanding. Invited colloquium on Translation, Translanguaging and the Arts, Languaging in Times of Change conference, Stirling, UK. Hymes, D. (1974) Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kell, C. (2009) Placing practices: Literacy and meaning making across space and time. In M. Baynham and M. Prinsloo (eds) The Future of Literacy Studies (pp. 75–99). London: Palgrave. Kell, C. (2011) Inequalities and crossings: Literacy and the spaces-in-between. International Journal of Educational Development 31 (6), 606–613. Kusters, A., Spotti, M., Swanwick, R. and Tapio, E. (2017) Beyond languages, beyond modalities: Transforming the study of semiotic repertoires. International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3), 219–232. Li, W. (2011) Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 1222–1235. Li, W. (2018) Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics 39 (1), 9–30. MacLure, M. (2013) Researching without representation? Language and materiality in postqualitative methodology. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 26 (6), 658–667.

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McKay, S. and Bradley, J. (2016) How does arts practice engage with narratives of migration from refugees? Lessons from ‘utopia’. Journal of Arts & Communities 8 (1), 31–46. Meissner, F. and Vertovec, S. (2015) Comparing super-diversity. Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies 38 (4), 541–555. Pennycook, A. (2017) Translanguaging and semiotic assemblages. International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3), 269–282. Pink, S. and Morgan, J. (2013) Short-term ethnography: Intense routes to knowing. Symbolic Interaction 36 (3), 351–361. Pratt, M.L. (1991) Arts of the contact zone. Profession (1991), 33–40. Scollon, R. (2001) Mediated Discourse: The Nexus of Practice. Abingdon: Routledge. Simpson, J. (2017) Translanguaging in the contact zone: Language use in superdiverse urban areas. In H. Coleman (ed.) Multilingualisms and Development (Selected Proceedings of the 11th Language & Development Conference, New Delhi, India, 2015) (pp. 207–224). London: British Council. Simpson, J. (2020) Navigating immigration law in a “hostile environment”: Implications for adult migrant language education. TESOL Quarterly 54 (2), 488–511. DOI: 10.1002/ tesq.558. UK Government (2014) Imigration Act 2014. legislation.gov.uk. Vertovec, S. (2007) Super-diversity and its implications. Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6), 1024–1054. Vertovec, S. (2019) Talking around super-diversity. Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies 42 (1), 125–139. Widdowson, H. (1984) Explorations in Applied Linguistics 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wills, J. (2012) The geography of community and political organisation in London today. Political Geography 31 (2), 114–126.

3 Revisiting ‘Community Language’: Arabic in a Western Global City Leonie Gaiser and Yaron Matras

Introduction

‘Community’ or ‘heritage’ languages is the term given to immigrant minority languages especially in global cities (see Clyne, 1991; Cummins, 1992; Edwards, 2001). Alongside inventories of community languages and related provisions in individual cities (García & Fishman, 1997; Matras & Robertson, 2015; King & Carson, 2016; Benson et al., 2018), studies have focused on aspects such as cross-generation language maintenance and self-reporting of language preferences (Extra & Yağmur, 2004; Matras et al., 2016) and the public visibility of languages on signs (Barni & Bagna, 2010). Appreciation of superdiversity and the growing complexity of community-related networks have prompted interest in the dynamic connections between individuals’ language choices and movement across urban space (Duarte & Gogolin, 2013; Blommaert et al., 2005; Lamarre, 2013; Pennycook & Otsuji, 2014, 2015), repertoire choices in educational settings (Blackledge & Creese, 2010), ethnographic approaches to changing linguistic landscapes (Blommaert, 2013) and the role of agency and collaborative networks in urban language provisions (Cadier & Mar-Molinero, 2012). In this chapter we introduce a model of immersion-based, iterative research that takes a holistic approach to community or immigrant minority languages within the setting of a linguistically diverse, globalised city. It is anchored in a vision of the civic university that sees research as embedded into the practices of local actors. That vision is represented in the approach developed by the Multilingual Manchester research unit, which we introduce below. We revisit the concepts ‘community language’ and ‘language community’, taking account of the complexity of language practices, language ideologies and external perceptions. We embrace ethnographic approaches to ‘community’ as practice and as the object rather than the site of investigation 52

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(Brubaker, 2005, 2012; Blokland, 2017; Bessant, 2018). Drawing on the example of Arabic in Manchester, we discuss how the diaspora setting and transnational links prompt actors to re-negotiate practice routines and language ideologies that are imported from a background or heritage setting, with practical and theoretical implications for notions of community language ‘maintenance’ and ‘vitality’. We show how the immersion model of research that builds reciprocal relations with local stakeholders offers opportunities for a new epistemology where knowledge is informed and driven by practical engagement. ‘Community’ and the civic university approach

The Multilingual Manchester (MLM) research unit was founded at the University of Manchester in the academic year 2009–2010 with the aim of piloting a framework that would bring together research, teaching and public engagement. It also aimed to embed the teaching of Modern Languages and Linguistics into a local setting, capitalising on the city’s language diversity. MLM first became publicly visible through a website that featured undergraduate student research reports on Manchester’s languages, compiled through first-hand observations and interactions in the city. This attracted interest from local stakeholders such as the National Health Service and local schools and hospitals, who enquired about ways of improving outreach to diverse populations. These encounters, in turn, helped formulate new research questions that were intrinsically of value to external stakeholders. The emerging emphasis in the higher education sector on enhancing student experience and demonstrating the impact of research on policy and practice, along with the University of Manchester’s adoption of Social Responsibility as one of its key goals, opened up an opportunity for the MLM model to serve as a strategic priority project (see Matras & Robertson, 2017; Matras, 2018a). In 2013, it launched a student volunteer scheme, which continues to attract around 200 students every year. Volunteers engage with the city’s ethnic and linguistic diversity, working in public and voluntary sector host organisations to help improve communication with customers, deliver English conversation sessions to new arrivals and refugees, support community groups’ outreach activities and organise interactive exhibitions at public events and local schools. MLM researchers have co-produced public reports with the National Health Service, Greater Manchester Police and Manchester City Council on various aspects of language diversity and service accessibility and have had input into local policy discussions and the practice of local cultural institutions. These engagement avenues have, in turn, produced fruitful settings for first-hand research observations on the ways in which residents and organisations respond to language diversity. In this way, the MLM model

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has created an environment where the relationship between research and policy impact is non-linear (Matras & Robertson, 2017): impact is not just derived from research, but also provides the setting for research. Researchers gain insights through their immersion in practical challenges faced by local stakeholders, as well as from the experiences of students and their own immersion, as sustainable partnerships offer iterative engagement opportunities. Outputs are disseminated in a variety of ways, not just through academic publications, and include published student reports, co-produced surveys and policy documents, public events that showcase local practice, video documentation and public ‘celebration’ activities that feature performances and interactive exhibits on language diversity. Among the practical outputs are also a series of digital tools. In 2016, MLM released LinguaSnapp – the University of Manchester’s first teaching and research mobile app. The app is used to take images of multilingual signs and to tag them for a series of analytical descriptors. They are then uploaded onto a searchable database and are displayed on an online map. LinguaSnapp offers an overview of the geographical distribution of signs in particular languages, their representation by commercial or cultural sector, the frequency of particular language combinations, as well as aspects of multi-modal representation. Both the app and the map are freely accessible. The resource has been used for student projects, as a research corpus and as an interactive repository for school learning activities and public exhibitions. LinguaSnapp is tailored to individual cities through its choice of scroll-down menu items and map calibration; following the release of the Manchester version, tailored versions have been produced for other cities including Melbourne, Jerusalem, Hamburg, St. Petersburg and Birmingham. Another resource, the Data Mapping Tool, released in 2018, brings together a variety of datasets on languages in the city and allows users to compare data for individual languages, sectors and location (wards or districts). This is the very first such repository that allows data triangulation on languages, drawing on data from the census, school records, interpreter requests in the health care sector and stock held by local libraries, and featuring profiles of languages frequently spoken in the city and language profiles for individual wards. Its purpose is to prompt students and the wider public to engage with statistical data on languages and to encourage public service providers to maintain consistent and transparent standards of data collation and data sharing protocols in order to help gauge language needs and demand for language services. The MLM portfolio of digital resources includes a number of dialectological databases. Those for Kurdish and Arabic were launched in 2016 and 2017 respectively, both modelled on earlier work of the Manchester Romani Project. The Kurdish resource displays searchable

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samples of questionnaire-based phrase elicitation and connected speech samples of dialects from around 150 locations, while the Arabic database currently contains a comprehensive questionnaire-based survey of translated phrases representing regional varieties from around fifteen different countries. The resources rely in part on the input of postgraduate students and on fieldwork conducted among immigrants living in Manchester and visitors as well as in the origin countries. Both databases are designed as research tools for dialect variation and as supporting resources for teaching and learning. They have also been used as control samples to assess the reliability of government Language Analysis reports for the Determination of Origin (LADO) commissioned as part of the asylum application procedure, especially for applicants from Syria and other countries in the Middle East (see Matras, 2018b). This work is carried out as part of a forensic linguistic service – MLMAnalysis – launched under the MLM umbrella to provide consultancy support to legal practitioners, the courts and public agencies. This diverse portfolio of research, outreach and public engagement activities is understood to be part of the civic university vision: one in which the relationship between the higher education institution and other organisations operating in the city is reciprocal, and where the canonical university activity strands of teaching and research are tightly embedded into the local community, help address local challenges and seek intellectual inspiration from the immersion of staff and students in the local setting. MLM has also been providing practical support to local stakeholders through training on the city’s language diversity offered to practitioners, and by hosting events to showcase good practice in areas such as interpreting and translation, ESOL provision and the teaching of community languages. One of its key activities is the Supplementary School Support Platform, launched in 2017 to facilitate networking, teacher training and student enrichment sessions for nonstatutory organisations that provide heritage language instruction (i.e. weekend supplementary schools). Student placements, university staff engagement, public reports and a series of events to help raise the public profile of these establishments have turned the Support Platform into an exemplary activity in terms of its sustainability and mutual benefit. MLM’s public engagement has also made a key contribution to shaping the public narrative on language diversity, with key institutions including the city council embedding language diversity (often under the motto ‘City of 200 Languages’, taken from a news headline covering MLM research in 2013) into their mission statements (see Matras, 2018a). In the following, we draw on our immersion experiences with local stakeholders in public services and the local community, and on our digital research tools, to set out a methodological blueprint for the documentation of language practices that might be said to be constitutive of a ‘language community’ or ‘community language’.

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We regard these notions as reciprocal, since, as we explain below, the community of persons sharing a language is an entity that needs to be defined on the basis of shared practices that pertain to language; a ‘community language’, in turn, is a language identified as being shared in the context of local practices that are confined to particular segments of the population, rather than being the property of the majority and larger public (statutory) institutions. In this way, we approach the ‘community’ aspect not from a strictly numerical, status-based or geographical origin perspective, but in terms of the set of language practices and general interaction and practice routines that it represents.

Arabic in Manchester Statistics as records of events

Some 16.6% of Manchester’s population identified a ‘main language’ other than English in the 2011 Census, more than twice the national average. Annual School Census results indicate that around 40% of young people speak a language in addition to English in the home (‘first language’). Both figures can be considered to be very conservative, since the way questions are formulated is known to lead to significant underreporting (see Matras & Robertson, 2015). We estimate that upwards of 200 languages are spoken in significant numbers among established residents of Manchester. Over 50 languages have been identified on the city’s public signs, mainly on commercial as well as cultural outlets (Gaiser & Matras, 2016a). Some studies have urged caution when considering statistical data on language, questioning the implicit ideologies that link a single language to a person and place and therefore the usefulness of what is sometimes dismissed as ‘demolinguistic enumeration’ (see Mar-Molinero, this volume; cf. Pennycook & Otsuji, 2014; also King, 2016: 188). However, we believe that a practice-based perspective can be taken on such data. While statistical datasets indeed do not reveal the full picture of respondents’ use of their language resources, each point in a statistical dataset represents an event, and together they add up to a pattern, spread among different people in an identifiable segment of time and space. Responses to the Census, for instance, represent a declarative event on the part of respondents who choose to register Arabic, for instance, as their ‘main language’. Ambiguity remains as to what each respondent precisely understood as constituting a ‘main language’. The likelihood that different respondents understand this in different ways – frequency of use, for example, versus emotional identification – means the sum of all responses cannot necessarily be regarded as the sum of identical events. Nonetheless, they are indicative of the number of people, and their areas of residence in the city (as well as other attributes that can

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be correlated), who used the Census as an opportunity to associate themselves with the category ‘Arabic’ (itself not unambiguous, due to dialect differences; see below) and in that way to use the opportunity offered by the Census to make a declaration about an aspect of their subjective belonging to an identity category. The School Census’s identification of a child as having Arabic as a ‘first language’ goes back to parents’ declarations when registering their children, or staff’s local knowledge or assumptions about a child’s background. As such, this too is an ambiguous category, but it represents the reality of institutional records, which in turn is often used to anticipate needs or to construct an institution-internal narrative on the composition of the school population and possible challenges in reaching out to families. Requests for interpreter services labelled ‘Arabic’ offer a record of events where a service provider registered a client’s articulated need to rely on an intermediary in order to communicate with a practitioner. Again, we do not know whether that record indicates a necessity, whether there might have been a mismatch between the client’s and the interpreter’s dialects of Arabic, whether communication was effective, and so on. But again, the record represents a real-life event, and the accumulation of records represents a pattern, which can inform strategic planning by practitioners and suppliers of interpreting services. The MLM Data Mapping Tool allows us to retrieve some of this data and to draw a picture of the distribution of ‘Arabic’ as a declarative category. Obtaining the data is a process that is full of obstacles. The objective of the MLM Data Mapping Tool is to collate datasets that are not otherwise accessible in a single repository. With the exception of Census data, which represent a single event once every decade, and where the question on ‘main language’ has so far only been asked once, in 2011, none of the other datasets are publicly accessible. We have relied on links with local institutions to obtain them, often as part of collaborations on particular projects. As a result, there is not a steady flow of comparable data. Nor are the data for individual sectors directly comparable without some degree of redacting or data ‘coercion’. Our rationale for mapping the data in one resource has been to connect the (declarative) category ‘language’ with a time frame (fiscal year, school year or calendar year) and location (attributed to one of the municipal wards, while the original datasets may have contained a more discrete location such as the address of a doctor’s surgery, a library or a school). But even for the category ‘language’, some redaction is needed, as the different datasets sometimes differ in the way they identify varieties of a single language (for example, Kurdish, Kurmanji, Sorani and Bahdini) or the labels chosen or spelling conventions used. For Arabic, there is by and large no differentiation by regional variety, which simplifies data coercion.

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In the 2011 Census, some 7000 Manchester residents declared Arabic to be their ‘main language’, with Arabic ranking third after Urdu and Chinese (including Mandarin, Cantonese and other Chinese languages). Of those, 80% reported to speak English well or very well, and only 4% reported that they could not speak English. The first figure is similar to that found among respondents who gave Urdu as their main language, but is higher than the figure for other languages including Chinese, Panjabi, Bengali and Polish, reflecting a subjective perspective on functional bilingualism which in the public discourse is often associated with ‘integration’. While the Census has not since been repeated, other datasets indicate a rise in Arabic users. The School Census counted some 2500 pupils with Arabic as ‘first language’ in 2013, and over 3000 in 2015, with Arabic now ranking second after Urdu. The same period also saw a 30% increase in the number of face-to-face interpreter requests for Arabic at Central Manchester Hospitals, up from 2894 in 2014 to 3769 in 2015 (Gaiser & Matras, 2016b). Overall, in 2014–2015 around 12% of all interpreter requests including telephone interpreting at Central Manchester Hospitals were for Arabic (around 6000), second after Urdu, while in the same year 16.5% of interpreter requests at Manchester GP surgeries were for Arabic (around 3000), ahead of Urdu and at the top of the list, indicating high demand among new arrivals with poor English language skills, which might be attributed to a wave of refugees from the Middle East. The pattern of increasing demand for Arabic interpreting is confirmed over a slightly longer period also for Manchester City Council’s in-house interpreting services ‘M-Four Translations’ (see below), which in 2017/18 responded to 1792 requests for Arabic (second after Urdu/Panjabi), up from just 870 back in 2012/13. In 2017/18 Arabic topped the list of requests for written translations (total of 277), apparently reflecting the arrival of individuals with professional qualifications who needed document translation. This is echoed in the fragmentary information that is available from private providers of interpreter services. Thus, Translation Empire, one of the larger suppliers in the Manchester area with contracts serving the National Health Service and other public service providers, reports on its website on demographic changes since the 2011 Census, suggesting that today ‘Arabic and dialectal variations of Arabic would definitely make the top 5’ languages in the United Kingdom (Translation Empire, 2019). The number of library issues and renewals of items in Arabic across the city rose from 396 in 2014, to 738 in 2015 and 985 in 2016, showing both a demand and an awareness of and engagement with municipal cultural facilities. These data do not offer a consistent, year on year comparison basis, for reasons outlined above. Nevertheless, they show a pattern of steady increase in demand for Arabic language services. The localisation of these datasets represents a coherent picture of a strong

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presence of Arabic in the Crumpsall and Cheetham Hill areas in the north of Manchester, and in Fallowfield, Moss Side, Hulme, Rusholme, Chorlton Park, Ardwick and Levenshulme in the south (Figures 3.1– 3.2). Differences between responses to the School Census (Figure 3.1) and requests for interpreters at GP surgeries (Figure 3.2) can be taken to represent the settlement patterns of more recent arrivals as opposed to long-established residents. This corresponds to different levels of income, if one takes property prices as an indicator: In 2014/15 there was high demand for Arabic interpreters (Figure 3.2) in Rusholme (just north of the Withington ward), where the average house price in 2019 is around £130 k, but not in Chorlton Park (west of Withington), where the average house price in 2019 is around £320 k, although both areas show a comparable number of school pupils with Arabic as ‘first language’ (Figure 3.1). Library demand for Arabic in the years 2013–2016 is concentrated in the south Manchester wards of Chorlton, Old Moat and Longsight, reflecting Arabic speakers’ place of residence, while Abraham Moss Library, which is the city council’s principal facility that serves the northern districts Crumpsall and Cheetham Hill, does not carry stock in Arabic. LinguaSnapp data (Figure 3.3) show a high concentration of Arabic signs on commercial outlets in the high streets that serve these same areas, indicating spatial overlap of commercial practices and public visibility with other practices such as engagement with library material, demand for interpreting and the ‘declarative’ practices of the Census and School Census. The LinguaSnapp data, when viewed in closer detail than we are able to provide in Figure 3.3, offer information on the

Figure 3.1  Localisation by ward of School Census responses ‘first language Arabic’ (2015)

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Figure 3.2  Localisation by ward of requests for interpreting in Arabic at GP surgeries (2014–2015)

Figure 3.3  Position of signs containing Arabic (LinguaSnapp, 2016–2019)

spatial distribution of outlets that carry signs in Arabic, and of course, via tagged images, on the precise multi-modal configuration of such signs. While the tool does not provide us with immediate information on users’ engagement with the signs (though for some outlets we have a

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corpus of annotations based on observations), the positioning of Arabic signs and their composition are, once again, real events representing action taken by sign owners, with an effect on the landscape. Striking is the dominance of Arabic signs along Manchester’s so-called ‘Curry Mile’, once a centre of the city’s South Asian population (Figure 3.4). The public visibility of Arabic along this stretch (between Moss Lane in the north and Platt Lane in the south) creates in effect a spatial demarcation within which Arabic is identifiable as the principal language of commercial public space alongside English. We are aware of shop owners of a variety of backgrounds – Afghan, Turkish, Kurdish and others – who opt for Arabic signs for actual content (such as service and product information, not just brand names or religious quotations) in order to accommodate to the perceived demand in this zone. Far from constituting a mere enumeration, this finding gives an objective dimension to the Arabic ‘feel’ of the street, which has a direct effect in shaping local practice routines. The name ‘Curry Mile’, which is recognised officially through the permanent banners at both entrances to the stretch, relates to the historical pre-dominance of a South Asian population and businesses, but current Linguistic Landscape practices reflect present-day realities that in effect override the meaning implied by the label.

Figure 3.4  Arabic signs in the ‘Curry Mile’ (2019)

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Status and provisions

As a city, Manchester does not offer statutory provisions for particular languages. Public service providers generally make use of either in-house or contracted interpreting and translation services as part of a more general statutory commitment (common to most larger cities in the UK) to ensure that language should not constitute a barrier to equal access to essential services. City council libraries carry stock in various languages but as noted above the policy is implemented locally, with differences between outlets. Among Manchester’s 29 secondary schools, at the time of writing, only two mainstream state schools offer Arabic as part of the curriculum; both are run by a single education trust and have a relatively large population of Arabic speaking pupils who are the primary beneficiaries of this provision. The only other secondary schools that offer Arabic are Muslim faithbased schools. In this respect, Arabic is clearly marginalised or even excluded from the teaching of what is referred to in the education system as Modern Foreign Languages, and is instead classified as a Community Language for education purposes, that is, an option of additional qualification for those who speak the language at home, or else part of cultural heritage education and not primarily a universal skill that can or should be acquired irrespective of ethnic, religious or linguistic background. Arabic is otherwise taught at supplementary schools – privately run enterprises that teach usually at weekends and sometimes in the evenings. We are aware of at least 20 supplementary schools that operate in Manchester to teach Arabic, of which at least two have been established since 2017 and already have several hundred pupils enrolled between them. We estimate that at the time of writing at least 3000 school age children in Manchester are attending Arabic supplementary schools on a regular basis. A study of home language proficiency among a sample of 531 pupils at four Manchester schools (two primary and two secondary) revealed that Arabic showed the highest level of proficiency (alongside Romani) and the highest rate of supplementary schools attendance (Matras et al., 2016). Supplementary schools offer different curriculum formats and different qualifications (see below; Gaiser & Hughes, 2015). Some cater to a pan-Arabic audience originating from different countries, while others target particularly families of the same (national) background, notably Libyan, Iraqi, Sudanese, Yemeni and Syrian (though we understand that no formal entry criteria by background are imposed). There is at least one ‘translingual’ school, offering instruction in Arabic and Sorani Kurdish. This flags the transnational composition of the city’s Arabic speaking population. It is also multilingual or multi-dialectal, given the extent of diglossia in Arabic (see Bassiouney, 2009; Albirni, 2016), and the

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fact that the uniform Standard or fuṣḥa is used almost exclusively for tightly scripted written interactions while the vernaculars or ʕāmiyya are used for almost all verbal interaction and show considerable structural differences which may often impede mutual intelligibility. In this respect, there are, in fact, several or even numerous populations of Arabic speakers both in the sense of ‘diasporas’ (populations originating from the same country) and in the sense of speech communities (populations who speak the same vernacular language). Religious divisions further prescribe participation in different practices and some extent of spatial segregation, and Manchester has at least one Arabic-language Christian church. There is also a large population of speakers of Arabic as a second language. These include Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, Algerian Amazighs and many Somalis. Manchester’s Muslim populations, in particular those of South Asian background, use Arabic for liturgy and many attend religious schools where they learn to read and recite the Quran in Arabic. Policy at national level affects at least some users of Arabic who apply for asylum and are subjected to LADO procedures, where a sample of the applicant’s speech is recorded and sent for analysis to a private contractor. Typically, however, no consideration is given to sociolinguistic complexity such as the diffusion of urban speech variants or migrants’ exposure to different forms of speech (Rosenhouse, 2013, 2017; Spotti, 2016). It has been shown that results in the UK procedure are sometimes biased by the use of a wholesale ‘alternate hypothesis’ suggesting that applicants, irrespective of their individual statement on their life history, might be from Egypt, and the tendency to try to assign, on that basis, stylistic variants to Egyptian Arabic (see Matras, 2018b). Since 2015, LADO procedures have been applied across the board in the UK to all applicants stating to be from Syria, Palestine or Kuwait, lending Arabic a particular position in the asylum process. Accurate assessments of sociolinguistic and regional aspects of the use of Arabic are therefore of crucial importance for the integrity of the procedure as it affects the destiny of individuals and their families. In the Manchester area, we are aware of several dozen appeals by applicants against the rejection of their applications by the UK Home Office based on language analyses carried out between 2015 and 2019. Arabic is one of the most prominent languages in Manchester’s linguistic landscapes (LL), and there has been a notable increase in its presence (see Gaiser & Matras, 2016a). The overwhelming majority of signs featuring Arabic are, however, private or ‘bottom-up’ signs put up by businesses, community institutions or private individuals: restaurants hairdressers, supermarkets, language schools, etc. We are aware of relatively few occurrences of Arabic in the public sector; these include a number of signs put up by Manchester City Council, advising residents not to drop litter (particularly food) or not to feed

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Figure 3.5  Public sign in Victoria Park (Arabic and Urdu) (2019)

birds, where Arabic occurs alongside Urdu (Figure 3.5), as well as signs at Manchester Airport advising on security provisions, tax refund, and prayer space. Arabic is also included on signs that celebrate the city’s language diversity, usually by inserting the word ‘Welcome’ in a number of languages. Manchester City Council’s in-house interpreting and translation unit M-Four Translations serves a range of municipal departments and the wider public (see above). It has a team of six in-house staff offering services for Urdu/Panjabi, Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese and Bengali. Despite rising demand, Arabic is not part of this core provision. Instead, it is covered by the pool of freelance staff. The service registers freelancers’ languages on a database, but unlike for other languages (such as Bengali/Sylheti), it has no built-in provision to specify either the regional variety of Arabic or the freelancer’s country of origin. This can have implications for face-to-face oral interpreting, where mutual intelligibility between some Arabic vernaculars may be limited. Clients, too, do not always specify the variety of Arabic requested, though looking through a sample of requests we have found occasional crude categories like ‘Middle Eastern Arabic’ and ‘North African Arabic’. But in the absence of specification on freelancers’ profiles, the service is unable to match such requests to staff competences. Examining several dozen registration forms by freelance staff, we found that Arabic is often listed alongside other languages (Sorani Kurdish, French, Berber or

Revisiting ‘Community Language’: Arabic in a Western Global City  65

Amazigh, Somali, Italian, German, Spanish and others). But there are few cases in which knowledge of a particular regional variety is listed. There is clearly lack of awareness of the transnational and sociolinguistic nature of Arabic and the potential problems that arise in the diaspora setting, both on the side of the institution, which does not request relevant information, and on the side of registered interpreters, who do not volunteer such information. We found a similar pattern in our investigation of language provisions in Manchester’s health care services (Gaiser & Matras, 2016b). Promoting heritage: Classroom practices in supplementary schools

Arabic speakers in Manchester cultivate their language in various ways. Parents use Arabic in the home alongside English, and make use of books and films as well as satellite broadcasts to expose children to Arabic. Othman (2011) observes that parents in Manchester place a high value on maintaining Arabic as a means of communication in family settings. Their active efforts include socialising their children with children from other Arab families, sending children to Arabic schools, exposing them to Arabic media and satellite channels and undertaking regular visits to the origin countries, findings that are also confirmed through reports from Arabic speaking school pupils (Matras et al., 2016). Arabic can be the preferred choice over other potential family languages. We are aware of families of Algerian Amazigh and Iraqi Kurdish backgrounds who send their children to Arabic supplementary schools, and of a family whose background is in Khuzistan in Iran, where Arabic is a regional language, who socialise their children in Arabic and send them to an (Iraqi) Arabic weekend school but do not cultivate their knowledge of Persian, the official language of their country of origin. From long-term observations of language practices in other family settings – a Palestinian family with UK-born children, and a Syrian family with Syria-born children – we know that there are families in Manchester that have a clear and explicitly formulated ‘Arabic-only’ rule in the home. Our observations show that child-initiated interaction with parents often tends to be in Arabic in these settings. Not all parents who attach importance to passing on Arabic send their children to supplementary schools and such decisions may depend on the area of residence and the accessibility of schools, or parents’ acceptance or endorsement of the inclusion of some element of religion (Islamic Studies, Quran recitation) in their curricula. Christian Arab families, for example, tend not to send their children to Arabic supplementary schools. While Manchester’s Arabic supplementary schools differ in the content of their curriculum, they all tend to emphasise the teaching of Standard Arabic (fuṣḥa) for written and scripted interaction, rather

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than colloquial or conversational Arabic. However, schools implement different language policies in the classroom. In some schools, teachers and pupils routinely use their respective vernacular forms of Arabic, and fuṣḥa is used only for reading and writing, while English is avoided. This is most common in schools where most teachers and pupils share a (national) background, as is the case in two Libyan Schools in Manchester, which follow the Libyan school curriculum including Libyan qualifications, a legacy of the period where one of the school’s principal aims was to prepare pupils for a potential return to their families’ country of origin. Other schools see fuṣḥa as the desired choice even for oral communication, but allow interaction in English, acknowledging that for most pupils English is the preferred language in most settings. This tends to be the case in schools that cater to pan-Arab (as well as non-Arab Muslim) audiences and prepare students for UK school leaving qualifications such as Arabic GCSEs and A-levels. Our participatory immersion in Manchester’s supplementary schools allows us to draw on classroom observations, and we discuss here the case of one Arabic supplementary school and the use of different language narratives and attitudes toward language repertoires. The school was set up in late 2017 and caters to a diverse population of pupils from families originating from across the Arab world as well as a small group of students from non-Arab Muslim backgrounds. Teaching takes place every Saturday, and the school operates classes from nursery to GCSE level. Apart from a small number of ‘recently arrived’ (in the past year or two) children from Syria and Libya, most children are UK born. The pupils constitute a heterogeneous group, with diverse competences, motivations and learning goals and varying levels of proficiency in Arabic and other languages. Some are native speakers of a colloquial variety of Arabic. Many UK-born children can speak and understand their families’ colloquial varieties at a basic level, or have passive knowledge through frequent exposure. Others can read (and write) Standard Arabic but do not use Arabic for day-to-day communication. Teachers and parents unite around the goal of promoting knowledge of fuṣḥa or Standard Arabic for the purpose of reading the Quran as well as preparing for GCSE qualifications. Staff emphasise in the classroom, in interaction with parents, and in conversations with us that the target and classroom language is Standard Arabic, even in casual interaction, and that non-standard varieties of Arabic are to be avoided. There appear to be several reasons behind this absolute preference for Standard Arabic in the school’s policy. First, it attempts to replicate the mission statement of educational institutions in the Arab world, where the Standard is taught at school while knowledge of the vernacular is taken for granted. The diaspora situation differs, of course, in that many pupils have either limited or only passive exposure to Arabic in the home, and none or very little outside the home, and families rely on the

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supplementary school to teach them any form of the language. Next, the Standard is seen as the only form of the language that has institutional legitimacy, is more widely intelligible than the regional varieties, and can be seen as a core value that unites Arabic speakers from across the Arab world (see Al-Sahafi, 2015; see also Karatsareas, 2018 and Karatsareas, this volume, for similar findings for Greek and Cypriot Greek in London). Finally, we have heard anecdotal reports from staff that parents argue against the use of colloquial varieties at school for fear that their children might bring home non-standard forms that are associated with a different country or region than their own place of origin. However, the policy of using Standard Arabic is undermined by the realisation that English is often necessary to clarify instructions and content, and to keep students motivated. There is equally a realisation that, in spontaneous interaction both inside and outside the classroom, dialect elements can hardly be avoided, and that in their home setting, students will use their regional varieties. Teachers sometimes argue that in the classroom they try to adopt a ‘neutral’ variety or ‘middle form’ of Arabic, described as a variety that does not carry obvious dialect features and should be widely intelligible to pupils from different backgrounds. This conforms to a common understanding among Arab intellectuals of fuṣḥa and colloquial varieties as constituting opposite ends on a continuum rather than clear-cut alternatives. Such discourses, however, do not always match the language practices in the classroom. In the GCSE class, in particular, the scripted requirements dictate that only use of the Standard is recognised and rewarded by high marks. Teachers often urge pupils to ‘speak Arabic’ when they use dialect forms. Such practised language policies (Bonacina-Pugh, 2017) reflect perceptions of what counts as accepted forms of the target language. Teachers associate regional varieties with labels such as ‘slang’, ‘accent’, ‘Libyan’, ‘Palestinian’ and so on, in this way marking boundaries between accepted and unaccepted sets of linguistic resources. To the extent that teachers are aware of their own uses of non-standard features, their selfcorrections indicate that while fuṣḥa is perceived as the target variety, it is not the variety speakers are comfortable using in oral communication. The following excerpt from our field notes shows how boundaries between ‘Arabic’ and its varieties are constructed through interaction (March 2019, GCSE class). When the teacher prompted pupils to ask about the time in Arabic, a student of Libyan background volunteered an answer, using the regional-colloquial interrogative giddāš ‘how much’ rather than the Standard Arabic equivalent kam: Pupil: giddāš es-sāʕa? [What’s the time?] Teacher: That’s not Arabic, ya ḥabībi! [my dear] Pupil: It is! What else should it be? Teacher: It’s Libyan!

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With such comments, teachers reproduce and reinforce the schools’ language ideologies and policies, which are to encourage Standard Arabic and discourage the use of dialect forms. Such negotiations illustrate a certain paradox where the aim is to teach and ‘maintain’ a language as ‘heritage’, yet the varieties actually spoken in the learners’ homes are not accepted in the supplementary school setting. Moreover, the excerpt shows how teachers’ assessment of dialectal forms as ‘incorrect’ and distinct from what is defined as the target language ‘Arabic’ does not remain uncontested. Such observations confirm Lytra and Baraç’s (2008: 30) findings that supplementary school pupils often tend to be ‘less likely to endorse the compartmentalization of their different sets of linguistic resources’ that their teachers or parents imagine: As seen in the above excerpt, pupils may sometimes question teachers’ separation of non-standard features from the ‘Arabic language’. Perceived language boundaries and what is accepted as ‘Arabic’ thus depend on the vantage point. The pupil’s understanding of what is and what is not ‘Arabic’ is based on the larger-scale distinction between ‘English’ and ‘Arabic’, whereas the teachers are guided by the scripted definition of Standard Arabic. Similarly, pupils sometimes challenge the perceived universality of fuṣḥa as a neutral form of the language, one that is the closest variety to Classical Arabic used in the Quran, and one that is not biased towards any country or region and therefore best represents a broad, pan-Arabic or even Muslim ‘community’. In a conversation between two pupils preparing for their oral GCSE exams, one of the girls emphasised her disagreement with the requirement to use Standard Arabic in GCSE exams (Arabic GCSE candidate, December 2018): They say it’s universal. It’s kinda universal, because it’s not a specific dialect. But then, it’s not, ‘cause actually it’s not easy to understand for us if you’re not used to it!

Coming from Iraqi families, the girls question why, as co-owners of the Arabic language, they should not be able to understand the Arabic that is being taught at the supplementary school. Such discussions and contestations can only emerge in the diaspora context and are the product of negotiations around interpretations of an ‘emerging community’ that builds on a transnational interaction and identifications based on individuals’ respective countries of origin. Pupils negotiate their understandings of the role and value of Arabic in the multilingual city, introducing localised understandings of Arabic language, dialects and Arab culture (see also Lytra, 2011). These understandings are filtered through their personal, family, and transnational experiences and reflect the different ways that, drawing on these experiences, the children see Arabic as something that was used in the past, may be used in the present, or can be projected in the future.

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Language in a commercial setting

As mentioned above, use of Arabic on the façades of commercial outlets across Manchester reflects its relevance in business interaction and marketing. Arabic has a high status across diverse populations and is used by both Arab and non-Arab business owners. Iraqi Kurds use signs in Sorani Kurdish and Arabic to reach wider audiences; Syrian Kurdish owners of shisha bars use Arabic to address a diverse clientele; Quranic Arabic verses decorate shop fronts across Manchester’s Muslim communities; Afghan-owned restaurants display Arabic on their signage to accommodate a population of Arabic speakers. The presence of Arabic in the Linguistic Landscape can thus point us to business settings where Arabic may not be the dominant means of communication among owners, staff and clients, nor an emblem of the owner’s background, but is used instead as a form of alignment with Arabic in the diaspora setting. The Arabic label ‫‘( َح َلل‬halal’) appears on outlet signage across the city. As in Muslim communities around the world, regardless of language and script, it signals adherence to Islamic rules on meat consumption and thereby defines the target clientele based on shared faith. We find the symbol on the façade of a butcher’s shop in the Trafford area, southwest of Manchester city centre. The neighbourhood has a large South Asian population, a large presence of Polish speakers, and a smaller population of Arabic speakers. Inside the shop, near the entrance, a poster is on prominent display. It depicts slices of meat above a picture of a cow, a lamb and a sheep grazing in a meadow. At the top it carries the liturgical verse in Arabic ‘In the name of Allah the most beneficent the most merciful’, recognisable to any Muslim regardless of native language, and below that, in smaller letters, also in Arabic, the phrase ‘I put my trust in Allah’. While the poster does not necessarily address speakers of Arabic, it targets a Muslim practice community who also share a particular linguistic practice, the reading of liturgical verses in Quranic Arabic. The shop’s business card, by contrast, reaches out to users of Arabic more explicitly. On one side, at the top, it carries the English title ‘Trafford Halal Meat’ in large print. Below the title are pictures of animals (a chicken, fish, a lamb and a cow), accompanied by the label ‘Halal’ in Arabic and Roman scripts on the right, and the words ‘fresh halal meat’ in Urdu on the left. The next frame lists meat categories in English (‘lamb, goat, sheep, mutton, chicken, beef, fish & sausages’), with the very same content then repeated below in Arabic, introduced by the Arabic phrase ‘excellent assortment of meats’. The bottom two lines provide contact information and the address, in English. On the back the card gives marketing and delivery specifications in English, and repeats the phrase ‘fresh halal meat’ in Urdu. This multilingual business card thus shows how choices within a multilingual repertoire are indicative and constitutive of different communicative acts and illocutions (see

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further Matras et al., 2018): Urdu is used for branding and could be seen as ornamental, serving to attract the attention of a local Pakistani clientele. Arabic is used to convey more specific product information, while English is used for both, as well as for the orientation (location and contact information), drawing on the highly codified marking of the English-speaking environment. From conversations with staff members we know that the owner, most staff and most clients are not Arabs nor fluent Arabic speakers; yet Arabic has a symbolic significance in the neighbourhood. One member of staff we spoke to is UK born of Pakistani descent and speaks Urdu and Panjabi alongside English, with limited literacy skills in Arabic. He said he occasionally uses Panjabi in conversations with clients, but suggested that most South Asians living in the neighbourhood speak and read English, which confirms our assumption that the use of Urdu on the business card is mainly emblematic. Another staff member was of Iraqi Kurdish background, and reported to use Arabic as well as Sorani Kurdish with some customers. A third staff member is Kurdish from northwestern Iran. Staff reported that their clientele was diverse and they used their full collective language repertoires – Arabic, Sorani Kurdish, Panjabi, Persian and English – to communicate with clients. When asked what motivated the use of Arabic in the outlet’s communications, the staff replied: ‘Arabic appeals to everyone in the area. It belongs to all, you know, so we use it’. This comment indicates the symbolic value that Arabic assumes in the diverse neighbourhood, serving as a link between different Muslim populations. Appropriation of the language by non-speakers is considered to be acceptable. This challenges traditional understandings of ‘using’ a language. Arabic is part of the wider neighbourhood repertoire and thus a resource that is available for everyone to use (see Blommaert (2010) on ‘truncated repertoires’). Such practices in shared space also challenge traditional understandings of ‘community’ as bounded and fixed. Instead, public display of Arabic reflects practice routines and repertoire management that are dynamically shaped by wider interaction practices in the local space. Actors make use of available resources to establish links with a diverse audience. Elements of language are used to appeal to others – to ‘speak to everyone in the area’. Shared interests, practices and needs (compliance with Islamic dietary laws) create a bond that is mediated through the emblematic values of the Arabic language. As Canagarajah (2017: 37) points out, spatial repertoires are ‘assembled in situ, and in collaboration with others, in the manner of distributed practice’ and may not be part of one’s existing proficiency but become relevant in a given shared space. Frurt, a small outlet in Manchester’s city centre, is another example of how Arabic is combined with other language resources that are

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perceived as locally relevant, transcending traditional community boundaries to reflect more complex practices in the globalised setting. Frurt is a small franchise business that, at the time of writing, has three stores across the Northwest of England that sell frozen yoghurt, coffees, milkshakes and similar products. The Manchester shop is located close to the city’s two large university campuses off Oxford Road, in close proximity to several student halls of residence, many of whose residents are international students. From visits and conversations with staff and clients at the Manchester store, we know that the shop is frequented by young adult males of Arabic background who use it as a venue to socialise with each other and with the shop’s owner, who is also of Arabic background. The default language used in the outlet is Arabic. Staff and clients we spoke to reported that most customers come from Bahrain or Kuwait. Chinese students who pass by the store on their way to and from the universities also frequent the shop, but do not appear to spend much time there for interaction. Figure 3.6 shows the sign that Manchester’s Frurt store displays outside their store. The trilingual sign, in English, Chinese and Arabic, was created specifically for the local branch. The owner’s sister, who designed it, added her own language Arabic and, with the help of a Chinese friend, Chinese. Clearly, the translations are not required in order to give access to the content, since the clients are largely university students who know English. Rather, the sign targets the two specific clientele groups in an effort to

Figure 3.6  Frurt trilingual sign: English, Chinese, Arabic

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make both feel welcome. According to the staff, the use of Arabic on the sign prompts Arabs to associate the products with those available in their countries of origin, reassuring them of their quality. The trilingual sign thus reflects the customer base that routinely frequents the shop; it also encourages future practice and legitimises the choice of certain languages with staff members: staff reported that they were often addressed in Arabic even by new customers, prompted by the sign. In this way the sign acts as a statement of micro-level language policy. The use of Arabic also signals the outlet’s role as a hub of social interaction and thus a community space. The choice of Chinese serves a different purpose, reaching out to a customer base, a strict marketing function. These distinct functions offer a nice illustration of how the linguistic landscape can reflect the more dynamic practices that constitute ‘urban community’ links as described by Blokland (2017). These can include people’s more volatile, ephemeral experiences of belonging through encounters in public space. The repetitiveness of rather fluid encounters, such as those in the Frozen Yoghurt outlet, can create a more defined sense of connectedness. It is a form of flexible encounter, which can create more durable relations. The non-fixity of the ‘community’ becomes temporarily fixed through space, facilitated by the multilingual urban diaspora setting and formally licensed through the choice of languages on public display, which links background, local practices, and place of encounter. Conclusion: ‘Community’, Practice and Language Hierarchies in the Diaspora Setting

Across settings and actors, languages and varieties are evaluated hierarchically in terms of their perceived relevance and value (see also Karatsareas, this volume), but actors’ understandings of language boundaries and assessments of sets of resources are highly dependent on the situation, setting, aims and the individual speaker. Arabic is generally seen as an important community resource for its communicative and emblematic values. Individuals and institutions seem to have very strong opinions about the sets of resources in their language repertoires. In contexts of access provision and heritage language maintenance, Standard Arabic is perceived as the desired variety, despite the fact that non-standard colloquial varieties are used for oral communication. This reflects and reinforces ideologies that are held more widely about Arabic. The relevance of Standard Arabic is echoed also in the requirements for GCSE and A-level qualifications. Acquiring such UK-based qualifications may be seen as a form of ‘empowerment’ through formal recognition of language resources and a way of officially recognising and legitimising community language resources at a city and national level; at the same time, it reinforces traditional language ideologies.

