The Multilingual Adolescent Experience: Small Stories of Integration and Socialization by Polish Families in Ireland 9781788927680

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The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

BILINGUAL EDUCATION & BILINGUALISM Series Editors: Nancy H. Hornberger (University of Pennsylvania, USA) and Wayne E. Wright (Purdue University, USA) Bilingual Education and Bilingualism is an international, multidisciplinary series publishing research on the philosophy, politics, policy, provision and practice of language planning, Indigenous and minority language education, multilingualism, multiculturalism,  biliteracy, bilingualism and bilingual education. The series aims to mirror current debates and discussions. New proposals for single-authored, multiple-authored, or edited books in the series are warmly welcomed, in any of the following categories or others authors may propose: overview or introductory texts; course readers or general reference texts; focus books on particular multilingual education program types; school-based case studies; national case studies; collected cases with a clear programmatic or conceptual theme; and professional education manuals. 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.

BILINGUAL EDUCATION & BILINGUALISM: 122

The Multilingual Adolescent Experience Small Stories of Integration and Socialization by Polish Families in Ireland

Malgorzata Machowska-Kosciak

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/MACHOW7673 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Machowska-Kosciak, Malgorzata, 1982- author. Title: The Multilingual Adolescent Experience: Small Stories of Integration and Socialization by Polish Families in Ireland/Malgorzata Machowska-Kosciak. Description: Bristol; Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters, 2020. | Series: Bilingual Education & Bilingualism: 122 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Through the use of ‘small stories’ and ethnographic observation this book explores the social and cultural worlds of Polish immigrant adolescents in Ireland, the ways they seek belonging in their communities of practice, and the ways in which they develop socio-historical understandings across the languages and cultures they are part of”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019044366 (print) | LCCN 2019044367 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788927673 (hardback) | ISBN 9781788927680 (pdf) | ISBN 9781788927697 (epub) | ISBN 9781788927703 (kindle edition) Subjects: LCSH: Polish people—Ireland—Social conditions. | Intercultural communication—Ireland. | Multilingual communication—Ireland. | Ireland—Emigration and immigration—Social aspects. | Poland—Emigration and immigration—Social aspects. | Immigrants—Cultural assimilation—Ireland. Classification: LCC DA927.4.P6 M33 2020 (print) | LCC DA927.4.P6 (ebook) | DDC 305.235089/91850417—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044366 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044367 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-767-3 (hbk) 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.comn Copyright © 2020 Malgorzata Machowska-Kosciak. 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 Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

Introduction 1 From a Bilingual to a Multilingual Country 1 Language Socialization Perspective 5 Role of Narratives and Discourses in Examining Identity 7 From Socialization to Agency 9 Researcher’s Background 10 Organization of the Book 12 1 Children, Migration and Socialization 14 Poles in Ireland: Long-Term or Temporary Migration? 14 Integration with Wider Society 17 Context of Adolescence 18 Self-Concept Formation 19 Cultural Continuities and Discontinuities between Home and School 20 Language Socialization Perspective on Adolescence 21 Key Issues in Socialization and Second Language Socialization 22 Agency, Parents and Socialization 25 Types of Agency 26 Language Socialization and Education 26 Immigrant Children and Intercultural Competence 27 2 Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts 30 Methodology 31 Observations 31 Ethnographic Interviewing 33 Criteria Used in the Study of Interviews, Narratives and Small Stories 35 Kasia’s Family Life and Schooling 38 Marcin’s Family Life and Schooling 40 Wiktoria and Janek and Polish Weekend School 43 Wiktoria’s Family Life and Schooling 44 v