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The institutional frame of the supplementary school frames what is ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ Arabic, and which language and variety to encourage or discourage. Among parents and teachers, and even pupils, there is an assumption that there is one ‘proper’ way of speaking Arabic, and at the supplementary school children can learn it. ‘Native speaker’ parents who use their regional variety of Arabic in the home setting are believed to not master the ‘correct’ variety of Arabic and therefore need support for their children’s GCSE preparations. Speakers of different varieties are, in the diaspora setting, united around an abstract notion of Arabic, which is however not actually used as a ‘native language’ anywhere in the Arab world. A sense of ‘community’ is built around a mutual identification with Standard Arabic for its associations with education and religion, which in turn helps showcase and protect an ‘Arab identity’ in the diaspora setting. The fuṣḥa is thought to belong to and to be owned by speakers from different (Arabic and non-Arabic speaking, Muslim) backgrounds. Similarly, in freelancer registration forms for M-Four Translations, the emphasis is placed on the positive associations of Standard Arabic with qualifications and success, which echoes the general devaluation of colloquial varieties of Arabic and disregards complexities at the practical level of ensuring effective communication across Arabic dialects, a necessity when the aim of the provision is to support access to services and communication between clients and practitioners. In the context of language analyses for the identification of origin (LADO), the standard expertise that is usually relied on by government agencies often fails to take a critical stance to the relationship of language and place, or take account of language hierarchies. Language analysis reports by government contractors overwhelmingly assume a constant relationship between structural features and place, and give no consideration to the spread of urban varieties in rural areas, the dissemination of prestige forms through media, the infiltration of Standard features into spontaneous speech in settings that are deemed formal (such as the asylum interview itself), or contacts among people of various backgrounds during and after migration; instead these are regarded as ‘deviations’ from an expected idealised alignment of language and place, often to the disadvantage of applicants (see Matras, 2018b). The diaspora setting alters language practices, the ways individuals evaluate their linguistic resources and community alliances. It produces, on the one hand, a universalisation effect, as actors align themselves with a diverse global community. At the same time it triggers a nationalisation effect, as language users hold on to symbolic and practical forms of identification with their countries of origin. Language ideologies related to the varieties of Arabic are thus reproduced, re-interpreted and appropriated in the diaspora setting.

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However, as our classroom observations in the supplementary school setting show, ideologies that prioritise fuṣḥa for spoken interaction do not remain uncontested. Linguistic hierarchies that privilege the Standard and separate it from colloquial spoken varieties do not seem to be central in the evaluation of language resources in business or family settings, where the language generally enjoys a high status and assumes a key role, in relation to other ‘languages’. People’s alignment with ‘Arabic’ plays a role in establishing and maintaining ties, but this does not necessarily presuppose proficiency in the language. Actors who do not gather explicitly around language maintenance may still perceive the shared alignment with Arabic as a way to create bonds in the diaspora setting. A common language can facilitate interaction between people on a functional level as means of communication, but it can also help build trust at a mainly symbolic level. Negotiations around language, language ideologies, and the actual use of language thus play a role in understanding social identification in the diaspora context. They involve a range of practices and practice routines that display ‘belonging’ to place and can therefore be seen as constitutive elements of ‘community’. This suggests that ‘community’ cannot be taken for granted as a pre-defined site of investigation, but instead it offers us an object of investigation, as proposed by Brubaker (2005, 2012; see also Bessant, 2018). Cities provide an ideal space for developing loose ties with others who become, in the sense of Blokland (2017), ‘public familiars’ but not necessarily part of close social networks, on the basis of repeated encounters in a shared place, encounters that may be fluid, durable, or transactional. In these encounters, use of Arabic takes on a variety of forms. This necessarily requires us to consider a range of different indicators in order to assess language vitality through different forms of engagement with language. That, in turn, puts the very notion of ‘language maintenance’ into a new perspective, as it does not necessarily mean a replication of the language practices of the origin country. In the Manchester setting, some ‘imported’ practices, such as notions of language hierarchies, continue among some actors, but are questioned by others, while the linguistically diverse diaspora setting adds new practices to the repertoire, such as encounters among regional varieties of the language, the use of Arabic to forge connections across national and linguistic backgrounds, or its use to signal the availability of a unique interaction space. Such spaces as the supplementary schools, the butcher shop that brings together clients with similar preferences, the milkshake outlet that is used as a hub of social interaction, or the dense row of businesses that display Arabic signs in what is still labelled the ‘Curry Mile’, in fact contribute to shaping the very fabric that might be characterised as ‘community’. In this sense, a ‘language community’

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is best defined by the practices that link actors, while ‘community language’ might be defined as a language that is afforded a contained level of recognition as part of a package of provisions as well as public acknowledgements of a celebratory nature relating to the city’s overall language diversity. At this point we would like to return to two important points of methodology, both relevant to ‘researching multilingually’. Our somewhat critical stance toward theorising ‘community languages’ and ‘language communities’ is, as we explained above, enabled through a programme of systematic observations of everyday practices in a variety of sites – from immersion in the private sphere of families, supplementary schools and businesses, to interaction with public service providers and local government, and through to the creation of new data collection tools – one that builds on a network of sustainable and reciprocal relationships between researchers and local stakeholders or actors. Our approach re-configures the dynamics between researchers and ‘researched’, where active involvement of research participants in the design of our activities results in projects-in-return that enrich those participants’ own work (as, for example, through the Supplementary School Support Platform). Our close and continuous engagement allows participants to, in turn, inspire and shape our research agenda and inform knowledge and teaching. This extends not just to individuals and initiatives from among the local Arabic speaking population, but also to practitioners who provide professional services to such individuals. Thus, our documentation of variation in Arabic and our analyses of language hierarchies and the contacts and links among linguistic varieties that are prompted through migration and diasporic settings, have been informing legal practitioners through our LADO consultancy work, helping in many cases to overturn administrative decisions in the asylum process that were based on an unrealistic or erroneous understanding of the relationship between language/dialect and place/origin. Our research also benefits from two complementary manners of immersion in the language that is the object of our study, thus offering two distinct perspectives on Arabic in the global diaspora: One co-author is a near-native speaker of Arabic, having acquired the language in early adolescence in a setting where Arabic is an officially recognised language, and has been involved for many years in research on Arabic structure and variation. The second co-author takes the perspective of a language learner, learning (Standard and non-Standard varieties of) Arabic together with heritage learners in the diaspora setting as part of the ethnographic observation (for the rationale and piloting of the method of ‘ethnographer as language learner’ see Abercrombie 2018). Long-term participation in an Arabic supplementary school classroom as a language learner and regular informal tutoring in a

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private context have allowed intensive engagement with the Arabic language and its speakers over time and across language maintenance settings and teaching formats in Manchester. This approach re-positions the researcher – otherwise typically regarded as a language expert – as a learner, legitimising the posing of questions about language variation and ideologies of Standard language use. As researchers we thus share various aspects of repertoire resources with the participants, resulting in a new form of multilingual research encounters and a comprehensive approach to analysing language practices in the superdiverse urban setting. Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Open World Research Initiative consortium ‘Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community (Multi­ lingual Communities strand)’. We would also like to acknowledge funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP). References Abercrombie, A. (2018) Language purism and social hierarchies: Making a Romani standard in Prizren. Language in Society 47 (5), 741–761. Al-Sahafi, M. (2015) The role of Arab fathers in heritage language maintenance in New Zealand. International Journal of English Linguistics 5 (1), 73–83. Albirni, A. (2016) Modern Arabic Sociolinguistics. London: Routledge. Barni, M. and Bagna, C. (2010) Linguistic landscape and language vitality. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in the City. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bassiouney, R. (2009) Arabic Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Benson, P., Chic, A. and Moloney, R. (eds) (2018) Multilingual Sydney. London: Routledge. Bessant, K.C. (2018) The Relational Fabric of Community. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London: Continuum. Blokland, T. (2017) Community as Urban Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Blommaert, J. (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. (2013) Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J., Collins, J. and Slembrouck, S. (2005) Polycentricity and interactional regimes in ‘global neighborhoods’. Ethnography 6 (2), 205–235. Bonacina-Pugh, F. (2017) Legitimizing multilingual practices in the classroom: The role of the ‘practiced language policy’. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 1–15. Brubaker, R. (2005) The ‘diaspora’ diaspora. Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (1), 1–19. Brubaker, R. (2012) Categories of analysis and categories of practice: A note on the study of Muslims in European countries of immigration. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36 (1), 1–8. Cadier, L. and Mar-Molinero, C. (2012) Language policies and linguistic super-diversity in contemporary urban societies: The case of the city of Southampton, UK. Current Issues in Language Planning 13 (3), 149–165.

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Canagarajah, S. (2017) Translingual practice as spatial repertoires: Expanding the paradigm beyond Structuralist orientations. Applied Linguistics 39 (1), 31–54. Clyne, M. (1991) Community Languages: The Australian Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cummins, J. (1992) Heritage language teaching in Canadian schools. Journal of Curriculum Studies 24 (3), 287–296. Duarte, J. and Gogolin, I. (2013) Linguistic Superdiversity in Urban Areas: Research Approaches. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Edwards, V. (2001) Community languages in the United Kingdom. In G. Extra and D. Gorter (eds) The Other Languages of Europe. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Extra, G. and Yağmur, K. (2004) Urban Multilingualism in Europe. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gaiser, L. and Hughes, P. (2015) Language provisions in Manchester’s supplementary schools. Multilingual Manchester. See http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2015/12/Language-provisions-in-Manchester-supplementary-schools. pdf (accessed August 2019). Gaiser, L. and Matras, Y. (2016a) The spatial construction of civic identities: A study of Manchester’s linguistic landscapes. Multilingual Manchester. See. http://mlm.humanities. manchester.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ManchesterLinguisticLandscapes.pdf (accessed August 2019). Gaiser, L. and Matras, Y. (2016b) Language provisions in access to hospital and primary care in Manchester. Multilingual Manchester. See http://mlm.humanities.manchester. ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Language-provisions-in-access-to-primary-andhospital-care-Sept-2016.pdf (accessed August 2019). García, O. and Fishman, J.A. (1997) The Multilingual Apple. Languages in New York City. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Karatsareas, P. (2018) Attitudes towards Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek in London’s Greek Cypriot community. International Journal of Bilingualism 22 (4), 412–428. King, L. (2016) Multilingual cities and the future: Vitality or decline? In L. King and L. Carson (eds) The Multilingual City: Vitality, Conflict and Change. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. King, L. and Carson, L. (eds) (2016) The Multilingual City: Vitality, Conflict and Change. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Lamarre, P. (2013) Catching ‘Montreal on the move’ and challenging the discourse of unilingualism in Quebec. Anthropologica 55 (1), 41–56. Lytra, V. (2011) Negotiating language, culture and pupil agency in complementary school classrooms. Linguistics and Education 22 (1), 23–36. Lytra, V. and Baraç, T. (2008) Language practices, language ideologies and identity construction in London Turkish complementary schools. In V. Lytra and N. Jørgensen (eds) Multilingualism and Identities across Contexts: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on Turkish-speaking Youth in Europe (pp. 15–43). Copenhagen Studies in Bilingualism. University of Copenhagen. Matras, Y. (2018a) The Multilingual Manchester research model: An integrated approach to urban language diversity. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana 14 (3), 248–274. Matras, Y. (2018b) Duly verified? Language analysis in UK asylum applications of Syrian refugees. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 25 (1), 53–78. Matras, Y. and Robertson, A. (2015) Multilingualism in a post-industrial city: Policy and practice in Manchester. Current Issues in Language Planning 16 (3), 296–314. Matras, Y. and Robertson, A. (2017) Urban multilingualism and the civic university: A dynamic, non-linear model of participatory research. Social Inclusion 5 (4), 5–13. Matras, Y., Gaiser, L., and Reershemius, G. (2018) Multilingual repertoire management and illocutionary functions in Yiddish signage in Manchester. Journal of Pragmatics 135 (2018), 53–70.

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Matras, Y., Robertson, A. and Jones, C. (2016) Using the school setting to map community languages: A pilot study in Manchester, England. International Journal of Multilingualism 16 (3), 353–366. Othman, M. (2011) Language maintenance in the Arabic–speaking community in Manchester, Britain: A sociolinguistic investigation. PhD thesis, the University of Manchester. See http://www.arabic.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2017/11/Othman-2011.pdf (accessed August 2019). Pennycook, A. and Otsuji, E. (2014) Metrolingual multitasking and spatial repertoires: Pizza mo two minutes coming. Journal of Sociolinguistics 18 (2), 161–184. Pennycook, A. and Otsuji, E. (2015) Metrolingualism: Language in the City. Oxon: Routledge. Rosenhouse, J. (2013) General and local issues in forensic Linguistics: Arabic as a case study. Comparative Legilinguistics 15, 53–67. Rosenhouse, J. (2017) A forensic linguistic problem: Asylum seekers’ dialect identification difficulties in under-documented adjacent Arabic dialects. International Journal of Legal Discourse 2 (1) 113–123. Spotti, M. (2016) Sociolinguistic Shibboleths at the institutional gates: Language, origin and the construction of asylum seekers’ identities. In K. Arnaut, J. Blommaert, B. Rampton and M. Spotti (eds) Language and Superdiversity. London: Routledge. Translation Empire (2019) Rare language translation services. See https://www. translation-empire.co.uk/translation-services/rare-language-translation-services/ (accessed August 2019).

4 Hispanic London: Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices Darren Paffey

Introduction

The growth of London throughout the 20th century and continuing at the start of the 21st has amplified the importance of this globally significant capital city. Its population now exceeds 8 million (GLA, 2014) and there are more nationalities, ethnicities, languages and cultures there than ever before. This is, at the same time, taking place in a context where cities around the world are growing, and more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. The pull factors bringing ever more people into this and other cities means that there is greater diversity within the boroughs and neighbourhoods that make up London: more than one third of Londoners were born outside the United Kingdom, they come from over 180 countries and notwithstanding the challenges of defining and delimiting languages in such a context, it is claimed that London’s school pupils (as well as teachers and staff) speak more than 230 different languages. As well as the many opportunities that people seek when moving to the cities, there are challenges that arise, including how mother tongues are used, how and in what contexts additional languages are acquired and what new linguistic phenomena emerge in these superdiverse contexts. Equally, there is a challenge to scholars interested in these phenomena, to continually critique the tools we use to observe, evidence and evaluate languages in the city. This chapter will therefore reflect on fieldwork carried out in London which sought to capture some of the linguistic landscape and to a basic extent the language practices of Spanish speakers in this city.  The experience of studying the visual environment around the city using methodologies developed within the field of Linguistic Landscapes (LL) (Blommaert, 2013; Gorter, 2006; Landry & Bourhis, 1997) was a fruitful one, but a number of questions arose regarding the limitations 79

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of this type of study, which I discuss here. I reflect on the extent to which issues of linguistic landscape in urban multilingualism as an approach can aid our understanding of issues such as ethnolinguistic visibility, the linguistic marking of public space and belonging. These concepts can be brought together by Sassen’s thinking around ‘making presence’ (Sassen, 2005), in order to explore how languages index local contexts, but also ‘transform the social landscape’ (Vertovec, 2007). This chapter will present data from the linguistic landscape study of key Hispanic localities in London, where the language (and of course its community of speakers) is found in significant measure. My aim is to shed light on how the use of Spanish on different levels is used to ‘make claims’ on these multilingual spaces, and to evaluate how sociolinguistic methods and practices can/do show us how this takes place in such a rapidly changing context as the city of London. The chapter will bring together considerations of policy studies (supra-national, national and local) and language ideologies, asking how these interact in the observable practices of the linguistic environment. I ask how the scale and nature of urban contexts (‘city-ness’) can be best reflected in the methods we as sociolinguists employ in our work, and reflect on the impact of the choices we make. Context: The Global City of London

London’s population growth over recent decades has seen a return to pre-World War II levels, however a significant difference to that period is the diversity of the city. More than one in three people living in London were born outside the UK (ONS, 2015), and while throughout the post-war decades the first-generation migrants came largely from former British colonies in the West Indies, East Africa and the Indian sub-continent, more recent migration from Europe, Latin America and Asia means that every continent is represented in London’s diverse demographics. Not only is it the UK’s primary migratory destination, but the globalisation of the early 21st century has cemented its role as a renowned centre of international financial, educational, commercial, media and cultural excellence. Add to this the sheer scale and complexity of the diversity of people found in its neighbourhoods, businesses, schools and communities, and it becomes evident why Vertovec claims that ‘London is the predominant locus of immigration and it is where super-diversity is at its most marked’ (2007: 1042). It is important to understand the impact of defining London as both global and superdiverse. The city itself, and the ways that people perceive it, are of course multiple. Many instinctively see it as the historic capital of England and centre of English identity, others see its importance as the political capital of the United Kingdom, others as the global capital of international financial services, opportunity in the

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arts, entrepreneurialism and so on. London is strongly associated with these countless occupations and enterprises, and attracts a still-growing number of people from a huge range of places who come to share the same urban space. It is no surprise then that this multi-layered attraction to the city results in a multiplicity of ways of identifying, indexing, and ‘claiming’ London as a space (see also Back & Sinha, 2019). It is, in that sense, reflective of any contemporary global city: The global city particularly has emerged as a site for new claims; by global capital, which uses the global city as an ‘organisational commodity’, but also by disadvantaged sectors of the urban population, frequently as internationalized a presence in global cities as capital. The ‘de-nationalizing’ of urban space and the formation of new claims by transnational actors, raise the question: whose city is it? (Sassen, 2005: 38–9)

Claiming ownership of the city’s spaces, features and cultural flows is inherent to constructing a collective identity. In London, that collective has its origins in over 180 countries all around the world, of which 21 are Spanish-speaking (ONS, 2011). However, widespread popular discourse about language is that the only official language in the United Kingdom is English (in spite of the fact that there is no explicit policy stating this) and that linguistic diversity is unnecessary. Such a reductionist ideology does not however constrain actual practices, and while the language of school instruction is English, there are 233 other languages spoken by London’s schoolchildren. In this diverse context, Spanish speakers find spaces within the city such as Elephant & Castle, Seven Sisters and parts of Notting Hill which are at least linguistically – and potentially culturally – familiar to them. In other words, these parts of the city are subject to Sassen’s ‘claims’ and can be perceived to be ‘theirs’ in terms of where they might find belonging. These areas index distant sites, cultures and languages, and are home to transnational individuals practising cross-border connections – including cultural and linguistic practices – with ‘home’ countries (see Escandon, this volume, for a study of similar concepts on the Mexico-US border). Such intense and diverse connections give rise to the complexity of considerations around how languages form identities and can be observed in London, according to the relevant conceptual frameworks that I discuss below. Key Concepts in Researching Urban Multilingualism Global cities, global languages and superdiversity

In setting out the context above I have referred already to some of the crucial notions of what makes a global city in terms of its superdiversity (Blommaert & Rampton, 2012; Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Mar-Molinero, this volume; Vertovec, 2007, 2010) as well as its

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breadth of social, commercial, cultural and linguistic activities on a scale that goes beyond other smaller cities and towns. The global city is one in which social relations, transactions and networks of activity are subject to much more intense global interconnectedness, and where a greater flow of ideas, goods, information, capital and people can be seen (Held et al., 2000). The ways in which this impacts language are set out comprehensively by Mac Giolla Chríost (2007) who argues that cities are sites of creative linguistic diversity as much as non-cities. In particular, the nature of cities gives rise to innovations in how language is formed and what it indexes due to the connections, differentiated spaces, and rhythms of these locations. Smakman and Heinrich detail what some of the specific factors of language are in places like London: Large cities are characterized by language diversification through in-­ migration and efforts of language maintenance through heritage language education and language revitalization. They feature pluricentric languages and language nativization, novel forms of contact, competition and functional compartmentalisation of languages, exaptation of infrastructures and communication technologies, new communicative needs, and new solutions to meet these. (Smakman & Heinrich, 2018: 8–9)

The diversity within diversity and innovative language practices that all of these theorists point to is the key link between the superdiversity of London and the practices of Spanish-speaking Londoners that this study considers. The ways that languages are commodified as well as disembedded from their original context and subsequently re-embedded in global cities (Coupland, 2003), with resulting hybridity of language, will frame our understanding of the context in which languages mark specific parts of the public realm. Sassen (2013) argues that in this complexity, people ‘make’ their urban, political and civic realities. Cities are one of the key sites where new norms and identities are made […] This is especially true if it is a global city, defined by its partial shaping within a network of other cities across borders. (Sassen, 2013: 209, 219)

Echoing Pratt’s ‘contact zones’ (1991), the physical and conceptual frontier zones of London provide the context where the negotiation and making of identities through the Spanish-language linguistic landscape serve to reverse part of Spanish-speakers’ invisibility that McIlwaine et al. have noted in their ethnographies of Latin Americans (McIlwaine et al., 2010; McIlwaine & Bunge, 2016). Understanding how one can navigate the contact zones of this city via instances of the Spanish language will reveal much about the language ideologies of both authorities and also grassroots speakers of Spanish.

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An added dimension of what is particular to Spanish speakers in London is the contact between two globally significant languages, command of which will provide speakers with cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1991) and therefore access to information, employment, education, or other opportunities to have a degree of success. As Moreno-Fernández highlights: A globalised language like English facilitates access to a universe of information networks and globalised bodies and institutions. In the same way, Spanish, the second international language, offers access to networks in a universe of 500 million speakers. (Moreno-Fernández, 2015: 632–633) Linguistic landscape studies

The growing field of research focusing on language in the visual environment, or ‘linguistic landscape’ takes as its object of study ‘The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings’ (Landry & Bourhis, 1997: 25). Documenting specific languages in the visual environment provides a sense of how concentrated or widespread the users of those languages are in the city, and should of course include official signage produced by state authorities and equally non-­ official or private texts produced by individual actors such as businesses or citizens. By taking into account all sources of the linguistic landscape, we can then be sensitive to Shohamy’s claim that linguistic landscape studies is one of the key approaches to understanding de facto language policies (Shohamy, 2006: 58), hence the extent to which Spanish is used in combination or contestation with the UK’s hegemonic (yet still only de facto official) language, English, is of scholarly interest here. Studying how public and semi-private spaces (e.g. inside shops and businesses) are marked linguistically reveals to us not only the vitality of a language and the ethnolinguistic group in that particular locality who employ it, but also reflects the ‘privileged position’ language occupies ‘as a tool for detecting features of superdiversity’ (Blommaert, 2013: 6). The linguistic landscape of London that I researched also required some consideration of the multimodal nature of language use in order to capture a holistic view of language use and to fully record the breadth of meaning making occurring in the research sites. This attention to a broad, qualitative evaluation of language use reflected two key points. First, that ethnolinguistic vitality is not solely a matter of numbers of languages or countable occurrences of a specific language. As Pappenhagen et al. write: Traditionally, research on the LL has mainly been conducted quantitatively […] counting and ranking languages according to frequency,

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density of distribution, code preferences and further quantifiable categories. This approach has been used to show, for instance, which languages are most visible in specific (often bi- or multilingual) regions, how the linguistic landscape can be related to ethnolinguistic vitality and to what extent it reflects societal hierarchies. Thereby, these studies have helped turn the attention of the research community towards the complex linguistic mosaic that constitutes modern globalized cities. (Pappenhagen et al., 2016: 147) It follows that documenting the use of Spanish in London required a qualitative approach to both detect and interpret the features of superdiversity to which the presence of Spanish Speakers contributes. Second, it is only possible to recognise the multiplicity of roles that Spanish plays in London if the analytical framework adequately reflects the possibilities. I therefore took Franco-Rodríguez’s (2009) framework in order to interpreting the linguistic traits of the linguistic landscape and the range of activities users were engaging in through Spanish. The framework delimits the social realms in which a language is documented (such as food, beauty and personal care, restaurants and catering and religion and beliefs among others). It also outlines a number of functional distinctions such as private/public/corporate texts; the former two mirror accepted distinctions between ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ linguistic landscape texts, and the latter highlights those imposed from outside the local level. Finally, the symbolic and instrumental functions of the various combinations of the languages used are considered. When used symbolically, an item in the linguistic landscape indexes places, values or ideologies which are associated with the language but not referenced explicitly via vocabulary choices; when used instrumentally, there is a direct communicative purpose through usually quite detailed language. Texts were categorised as Spanish-language/English-language/Bilingual texts if and when the main section, carrying the focal message of the instance of linguistic landscaping, was predominantly in one language or the other, written equally using each, or even employing instances of codeswitching or translanguaging (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015). Hispanic London: Data from the Visual Environment

This overview of the linguistic landscape data from London provides a selection of photographs, all of which were taken by the author, and which demonstrate the wide range of domains in which Spanish plays a role according to Franco-Rodríguez’s model (2009, see list of these realms below). It takes a qualitative look at the key functions of a select number of linguistic landscape items in order to illustrate this breadth. My choice to use this model arose from studying London as an urban setting, with its concentration of people, its diversity and cosmopolitan nature, the breadth of opportunities, services and consumer interactions

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of all kinds. The value of Franco-Rodriguez’s model stems from the fact it is built on the assumption that this broad range of consumer and personal interactions, in which Spanish would appear, would more likely take place in an urban context where these are available in abundance. This therefore aligns with my aim to understand how urban life was experienced and enacted by those with multilingual repertoires that included Spanish. English-language texts

In all my research sites English is the majority language, with most texts produced by relevant actors in alignment with the hegemonic ideology of English monolingualism. This frames the rich ethnolinguistic diversity valued by many linguistic landscape text producers. Local business owners use English as a symbolic language of belonging even if they themselves would generally speak Spanish with clients. An example is Figure 4.1, a seemingly English-dominant cafe with the business name ‘Castle Brasserie’ and secondary information ‘Café and Restaurant’ employing English symbolically and instrumentally. Inside, there are monolingual Spanish menus, fully bilingual menus and advertisements for Colombian-branded products. Another nearby grocery store had a fascia entirely in English yet a range of Latin American foodstuffs for

Figure 4.1  Café fascia (Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre)

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sale. Spanish does not mark the shop exterior yet on the interior, a local Spanish-speaking population and a ‘market’ for these goods is indexed through food imported from Spanish-speaking countries. Spanish-language texts

Spanish is prominent in linguistic landscape texts across a range of social realms, indicating high social utility in specific localities. There is evidence of the symbolic and instrumental use of Spanish in all 12 realms. Social realm (Franco Rodríguez 2009)

Examples of Spanish in the Linguistic Landscape of London

Food

Butchers, grocery stores, ice cream and cake shops

Beauty and personal care

Hairdressers, beauty salons, fingernail boutiques

Vehicle

Car repairs

Education 

Nursery, language centres, bilingual school

Entertainment, hobbies, and leisure time

Travel agencies, games shops, film rentals

Religion and beliefs 

Evangelical church advertisements, Catholic mass details, Santería venue

Restaurants and catering

Coffee shops, confectionery shops, restaurants

Health care

Dentists, private medical practices

Legal and professional services

Immigration law specialists, general law practices, property agencies

Clothing and apparel

Fashion shops, alterations services, children’s clothing

Home

Computer sales and repair, information at apartment block

Financial services

Money transfer and remittance services

Communication

Mobile phone sales and repair, international calling card kiosks

Figure 4.2  Franco-Rodríguez’s model (2009) of Social Realms for Linguistic Landscape analysis

The symbolic function of Spanish in these private and corporate texts indexes social prestige, placing Spanish above English while validating multiple linguistic repertoires and ethnolinguistic identities. Furthermore, the choice to semiotically mark space in this way and to consider the linguistic landscape as part of speakers’ repertoires (Escandon, this volume) is significant because ‘the autonomous use of a foreign language is perceived as a distinguishing and isolating factor’ (Barni & Bagna, 2010: 11). Isolating the ‘foreign’ language from the dominant linguistic ideological order shifts Spanish from invisible to visible and endows it with a greater status than public authorities do, thereby constituting a counter-hegemonic claim by Spanish speakers on these public spaces. In Figure 4.3 (Su Tienda Latina), the shop fascia foregrounds Spanish and the display of Latin American-branded products indicates the availability and consumption of goods linked to Peru, Colombia,

Hispanic London: Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices  87

Figure 4.3  Ecuadorian shop fascia (Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre)

Argentina and Paraguay, among others. Food and drink imports allow migrants to transnationally reproduce (and reinterpret) ideas and practices of ‘home’, indicating that for many migrants, their diets – like their lives overall – consist of a complex fusion of culinary, cultural and linguistic practices. In Figure 4.4, the job advertisement displayed outside a café idealises the sociolinguistic profile of the staff being sought, in that English proficiency is not necessary for reading the advert or applying for the post (‘con o sin inglés’). This challenges English language hegemony, where popular discourse is that ‘Everyone needs English to work’. The linguistic landscape text has been written over by a passer-by with hybrid linguistic resources who highlights that the age preference for young workers ‘es discriminat(c)ion in UK’ (‘is discrimination in the UK’). Such a ‘co-construction’ of the semiotic order (Blommaert, 2013) draws on dual orthography (‘discriminat(c)ion’) of the other participant and the perceived audience of the text. One of few signs in Spanish which are public and top-down is this bilingual school’s signage (Figure 4.5) detailing some current building works. As might be reasonably expected, an institution run by the Spanish government marks the presence of Spanish in the LL, according it prestige as part of the diplomatic role of Spain’s authorities in the United Kingdom. Bilingual Spanish-English texts

The semiotic construction of Spanish-English bilingual signs attributes equal value and vitality to both linguistic codes, assumes readers

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Figure 4.4  Informal job advertisement with handwritten comment (Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre)

Figure 4.5  Spanish bilingual school (Portobello Road)

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Figure 4.6  Food shop and café fascia (Portobello Road)

have full functional bilingualism and represents both bottom-up and top-down approaches. The linguistic repertoire of local populations gives Spanish high visibility, and indexes its importance in public spaces. Equally, the ubiquity of English leads to its inclusion alongside Spanish. In this way, the crucial role of both languages in London’s Hispanic localities is claimed and underpinned. Take for example Garcia’s Spanish supermarket and café in Notting Hill (Figure 4.6): there are three versions of its business name on the front of its Portobello Road premises: R. García & Sons, García’s and Café Garcia. The first two take the English grammatical forms, and the third could be either Spanish or English, but the presence of Spain’s most common surname is significant here. Another example from a different district is seen in Figure 4.7 on a residential block in Stockwell, where both languages are used instrumentally, indexing the assumed multilingual repertoire of residents’ guests (‘Entrada para visitantes’). Elsewhere, linguistic landscape text producers provide different content in the two languages, with little equivalence or none at all. Linguistic micro-diversity and codeswitching

Without entering into the debate about whether combinations of linguistic codes constitute complex multilingualism, codeswitching, translanguaging, metrolingualism or something else (see other contributions in this volume; see also Blommaert & Rampton, 2012; García & Wei, 2014; Gorter & Cenoz, 2015; Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015b), I note that there is evidence of intersentential and intrasentential combinations of Spanish and English in linguistic landscape texts, going beyond simple loanwords.

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Figure 4.7  Residential block in Stockwell (Lambeth)

Sometimes English and Spanish appear equally and in full translation, assuming that readers will know one language but not both. In other cases, language use is complementary, each conveying a distinct message in the linguistic landscape. At Su Tienda Latina (Figure 4.3 above) one window displayed handwritten postcards advertising accommodation, services and employment opportunities. All but one were in Spanish, with examples of codeswitching (‘Se renta una habitación … a 7 stop de Brixton’, ‘Flat con una habitación y sala Brixton’). These private, grassroots linguistic landscape texts address the Spanish-speaking population, and use language instrumentally as a selection criterion: only those who can read Spanish will understand and apply for the accommodation. The symbolic role of Spanish in advertisements also carries pragmatic value for social practices of Spanish speakers who wish to lodge with other Spanish speakers. Discussion: Challenges in Researching the Urban Visual Environment

No area of research is without its pitfalls, assumptions, practical difficulties or niggling questions that remain once the research and write-up are complete (if indeed this process ever feels complete). This is certainly my experience and that of many colleagues, so reflecting

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on that process and the decisions is a necessary part of evaluating our effectiveness and our impact as researchers. To that end, I will focus this part of the discussion on three key areas: the suitability and application of the research methods selected, the appropriateness of the conceptual frameworks around city-ness and urban language usage, and my role in carrying out the data collection as an outsider to the ‘community’ I sought to consider in the research project I have reported on. Methods: Linguistic landscapes

The choice to adopt a predominantly Linguistic Landscaping method to the data collection follows the growing interest in this area among sociolinguists over the past two decades. Now-crucial publications (Blommaert, 2013; Gorter, 2006; Gorter & Cenoz, 2015; Landry & Bourhis, 1997; Shohamy et al., 2010) have been supplemented by an annual international Linguistic Landscapes conference, a specific Lin­ guistic Landscapes journal and broad representation across other research publications and conferences from sociolinguistic and semiotic studies to social sciences. One of the attractions of this approach is that data is plentiful (in certain locations) and very easily accessed simply by identifying and delimiting the area of study, photographing or filming the street scene and analysing the data for patterns. It would be perhaps more precise to say that while data on the use of language is everywhere, data on the use of multiple languages and varieties does of course depend on the perceived need or desire to mark the visual environment with those languages, for symbolic purposes of identification and visibility (showing a community is there) and/or instrumental purposes of transaction (carrying out business with users of those languages). So, having established through bibliographic searches that no previous academic research on the Spanish linguistic landscape in London had been carried out, identifying those specific boroughs (then districts, then streets) of London where Spanish was commonly known to be used was the first stage of my research. This, then, reflects the first challenge of this methodology in that it (understandably) foregrounds the idea of the fixity and boundedness of language and, to an extent, the ideology of a standard. This leads me as a researcher to set out to study instances of ‘Spanish’, without necessarily at that point engaging with the debate on what constitutes Spanish(es). In methodological terms, standardised accounts of the language allow researchers to locate ideologies in those sites where speakers, particularly educators and students, tend to look to find the authoritative language – in all its problematic security, stability, correctness, and efficiency. (Train, 2007: 213)

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The assumption is that what we see when identifying an instance of Spanish in the linguistic landscape will be a standardised variety precisely because what appears in public, particularly when there has been a financial cost to producing it, will be seen as authoritative. The sites that Train refers to above will include educational contexts (which I focus on in a special issue of the Journal for Spanish Language Teaching, Paffey, 2019) but also more broadly it can be reasonably expected that standard Spanish – if it fulfils any purpose in diaspora – will represent and unite speakers from across the Spanish-speaking world due to its being used to communicate commercial and other information via the linguistic landscape. In doing so, linguistic landscapes – initially at least – concentrate on the production of a language, that is the visible and linguistic ‘imprint’ of migrants through public language use. The discipline does not (yet) focus as much on the reception of language, to understand how people in a specific neighbourhood actually interpret the language use or what impact it has on their engagement with the services or information being provided in Spanish (in this case). This potential shortcoming of the approach is noted by a number of scholars (Horner & Weber, 2017; Pappenhagen et al., 2016) and requires a different level of engagement with people through, for example, ethnographic observation and interviewing techniques. As part of my wider research project on the use of Spanish in London, I carried out a number of semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders: Spanish and Latin American migrants to London, learners of Spanish, school students, teachers, in order to balance two types and sources of data, namely reflective data (from interview sources) versus data about practices (from observations of the linguistic environment). These have led to a deeper comprehension of language ideologies but still lack an in-depth tracking of linguistic practices that could be matched against what the linguistic landscape suggests is the case. For example, where the linguistic landscape suggests there are lots of Spanish speakers to whom the text producers are marketing imported foodstuffs or private health care services, are these an identifiable part of the social practices of Spanish speakers? What about the specific sociolinguistic profile of speakers accessing these services? As a discipline then, we who are engaged in linguistic landscape ought to seek ‘to go beyond the semiotic “surface” of the linguistic forms and analyse linguistic actions performed in the LL’ (Pappenhagen et al., 2016: 125) wherever this is not already happening. A related challenge when recruiting participants as an outsider to both London and to the city’s Spanish-speaking population is that I was reliant on gatekeepers to recommend potential participants to me, and who also recommended the pilot project I was carrying out to their contacts and friends. The result in the first set of interviews that I engaged in was that volunteers were largely younger than 40 years old, mostly female and mostly

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educated to degree level. It is difficult to find a single demographic study that could verify whether that profile was typical of London’s Spanish-speaking population, but my strong assumption was that this did not reflect the diversity of those I hoped to research. Present here are the old tensions between quantitative and qualitative approaches to ethnographic research (Blackwood, 2015), in that the former would lean more towards a statistically significant and representative sample, whereas the latter would concentrate on the substantive themes emerging from the discourses of whoever had taken part in interviews. This potential need for a multiplicity of data sources gives rise to three related issues, namely scale, breadth and timeframe: (1) Scale: the required scale of a linguistic landscape project refers to the minimum point at which it becomes viable as a substantive project that will provide a reasonable insight into language practices, and the maximum point at which it becomes unfeasible for an individual or small number of researchers to do and begins to require a much larger scale effort and a data collection tool with sufficient reach to draw conclusions beyond a very concentrated research site. For instance, my focus on ‘Spanish in London’ clearly cannot account for all instances of Spanish throughout Greater London, and the question is: is a much bigger project required to even make this investigation worth it? What would the minimum resource for this be? And could a much bigger project even achieve the perceived necessary level of evidence? One potential way of mitigating the limited resources that UK university researchers have access to would be to open up the data collection process to their students (undergraduate as well as postgraduate) by allowing app-based data capture to contribute to structured research projects. An example of this exists in a small number of cities around the world using LinguaSnapp to map multilingualism in Manchester, Melbourne and Jerusalem (see Gaiser & Matras, this volume). Users take photos using the app which are then uploaded to a mappable site, and metadata is added to each image documenting for example the purpose, function, and arrangement of each linguistic landscape item. This is an innovative and exciting tool which could be extended to other cities where projects on urban multilingualism are being carried out, and is certainly a tool I wish to explore for use in London. (2) Breadth: the textual focus – or what has been called the ‘logocentrism’ of most linguistic landscape research (Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015a) – is opening up to a broader scope of linguistic landscape research in which studies are increasingly and rightly taking into account the multimodal nature of language marking. This includes how language shapes the soundscape, cyberscape, smellscape, cityscape and other dimensions of public space (Ivkovic & Lotherington, 2009;

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Muth, 2015; Pappenhagen et al., 2016; Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015a; Scarvaglieri et al., 2013. See also Gorter, 2018 for fuller discussion of other types of -scape). An important development in future research, my own as well as linguistic landscape studies more widely, must take into account the full breadth of the semiotic picture that needs to be built by the various data and research tools required to understand language and space, as Backhaus reflects: Ideally, it [LL data] should be used in combination with other research tools such as – if available – linguistic census data and large-scale home language surveys. […] the linguistic landscape, if properly read, clearly does have something to say about linguistic diversity, the forces involved in its formation, and the direction it is likely to take. (Backhaus, 2008: 329)

The LinguaSnapp tool available for anyone to download to their smartphone and use to support the data collection of linguistic landscape items goes some way to digitising linguistic landscape data, but remains focused on traditional texts. The broader question is how to capture the soundscape, smellscape, cityscape and what methods are needed to add these important dimensions to the multi-layered picture of language in urban settings that researchers are seeking to detail. Globalisation has ushered in a radical transformation of social, cultural and linguistic practices and we are only beginning to understand how new communication technologies impact language and identity (Gardner & Martin-Jones, 2012). Beyond digital methods of capturing physical data, we also need to consider what a digital linguistic landscape would look like, in terms of describing the online life of a linguistic identity in the city. The use of language online by a city’s resident multilinguals also has much to tell us about linguistic practices and how these are changing in response to technological developments and our increasingly online lives. There are obvious ethical challenges to consider, given that so much of the likely data would come from emails, text messages, WhatsApp groups, Facebook posts, Tweets and Instagram posts to name just a few of the most likely sources, determined by their popularity. It is in some of the less formal interactions such as these that multilinguals are likely to innovate linguistically, and occurrences of translanguaging, metrolingualism and other phenomena could be evidenced. However, that does mean gaining access to often very personal conversations for which it could be difficult to gain the necessary permissions, from participants as well as Ethics Committees of universities and research funding bodies (see Copland, 2018; Mar-Molinero, this volume). (3) Timeframe: in terms of time, one of my concerns is that the nature of the linguistic landscape is such that certain parts are permanent, others are semi-permanent but adapting, others are temporary or

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even ‘pop-up’ and ephemeral, so any investigation of the linguistic landscape is potentially only ever a snapshot of a particular moment, in other words the study is synchronic. While that ‘moment’ could range from an entirely ephemeral few seconds through to a period of a few years, there is a need to historicise our evaluation of language and space in the city to underpin the validity of the observations we make. Aware of this, I re-traced one of my original data collection walkabout routes around the Elephant & Castle shopping centre and railway arches two years after I had first carried this out, a small attempt at cross-referencing the data diachronically. I was particularly aware of potential changes to the area due to a regeneration project (discussed below) and while I found that there had been additional poster, stickers and other temporary texts advertising mostly music events and festivals, there was little change in general and certainly far less reduction of the visibility of Spanish than I had been expecting, suggesting that the businesses I had seen in 2015 were still successfully operating in 2017. This would obviously need verification against business registration figures in the area (which then goes back to the question of scale of the ongoing research). Nevertheless, the very nature of global cities is that the rate of change, flow and flux in people, capital and culture can be constant and potentially quite rapid, so as a researcher I need to keep a watchful eye on the particular ‘moment’ that previous research sites are encountering, ready to capture those changes some time after the original research snapshot. In particular, both Elephant & Castle and Seven Sisters research sites are subject to controversial regeneration plans which – in spite of assurances from local authorities and property developers – would inevitably reduce the available spaces for the existing Spanish-language businesses and community focal points, and reduce the diversity of the linguistic landscape. There are apparent concessions in the Elephant & Castle scheme where a ‘Calle Latina’ (Latin Street) would be developed in recognition of the significant Hispanic-Andean population in the area. However, in a comparable situation in Washington DC, Leeman and Modan chart the dilution of Chinese-English bilingualism in the linguistic landscape of Chinatown when that district was regenerated, resulting in the ‘Disneyfied landscape’ of the district where Chinese language has become a ‘floating signifier that can be used to signify, or to sell, not just things Chinese but anything at all’ (Leeman & Modan, 2009: 353–359). In addition to regeneration, there is the potentially imminent linguistic landscape shift which could occur after the Brexit deadline (December 2020) when the UK leaves the European Union, which could change the immigration status of both Spaniards in the UK and also Latin Americans who naturalised as Spaniards and therefore migrate to the UK under EU free movement conditions. In

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sum, the fact that the linguistic landscape can change quite quickly is not in and of itself a problem (after all, the prolific field of research into spoken language takes a far more ephemeral object of study); however, it should make us as researchers question the extent of our ability to both historicise and future-proof our research, and to track how those key linguistic moments impact upon and shape the urban space. Concepts of the city and ‘city-ness’

The theme of this volume overall as well as my research framework at the start of this chapter both take as their starting point that there are particularities to researching cities, and to research linguistic ideologies, policies and practices in these urban contexts. Sassen (2005, 2013) characterises cities as places where urban space has become denationalised, and where there are new norms of belonging and identities being made all the time by diverse populations, including linguistic identities. Mac Giolla Chríost (2007) sets out how linguistic innovation and variety takes place not just in rural areas of traditional dialectal variety, but in cities too where complex language change takes place. Pennycook and Otsuji (2015b) claim that the mobility of people and language, characterised by globalisation, come together in cities where new linguistic practices and repertoires arise in what they term ‘metrolingualism’. The case studies and evidence that each of these (and other) scholars have observed and theorised demonstrates the unique context for multilingualism within urban settings. Underpinning all of this is the fact that: Language lives in large cities are the upshot of processes such as global management, production and finance, global communication networks and infrastructures, new media, changes in migration patterns, and the emergence of a ‘new kinetic elite’ at home in megacities and world cities around the world. (Smakman & Heinrich, 2018: 8–9)

However, as noted in the discussion above about the methods available to us, and importantly the resources available to us as researchers, there is a question of how much confidence we can have in generalisations about a city such as London. We arrive at these claims by constantly extrapolating between the global scale of language change in cities around the world, the city level of observing ‘Spanish in London’, and then observing the very local level of the neighbourhood, individual streets, businesses and individuals where the micro-level of language use must be documented within a single organisation or individual. While I observed and recorded instances of Spanish, and asked Spanish-speakers to reflect on the utility of the language in their experience in London, I regularly reflected on the question of how to

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generalise findings from some very micro contexts to a macro level of a city where around 170,000 people use Spanish to some extent in their daily lives, and that takes place within a city of 8 million people. So the challenge of linking the global scale to the city to the local and even hyperlocal contexts is one which I observed and which scholars will need to continue to grapple with. Indeed, some are already doing so, such as Blackwood who believes that ‘it is challenging to the point of being unfeasible to survey an entire city or town’ (Blackwood, 2015: 41). Part of the solution may be to design larger, cohesive, longitudinal studies that will build knowledge over periods of years, instead of the ‘snapshot’ research that can often be the case when planning a manageable project with few research staff. This might recognise and value the scale and complexity that make a city what it is, and at the same time allow for an ambitious programme of collaborative research that would in time provide a deeper and more robust picture of language in the city. Such projects should also focus on producing a holistic picture that brings together small-scale hyperlocal case studies in such a way that we can make sense of the whole from the sum of these detailed parts. ‘Global phenomena do not “float” on some abstract global level but are locally anchored’ (Smakman & Heinrich, 2017: 4) and for that reason whether the scope of the ‘global’ is in fact worldwide or zooming in to the whole city as our global scope, local realities are the building blocks of the wider generalisations and theorisations we seek to develop. Geographical limits and density within a city are key to how urban life operates and is shaped, therefore important factors of language practice and change include proximity, travel, connectivity and the emerging claims of belonging that see certain areas defined as e.g. the Hispanic or French or Somali districts. To this end, the LinguaSnapp tool for recording linguistic landscapes would again support the work of researchers and enable digital mapping, as would enhanced detail on websites such as ‘Tube Tongues’ (https://data.london.gov.uk/apps_and_analysis/ tube-tongues-language-map/) which uses UK census data on the most commonly spoken non-English languages through London’s boroughs, mapping these findings onto a plan of the London Underground (Tube) and local authority wards. These fascinating results contribute to how researchers and interested others can navigate the constantly changing ethnography and linguistic map of this global city. One final consideration about city-ness concerns the comparability of these settings, and the generalisations that can or should be made from the linguistic data we compile in them. Elsewhere I have written about London (Paffey, 2020) in a volume which examines the Spanish language in fifteen different cities around the world (Lynch, 2020). While a number of these cities will variously reinforce and challenge theories about urban multilingualism, there are also sufficient differences between each of them to give thought to how language can actually operate in

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similar ways under different constraints and flows. For example, how do we realistically compare language lives and vitality in former colonial capitals, or ports, or bastions of financial and commercial activity, or cities of worldwide religious importance, or divided cities such as in the Middle East, or compare megacities with populations of more than 20 million with smaller regional cities of a few hundred thousand? There is also a significant cultural and epistemological division between what has come to be termed the global north and south, in which case a valid research question must be to examine the extent to which these categorisations hold firm, contrasting (as they seek to) the largely postindustrial north including cities ‘where the work of globalisation gets done’ (Sassen, 2007: 289) with the largely post-colonial south where overpopulated and over-urbanised megacities exist in a neocolonial relationship to the global north (Smakman & Heinrich, 2018: 6). So in our position as researchers in the global north, we must take some account in our generalisations of what these particular categories mean, and how they might observe distinct roles and practices of multilingualism in those places. That said, while my experience of carrying out a linguistic landscape study of Spanish in London has convinced me that there is certainly a need to move our sociolinguistic studies of large urban settings on to now consider ‘the situated language life as it is found in large urban ecologies’ (Smakman & Heinrich, 2018: 8), it is also the case that the denationalising of space within cities is bringing about a re-ordering of identity markers. For example, many people (not just from my study) would consider themselves Londoners and/or European before they would consider themselves British or English/Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish. Therefore in asking ourselves how nationally situated cultural stereotypes or even the specific characteristics of a city’s history and status quo impact on linguistic identities and practices, these factors must be held in tension with the increasing hybridity we see in all of these areas. Smakman and Heinrich summarise this concern well when they write that: The reality is that citizens from various parts of the world meet in various other parts of the world, especially urban ones, and they belong there. Ideas of ownership, belonging and nativeness relative to one’s native part of the world are changing. In other words, they go to another place but that new place is in a way also their own place, their home. (Smakman & Heinrich, 2018: 3) Reflections on the role of researchers

The positionality of any researcher and the impact of one’s self on the research process, particularly in qualitative research, is an important part of the evaluation of a study. It can influence their engagement with participants, co-researchers and the data analysis itself. In my

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case, my position with regard to the project was in some respects fairly straightforward as I was the sole researcher working on the project for which I had received a small grant from my university and therefore had responsibility for everything from start to finish. I carried out the desktop research into the existing literature on Spanish speakers in London, planned the data collection, travelled to London on numerous one-day data collection trips, collated and analysed the data, and wrote up the findings. For the bulk of the data collection of the linguistic landscape, there were no issues of positioning or power related to other people, because I was working alone photographing instances of Spanish in the visual environment. This solitary working does in itself raise issues which I have mentioned as part of the discussion on methods, in that I believe the research process as well as the quantity and (potentially) quality of the data collected is enhanced by working collaboratively. This could be through direct work with peers from academe, or with interested non-specialists through essentially crowdsourcing our data collection process, referred to broadly as ‘citizen science’ (Purschke, 2017) and more specifically to this area as ‘citizen sociolinguistics’ (Rymes & Leone, 2014). This could include tools such as LinguaSnapp discussed above, as well as Lingscape, another smartphone app introduced in Purschke’s article. In terms of power and positionality, there was perhaps unexpectedly a sense of being disempowered given that the principal position I was aware of was as an outsider to the population I was researching. While I am a fluent Spanish speaker, I learned it as a foreign language by choice at school and university, and so cannot consider myself as a mothertongue speaker, and do not claim any Hispanic heritage or identity. Therefore when it seemed appropriate to ask to photograph a shop front or the signage of a small business where those working inside could see me taking photographs, it was as an outsider that I approached them. As such, I was acutely aware of the perceived need to establish trust and legitimacy as a university researcher, and so I carried business cards with me, and offered one of these whenever I spoke to a business owner or employee inside the premises. It acted as a token of authenticity, to convince them that I was trustworthy and genuinely interested in viewing the presence of their language – and them as speakers – in a positive way. And yet the exchange of the business card or the short participant information sheet about the project also functioned to introduce a measure of authority, and institutional approval when what I was seeking to do was to strike up personal/professional rapport. As an outsider though, without having the language or ethnicity or provenance in common with those I wished to speak to, there was a harder job to establish that rapport. For the interview data collection, this issue was partly mitigated by having gatekeepers, a number of professional contacts in London who were able to pass on information to potential interviewees

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they knew through their employment or in some cases, personal friends. Even in these cases, the interview process has to be approved through the university’s ethical and research governance system, which requires branded information sheets and participant consent forms to be signed. Responses to these varied from reassurance that this was a bona fide project and researcher, through to some reticence and questions about what obligations taking part would put on them as interviewees (the answer was none). Nevertheless the air of officiality when dealing with anonymity, data management and publications can both assist with or distract from the act of building trust between researcher and participant. It remains a justifiable and legal part of the process, but does influence the position of the researcher and the negotiation of that initial interviewerinterviewee relationship in qualitative, semi-ethnographic work such as this. Regarding anonymity, I attempted to inject some humour by asking if there was any other name they had ever wanted to be called, and if so they could nominate their own pseudonym; this mostly succeeded to lighten the tone and set everyone at ease. Challenges also arose relating to the language itself. As a proficient speaker who has learned mostly Castilian Spanish in the classroom context and Chilean Spanish during a period of living and working overseas, it remains the case that I am not a mother-tongue speaker of Spanish, and my knowledge of some of the deeper nuances of the language and idiomatic expressions are limited. Working multilingually was without issue for the most part when collecting linguistic landscape data. It did become more of an issue when carrying out a number of interviews with Spanish speakers in order to test the initial findings with them and hear their experience about the use of Spanish in London. In the end, very few of those I interviewed were monolingual Spanish speakers, so the opportunity was always there to revert to an English explanation if needed. In actual fact, recognising that both they and I could use Spanish and English to differing degrees of proficiency and confidence, I made the conscious decision to greet them and begin the interview using a mix of both languages before then offering them the option of carrying out the interview in whichever language they preferred. On the whole there was a balance of those carried out mostly in English and others mostly in Spanish. Without exception, there was always crossover on their part, as well as mine, from one language to another at points. The challenge of exploring the nature of language use required integrating translanguaging practices into the research process itself. Conclusion

In society as a whole, we are surrounded by more signs, images, screens and other stimuli within the visual environment than at any point in history, and the quantity and concentration is even greater

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in cities than elsewhere (Gorter, 2018). On the basis of my initial study of the linguistic landscape in Elephant & Castle, Seven Sisters and Portobello Road in Notting Hill, I argue that these key districts constitute different facets of Hispanic London, that is, the collection of places and practices where the presence of the Spanish language shapes the cultural and linguistic identities and daily lives of its speakers. There is of course diversity within the practices of those who have links to the more than twenty countries where Spanish is spoken, and this diversity sits within the superdiversity of London’s population, a global city defined by the evermore complex flows of culture, capital, ideas, people, and language within its city limits. London’s linguistic landscape is in part marked by the presence of several global languages, among them Spanish and English (MarMolinero, 2004; Mar-Molinero & Paffey, 2011). This interplay of one ‘guest’ global language in what might be termed (no doubt controversially to some) as one of the pluricentric capitals of the English language raises questions of how exactly it is used and what new norms of identity and language are being negotiated by those who deploy Spanish in the public sphere. It is clear from applying Franco-Rodríguez’s approach to the social realms in which language is performed that this language plays a crucial part in many aspects of daily life for a proportion of the estimated 170,000 speakers in London. It is undoubtedly gaining a visibility and audibility that is significant and calls for more scholarly attention than has been the case thus far. At the same time, the scale and complexity of a global city like London requires careful navigation in terms of how much we can claim using broad terms like Hispanic London. Blommaert writes that ‘If superdiversity is anything, it’s about mobility, complexity and unpredictability’ (2013: 6) and it is clear from this chapter that our research methods must respond to the challenges that superdiversity presents. One of the limitations I discussed was that the synchronic nature of most linguistic landscape research, including this project to date, means that it is but a snapshot of how Spanish is marking and shaping public space. This would be an issue in any context but in a rapidly changing superdiverse city like London, where the combined factors of local regeneration plans, transitory patterns of settlement among some migrants, the uncertainties of Brexit in terms of legal status and inevitably changing the public tone towards non-autochthonous identities, all challenge us as researchers to consider the need for more diachronic approaches to be able to trace language change and innovation. I have also considered how linguistic landscape presents a snapshot in terms of geographical coverage, and reflected on how local and often hyperlocal observations of language practice present challenges when attempting to piece together these parts of the jigsaw to be able to make generalisations about the whole picture of multilingual

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London and the nature of linguistic diversity and practices in the whole urban context. It is clear then that hybrid and diachronic approaches are needed because they will enhance the validity of linguistic landscape research. This chapter has considered the complex ways in which cities, languages, and speakers interact together, and I believe that the way in which we design research projects in the future should enable us to fully capture that complexity. Research design should also reflect the following observation that: City lives challenge us to find new theoretical approaches and new research methods to capture what is traditionally called ‘inter- and intra-speaker language variation’ but what is really about individu­ als ‘applying’ language as a commodity to achieve goals. (Smakman & Heinrich, 2018: 4)

Collaborative work that not only brings together collective expertise but also harnesses the opportunities that technology and citizen-­science afford us will move forward the disciplines of linguistic ­landscaping and urban multilingualism. Only in that deeper, richer data collection approach will we be able to convincingly trace changes in micro-­ linguistic practices as well as the broader macro-level implications of that, such as the potential emergence of a ‘London Spanish’ variety, which is a highly likely consequence of prolonged language contact, particularly of two globally significant languages. Further study ­ will also help us to trace the precise influence of frameworks such as codeswitching, translanguaging and metrolingualism upon our understanding of innovative language practices in London’s multilingual spaces. This case study has highlighted both the new knowledge that linguistic landscape research can bring to the understudied topic of Spanish in London, but also the very nascent and partial nature of this research. Reflecting on the methodological and conceptual challenges of my project has confirmed that the data presented here has been very much a first step to understanding Spanish in the UK capital, and we need a fuller exploration of this textual aspect of the linguistic landscape before going on to consider the other very interesting aspects of urban space, such as the soundscape, cyberscape, schoolscape and other -scapes that Gorter summarises (2018: 42–43). The fact is that my data was determined by my informed yet still partial knowledge of where Spanish is known to be visible and used due to patterns of migration, residence, and commercial presence. What about those places where Spanish is present yet still so fragmented that it might be ‘hiding in plain sight’? Commitment to a small-state and private enterprise driven by the current neoliberal Conservative government in the UK has the

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perhaps unexpected consequence that it is private enterprise of migrants, minority ethnicities and heritage speakers who are playing a crucial role in driving linguistic change in the public realm. Citizen science could open the way to illuminating more of these fascinating innovations, and should form the basis of future research both in the next steps of my own project and I hope for others in the linguistic landscape research discipline. In sum, the experience of Spanish linguistic landscape research in London has led me to the conclusion that scholars need to (1) adopt a broader more collaborative and technologically driven approach to capturing linguistic landscape data, (2) to move from consideration of linguistic landscape production to explore its reception and understand how Spanish-speakers engage with the linguistic landscape in their use of the language and (3) recognise the potential of these first two steps to uncover the emerging picture of linguistic innovation and hybridity in the global, superdiverse city of London. References Back, L. and Sinha, S. (2019) Migrant City. Abington/New York: Routledge. Backhaus, P. (2008) The linguistic landscape of Tokyo. In M. Barni and G. Extra (eds) Mapping Linguistic Diversity in Multicultural Contexts (pp. 311–333). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Barni, M. and Bagna, C. (2010) Linguistic landscape and language vitality. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in the City (pp. 3–18). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blackwood, R. (2015) LL explorations and methodological challenges: Analysing France’s regional languages. Linguistic Landscape 1 (1/2), 38–53. Blommaert, J. (2013) Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2012) Language and superdiversity. Diversities 13 (2), 1–22. Available at: http://newdiversities.mmg.mpg.de. Copland, F. (2018) Reflecting on the ethics of researching communication in superdiverse contexts. In A. Creese and A. Blackledge (2018) (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (pp. 132–146). Abingdon: Routledge. Coupland, N. (2003) Introduction: Sociolinguistics and globalisation. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7 (4), 465–472. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2010) Towards a sociolinguistics of superdiversity. I Zeitschrift Fur Erziehungswissenschaft. VS-Verlag, 549–572. Franco Rodríguez, J.M. (2009) Interpreting the linguistic traits of linguistic landscapes as ethnolinguistic vitality: Methodological approach. Revista Electrónica de Lingüística Aplicada 8 (8), 1–15. García, O. and Wei, L. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Gardner, S. and Martin-Jones, M. (eds) (2012) Multilingualism, Discourse and Ethnography. London and New York. GLA. (2014) Population Change 1939–2015. London: Greater London Authority. See http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/population-change-1939-2015/resource/6fb637cf-d3c14456-a561-85cd995c020f#.

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Gorter, D. (2006) Linguistic Landscape: New Approach to Multilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gorter, D. (2018) Methods and techniques for linguistic landscape research: About definitions, core issues and technological innovations. In M. Pütz and N. Mundt (eds) Expanding the Linguistic Landscape: Linguistic Diversity, Multimodality and the Use of Space as a Semiotic Resource (pp. 38–57). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Gorter, D. and Cenoz, J. (2015) Translanguaging and linguistic landscapes. Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal 1 (1–2), 54–74. Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. (2000) Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture. In C. Pierson and S. Tormey (eds) Politics at the Edge: The PSA Yearbook 1999 (pp. 14–28). Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Horner, K. and Weber, J-J. (2017) Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach. London and New York: Routledge. Ivkovic, D. and Lotherington, H. (2009) Multilingualism in cyberspace: Conceptualising the virtual linguistic landscape. International Journal of Multilingualism 6 (1), 17–36. Landry, R. and Bourhis, R.Y. (1997) Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality – An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (1), 23–49. Leeman, J. and Modan, G. (2009) Commodified language in Chinatown: A contextualized approach to linguistic landscape. Journal of Sociolinguistics 13 (3), 332–362. Lynch, A. (ed.) (2020) The Routledge Handbook of Spanish in the Global City. New York: Routledge. Mac Giolla Chríost, D. (2007) Language and the City. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. McIlwaine, C. and Bunge, D. (2016) Towards Visibility: the Latin American community in London. London: Trust for London. http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/ latinamericansinlondon/. McIlwaine, C., Cock, J.C. and Linneker, B. (2010) No longer invisible: the Latin American community in London. London: Trust for London/QMUL. http://www.geog.qmul. ac.uk/latinamericansinlondon/. Mar-Molinero, C. (2004) Spanish as a world language: Language and identity in a global era. Spanish in Context 1 (1), 3–20. Mar-Molinero, C. and Paffey, D. (2011) Linguistic imperialism: Who owns Global Spanish? In M. Diaz-Campos (ed.) The Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics (pp. 747–764). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Muth, S. (2015) Ruralscapes in post-Soviet Transnistria: Ideology and language use on the fringes of a contested space. In M. Laitinen and A. Zabrodskaja (eds) Dimensions of Sociolinguistic Landscapes in Europe: Materials and Methodological Solutions (pp. 199–231). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Moreno-Fernández, F. (2015) Spanish language and migrations. In M. Lacorte (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Hispanic Applied Linguistics (pp. 624–638). New York and London: Routledge. ONS (2011) Census: Country of Birth, Regions in England and Wales. Office for National Statistics. Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/quickstatistics-for-england-and-wales-on-national-identity--passports-held-and-countryof-birth/index.html. ONS (2015) Population by Country of Birth and Nationality Report, August 2015. Office for National Statistics (ONS). Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/ dcp171776_414724.pdf. Paffey, D. (2019) Global Spanish(es) in a global city: Linguistic diversity among learners of Spanish in London. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching 6 (2), 131–149. (Special Issue: Spanish in the Global Era: Ideology, Language Varieties and Curriculum Design) DOI: 10.1080/23247797.2019.1676983. Paffey, D. (2020) Spanish language visibility and the making of presence in the linguistic landscape of London. In A. Lynch (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Spanish in the Global City (pp. 204–233). New York: Routledge.

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Pappenhagen, R., Scarvaglieri, C. and Redder, A. (2016) Expanding the Linguistic Landscape Scenery? Action Theory and ‘Linguistic Soundscaping’. In H. Woldemariam, E. Lanza and R.J. Blackwood (eds) Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes (pp. 147–162). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Pennycook, A. and Otsuji, E. (2015a) Making scents of the landscape. Linguistic Landscape 1 (3), 191–212. Pennycook, A. and Otsuji, E. (2015b) Metrolingualism: Language in the City. London/New York: Routledge. Pratt, M.L. (1991) Arts of the contact zone. Profession, 33–40. www.jstor.org/ stable/25595469. Purschke, C. (2017) (T)Apping the linguistic landscape. Linguistic Landscape 3 (3), 246–266. Rymes, B. and Leone, A. (2014) Citizen sociolinguistics: A new media methodology for understanding language and social life. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics 29 (2), 25–43. Sassen, S. (2005) The global city: Introducing a concept. Brown Journal of World Affairs XI (2), 27–43. Sassen, S. (2007) A Sociology of Globalization. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Sassen, S. (2013) Does the city have speech? Public Culture 25 (2), 209–221. Scarvaglieri, C., Redder, A., Pappenhagen, R. and Brehmer, B. (2013) Capturing diversity: Linguistic land- and soundscaping. In J. Duarte and I. Gogolin (eds) Linguistic Superdiversity in Urban Areas: Research Approaches (pp. 45–74). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Shohamy, E. (2006) Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. London: Routledge. Shohamy, E.G., Ben Rafael, E. and Barni, M. (2010) Linguistic Landscape in the City. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Smakman, D. and Heinrich, P. (2018) Introduction: Why Cities Matter for a Globalising Sociolinguistics. In D. Smakman and P. Heinrich (eds) Urban Sociolinguistics: The City as a Linguistic Process and Experience (pp. 1–11). London and New York: Routledge. Train, R. (2007) ‘Real Spanish’: Historical perspectives on the ideological construction of a (foreign) language. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 4 (2–3), 207–235. Vertovec, S. (2007) Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6), 1024–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701599465. Vertovec, S. (2010) Networking diversity. Max Planck Research 3 (10), 82–89.

5 Uncovering Variation Within Urban Multilingualism1 Petros Karatsareas

Diversity Within Diversity: The View from Diglossic Diasporas

Stevie Georgiou is a British-born Greek Cypriot man of the so-called third generation. He was born in Birmingham to Greek Cypriot parents who were also born in the United Kingdom after their parents, Stevie’s grandparents, migrated from Cyprus to London and Manchester. Stevie is bilingual in English and Greek and bidialectal in standardised and non-standardised varieties of the two languages. The two most prominent non-standardised varieties in his repertoire are Birmingham (or, Brummie) English and Cypriot Greek, the variety of Modern Greek that is spoken in Cyprus. With a degree in communications and media from one of Birmingham’s universities and an interest in acting, in 2016 Stevie created a Facebook page called Georgiou’s World, where he posts sketches inspired from his transnational and transcultural life experiences. Language is a recurring motif in Stevie’s comedy. In October 2018, he posted a selfie video recounting a linguistically interesting encounter he had with a woman from Greece at Larnaca airport in Cyprus, where he was working at the time. The narrative builds on a number of instances of failed communication between the two. The woman is a passenger flying to Thessaloniki and is looking for the gate of her imminent flight. She sees Stevie wearing the uniform of the company he works for and approaches him to ask for directions. Stevie is on the phone to his sister in English, so the woman asks him about the gate in English. Stevie replies in his Birmingham accent, to which the woman reacts with utter bewilderment. He repeats his answer, enriching it with additional information and helpful clarifications, but the woman still struggles to understand Birmingham English. She then asks him if he speaks Greek, and he replies positively. After releasing a sigh of relief and briefly commenting on his Brummie pronunciation of gate [gʌɪʔ] 106

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(‘What is this [gai] you’re talking about?’), the woman asks about the Thessaloniki gate in Greek Greek. Stevie responds with a Cypriot Greek utterance, one in which [tʃ], a feature stereotypically associated with Cypriot speech, occurs several times including in words that are not found in Greek varieties spoken outside Cyprus such as τζειαμαί [tʃaˈme] ‘there’. The woman’s reaction, according to Stevie, was a mocking laughter, which led him to the following conclusion: And that, my dears, is when I realised that I cannot speak Greek. She looked at me in absolute disgust. Oh God! Bit embarrassing. But yeah, if there’s one thing I have learned, if there’s one thing worse than Brummie English, it’s Κυpριακά, mate! (https://www.facebook.com/ GeorgiousWorld/videos/500353537110138)

In this short extract, the label Greek refers to the (standardised) Greek of Greece. Κυπριακά [cipriaˈka] ‘Cypriot’ refers to the (nonstandardised) Greek variety of Cyprus. Regardless of whether the incident and/or all of its details as Stevie presents them are true, his self-reflection is truly remarkable. In just a few lines, he manages to encapsulate different types of tensions that many multilingual and multidialectal speakers experience in urban diasporic contexts such as that of Birmingham as a result of the hierarchisation of languages and language varieties in terms of how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ they are as means of expression and communication. We read about the feelings of inadequacy and incompetence that are engendered by the (perceived) unintelligibility of one’s dialectal, nonstandardised or illegitimate speech by a speaker of the standardised and legitimate variety. We are made aware of some of the reactions that the use of non-standardised speech may cause: disgust to the speaker of the standardised variety, embarrassment to the speaker of the nonstandardised variety. And in what I consider the most fascinating insight into Stevie’s views about the languages of his repertoire, we get a glimpse of the relative ranking of standardised and non-standardised varieties in terms of their quality. Although it is not explicitly stated in this short extract, it is safe to assume that Birmingham English is taken by Stevie to be a variety ‘worse’ than Standard English and that Cypriot Greek is ‘worse’ than Standard Greek. What is explicitly stated by Stevie is that, if these language-internal hierarchies are placed against each other, Cypriot Greek will occupy a lower point than Birmingham English: Standard English

>>

Birmingham English

Standard Greek

>>

Cypriot Greek

In this chapter, I argue that urban sociolinguistics in the era of superdiversity needs to pay more attention to urban multilingualism and to linguistic practices, experiences and tensions that emerge in diversity

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within diversity. The fact that all languages have different varieties defined in terms of geographical or social factors is uncontested. Yet, when it comes to describing the linguistic diversity of cities, which is largely the result of migration, this is still widely done by using broad-brush labels such as Arabic, Greek, Spanish or Turkish, which, as Gaiser and Matras (this volume) point out, are not unambiguous. This sweeping approach, which is especially evident in pieces of research that seek to quantify linguistic diversity such as in censuses or surveys (Sachdev & Cartwright, 2016: 17–18), obscures the multiplicity of sociolinguistic issues that arise from the fact that many migrant communities use different languages other than the majority language of their host country and/or different varieties of these languages in a wide array of contexts of their private and public diasporic life (De Fina, 2007a, 2007b, 2012; Gaiser & Matras, this volume; Wells, this volume). I therefore follow scholars such as Smakman and Heinrich who make the point that ‘urban settings need to be theorised in new ways in order to do justice to the fluidity and versatility of speakers, their repertoires and everyday language use. … language diversity is not just a large number of languages, but more crucially also the diversity within and amongst these languages’ (2018: 5). My focus is on urban diasporas that do not only or necessarily speak the standardised language of their homelands but also speak non-standardised varieties alongside the standardised variety, or even exclusively so. In the countries of origin of such communities, the relation between the standardised and non-standardised varieties is one of complementary ecology, akin to Ferguson’s (1959) traditional notion of diglossia. The standardised variety has official status, it is used in education, administration, the media and in all formal instances of communication. The non-standardised variety is used for informal communication such as when speaking with family and friends, is not codified and has no official status. Sociolinguists are well aware of the fact that diglossia engenders ideas that standardised varieties constitute ‘good’ forms of language, while non-standardised varieties are ‘bad’ forms of language, associations which are in turn linked with expectations about the non-linguistic characteristics of speakers. People who speak in a certain way are expected (or, assumed) to have certain non-linguistic attributes: a good or bad level of education, good or bad manners, high or low intelligence, high or low socioeconomic status (Garrett, 2010; Garrett et al., 2003). When varieties that stand in a diglossic relation with each other are transplanted to new geographical and social settings as a result of migration, they are placed in a new context where they both lose part of their symbolic capital and are jointly put under pressure from the majority language of the host country. In this new state of affairs, nonstandardised varieties are further minoritised and disadvantaged as diasporas often see it as their mission to instil into younger generations

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the socially dominant and prestigious aspects of the national and cultural identity of the homeland. This crucially includes standardised varieties (Parodi, 2008; Wiley, 2008; Blackledge & Creese, 2010a, 2010b; Gaiser & Matras, this volume; Leeman, 2012; Wells, this volume). Ideas about what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ language, and associations between (im)proper linguistic forms/structures and expectations about the non-linguistic characteristics of the speakers who use them are transplanted by first-generation migrants by the same token as other elements of homeland culture. Ideological norms are later transmitted to subsequent generations of speakers, who amalgamate them with their transnational experiences but also with language ideologies endemic to the host country. These dynamics result in tensions within diasporas as the nonstandardised varieties that speakers acquire naturally and use at their homes and within their communities are devalued in diaspora-internal discourses and through specific ideologically driven practices, most vividly in community-run education initiatives such as complementary schools and heritage language classes. In contrast, standardised varieties are promoted as ‘good’ and ‘correct’ language, much to the confusion of younger generations who lack both their parents’ abundant exposure to the standardised varieties themselves and their indexical associations with homeland notions of national belonging. They thus do not always feel that the standardised varieties are part of their transnational identities. Homeland language ideologies then take new shapes in diasporas as speakers variably reproduce, contest and transform them. In what follows, I illustrate how these sociolinguistic forces play out in three diasporic communities in London: the Greek Cypriot community, the Turkish Cypriot community and the Kurdish community. Gaiser and Matras’s discussion of Standard Arabic (or, fuṣḥa) and Arabic vernacular varieties (or, ʕāmiyya) in Manchester as well as Well’s account of Standard Italian and Italo-Romance varieties (or, dialects) in Valparaíso, Chile, in this volume are two other comparable cases. For the Greek Cypriot case, I draw on data that I collected as part of an ethnographic investigation of language ideologies in this community that I started in 2014. My methods to date have included observations of different aspects of community life, ethnographic interviews with community members, in-class observations of Greek language teaching in two Greek complementary schools in north London, interviews with complementary school teachers, focus group discussions with complementary school pupils and a number of engagement and dissemination initiatives within the community. I base my discussion of the Turkish Cypriot case on Çavuşoğlu (2010, 2019) and that of the Kurdish case on Yilmaz (2016, 2018). I have structured the chapter as follows: in the following section, I discuss the reproduction and transformation of language ideologies in the Greek Cypriot diaspora.

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I then move on to examine the role of community education in the reproduction or language ideologies in the Turkish Cypriot and Kurdish diasporas. I return to the Greek Cypriot case to address the impact of language ideologies on the relations between the UK diaspora and the Cyprus homeland as well as on the intergenerational transmission of Cypriot Greek as a community and heritage language in the United Kingdom. I conclude the chapter with a methodological self-reflection on why and how I believe more sociolinguists should be studying diversity within diversity in urban multilingualism. Village Talk in the Big City

As Martin Rojo and Márquez Reiter (2015: 1) note, migration has a transformative effect on language as speakers cross between national, economic and sociopolitical contexts. In cases such as the ones I am reviewing in this chapter, migration often involves the relocation of speakers from rural contexts of relatively low linguistic and cultural diversity to highly diverse urban contexts. The impact that city life has upon formerly rural speakers is, in Mac Giolla Chríost’s (2007) terms, both intralinguistic and interlinguistic. Speakers bring with them linguistic features, structures, practices, ideologies and identities, which they often maintain long after these have been abandoned in the country of origin. This leads to the frequently expressed idea that language in diasporic communities is ‘frozen in time’. At the same time, as speakers become part of multicultural and multilingual cities, and as diaspora-born generations add languages and linguistic varieties to their repertoires, transplanted practices, forms and ideas about language are reshaped. Boundaries between languages become porous and fluid, allowing for new ways of languaging to be created. These new ways in their turn come to take their place in the variegated linguistic mosaic of cities. Greek Cypriot migrants brought with them from Cyprus ideas that Cypriot Greek is a form of language that stigmatises speakers as uneducated and impolite. It is constructed as a variety prototypically spoken in villages in the countryside and mountains of Cyprus, from where it was transplanted to the London metropolis by the first generation of economic migrants who passed it on to British-born generations (Extract 1).2 Specific phonological and grammatical features such as the [tʃ] and [dʒ] sounds, an inflectional -n occurring at the end of specific noun and verb forms as well as some specific lexical items are highly indexical in that respect. On the other hand, Standard Greek, the official form of the language stemming from Greece, is perceived as a modern, urban variety that makes speakers sound educated and wellmannered (Evripidou, 2012; Gardner-Chloros, 1992; Gardner-Chloros et al., 2005; Karatsareas, 2018, 2019; Kyriakou, 2015; Papapavlou, 1998, 2001; Papapavlou & Pavlou, 2001; Papapavlou & Sophocleous, 2009;

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Roussou, 1980–1992; Satraki, 2015; Terkourafi, 2007; Tsiplakou, 2003). Kyriacos in Extract 2 imagines speakers from Greece as coming from cities, whereas Elia in Extract 3 explains that the situation in the UK diaspora is similar to Cyprus: if someone speaks ‘heavy’ Cypriot, they are seen as impolite. Extract 1. Interview with British-born Stelios. Εγώ έμαθα τα Eλληνικά μου τα pαραπάνω που τους γονείς μου τζιαι που τον παππούν μου τζιαι τις γιαγιάες μου που ήταν που το χωρκόν. Έτσι εμιλούσαν τζιαι τζείνες τζιαι που τζείνες εμάχασιν ο παπάς μου. Τζιαι οι κοτζιάκαρες, the gojacks, used to come in να αγοράσουν τα φρούτα τους τζιαι έτσι πράματα εμίλουν μου στα Ελληνικά τζιαι ήταν έτσι τα Ελληνικά, που το χωρκόν, so έτσι ανάωσα εγώ. That’s what’s most comfortable for me.

eˈɣo ˈemaθa ta elːiniˈka mu ta paraˈpano pu tus ɣoˈnis mu tʃe pu ton paˈpʰːun mu tʃe tis ʝaˈʝaes mu pu ˈitan pu to xorˈkon ‖ ˈetsʰːi emiˈlusan tʃe ˈtʃines tʃe pu ˈtʃines eˈmaxasin o paˈpas mu ‖ tʃe i koˈtʃakares | ðə gəʊʤæks | juːzd tuː kʌm ɪn na aɣoˈrasun ta ˈfruta tus tʃe ˈetsʰːi ˈpramata eˈmilun mu sta elːiniˈka | pu to xorˈkon | səʊ ˈetsʰːi aˈnaosa eˈɣo ‖ ðæts wɒts məʊst ˈkʌmftəbl fɔː miː [I learned most of my Greek from my parents, my grandfather and my grandmothers who were from the village. That’s how they [my grandmothers] spoke, and my dad learned from them. The old ladies used to come in to buy their fruit and would speak Greek to me in that way. That’s what their Greek was like, from the village, so that’s how I grew up. That’s what’s most comfortable for me.] Extract 2. Interview with British-born Kyriacos. Εγώ έχω τα Κυπριακά σαν να είναι που το χωρκόν και οι Έλληνες να είναι, ξέρεις, που την πόλην.

eˈɣo ˈexo ta cipriaˈka san na ˈine pu to xorˈkon ce i ˈelːines na ˈine | ˈkseris | pu tin ˈpolin [For me, Cypriot [Greek] is like it is from the village, and the [Greek] Greeks are, you know, from the city.] Extract 3. Interview with British-born Elia. Τζιαι στην Κύπρον το ίδιον είναι. Σαν η ανηψιά μου μου λέει «Τούτος μιλά ευγενικά», ας πούμεν, αν είναι διαφορετική η προφορά. Νναι, αν είναι βαρετά τα κυπριακά, εν τα θεωρούν ευγενής.

tʃe stin ˈcipron to ˈiðion ˈine ‖ san i aniˈpsça mu mu ˈlei ˈtutos miˈla evʝeniˈka | as ˈpumen | an ˈine ðiaforetiˈci i profoˈra ‖ nːe | an ˈine vareˈta ta cipriaˈka | en ta θeoˈrun evʝeˈnis

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[It’s the same in Cyprus. For example, my cousin sometimes says to me ‘That man speaks politely’, let’s say, if someone’s accent is different. Yes, if the Cypriot [Greek] is too heavy, people do not think it is polite.]

As the diaspora develops from a community of predominantly Cyprus-born Greek Cypriots with experiential references to rural life to a community of predominantly British-born Greek Cypriots raised in cities, the interplay between transplanted languages ideologies and standard language ideologies that prevail in the wider societal context of the United Kingdom act together to transform inherited perceptions about the relation between Cypriot Greek and Standard Greek in innovative ways. In London’s complementary schools, only Standard Greek is accepted as the target variety for teaching and learning. Teachers allow for Cypriot Greek to be minimally used only in oral communication and actively exclude it from all forms of writing using a range of corrective practices (see also Gaiser & Matras, this volume). In the light of this complementary distribution of the two varieties in terms of literacy versus oracy, British-born Greek Cypriots reinterpret the relationship between Standard Greek and Cypriot Greek not as an opposition between an urban/modern and a rural/old-fashioned form of language, as in the homeland context of Cyprus, but as one between ‘proper’ or ‘posh Greek’ and ‘Greek slang’. Labelling Cypriot Greek as slang is a novel re-enregisterment (in the sense of Agha, 2003, 2007, 2015a) that draws on the way deviance from Standard English is conceptualised in the wider English-speaking context especially by young people in urban environments (Agha, 2015b; Harris, 2006; Karatsareas, 2020; Kerswill, 2013; Preece, 2009, 2015; Rampton, 2011). In Extract 4, Maria attributes the improperness of Cypriot Greek by essentialising it as Greek slang. In Extract 5, complementary school pupils Natalia and Melina are asked by their teacher to explain why Cypriot Greek forms ‘do not sound right’. The two girls call English into play and produce a four-part analogy between standardised and nonstandardised forms in Greek and English: τζιαι[tʃe] ‘and’ is to και [ce] ‘and’ what wa[ʔ]er is to wa[t]er. They parallel Cypriot Greek forms with non-standardised English forms such as innit, which according to Harris (2006: 99) is ‘synonymous with slang’ for young speakers in London. In Extract 6, Adamos refers to Cypriot Greek as ‘broken Greek’, using another label that is applied to non-standardised varieties of English and usually refers to structures and forms that are ungrammatical in standard grammar. Adamos, however, applies the label to τζιαι. Anna (Extract 7) attributes the production of the Cypriot Greek εγιώ [eˈʝo] ‘I’ instead of Standard Greek εγώ [eˈɣo] to laziness and the principle of minimum effort, a disparaging explanation for non-standardised speech that is very common in English-speaking contexts. Laziness, however, is never alluded to in Cyprus to account for the use of Cypriot Greek

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forms, even in contexts in which its use is not expected or warranted by the diglossic compartmentalisation of communicative domains. In those situations, the most common explanation offered is a low level of education and/or a concomitant lack of manners. Extract 4. Interview with British-born Maria. Maria: Στο σχολείο Ελληνικά τους μαθαίνουν, proper Greek. Interviewer: Τι σημαίνει; Τι εννοείς proper Greek; Maria: Well, OK, Κυπριακά is a slang really of Greek, if that makes sense. So I would like που ’ννα μιλά, να μιλά nicely. Maria: sto sxoˈlio elːiniˈka tus maˈθenun | ˈprɒpə griːk Interviewer: ti siˈmeni | ti enːoˈis ˈprɒpə griːk Maria: wɛl | ˈəʊˈkeɪ | cipriaˈka ɪz ə slæŋ ˈrɪəli ɒv griːk | ɪf ðæt meɪks sɛns ‖ səʊ aɪ wʊd laɪk pu ˈna miˈla | na miˈla ˈnaɪsli [Maria: At school, they teach them Greek, proper Greek. Interviewer: What does that mean? What do you mean by proper Greek? Maria: Well, OK, Cypriot [Greek] is a slang really of Greek, if that makes sense. So I would like [for my daughter] to speak nicely when she speaks [Greek].] Extract 5. In class-observation in Gefyri Greek school, London. Melina and Danai, British-born pupils. Ms Eleni, Cyprus-born teacher. Melina: It (τζιαι [tʃe] ‘and’) sounds like gangster village. Like, you know, there are slang words. Danai: Also Greek slang. Natalia: It’s like village. Melina: It just doesn’t sound right. Danai: Exactly! So it [και [ce] ‘and’] is the proper way to say it. Teacher: What do you mean by saying it’s the proper way? Natalia: Like, you know, in English the way to talk properly it’s by saying ‘I’m not talking slang’, it’s by talking properly. Melina: Like you say innit. Natalia: By not dropping your ts. So if you say, like, you know, when people say water wa[ʔ]er instead of water. So that would be τζιαι, you say και. Extract 6. Interview with British-born Adamos. Τα Ελληνικά δαμαί στοΛονδίνον είναι σπασμένα. Τα πολύ σπασμένα έχει τζιαι.

ta elːiniˈka ðaˈme sto loˈðːinon ˈine spaˈzmena ‖ ta poˈli spaˈzmena ˈeçi tʃe [Greek here in London is broken. The very broken [Greek] has τζιαι.] Extract 7. Interview with British-born Anna, second generation. Interviewer:

Γιατί το λένε οι άνθρωποι; ʝaˈti to ˈlene i ˈanθropi [Why do people say it (εγιώ [eˈʝo] ‘I’?]