vi Contents

Janek’s Family Life and Schooling Limitations of the Methodology Used Child-Centered Approaches Layers of Analysis and Coding On Stances and Positioning Taken by Participants Notes on Translation 3 Power of Belonging Identity and Membership Constructing ‘Belonging’ Being an ‘Insider’ ‘My siblings are more Irish than I am’ Constructing ‘Not Belonging’ or Out of ‘Otherness’ Wiktoria: ‘Pack of lies’ ‘Not belonging’ Janek: ‘I’m a stranger’ ‘They do not understand jokes’ Technologically ‘different’ Rejection of Participation Accent and Other Language Practices as Belonging or Not Belonging Kasia: Accent as negotiation of ‘self’ ‘American accent’: Kasia’s Perspective Accent and Kasia’s Mother’s Perspective Marcin: Having the same accent? Wiktoria: ‘They wouldn’t laugh at somebody’s accent’ Janek: Rejecting Native Accent ‘Sheet’ [SHIT]: ‘They want to hear this word’ To be ‘more equal than the others’: Symbolic Power of Language Language, Identity and Emotions Janek: ‘He just does not write enough for it’ Between Home and School: Two Persons in One?

46 47 49 50 51 55 56 56 59 65 69 72 72 77 79 83 84 87 88 88 92 93 94 96 97 100 104 107 108 112

4 Agency and Socio-Historical Mediation 115 Socio-Historical Context and Discourses 117 Language Practices when Addressing Others 120 ‘I talk with more grown-up voice’ 123 Marcin: Greeting Others or Acknowledging Social Hierarchy? 125 Wiktoria: Being Polite or Lying? 129 In Between Two Cultures 136 Marcin 136 Resisting Culture 140

Contents 

vii

Agency or Adherence to a Moral Code: The Case of Wiktoria? 147 Wiktoria 149 Wiktoria, Liberal Values, Religion and ‘Polishness’ 152 5 Language Ideologies and Parents Language Ideologies among Parents ‘Polishness’ and Parents High Status of English Language of ‘success’ Status of English: An Open Door? Final Remarks

156 156 158 173 178 179 181

6 Conclusion and Implications 183 Negotiation of Internal and External Family Socialization Processes 183 A Complex Interplay of Engagements, Alignments, Socio-Historical Contexts and Agency 183 Janek and Wiktoria 185 Kasia and Marcin 188 Implications for Supporting Immigrant Adolescents 192 Notes on Participants 196 References 197 Index 213

Introduction

From a Bilingual to a Multilingual Country

During the last decade, Ireland has experienced a substantial influx of immigrants. According to the 2011 census, a total of 544,357 non-Irish nationals were living in Ireland in April 2011, representing 199 different nations. The growth in the number of non-Irish nationals has continued since 2006, although at a slower pace than earlier years. The main immigrant groups include Polish (2.7%); British (2.5%); Lithuanian (0.8%); Latvian (0.5%); Romanian (0.2%); Slovakian (0.2%); and German (0.2%); and the largest non-European groups include Nigerian (0.4%); Indian (0.4%); Filipino (0.3%); US American (0.2%); and Chinese (0.2%) (Central Statistics Office, 2011). From 2006 to 2011, there was a steady increase in the number of Polish nationals, from 63,276 to 122,585, marking this group as the largest ethnic minority group ahead of UK nationals with 112,259. By 2016, the situation was unchanged with the Polish population stabilizing at 122,515 (2.57% of the population), according to the 2016 census figures (Central Statistics Office, 2016). After Poland joined the European Union (EU) in 2004, Ireland, along with the United Kingdom and Sweden, was among three existing EU members to open its borders and welcome Polish workers as relatively cheap and qualified laborers. Ireland quickly became a key destination for many young Poles seeking work outside Poland. Work service officer dealing with employment patterns abroad from Poland’s largest HR company, Andrzej Kubisiak says that even though Ireland has a far smaller Polish population than Britain’s estimated 831,000, the country is in the top three countries most-liked by Poles, with 34% of Poles in Ireland saying they would like to remain there permanently. Anecdotal evidence points to the fact that Ireland is becoming even more popular among Polish migrants, particularly those residing in the UK, as there is much uncertainty in Britain since the Brexit referendum in 2016 and Britain’s decision to leave the EU. Due to the dramatic increase in the immigration of speakers of other languages to Ireland, schools are faced with the linguistic challenges of adapting their curricula to meet this new trend. As experience in other 1