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Anna: It’s laziness … It is a lazy way of speaking because you are not pronouncing correctly … It takes more of an effort to say εγώ([eˈɣo] ‘I’) than to say εγιώ ([eˈʝo] ‘I’). Setting the Message in Stone: Community Education

Formal education is a key transmitter of monolingual and monodialectal language ideologies. In majority-language contexts, mainstream schools provide institutional spaces where different languages and linguistic varieties are hierarchised by means of specific narrative discourses and everyday practices that attach different amounts of value to different types of linguistic resources (Heller, 2007; Gaiser & Matras, this volume; Lippi-Green, 1997; McAuley & Carruthers, this volume; Wells, this volume; Wolfram et al., 1998). In diasporic contexts, formal education in the community language is provided by different types of community-led education initiatives such as complementary schools and heritage language classes. Established by and for diasporic communities to cater for the needs of their younger generations where mainstream education failed to do so (Wei, 2006), community schools offer formal classes in community languages across a wide range of levels, often linked to the teaching of homeland culture (religion, music, dance, literature) and history. Community schools also prepare their pupils to sit examinations for qualifications in community languages such as the GCSEs and A Levels, which many diasporas see as a formal recognition of the status of their languages. Blackledge and Creese (2010a) and Lytra and Martin (2010) have shown that, by their very existence, community schools challenge monolingualising discourses that pervade wider society. They value pupils’ multilingualism and foster the use and development of their skills in languages that may be devalued in mainstream narratives. At the same time, however, community schools promote standardised varieties, marginalising and stigmatising pupils’ non-standardised varieties (Blackledge & Creese, 2010a, 2010b; Gaiser & Matras, this volume). The positions that Standard Turkish and Cypriot Turkish occupy in the public life of London’s Turkish Cypriot diaspora and their hierarchical ordering in the linguistic repertoires of its members are, perhaps unsurprisingly, remarkably comparable to the relation that holds between Standard Greek and Cypriot Greek in the Greek Cypriot community. Standard Turkish, the standardised form of the language associated with Turkey, is constructed as proper and correct language that makes speakers sound educated and well-mannered, whereas Cypriot Turkishis seen as rough and rustic (Çavuşoğlu, 2019; Çavuşoğlu & Evripidou, 2018; Evripidou & Çavuşoğlu, 2015; İ ssa, 2005; Kappler & Tsiplakou, 2018; Kızılyürek & Gautier-Kızılyürek, 2004; Lytra et al., 2008). Çavuşoğlu’s (2010, 2019) ethnographic study of language in a

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Turkish complementary school in London showed how ideas about the properness and correctness of Standard Turkish permeated teaching and learning policy and practice but were also met with resistance from pupils who felt their (non-standardised) home and community varieties were delegitimised by teachers as authority figures (see also Gaiser & Matras, this volume). In an interview with Sevgi hanım, the Cyprus-born head teacher and organiser of the school (Extract 8), Çavuşoğlu offers us an insight into the institutional discourses that delegitimise Cypriot Turkish, constructing it as a ‘broken’ variety that lacks the credentials of a ‘proper’ and ‘correct’ language in the form of books (see Adamos’s description of Cypriot Greek as broken in Extract 6). In Extract 9, Çavuşoğlu describes the different stances the teacher takes towards the utterances produced by two pupils. The pupil who responded to the teacher’s question in Cypriot Turkish is met with dismissal and her answer is implicitly marked as incorrect. In contract, the pupil who formulated her answer in Standard Turkish is praised. In the exchange captured in Extract 10, the teacher has singled out a Cypriot Turkish feature in his pupils’ language, the instrumental/comitative suffix -nan. He sets out to correct it and replace it with the Standard Turkish equivalent -la/-le, only to be met with muttered resistance by pupil Meryem who will not accept the imposition of the standardised form upon her own language. Extract 8. Interview with Sevgi hanım (adapted from Çavuşoğlu, 2010: 133). eğ er burda sen eğ itim verirsen güzel Türkçe … çünkü kitap Türkçesi kitap Türkçesidir yani Kıbrıs Türkçesiyle yazılmış kitap hani? değ il mi? doğ ruyu konuş alım e ş imdi egğ er burda doğ ru düzgün Türkçe öğ reteceksek biz çocuğ umuza biz kendimiz konuş amazsak doğ ru dürüst Türkçeyi e nasıl gelip de çocuğ a öğ reteceğ iz nasıl role model olacağ ız? nasıl örnek olacağ ız? [...] e ben de yani çocuklara konuş urken ederken elimden geldiğ i kadar çok çok gitmem Türkiye’nin ş ekline ama düzgün Türkçe konuş … konuş urum ki zaten ben normal hayatta da böyle çok bozuk değ il Türkçem yani hani normal hayatta da iş de oyle (güldü) [if you are providing education here, proper Turkish … because Turkish in books is Turkish in books I mean where is a book written in Cypriot Turkish? isn’t it? we need to say the truth now if we are going to teach proper correct Turkish here and if we ourselves don’t talk proper Turkish then how are we going to teach that child? how are we going to be role models? how are we going to be examples? [...] I myself try to talk [properly] when talking to children I do not go all the way to mainland Turkish but I sp … speak proper Turkish my Turkish is not that broken in normal life anyway (laughs)] Extract 9. In class-observation in Tulip Turkish School, London (adapted from Çavuşoğlu, 2010: 154). Boldface indicates Turkish Cypriot

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utterances. Boldface italic indicates Standard Turkish utterances. Italic indicates English utterances. While this [discussion about unknown words from the passage they have just read] was going on, all the students were engaged in the discussion and some of them were trying to copy the words from the board. The next word was ‘becerikli’ which one student translated as ‘­talented’. Tarık bey asked the whole class ‘Türkçe nasıl söyleyebiliriz talented?’ [How can we say talented in Turkish?] and the students tried to put words together to describe the word in Turkish. The next word was ‘övmek’ to praise. Deniz (11-year-old girl from T[urkish] C[ypriot] background), who was sitting opposite me, raised her hand for this one and said ‘Emm, şu söylen neleri yapabilir’. (err, that you say what one can do). Tarık bey said ‘Tamam, şöyle güzel bir Türkçeyle nasıl söyleyebiliriz?’ (Ok, how can we say this in a nice [way in] Turkish?). He named the new comer (Merve, a 12-year-old girl from a Turkish mainland background who joined the class on the day of this observation) to do this and she said ‘Bir insanın iyi taraflarını söylemek’. (To say a person’s positive sides). Tarık bey praised Merve and continued by asking what the opposite word for praise could be in English. No one knew the answer and he dropped the topic there. Extract 10. In-class observation in Tulip Turkish School, London (adapted from Çavuşoğlu, 2019: 11). Tarık, Turkish-born teacher. Meryem, Britishborn Turkish Cypriot pupil. Boldface indicates Turkish Cypriot utterances. Boldface italic indicates Standard Turkish utterances. Italic indicates English utterances. Original transcript

English translation

Tarık

özellikle bu konu sizin için önemli çünkü gerçekten çoğ unuz Kıbrıs’ta konuş ulan Türkçe gibi söylüyosunuz ben babamnan maça gittim

this topic is especially important for you because most of you really say like the Turkish spoken in Cyprus I went to the game with my father

Meryem

yeah that’s what I say

Tarık

babamnan okula geldim kaş ıknan yemek yedim bunlar uydurulmuş tur çocuklar kalemle

I came to the school with my father I ate with the spoon these are made up children with the pencil

Meryem

ben söylerim babamnan

I say with my father

Tarık

hep bunu kullanacaksınız arabayla kaş ıkla ikiyle

you should use this always with the car with the spoon with two

Meryem

nan babamnan

with with my father

Tarık

ş imdi

now

Meryem

I don’t care (chuckles)

Tarık

ben söyleyeyim siz defterinize yazın

I’ll say and you’ll write in your notebooks

Yilmaz (2016, 2018) focused on two schools offering heritage language classes to adult members of London’s Kurdish diaspora. The

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data she presents bring to light new dimensions of the lived experience of multilingualism that challenge the dominant narrative of the monolingualising and assimilating effect that English has on other languages in superdiverse cities. Yilmaz’s participants offered four reasons for attending the classes: (a) to improve their literacy skills as they did not receive formal education in Kurdish in Turkey due to the country’s policy of linguistic oppression; (b) to feel empowered as speakers of Kurdish; (c) to reconnect with their past; and, (d) as a result of pressure they felt internally or was exerted to them externally to speak the language that matched their ethnicity. In Extract 11, Sabriye explains (in Turkish) that she decided to take up Kurdish classes when she realised the full extent of London’s multilingual diversity. The co-existence of hundreds of languages and their presence in different aspects of everyday life in London engendered a sense of duty and responsibility, and nurtured her motivation to reclaim a part of her identity that she felt had been left out. In her explanation, she alludes to two categories that suggest her own hierarchisation of London’s linguistic diversity: ‘more than 380 different languages’ and ‘small colonial languages’. If we were to attempt an interpretation of the two labels, we could argue that the former applies to languages that are legitimately counted as languages in their own right, therefore composing a sum of 380, whereas the latter refers to insignificant or not-widely spoken languages originating in parts of the world that used to be part of the British Empire. In Extract 12, Elif reports how others challenged the authenticity of her Kurdish ethnicity in view of their lack of Kurdish language. Yilmaz, however, shows that, in both schools, different varieties of Kurdish were hierarchised and differentially valorised. Bohtan Kurdish was constructed as a proper, authentic, pure, uncontaminated and academic variety, whereas Maraş Kurdish was seen as improper, rough, broken, corrupt or contaminated language due to the influence of Turkish. When adult students used Maraş features in their speech, teachers corrected them. Utterances that were perceived to be mixing Kurdish with Turkish triggered laughter among students. Extract 11. Interview with Sabriye (adapted from Yilmaz, 2016: 216–217). Yazı dilini öğrenmenin ne kadar önemli bişey olduğunu aslında ben Britanyaya geldikten sonra farkettim. Bunun nedenide şu ... burdaki çok kültürlü ve çok dilli yapı. Aslında yani Kürtçe öğrenmede hiç bi sakınca yok. Tam tersine bu bi zenginliktir [...] mesela işte ben kendi dilimi bilmiyorum işte Londrada bildiğim kadarıyla 380in üzerinde hani formal language dedikleri bu küçük koloni dilleri dışında diller konuşuluyo, resmi anlamda kabul ediliyo [...] belediyeden gelen bitakim broşürlerde Kürtçe işte açıklamalar var ama ben kendi dilimi bilmiyorum [...] ve bu sana tokat gibi çarpıyor. Böyle bi sorgulama [...] yani benim bi dilim var ve ben bunu bilmiyorum

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[I realised the importance of literacy after coming to Britain. The reason for this is the multicultural multilingual environment. This actually means there is no problem about learning Kurdish. It’s just the opposite, this is richness. For example I don’t know my language … and as far as I know there are more than 380 different languages in London apart from those small colonial languages … These are officially recognised. Councils send leaflets in Kurdish but I don’t know my language and this hits you. This kind of questioning ... I have a language and I don’t know it] Extract 12. Interview with Elif (adapted from Yilmaz, 2016: 217–218) Elif: You know even foreign people in certain places you say I am Kurdish. ‘If you call yourself Kurdish why do you speak in Turkish?’ I am like I speak in English and that doesn’t make me English, does it? [loudly] Birgul: Is it English people? Elif: Yeah, even those people did it in certain meetings ... I had that quite a lot ... ‘You have to speak in Kurdish in order for us to call you Kurdish’. Growing Cleavages, Dialect Shift and Loss

A different type of pressure on Cypriot Greek in the UK diaspora comes from an unlikely and hitherto unexplored source: the growing sense of alienation between the diasporic community and the Cyprus homeland (though see the brief discussion of language in Teerling, 2014). In Cyprus, UK-born Greek Cypriots, pejoratively referred to as τσιάρλη(δ)ες [ˈtʃʰːaɾli(ð)es] and τσιαρλούες [tʃʰːaɾˈlues] ‘Charlies’, are stereotyped as backward-thinking and unsophisticated in a reproduction of the perceived social characteristics of the early Cypriot migrants. In the diaspora, the stereotypical Cyprus-born Greek Cypriot has all the attributes of the provincial nouveau riche: ostentatious, conceited, arrogant – qualities that are thought not to be authentically Cypriot, but which were acquired following the island’s rapid economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s. In Extract 13, Skevi and Pambos talk about how they see diaspora Cypriots as a simpler people while Cyprus Cypriots have a sort of vanity that they acquired after becoming legitimate Europeans following the country’s accession to the European Union in 2004. Extract 13. Interview with British-born Skevi and Pambos. Pambos: Στην Κύπρο … ό, τι ευρωπαϊκόν ένι επήραν το ποτζεί. Skevi: Θέλουν νά ’ν πιο μοντέρνα ποτζεί στην Κύπρο. Pambos:  Εν πιο απλός ο κόσμος εδώ. Στην Αγγλία εν πιο απλός. Ποτζεί Skevi:

έχουν μιαν φαντασίαν ότι … γιατί είμαστιν Ευρωπαίοι πρέπει να συμπεριφερούμαστιν με διαφορετικόν τρόπον. Εν φαντασμένοι τωρά οι Κυπραίοι.

Pambos: stin ˈcipro | ˈoti evropaiˈkon ˈeni eˈpiran to poˈtʃi

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Skevi: ˈθelun nan pço moˈⁿderna poˈtʃi stin ˈcipro Pambos: en pço aˈplos o ˈkozmos eˈðo ‖ stin aˈⁿglia en pço aˈplos ‖ poˈtʃi ˈexun mɲan faⁿdaˈsian ˈoti | ʝaˈti ˈimastin evroˈpei ˈprepi na simberifeˈrumastin me ðiaforetiˈkon ˈtropon Skevi: en faⁿdaˈzmeni toˈra i ciˈprei [Pambos: They have adopted everything that is European over in Cyprus. Skevi: They want to be more modern over there in Cyprus. Pambos: People here are simpler. They are simpler in England. Over there, they have a sort of vanity that … we must behave differently because we are Europeans. Skevi: Cypriots nowadays are conceited.]

The tensions that arise by the apparent disjuncture in the way Cypriot Greek is spoken in the two communities feed directly into these stereotypes and are reinforced by them. Cyprus-born speakers consider the variety of Cypriot Greek spoken in the UK to be fossilised and bastardised. On the one hand, it preserves features that have fallen out of use or are on their way out in Cyprus. On the other, English has had an influence on its pronunciation and vocabulary, most evident in the borrowing and morphological adaptation of English lexical items such as bus > πάσον [ˈpason], roof > ρούφιν[ˈrufin] or naughty > νόττης, νόττισσα [ˈnotʰːis, ˈnotʰːisːa] and, not least, in terms of the extensive mixing of Cypriot Greek and English linguistic resources in translanguaging utterances especially by UK-born speakers as seen in many of the extracts in this chapter. Cyprus-born Cypriots are known to ridicule UK-born Cypriots when they speak their variety of Cypriot Greek and/or when they translanguage, often using the disparaging expression φακκά η γλώσσα σου [faˈkʰːa i ˈɣlosːa su] ‘your tongue clicks’, as Sofia recounts in Extract 14. For speakers in the diaspora, Cyprusborn speakers have forsaken the distinctive Cypriotness of their Greek, which is seen as increasingly resembling the standardised language of Greece, an impression caused by processes of dialect levelling and koinéisation that have been underway in the island since at least 1974 (Terkourafi, 2005; Tsiplakou et al., 2006). In Extract 15, Charis struggles to understand why Cyprus-born Greek Cypriots do not speak ‘our language’. For him, this is dishonest. Extract 14. Interview with British-born Sofia. Αν πάμε Κύπρον, ξέρουν ότι είμαστιν Εγγλέζοι because, as they say to me, φακκά η γλώσσα μου.

an ˈpame ˈcipron | ˈkserun ˈoti ˈimastin eˈⁿglezːi bɪˈkɒz | æz ðeɪ seɪ tuː miː | faˈkʰːa i ˈɣlosːa mu [If we go to Cyprus, they know we are English because, as they say to me, my tongue clicks.]

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Extract 15. Interview with British-born Charis. Εν τόσο πολλά που άλλαξεν η γλώσσα που εν τους καταλάβω πκιον. Εν τους καταλάβω τζείνους τζι εν μου καταλάβουν τζιαι τζείνοι. Πρώτα πρώτα, οι λέξες που ξέρω εγιώ εν τις λαλούν πκιον. Δεύτερον, η προφορά τους επήεν προς τα Ελληνικά, έτσι άλλαξεν η γλώσσα τους πολλά. Τζιαι βρίσκω τους σαν το ψέμαν. Γιατί, αφού είσαι Κυπραίος, ίντα να μιλήσεις Ελληνικά; Αφού έχουμεν την γλώσσαν μας, γιατί εν την λαλείς;

en ˈtoso poˈlːa pu ˈalːaksen i ˈɣlosːa pu en tus kataˈlavo pcon ‖ en tus kataˈlavo ˈtʃinus tʃ en mu kataˈlavun tʃe ˈtʃini ‖ ˈprota ˈprota | i ˈlekses pu ˈksero eˈʝo en tis laˈlun pcon ‖ ˈðefteron | i profoˈra tus eˈpien pros ta elːiniˈka | ˈetsʰːi ˈalːaksen i ˈɣlosːa tus poˈlːa ‖ tʃe ˈvrisko tus san to ˈpseman ‖ ʝaˈti | aˈfu ˈise ciˈpreos | ˈiⁿda na miˈlisis elːiniˈka ‖ aˈfu ˈexumen tin ˈɣlosːan mas | ʝaˈti en tin laˈlis [Their language has changed so much that I do not understand them anymore. I do not understand them, and they do not understand me. First, they do not use the words that I know anymore. Second, their accent has moved to the direction of [Standard] Greek, so their language changed a lot. To me they seem like liars. Why speak [Standard] Greek, if you are Cypriot? We have our own language, why do you not speak it?]

The diaspora-internal transformations of language ideologies in the United Kingdom lead to the construction of a negative linguistic self-image among British-born Greek Cypriots that embodies senses of diasporic inferiority in relation to specific aspects of the migratory background, especially the low socioeconomic status and level of education of the first migrants. An important manifestation of this selfimage is seen in the explicitly stated preference of some British-born Greek Cypriot parents for their children to abandon Cypriot Greek and to speak Standard Greek instead, which they consider the variety that can modernise individuals and the collective image of the diaspora, remove the stigma of being uncouth, and reinforce transnational links not only with Cyprus but also with Greece and other (Cypriot) Greek communities worldwide. Panicos says that Standard Greek is the national language that is universally understood (Extract 16). In Extract 17, Stella remembers that her mother would instruct her and her sister to change their vocabulary when guests came to visit their family home. Despoina attributes her preference for Standard Greek to the teaching she received in the complementary school she went to, whereas Chrystalla wants what is best for her children: Standard Greek without the imperfections of her Cypriot Greek grammar and syntax (Extracts 18 and 19). Extract 16. Interview with British-born Panicos. Τα Ελληνικά είναι καλύττερα διότι τζείνον εν το language που ξέρουσιν ούλλοι. Άμαν πάεις πίσω στα χρόνια τζιαι μαθθαίννεις στα σκολεία, εν ούλλον Ελληνικά

Uncovering Variation Within Urban Multilingualism  121

που σε μαθθαίννουν, έννεν Κυπριακά … Άμαν είσαι Κυπραίος τζιαι πααίννεις τζιαι μιλάς Κυπραίικα σε κάπκοιον που έννεν Κυπραίος, ειν’ Έλληνος, εννα τα βρίσκει δύσκολα να σε καταλάβει διότι τζείνος έμαχεν Ελληνικά.

ta elːiniˈka ˈine kaˈlitʰːera ðiˈoti ˈtʃinon en to ˈlæŋgwɪʤ pu ˈkserusin ˈulːi ‖ ˈaman ˈpais ˈpiso sta ˈxroɲːa tʃe maˈθːenːis sta skoˈlia | en ˈulːon elːiniˈka pu se maˈθːenːun | ˈenːen cipriaˈka ‖ ˈaman ˈise ciˈpreos tʃe paˈenːis tʃe miˈlas ciˈpreika se ˈkapcon pu ˈenːen ciˈpreos | in ˈelːinos | enːa ta ˈvrisci ˈðiskola na se kataˈlavi ðiˈoti tʃinos ˈemaçen elːiniˈka [[Standard] Greek is better, because it is the language that everybody knows. If you go back in time when you learn at school, they only teach you [Standard] Greek, not Cypriot [Greek]. If you are Cypriot and speak Cypriot [Greek] to someone who is not Cypriot, they are Greek, they will find it difficult to understand you because they learned [Standard] Greek.] Extract 17. Interview with British-born Stella. Που ήμαστεν μικροί, που ήταν νά ’ρτουν σπίτιν μας, στους γονείς μου ήταν να μιλήσουμεν, you know, with a χωριάτικη sort of accent. Ε, η μάμμα μου ήταν να μας πει «Έν είναι σωστή η λέξη τούτη», if we tried to use it. «Εν τούτη η λέξη που πρέπει να χρησιμοποιήσεις, έν εν τούτη διότι εν χωριάτικη».

pu ˈimasten miˈkri | pu ˈitan ˈnartun ˈspitin mas | stus ɣoˈnis mu ˈitan na miˈlisumen | juː nəʊ | wɪð ə xorˈʝatici sɔːt ɒv ˈæksənt ‖ e i ˈmamːa mu ˈitan na mas pi ˈen ˈine soˈsti i ˈleksi ˈtuti | ɪf wiː traɪd tuː juːz ɪt | en ˈtuti i ˈleksi pu ˈprepi na xrisimopiˈisis | ˈen en ˈtuti ðiˈoti en xorˈʝatici [When we were young, when someone would come to visit, we would speak to our parents, you know, with a villagey sort of accent. So my mother would say ‘That word is not correct’, if we tried to use it. ‘You have to use this word, not that one because it is villagey’.] Extract 18. Interview with British-born Despoina. Despoina:  Καταλαβαίννω και τα δύο τωρά επειδή έκαμα τα ελληνικόν σχολείον. Αλλά που μιλάω I try to speak the Greek way rather than the Cypriot way. Interviewer:  Γιατί, αφού κάμνεις παρέα με Κύπριους, γιατί προσπαθείς να μιλάς Ελληνικά;

Despoina:  Έτσι μας εμάθαν στο ελληνικόν σχολείον. Ήταν παπάες. Despoina: katalaˈvenːo ce ta ˈðio toˈra epiˈði ˈekama ta elːiniˈkon sxoˈlion ‖ alːa pu miˈlao aɪ traɪ tuː spiːk ðə griːk weɪ ˈrɑːðə ðæn ðə ˈsɪprɪət weɪ Interviewer:  ʝaˈti aˈfu ˈkamnis paˈrea me ˈciprius | ʝaˈti prospaˈθis na miˈlas elːiniˈka Despoina:  ˈetsʰːi mas eˈmaθan sto elːiniˈkon sxoˈlion ‖ ˈitan paˈpaes [Despoina: I understand both now because I learned them at the Greek school. But when I speak I try to speak the Greek way rather than the Cypriot way.

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Interviewer: Why, seeing as you hang out with Cypriots, why do you try to speak the Greek way? Despoina: That’s what they taught us at Greek school. They were priests.] Extract 19. Interview with British-born Chrystalla. Interviewer: Πώς τζιαι δεν τους μιλάς Ελληνικά στο σπίτιν; pos tʃe ðen tus miˈlas elːiniˈka sto ˈspitin Chrystalla: Well, πολλές φορές έν θέλω να μάθουν τα Ελληνικά που μιλώ εγώ [poˈles foˈres en ˈθelo na ˈmaθun ta elːiniˈka pu miˈlo eˈɣo] because it’s not a perfect model και προτιμώ να ακούσουσιν Ελληνικά [elːiniˈka] which is Standard Greek. Εντάξει, η προφορά μου [i profoˈra mu] is Cypriot a lot of the time, and that’s fine. I’m very happy with the children to learn Cypriot words, things like κούπα [ˈkupa], όπως είπαμεν but sometimes my grammar maybe isn’t perfect or, I don’t know, my sentence construction. [Interviewer: How come you do not speak Greek to your children at home? Chrystalla: Well, very often, I do not want them to learn the Greek that I speak because it’s not a perfect model. I prefer for them to hear Greek which is Standard Greek. OK, my accent is Cypriot a lot of the time, and that’s fine. I’m very happy with the children to learn Cypriot words, things like kibbeh, as we said, but sometimes my grammar maybe isn’t perfect or, I don’t know, my sentence construction.]

These narratives could be thought to capture the forces that might be driving a shift from Cypriot Greek to Standard Greek within the UK’s Greek Cypriot diaspora or a process of dialect levelling akin to the one Tsiplakou et al. (2006) identified in the Greek-speaking community of Cyprus, whereby regional Cypriot variants were levelled out in favour of more widespread and/or standard(-like) variants as a result of the population movements and the impact of formal education. However, both scenarios are contingent upon an active and continuous use of Greek by the younger members of the community. The data that Papapavlou and Pavlou (2001) present cast doubt on this possibility. Papapavlou and Pavlou found that British-born 12–18 year-olds of Greek Cypriot heritage speak Greek only with their grandparents, arguably as a matter of necessity as grandparents are likely to speak little or even no English. With younger and/or British-born members of their family as well as with their peers, Papapavlou and Pavlou’s participants responded that they speak mostly or exclusively English. This suggests that what is a more likely future is not a change in the nature of the Cypriot Greek element of London’s multilingual mosaic, as the dialect shift or

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levelling scenarios would entail, but rather its disappearance from the mosaic altogether along the lines of the well-known pattern of threegenerational shift (Clyne, 2003; De Fina, 2012; Fishman, 1972). Why and How to Study Diversity Within Diversity in Urban Multilingualism

Smakman and Heinrich note that the city life of first-, second- and third-generation immigrants (often the majority of the population in a city) stir the individual’s relationship with the heritage language and culture, creating a heightened sensitivity to identity. Language is one of the main outlets of this sensitivity. (2018: 4)

In the sections above, I presented some of the forms this stirring can take in terms of the minoritisation and stigmatisation of nonstandardised varieties within diasporas and the implications these sociolinguistic processes have for the identity of multilingual speakers, their experiences of and with language, and the intergenerational transmission and continuous use of community languages. However, this is only one aspect of what lies underneath the UK’s remarkably diverse linguistic mosaic. If we take into account the very high number of languages that are spoken in the UK (over 300 according to Baker & Eversley, 2000), the percentage of its population that is multilingual especially in large cities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester, and the position the country has as the top fifth destination of international migrants (Migration Policy Institute, 2017), the range and extent of ways in which multilingualism is lived in society becomes difficult to ignore. Yet, sociolinguistics in the UK remains largely focused on the study of English. Recent reference works on sociolinguistics in the British Isles contain surprisingly little, if any, discussion of phenomena, issues or tensions occurring in England’s, Scotland’s, Wales’s and Ireland’s other languages (Braber & Jansen, 2018; Durham & Morris, 2016; Hickey, 2016; Lawson, 2014). If one of our key aims as sociolinguists is to describe and understand the dynamics that shape modern cities, then we need to place the study of ‘the dynamic, hybrid, and transnational linguistic repertoires of multilingual (often migrant) speakers in rapidly diversifying urban conurbations’ (May, 2014: 1) higher on our research agenda. As individual researchers, we can only do so if we research multilingually, which Holmes et al. define as ‘the process and practice of using, or accounting for the use of, more than one language in the research process, e.g. from the initial design of the project, to engaging with different literatures, to developing the methodology and considering all possible ethical issues, to generating and analyzing the

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data, to issues of representation and reflexivity when writing up and publishing’ (2016: 101). Holmes et al.’s (2013, 2016) offer a three-step conceptual framework to guide researchers in that direction. The first step is realisation, which involves researchers becoming aware of the multilingual dimensions and possibilities of their project. The second step is consideration, whereby researchers engage thoughtfully with the complexities of different aspects of their project in terms of the spatial and the relational context in which they do their research. The third step is informed and purposeful decision making in terms of the design and (re)presentation of the research. In my ethnographic investigation of language in London’s Greek Cypriot community, one of the aims is to document and describe the variety of Cypriot Greek that is spoken in the community, which as we have seen, combines obsolete Cypriot features with (mainly lexical) innovations induced by the contact with English. The most important realisation in addressing this aim did not concern the possibilities of going about the research in a multilingual way but, rather, how the multilingual expectations I had as I embarked on my project needed to be readjusted to my research participants’ linguistic repertoires. Some members of the community are bilingual and bidialectal in using (a) standardised and non-standardised varieties of English (mostly London English), and (b) Cypriot Greek and Standard Greek. Others, however, are monodialectal as far as the Greek part of their repertoireis concerned, and only use Cypriot Greek. This is principally the case of British-born speakers who have acquired Greek at home and within the community but have not attended a Greek complementary school where they would have developed skills in Standard Greek. This created challenges both for me as a researcher and them as research participants at the early stages of my research. On the one hand, my repertoire includes an Athenian variety of Standard Greek and a second-language variety of English. My knowledge of Cypriot Greek is passive and mostly academic. My attempts at using it can vary in their degree of success and naturalness and, in any case, I cannot sustain a conversation exclusively in Cypriot Greek for a good amount of time. On the other hand, even participants who did not have Standard Greek in their repertoires were nevertheless aware of its existence, the extent to which it differs from Cypriot Greek in its lexicon and grammar, and, crucially, the hierarchisation of the two varieties. I was therefore determined to avoid using Standard Greek to conduct the ethnographic interviews and initially considered the option of doing them bilingually whereby I would ask questions in English and invite my participants to respond in their variety of Cypriot Greek. For some participants, this type of arrangement did not seem to present particular problems, and I was able to elicit good-quality data. Other participants, however, were conscious of the expectations regarding the contextually

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dependent compartmentalisation of Standard Greek and Cypriot Greek. Despite my efforts to reduce their effect, the formality of the situational context of the interviews and, in certain cases, also the spatial context of the complementary school rooms where I did the interviews as well as my positioning by the school managers as a ‘professor from the university who wants to know how we speak’ led to attempts by these participants to standardise their speech. My main concern in the cases where this happened was not so much about the authenticity of the elicited speech. The participants’ utterances were of invaluable analytical and hermeneutic value as they allowed me to gain insights into which Cypriot Greek features speakers chose to standardise, which features were below their level of awareness, and what these choices meant for the position the two varieties occupy in participants’ linguistic repertoires. I was, however, concerned about the wellbeing of some participants who found it particularly challenging to speak Standard Greek and seemed to experience frustration at their perceived inability to speak in a way they thought they ought in the interview context. This raised important ethical considerations, and I decided to stop conducting these interviews myself. I decided to seek the help of a Cyprus-born Greek Cypriot research assistant, Alexandra Georgiou, who conducted the interviews in Cypriot Greek and established a far better rapport with research participants than I was able to. Concluding Remarks

In this chapter, I have tried to paint a picture of London’s urban multilingualism that is much more diverse and, I would argue, fascinating than the image frequently portrayed by academic researchers and non-academics alike, one in which the extent of linguistic diversity is defined in numerical terms, with recourse to broad categorisations and catch-all language labels, and often with a narrow focus on standardised varieties or varieties that are otherwise legitimised. Above I illustrated some aspects of this diversity-within-diversity with reference to the tensions that arise in different aspects of diasporic life from the hierarchisation of varieties that are standardised and varieties that are not. Focusing on three London communities that face the same diglossic challenge of having one, non-standardised variety spoken naturally at home and another, standardised variety being taught at community schools, I looked at how homeland language ideologies are manifested, reproduced and contested in diasporic contexts, placing particular emphasis on community-based education initiatives such as complementary schools. I briefly analysed some transformations that homeland language ideologies may undergo when they are transplanted to diasporic settings such as seen in the relabelling of Cypriot Greek features as slang. I explored the influence of such ideologies on the

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construction of transnational identities that have at their core the notion that one’s home language is an inferior form of expression compared to another heritage variety, which is perceived to be superior. I also discussed types of influence that the homeland may exert on diaspora perceptions of ‘(im)proper’ language and drew a potential link between diaspora language ideologies and the transmission of community languages to new generations of speakers. These, however, are only part of the overall picture, which is rendered significantly more complex semiotically and indexically by the language practices of multicultural and multilingual speakers that often straddle perceived social boundaries and challenge dominant narratives about ethnic, cultural, linguistic, national and community belonging. I briefly mention here two examples. The first one is (Cypriot) Greek-speaking Turkish Cypriots, that is, Turkish Cypriots who have or had (Cypriot) Greek as the only or dominant language in their repertoire and who migrated to London due to conflict and the consequent territorial and administrative division of Cyprus into two zones of predominantly Greek Cypriots (in the south) and Turkish Cypriots (in the north). The second example is that of onward-migrating communities such as Italian Bangladeshis (Della Puppa & King, 2019) or Swedish Iranians (Kelly, 2013) who relocated to London for economic and other reasons taking advantage of freedom of movement within the European Union, bringing with them rich linguistic repertoires that incorporate linguistic varieties originating in different points of their migration trajectory. Apart from sporadic mentions such as in the Linguistic Minorities Project, which reports that there is ‘quite widespread knowledge of Greek among Turkish speakers in London’ (1985: 66), and news articles such as Clarke (2015), the linguistic practices of these groups and the ways they disrupt notions of ethnic, spatial and linguistic boundedness and homogeneity have gone largely unnoticed in scholarly literature. In the era of superdiversity and post-multilingualism (Mar-Molinero, this volume), studying these and other similar groups of speakers presents sociolinguists with huge potential to make significant contributions to our theoretical insights into, empirical knowledge of and methodological expertise on the ‘multiple ownerships and more complex interweaving of languages and language varieties’ (Wei, 2018: 22) that take place in cities as sites of multilingualism par excellence. Notes (1) This research was conducted with the financial support of the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust through a Postdoctoral Fellowship (PF130000) and a Small Research Grant (SG162279) as well as of the Department of English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies of the University of Westminster, which are gratefully acknowledged. I am also indebted to all members of London’s Greek Cypriot community who participated in my study.

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(2) All extracts pertaining to London’s Greek Cypriot diaspora have been selected from ethnographic interviews that were conducted with members of the community either by the author or by Alexandra Georgiou between November 2014 and January 2017. The translations of these extracts are all mine. The transcriptions and translations of the extracts pertaining to the Turkish Cypriot and Kurdish diasporas have been reproduced from Çavuşoğlu (2010, 2019) and Yilmaz (2016), respectively.

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Teerling, J. (2014) The ‘Return’ of British-born Cypriots to Cyprus: A Narrative Ethnography. Brighton/Chicago/Toronto: Sussex Academic Press. Terkourafi, M. (2005) Understanding the present through the past: Processes of koinéisation in Cyprus. Diachronica 22 (2), 309–372. Terkourafi, M. (2007) Perceptions of difference in the Greek sphere: the case of Cyprus. Journal of Greek Linguistics 8 (1), 60–96. Tsiplakou, S. (2003) Linguistic attitudes and emerging hyperdialectism in a diglossic setting: Young Cypriot Greeks on their language. In C. Yoquelet (ed.) Berkeley Linguistic Society 29 [Special Volume: Minority and Diasporic Languages of Europe] (pp. 120–132). Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Tsiplakou, S., Papapavlou, A., Pavlou, P. and Katsoyannou, M. (2006) Levelling, koineization and their implication for bidialectism. In F. Hinskens (ed.) Language Variation – European Perspectives: Selected Papers from the Third International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 3), Amsterdam, June 2005 (pp. 265–276). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wei, L. (2006) Complementary schools, past, present and future. Language and Education 20 (1), 76–83. Wei, L. (2018) Linguistic (super)diversity, post-multilingualism and translanguaging moments. In A. Creese and A. Blackledge (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (pp. 16–29). London: Routledge. Wiley, T. (2008) Chinese ‘dialect’ speakers as heritage language learners: A case study. In D. Brinton, O. Kagan and S. Bauckus (eds) Heritage Language Education: A New Field Emerging (pp. 91–106). New York/London: Routledge. Wolfram, W., Temple Adger, C. and Christian, D. (1998) Dialects in Schools and Communities. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates. Yilmaz, B. (2016) Learning ‘my’ language: Moments of languages and identities among Kurds in the UK. PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Yilmaz, B. (2018) Language ideologies and identities in Kurdish heritage language classrooms in London. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 253, 173–200.

6 Language and Transgenerational Identity in Valparaíso’s Italian Community: Methodological and Theoretical Reflections Naomi Wells

Introduction

Resulting primarily from migration waves in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Chilean port city of Valparaíso’s Italian community is the product of historical migration patterns. These occurred before the onset of intensified mobility that is said to define contemporary super­ diverse urban environments. At the same time, Valparaíso is a port city whose identity is often defined by the influences of multiple migrations (Carrera Airola, 2015: 29), and can consequently be considered an opportune case for exploring the applicability of concepts and approaches associated with research on contemporary superdiversity, particularly from within applied and sociolinguistics. In common with these approaches, this research draws on ethnographic praxis to explore the complex ways in which Italianness is practised, taken up and represented in the present day by individuals affiliated in different ways with the Italian community (Rampton et al., 2015: 20). This requires reflexive attention to my own positionality in the research process, particularly in relation to language choice as an object of negotiation with participants (Gallego-Balsà, 2018; Holmes et al., 2013). The aim to develop a more ethnographic understanding of the context also encouraged a shift away from an isolated focus on language to explore more sensory, embodied and emplaced forms of engagement, both from a methodological and analytical perspective (Pink, 2015). 131

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This shift reflected a context-specific approach to negotiating and constructing knowledge in direct response to participants’ promptings and orientations, which also required exploring transdisciplinary ways of researching, with particular attention to questions of cultural memory and material and immaterial heritage. This chapter draws on specific examples of the ways knowledge was negotiated and produced during fieldwork, with the intention to offer insight both into the specific case of Valparaíso’s Italian community, and into broader methodological and theoretical approaches to understanding the cultural and linguistic legacies of historic migrations in contemporary urban settings. Researching Italianness in Valparaíso

The overarching aim of this project1 was to address how languages and cultures operate and interact across a series of exemplary cases, representative of the geographic and historic map of Italian mobility (Transnationalizing Modern Languages, 2014). Although the focus on Italianness maintains an emphasis on a nationally defined diaspora, the project set out to explore and uncover the more complex realities of ‘peoples with identities and loyalties poorly summed up by the national term, Italian’ (Gabaccia 2000: 6). While my own research departed primarily from a sociolinguistics research background, the broader team was drawn from across disciplinary areas including cultural and translation studies, history and memory studies, and arts therapy. Although research was conducted separately by researchers working in distinct locations across the globe, expertise and knowledge were shared across the team in ways which contributed to greater methodological reflexivity and transdisciplinary ways of working, with a particular shared orientation towards ethnographic forms of knowledge production (Wells et al., 2019). In addition to fieldwork with contemporary migrant communities within Italy, I conducted further research on the historic Italian community in Chile, primarily in the city of Valparaíso. Now made up of predominantly third and fourth generation Italo-Chileans, the community is a result of earlier migration waves in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While having a much smaller demographic impact than in the neighbouring Argentina, or other primary destination countries of Italian migration, at the end of the 19th century it was the largest foreign-born population in the city (Piacenti, 2012: 86). While in later years, as Valparaíso’s role in trade declined, the capital Santiago became the preferred destination of Italians (Salinas Meza, 1993: 19), there remains a significant Italian community within the city, although it is noted for its high level of integration with the local populations (Carrera Airola, 2015: 55). In particular, although Valparaíso was a

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city of multiple migrations, the Italian community is often considered as distinct from other European communities due to the way it became embedded in neighbourhoods across the city, primarily due to their concentration in the tertiary sector, and in particular their role running corner shops or grocery stores locally referred to as ‘emporios’ (Estrada, 2012: 107). My research thus sets out to explore contemporary forms of Italianness in the city in light of this smaller demographic impact, which has also meant that the community has gone largely overlooked in the wider field of Italian migration studies. Due to my own background in sociolinguistics, I initially set out with a particular interest in exploring the role of the Italian language(s) within the historic Italian community, paying attention to the presence of both the standardised and now dominant national language of Italy, which I will refer to as ‘Italian’, as well as Italian regional languages commonly referred to as dialects but which can in practice be as linguistically distinct from each other as Spanish and Italian (Maiden, 1995: 5). However, rather than arriving with predetermined and specific research questions, I adopted an ethnographic perspective where my focus remained intentionally broad in order to explore different ways in which Italianness was understood, practised and represented. The focus was primarily on individuals with some form of familial migration history connected to Italy, and fieldwork involved a series of extended and open interviews, with a particular focus on narratives of experience and memory connected in different ways to participants’ relationships with a sense of Italianness. Interviews with more institutional actors were also conducted, where discussion focused on more formal community activities and institutions, but often also incorporating more personal narratives of memory and experience. While aiming to incorporate different perspectives, the intention was not to be representative but rather to seek out what Rampton et al. describe as ‘theoretically telling cases’ (2015: 16). Due to their greater presence in community-related activities, participants tended to be third generation Italo-Chileans in late middle age, with at least one grandparent who had originally migrated from Italy. Acknowledging the limitations of relying on interviews alone (Blommaert & Jie, 2010: 42), I drew on ethnographic praxis in order to explore other ways of engaging with the community and its presence in the city. By ethnographic praxis, I refer firstly to the many distinct forms of research practice which have at different times and places come to be labelled under the broad but, by necessity, elusive label of ethnography. This includes languages-focused research, now encompassed under the label of ‘linguistic ethnography’ (Snell et al., 2015), but also, in acknowledgement of its broader anthropological origins, means considering what other forms of practice developed

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in different disciplinary areas might provide insight into the ways language intersects with other manifestations of culture in everyday life (see for example Pink (2015) on ‘sensory ethnography’). However, while my own research is informed by the ways other researchers have practiced ethnography, ethnographic praxis cannot be defined by merely transplanting those practices into my own context of research. While ethnography is often discussed in relation to specific fieldwork practices such as participant observation, it can never be reduced to a fixed set of methods (Blommaert, 2018: 2) due to its emphasis on the negotiation of knowledge as a context-specific process which is shaped by both researcher and those with whom they research (see also Bradley & Simpson, this volume). For example, while I was able to attend some community-related events, these were fairly infrequent and did not provide opportunities for the more common ethnographic practice of sustained observations, particularly as fieldwork was constrained to a month-long period. Instead, I adopted a flexible and adaptive approach, following Malkki’s definition of ethnographic fieldwork as an ‘improvisational practice’ (2007: 164). In particular, I sought to develop understandings that responded to the specific context and participants’ own orientations, while bearing in mind the broader focus of the project which necessitated specific attention to Italianness. What I understand by ethnographic praxis is thus research practices informed by what Rampton et al. describe as ‘a heightened methodological reflexivity’ (2015: 37) that must ultimately respond to the specific circumstances of those with whom I am researching and my own positionality in relation to them. The ethnographic framing of the research also required reflexive attention to ‘the ineradicable role’ of my own subjectivity throughout the research process (Rampton et al., 2015: 16), and attention to my role as ‘co-participant in the construction of a discourse’ (Briggs, 1986: 25), particularly in relation to language choice. Superdiverse Heritages and the Cultural Memory of Language

While remaining primarily a study of Italianness in the present day, given the focus on a community resulting from historic migration waves, this required particular attention to the past, and, in particular, the ways individuals and groups ‘claimed’ aspects of this past, including language(s), in the present (Deumert, 2018). This focus on historic migration patterns, and their legacies in the present, can thus be considered a particularly apt case for engaging with one of the primary critiques levelled at contemporary research on superdiversity, which is that it promotes an idea of contemporary exceptionalism, and erases historical diversity (see, for example, Pavlenko, 2018). While this may be the case in some uses of the term, particularly if superdiversity

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is understood as merely a description of a uniquely contemporary phenomenon, rather than dismissing superdiversity, it may be more productive to consider why historic diversity is often erased in research and wider societal narratives of the past. As De Bock has argued in relation to the potential of applying a superdiverse lens to historical research, through various mechanisms ‘aspects of difference characterizing immigrant populations in the past have faded over time and are therefore easily forgotten today’ (2015: 585). In this respect, De Bock highlights how applying a superdiverse lens to the past may allow us ‘to systematically explore multiple layers of difference within the immigrant populations that we study’ (2015: 583–584). In order to uncover such layers, she emphasises the need to go beyond macro-statistical records, and instead uses individual immigrant files and interviews to uncover these traditionally overlooked differentiations (2015: 586), although given De Bock’s focus on those who migrated from the 1960s to the 1980s, it remains possible to talk with first-generation immigrants. Attempting to trace the legacies of earlier historical migrations and layers of difference across multiple generations would thus seem a more challenging task, particularly in relation to historic forms of multilingualism of which there may remain minimal traces in contemporary practices. As Samata notes, ‘the felt lack of a language […] presents little or no analysable form or function – those mainstays of linguistics’ (2014: viii). As she emphasises, however, even where individuals may no longer know or regularly speak a language, it remains ‘imbricate in a complex pattern of cultural factors’ (2014: 9), and as a result language is interwoven in the wider concept of ‘cultural memory’. Cultural memory studies address the ‘interplay of present and past in socio-cultural contexts’ (Erll, 2008: 2), and consequently present a valuable theoretical framework for understanding and exploring the cultural and linguistic traces of historic migration waves in the present. Closely connected is the area of critical heritage studies, and particularly the idea of heritage as ‘material and immaterial reminders that are consciously retained, displayed and practised’ (Robinson, 2018: 194). Both perspectives emphasise the selectivity and partiality of heritage and memory, which also serves as a reminder of the importance of attention to how our own role in the research process affects the ways participants ‘select, choose and filter as [they] bring the past into present’ (Deumert, 2018: 150). Applying a superdiverse lens to heritage also, as Deumert estab­ lishes, helps us to ‘dislodge ideas of cultural forms – including, but not limited to language – as stable, bound objects’ (2018: 150). Studies of language and superdiversity have furthermore drawn attention to the complexity of semiosis, and the need to go beyond the verbal to incor­ porate attention to embodiment, the senses and material and spatial

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environments (see, for example, Blackledge & Creese, 2017; Bradley & Simpson, this volume; Kusters et al., 2017; Pennycook, 2017). Equally, while cultural memory studies have been dominated by more intentional, public and narrated forms of memory, Erll calls for greater attention to the more implicit ways of cultural remembering and ‘non-narrative, for example visual or bodily, forms of memory’ (2008: 3). At the same time, and potentially reflective of why both historical superdiversity and non-­narrative forms of memory are often overlooked, both present meth­ odological challenges in relation to how we might go about uncovering less visible and easily identified traces of these superdiverse, implicit and embodied forms of memory and heritage. The following methodological and theoretical reflections thus attempt to, if not resolve, then at least point to possible paths we might pursue in order to make sense of his­ toric patterns of urban migration and multilingualism, and more specifi­ cally how their continued effects are felt in the present. Historical Bodies: Negotiating Language Choices

Before arriving in Chile and with limited understanding of the local sociolinguistic context of the Italian community, it seemed naively that, in contrast to previous research in multilingual contexts of migration where I often did not know the preferred language(s) of research participants, speaking Spanish and Italian would remove any such obstacle or tension. This was, however, to treat languages both as unified, homogenous entities and as ‘transparent and neutral tool[s]’ (Kramsch, 2013: 2), illustrating how, despite being critical of such approaches in the outputs of my research, they can be easily naturalised in research practices. While there may well have been significant aspects of my linguistic repertoire which overlapped with research participants and which prevented significant obstacles to communication, there were considerable differences in terms of the varieties of language I spoke and, more importantly, what these varieties indexed in relation to my own identity and the experiences I brought to these encounters. While not having given sufficient thought to such issues before arriving, during fieldwork they emerged as unavoidable aspects of my own positioning on which it was vital and productive to reflect. For as De Fina notes, ‘the kinds of identities that people present crucially depend on who they understand their interlocutors to be’ (2011: 30). In particular, the languages, and, more specifically, the varieties of language I spoke, were revealing of my own trajectory, and specifically a uniformly European education and experiences. In fact, fieldwork in Chile was my first journey outside of Europe, and while my knowl­ edge of Spanish and broader university study of Hispanic cultures may have meant some linguistic and cultural familiarity, the lack of knowl­ edge of the linguistic and cultural specificities of the Chilean context

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were inescapably revealed by my own ‘historical body’ (Scollon & Scollon, 2004: 46). At the same time, the gaps in my own cultural and linguistic expertise, rather than disempowering, were indexi­ cal of notions of linguistic and cultural superiority associated with a ‘European’ education. For, as Phipps notes, rather than merely personal biographical details, the languages and varieties I speak, or do not speak, are ‘bound into the social, historical, familial, political, economic and cultural discourses which precede and exceed the span of my life and its narration’ (2013: 335). In relation to Spanish, repeated references were made during fieldwork, both affectionately but also with an awareness of their stigmatisation, to the ‘chilenismos’ research participants used. More specifically, apologies were often made, partly due to recognising my own unfamiliarity with these terms but also due to notions of their perceived unsuitability, particularly in contrast to an idealised model of Castilian Spanish from central Spain (Mar-Molinero, 2006: 19). While my own learning of Spanish in the UK was evidently influenced by this model, my associations with it were further reinforced by a period living and working in Madrid, as illustrated in this extract from an extended interview with Renato, a third-generation Italo-Chilean who had also apologised earlier in the interview for his use of chilenismos: R: ¿Es tu primera vez en Chile? Me: Uh sí, peroR:  Ya, ¿pero has estado en otros partes donde hablan español? Porque tú hablas bastante español. Me: Sí, he vivido un año en Madrid, en España, sí sí. R: Ah, tú hablas mejor español que yo. ((ríe)) R: Is it your first time in Chile? Me: Uh yes, butR: Sure, but have you been in other places where they speak Spanish? Because you speak quite a bit of Spanish. Me: Yes, I’ve lived a year in Madrid, in Spain, yes yes. R: Ah, you speak better Spanish than me. ((laughs))2

Although joking in tone, Renato’s comment reveals the continued power and commonplace nature of such linguistic hierarchies, to the extent that to speak ‘quite a bit’ of a prestige variety could be considered preferable to being a fluent and native speaker of Chilean Spanish, illustrating how the so-called native speaker privilege does not apply in the same way where the non-native speaker, myself, speaks prestige European varieties. At the same time, this initial discussion of chilenismos may seem unconnected to my research on Italianness. In particular, in contrast to the neighbouring Argentina, there is no clear evidence of a specifically Italian influence on Chilean varieties of Spanish (Sadowsky

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& Aninao, 2019), which is undoubtedly connected to the much smaller demographic impact of Italian migration in Chile. This illustrates the challenge of attempting to identify any clear linguistic influences of a community dispersed across the city in smaller numbers, and consequently rapidly integrated with local Spanish-speaking populations. This also points to why historical linguistic superdiversity may be overlooked, since more tangible traces only tend to remain of the linguistic influence of larger and more concentrated migrant communities, which also consequently dominate the literature on historic Italian migration. There are in fact other areas of Chile – in particular, the small rural town of Capitán Pastene (Gadaleta, 2018: 63) – where Italianness remains much more visible, as mentioned by research participants, primarily due to the community’s considerable isolation, and the absence of the dynamics of contact and transcultural exchange associated with urban superdiverse contexts. At the same time, an excessive focus on language maintenance or the continuation of readily identifiable cultural traditions in more concentrated or isolated enclaves risks reinforcing negative perceptions of the transcultural mixing common to urban environments. Superdiversity may thus be associated with a greater ephemerality and, to a degree invisibility, particularly in terms of a clearly identifiable and enduring linguistic and cultural influence beyond individual families, but we should be wary of framing this in terms of what Block describes as the ‘metaphor of loss’ (2008). In fact, these repeated mentions of chilenismos in interviews or conversation explicitly focused on Italianness remind us that the strong affective identification of participants with this Chilean variety of Spanish should not be understood as oppositional to continued identifications with Italianness. This also highlights the risks of attempting to isolate one aspect of individual identities which are the product of a multiplicity of transcultural and translingual influences, including influences with which individuals may not have any direct familial or ‘biological’ connection. Chilenismos point to what was ‘already there’ (Mar-Molinero, this volume) and the linguistic influence of different groups in Chile’s histories, including the languages of indigenous communities such as Mapudungun and Quechua. The Italians who first arrived in Chile thus did not arrive to an ‘empty’ container, and particularly due to their embeddedness across the urban landscape they appear to have fairly rapidly adapted to the existing linguistic and cultural practices of the environment, which themselves are the result of earlier layers of difference. In traditional sociolinguistic terms, this is, however, what would be described as a clear example of relatively rapid language shift and eventual loss. Indeed, it became fairly evident from the beginning of my research that, while some community members continued to know and use Italian, it was far from a language of regular use, even in

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explicitly Italian community gatherings. At the same time, underlying this seemingly linear narrative of a community shifting from one language to another lies a more complex picture, illustrating how the emphasis on a sociolinguistics of superdiversity, or at least complexity (Blommaert, 2013), may again be appropriate. In particular, at the time when the majority of so-called ‘Italians’ arrived in Valparaíso in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Italian was far from a widely spoken national language. Both interviews and historical records of the broader sociolinguistic context of Italy at this time (see, for example, De Mauro, 2011), indicate that the majority arrived speaking primarily regional Italian varieties known as dialects. In common with more traditional historic migration patterns, it was the case that the majority of those who arrived came from the same region of Italy, Liguria,3 and so most likely spoke similar varieties of what was widely referred to in Valparaíso as Genovese – a name referencing the capital of the region Geno[v]a, even if many came from smaller surrounding towns. Despite this general trend, even within a relatively small corpus of 10 interviews, distinct migration trajectories, and associated linguistic repertoires, emerged. In the case of one participant, Victor, it was his grandfather who originally migrated from Italy, but from the linguistically distinct northern Friuli region, and his grandfather also left Italy at a relatively young age and spent most of his youth in Argentina before moving to Chile. In the case of another participant, Renata, her father was a sailor from the southern region of Naples, and while her mother’s family did originate from Liguria, her grandparents and great-grandparents had also spent earlier periods working in Peru, and she herself also spent part of her childhood in Argentina. These more complex trajectories thus have more in common with the multiple migrations and mobilities often associated with the contemporary period, and reveal what national labels such as ‘Italian’ may obscure. Equally, while I have used terms such as ‘second’ or ‘third’ generation Italo-Chileans, these histories also reveal their inadequacy in attempting to describe the very distinct trajectories of the individuals encompassed within such categories. Evidently, these more complex trajectories have different linguistic consequences, leading individuals to pick up and combine the ‘bits’ of languages common in migration settings (Blommaert, 2010: 8). While not having access to direct evidence of the actual practices, narratives of memory point to such practices, such as Victor’s recollections of his grandfather and father suddenly speaking phrases or words of Italian and, in his grandfather’s case, also Friulian, even if they did not pass the languages on to him in any more purposeful way. In Renata’s case, Italian was unusually the language of her home environment, but she puts this down to her father’s influence, who as a sailor spoke Italian well, most likely due to it functioning as a lingua franca among sailors

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from different parts of Italy. At the same time, she recalls that her father, in addition to speaking Castilian well, ‘Como marino sabía un poco de inglés’ [As a sailor he knew a little English]. She does, however, contrast her and her father’s knowledge of Italian with that of her school friends and her husband’s Ligurian family. At the Scuola Italiana where she studied, she commented that everybody else spoke Genovese at home, and she also remembered that her mother-in-law ‘confundía mucho’ [would get very confused] due to the Genovese she spoke at home, and that when she tried to speak Spanish she would use ‘palabras que no eran ni castellano ni italiano’ [words that were neither Castilian nor Italian] when speaking with her. What is important to note here, and confirmed by other participants with Ligurian families, is that, despite Italian now positioned as the ‘community’ or ‘heritage’ language, in practice it was rarely the language of the home environment for those who first arrived. In fact, those who did speak it typically learnt it through formal lessons in Chile, and in particular through the Scuola Italiana, the school established with support and funding from Italy, and with the primary mission to teach the Italian language to the descendants of those first arrivals (Follegati et al., 2012). According to another participant – Renato, who in contrast to Renata came from a predominantly Genovese speaking family – this also involved the direct prohibition of dialect, with his own mother even told not to speak Genovese at home to avoid confusion. As Karatsareas (this volume) establishes, the promotion of standardised national varieties at the expense of the nonstandardised varieties more often spoken in the home is still common in contemporary diasporic language teaching contexts. As in Karatsareas’ examples, even for those who did learn and speak standardised Italian at the Scuola, there were, however, few opportunities to be exposed to and use it outside of the school environment, and consequently, as confirmed also in my own attendance at community events, it is now used on fairly limited occasions. At the same time, the view that speaking Italian was closely connected to what it means to be a ‘genuine’ or ‘authentic’ member of the Italian community was still in circulation. This nationalist language ideology was clearly reinforced by the more formal Italian institutions in the city, such as the Scuola Italiana or the local division of the Dante Alighieri Society, a decentralised organisation active across the world and whose founding purpose was, according to Choate, to combine ‘literature, patriotism, and literacy to forge expatriate italianità’ (2008: 110). This gap between practices and language ideologies which equate Italian identity with knowledge and use of Italian thus emerged as a point of tension in relation to my own positioning. In particular, at this period of time I was employed in a department of Italian language and culture in the UK, and consequently could myself be perceived

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as an ‘agent’ (Mar-Molinero, 2006: 19) of national Italian language ideologies. Equally, in contrast to most research participants who had only visited Italy infrequently, and in one case not at all, I had spent significant periods of time living, studying and working there. This inevitably placed me in an unavoidable position of ‘authority’ on which to speak of the Italian language and culture as defined from within the peninsula – and again associated with Europeanness – despite not having any familial or more personal connection to Italy. These very divergent positionings unintentionally brought to the fore tensions concerning competing definitions of what it means to claim an Italian identity, and the role of linguistic expertise in making such claims. These tensions emerged when choosing between Spanish and Italian for interviews, with language choice understood as a form of stance which ‘the researcher projects and is ascribed’ (Gallego-Balsà, 2018: 15). Spanish may have seemed the most obvious choice given its role as the everyday language of use in the wider environment, and in some cases this was agreed implicitly, without any discussion. In others, however, when asked my own preference, while I would normally ask the interviewee to use the language they were most comfortable with, I was conscious of the risk of implying that interviewees were unable to conduct the interview in Italian, and, given my positioning, potentially being seen as calling into question their Italianness. My positioning also potentially created assumptions about my own views in relation to the importance of the Italian language, given that I myself had spent significant time learning and also teaching it. Particularly in the case of more institutional actors representing local Italian organisations, this resulted in a mostly mutual agreement on the use of Italian, although this unspoken tension did not seem fully resolved and presented an obstacle to creating what Mullings describes as a shared positional space ‘where the situated knowledges of both parties in the interview encounter, engender a level of trust and co-operation’ (1999: 340). My own role, and stated interest in questions relating specifically to language, also most likely led some participants to suggest the language was more central to a sense of Italian identity than they may have with, for example, other members of the local community. For example, one participant, who as well as having a familial connection to Italy also led one of the main local Italian organisations, explained the focus of many of their activities on the teaching of the Italian language, and went on to say that: P:  Se noi non parliamo la lingua è difficile trasmettere la cultura ai nostri figli, ai nostri amici. Per chi non parla italiano non- non è italiano. È difficile. P:  If we don’t speak the language it’s difficult to pass down the culture to our children, to our friends. Someone who doesn’t speak Italian, is not- not Italian. It’s difficult.

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While appearing to be a fairly categorical claim that language is essential to Italian identity, it is important to note a point of hesitancy before completing this statement, followed by a comment that seems to acknowledge the inherent tensions of such a claim in a context where fluency in the language is increasingly rare. Later in the interview, the same participant acknowledges that a large number of community members do not speak Italian and also that there are those who did not have the opportunity to learn the language by attending the Scuola, for example, but who have learnt other ways of practising or being Italian, particularly in the home. These seeming contradictions point to competing discourses and understandings of Italianness, which my own role as a clear ‘outsider’ to the community but an at least partial ‘insider’ in relation to the Italian language and national context appears to have brought to the fore. Contextualising this statement in relation to my own positioning is thus vital for situating the data within the specific social situation of the interview which inevitably ‘shapes the form and content of what is said’ (Briggs, 1986: 22). At the same time, it is important to note here that these are my own perceptions and ‘readings’ of these encounters, and as Mullings notes, while reflexivity is a vital part of situating our knowledge it is impossible to achieve an entirely ‘transparent reflexivity’ and to be entirely certain regarding the influences of our own subjectivities (1999: 348). However, in one interview, again with Renato, and precisely because of an apparent level of trust established during the interview, this tension in relation to my own positioning was explicitly voiced, although again with amusement: R: Me: R: Me: R:

¿Y es primera vez en Chile, no? Sí sí sí, mucho tiempo en Italia pero primera vez¿Cuánto tiempo en Italia? He vivido un año, y pues voy muchas veces [para el trabajo]. [¡Eres más italiana que yo!], más italiana que yo.

R: Me: R: Me: R:

And it’s first time in Chile, no? Yes yes yes, a lot of time in Italy but first timeHow long in Italy? I’ve lived a year, and then I go a lot [for work]. [You’re more Italian than me!], more Italian than me.

Renato’s exclamation draws attention to divergent and potentially competing definitions of what it means to be Italian. The amused tone of Renato’s comment suggests not that he understood me to be a more ‘authentic’ Italian, but that he was highlighting the contradiction of appearing to display more externally recognisable Italian identity markers – linguistic and cultural expertise gained through formal study and a period living in Italy – while at the same time not self-identifying with a specific or global Italian community.

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That Renato was able to voice this tension in fact reveals a level of self-confidence in his own Italianness, and he was also notable in the community for being one of the few remaining speakers of Genovese, as well as displaying strong affective attachments to the Italian language, even if it was very much the language of school and not his own home. Language did, as a result, appear to play an important role in his personal relationship with Italianness, and he did also express significant regret at a wider sense of language loss within the community, illustrating that loss did function as a meaningful metaphor for some research participants (Block, 2008). At the same time, it is important to note Renato expressed a considerable interest in languages more generally, and in fact switched between not only Italian and Spanish during our interview, but also English which he had learnt while studying in the United States. At the start of the interview, for example, he responded to the discussion of whether to use Italian for the interview: R:  È proprio una sfida. Intanto non parlo tutti i giorni l’italiano, però me piace cosí tanto. Intanto non soltanto l’italiano – l’italiano, l’in­ glese, lo spagnolo, qualsiasi lingua che uno abbia l’opportunità di parlarlo. R: It’s really a challenge. While I don’t speak Italian every day, but I enjoy it so much. But not just Italian – Italian, English, Spanish, any language that one has the opportunity to speak it.

We see here how Renato expresses his love of Italian not in connection to identity, even if this does occur elsewhere in the interview, but rather in connection to a more general intrinsic interest in learning and speaking other languages. This is important in contextualising the much stronger focus on language across Renato’s interview than with other research participants, as it highlights the risk of attempting to make general claims relating to the relationship between language and Italian identity which might overlook his particularly strong affective interest in languages. It is also important to note that, as mentioned, the interview with Renato was, at least from my own perspective, particularly successful in terms of creating ‘a shared positional space’ – as illustrated by the way he openly voiced potential tensions in relation to my own positioning – and language appears to have played a central role in this respect. This was partially due to our significantly overlapping linguistic repertoires, with repeated and relatively fluid movements in the interview between our three common languages contributing to a sense of sharedness and a level of trust. However, equally significant, at least from my own perspective, was a shared general interest in learning and speaking other languages. This highlights a potential bias those of us from a languages and linguistics background may bring to

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our research, in that we may create stronger affinities and positional spaces with those who share a similar attention to language, as in the case of Renato. While bias is an unavoidable aspect of being situated in research (Abram, 2014), there is a risk here of over emphasising the role of language in relation to questions of identity, and more importantly, may mean disregarding or even delegitimising other identity markers. In the specific case of Italians in Chile, it became evident that there were other more localised practices which were understood as indexing Italianness, and which research focused on language in isolation risked neglecting or obscuring. Walking the City and Sensory Ethnography

The inadequacy of studying the case of Italians in Chile through a purely language-focused lens led to both a methodological and theoretical turn towards other aspects such as material culture and the sensory world. Such a shift was partly provoked by working in an interdisciplinary team with researchers with expertise in areas such as visual and material culture. At the same time, as exemplified in Bradley and Simpson’s chapter, this turn also aligned with shifts within applied and sociolinguistics which have questioned the traditional isolation of purely ‘linguistic’ aspects of communication and representation. Even in the seemingly more holistic ethnographic tradition, there have been calls to draw more methodological and analytical attention to the sensory and embodied experience of fieldwork. Pink, in particular, calls for greater attention to the sensorial and embodied nature of ethnographic practice, which involves engaging with the ‘social, material, discursive and sensory environments’ of others (2015: 28). She proposes both more sensory reflections on traditional ethnographic encounters, and also the development of new methodological approaches which bring to the fore our own and others’ sensing bodies. In relation to applying a sensory and material lens to more commonplace methods, interviews in particular are a context where attention is often paid primarily, if not exclusively, to the verbal aspects of the encounter, which is reinforced through the conversion of interviews into written transcripts for the purposes of analysis and publication. Long-discussed critiques of interviews as a research method have addressed the now established distinction between what people say in interviews and their observed practices. As De Fina and Perrino argue, rather than dismissing interviews as ‘inauthentic’ or ‘artificial’, it is necessary instead to take them seriously as a ‘real communicative event’ rather than as ‘unmediated expressions of the narrator’s self’ (2011: 6). In addition to the more common reflexive attention to how our own and others’ positionings affect the co-construction of verbal discourse, taking interviews seriously also requires attention to the material and

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Figure 6.1  Drinking coffee with a research participant during an interview

sensorial components of the interview as an emplaced social encounter (Pink, 2015: 74). My own interviews generally took place either in participants’ homes or in cafes, and typically also involved drinking coffee together (see Figure 6.1). While seemingly unremarkable, as Pink notes, such encounters involve being mutually emplaced and consequently have the potential to engender a form of empathetic encounter: by sitting with another person in their living room in their chair, drink­ ing their coffee from one of their mugs, or when drinking together in a café, one begins in some small way to occupy the world in a way that is similar to them. (2015: 80)

It is this experience of mutual emplacement that can contribute to a level of trust and cooperation, in ways which may also partially overcome or at least alleviate tensions which derive from linguistic differences and the different experiences researcher and participants bring to these encounters. In some cases, the material and sensory environments of interviews also had more overt associations with both individual and collective understandings of Italianness. This included more ‘institutional’ spaces such as an Italian community centre, where on the surrounding tables groups of older men played cards and dominoes, and where maps of Italy and Liguria, and paintings of Italy, covered the walls. The space, chosen by the interviewee, thus communicated without words the embeddedness of the individual within the more institutional

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activities of the community, and inevitably also shaped the discourse of the interview in ways which spoke to more ‘formal’ and ‘authorised’ narratives of Italian heritage and identity. In the case of another research participant, Victor, who had a much more detached relationship with more official community activities, the interview took place in the seemingly neutral home environment. At the same time, Victor’s habitual and unremarkable act of preparing coffee at the beginning of our interview was revealed to be particularly salient to the ways he understood and practised Italianness. Later in the interview, when asked about what it means to be Italian in Valparaíso, he described the specific habit of buying fresh ingredients and particularly loose coffee from his local bodega, where the shopkeeper of Italian origin buys and prepares the coffee from scratch: V:  Y que él tos-él compraba él café, lo importa, lo tuesta y lo vende así a granel, ah. Y uno va a comprar-, yo compro a granel todo. Compro- y todo lo compro ahí, en un lugar donde la manera de rel­ acionarse con la gente es distinta, ah. V: And he toas- he bought the coffee, he imports it, toasts it and sells it like this loose, ah. And you go to buy-, I buy everything loose. I buy- and I buy everything there, in a place where the way of relat­ ing to people is different, ah.

We see here how buying loose and fresh products from local bodegas is a habit Victor makes a concerted effort to maintain, in line with the notion of heritage as something we choose to bring into the present (Deumert, 2018: 150). We also see how a locally situated form of Italianness emerges at the intersection of specific spatial and material environments (the bodegas), habitual and embodied practices (buying and preparing coffee) and sensory experiences (the smell and consumption of fresh coffee). Attention to the material and sensorial aspects of the interview thus requires not just methodological attention to our own emplaced experiences, but also analytical attention to how even the more verbal aspects of the interview involve participants ‘placing verbal definitions on sensory and embodied experiences’ (Pink, 2015: 79). In Victor’s case, this analytical attention to sensory and embodied practices was a particularly important reminder of the limitations of the focus on ‘purely’ linguistic practices in relation to his sense of Italianness. In fact, despite once attending a short Italian language course, Victor knew and spoke very little Italian and no Friulian, but most importantly he did not appear to perceive this as any significant loss or absence in relation to his own sense of identity. Interestingly, he mentioned that his father, a second-generation Italian, did speak Italian well but put this down to his father’s gift for and love of languages in ways which echoed Renato’s specific interest in languages.

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But what is most important to highlight here is how an isolated focus on language in relation to identity in Victor’s case would most likely have cast him as a deficient or even non-member of the Italian community, and potentially related to this was the fact that during the interview, Victor repeatedly distanced himself from the more formal Italian institutions in the city where the association between the Italian language and identity tends to be reinforced. A focus, however, on embodied habitual practices and local material environments revealed a powerful and locally defined sense of Italianness with recognisably shared elements with other interviewees, including those more closely affiliated with more formal Italian associations and those for whom language played a more central role. In fact, even within narratives of memory primarily focused on language, attention to materiality and the senses revealed the ways in which they were interwoven in memories of learning and speaking specific languages. As analysed in greater depth in Wells (forthcoming), Renato recalled in vivid detail his mother teaching him Genovese while they learnt to prepare pasta in the family kitchen, illustrating how developing the habitual practice of speaking the language was inextricably intertwined with embodied and sensory experiences in a specific material environment. Renato identified his own family shop as another specific spatial and material environment in which his family spoke Genovese, and identified the small number of grocery stores – the emporios – still run by children of Italians as one of the few sites in which he had the opportunity to speak the language. There is a clear connection here between Victor and Renato in relation to the spaces and environments which index Italianness, which are the shops where many of those who first arrived from Italy worked. In fact, these emporios or bodegas were identified across interviews, and in secondary reading, as one of the key sites of locally defined Italianness, to the extent that they are also associated with specific local stereotypes of the typical Genovese/Italian shopkeeper (Castillo, 2012: 25). Although many of these shops are now owned and run by individuals with a much looser and sometimes no familial connection to Italy, what is important is that the spatial and material environments and the types of habitual embodied practices associated with them continue to index forms of Italianness, including in cases where Italian or Genovese languages may be largely absent. While the importance of these local everyday sites of Italianness was partially revealed through interviews, my own understanding was deepened by a more experiential and emplaced engagement which allowed for a more ‘profound personal imbrication in the fabric of others’ lives’ (Abram, 2014: 29). It is important to highlight that, although I did arrive with the intention of visiting community spaces and sites, it was primarily research participants who prompted me to engage personally with spatial and material environments of personal

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Figure 6.2  Inside the home of Victor’s father and grandfather

and collective importance. In this sense, participants seemed to acknowledge the limitations of purely verbalised narratives recounted in the traditional interview, and the need for me to engage firsthand in more emplaced and embodied forms of learning. In Victor’s case, for example, while beginning the interview at his own house, he invited me at the end of the interview to visit the nearby house where his grandfather and father had lived (see Figure 6.2). The evident centrality of this specific house to his own sense of Italianness reinforced his self-described more ‘emotional’ connection to Italianness through the specific relationship with his grandfather and father. Exploring the house guided by Victor also highlighted the ways it was not just individual or specific objects or items that overtly displayed some form of Italianness, but rather the ‘whole system of things, with their internal order’ which ‘make us the people we are’ (Miller, 2010: 46). With Renato, I was able to further my understanding of the relationship between the wider landscape of the city and a sense of Italianness, through a process of what Pink describes as ‘shared walking’ (2008). Again, this was at Renato’s own prompting after our initial interview, when he invited me to meet again to explore with him the Playa Ancha area of the city where there had historically been a strong Italian presence. Walking, both alone or accompanied, is a commonplace activity we engage in both in our everyday lives, and particularly when we want to become more familiar and begin to understand a new place as a tourist or resident. It is, however, the seemingly unremarkable and commonplace nature of the activity which makes it a particularly apt form of ethnographic learning, given, as Hymes explains, that ethnography itself ‘is continuous with everyday life’ and to learn ethnographically is thus ‘an extension of what every human being must

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do’ (1996: 13). At the same time, the methodological reflexivity inherent to ethnographic approaches encourages reflection on such unremarkable practices as talking and walking in order to understand and attempt to make transparent the processes by which they allow us to construct and produce knowledge. De Certeau describes walking as a ‘spatial acting-out’ of a place (2013: 98), and consequently by walking with others we are able to participate collaboratively in what Pink describes as ‘place-making practices’ in ways which allow us insight into ‘how people constitute urban environments through embodied and imaginative practices’ (2008: 176). Ingold and Vergunst, furthermore, describe walking as ‘a profoundly social activity’, suggesting that ‘in their timings, rhythms and inflections, the feet respond as much as does the voice to the presence and activity of others’ (2008: 1). By adjusting our step and rhythms to others, we again move towards being mutually emplaced, but in ways which involve us more actively in making ‘places that are similar to theirs’ (Pink, 2008: 193). In particular, through shared walking I was able to participate in the sensory and material environments of the places verbally described in interviews in ways which allowed me to begin to see these places from, if not an identical, then at the very least a similar perspective. For example, as previously discussed, Renato in his interview emphasised the role of the local shops as a space which he associated with speaking Genovese in the past and present. Visiting these shops alongside him (see Figure 6.3), however, allowed me to see first hand the ways specific ‘linguistic, artefactual, historical and spatial resources’ came together in what Pennycook describes as ‘semiotic assemblages’ (2017: 278; see also Bradley & Simpson, this volume) which can be both momentary while

Figure 6.3  One of the shops where Renato spoke Genovese with the owners

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also having the potential to become sedimented over time in ways which index specific identities, such as Italianness. Vital to my own experience of walking with Renato and another research participant was the sense of being actively guided towards a shared perspective and sense of place. Adopting the position of learner is an essential aspect of ethnographic fieldwork, and yet despite interviews being common in ethnographic research, even in the seemingly most informal interview settings, it can be difficult for the researcher to evade their role in guiding the conversation (Briggs, 1986: 27). In fact, returning to the transcript of our initial interview, Renato repeatedly apologises for diverging from my questions or interrupts his own narratives to ask more directly what I would like to know, despite my repeated reassurances of the value of his extended anecdotes and ‘sidetracking’ (Blommaert & Dong, 2010: 55). Walking through an environment unknown to me allowed him instead to take a more active guiding role in ways which allowed him to bring to my attention and explain subjects which it would not have occurred to me to ask about. What particularly struck me through this experience of shared walking were sites which, to me at least, had no visible sign which indexed their Italianness, but which emerged instead through Renato’s narrations of these sites. We passed by, for example, an abandoned building with rubbish bags hanging from the doors, which Renato believed to be one of the first Italian-owned emporios in the city. We walked by or visited other seemingly unremarkable sites that through this process of shared walking were revealed to index local forms of Italianness which I would otherwise have ignored due to my own prior familiarity with practices and sites from within the Italian peninsula or more globally recognisable markers. This highlights the importance of reflexive attention to the limitations of our existing ‘cultural and interpretive capacities’ (Arnaut et al., 2016: 7), and how ethnographic praxis allows us to attend to and develop these through collaborative forms of knowledge production. At times, there would be clearer linguistic signs which pointed more obviously to this Italian presence, such as the Italian surnames, or names of Italian historical figures, on the shop signs of some emporios or the reference to ‘fugassa’ pointed out to me by another research participant on the menu of an Italian pizza shop (see Figure 6.4). The Genovese term ‘fugassa’, rather than the more globally known Italian ‘focaccia’, was a clearer remnant of the linguistic practices of those who first migrated to Valparaíso and consequently indexed the local Italian community rather than more global or national concepts of Italianness. The global presence and familiarity of Italian food vocabulary points to a further challenge of identifying sites with a specific connection to the historic Italian community in the city. This is not to suggest a search for ‘authenticity’ but rather that as a newcomer to the context, merely

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Figure 6.4  The menu on the wall of a pizza shop with the Genovese word ‘Fugassa’

identifying more overt symbols of Italianness in the city’s landscape provides limited insight into a more pervasive Italianness which permeates the everyday life of the city. When walking alone through the city, rather than guided by participants, my eye was inevitably drawn to the most overt signs of Italianness, such as the monuments with Italian-language plaques in the Parque Italia or the imposing Scuola Italiana building with the Italian flag flying outside. While equally deserving of analysis (see Wells forthcoming), they provide only partial insight into more intentional or officially sanctioned narratives of Italianness, associated more clearly with symbols or practices as defined from within the national territory. As a result, to focus one’s attention only on the visible presence of the Italian language or national markers such as flags is to overlook the existence of spaces and practices which index Italianness locally, but where displays or use of Italian language(s) or national symbols may be less common. It is here that insight can only be gained either by personal familiarity and lived experiences within these sites, or where individuals with such knowledge are able to guide the researcher from a position of ignorance to understanding. While true in all ethnographic practice, this more conscious act of guiding is arguably more important in a case of historical migration where remnants of more everyday forms of Italianness are likely to be less easily observable.

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In particular, in contrast to the intended permanency and static nature of monuments or designated heritage sites, these more everyday and unremarkable spaces are more subject to the inevitable changes to the city’s palimpsestic landscape, which also reflects the changing composition of the city. In fact, it is precisely the adaptability of everyday sites such as corner shops to changing populations that allows migrant communities to appropriate and reshape these spaces in ways which consolidate their own sense of identification with the city. Returning to the question of historical superdiversity, it is salient to note here how the corner shop is often identified as an exemplary space of contemporary superdiversity. Hua et al. refer to corner shops as ‘the sites of ordinary diversity’ (2017: 384), while Wessendorf coined the term ‘corner-shop cosmopolitanism’ (2010: 8) to refer more broadly to the idea of more everyday and pragmatic forms of intercultural exchange. While the emporios are considered a key site of everyday Italianness, in common with contemporary corner shops, this does not mean they were closed or exclusive community spaces. While they may have functioned as a space in which Genovese speakers like Renato could come together to speak the language, this is not to ignore their role as a ‘lugar de convergencia y sociabilidad’ [place of meeting and sociability] for the whole neighbourhood (Toro Canessa, 2013: 284). Located at the centre of neighbourhoods across the city, these shops inevitably contributed to the ways the Italian community became embedded in the daily life and transcultural flows of the city. As a result, these have not remained static museums of Italianness, and the ‘semiotic assemblages’ of linguistic, material, sensory and spatial resources associated with these shops have undergone inevitable transformations over time. In some cases, these shops may still be run by individuals with a familial connection to Italy, but inevitably these families have undergone transformations both across the generations and through marriages outside of the Italian community. In other cases, the shops have closed or changed hands, reflecting also the upward mobility of the community over time, with the children or grandchildren of Italians moving into other professions, or in some cases these small shops laid the foundation for much larger commercial enterprises, such as the national LIDER supermarket chain (Toro Canessa, 2013: 284). Like language, the perceived loss of this original heritage was also the cause of regret across a number of interviews, particularly for Renato for whom the disappearance of these material and spatial environments was entangled with diminishing opportunities to speak Genovese. At the same time, while walking in the Playa Ancha area, we also came across an emporio Renato had not visited for some time. On entering we found the shop had changed owners and the current owner had no familial connection to Italy. However, he maintained a photo of the original owners over the counter, and also explained the efforts he

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Figure 6.5  The interior of an emporio carefully maintained by its current owner

made to maintain the original spatial layout of the shop (see Figure 6.5), and in the café/restaurant below the shop, he even had plaques on the walls recounting the history of the shop and the names of the original owners. This incidental discovery highlighted the ways these emporios function as a form of shared cultural heritage for the whole city, and consequently may be more accurately understood as a form of superdiverse, or what Deumert describes as multivocal, heritage which can be claimed across communities (2018). Victor also mentioned across his interview how his own sense of Italianness was entangled with a broader neighbourhood culture and sense of shared solidarity and identity between workers of different origins: V: Eso, eso tenía que ver un poco con- con esta eh cultura que se genera me parece a mí un poco a partir de- de esa- de esa relación, de esos asentamientos que son- que son diversos además, porque aquí claro son italianos pero no son solamente italianos. Son italia­ nos, son turcos, son españoles. V: This, this had a little to do with- with this eh culture that origi­ nates it seems to me a little from- from this- from this connection, of these settlements that are- that are different too, because here of course they are Italians but they are not just Italians. They are Italians, they are Turks, they are Spaniards.

This highlights also the partiality of these narratives of the city recounted through a lens of Italianness, and my own role as a researcher in constructing a ‘research field’ that makes visible and

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invisible particular viewpoints (Abram, 2014: 24), since undoubtedly walking the same areas of the city with participants from different cultural backgrounds would have revealed different historicities. Elsewhere in the interview, when talking about the habit of visiting the local bodegas Victor also expresses a reluctance to pin this down as a specifically ‘Italian’ practice, mentioning also similar habits among the Arab community. He also mentions at another point the influence of internal migration from the Chilean countryside, which most likely includes those from indigenous communities. Again, we see evidence of a superdiverse heritage, and also the challenge of attempting to isolate precise elements or practices associated with just one community. As practices originally associated with distinct communities have become mutually entangled across the generations, the originally more overt differences between communities have become blurred in ways which potentially mask the superdiverse histories of these neighbourhoods. It is thus only by abandoning a search for ‘wholeness’ or stability in terms of language and culture that these traces may emerge in the inescapably shifting and palimpsestic landscape and in unavoidably selective and partial memories. Conclusion

Revealed throughout this chapter is an intentional slippage between methodological and theoretical reflections. This blurring of theory and practice is, as Blommaert notes, a particular feature of ethnographic practice where ‘the whole process of gathering and molding knowledge is part of that knowledge; knowledge construction is knowledge, the process is the product’ (2018: 7). Reflecting on my own positionality in the research process is thus not intended as a mere confessional act (Creese et al., 2016: 205), with the attendant risks of falling into ‘self-indulgent idiosyncracy’ (Rampton et al., 2015: 16). Rather, the tensions which emerge in negotiating language choices in interviews are themselves revealing of the sociolinguistic dynamics and language ideologies in circulation within the community. At the same time, an awareness of the limitations of purely verbalised narratives and greater methodological attention to how we make sense of participants lives through ‘our own sensing bodies’ (Leder Mackley & Pink, 2013: 338) inevitably also draws greater analytical attention to the importance of the senses and embodied forms of cultural memory and knowledge in relation to everyday forms of Italianness. The focus on embodied practices, and associated material environ­ ments, also reveals the limitations of an isolated focus on language in relation to questions of community identity and heritage. To focus on the maintenance of whole, bounded languages is to overlook more subtle ways in which language may form part of a broader notion of cultural

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memory, even where fluency or regular use of specific languages may be increasingly rare. Equally, to attempt to isolate language as an identity marker is to reduce identity down to a list of its constituent parts or ele­ ments, whereas it is rather in the bricolage process itself (De Certeau, 2013: xviii), rather than any single item, that both individual and col­ lective subjectivities are constructed. A superdiverse lens thus draws our attention to a richer understanding of the complex ‘semiotic assem­ blages’ which have become sedimented over time in ways which have come to index a locally defined Italianness, and which go beyond nation­ ally or globally defined symbols of Italianness, even if these remain in circulation. Applying a superdiverse lens to the past can furthermore help us to look with less ‘romantic’ eyes on earlier migrant groups, both by illustrating the falsity of ideas of an original homogenous and clearly bounded community, and by understanding the transformations over time of individual and collective linguistic and cultural repertoires as ordinary responses to changing circumstances and environments. While we can still recognise ‘loss’, of language or other forms of cultural heritage, as meaningful discourses for participants, this does not mean the transformations of a community and its place of residence which provoke this sense of loss are necessarily a cause of concern or intervention, at least in cases where there is limited evidence of these changes being imposed by force or discrimination. It is at the same time important to go beyond straightforward, linear narratives of linguistic and cultural assimilation of a community over time, which neglect the more elusive ways mutual and multiple cultural and linguistic influences have and continue to shape contemporary urban environments and practices. Notes (1) This chapter results from research conducted as part of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council project, ‘Transnationalizing Modern Languages: Language, Identity and Translation in Modern Italian Cultures’ (AH/L007061/1). (2) All translations are my own. (3) Around 70 per cent of those who arrived between 1880 and 1920 are estimated to originate from the region of Liguria (Salinas Meza, 1993: 19).

References Abram, S. (2014) ‘Bias binding’: Re-calling creativity in qualitative research. In C. Smart, J. Hockey and A. James (eds) The Craft of Knowledge (pp. 21–38). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Arnaut, K., Blommaert, J., Rampton, B. and Spotti, M. (2016) Introduction: Superdiversity and sociolinguistics. In K. Arnaut, J. Blommaert, B. Rampton and M. Spotti (eds) Language and Superdiversity (pp. 1–17). Routledge. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2017) Translanguaging and the body. International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3), 250–268. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2017.1315809.

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Block, D. (2008) On the appropriateness of the metaphor of LOSS. In R. Rubdy and P. Tan (eds) Language as Commodity: Global Structures, Local Marketplaces (pp. 187–203). London: Continuum. Blommaert, J. (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. (2013) Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J. (2018) Dialogues with Ethnography: Notes on Classics, and How I Read Them. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J. and Dong, J. (2010) Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Beginner’s Guide (1st edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Briggs, C.L. (1986) Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research. Cambridgc: Cambridge University Press. Carrera Airola, L. (2015) Italianos en Chile: Un proceso de inmigración y retorno. Valparaíso, Chile: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. Castillo, G. (2012) Preámbulo/Preambolo. In G. Castillo Raga (ed.) La herencia italiana en la región de Valparaíso/L’eredità italiana nella regione di Valparaíso (pp. 22–39). Santiago: Consiglio della Comunità Italiana Regione Valparaíso and Escuela de Diseño Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello. Certeau, M. de. (2013) The Practice of Everyday Life. Volume 1 (2nd edn). Berkeley, California: Univ. of California Press. Choate, M.I. (2008) Emigrant Nation: The Making of Italy Abroad. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Creese, A., Takhi, J.K. and Blackledge, A. (2016) Reflexivity in team ethnography. Using researcher vignettes. In M. Martin-Jones and D. Martin (eds) Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives (pp. 203–214). Oxford, New York: Routledge. De Bock, J. (2015) Not all the same after all? Superdiversity as a lens for the study of past migrations. Ethnic and Racial Studies 38 (4), 583–595. https://doi.org/10.1080/014198 70.2015.980290. De Fina, A. (2011) Researcher and informant roles in narrative interactions: Constructions of belonging and foreign-ness. Language in Society 40 (1), 27–38. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S0047404510000862. De Fina, A. and Perrino, S. (2011) Introduction: Interviews vs. ‘natural’ contexts: A false dilemma. Language in Society 40 (1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404510000849. De Mauro, T. (2011) Storia linguistica dell’Italia unita (2nd edn) Roma: Laterza. Deumert, A. (2018) The multivocality of heritage – moments, encounters and mobilities. In A. Creese and A. Blackledge (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (pp. 149–164). Routledge. Erll, A. (2008) Cultural memory studies: An introduction. In A. Erll and A. Nünning (eds) Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 1–18). Berlin: De Gruyter. Estrada, B. (2012) Redes socioeconómicas y mercados urbanos: La colectividad italiana en Valparaíso, en el cambio de siglo/Reti socio-economiche e mercati urbani: La comunità italiana di Valparaíso a cavallo del secolo. In G. Castillo Raga (ed.) La herencia italiana en la región de Valparaíso/L’eredità italiana nella regione di Valparaíso (pp. 96–145). Santiago: Consiglio della Comunità Italiana Regione Valparaíso and Escuela de Diseño Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello. Follegati, L. Jeldes, J.C. and Iglesias, J. (2012) Una escuela erigida por todos/Una scuola costruita da tutti. In G. Castillo Raga (ed.) La Herencia Italiana en la Región de Valparaíso/L’eredità Italiana Nella Regione di Valparaíso (pp. 178–197). Santiago: Consiglio della Comunità Italiana Regione Valparaíso and Escuela de Diseño Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello. Gabaccia, D.R. (2000) Italy’s Many Diasporas. London: UCL Press.