2  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

countries has shown, the development of school programmes to serve the children of immigrants has often been slow and sometimes did not serve the best interest of immigrant children (Glenn & de Jong, 1996: 404–503). The situation is similar in Ireland. Although Ireland officially adopted an intercultural education policy in 2005 and developed a new language curriculum in 2017, it has paid little attention to children’s multilingualism and multiliteracy development. This situation often leaves children and their families without much guidance and support necessary for their multilingual development. Thus, families often develop their own ideas and ways of language maintenance and language learning. Informal family language policies differ among families as they make certain choices when it comes to the multilingual development of their children. For these reasons, this study is about four Polish families, specifically four adolescents: Kasia, Wiktoria, Janek and Marcin. Educational environments can be developed either as places where everyone can grow and become aware of their emerging linguistic repertoire and its value, or as places offering limited choices, often perceiving one linguistic competence as more favorable and ignoring the other. Not speaking a majority language is considered problematic and children continue to be seen as having some sort of ‘deficit’. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there is a discrepancy in the ways that immigrant children’s languages are seen by their educators depending on the languages they speak. If their mother tongue belongs to the group of modern European languages, the children are more likely to be offered explicit recognition and overt support toward the maintenance of their language. Over the last 30 years, language educators, applied linguists and sociolinguists have documented and discussed various monolingual practices worldwide (May, 2014; Meier & Conteh, 2014), which have been referred to as ‘damaging deficit approaches’ (Ortega, 2014: 32). This has led to a call for collective research action (Ortega, 2014) and for greater teacher guidance (Weber, 2014) to question monolingual thinking/norms worldwide. Researchers such as Devine (2005), Darmody (2011), McGillicuddy and Devine (2018) and McDaid (2011) have observed and identified these same practices in Ireland. McDaid (2011: 20) goes even further by saying that children are given a clear message that their first language (L1) is a barrier to succeeding in the Irish education system; therefore, ‘the issue of minority language recognition is fundamentally an issue of inequality’ within the Irish education system (2011: 20). Teachers’ misrecognition of children’s linguistic capabilities is articulated through a pedagogical commitment to the acquisition of English based on an approach rooted in the time-on-task argument (Imhoff, 1990). Other studies in Ireland discuss similar problems (see McGorman & Sugrue, 2007; Nowlan, 2008; Wallen & Kelly-Holmes, 2006). Devine (2005) argues that this perspective originates in the construction of children in deficit terms, and asserts that it is underpinned by a concern that children cannot integrate socially without

Introduction 3

the requisite proficiency in English. It presents English language speakers as normative and minority language speakers as deficient or inferior. Proficiency in L1s is ‘devalued and condemned’ (Lynch & Baker, 2005). Many of the children experience the message that the solution to these ‘failings’ lies in the successful acquisition of English. One might believe that the situation has changed since 2011; however, McGillicuddy and Devine’s (2018: 90) study on ability grouping practices in Ireland shows that many schools still ‘funnel and filter’ children into differentiated ability groups with learners assigned to the ‘weaker’ groups, mostly composed of boys and minority ethnic/migrant children. These children are often described as ‘turned off’ because of their ‘language problems’ or among learning difficulties, whereas other children are ‘ready to fly’ through the education system (McGillicuddy & Devine, 2018: 93). This is alarming and exposes ‘the process of legitimation underpinning this symbolically violent act is shaped by a system which maintains social order by defining boundaries of difference in the classroom’ (Devine & McGillicuddy, 2016). Taking on a multilingual framework instead, one sees great value and potential in ‘all languages a person can use in society and learns inside and outside of educational environments, including language varieties, dialects, signed languages and partial languages’ (Busch, 2012). This framework is based on the idea of plurilingualism, which indicates personal bi/multilingual language competences as defined by the Common European Framework of Reference (Council of Europe, 2001). This theoretical framework is embedded in the concept of critical multiculturalism/interculturalism, as Antonsich (2016) argues that integration of immigrants is ‘the right to have one’s difference recognized and supported in both the public and private spheres’ which is central to equal citizenship and uniform membership of all members of society. Education systems are, however, slow in adapting to these changes and conceptual frameworks. Their reluctance is rooted in more systemic struggles to develop policies and curriculum guidelines based on equity and informed by the newest research advancements. In Ireland, there is still no provision for home languages for children who speak other languages than English. Multilingual children are often perceived from ‘deficit’ perspectives. Many studies report that there is very little awareness of ‘multiliteracy’ and pedagogies recognizing children’s linguistic potential except for Kirwan (2019) or very recent initiatives such as an organization called ‘Mother Tongues’. This book not only documents how four multilingual children and their families navigate through these complex and often ‘pervasive’ monolingual and monocultural norms but it also illustrates fascinating ways in which they exercise their own agency, the choices they make and the plans they have for their future. These families, the children in particular, develop unique strategies to cope with the challenges of migration. I