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Gadaleta, C. (2018) Gli italiani e l’italiano in Cile: Storia e attualità. RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea 2 (I n.s.), 61–81. https://doi.org/10.7410/1348. Gallego-Balsà, L. (2018) Language choice and researcher’s stance in a multilingual ethnographic fieldwork. Applied Linguistics Review [online first]. https://doi. org/10.1515/applirev-2017-0121. Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J., and Attia, M. (2013) Researching multilingually: New theoretical and methodological directions: Researching multilingually. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 23 (3), 285–299. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12038. Hua, Z., Otsuji, E. and Pennycook, A. (2017) Multilingual, multisensory and multimodal repertoires in corner shops, streets and markets: Introduction. Social Semiotics 27 (4), 383–393. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2017.1334383. Hymes, D.H. (1996) Ethnography, Linguistics, Narrative Inequality: Towards an Understanding of Voice. London: Taylor and Francis. Ingold, T. and Vergunst, J.L. (2008) Introduction. In T. Ingold and J.L. Vergunst (eds) Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot (pp. 1–20). London: Routledge. Kramsch, C. (2013) The Multilingual Subject. Oxford University Press. Kusters, A., Spotti, M., Swanwick, R. and Tapio, E. (2017) Beyond languages, beyond modalities: Transforming the study of semiotic repertoires. International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3), 219–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2017.1321651. Leder Mackley, K. and Pink, S. (2013) From emplaced knowing to interdisciplinary knowledge: Sensory ethnography in energy research. The Senses and Society 8 (3), 335–353. https://doi.org/10.2752/174589313X13712175020596. Maiden, M. (1995) A Linguistic History of Italian. London; New York: Longman. Malkki, L.H. (2007) Tradition and improvisation in ethnographic field research. In A. Cerwonka and L.H. Malkki (eds) Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork (pp. 162–188). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mar-Molinero, C. (2006) Forces of globalisation in the Spanish-speaking world: Linguistic imperialism or grassroots adaptation. In M. Stewart and C. Mar-Molinero (eds) Globalization and Language in the Spanish-speaking World (pp. 8–26). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Miller, D. (2010) Stuff. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mullings, B. (1999) Insider or outsider, both or neither: Some dilemmas of interviewing in a cross-cultural setting. Geoforum 30 (4), 337–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/S00167185(99)00025-1. Pavlenko, A. (2018) Superdiversity and why it isn’t: Reflections on terminological innovation and academic branding. In B. Schmenk, S. Breidbach and L. Küster (eds) Sloganization in Language Education Discourse: Conceptual Thinking in the Age of Academic Marketization (pp. 142–168). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Pennycook, A. (2017) Translanguaging and semiotic assemblages. International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3), 269–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2017.1315810. Phipps, A. (2013) Linguistic incompetence: Giving an account of researching multilingually. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 23 (3), 329–341. https://doi.org/10.1111/ ijal.12042. Piacenti, D. (2012) Los emigrantes italianos en la ciudad-puerto de Valparaíso (1880–1920)/ Gli immigranti italiani nella città-porto di Valparaíso (1880–1920). In G. Castillo Raga (ed.) La herencia italiana en la región de Valparaíso/L’eredità italiana nella regione di Valparaíso (pp. 78–95). Santiago: Consiglio della Comunità Italiana Regione Valparaíso and Escuela de Diseño Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello. Pink, S. (2008) An urban tour: The sensory sociality of ethnographic place-making. Ethnography 9 (2), 175–196. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138108089467. Pink, S. (2015) Doing Sensory Ethnography (2nd edn). London: Sage Publications. Rampton, B., Maybin, J. and Roberts, C. (2015) Theory and method in linguistic ethnography. In J. Snell., S. Shaw and F. Copland (eds) Linguistic Ethnography: Interdisciplinary Explorations (pp. 14–50). Palgrave Macmillan.

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Robinson, M. (2018) Talking of heritage. In A. Creese and A. Blackledge (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (pp. 194–207). Routledge. Sadowsky, S. and Aninao, M. J. (2019) Internal migration and ethnicity in Santiago. In A. Lynch (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Spanish in the Global City. Routledge. Salinas Meza, R. (1993) Perfil demográfico de la inmigración italiana a Chile. In B. Estrada (ed.) Presencia italiana en Chile (pp. 11–24). Valparaíso: Instituto de Historia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. Samata, S. (2014) The Cultural Memory of Language. London: Bloomsbury. Scollon, R. and Scollon, S.B.K. (2004) Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. London: Routledge. Snell, J., Shaw, S. and Copland, F. (eds) (2015) Linguistic Ethnography: Interdisciplinary Explorations. Palgrave Macmillan. Toro Canessa, E. (2013) El emporio italiano, como espacio de sociabilidad. Valparaíso 1900–1930. Archivum: Revista del Archivo Histórico Patrimonial de Viña del Mar 11, 278–303. Transnationalizing Modern Languages (2014) Transnationalizing Modern Languages: Mobility, Identity and Translation in Modern Italian Cultures. See http://www. transnationalmodernlanguages.ac.uk/ (accessed July 2017). Wells, N. (forthcoming) Porteña identity and Italianità: Language, materiality and transcultural memory in Valparaíso’s Italian community. In C. Burdett, L. Polezzi and B. Spadaro (eds) Transcultural Italies: Mobility, Memory and Translation. Liverpool University Press. Wells, N., Forsdick, C., Bradley, J., Burdett, C., Burns, J., Demossier, M., de Zárate, M.H., Huc-Hepher, S., Jordan, S., Pitman, T. and Wall, G. (2019) Ethnography and modern languages. Modern Languages Open (1). https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.242. Wessendorf, S. (2010) Commonplace diversity: Social interactions in a superdiverse context. Max Planck Working Paper 10–11.

7 Investigating Perceptions of Banlieue French: Problematising Theory and Methods Daniel McAuley and Janice Carruthers

Introduction

This chapter takes the example of the study of contemporary urban vernacular (CUV) French speech to explore the theoretical and methodological challenges in researching perceptions of a contactinfluenced variety of a major global language, in this case French. The chapter is based on research that forms part of the MEITS project (‘Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies’) which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of its Open World Research Initiative.1 It draws on the authors’ work in the sociolinguistic strand of MEITS (strand 3) which focuses on a range of questions relating to identity, diversity and social cohesion in France and (Northern) Ireland. While CUV as a variety has been fairly widely researched (see Gadet, 2017; Hornsby & Jones, 2013 for overviews of previous work), both in terms of its features and its social meanings in the context of a highly centralised, standardised, state-enforced monolingualism, only one major study (Secova et al., 2018) has as yet been undertaken on perceptions of this variety by listeners, and no prior research concerns perceptions of non-users of the variety. This chapter focuses on the methodological challenges of undertaking this research on listener perceptions. The first section of the chapter will discuss briefly some important definitional issues in relation to contemporary urban vernaculars in general and naming practices in relation to CUV French in particular before discussing CUV in the context of language policy in France and outlining the research questions at the core of this chapter. We will then expand on some of the well-established features of CUV French (including those in the core corpus used in this study), and discuss 159

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the questions that arise when trying to devise a specific research design as a possible path for investigating perceived social meanings and perceived multilingual influence into the study of urban speech. Finally, we offer a critical perspective on key features of the research design, proposing ideas for future research design in this field. Research Context and Research Questions Definitional issues: What is CUV French?

Research into multilingual practices in urban settings, not least in other contributions to this volume, has pointed to the distinctive properties of the modern city which establish sustained and regularly renewed contact between many different languages and the speech communities that use them. Diversity in urban linguistic repertoires is evidently related to the phenomena of migration and globalisation (see Blommaert, 2010; Canagarajah, 2017, and many of the other chapters in this volume), and community practices regarding language use can vary significantly depending on the contexts in which linguistic resources are used. We may, for example, see different patterns of intergenerational transmission across different migrant groups, different language choices specified by domain or by interlocutor, or different bilingual, multilingual and translingual practices among second-generation populations. With this variety of practices drawing on multiple linguistic sources within restricted physical spaces of cities, communicative events evidently have a varied repertoire to draw on, but in a number of Western European metropolises, implicitly or explicitly through policy, a monolingual language ideology favours the use of a single, standardised, vehicular state language (see also Mar-Molinero, this volume). The tension between multilingual urban repertoires and practices and a ‘monolingual habitus’ (Gogolin, 1997), since it parallels the cultural tensions many migrant populations experience, has perhaps contributed to the emergence of new linguistic varieties at the cracks of what Calvet calls a ‘culture intersticielle’ (‘interstitial culture’) in his work on language in the French city (1994: 30). In recent years, alongside this context of multilingualism in urban contexts, we have seen, largely in research on European cities, a concentration on emergent varieties first recorded in superdiverse cities, variously termed ‘multiethnolects’ (Cheshire et al., 2015) and ‘contemporary urban vernaculars’ (CUVs) (Rampton, 2011). Thinking of these as fixed varieties does pose some problems, as Cheshire et al. (2011) note. They prefer to think of them as comprised of many individual linguistic features, available to speakers in a heterogeneous ‘feature pool’. This is a conception of contact-induced urban varieties that allows them to sit alongside other local influences – specific regional features, standard variants, learner varieties of the vehicular

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language – as a common resource. The output of this may be a socially identifiable object, i.e. a nameable, way of speaking, for speakers, listeners and observers. We return to naming practices for urban vernaculars below. We adopt this conception of the ‘feature pool’ for CUV French, since it allows us to talk of it as a variety (comprised of particular features), which we know is meaningful for speakers and their interlocutors in interaction, but it also allows us to recognise its heterogeneous and mutable nature. Much of the research literature in the field has a tacit or explicit understanding of the development of these varieties as a consequence of the multifarious language contact in cities. The extent to which such varieties are reflections of superdiverse contact is occasionally up for debate (Hambye & Gadet, 2014), but for many distinctive traits, most saliently lexical differences, a contact-based development has been established as very likely, even where a feature occurs in other varieties of a given language. Indeed, research on social functions of lexically distinctive material in urban French connects it with a set of communicative functions shared with existing argots, by which we mean sets of non-standard, but non-technical, lexis specific to particular social groups, in the French context traditionally to particular professions and criminals and used to hide communication form outsiders. There is some clear functional and situational overlap between the use of traditional non-standard codes (some of which already involved some multilingual influence) and the recently emerged urban vernaculars. Bachmann and Basier (1984) and Goudaillier (2002) discuss these functions, which can ultimately be reduced to two major dimensions, a crypto-ludic function (in which the content of speakers’ discourse is playfully hidden from outsiders) and an identity-construction function (in which the speech creates a distinctive identity for its users). Importantly, for the Parisian urban vernacular lexis, Goudailler (2002) suggests a switch from encryption in existing argots towards identity marking as the primary social function. Speakers of urban vernaculars, many of whom are bilingual, or multilingual themselves, may therefore be carving out a distinctive identity for themselves drawing on a multilingually influenced urban repertoire. Naming Practices in the French Context

The idea of a distinctive identity for a diverse group is reflected in both the academic and lay discourse surrounding contemporary urban vernaculars across Europe. Kerswill (2014) discusses the use of the term Jafaican in the British media, which takes a complicated ethnicised view of a variety that he and others call Multicultural London English. Candea similarly discusses what the term accent de banlieue means in French press discourse alongside academic naming practices, noting that

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the meanings of the term are so firmly established in outsider perceptions that contradictory experiences of the real speech of speakers from the banlieue are not given credit: ‘le mythe de l’ « accent de banlieue » semble si ancré dans l’imaginaire développé à l’extérieur des quartiers populaires que les observations contradictoires faites sur le terrain ne peuvent plus l’ébranler’ [‘the myth of the banlieue accent seems so anchored in the image developed outside of working-class areas, that contradictory observations in the field can no longer shake it’] (2017: 15). Wiese (2015) tracks a change in usage for a German multiethnolect, from the pejorative and ethnicised Kanak Sprak to Kiezdeutsch, which has more of a territorial designation. Milani (2010) connects the choice between rinkebysvenska (which refers to a particular area) and blattesvenska (immigrant Swedish) to ideological stances towards the variety’s users. In many of these naming practices we see a variety defined by social characteristics of its speakers, but often reduced only to a single aspect of their identity, such as a specific urban area and/or a specific linguistic influence. In the data collected in France for the case study in this chapter, names such as parler jeune, ‘youth speech’, parler rebeu ‘Arab speech’, parler des cités ‘tower block speech’ and parler des banlieues ‘suburban speech’ were used. We should dwell on parler des banlieues for a moment, since it refers to a context that is seemingly particular to France: French suburbs are akin to inner-city British and American communities and the word banlieue carries heavily stigmatised connotations. Large-scale social housing projects were built quickly in the 1960s and 1970s in France to respond to high levels of migrant settlement, and these were largely built on the peripheries of the major cities. Importantly, there was little provision for social activities, and the social housing projects, or cités, have become sites of social deprivation, disaffection and civil unrest, as events since the widespread 2005 banlieue riots suggest (see also Armstrong & Jamin, 2002). So parler des banlieues as a name for this variety does locate it geographically and spatially on the peripheries of cities (this pattern was replicated in regions across mainland France – not centred solely on Paris), but this term also locates it socially in communities marked by sustained migration, high youth populations and socioeconomic disadvantage. Its portrayal in the media stereotypically reinforces these characteristics and often frames the banlieues as sites of inevitable violence; this is clear in films like La Haine (1995), l’Esquive (2003), Bande de filles (2014), Divines (2016) and media coverage of revenge killings in Marseille (see for example Véronique (2018) or Le Point (2019)). Where language use is positioned in this narrative is interesting in terms both of users’ production and outsiders’ perceptions. Boyer (1997) characterises parler des cités as an object identified by the media. Set against the backdrop of a centralised, purist, standard-French-speaking state, banlieue French has sometimes been seen as an active rejection of the mainstream French

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nation. Goudaillier, speaking largely of the lexis, sees it as a ‘linguistic fracture’ indicative of ‘social fracture’ (2001). Naming practices are therefore indicative of what both users and non-users of these varieties consider to be socially distinctive about their speech. The French Policy Context

A brief look into current and past language policy in France reveals the dominance of the prestigious standard, a pattern reflected in many other national language policies, especially in Europe. This dominance is reflected clearly in Article 2 of the Constitution (1958) which states that ‘La langue de la République est le français’ (‘the language of the Republic is French’). There are three major points of French language policy that are relevant to work on CUV, all of which relate to the close connection between language and national identity. The first is of immediate relevance to this speaker group. France’s policy for dealing with non-francophone migrant schoolchildren involves intensive French language tuition during the first year after their arrival in the country, sometimes in specialist units (UPE2A), with the aim of very rapid acquisition of native speaker competence and integration into mainstream classes. In practice, the rollout of this policy varies a great deal by region, with regions where there are larger numbers of immigrants in a stronger position to provide intensive tuition in the first year (Escafré-Dublet, 2014). The relevant point for the study of CUV is the existence of a policy that firmly embeds the national standard language in the young people who are members of immigrant communities. The second point of policy relates to the treatment of regional and minority languages, the status of which is expressly subordinate to French. As the language of the court, the variety spoken around the Ile de France grew in prestige from the late medieval period onwards and was codified in the seventeenth century, the period when ‘bon usage’ was firmly established amongst the literate upper classes. While the regional languages of France continued to be used by large sections of the population, language policy after the Revolution of 1789 was clearly directed at eliminating dialects and regional languages which declined dramatically in terms of numbers of speakers in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the impact of free and compulsory education. By the time of the Loi Deixonne in 1951, which gave a degree of support to regional languages, many of them were in an advanced state of decline. Those that have survived best through different combinations of native speaker usage and revitalisation movements are Breton, Occitan (which has several varieties) and Alsatian. Recognition for regional and minority languages in France was added to the constitution in 2008 with an article entitled ‘Les

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langues régionales appartiennent au patrimoine de la France’ (‘Regional languages belong to the heritage of France’). However, support for these languages remains limited and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages has not been ratified by France. The third relevant point of linguistic legislation betrays a purist and protectionist attitude towards language change: the Loi Bas-Lauriol (1975) and Loi Toubon (1996) make the use of French compulsory and legally enforceable in most public domains, particularly education, the audiovisual media, advertising and commerce. Although never explicitly stated, this legislation is most likely a response to the perceived threat of English influence in these domains, and Terminology Commissions have been set up to propose ‘native’ terms for lexical borrowings in these domains. A number of cases have been taken against firms that have used borrowings where a French equivalent exists but it is widely agreed that these have had little effect in terms of disincentive. That said, most linguists are of the view that lexical borrowing from English has not caused structural change in French’s phonology or syntax. As Hagège puts it, borrowings have not reached the ‘noyau dur’ [‘hard core’] of French (1987: 52). All of this policy underlines the central importance of the French language to the national identity, a connection which is rooted in the Republican ideals of unity and equality. This is a conception of equality through uniformity of experience, and the French language, as the single official language of the state is an aspect of that Republican equality. Deviations in language usage, especially those which come from outside the nation are then to be understood as threats not only to the unity of the language but to national identity, and discourse on national identity is becoming more prominent with the growth of far-right politics and the visibility of Islamic terrorism in France. More open attitudes toward language policy may well be indicative of a change in attitudes towards the nation itself. During the most recent presidential election campaign, Emmanuel Macron made a speech in Pau, a stronghold of Occitan, which recast France, the state, as simultaneously indivisible and plural, by reference to regional languages: While I say that France is held together by this language [French], by her language, I also say that this indivisible France is plural, she has other languages. She has her beautiful regional languages, so important in this [region of] Béarn, and which I want to recognise and which we will recognise. She has all those languages which, from Brittany to Corsica, must be able to live in the Republic, without threatening the French language in the slightest, but making our diversity and our richness shine forth.2

This statement sets out a place for linguistic diversity and variation within Macron’s state, but even the act of articulating this, and the reference to a lack of threat to French, reinforces the primacy of standard French in the Republican psyche and legislature.

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Against this pervasive idea of the supremacy of the standard in all public domains, then, conscious divergence from that standard can be seen as a site of protest against the mainstream. Goudaillier (2001), writing specifically on CUV French, puts forth this idea of linguistic fracture as indicative of social fracture, in which use of the CUV could indicate a dissociation from society at large. At its most extreme – and perhaps too speculative – we might attempt to attribute a political motive to use of CUV French. At the very least, however, use of CUV may represent a marker of cohesion with an in-group of peers who also use the variety, which may, in turn, suggest dissociation from an outgroup of non-users. If, like Goudaillier, we see the ‘linguistic fracture’ as issuing from ‘social fracture’, CUV could be used as a signal of social difference by the disaffected population. When perceived as such by establishment figures who are by definition speakers of (more) standard French, the ‘linguistic fracture’ serves to perpetuate the social division. Understanding which features are perceived as pertinent markers of social division is thus important in understanding the social meanings of this particular variety and this is the purpose of the wider project for which this methodology is being designed. In terms of outsiders’ perceptions of non-standard contact-influenced varieties, there are therefore issues of hierarchies of power enacted through language use. Some commentary on CUV French and similar varieties in other languages seems to imagine that speakers lack competence in or mastery of the standard, and so make use of CUV in inappropriate circumstances. The experience of collecting speech in state-run schools for the corpus used in this study would suggest rather that switching between styles is perfectly possible for most CUV users. It may in fact be precisely in those contexts where CUV is used inappropriately that there is a political impetus for a style shift, and that Goudaillier’s ‘linguistic fracture’ (2001: 9) (i.e. non-standard CUV French) is actively used by speakers to indicate their rejection of the state-enforced norms. Investigating Listeners’ Perceptions

As already noted in the Introduction, the linguistic features of CUV French have been well researched and much has been said about the social meanings that have been attributed to this variety in academic literature, in film and in the media. However, we know little about how other speakers (for our purposes ‘listeners’) in society perceive these features and which social meanings they ascribe to them: we do not know to what extent they are clearly associated with particular social groups or speakers of particular languages or particular ethnic groups or age groups, nor what the implications of any associations might be. The question of listeners’ perceptions around CUV features is thus of primary interest in the sociolinguistic strand of the MEITS project of which this

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research is a part. The chapter here will concentrate on methodological questions, i.e. specifically on how we can devise a methodology that can access the attitudes and perceptions of a broad French-speaking public towards the features of CUV French. Given the associations of CUV French with social fracture, and on the assumption that social judgements can be made on the basis of an urban speech style, the challenge is to explore how we can develop and put into practice a method of capturing listener perceptions of CUV speech. How can we develop methodology that is sufficiently robust to provide reliable evidence of perceptions? How can we capture the nuances of those perceptions? How can we avoid the researcher devising a methodology that will unintentionally influence the responses produced in relation to perception? What are the benefits and limits of our methodologies when put into practice? Our CUV Corpus: Linguistic Features of CUV French

The CUV data on which the perceptual work is based is a corpus collected in two major urban centres in mainland France, both with long histories of migration, but with quite distinctive linguistic pasts, i.e. Paris and Marseille (henceforth the Paris-Marseille CUV corpus). Paris, as France’s administrative and economic centre, has presented itself as a destination for successive waves of migrants from the provinces and from overseas, and Marseille, an important Mediterranean port city, has seen fluid population movement and exchange throughout its lifetime. An acceleration of migration towards both cities from the 1960s onwards, partially as a result of French decolonisation, necessitated the provision of social housing on an unprecedented scale. In Paris, this social housing was largely concentrated in tower blocks or cités in the inner suburbs, la banlieue, and physically separated from the city proper by a ringroad, le boulevard périphérique. This pattern was replicated in major cities across France, and the term banlieue now carries connotations of social deprivation and civil unrest, as outlined above. In Marseille, the cités were and are somewhat less segregated from the city centre, but there remains a concentration of social housing to the north side of the city in the so-called quartiers nord. The two cities are situated in historically different language substrate areas, reflecting the primary north-south linguistic division in modern French. Marseille is in the langue d’oc region, Paris is in the langue d’oïl region. Modern French evolved from a variety of langue d’oïl spoken in the broad Ile de France region, which spread, first because of its prestige at the royal court, and later as the dialect of the Revolutionaries and the universal education system, throughout northern France, and eventually through the south as well. In Marseille there is an Occitan substratum. Although Occitan is now spoken only by a minority of inhabitants of Southern France, the substratum persists in the regional French of the area and is perceptible

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in various ways (see for example Mooney (2016) for an overview of language and dialect contact in southern French). Despite this significant regional difference, the distinctive characteristics of the Contemporary Urban Vernacular French are present in the multicultural youth peergroups of both cities, occasionally expressed alongside regionally distinctive forms. The particularly urban nature of this variety lies in the sustained contact between multilingual populations; Calvet (1994: 11) talks of the city’s role as a meeting point, a place of exchange, coexistence and hybridisation between languages (‘lieu de coexistance et de métissage des langues’), and certainly one of the distinctive characteristics of CUV French shows a direct crosslinguistic influence: lexical borrowing. For example, in our Paris-Marseille CUV corpus, borrowing contributes to 46.2% of lexically innovative material, and glossaries of banlieue French (Goudaillier, 2001; Tengour, 2013, among others) attest to the presence of various heritage and community languages in the characteristic lexis of the variety. The most important source languages for lexical borrowing in the corpus are English, various dialects of Arabic and Romani and Provençal, the variety of Occitan constituting the substratum in the Marseille area. A few examples of such lexical borrowings follow, with glosses in English for each item, an indication of their sources, and an extract of usage from the corpus again glossed in English: (1) michto [miʃto] ‘good’    Sinte Romani mišto [miʃto] ‘good’ C’était michto ton stage? (Was your placement good?) (2) narvalo [naʁvalo] ‘mad, foolish’    Sinte Romani narvelo [narvelo] ‘mad, foolish’ Mais toi t’es narvalo toi [...] des phrases et tout ça (But you’re mad! [You write] lines and everything) (3) seum [søm] ‘anger, hatred, disgust’   Arabic ‫[ مس‬sɛm] ‘venom’ Moi j’ai le seum (I’m angry) (4) dégun [deɡœ̃/deɡɛ]̃ ‘no-one’   Provençal degun [deɡyn] ‘no-one’ Aujourd’hui il y a dégun (There’s nobody here today) (5) wesh [wɛʃ] (discourse marker)    Maghrebi Arabic ‫[ شاو‬wɛʃ] interrogative particle J’étais un peu plus bas wesh (I was a bit further down, for goodness sake) (6) crari [kʁaʁi] (discourse marker)   Romani xaxi [xaxi] ‘pretence’ Même crari au début crari ils l’accusent d’avoir posé une bombe dans un café bizarre (Even like at the beginning like they accuse him of having planted a bomb in a weird café) Other distinctive features in the lexis include verlan, a very well-known type of backslang that originated in the Parisian suburbs, which is now much less productive than it once was, and which has contributed a number

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of lexical items to mainstream dictionaries of French, notably meuf ‘woman, girlfriend’ and keuf ‘police officer’. Particular types of affixation and conversion also feature heavily in the CUV French lexis, so we find existing items intensified with affixes e.g. chaud  chaudard ‘extremely good/dangerous’, con  archi-con ‘really stupid’. A notable conversion also has a role as an intensifier, grave (adj.) ‘serious’  grave (adv.) ‘extremely’. Distinctive phonetic and phonological features of CUV French have been identified, across regional boundaries, in work by Paternostro (2016), Fagyal (2010), Jamin et al. (2006) and Hornsby and Jones (2013), among others, and in the following list we present a summary of some of the traits commonly identified in the literature: • the use of heavily palatalised or affricated productions of /d/ or /t/ before high front vowels and glides (which particularly relevant to the current data because of differing perceptions of this variable in Marseille and elsewhere, as reported in Jamin et al. 2006). Examples of this phenomenon with /t/ and /d/ can be found in the Paris-Marseille CUV corpus in realisations of tise /tiz/ as [tʃiz], tire /tiʁ/ as [tʃiʁ], bâtiment /bɑtimɑ̃/ as [bɑtʃimɑ̃], boutiques /butik/ as [butʃik] and perdu /peʁdy/ as [peʁdʒẙ] among others; • increased use of back [ɑ] where /a/ is expected. The merger between the French low vowel phonemes/a/ and /ɑ/ is known to be at an advanced stage,3 particularly in southern France4 and either [a] or [ɑ] may be used for either. Since a common production of a merged /a~ɑ/ phoneme is centralised, however, even in cases where /ɑ/ would be expected in standard French (as in pâte, ras, bas, mâle), the use of back [ɑ] (or a further backed and raised variant) is potentially a marker of banlieue speech (see Jamin, 2005: 189–211); • interconsonantal vowel devoicing in closed syllables. Fagyal (2010) has examples of devoicing in the words disparu and école. This appears to be a point of difference between speakers of Maghrebi origin and of European origin, who also show vowel devoicing in her data, but in open syllables, which the North-African origin speakers do not; • epithèses consonantiques, addition of sounds resembling fricative consonants after a final (devoiced) vowel, may not be wholly characteristic of banlieue speech, but quite prominent in our data. Fónagy (1989: 247) renders examples of merci and j’ai vu as [mɛʁsiç] and [ʒe vyç], but he is writing about more generalised usage than Fagyal (2010). Previous studies of this phenomenon have suggested a potential role in discourse structuring, noting its most frequent appearance in utterance-final position (Smith, 2003; Fagyal, 2010); • use of [o] for /ɔ/ before /ʁ/ and /l/ as in [lamoʁ̝ʔ], [lapolis] (Hornsby & Jones 2013: 104); • glottalisation of pre-pausal /ʁ/, unvoiced realisation of /ʁ/ in other positions (perhaps Billiez’s (1992) ‘coloration arabe’);

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• insertion of a glottal stop as syllable onset before vowels. This feature only occurs in speakers of North-African origin in Fagyal’s (2010) study e.g. ‘Il n’est jamais ʔarrivé ʔà l’école’). It is noteworthy that in reviewing the major traits of CUV French, both lexical and phonetic, in the literature, we come across a number of studies which touch on ethnic and regional identity, not only in their interpretation but in their design. Because of the nature of the superdiverse context for CUV French, these features have often been connected with contact with languages other than French. Fagyal (2010) suggests that vowel devoicing and elision is more prominent among speakers of Maghrebi origin than others, and non-standard /ʁ/ productions – devoiced or glottalised before a pause – have been said to suggest exposure to Arabic (Billiez 1992). Given the informal registers in which CUV French is found, there is significant overlap between phonological features that occur with high frequency in CUV French, and those that have been noted at lower rates in various low-status French varieties in the past. This is indicative of a continuity with existing français populaire ‘working-class French’, which, as noted above, is the source of some debate in defining and understanding this variety, as well as the various identities which might be ascribed to its users by an outsider group. Designing a Methodology for Testing Perceptions of CUV

Our strand of the MEITS project has as its key themes diversity, identity and social cohesion. In placing the focus of this study of CUV French on the perceptions of outsiders to the group, we can examine the potential practical consequences of using this non-standard variety in the national context of a heavily enforced standard, and understand how the variety fits into the larger linguistic and social story of contemporary France. As outlined above, this chapter addresses the challenge of devising a methodology to investigate perceptions around CUV French of members of wider French society who are not members of the in-group of speakers. In the following sections, we place our research design in the context of other relevant research on perceptions of individual linguistic traits, focusing particularly on the role of the participant rather than the researcher in determining salient features and suggesting social meanings of stimuli. We consider the importance of the researcher’s face-to-face interaction with participants alongside this, and reflect especially on the role of the non-native speaker as fieldworker. Listener-Generated Perceptions

The approach we have designed for our purposes involves a twostage data-collection method – an initial qualitative stage (phase 1)

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and a second quantitative stage (phase 2). One of the key ideals of the design is to avoid using any researcher-led techniques that might influence the listener’s response to the linguistic features. We now presenta number of precedents in perceptual studies whereby perceptions are first supplied by listening participants themselves in response to open-ended questions, before being measured more systematically in a targeted questionnaire-based survey. Tyler’s (2015) ‘uptalk’ study is the first treatment of that phenomenon to work on listener-supplied meanings in a preliminary study, Campbell-Kibler’s (2009) approach to the [-n]/[-ŋ] variable in English providing the methodological basis for his study. In these cases, the first portion of data collection usually sets out with a single linguistic feature, often one which is stigmatised, or stereotyped as carrying a particular social meaning, and elicits listener perceptions based on a number of example clips of that feature in use. For example, Tyler’s (2015) study of ‘uptalk’ (rising intonation in declarative syntax, interpreted as declarative e.g. ‘I got a haircut [RISE]’ (Tyler, 2015: 285)) adopts this method and notes the benefit of the open-ended questioning technique in eliciting responses which allow the researcher to identify the most prominent perceptions of the feature under study among the sample listener group. Matched-guise studies which base questionnaires only on existing accounts of the possible social meaning of a given variable in the literature run the risk of missing meaningful values which may be attributed to it by participants if they are given more freedom to elaborate on their response to a stimulus of the variable under study. Perhaps even more importantly, basing questionnaires on existing accounts runs the risk of pre-determining the social value in question and crucially, of influencing the listener’s response by using particular social categories. Exploratory or preliminary studies which inform the construction of the survey instrument for a matched-guise study therefore allow for the widest possible range of interpretations to be considered, while also providing valuable data for qualitative analysis. Tyler notes that previous studies of the ‘uptalk’ phenomenon have set out with a particular meaning in mind: A commonality of both Guy and Vonwiller’s (1984) and Shokeir’s (2008) studies is that the authors selected which meanings they were interested in exploring. By focusing on meanings like ‘uncertainty’ or ‘confidence,’ we may be missing other meanings or getting a skewed view of the ­relative importance of these meanings. By contrast, this article explores ­listener-supplied meanings. (Tyler, 2015: 287)

In also adopting a broad sense of the term ‘meaning’, Tyler’s preliminary study allows him to address several meaningful values of ‘uptalk’ which may appear concurrently – not only the indexical meanings usually examined in perceptual studies, but also semantic meanings (he mentions the idea of ‘uptalk’ as an ‘intonational adverb’,

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equivalent in meaning to possibly) and pragmatic functions (a discoursestructuring function denoting a speaker’s intention to continue talking, or paradoxically that they have finished speaking). For the purposes of the current study the indexical social meanings are of course the most important since we are interested in the relationship between CUV French and questions of social stereotyping but making use of an openended questioning technique which allows us to capture other types of perceived meaning will allow the most open generation of possible perceptual associations. Unlike Tyler’s uptalk study, or Spini and Trimaille’s (2017) on palatalisation/affrication in Marseille, this study does not set out with a single linguistic feature in mind. Given that the stereotyped, stigmatised speech under study, the parler des banlieues is somewhat illdefined (see the discussion above), one of the important research tasks is to identify its most salient features during this first phase of data collection, with a view to focusing on perceptions of the most salient of those features in the more directed, quantifiable second phase – a matched-guise study. The method adopted aims to have listeners themselves volunteer the features which they perceive as most striking. In order to generate sufficient features, the selection of prompt materials must therefore be more wideranging than was Tyler’s, which only used two ‘stereotypical’ clips of ‘uptalk’. It should ideally include several apparently salient features of banlieue speech (which implicitly suggests multilingual influence), as identified in the literature, and summarised above. The promptclips chosen for the focus groups present a number of these features, almost unavoidably presenting several in the same clip. It is important, in terms of perceptions of identity, that none of the lexical or semantic content be overtly related to identity; that is, none of the content of the selected extracts should include lexically distinctive material or refer to (stereotypically) banlieue concerns. No lexical material in the promptclips should, for example, overtly situate the speakers in a particular region – so placenames should be avoided, or in a particular socioeconomic class – so references to work should be avoided where possible. Lexical items which specifically place speakers in the city should also be avoided – such as cité ‘housing estate’, references to public transport, and even quartier ‘area’, since this may refer to specific city zones. The most marked and emblematic lexical items – those produced by verlan, and the pragmatic markers crari and wesh (McAuley, 2017), are too readily identified with the banlieues to allow us to probe for further possible social meanings. Any reference to migration and multilingual competence should also be avoided, since the aim is for listeners to express such impressions based on the form rather than the content of speakers’ utterances. References to the civil unrest or delinquency

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that feature in the public imaginary of the banlieues should be avoided for similar reasons. Phase One: Focus Group Fieldwork Design

Two approaches have proven effective toward this kind of preliminary qualitative study that aims to elicit listener-generated perceptions. The first is to devise an online questionnaire, in which participants are presented with audio clips and asked to respond to a number of open-ended questions about the feature under study. For example, Tyler’s (2015) respondents were recruited through the Amazon Mechanical Turk microworking service, which provided a large number of respondents quite quickly. There does not appear to be a widely used Francophone equivalent to this platform. Moreover, the researcher appears to have rather little control over the type of respondents who choose to participate, but can use a subsample selected to fit a particular sampling requirement. Campbell-Kibler’s (2009) study of , by contrast, used focus groups for this preliminary stage of data collection in her work, a method which lends itself well to the requirements of the current study. Given that we need to test a relatively wide range of features, probing the salience of each feature, the volume of information required is much larger than was the case for Tyler’s study, and respondents may find that the necessary questionnaire is too time-consuming and less engaging than a group conversation. Moreover, there is a certain inflexibility in the questionnaire which does not allow for a more in-depth exploration of issues raised by listeners. Crucially, since the study is interested in a range of potentially pertinent features, an oral data-collection method is necessary, since respondents are likely to attempt to replicate the distinctive elements of speakers’ productions rather than describe them in phonetic terms, and only the possibility of discussion could tease out what a listener is trying to say. For this initial stage, recording sessions of approximately one hour in duration were undertaken for the focus groups in this study. The sessions were based on a number of clips (two per linguistic feature) of different speakers making use of the features listed above. All clips were taken directly from the Paris-Marseille CUV corpus recordings. The initial part of the Focus Group discussion avoided, as Campbell-Kibler’s focus groups did, a concentration on language use and sought to elicit more generic reactions to each speaker. Participants were asked to create a mental image of the speaker of each clip and to jot down these first impressions on a handout supplied by the researcher. A written response was sought at this stage prior to group discussion in order to elicit an individual response from each speaker at a point where they could not have been influenced by other group members.

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After this brief written element (Focus Group (FG) part 1), responses were collected, to be discussed orally (FG part 2), so that the fieldworker would be in a position to feed responses back into a second wave of questioning which would concentrate on overtly connecting linguistic features to perceived identities and characteristics (FG part 3). FG part 2’s oral group discussion allowed participants to elaborate on their perceptions of the speakers, which provided a recorded set of data that could inform a qualitative analysis of particular features. In both parts 1 and 2 of the focus groups, the intention was both to generate qualitative data and to elicit descriptors of the speakers’ perceived identities and personal characteristics. The final part of the discussion (FG part 3) sought overtly to connect these participant-volunteered descriptors with specific features of language use. Clips were played through again, and the fieldworker asked questions after each, making reference to the descriptors elicited during parts 1 and 2. Follow-up questions in this section referred openly to features of usage, connecting them openly to the previously elicited qualities/identities e.g. • ‘Some of you said that this speaker seemed aggressive, what was it about their speech that made you think that?’ • ‘You’ve said that this person is young – what makes them sound young?’ • ‘We thought that this person was from Marseille – why Marseille in particular?’ This section was more probing and had participants directly link their perceptions about speakers to speakers’ language use. All focus groups were conducted through French, a language shared by all participants and the fieldworker. This fieldwork design requires a reactive and responsive fieldworker, so proficiency in the language in which the groups are conducted is very important – we will return to this point in our critical review of the methodology – since the fieldworker takes quite an active role in eliciting this data, their place in the interaction and their language proficiency is of central concern to this design. A pilot of this fieldwork methodology was carried out with a small group of native French speakers in Belfast before fieldwork in France was undertaken to ensure that it would be effective in eliciting the appropriate type of perceptions of the particular social and personal characteristics of speakers. Initially FG part 1 had involved a more elaborate set of questions for each clip, designed with reference to Tyler’s questions but geared more towards the research aims of this project, and asked in French. The planned questions were: • What are your three first impressions of this speaker? • What can you tell about this speaker’s identity?

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• • • •

What three personal characteristics would you attribute to this speaker? Where do you think this speaker comes from? Do you think this speaker lives in a city or in the country? Do you think French is this speaker’s native language?

The pilot showed that these questions were both too cumbersome to answer for each sample clip and somewhat restrictive since they caused participants to focus on region, the urban–rural divide and speakers’ language backgrounds, which although central to the research aims of the project, were better probed in FG parts 2 and 3. The choice to have participants instead write down their description of their mental image of the speaker for each clip allowed for broader responses, potentially giving access to a wider range of social meanings for the individual clips and the variety as a whole. Phase one: Focus group sample

Campbell-Kibler’s (2009) study used 55 participants and Tyler’s (2015) 40. The ideal sample for this study would be of around the same size, i.e. 40–50 participants, in order to achieve a reasonably balanced sample. To this end, the focus group participant sample was stratified for age (younger and older, with a clear gap between groups), region (Northern and Southern), gender (male and female) and comprising speakers from both rural and urban communities. Although clearly not permitting an extensive quantitative survey, this would allow for some participant variables to be tested. No tests would be made at the smallest cell size, however, since participant numbers in groups of, for example, younger urban males in the Paris region and older rural females in the Marseille region, would not be sufficient to support defensible analysis. Larger oppositions would rather be the focus of investigation e.g. northern vs southern, urban vs rural, younger females vs older females. Speakers in the corpus from which the extracts are drawn are from the Paris and Marseille regions and for this reason, the regions in which the focus groups are carried out are of particular importance. There are suggestions that particular features of contemporary urban French are perceived differently by listeners in different regions. In particular, palatalisation in Marseille is understood to be indicative of NorthAfrican ethnicity, whereas elsewhere it is not (Jamin et al., 2006). For this reason it was judged prudent to include participants in the focus groups who are from the Paris and Marseille regions, and also from other areas in northern and southern France, crossing the oïl–oc substratum divide, in order to understand more fully the role of this apparent regional specificity in perceptions as well as having representation from a variety of regions of France.

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A total of 48 listeners, i.e. 12 groups of four participants, represent the ideal sample form the basis of this study, with three recording sessions each conducted in regions surrounding Paris, Marseille and two other urban centres in northern and in southern France, Orléans and Toulouse. It was intended that two groups in each region should beconvened: one with participants from urban communities and one with participants from rural communities. Table 7.1 represents the planned composition of the focus groups: Table 7.1  Composition of focus groups Session name Marseille 1 (Younger)

Male

Female

Total

2

2

4

Marseille 2 (Older)

2

2

4

Marseille 3 (Rural)

2 (1O, 1Y)

2 (1O, 1Y)

4

Paris 1 (Younger)

2

2

4

Paris 2 (Older)

2

2

4

Paris 3 (Mixed)

2 (1O, 1Y)

2 (1O, 1Y)

4

2

2

4

Toulouse 1 (Younger) Toulouse 2 (Older)

2

2

4

Toulouse 3 (Rural)

2 (1O, 1Y)

2 (1O, 1Y)

4

2

2

4 4

Orléans 1 (Younger) Orléans 2 (Older)

2

2

Orléans 3 (Rural)

2 (1O, 1Y)

2 (1O, 1Y)

4

24

24

48

This sample design gives balanced regional distribution (a 24:24 North-South split), and aims at equal distribution in gender and age, but favours urban over rural (36 urban: 12 rural participants), since there are more urban than rural dwellers in society more broadly. The practicalities of getting together some groups prevented such exact sampling, and the realities of mobility across participants’ lifespans actually made it the case that easy binary distinctions between northern and southern, rural and urban did not fit particularly well with participants’ experience. In practice, these categorisations were made based on the locations in which participants spent the majority of their childhoods, but their actual experience of mobility across regional boundaries often allowed for a more nuanced consideration of the social meanings of accent features in the group discussions, since they may have had extensive exposure to regional features and regionally specific social meanings outside of their region of origin. Although the potentially pertinent social class variable is not targeted in this design (since it would become overly cumbersome and limit the practicability of the study), information on speakers’ professions were sought in a background questionnaire.

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In reality, our focus on group interaction made it difficult to pull together enough participants to fill this sampling frame. We realised that the urban–rural and northern–southern binary divides did not hold particularly well (a point we shall return to later), and ended up with a set of seven focus groups of between 3 and 6 participants each and a total of 22 participants representing a range of socioeconomic and regional backgrounds, as well as varying experiences of life in rural and urban areas. The final sample was composed of 13 female and 9 male participants; 13 participants aged under 30 and 9 over and, although all participants showed some mobility across regions, we can say that 7 participants spent their whole childhood in the northern half of France, 11 in the Southern half and 4 crossed the oc–oïl substratum divide during their childhood. Participants were asked for a number of pertinent background details in the form of a written questionnaire, to be completed at the end of the recording session on the same handout as would be used for the ‘first impression’ responses (FG part 1). These included: age, gender, participants’ backgrounds of migration (regional and international), their self-reported knowledge and use of languages other than French, along with their professions, which could then be attributed INSEE codes (a classification proposed by the French National Statistics Institute) to establish socioeconomic status. This preliminary focus group study has two primary aims. The first is to establish which features of banlieue speech are most clearly perceived as such by the general French population; the second is to identify participants’ self-supplied descriptors of the speakers that produce these features, so that these can be used to develop a detailed questionnaire (modelled after Campbell-Kibler’s (2009: 155–156)) to be used in a matched-guise study of the most salient features. Phase two: Matched-guise tests

On the basis of the focus group data, the features which appear to be most pertinent in identifying CUV French form the basis of a matchedguise study, essentially a questionnaire for use with specific social groups. The same clips as used for the focus groups were manipulated electronically so that two versions exist – one displaying the feature under study, the other with that feature replaced by a ‘standard’ production. The majority of these were spliced in from elsewhere in the recording of that same speaker, but other manipulation techniques were also used (altering pitch for example). Following Tyler, a ‘naturalness’ rating was added to the matched-guise questionnaire in order to account statistically during data analysis for the fact that one guise has been manipulated. Participants in the study are presented with one or other guise of these clips (but not both) and asked to fill out a questionnaire

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about each clip (using at least two for each feature if several features are being tested) and to provide the same participant background data as sought in the focus group study. Responses to that questionnaire can then be used to provide quantitative analyses for the project research questions. The matched-guise study differs in its sampling technique, in that it aims to draw participants from specific professions representing our ‘establishment figures’ – ideally police officers, gatekeepers to employment etc., that is, people whose perceptions of speech might result in tangible consequences for CUV French speakers. The target groups are therefore deliberately different in the focus group and matched-guise studies. The first is a more general study with a qualitative focus that targets a general population in a small sample, while the matched-guise questionnaire can be more widely distributed, gathering data from a general populationbut including samples from our more targeted subgroups. Following Campbell-Kibler’s model, it was thought advisable to give respondents to the matched-guise test the opportunity to offer further suggestions so that group-specific perceptions that are not represented in the ‘general population’ survey can be volunteered at the matched-guise stage. A critical appraisal of the methodology

In this chapter we have so far concentrated on the challenges of designing a research project that deals with a contact-influenced variety of a major world language, suggesting that its use carries some identifiable social meanings for both users and non-users of the variety. We have suggested that to do so, it is important to open possibilities for participants to provide detail on the perceptions they have, to give them opportunities to make connections between speech and social meanings across different features of the variety in a way that does not necessarily connect a single trait with a single social meaning. In the design of the focus groups, we have also allowed space for negotiation among participants, which encourages participants to justify and temper their responses in dialogue with others like them, who have listened to the same prompt clips, offering a more nuanced understanding of their perceptions for our study. In this final section, we appraise the method we have adopted with a critical eye in order to suggest possible improvements for similar future studies and consider some of the perhaps unconscious choices that researching through and across languages and varieties may bring about. We noted earlier that participant background information included personal histories of migration and knowledge and use of languages other than French, intended to mirror the data collected for speakers in the Paris-Marseille CUV corpus. That data gives an interesting insight into the characteristics of our non-CUV-user participant group. Where

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the design set out to classify speakers as urban or rural, southern or northern, we found that among our participants those categorisations were not straightforward. Participants were often nationally and internationally mobile through their lifetimes; they often had experience of living both rurally and in urban settings. In short, their individual experiences, and their exposure to different situations across their lifespans, even within their daily activities, often made it difficult to classify them as listeners belonging to either side of a binary urban– rural, or in some cases northern–southern divide. It is important to remember that urban areas are not the only sites of contact, and that participants who live rurally, may have or have had working lives in large urban areas. They may have lived significant periods of their lives in cities or out of cities, and in order to account for this variety of experience, it may be useful to have participants self-report as urban or rural, perhaps on a continuous scale. It is also important to think of participants’ interactions with urban life.5 As discussed in our contextualisation of the banlieues, many major French urban zones have a spatial arrangement that gives inhabitants very different experiences according to where they find themselves in the city. In our role as multilingual researchers in the city, it is central to our method to consider how language fits into that space – how the multilingualism of our suburban speakers relates to that of residents of city centres and of the listeners in our perception study. While the speaker metadata for our banlieue speakers does show a connection with their family histories of international migration, with some speakers reporting daily use of one or more languages other than French in the home or with family in their area or elsewhere, the pattern of multilingualism that we find among the listeners is on the whole more limited, and more singular in function. Few listeners reported regular use of any language other than French, and when they did, it was less often related to family histories of migration than to sporadic use of Western European languages, particularly English in a professional context. This may partly relate to a difference in ages, since our Paris-Marseille CUV speakers were still at school and our listeners were all either employed, retired, or in higher education, but it does suggest a functional difference in uses of languages other than French between these groups, or perhaps a reticence on the part of the listener group to report use of languages other than French and those that carry international prestige. Given that this research centres on perceptions of accent features, and that a convenor was necessary to guide discussion in the focus groups, the question of our own process of working multilingually is of importance to the outcomes of the research. Firstly, we as researchers must be sufficiently aware of potential sites of meaningful deviation from listener expectations in CUV French, which may be less salient to us as non-native speakers of French than might be the case for native French

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researchers. We therefore chose to rely heavily on existing research in the area to define pertinent traits and identify them in our data. We also ran a pilot with native speakers with samples including a broad range of features to ensure that we would give as wide a basis for commentary as possible to listeners in a limited time. We are also conscious in this design of the mutable nature of assocations between features of speech and social categories (Eckert, 2012), and the potential for combinations of features to encourage a particular reading, which is why we have drawn on authentic clips of speech featuring several possibly socially significant features in each. In working with a contact-influenced variety, there is always a tension between familiarity with the languages from which features originate and understanding of their place in the recipient language. We may ask ourselves, for example, if claims of a ‘coloration arabe’, an Arabic quality, in /r/ realisations (Billiez, 1992) reflect the reality of Arabic–French bilingualism and transfer, or if /d/ and /t/ palatalisation is so markedly more prominent in contact languages that contact should be seen as the likely source for such realisations in CUV French rather than a language-internal development. In a variety with such diverse linguistic influence, we cannot ourselves hope to master all contact languages, so we must rely on the experience of participants themselves and previous study to support our understanding of the variety. In running focus groups for the current study, we have experienced a benefit of researching through a second language: the fieldworker’s non-native accented speech was not subject in the same way to social judgement on the part of our listeners as a native researcher’s may be. Certainly, it also carries social meaning: foreign-accented speech immediately casts the fieldworker in the role of interested, informed outsider and participants as expert insiders. It is quite possible that some participants in our study were more explicit in their explanations of their readings of the social meanings of the recorded speech with us than with a native speaker of French, because there was less of a tacit understanding of shared cultural experience – all of which contributes to the level of nuance that we sought to provoke in our study. The dynamics of the interaction between fieldworker and participants are therefore levelled, even reversed to an extent, in terms of power relations. In this research design we have sought to foster an environment that would allow for the greatest possible variety of perceptions at an initial stage, based on a small sample of participants. We have set up group interactions in an effort to record negotiated and justified explanations for these social inferences, which would inform the design of a larger-scale questionnaire based study. What the experience of the focus group stage has given us, is an appreciation for the capacity for individual perceptions to bring new insights into how indexical features may combine or conflict, and a recognition of the importance of the opportunity for participants in the matched-guise study to be able to add

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to the possible interpretations suggested by the focus group stage. This design allows for us to capture nuance while minimising researcher input, but also to produce sufficient data for a defensible quantitative study of the social meanings of this contact-influenced variety. Notes (1) The authors would like to acknowledge funding from the AHRC for the research contained in this chapter, which was funded as part of the MEITS project: PI Wendy Ayres-Bennett, AH/N004671/1. (2) https://france3-regions.blog.francetvinfo.fr/le-blog-de-viure-al-pais-france3/2017/05/05/ emmanuel-macron-repond-aux-occitans-sur-la-question-des-langues-regionales.html (accessed December 2019). (3) ‘The existence of two types of a in the metropolitan French vowel inventory can no longer be assumed’ (Berns, 2015: 334). (4) ‘The back /ɑ/ is completely absent from F[rançais de] M[arseille]’ (Coquillon & Turcsan 2012: 110). (5) In practice, we noted all metadata about members of the focus groups so that our analysis would not be limited by binary divides but we based any classifications on where speakers had spent the majority of their childhood, as outlined above.

References Armstrong, N. and Jamin, M. (2002) Le français des banlieues: Uniformity and discontinuity in the French of the hexagon. In K. Sahli (ed.) French In and Out of France: Language Policies, Intercultural Antagonisms and Dialogues. Bern: Peter Lang. Bachmann, C. and Basier, L. (1984) Le verlan: Argot d’école ou langue des Keums? Mots. Les Langages du Politique 8 (1), 169–187. Bande de filles (2014) [Film] Céline Sciamma dir. France: Hold Up Films. Berns, J. (2015) Merging low vowels in metropolitan French. Journal of French Language Studies 25 (3), 317–338. Billiez, J. (1992) Le parler véhiculaire interethnique de groupes d’adolescents en milieu urbain. Des langues et des villes. Paris: Didier Érudition. Blommaert, J. (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boyer, H. (1997) «Nouveau français», «parler jeune» ou «langue des cités»?: Remarques sur un objet linguistique médiatiquement identifié. Langue Française, 6–15. Calvet, L.-J. (1994) Les Voix de la Ville: Introduction à la Sociolinguistique Urbaine. Paris: Payot. Campbell-Kibler, K. (2009) The nature of sociolinguistic perception. Language Variation and Change 21, 135–156.  Canagarajah, S. (ed.) (2017) The Routledge Handbook of Migration and Language. London: Routledge. Candea, M. (2017) La notion d’«accent de banlieue» à l’épreuve du terrain. Glottopol 29, 13–26. Cheshire, J., Kerswill, P., Fox, S. and Torgersen, E. (2011) Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of multicultural London English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (2), 151–196. Cheshire, J., Nortier, J. and Adger, D. (2015) Emerging multiethnolects in Europe. Queen Mary’s Occasional Papers Advancing Linguistics 33, 1–27. Coquillon, A. and Turcsan, G. (2012) An overview of the phonological and phonetic properties of Southern French. In R. Gess, C. Lyche and T. Meisenburg (eds) Phonological Variation in French: Illustrations from Three Continents. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Divines (2016) [Film] Houda Benyamina dir. France: Easy Tiger.

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Eckert, P. (2012) Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology 41, 87–100. Escafré-Dublet, A. (2014) Mainstreaming Immigrant Integration Policy in France. Education, Employment and Social Cohesion Initiatives. A report for the Migration Policy Institute, Europe. Fagyal, Z. (2010) Accents de Banlieue.  Aspects Prosodiques du Français Populaire en Contact avec les Langues de l’Immigration. Paris: L’Harmattan. Fónagy, I. (1989) Le français change de visage? Revue Romane 24, 225–253.  Gadet, F. (ed.) (2017) Les Parlers Jeunes dans l’Île de France Multiculturelle. Paris: Ophrys. Gogolin, I. (1997) The ‘monolingual habitus’ as the common feature in teaching in the language of the majority in different countries. Per Linguam 13 (2), 38–49. Goudaillier, J.-P. (2001) Comment tu Tchatches!: Dictionnaire du Français Contemporain des Cités. Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose. Goudailler, J.-P. (2002) De l’argot traditionnel au français contemporain des cités. La linguistique 38 (1), 5–24. Hagège, C. (1987) Le Français et les Siècles. Paris: Odile Jacob. Hambye, P. and Gadet, F. (2014) Contact and ethnicity in ‘youth language’ description: In search of specificity. In R. Nicolai (ed.) Questioning Language Contact: Limits of Contact, Contact at its Limits, Brill: Leiden. Hornsby, D. and Jones, M.C. (2013) Exception française? Levelling, exclusion, and urban social structure in France. In M.C. Jones and D. Hornsby (eds) Language and Social Structure in Urban France. Cambridge: Legenda. Jamin, M. (2005) Sociolinguistic variation in the Paris banlieues. PhD thesis, University of Kent. Jamin, M., Trimaille, C. and Gasquet-Cyrus, M. (2006) De la convergence dans la divergence: Le cas des quartiers pluri-ethniques en France. Journal of French Language Studies 16 (3), 335–356. Kerswill, P. (2014) The objectification of ‘Jafaican’: The discoursal embedding of Multicultural London English in the British media. Mediatization and Sociolinguistic Change 428–455. L’Esquive (2003) [Film] Abdellatif Kechiche dir. France: Lola Films. La Haine (1995) [Film] Mathieu Kassovitz dir. France: Canal+. Le Point (2019) Marseille: Règlement de comptes mortel dans les quartiers nord. News item. 13 March. Seehttps://www.lepoint.fr/faits-divers/marseille-reglement-de-comptesmortel-dans-les-quartiers-nord-13-03-2019-2300438_2627.php (accessed March 2019). McAuley, D. (2017) L’innovation lexicale chez les jeunes des quartiers urbains pluriethniques: « c’est banal, ouèche ». In M. Bilger, L. Buscail and F. Mignon (eds) Langue Française Mise en Relief: Aspects Grammaticaux et Discursifs. Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de Perpignan Milani, T.M. (2010) What’s in a name? Language ideology and social differentiation in a Swedish print-mediated debate. Journal of Sociolinguistics 14 (1), 116–142. Mooney, D. (2016) Southern Regional French: A Linguistic Analysis of Language and Dialect Contact. Oxford: Legenda. Paternostro, R. (2016) Diversité des Accents et Enseignement du Français: Les Parlers Jeunes en Région Parisienne. Paris: L’Harmattan. Rampton, B. (2011) From ‘multi-ethnic adolescent heteroglossia’ to ‘contemporary urban vernaculars’. Language & Communication 31 (4), 276–294. Secova, M., Gardner-Chloros, P. and Atangana, F. (2018) ‘Il parle normal, il parle comme nous’: Self-reported usage and attitudes in a banlieue. Journal of French Language Studies 28 (2), 235–263.  Smith, C. (2003) Vowel devoicing in contemporary French. Journal of French Language Studies 13, 177–194. Spini, M. and Trimaille, C. (2017) Les significations sociales de la palatalisation/affrication à Marseille: Processus ségrégatifs et changement linguistique. Langage et Société 162 (4), 53–78.

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Tengour, A. (2013) Tout l’Argot des Banlieues: Le Dictionnaire de la Zone en 2600 Définitions. Les Éditions de l’Opportun. Tyler, J. (2015) Expanding and mapping the indexical field: Rising pitch, the uptalk stereotype, and perceptual variation. Journal of English Linguistics 43 (4), 284–310. Véronique, P. (2018) Marseille: Un jeune homme tué par balles dans un règlement de comptes. News item. 8 September. Seehttps://www.rtl.fr/actu/justice-faits-divers/ marseille-un-jeune-homme-tue-par-balles-dans-un-reglement-de-comptes-7794706258 (access March 2019). Wiese, H. (2015) ‘This migrants’ babble is not a German dialect!’: The interaction of standard language ideology and ‘us’/‘them’dichotomies in the public discourse on a multiethnolect. Language in Society 44 (3), 341–368.

8 Exploring Multilingualism in Urban Border Areas: The City of Tijuana Alfredo Escandón

Introduction

Researching language in urban border zones entails challenges of a diverse nature that I will explore in this chapter. Most populated borders are characterized by cross-border flows of goods, services, capital and, more importantly for sociolinguistic research, of people, whose linguistic practices reflect the effects of language contact, the historical product of social forces (Sankoff, 2013: 502). In this chapter, I will present the context in which I have framed my study in the area of border studies and the relevant theories that have helped me develop it. First, I will discuss these key relevant theoretical concepts, including, border studies, translanguaging and linguistic landscape studies as they buttress my research, as well as ethnography and critical discourse analysis methodologies. Then I will continue with a discussion of the US-Mexico border and the diversity found in Tijuana and its linguistic landscape, presenting some of the findings of my research. The observations I include here derive from a five-year-long study of the linguistic landscape and linguistic practices in Tijuana, a major Mexican border city characterized by intense migratory and labour market flows. This city, along with San Diego, is part of the so-called ‘Cali Baja Binational Mega-Region’, one of the world’s largest transborder agglomerations comprising two contiguous states, namely (US) California and (Mexican) Baja California. A considerable part of this populous conurbation is made up of (trans)border commuters who cross the border, many for work. These people divide their time between the United States and Mexico for an array of reasons that range from family ties, shopping and tourism to education and work. In addition to its permanent population, Tijuana has significant migration from other parts of Mexico, with a sizeable floating population composed of more than 54,000 deportees, and migrants who see Tijuana as a transit point 183

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(Instituto Metropolitano de Planeación de Tijuana, 2012: 5); the city also has a large US-born population and other nationals, as I will indicate below. Theoretical Framework: Border Studies, Translanguaging and Linguistic Landscape Studies Border studies: Borders and boundaries

The aim of my research is to contribute to existing urban border studies by investigating linguistic practices on the Mexican side of the border as evidenced by Tijuana’s linguistic landscape. The language contact with English found in this area has been little studied despite the fact, for example, that some transnational indigenous migrants use English in their communities when they return from the United States (Flores-Farfán, 2008: 33), or that Tijuana has a large population of binational commuters, and US expatriates. Since the geographical locus of this study is a border city, here, I will discuss borders and transnational phenomena pertaining to urban contexts. Once the focus of geography, border studies now include the study of territorial, geophysical, political, cultural borders and, relevant to the topic here, linguistic borders.1 In other words, borders and boundaries are not only spatial, i.e. geographical, and political, but also of a social and cultural nature. It is this metaphorical nature that can relate to the understanding and expression of identities in the investigation of hybridity, ­ creolization, multiculturalism and postcolonialism among other central concerns (Wilson & Donnan, 2012: 2). Wilson and Donnan explain the complexity of current border studies with the adjective ‘new’ attached to liberties, movements, mobilities, identities, citizenships and forms of capital, labor and consumption (2012: 2). Borders can be linguistically and ideologically charged, and not only ‘demarcate otherness but stipulate the manner in which otherness is maintained and reproduced’ (McLaren, 1994: 67). Moreover, borders foreground and thematize difference (Meinhof, 2001: 3; Meinhof & Galasiński, 2002: 63). People on either side of the border may look at alterity without being part of it (Meinhof & Galasiński, 2002; Galasińska & Galasiński, 2005: 511). Boundaries can also signify belonging (Romo & Márquez, 2010: 217–218) and remind us of the limits of nation making and the nation state. Some authors establish a difference between geopolitical lines or boundaries, and borders. Whereas boundaries or boundary lines are legal spatial delimitations of nations, borders (of nations) or border areas are broad geographical, indistinct and fluctuating cultural zones or spaces, which can vary independently of formal boundaries as they overlap the nation states involved (Kearny, 1998: 118): unlike the borderline, the border region lacks precise boundaries (Hidalgo, 1995: 6).

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The boundaries that regulate behavior within borderlands are, like the latter, context dependent, and are by no means ‘the neat, linear divisions’ on a map as they include both zones of mixing and of separation on either side (Muldoon, 2003: 4, cited in Schryver, 2010: 133), and are fluid, porous and continually ‘negotiated and renegotiated between the various communities living in the borderland’ (Schryver, 2010: 133). Social and cultural boundaries are in reality the product of a group’s customs, habits and mores – things that do not necessarily change with geographical relocation (Schryver, 2010: 134). This complexity is further illustrated by Wilson and Donnan, who stress the existing tension between the fixed, durable and inflexible requirements of national boundaries and the unstable, transient and flexible requirements of people (Wilson & Donnan, 1998: 9). Along the US-Mexico border, language, for instance, is not restricted to the confines of each nation state, e.g. Mexican Spanish is spoken on both sides of the border by millions of speakers (United States Census Bureau, 2017). As discussed in many of the chapters of this volume, this confirms current approaches that treat language as a mobile resource no longer confined to a space-bound community (e.g. Blommaert, 2010; Blommaert & Rampton, 2011). As discussed earlier (Mar-Molinero, this volume) this is what Jacquemet calls transidiomatic practices to describe the communicative practices of transnational groups that interact using different languages and communicative codes simultaneously present in a range of communicative channels, both local and distant (2005: 264–265)

and they are the results of the co-presence of multilingual talk and electronic media, in contexts structured by social indexicalities and semiotic codes (Jacquemet, 2005: 265). In her fieldwork researching national and European identities Meinhof (2004: 216) found ‘a fluid but non consistent construction of multiple identities [...] composed, with varying content, from different sociopolitical layers – local, regional, national, and transnational’. Since the 1970s Tijuana has been seen as a locus of hybridity (García-Canclini, 2001: 233–239; Griffin & Ford, 1976: 435; Valencia, 2010) as a result of cultural and economic interaction that reshape cultural values, attitudes and preferences. According to García-Canclini, what separates and joins Tijuanans is their relationship with the border as exemplified by middle-class students who call the border ‘la línea’ ([the [border] line) and who state that they ‘van al otro lado’ (cross the border) for shopping, sightseeing or on vacation (García-Canclini & Safa, 1989: 47). These locals belong to a privileged group (around 50% of all Tijuanans) who can cross the border legally. In Figure 8.1 below, for example, we see a business sign

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Figure 8.12  A shop exhibiting translanguaging through its signs

that reads ‘pa’ la línea’, a phrase used locally to refer to the United States. Practices that take place along the border lead to linguistic changes in the Spanish spoken by the local population. But because these practices are of a diverse nature, they influence other realms of daily life. An example of how Tijuanans are culturally different from people in other parts of Mexico is the fact that they have celebrated Halloween for decades with various adaptations including the phrase ‘tricky tricky’ [ˈtɾiki.ˈtɾiki] for ‘trick or treat’ [tɻɪk.ɔɻ .tɻit] instead of the Day of the Dead, which is the traditional Mexican celebration. Also since half of Tijuanans are bordercrossers they sometimes know California even better than they do Mexico. As such, they are part of contemporary transnationalism, which ‘implies a multiplicity of involvements that transmigrants sustain in both countries’ (Basch et al., 1994: 8). In this regard, the term transnational has two meanings. One refers to individuals and communities spanning national borders. In this sense transnationalism is ‘the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement’ (Basch et al., 1994: 8). The second sense of transnationalism concerns political, social and cultural practices whereby citizens of a nation-state – in this case Mexican nationals – construct social forms and identities that in part escape from the cultural and political hegemony of the Mexican nation-state by residing outside of Mexican territory or otherwise surpass or minimize its power to control and form identity (Kearney, 2000: 174–175). For some researchers, ‘transmigrants’ are immigrants who develop subjectivities and identities embedded in networks of ‘multiple relationships – familial, economic, social, organizational, religious, and political – that span borders’ (Basch et al., 1994: 8). As mentioned above, Figure 8.1 shows a shop sign diplaying the text ‘pa la linea’, translated as ‘toward/bound for/to the border’. Both phrases

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‘la linea’ and ‘el otro lado’ are part of Tijuanans’ linguistic repertoire, who use them in various collocations (andar, cruzar, estar, estudiar, ir, trabajar, vivir, etc) as in ‘cruzar la línea’ (‘to cross the border’) and ‘ir para el otro lado’ (‘to go to the States’) among many combinations. Evidently, nouns used internationally such as ‘linea’ and ‘lado’ take on a new deictic dimension and only make sense to Tijuanans who live in a reality where otherness is marked by geopolitical lines. Translanguaging

Building on discussions in earlier chapters in this volume (see Mar-Molinero; Bradley & Simpson; Paffey, this volume) I understand translanguaging to include the language practices of bilingual people (García, 2012: 1) and nowadays the term is also used to ‘describe the usual and normal practice of ‘bilingualism without diglossic functional separation’ (Baker, 2003: 72; García, 2007: xiii). Prior to the growing general acceptance of the term translanguaging, the languages spoken by bilinguals were viewed by linguists as separate systems, and the mixing of those systems labeled, as ‘interference’, ‘borrowing‘, ‘codeswitching’, ‘vulgarisms’ or even ‘pollution’ among other terms. Instead, translanguaging is viewed ‘as one linguistic repertoire with features that have been societally constructed as belonging to two separate languages’ (García & Wei, 2014: 2). However, there is also a growing discussion of the fluidity of codes, and such codes are perhaps better described from an ideological perspective than from a linguistic one (Bailey, 2007; Creese & Blackledge, 2010). Translanguaging then appears as a relatively new approach to multilingualism that ‘tries to capture flexible and dynamic multilingual practices’ not only in interaction but also in physical landscapes; as such, translanguaging can be applied to ‘foreground the co-occurrence of different linguistic forms, signs and modalities’ (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015: 56) as can be seen in Tijuana’s linguistic landscape where registers belonging to different Mexican dialects and linguistic contact with English co-occur. Linguistic landscapes

Even though it can be argued that linguistic landscapes are as old as writing (Coulmas, 2008: 13), we have witnessed the development of sociolinguistic studies related to linguistic landscapes in the past three decades. As Paffey has discussed in Chapter 4 of this volume, this notion refers to ‘the visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region’ (Landry & Bourhis, 1997: 23) or more specifically to how ‘the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs,

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and public signs on government buildings combines’ (Landry & Bourhis, 1997: 25). Similarly, Blommaert (2013: 1) defines it as ‘the presence of publicly visible bits of written language’ that include ‘billboards, road and safety signs, shop signs, graffiti and all sorts of other inscriptions in the public space’, be it rural or urban. As the number of linguistic tokens is especially high in shopping areas of cities, ‘linguistic cityscape’ is also employed to describe such areas (Gorter, 2006: 2). Written language attests the presence of a ‘wide variety of (linguistically identifiable) groups of people’ who live in multilingual environments not only in large metropolitan areas like London, Paris or New York City, but also in smaller cities like Tijuana and San Diego. In Tijuana, for instance, we can see billboards, road and shop signs in both English and Spanish and shop signs in Korean, Japanese and Chinese to name a few languages with such a presence. In Valle Verde, one of Tijuana’s working-class neighborhoods with a strong Mixtec presence, an elementary school bears its name in Mixtec (Ve’e Saa Kua’a) and in Spanish (La Casa de la Enseñanza), roughly translated as ‘The House of Teaching’; it is a place where the languages of instruction are Spanish, Mixtec, Purépecha and Nahuatl, each language representing the demographics found in the area. Studying the linguistic landscape expands the range of sociolinguistic description from people to the spaces they dwell in (Blommaert, 2013: 1). It is also a tangible indicator of language contact, and may serve important informational and symbolic functions as a marker of the relative power and status of the linguistic communities inhabiting the area as Landry and Bourhis (1997: 23) propose. Ever since Landry’s and Bourhis’ (1997) groundbreaking article, new studies have confirmed that the correlation between a language’s visibility in public space and its vitality, between its communicatives currency and an active presence, is empirically no longer evident in the face of globalized and increasingly complex landscapes (Vandenbroucke, 2015). This is evidenced by the global push of English and of other languages spoken by tourists with purchasing power, e.g. Chinese and Japanese signs on Tijuana’s Avenida Revolución: these signs reflect not only language policy but also commercial interests (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015: 70). According to Gorter and Cenoz (2015: 70) translanguaging, as a dynamic concept or approach, makes it possible to propose that the linguistic landscape has come to be viewed as a multilingual and multimodal repertoire used as a communication tool to appeal to passersby, and also allows us to link multilingualism in the linguistic landscape to the communication practices among multilinguals. By employing this approach, we can go beyond single signs and separate languages to consider the landscape as part of the speakers’ repertoires. Gorter and Cenoz also propose to take translanguaging beyond the individual level to that of the neighborhood or larger areas as in the study of the linguistic landscape of Prenzlauer Berg, a newly gentrified area in East Berlin, conducted by Papen (2012) or the

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one by Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) in Israel. The neighborhood as a level of analysis, thus can be used ‘as an instrument for pointing to social change’ (Blommaert, 2013; Gorter & Cenoz, 2015: 70) as it allows us to uncover social realities, and informs us of the character, composition and status of neighbourhoods, and relations between groups, the public authority and the civil society (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006: 9). Some researchers like Papen (2012: 56) even go as far as to affirm that the linguistic landscape reflects and even shapes social change and urban development. Additionally, Gorter and Cenoz (2015) remind us that just because the signs in the linguistic landscape appear to be static and passive they should not be understood as such; on the contrary, they should be seen as dynamic and interactive not only because they are not permanent and change over different time spans but also because readers and onlookers interact with what they read and see, and also because the signs reflect various changes that occur in the city where they are displayed. In sum, people’s linguistic practices ‘imprint themselves in the shaping and reshaping of the LL’ (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006: 9). The US-Mexico border

Present-day Mexico is a post-colonial nation that first was a Spanish colony for nearly three centuries. Then, as a newly independent state, Mexico lost more than half its territory to the United States, and later came under its influence in a form of neocolonialism. The ambivalent relationship between both countries is felt at the border where a lack of reciprocity is dictated by policies that reflect economic factors that impact transborder flows: US citizens can enter Mexico without a visa, while Mexican nationals must have a visa or a permanent-resident card to enter the United States. That economy is the main reason for this situation is also shown by the fact that nationals from rich countries in the visa-waiver program can easily enter the United States. Additionally, in countries where transit is virtually unimpeded, people who are granted free transit are barely aware of the existence of borders; but on the Mexican side of the border, mostly middle-class and upper-class citizens can cross the border legally, making border crossing a symbol of status out of reach of the poor. The US-Mexico border is 3145 km (1954 miles) long and home to approximately 15 million people inhabiting the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas on the US side; and Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas on the Mexican side (International Boundary and Water Commision, 2012). It is also a border of deep contrasts in terms of development and power relations as the United States is an economic and military superpower, and Mexico, although an emerging economy, is still plagued by poverty and other problems common to developing countries.

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The characteristics of this busy border are not the same as those found in Europe or in Asia, and the high metal fences that give the US side the appearance of a military fortress are a reminder of the assymetrical relationship between both countries. Martínez proposes several models of borderlands interaction: alienated, coexistent, interdependent and integrated (Martínez, 1994: 5–6). The latter is best exemplified by the European Union. The US-Mexico border can be classified as ‘interdependent borderlands’ with some degree of alienation following Martínez’s border typology. Interdependent borderlands exist when a border region in one nation is symbiotically linked with the border region of an adjoining country; such symbiosis is fostered by relatively stable international relations, and a favorable ‘economic climate that permits borderlanders on both sides of the line to pursue growth and development projects that are tied to foreign capital, markets, and labor’ (Martínez, 1994: 8). This, in turn, creates many opportunities for borderlanders to establish social relationships across the boundary as well, allowing significant cultural transfer to take place (Martínez, 1994: 9). In spite of this interdependence that predominates, the US-Mexico border also appears alienated not only by the dual metal fences that loom on the international boundary lines in heavily populated areas, or where crossing the border might seem easier for illegal aliens, but also because of the current government’s xenophobic discourse and trade practices which have seen highly aggressive policies towards Mexico recently. Generic factors that pertain to borders, e.g. geographical contiguity that results in the physical proximity of populations across borders, facilitate language contact which is also reflected by the linguistic landscape. Border cities are also a niche to research language attitudes, linguistic identity and language loyalty among other topics that lend themselves to research methodology such as ethnography. Borderlands are indeed a convenient place to observe otherness constantly reproduced as people traverse borders of a different nature on a daily basis. This situation applies to Mexican bordercrossers who one moment are in Mexico, a nation state where their national language is dominant and is the language of prestige; and once they cross the border, their tongue is the language of the underpriviledged and no longer found in the top-down landscape not even as a concession to the large numbers of speakers in the area. In contrast, English is still a language of prestige with visual presence on the Mexican side of the border. The city of Tijuana

Language contact and multilingualism are features of both mainstream contemporary urban cities and border communities (Omoniyi, 2004), which have been described as superdiverse (including

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by many contributors to this volume). I argue that urban border areas like Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez (another major Mexican city bordering the US) are superdiverse on a smaller scale than typical global cities like New York or London. In addition, the diverse demographic characteristics of urban border areas are further amplified by binational and bicultural traits. Unlike large urban centers which are considered superdiverse but are not border cities, in Tijuana around 50% of local people are binational consumers who carry out the most intense interaction with the US side. We also find that in addition, ‘the most substantial cross-border links are carried on by binationalists, biculturalists, commuters, and settler migrants’ (Martínez, 1994: 88) who do not cross for tourism or shopping but to work, to study or because of family relationships. These border crossers and migrants are grounded on both sides of the border. Thus, we find that transnational interaction in contemporary borderlands includes, but is not limited to, such phenomena as migration, employment, business transactions, tourism, trade, consumerism, cultural interchange and social relationships (Martínez, 1994: 59). All of these processes are important because they help explain the nature of language contact and local linguistic practices as is the case of lexical terms found in border Spanish and concepts, such as swap meet, which have retained the original English spelling and meaning on the Mexican side of the border (Escandón, 2019). Swap meets are scattered across the city in working-class neighborhoods. The concept originated in the US and was adopted locally in the 1980s. Unlike existing Mexican ‘mercados’ (markets) in the city, swap meets sell the same items their US counterparts sell (see Figures 8.2 and 8.3 below). Tijuana is indeed a city of contrasts and its binational and bicultural traits can be seen in Figure 8.2: the name of the Swap meet is Lázaro Cárdenas. Cárdenas was a highly respected national hero whose name

Figure 8.2  A sign from a popular swap meet

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Figure 8.3  One of the most recent of the swap meets that have sprung in Tijuana

alone is drenched in Mexican tradition as one of the greatest historical figures of Mexican nationalism. The term may be English in origin but the syntax is that of Spanish as its denomination indicates (Swap Meet Lázaro Cárdenas). At the same time, we can observe that local linguistic practices are in force in spite of customary nationalism which would enforce linguistic purism or at least normativity in regard to what the national language is. By using swap meet, a term whose origin has to do with local shopping practices and the practice of border crossing, locals express themselves free of normativity and its dictates. The most widely used language in Tijuana in every domain is, of course, Spanish, more specifically classified as a northwestern dialect of Mexican Spanish (Lope-Blanch, 2010: 88–89), although around half of the population is nowadays from outside the state of Baja California and residents who come from other Spanish-speaking regions can be expected to speak their own dialects, with the result that many varieties of Mexican Spanish coexist. As for other groups, there is an unconfirmed number of Central Americans and Cubans (who also speak their own varieties of Central American and Caribbean Spanish) though some data shows that in October and December of 2018, more than 6000 Central Americans arrived in the city (COLEF, 2018: 8). In addition, nearly 3000 Haitians (Debate, 2018) who speak Creole and a mixture of Creole, Portuguese, French and Spanish have settled in the city. In their case, they picked up Portuguese during their sojourn in Brazil and afterwards Spanish on a long periplus around the Caribbean from Haiti to Brazil, and from Brazil onward to the US-Mexico border that took these migrants months, circumventing multiple countries, expanding their linguistic repertoires in the process. Additionally, the Chinese in Tijuana are Cantonese and

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Mandarin speakers (many of them also speakers of Spanish) while US nationals speak English as their mother tongue. Mesoamerican languages are also present: in 2000, nearly 14,000 speakers of more than 60 different indigenous languages lived in Tijuana (Espinoza, 2014). According to INEGI (2010a) nearly 41,731 speakers of more than 71 different indigenous languages (INEGI, 2010b) lived in Baja California, and of that number more than 12,000 resided in Tijuana. Among these, those of Mixtec origin speak different varieties of Mixtec, a major macrolanguage (along with Zapotec) belonging to the Otomanguean family.3 As a border city, Tijuana presents us with opportunities to study deterritorialized speakers such as Mixtecs. Mixtecs inhabiting the region are likely to display transnational traits unlike Mixtecs in the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Puebla or Guerrero, their normal places of origin. This also applies to language, as they often add some English to their existing bilingualism between Mixtec and Spanish. To this complex situation, we can add the number of fronterizos (border dwellers) who work on the US side and are, consequently, commuters. Though their exact number is hard to ascertain, it is estimated at 50,000–70,000 (El Siglo de Torreón, 2013; La Jornada Baja California, 2015). To this we add the even higher number of people who work in foreign oriented sectors (maquiladoras [a foreign-owned factory in Mexico at which imported parts are assembled by lower-paid workers into products for export] and tourism), and those with family ties and other social relationships who link transborder people, heavy consumption of US products and continuous media penetration. Because of the diversity of its population, one of the major challenges the city poses for research is related to a complex language situation not because of language alternation (e.g. Spanish vis-àvis English) due to transborder flows but because of a wide variety of registers and lexical variation. In contrast with places in central and southern Mexico, Mexican border regions have been populated more recently, as we have seen, by people with different geographical backgrounds, a factor which has given rise to very diverse designations for the same concept (Martín-Butragueño, 2014: 1368). This lexical variation is by no means restricted to spoken language as some of it filters down to the written language found in the linguistic landscape. For example, the Spanish word for ‘laundromat’ is found in the city’s linguistic landscape as lavamática, lavandería and lavadero, all three part of local Spanish linguistic repertoires, though we can see that the first term is a product of translanguaging as it was modelled on lavandería and laundromat (Escandón, 2019; see Figures 8.4 and 8.5 below). Such variation is not surprising because approximately half the city’s population of 2 million was born elsewhere (Baja California Gobierno del Estado, 2015) in other regions of the Mexican Republic where other dialects of Mexican Spanish are spoken. What may come as a surprise

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Figure 8.4  A laundromat whose name reflects the national standard

Figure 8.5  A laundromat whose denomination reflects local vocabulary

is seeing the three words alternate, which is something we do not see in the landscape of other Mexican cities such as Mexico City, Guadalajara or Monterrey. At the same time, the influence of English is present in the locals’ linguistic practices (Martín-Butragueño, 2014: 1368) and thus

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we find pairs such as ‘parking/estacionamiento’ and ‘tune up/afinación’ coexisting even as part of the same sign (see Figures 8.6 and 8.7 below). Such typical diglossic situation is found throughout the city where inclusiveness regarding linguistic practices is in force as sign creators seek convergence to accommodate various linguistic repertoires. What we see is the co-ocurrence of terms meaning basically the same. To native Tijuanans the use of both terms makes sense, and the target audience are not tourists but local customers who command such lexical pairs as part of their translingual practices.

Figure 8.6  A shop displaying the same term in two different ways

Figure 8.7  A parking lot using both ‘estacionamiento´ and ‘parking’

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Tijuana’s linguistic landscape

Tijuana has a landscape dominated by Spanish, followed by English, with other minority languages as part of the equation. The presence of English in Tijuana’s linguistic landscape is not only due to Tijuana being a border city with transborder flows, but also to English being a global language. Signs can be divided into top-down, those issued by government; and bottom-up, those posted by private people (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009: 3). Spanish, as expected, dominates most of the linguistic landscape both top-down and bottom-up, followed by English, mostly bottom-up with top-down signs displayed in different parts of the city. Language policy and planning can account for the top-down signs as Spanish is the de facto language of Mexico, and though indigenous languages are designated as national languages in the Mexican Constitution, they are absent with one exception and one sole example in enclaves where the population is indigenous. Tijuana’s landscape includes signboards, billboards, banners and digital marquees where economic resources are more abundant, and wall inscriptions (graffiti included) where such resources are scarce; indeed, in working-class neighborhoods, hand-painted wall advertising is still fairly common. However, the city itself reflects the fact that Mexico is an emerging economy, and this can be attested by a gentrification process sweeping across the town, mainly visible in new middle-class neighborhoods and on thoroughfares that used to have shabby-looking businesses with wall inscriptions which have now been replaced with an infrastructure similar to that found in prosperous first-world countries. The city’s linguistic landscape has begun to reflect the diversity described above. Some groups like the Chinese are more visible, not only because of their numbers, but also as attested by the multiple restaurant and other commercial signs in Chinese characters, alternating with Spanish and English at times: linguistic landscapes inform us of the Chinese presence in the city, and their customer base. In recent years, other languages like Korean and Japanese have become more prominent in the linguistic landscape of the city as both restaurants and retail businesses that cater to Korean and Japanese customers increase in number. The fact that corporations like Hyundai, Toyota and Panasonic among others have had assembly factories in the area for years might contribute to this as part of their workforce comes from their countries of origin. Researching Tijuana’s linguistic landscape

To some extent, Mexico has been construed as having one homogenous population, the so-called ‘cosmic race’ that resulted from mestization, a far cry from reality, in an effort to better control people

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as one people and to negate groups like Indians and Africans, and their contributions to Mexico as a nation. During the 20th century, the ruling parties insisted on perpetuating a nationalist ideology that promulgated the notion of one nation and one language to the detriment of minorities. My linguistic identity is unquestionably a product of the times although I was not aware of coloniality and language ideologies. I was aware that this struggle, as a colonized and racialized individual, against the colonial matrix of power had the potential to bias me against my objects of study but chose to try to distance myself to avoid entrapment. The ever present push of English is felt in every domain, and the linguistic hegemony of Spain through its Royal Spanish Academy which is still the colonial matrix, at least linguistically, as language academies in the Americas are dependent on the Spanish Academy (Paffey, 2012). Spanish is indeed pluricentric and yet Spain and European Spanish are still seen largely as the center and everywhere else the periphery in a binary of the unmarked versus markedness (see Mar-Molinero, 2006). Border regions, in turn, are the periphery in Mexico, so we have a periphery within a periphery from a European Spanish point of view. At the same time, being part of the majority allowed me as a researcher to blend in more easily. In my case, I was mostly inconspicuous when taking pictures. For interviews, it was also advantageous to command several registers as individuals had diverse backgrounds and were from all over the country. In addition, being a multilingual subject also allowed me to access information in the linguistic landscape more effectively. For my study I created a corpus of digital images that amounted to over 2000 in order to have source material to illustrate the main points dealing with linguistic practices seen in Tijuana’s multilingual linguistic landscape. From the inception of my research, my intention was to analyze local linguistic practices focusing on all linguistic aspects without bringing judgmental preconceptions to the speakers’ linguistic practices, having myself been raised with a competence in many of the city’s registers displaying local, binational, national and international traits. I organized this corpus in the following steps: (1) by determining the survey areas, (2) by determining countable items and (3) by making a distinction between monolingual, multilingual and translingual signs, while at the same time considering the various registers as to whether the signs reflect local linguistic practices or are of the national or supranational type. One of my concerns during photo shooting sessions was safety, particularly in slum areas. Tijuana is a relatively unsafe city which locals learn to navigate early in life. As with most cities, some areas are worse than others. I laid out the areas I wanted to cover on a map, and made

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decisions accordingly based on experience and previous knowledge. I needed to avoid getting mugged while taking photographs for my research in the infamous Zona Norte, Tijuana’s largest red-light district, where hustlers, drug addicts and all sorts of criminals converge. To avoid getting assaulted I hired two men to escort me while looking for the right spots to take snapshots of the signs and neighborhoods. For Avenida Revolución, though recently gentrified, I also had a burly man accompany me during the photo sessions to keep away potential disruption. The fact that I was an insider allowed me to discriminate the various levels of safety the city neighborhoods had. Knowing the city’s history and evolution also allowed me to be more aware of changes the city has undergone not only in terms of infrastructure but also how migrants have settled in which neighborhoods, and the evolution of linguistic practices in the linguistic landscape and even of social and commercial practices in places like Avenida Revolución where English both spoken and written used to dominate. Nowadays, Spanish predominates but shares both cultural and physical space with English and other languages such as Chinese and Japanese. I applied Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for the analysis and interpretation of data in terms of text and its levels as linguistic and social practices. For instance, Figure 8.14 shows that digital marquees at the US Otay Mesa Point of Entry display information only in English even though signs are directed at border crossers coming from Tijuana, who also make up the majority of drivers and passengers. CDA treats discourse as linguistic practices not dissociated from social practices. The lack of reciprocity on the US agencies’ part (Mexican points of entry do have Spanish-English bilingual signs in an effort to be inclusive and accommodate travelers) indicates social practices of exclusion and a reaffirmation of linguistic hegemony, and therefore may be labeled as inconsiderate towards Spanish monolinguals. One of the justifications for not having multilingual signs in some multilingual societies is cost, as putting up multilingual signs causes costs to increase. But in this case, digital marquees could also accommodate text in Spanish which would alternate with English text without incurring any additional expenses aside from translation services. I complemented the use of CDA through the observation of signs and the surrounding areas to get a holistic view of the social. Qualitative in nature, this study sought to understand linguistic practices along the US-Mexico border in accordance with Creswell’s definition of qualitative research as ‘a means for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem’ (Creswell, 2009: 4). For Flick (2007: ix) qualitative research is intended to approach the world not in laboratories but ‘out there’, and to understand, describe and explain social phenomena from the inside’ in a number of different ways either by analyzing experiences of individuals or groups, or

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interactions and communications, or documents or, as here, the texts seen in Tijuana’s multilingual linguistic landscape. Though Tijuana is a multilingual city, and the focus of my research was its linguistic landscape, I did not expect many languages spoken in the area would be visually represented. I was aware that endangered Indigenous languages of the Yuman family, which have been spoken by the first inhabitants of the Californias, were absent in the linguistic landscape and that their Spanish transliterated names for both their languages and ethnicities were limited to toponyms and odonyms. Even Mixtec (a language originally from present-day Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla), which also has the largest number of speakers in the city among the Amerindian languages was also absent from the landscape. However, Tijuana’s binational traits are reflected in its landscape: the linguistic practices observed on signs are a meshing of English and Spanish. As Clarke (2005) remarks, qualitative research has moved beyond field notes and interview transcripts to include discourses of all kinds (Clarke, 2005: 145), and my study analyzed in linguistic terms the results of the speakers’ agency: individuals create meaning through their practices, they are not objects but actors, agents displaying their creativity by using their linguistic repertoires in dissonant ways from the point of view of normativity but that serve many purposes in their communities of linguistic practice. Their multilingual repertoires of identity may incorporate diverse rules and include hybrid linguistic and cultural practices that defy narrow classification (Zentella, 2008: 6). Tijuana’s linguistic landscape presents us with many examples of hybrid linguistic practices that draw on English and Spanish elements to create new meanings. I can relate to Zentella’s argument here having grown up in Tijuana and seen it change through time. Avenida Revolución, one of the city’s landmarks, chosen for my data collection, reflected the city’s border location better than any other with English not only spoken alongside Spanish but also more prominently displayed in the linguistic landscape to the point of often being dominant. In time, this avenue has gone from mostly catering to US nationals to serving an increasing number of Mexican nationals; it has also undergone gentrification. Quite possibly like many Mexicans, I grew up tainted by linguistic insecurity and tinges of Mexican nationalism. I did not know those terms at the time but even as a child I learned that some dialects and registers were considered ‘bad’, and more so the ‘border’ variety spoken in Baja California, and even ‘worse’ was the Spanish spoken by Chicanos, US nationals of Mexican descent. What was considered correct, desirable and something to aspire to was the dialect known as Castilian, and la norma culta (the standard register) was something to strive for. At the same time, the Spanish monolingual orientation in Mexico condemned the use

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of English, Anglicisms, Gallicisms, code-switching or the meshing of linguistic resources of any kind. The monoglot standard seemed to impose itself across Mexico but a sizeable percentage of speakers in the border area remained bilingual, bicultural and binational displaying their identities in different ways, at times at odds with this so-called loyalty to what Mexico is, or whatever that might mean.