4  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

take a multilingual turn (Meier & Conteh, 2014; May, 2014), specifically I critique the monolingual norms that have become pervasive worldwide, including in Irish schools, and that have indirectly/implicitly influenced many of the strategies and practices of the families that took part in this study. Based on this, I see the participating families, their multilingual socialization and their practices and strategies as a driving force for change, in the form of an alternative structure for holistic reflection and potential transformation in Irish society. While the recent immigration of Poles to Ireland has inspired several studies, none has so far provided the kind of close up, intimate and detailed view of the experience of adolescent children and their parents that I have attempted in this book. I followed four Polish families, specifically teenagers as they expressed in their own words their feelings as they grappled with issues of conflicting identities and the accommodation of competing goals of language learning (English) and language maintenance (Polish). All the children participating in this research achieved B2+ language proficiency according to their schools and were not availing of any support programmes. The data collected provide a snapshot of their lives, illuminating the complexities of the process of growing up in a new place, a new country and a new society. This book contributes to our understanding of how older learners negotiate family internal and family external socialization processes and how parents’ ideologies and practices, peer socialization, language status and societal demands come together in adolescents’ lives. The book integrates the socio-historical context and adolescents’ attitudes with parents’ roles. The rich data provided by the participants of this study were subjected to a rigorous analysis of interview transcripts and field notes collected over a period of one academic year per family, informed by current theories of language socialization (LS), discourse analysis, positioning and stance-taking, which will be discussed in the following sections of this chapter. This book presents a thorough examination of the relationships of language, power and identity, exposing that, even for the youngest speakers, such associations are always indexed in talk and social behavior. There is still relatively little information on how older learners negotiate family internal and family external socialization processes or how parental ideologies and practices, peer socialization, language status and societal demands come together in adolescents’ lives, particularly among Slavic immigrants. A few studies in the European context are investigating the home–school community dynamics of minority LS. Thus, this study adds to studies conducted in the European context (Gafaranga, 2010; García-Sánchez, 2014; García-Sánchez & Nazimova, 2017; Said & Zhu, 2019; Van Mensel, 2016), specifically by investigating first and second language socialization both in the family and outside of the family contexts and by integrating the socio-historical context with adolescents’

Introduction 5

identities and ways of belonging. Specifically, the current study can be positioned among European studies featuring youths’ transnational multilingual practices and identities, such as García-Sánchez’s (2014) analysis of everyday school interactions between Moroccan immigrant children and their Spanish peers; Corona et al.’s (2013) analysis of the way high school students of Latin American descent used hybrid registers to construct diasporic identities in Barcelona; Codó and Patiño-Santos’ (2013) study of the relationship between language, social categorization and ideologies of social class at a high school in Barcelona; and Karrebæk and Charalambous’s (2018) study in which she argued that older youth deploy their multilingual repertoires in progressively more playful and politically sophisticated ways to challenge authority or negotiate group membership. As García-Sánchez and Nazimova (2017) point out, there is a certain need for such studies in the European context to facilitate understanding of the issues involved in good integrational practices of language minority children and parental involvement in schooling or heritage language maintenance in a broader socio-historical context of unequal power relations. These issues are discussed in the current study by addressing the following questions: what is the role of the external environment in LS? How do the socio-historical context, adolescents’ attitudes and parental involvement in contexts outside of the home come together in adolescents’ lives? What is the role of future projections and imaginings in shaping children’s multilingual competencies? Is the role of parental ideologies and practices less important for adolescent learners? What role do external contexts of heritage LS play for children’s ethnic identities and language maintenance? Indirectly, this research also contributes to how we view language learning and socialization as well as how we understand integration and intercultural competence in recent immigrants to Ireland. It is also an addition to Singleton et al.’s (2013) study of linguistic and cultural acquisition in a Polish migrant community in Ireland. As their study focused primarily on adult immigrants, the present study supplements this unique perspective by offering insights from the youngest group of Polish immigrants. It is hoped that by understanding their experience, we can plan for the advancement of multilingual education, multiculturalism and the integration of immigrant minorities in the European context with greater clarity. Language Socialization Perspective

Taking an LS approach to the study of adolescent immigrant experiences across children’s communities of practice in these two educational– linguistic contexts allows us not only to unravel social processes and the relationships between human actions and social systems but also to trace connections between them through multiple scales of social organization, from the micro-family through the mezzo educational level to

6  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

macro national curricula and policy levels. For a long time, the field of LS, along with sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, has sought to understand the complexities of the relationships between languages, individuals, contexts, communities and cultures. The process of ‘growing up’ in bilingual or multilingual settings has been of particular interest to many researchers. Perceiving ‘growing up’ as socialization to and through language over the entire lifespan of the individual is most often the approach taken, especially when the research concerns multilingual or bilingual contexts. As Auer and Wei (2007: 90) point out, ‘the reproductive and potentially the transformative process of growing up multilingual’ can no longer be studied from the perspective of linear language development because, as many studies show, the process is complex and illustrates dynamic developmental and socio-historical trajectories. Similarly, Garrett and Baquedano-López’s (2002: 355) suggest that LS is present ‘in language as a formal system, of social structures, and of cultural knowledge and practices’ and that it can be ‘central to – and in some cases a driving force in – dynamic processes of transformation and change’. Hanks (1996: 229) indicates that in order to communicate effectively, individuals need to share not only the same grammar but also and to a different degree, the ability to ‘orient themselves verbally, perceptually and physically’ to each other and their social worlds. From this perspective, LS can be defined as being concerned with how novices and children achieve this kind of ‘mutuality with others’ (Hanks, 1996: 229). When children are socialized to use language and to engage in particular communicative practices, they are also socialized into culturally preferred ways of dealing with them (see Fader, 2000a; Field, 2001; Garrett, 1999; Meek, 2001; Riley, 2001). Nevertheless, as numerous studies have shown, multilingual individuals, especially children, take positions in order ‘to renegotiate, challenge, or transcend the existing social categories that are constituted and indexed by the codes and communicative practices at their disposal’ (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002: 345). Thus, children and novices must be ‘regarded as agents with the potential to transform language as well as the cultural systems of meaning that it so thoroughly interpenetrates’ (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002: 346). As some cases demonstrate, LS practices can be centrally involved in shaping notions of ethnicity, cultural identity, morality and personhood (BaquedanoLópez, 2000; Fader, 2000b; He, 2002; Smith-Hefner, 1999) or illustrating social orientations as in the studies by García-Sánchez (2013) on exclusion; Cook’s (2011) ‘Language Socialization and Stance-Taking Practices’; Fader’s (2011) ‘Language Socialization and Morality’; Goodwin and Kyratzis (2012) on peer socialization; and Wright-Fogle (2012) on agency. There are important parallels between definitions of LS and the notion that monolingual – or multilingual – norms can be represented in domains of ‘socio-political, socio-historical ideologies, wider school, school practice, language itself, learning and teaching, as well as identity