Concluding Remarks: Language in Tijuana

Geopolitical boundaries often produce contexts where languages are in contact, thus giving rise to issues of language use, ideology and attitudes, all intrinsically related to social, cultural and national identities. In discussing lexical aspects of languages in contact, the major process discussed has been borrowing (Sankoff, 2004: 649) in the majority of contact situations. In these language-contact zones, speakers typically command and systematically alternate among a range of language varieties and registers. Tijuanans command lexical sets such as car wash and autolavado, and autopartes and refaccionaria to designate an ‘autoparts store’, the former is local, and the latter supranational (see Figures 8.9 to 8.13). At the same time, some businesses display both terms on their signs as in Figure 8.9 where we can read ‘partes’ and ‘refacciones’; both words mean (auto) parts but the local term is advertised more prominently. Each word, though naming the same thing, belongs to different registers of city residents but may be construed as belonging to different dialects of Mexican Spanish if seen by an outsider. There is no evidence of dialectal levelling as both terms coexist, and the ‘local’ term, though not having national currency, remains strong. The latter is most likely favored by newcomers who have learned it in their original social networks as the term used in most of Mexico. Native Tijuanans perform translanguaging when they, for instance, ‘se van de páry’ [from Eng party as in ‘to party’ or ‘to go partying’, and also in the sense of ‘to go clubbing’]’ (Martínez, 2007: 121–122) while newcomers very likely use ‘reventón’ or ‘antro’ both terms used outside Baja California (Academia Mexicana de la Lengua, 2010: 26, 524; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, 2010: 121, 1868). In Tijuanans’ collocation we can see traits of translanguaging as lexical items belonging to distinct languages come together. In the examples listed that other Mexicans use we can see only monolingual linguistic resources. Tijuanans, on the other hand, have adapted ‘cool’ for ‘curada’, an adjective which unlike most Spanish adjectives lacks gender inflection, and behaves much like English adjectives. Again, locals perform translanguaging by using ‘curada’ for both masculine and feminine nouns while also using semantically similar terms of national currency in different settings (see Figure 8.8 for use of this word

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Figure 8.8 A local store that commodifies local linguistic practices through the merchandise it sells

Figure 8.9  An auto parts shop showing the locally-used term (autopartes)

by a store catering to Tijuanans, thereby underpinning their sense of belonging, community building and identity). Each variety carries different social capital and values, triggering attitudes and underlying ideologies among community members and outsiders (Carvalho, 2014: 1). From a normative and purist stand, in an

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Figure 8.10  A ‘yonke’ (junkyard) sign that displays words locals use

Figure 8.11  Another auto parts shop reflecting the national standard

effort to keep linguistic resources separate, the word used locally would be deemed an anglicism or a loanword typical of borderlanders who cannot speak ‘proper’ Spanish; but through translanguaging we can analyze it as one more lexical item, a part of borderlanders’ linguistic repertoires.

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Figure 8.12  Another shop using a term part of local and national registers

Figure 8.13 A car wash displaying both synonyms used locally (‘car wash’ and ‘autolavado’)

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During my research I have identified the following ongoing processes (Escandón, 2019): (1) Contact between Baja California Spanish and other Mexican Spanish dialects on a lexical level; various population segments bring their own regional lexical items that may not be part of Standard Spanish, i.e. they are a different type of register. It is represented in the linguistic landscape by means of alternating terms, with sometimes the sign creators seeming to be aware of alternating registers and wishing to be inclusive by means of convergence. (2) Contact between English and Spanish. This is amply represented in the linguistic landscape. As for the spoken language, this has also been documented by authors such as Martínez (2007). See Figures 8.15 and 8.16 for an instance of this: one of the shops displays ‘peluquería’, ‘barber shop’ and ‘barbería’ on the same window. (3) Contact between Chinese and Spanish. This can be seen mostly at Chinese restaurants. Their menus and posters bear sentences such as ‘pollo piña’, more in accordance with Chinese grammar, instead of ‘pollo con piña’. (4) Contact between local Spanish speakers and speakers of other varieties of Spanish across the Spanish-speaking world by means of information and communications technology. By browsing websites where locals publish advertisements, we can see, for instance, that they use slang terms that used to be confined mostly to the Iberian peninsula, or Spanish words from El Salvador, for instance, not in the cyberscape but in the linguistic landscape. (5) Lack of reciprocity on the part of US agencies in terms of representation of Spanish in top-down US signage even if large numbers of Spanishspeaking US residents and Mexican speakers are present in the area. The fact that Mexican officials have top-down signage in English displayed in Tijuana and at the border points of entry suggests a power imbalance between the two nation states (see Figure 8.14). I do not claim to be fully inclusive with this list; this is what I observed during my research. All of this is important because it helps explain the

Figure 8.14  The Otay Mesa Point of Entry from the Mexican side

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Figure 8.15  A barber shop with two synonyms in Spanish and their English equivalent

nature of language contact and local linguistic practices as is the case of lexical terms and concepts found in the Spanish spoken locally, such as swap meet, which have retained the original spelling and concept. Terms such as this, were borrowed without morphological or phonological adaptations as the local pronunciation is closer to the English version and spelling, lexical and semantic content have remained the same. I approached my data with curiosity and a desire to understand how the linguistic landscape was laid out and constructed semiotically and linguistically. To do that, I sought to cast off any preconceived notions of my mastery of the standard and its contested superiority, and the tendency to keep linguistic data separate as part of distinct languages. This meant that I had to look at linguistic practices as situated, personal decisions on the part of speakers shaped by their border context with the complexity that characterizes it. Consequently, by means of translanguaging, I focused on linguistic repertoires instead of linguistic

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Figure 8.16  A barber shop in a working-class neighborhood

outcomes of language contact such as borrowing or foreigner talk that dissect them. This internal process allowed me to appreciate how speakers do what they do and however they can as they understand the world around them and convey meaning in their own social networks as part of the city. I consider all registers to be ‘correct’ insofar as they suit people’s needs in different settings and social networks. My data confirms that language contact is a consequence of factors that come with borders such as the physical proximity of speakers on both sides of geopolitical lines and the ensuing flows that come with varying degrees of interdependent and integrated borders. A border city such as Tijuana is fertile ground for sociolinguistic research of a wide diverse nature because it is at the crossroads of national, binational and even global flows. Its linguistic landscape reflects the city’s traits of a globalized border city with significant transborder and international flows of people and trade, and strong migration mainly from other parts of Mexico, and from abroad as the city has gone from 750,000 inhabitants in 1990 to over 2 million in 2019. Language has become a mobile resource which has resulted in linguistic practices that draw on multiple sources as people come and go. As a consequence we find a richer, more diverse linguistic landscape, where a koiné dialect may arise as different Mexican Spanish dialects, with the existing diglossic situation of alternating Spanish synonimous terms, along with complex

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translanguaging, are shared in an increasingly more complex urban environment. Notes (1) Previous relevant research exploring language along and across borders includes, among others, works by Carvalho (2014) [Brazil-Uruguay], Hidalgo (1983, 1986) [Mexico-US], Meinhof and Galasiński (2002) [Poland-Germany], Omoniyi (2004) [Nigeria-Benin], Relaño-Pastor (2007) [Mexico-US], Rona (1963) [Brazil-Uruguay] and Zentella (2016) [Mexico-US]. (2) All photographs included in this chapter are my own, a part of my corpus of digital images. (3) Tijuana has a population mainly composed of locals who were born there and Mexican nationals born elsewhere. Besides domestic migrants, the city’s 76,240 foreigners include 43,000 US nationals and 9000 Chinese (Alegría, 2005: 237; INEGI, 2011: 2). According to the 2010 Census, the city’s population includes large numbers of people from the following Mexican states: Sinaloa (131,834), Jalisco (85,619), Michoacán (60,163), Mexico City (59,442), Nayarit (45,440), Veracruz (44,880), Chiapas (41,521) and Sonora (35,382) (Instituto Metropolitano de Planeación de Tijuana, 2013). In sociolinguistic terms, speakers from these states belong to several dialect areas in Mexico: Northwestern (Sinaloa and Sonora), Western (Jalisco and Nayarit), Central (Mexico City), Michoacán and Chiapas (Lope-Blanch, 1990: 88–89), which are at least five of the ten or eleven Lope-Blanch proposes. The number of Mexican Spanish dialects spoken in Mexico remains contested (Lipski, 2011: 294).

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Hidalgo, M.G. (1983) Language use and language altitudes in Juarez, Mexico. PhD thesis, University of New Mexico. Hidalgo, Margarita (1986) Language contact, language loyalty, and language prejudice on the Mexican border. Language in Society 15 (2), 193–220. Hidalgo, M. (ed.) (1995) Sociolinguistic trends on the US-Mexican border [Special issue] International Journal of the Sociology of Language 114. INEGI (2010a) Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010. Lengua indígena por municipio. Seehttps://www.inegi.org.mx/contenidos/programas/ccpv/2010/tabulados/ Basico/05_01B_MUNICIPAL_02.pdf (accessed January 2019). INEGI (2010b) Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010. Lengua indígena por lengua. See https:// www.inegi.org.mx/contenidos/programas/ccpv/2010/tabulados/Basico/05_01B_ MUNICIPAL_02.pdf (accessed January 2019). INEGI (2011) Los nacidos en otro país suman 961,121 personas. Informativo oportuno: Conociendo ... nos todos Vol 1–2. See http://www.inegi.org.mx/inegi/contenidos/ espanol/prensa/contenidos/Articulos/sociodemograficas/nacidosenotropais.pdf (accessed November 2018). Instituto Metropolitano de Planeación de Tijuana (2012) Boletín I: Población. See http:// www.implan.tijuana.gob.mx/pdf/boletines/BOLETIN%20I.pdf (accessed November 2018). Instituto Metropolitano de Planeación de Tijuana (2013) Boletín VII: Migración. See http:// www.implan.tijuana.gob.mx/pdf/boletines/Boletin%20VII.pdf (accessed November 2018). International Boundary and Water Commision (2012) The International Boundary and Water Commission: Its mission, organization and procedures for solution of boundary and water problems. Seehttps://www.ibwc.gov/about_us/about_us.html (accessed June 2019). Jacquemet, M. (2005) Transidiomatic practices: Language and power in the age of globalization. Language and Communication 25, 257–277. Kearny, M. (1998) Transnationalism in California and Mexico at the end of empire. In T. Wilson and H. Donnan (eds) Border Identities: Nation and State at International Frontiers, (pp. 117–141). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kearney, Michael (2000) Transnational Oaxacan indigenous identity: The case of Mixtecs and Zapotecs. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 7 (2), 173–195. La Jornada Baja California (2015) Trabajan en EU y les alcanza para vivir en Tijuana. See http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/12-08-2015/trabajan-en-eu-y-les-alcanza-para-vivir-entijuana (accessed February 2016). Landry, R. and Bourhis, R.Y. (1997) Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (1), 23–49. Lipski, J.M. (2011) El Español de América (7th edn) (S. Iglesias-Recuero, trans.). Madrid: Cátedra. Lope-Blanch, J.M. (1990) Atlas Lingüístico de México. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México-Fondo de Cultura Económica. Lope-Blanch, J.M. (2010) México. In M. Alvar (ed.) Manual de Dialectología Hispánica: El Español deAmérica, (pp. 81–89). Barcelona: Editorial Ariel (original work published 1996). Mar-Molinero, C. (2006) The European Linguistic legacy in a global era: linguistic imperialism, Spanish and the Instituto Cervantes. In C. Mar-Molinero and P. Stevenson (eds) Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices: Language and the Future of Europe (pp. 76–91). Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Martín-Butragueño, P. (2014) La división dialectal del español mexicano. In P. MartínButragueño and R. Barriga-Viallanueva (eds) Historia Sociolingüísticade México Volumen 3: Espacio, Contacto, y Discurso Político (pp. 1355–1409). Mexico City: COLMEX. Martínez, É.H. (2007) Breve Diccionario de Tijuanismos. Tijuana: Librería El Día.

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Conclusion Clare Mar-Molinero

Since researchers are likely to follow threads, tie them together, categorise and identify patterns, and bring their own particular ­ perspective against a back­ ­ ground of previous research in the area to the table, such indeterminacy finds some order when ­researchers acknowledge joint responsibility for the knowledge ­production process in which they participate when doing ethnography. (­ Patiño-Santos, 2020: 213)

In an attempt to draw conclusions from this volume and bring together reflections by its authors on their work, as editor, I invited them all to write a brief contribution reflecting on their positionality visà-vis their role as researcher in the work they discuss in their chapters and beyond. I did not provide any template or guidelines as to what they might offer and therefore the contributions below vary in length and focus; some reiterate the conclusions they express in their chapters, while others expand or focus on particular concerns They do, nonetheless, underline the recurring themes of the volume and overall, we hope, contribute to the wider literature on researching multilingually in urban contexts. Much of the following are the words of my co-authors which I have not felt necessary to enclose in quotation marks, as I believe the ownership of their ideas is clear – as well as shared by all contributors. Thus, the pronouns shift between ‘they’ and ‘I/we’ to express these shared conclusions. The authors of Chapter 2, Jessica Bradley and James Simpson, frame their positionality and reflections in the context of the wider TLANG project1 of which their research is a significant part. It is not surprising, therefore, that they stress that their work is ‘Team Linguistic ethnography’. They explain how the TLANG team share a commitment to ‘visual linguistic ethnography’ in their work. Below are comments on three elements of their research that they choose to highlight. Visual Linguistic Ethnography Visual linguistic ethnography brings together ethnography, linguistics and broader understandings of communication beyond language: ethnography provides a focus on wider contexts, while linguistics and 212

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visual methods offer the possibility of micro-analyses of communicative practice which participant observation and field notes cannot provide. Characteristic of an ethnographic approach is prolonged engagement with research settings. This enables the emic (insider) ­perspective – including the building of collaborative relationships with participants – which in turn affords the rich insights that the approach brings. Working with Key Participants A series of research vignettes written by TLANG team members was published in summary form in a chapter of the Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (Goodson & Tagg, 2018: 110ff).The relationships between team members and each other, and between us and our Key Participants (KPs), was salient enough to form the content of the majority of those vignettes. We note in our own chapter (this volume) that our relationships with the KPs were professional in that they received a fee for the work. But as the vignettes reported by Goodson and Tagg suggest, the RFs in particular perceived issues with working with the KPs, ranging from ‘challenges in securing KPs’ participation and efforts to build rapport through to ethical concerns in determining where boundaries lie between personal and professional relationships’ (Goodson & Tagg, 2018: 110). The complexity of the interactions with KPs was compounded because they were being paid for their participation: we thus somehow had the right to demand personal details of private lives (e.g. the recording of family mealtime conversations) which challenged the usual boundaries of what access might be allowed, in sociolinguistic research. The role of our RF colleague Jolana is in the spotlight in our chapter, in that she is active in KP interactions and consequently features in the data (and its analysis). We make a virtue of this in the research, and in our chapter, discussing Jolana’s ‘epistemology of engagement’. To quote from our chapter: ‘Working with Monika was a highly participatory endeavour, bringing us into contact with her family and many others supporting her. The situation in which she found herself – that of having to prepare a business plan – entailed a compatible way of working with researcher Jolana Hanušová. […] Jolana’s role became one which moved from that of observer to that of an advisor’. In our chapter we mention how Jolana’s increasing involvement allowed for what Wills (2012) describes as a ‘more emotional style of learning’, which, in turn, also characterised our own team discussions and analysis of the data. Our Position vis-à-vis Language and Communication Finally, we noticed that our shifting and fluid positioning extended to the way we approached our focal interest, communication in the ‘contact zones’ of Britain’s cities. As researchers, we became more theoretically

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oriented as the work progressed. And our growing understanding of the trans-perspectives towards language, languaging and communicative practice – focusing attention as it did upon the speaker, rather than on the borders between languages – encouraged the scope of study to extend towards the many ways humans interconnect. Our social practice perspective on the use of communicative repertoires came with an obligation to attend to things that applied linguists might consider beyond their scope of interest – for example sport, and the practices and processes of making and producing visual art. These are domains where languaging might be present but is only sometimes paramount, opening space for attention to be paid to participants’ affective, embodied and spatial ways of understanding. Leonie Gaiser and Yaron Matras, authors of Chapter 2, summarise their significant and innovative research perspective and methods in the following ways. They begin by stating that it is anchored in a vision of the civic university that sees research as embedded into the practices of local actors. They claim also: we embrace ethnographic approaches to ‘community’ as practice and as the object rather than the site of investigation. We show how the immersion model of research that builds reciprocal relations with local stakeholders offers opportunities for a new epistemology where knowledge is informed and driven by practical engagement and demonstrating the impact of research on policy and practice. They assert that Impact is not just derived from research, but also provides the setting for research: we approach the ‘community’ aspect not from a strictly numerical, status-based or geographical origin perspective, but in terms of the set of language practices and general interaction and practice routines that it represents. This approach re-positions the researcher – otherwise typically regarded as a language expert – as a learner, legitimising the posing of questions about language variation and ideologies of Standard language use. As researchers we thus share various aspects of repertoire resources with the participants, resulting in a new form of multilingual research encounters and a comprehensive approach to analysing language practices in the superdiverse urban setting. Of the research in Chapter 4, Darren Paffey writes: my positionality with regard to the project was straightforward in the sense that I carried out my research single-handedly (in contrast to the team ethnography work of the TLANG researchers) and had responsibility for everything from start to finish. For the bulk of the data collection of the linguistic landscape itself, there were no issues of positioning or power because I was working alone photographing instances of Spanish in the visual environment, with no reliance on other people. This solitary working could be enhanced by working collaboratively through direct work with peers or with ‘citizen sociolinguists’, a concept I discuss in my chapter. This could include smartphone apps such as LinguaSnapp

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or Lingscape. I was of course an outsider to the population I was researching, and speak the language as someone who learnt Spanish as a foreign language at school and university. So I do not claim any Hispanic heritage or identity in common with many research participants, which was disempowering in some ways. When asking permission to take photographs of properties, it was as an outsider that I approached owners, meaning a greater need to work on establishing trust and legitimacy. I used my business cards as a sort of token of authenticity, to convince them that I was trustworthy, and yet the exchange of the business card also functioned to introduce a measure of authority, and institutional approval when what I was seeking to do was to strike up personal/professional rapport. For the interview data collection, I relied on gatekeepers in London who were able to communicate with potential interviewees they knew. Overall this air of officiality when dealing with anonymity, data management and publications can both assist with or distract from the act of building trust between researcher and participant. Challenges also arose relating to the language itself. I previously learned mostly Castilian Spanish in the classroom and Chilean Spanish while working overseas, but I am still not a mother-tongue speaker of Spanish. Working multilingually went smoothly when collecting linguistic landscape data, and most of the time when conducting interviews with Spanish speakers. In the end, very few interviewees were monolingual Spanish speakers, so English remained an option. On the whole there was a balance of those carried out mostly in English and others mostly in Spanish. Without exception, there was always crossover on the part of my participants, as well as mine, from one language to another at points. The challenge of exploring crossover linguistic repertoires required integrating those same practices into the research process itself. Petros Karatsareas, author of Chapter 5, also highlights the issue of the language of the research. He says: the major challenge I faced in my ethnographic investigation of language in London’s Greek Cypriot community was interviewing members of the community who primarily spoke Cypriot Greek and had had little exposure to the Athenian variety of Standard Greek that I speak. I initially did the interviews bilingually: I asked questions in English and invited my participants to respond in Cypriot Greek. For some participants, the formality of the situational context of the interviews, the spatial context of the complementary school rooms where I did the interviews, and my positioning by the school managers as a ‘professor from the university who wants to know how we speak’ led to attempts by these participants to standardise their speech. Some of these participants seemed to experience frustration at what they perceived as an inability to speak in a way they thought they ought in the interview context. I then decided to stop conducting

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these interviews myself and recruited a Cyprus-born Greek Cypriot research assistant, who established a far better rapport with the research participants than I was able to. The language of the researcher again is of importance and is commented on by Naomi Wells when discussing her research in Chapter 6. She explains: having conducted the majority of my research in my second and third languages (with Spanish and Italian shifting between these positions depending on the context I was working in), I have often felt that this gives me a heightened awareness of the partiality of my own knowledge and of my position as a learner in the contexts I am researching. These are aspects often discussed in relation to the importance of reflexivity in the research process, but which appear to be heightened when not researching in and on one’s primary language. My experiences of researching multilingually, and of asking others to reflect on their own multilingual lives, have also encouraged me to think more purposefully about my own language learning trajectory and sense of identification with the languages I know, speak and teach. In particular, when negotiating my own positioning in relation to those of research participants, I am continuously reminded that language is never a neutral tool of communication but instead intersects unavoidably with questions of race, class and gender, for example. I am reminded, in particular, of how the varieties of language I have learnt in my own life reflect linguistic hierarchies and language ideologies shaped by local, national and colonial histories, and, working in Modern Languages departments, I am also confronted with how I myself continue to be implicated in sustaining such hierarchies. Reflexivity on our own positionalities is thus important not just in relation to how it informs a specific research project, but moving beyond the traditionally idealised figure of the neutral and seemingly anonymous academic researcher also means seeing research as a prompt for interrogating our own wider practices as speakers living and working in the same worlds as those we research. In response to my request for reflections on their positionality and approach to their research, Daniel McAuley and Janice Carruthers focus on the challenge of researching stigmatised varieties from a qualitative design in their study presented in Chapter 7. They write: our chapter takes as its starting point the view that for a variety that is portrayed in the literature as ‘stigmatised’, questions of perceptions in relation to both the features and the users of the variety are of key importance. The chapter is an attempt to develop a research design for the qualitative element of a study of perception in relation to such a variety, in this case, a stigmatised variety of contemporary urban vernacular French. We argue that while it is not possible to re-create an entirely authentic communicative context, it is indeed possible to design a robust fieldwork methodology that achieves a nuanced discussion of perception, using a

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selection of original recordings of vernacular usage as the springboard for listener focus group discussion. This approach involves consideration of a range of complicating factors (such as the use of the linguistic features in question across a range of varieties) and mitigation against a number of potential pitfalls (such as the focus group dynamic prejudicing judgements). Our position is that it is possible to design a successful and original methodology, drawing on previous work but also creating a bespoke fieldwork technique for testing perceptions of this particular urban variety. Alfredo Escandón (Chapter 8 in the volume) gives us a timely and sharp reminder of the need to not rely solely on ‘Western’ and ‘Eurocentric’ approaches to language in general, and our research in particular. He claims: I consider myself a postcolonial subject. This has allowed me to resist Eurocentric views on race and language as I question hegemony and the enactment of subaltern identities. I speak Spanish, the language of the coloniser, studied Latin, Italian and German and learned to speak French and English fluently, both imperialistic tongues and languages of neocolonialism, because they are, at the moment, the languages necessary to advance socially and professionally, and especially English, the language not only of the present but of the future, of Western modernity. My linguistic identity was unquestionably a product of the times although I was, when learning them, not aware of coloniality and language ideologies. When carrying out my research, I was aware that this struggle, as a colonised and racialised individual, against the colonial matrix of power, had the potential to bias me against my objects of study but chose to try to distance myself to avoid entrapment. At the same time, being part of the majority allowed me as a researcher to blend in more smoothly. In my case, I was mostly inconspicuous when taking pictures. For interviews, it was also advantageous to command several registers given the informants had diverse backgrounds and were from all over Mexico. In addition, being a multilingual subject also allowed me to access information in the linguistic landscape more effectively. From these reflective vignettes of the contributors to this volume, we can see that those aspects that most concern and engage them are overwhelmingly those of how to interact with informants and participants in the most sensitive way; how issues of which language and whose language are paramount; and how socially responsible we aim to make our research. The editors of the book series, Researching Multilingually, in which this edited volume sits, have described their purpose for the series thus: This book series proposes to address the methodological, practical, ethical and other options and dilemmas that researchers face as they go about their research. How do they design their research methodology

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to account for multilingual possibilities and practices? How do they manage such linguistic complexities in the research domain? What are the implications for their research outcomes? (http://www.multilingualmatters.com/about_new_series.asp )

In the preceding chapters and discussion we have sought to offer some responses and exploration of the options, dilemmas and questions posed by the series editors. Note (1) TLANG: Translation and Translanguaging. This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, as a Large Grant in the Translating Cultures theme, ‘Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities’ (AH/L007096/1) The project was led by Angela Creese. The Leeds-based team comprised Mike Baynham, Jessica Bradley, John Callaghan, Jolana Hanušová, Emilee Moore and James Simpson.

References Goodson, L. and Tagg, C. (2018) Using researcher vignettes to explore co-production in a large diverse team: Implications for research in superdiverse contexts. In A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity. London: Routledge. Patiño-Santos, A. (2020) Reflexivity. In K. Tusting (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography (pp. 213–228). Abingdon: Routledge. Wills, J. (2012) The geography of community and political organisation in London today. Political Geography 31 (2), 114–126.

Index

Page numbers in bold refer to information in figures or tables, those followed by n refer to notes. Alsatian 163 Arabic 54–5 influence on French 162, 167, 169, 179 in Manchester 56–61, 63–5, 69–75 varieties of 55, 62–4, 65–9, 70, 72–4, 167, 169 Argentina 137 argots 161 arts communities 42–5 assemblage 38 semiotic assemblages 152, 155

Census (national) 10, 54, 56, 58 Chile 131, 132–3, 137 chilenismos 137–8 indigenous communities 138, 154 Italian community 138, 139–43, 146–8, 153–4 Chinese language 58, 71–2, 192–3, 196, 198, 204 Chinatown, London 95 cities 96–8, 160, 167, 174 borders 14, 183 as discourse 13–14 global cities 13, 52, 81–2, 95–6 local governments 10–11 migration 14–16, 80, 96 superdiversity 15–16, 17, 30, 52, 80–1, 101 clips (audio) see promptclips code fluidity 187 code switching 17–18, 33–4, 89–90, 143, 165 collaboration 23, 99, 102, 149, 150, 213 colonialism 98, 166, 197, 217 commercial settings 18, 32–7, 63, 69–72 see also bureaucratic discourses communities community languages 17, 52, 55–6, 73, 74–5, 167 and context 31 identity 154–5 language repertoires 69–72, 89, 126, 155, 193–5 see also heritage commuters 183, 184, 191, 193 complementary schools (Greek) 109, 112, 113, 114, 124–5 contact zones 31, 32, 82, 200 Creole 192

banlieues 161–2, 166, 176, 178 see also CUV (contemporary urban vernacular) French bias 14–15, 143–4, 197 bilingualism 95, 124, 179, 187, 193, 200 signage 87–9, 198 see also multilingualism; translanguaging Blommaert, J. 17, 23–4, 30, 31, 36, 83, 87, 101, 188 border areas 5, 14, 183–5, 200 crossings 185–7 superdiversity 190–1 US-Mexican border 183, 185, 189–90 Breton 163 Britain see UK bureaucratic discourses 33–4, 36–7, 40, 45, 46 business cards 69–70 see also commercial settings cafes/restaurants 18, 69, 71–2, 85–7, 89, 153, 196 for interviews 145–6 Cali Baja Binational Mega-Region 183 Capoeira martial dance 37–8, 39, 46

219

220 Index

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) 198 culture 114 at borders 184–5 cultural capital 35, 83 cultural memory 135–6, 141–2, 153, 154–5 see also heritage CUV (contemporary urban vernacular) French 159–61, 165–6 CUV corpus 166–9, 178 perceptions of 169–74, 177, 178 see also banlieues Cyprus 106–7, 114–15 diaspora community 109, 110, 115–16, 118–19, 122, 124, 126 Czech language 32–4 Dante Alighieri Society 140 Data Mapping tool 54, 57 dialects Arabic 57, 58, 62, 67–8, 73 dialectological databases 54–5 French 166–7 Greek 118, 119, 122–3, 124 Italian 133, 139, 140 levelling 119, 122–3, 200 Mexican Spanish 187, 192, 193, 199, 202, 206, 207n diaspora settings 53, 63, 114, 125, 140 Arabic 59–61, 63–5, 69–75 cities 108–9 Greek 110–14, 118–23 Italian 131, 132–3, 138–9 Turkish 109, 115–16, 126 see also migration diglossia 62, 108, 125, 195 domestic environment 65, 67, 139–40, 148 education see schools emporios see shops English language impact of 102, 164, 178, 187, 188, 194, 197, 198, 204 and monolingualism 9, 10–11, 85, 117, 123 prestige of 190 teaching 53 varieties of 106–7, 161 epistemology of engagement 36–7 ethnography 22, 30, 132, 148–9, 154 ethnographic praxis 131, 133–4, 150 linguistic ethnography 133

range of methods 23–4, 45, 47–8, 93, 124 visual linguistic ethnography 212–13 ethnolinguistic vitality 83–4 Europeanness 136–7, 141, 197 families see home environment focus groups 172–8, 179–80, 217 fossilisation 110 France language policies 163–5 perceptions of CUV 169–74, 177, 178 Franco-Rodríguez model 84–5, 86 French language 169 CUV (contemporary urban vernacular) 159–61, 165–9, 178 influence of Arabic 162, 167, 169, 179 varieties of 163–4, 166–9 Friulian language 139–40, 146 Frurt stores 70–2 GCSE qualifications 66, 67, 68, 73, 114 Genovese language 139, 140, 143, 147, 149, 150–1, 152 German language 162 globalisation 80, 94 global cities 13, 52, 81–2, 95–6 global north and south 1, 98 Goudaillier, J.-P. 161, 163, 165, 167 Greek Cypriot community 109, 110, 119, 122, 124 Greek language 126 as research language 124–5, 215–16 varieties of 106–7, 110–14, 118–22 guided walking 148–50, 154 heritage 35–6, 148–50 languages 47, 52, 55, 82, 114, 123 see also communities; culture hierarchies of languages 69–70, 72–5, 106–9, 125, 216 marks of status 86, 92, 188, 190 monolingual environments 9, 117, 165 in repertoires 114–15, 123, 137–8 Hispanic see Spanish language Holmes, P. 21–2, 123–4 home environment 65, 67, 139–40, 148 hybridity 82, 98, 103, 167, 199 identity 171, 200 community 154–5 cultural 109, 155 individual 39, 117, 136–7, 138, 143–4 and language 73, 96, 98, 161, 163, 164

Index 221

multiple identities 16, 185 transnational 125–6 ideological positioning 19–20, 109, 201 language varieties 68, 73–5, 140 monolingualism 9, 10–11, 14 street performance art 44 immersion model of research 52–3, 54, 66, 75, 214 immigration policies 34, 40, 41, 42, 46–7, 55 advocacy organisations 33–4 see also migration indigenous communities Chile 138, 154 Mexico 188, 193, 196, 199 see also minority languages individuals identities 39, 136–7, 138, 143–4 multiple identities 16, 185 shared walking 148–50, 154 trajectories 47, 68, 133, 177–8, 216 intergenerational transmission see transgenerational transmission interpreting services 73 apps for 40 provision 10–11, 23, 55, 62, 64–5 requests for 57, 58 Italian community 155n Chilean diaspora 131, 132–3, 138 Italianness 132, 138, 141–3, 145–8, 150–1, 153–5 Italian language 136, 138–9 influence on Chilean Spanish 137–8 varieties of 133, 139–41, 143, 147, 150–1, 152 Japanese language 196, 198 key participants (KPs) 30, 32–42, 43–4, 45–7, 213 Korean language 196 Kurdish community 109, 116–18 Kurdish language 54–5, 69, 70, 117–18 LADO (Language Analysis reports for the Determination of Origin) 55, 63 language communities 52, 55–6, 74–5 language policies 20–1 French 163–5 micro-level 72 Tijuana, Mexico 196, 197 UK 10–11, 63, 81 language shift 17, 122–3, 138–9

language varieties 41, 108, 125, 216–17 Arabic 55, 63, 67–8, 72–4 French 159–61, 163–4, 166–9 Greek 106–7, 110–14, 118–22 Italian 133, 139–41, 143, 147, 150–1, 152 Kurdish 54–5, 69, 117–18 naming practices 161–3 Spanish 92, 100, 136–7, 192, 215 Turkish 115–16 languaging 43–4 Leeds 29–30, 32, 35, 38, 40 legal settings 40–2, 55, 75 lexical borrowing 167–8, 169, 191–2 LinguaSnapp 54, 59–61, 93–4, 97, 99, 214 linguistic diversity 53, 55, 81, 123, 164 in cities 82, 108, 117, 124–5 language loss 143 linguistic features 177, 179 feature pools 160–1 and perceived characteristics 172 linguistic fracture 165 linguistic innovation 82, 96, 102–3 linguistic landscapes 79–80, 91–6, 101–3 London 83–90, 92–3, 101 Manchester 59–61, 63–4, 69–72 Tijuana 184, 187–9, 191–7, 199–206 Valparaíso 149–54 see also signage listeners’ perceptions, French CUV 169–74, 177, 178 London 79, 80–1, 95–6 Greek Cypriot community 109, 110, 119, 122, 124 Kurdish community 109, 116–18 linguistic diversity 117, 124–5, 125 linguistic landscapes 79, 83–90, 91–6, 101 regeneration of 95, 101 Spanish speakers 82–3, 96–7, 101 Turkish Cypriot community 109, 115–16 Maghrebi Arabic 167, 169 Manchester 53–6 Arabic 58–63, 63–4 interpreting services 55, 62, 64–5 Manchester, University of, civic role 55 Marseille 166, 167, 174–5 matched-guise studies 170, 171, 176–7, 179 meaning 170–1 interactional spaces 40, 47 and translanguaging 41

222 Index

metrolingualism 17, 18, 23, 96 Mexican Spanish 185–7, 192, 193–5, 199–200, 204, 206 Mexico 189 migration 183 Tijuana 183, 186–9, 190–1 see also US-Mexican border migration 160, 183 and cities 14–16, 80, 96 effect on language 14, 17, 110 historic patterns of 132–3, 134–5, 138, 139, 155n individual trajectories 139–40, 177–8 internal migration 154 new arrivals 58, 59 onward migration 126 see also diaspora settings; immigration policies minority languages 52, 108, 123, 196–7 France 163–4 see also indigenous communities Mixtec 188, 193, 199 MLM (Multilingual Manchester) research unit 53–6 mobility 15–16, 29–30, 43, 48, 96, 175 monolingualism 160 bounded languages 14, 17 France 163–5 Mexico 197, 199 UK 9, 10–11, 81, 85, 114 multiethnolects 160, 162 multilingualism 12–14, 19, 107, 135, 187–8 community education 114, 117 lifestyles 43 in research 75–6, 100, 123–4, 141, 143–4, 154, 178–9, 215–18 spaces claimed for 80, 81 in the UK 123, 125–6 see also bilingualism; linguistic landscapes multimodal communications 44, 48 Muslim communities 62, 63, 66, 68–70 nationalisation 73 nexus analysis 35, 47 observations 66, 198–9 Occitan 163, 164, 166, 167 Otomanguean language family 193 Paris 166, 167, 174–5 participatory research 21, 213 phonetic influences 168–9 Pink, S. 45, 144–5, 146, 148–9

Portuguese language 192 positionality 134, 197, 212–16 and language choice 131, 136–7, 140–1, 154 research subjects 29 shared positional space 143 of sole researcher 98–9 posthumanism 44 post-multilingualism 19, 126 power colonialism 197, 217 contact zones 31 language use 40, 137, 165, 188 of researchers 22, 23, 99 presence 80 promptclips 171–4, 176, 177, 179 public engagement 53 reflexivity 131, 134, 142, 216 regeneration of cities 95, 101 registers 206, 217 CUV (contemporary urban vernacular) 169 and dialect 187 legal settings 41 variety of 193, 197, 199–200, 204 religion Christianity 33–4, 63, 65 Islam 62, 63, 66, 68–70, 73 repertoires (languages) 123, 205–6 in cities 160–1, 187 communities 69–72, 89, 126, 155, 193–5 individuals 108, 124, 136–7, 143, 155, 188, 199 research breadth 93–4 choice of language 141–2, 143–4, 178–9, 215–16 immersion model of 52–3, 54, 66, 75, 214 multilingual research 22–4, 100, 123–4, 141, 143–4, 178–9, 215–18 scale 93, 97 timeframe 94–6 research methods 2, 12, 14 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) 198 focus groups 172–8 interviews 143, 144–6, 153 linguistic landscaping 91–6, 101–3, 197–9 longitudinal studies 97 matched-guise studies 170, 176–7

Index 223

multi-method approaches 6, 34, 36, 38, 93, 102 observations 66, 198–9 participatory research 21, 213–14 see also ethnography research participants focus groups 174–5, 177–8 key participants (KPs) 30, 32–42, 43–4, 45–7, 213 positionality 29 researchers language skills 22–3, 173 personal safety 197–8 relationship with researched 12, 21–4, 36–7, 98–100, 169–70 role 75–6, 179, 197–8, 212 see also positionality; reflexivity restaurants see cafes/restaurants Roma communities 32, 34, 35, 167 Royal Spanish Academy 197 rural environments 73, 96, 110, 154, 174 Sassen, S. 13, 80, 81, 82, 96, 98 scale 93, 97 School Census 56, 57, 58, 59 schools 62, 88 complementary schools (Greek) 109, 112, 113, 114, 124–5 France 163 Scuola Italiana, Valparaíso 140, 141–2, 151 Spanish Academy 197 supplementary schools (Arabic) 62–3, 65–8, 73, 75 Supplementary Schools Support Platform 55 Tulip Turkish School, London 115–16 scripted emergence 29, 31–2, 45–7 Scuola Italiana, Valparaíso 140, 141–2, 151 sensory research 94, 131, 135–6, 144–6 shops emporios, Valparaíso 133, 147–53 London 85–7, 89 Tijuana 192, 193–5, 201–4, 205–6 see also linguistic landscapes signage 52, 100 London 85, 87–90 Manchester 54, 56, 59–61, 63–4, 69–72 public sector 63–4 Southampton 9 Tijuana 186–7, 191–2, 194–5, 201–3, 204–6

Valparaíso 150–2 see also linguistic landscapes slang 112–13 Parisian 167–8 Slovenia 43 social media 94, 106–7 social realms 84–5, 86 sociolinguistic forces 21, 109 Southampton language policies 10–11 languages 9, 16, 22–3 spaces 35 cities 13, 160 community spaces 147–53 compression of 16 interactional spaces 40, 143, 145–50 linguistic marking 80, 81, 83 Spanish language 141 Chile 136, 137–8 as global language 102 London 79, 81, 82–3, 96–7, 101 Mexico 185–7, 199–200, 204, 206 Spanish Academy 197 varieties of 92, 100, 136–7, 192, 215 sport, TLANG project 37–8 stereotypes 98, 108, 171, 172 street performance art 42–5 superdiversity 48, 125 border areas 190–1 in cities 15–16, 17, 30, 52, 80–1, 101 and ephemerality 134–5, 138 supplementary schools 55 Arabic 62–3, 65–8, 73, 75 swap meet 191–2, 205 Swedish language 162 symbolic value 108 Arabic 70, 72, 73–4 Spanish 86, 91 teaching 53 Tijuana, Mexico language use 191–3 linguistic landscapes 184, 187–9, 191–7, 199–206 population 5, 183, 185, 186, 190–1, 207n time compression of 16 research timeframes 94–6, 199 TLANG project 28–31 arts communities 42–5 commercial setting 32–4 heritage 35–6

224 Index

legal setting 40–2 sport 37–8 trans-discursive translanguaging 33–4, 41, 46–7 transgenerational transmission CUV (contemporary urban vernacular) French 160 Greek language 108–9, 110, 114, 122–3 Italian language 133, 135, 146, 152, 154 transidiomatic practices 18–19 translanguaging 2–3, 17–19, 24n, 45, 187 concept of 28–9, 32, 46–7 Cypriot Greek community 119 in research 100 street performance art 43 Tijuanans 193–5, 200, 202, 205–7 see also bilingualism transnationalism 125–6, 185–6 Tube Tongues 97 Turkish Cypriot community 109, 115–16, 126 Turkish language 114–17, 126 Tyler, J. 170–1, 172, 173, 174, 176 UK

Brexit referendum 42, 48, 95 immigration policies 34, 40, 42, 46–7, 55, 63 language policies 10–11, 81 Leeds 29–30, 32, 35, 38, 40

London 79, 80–1, 83–90, 95–6, 101, 117, 124–5 Manchester 53–6, 56 sociolinguistic research 123 Southampton 9, 10–11, 16, 22–3 uptalk 170–1 urban areas see cities Urdu language 58, 64, 69–70 US-Mexican border 183, 189–90, 193 signage 198, 204 Valparaíso, Chile city landscape 148–53 Italian community 131, 132–3, 145–50, 153–4 vignettes 213, 217 visibility 35, 52, 84, 91, 138 visual communications 37–9, 43, 46, 48, 212 street performance art 44 visual environment 100, 154–5 corpus of images 197 video analysis 38 see also linguistic landscapes visual linguistic ethnography 212–13 volunteer schemes 53 walking 95, 149, 150–4 guided 148–50, 154 work environment 18, 32–7, 63, 69–72 see also bureaucratic discourses written language 36–7, 172–3, 188, 193 Arabic 65 handwritten 87, 88, 90