Introduction 7

and self-concepts’ (He, 2010). By examining adolescents’ own local discourse contexts/communities – such as peer groups, family and the wider school community – this book investigates how, and to what extent, these processes operate in the case of immigrant children and their families in Ireland. It also examines how these adolescents develop their understanding of the historically and culturally rooted values and beliefs of both Irish and Polish communities. The following sections discuss the role of small stories, narratives and discourses in the socialization process. Also, the concept of agency and the researcher’s background are presented. Role of Narratives and Discourses in Examining Identity

This study is an identity study with ‘narrative’ used as a tool for examining identity. Scholars such as De Fina and Georgakopoulou (2008, 2015) propose to reanalyze narrative as an interactive practice through which interlocutors elicit, explain, justify, tell and solve problems; establish cultural norms, ideologies and values; and negotiate their identities. Moreover, Baynham and De Fina (2016) suggests, ‘affordances of narrative as a genre make it a privileged site for identity work’ and the repeatability of narrative offers the settlement of identity positions within habitus. The characteristic of involvement binds the interlocutor into the identity positions being constructed. While many narratives were constructed by co-participants (including the researcher), a significant number of small stories were spontaneous and were often initiated by the participants themselves. These small stories or threads from these stories were very important as they recurrently appeared in children’s conversations, whenever the chance to talk about them arose. They included events from the distant or more recent past or were concerned with retrospective accounts of different situations, generalizations, assessments of or justifications for particular behaviors or choices. Wiktoria, for example, kept returning to the theme of ‘liars’ each time she talked about her classmates. These narratives formed the basis for interview analysis. Some of the stories told concerned future projections and imaginings. Some small stories exposed socialization that had already occurred as opposed to occurring in day-to-day conversations. This, however, was not seen as an impediment. These retrospective accounts, often evaluative, were seen as central to the establishment of agency and categories of difference and value as in Goodwin and Kyratzis’s (2012) study of peer play where judgmental and negative labels indexed more local cultural values. Retrospective accounts of practices used for membership categorization were also very noticeable in small stories and are themselves acts of socialization. Gee’s theory of D/discourse provides a very useful tool for examining discourse and social practice that emphasize the interconnection between language, language learning, social identity and social context. The term ‘discourse’ has been typically used to denote interactions and sequences

8  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

of utterances between interlocutors. Gee (1989, 1996, 1999, 2007), however, proposes to make a distinction between ‘discourse’ and ‘Discourse’ – with a capital D. This distinction proposes recognition of the interconnectedness of social relations, contexts, social identities and particular instances of language use. ‘Discourses’ with a capital ‘D,’ that is, different ways in which we humans integrate language with non-language ‘stuff,’ such as different ways of thinking, acting, interacting, valuing, feeling, believing, and using symbols, tools, and objects in the right places and at the right times to enact and recognize different identities and activities, give the material world certain meanings, distribute social goods in a certain way, make certain sorts of meaningful connections in our experience, and privilege certain symbol systems and ways of knowing over others. (Gee, 1999: 13)

In other words, language among other symbolic expressions of thinking, feeling and doing and props can be used to identify oneself as a member of a ‘socially meaningful group or network’ (Gee, 2007). This is how we signal what role we are playing within this group. Gee (2007: 113) highlights that here language and grammar are as important as ‘saying(writing)–doing–being–valuing–believing combinations’. In his works, Gee (1999, 2007) refers to extra linguistic factors combinations with a capital D in the word ‘discourse’ whereas considering ‘discourse’; lower case as part of the ‘Discourse’, which is always more than ‘just language’. Interestingly, Gee (2007) makes a connection with Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of ‘hybridity’, suggesting that ‘what Discourse we are in is often a matter of negotiation, contestation, and “hybridity”’. Gee (2007) points out that Discourses are often mixtures of ‘several historically distinct’ Discourses. According to Gee (2007), Discourses can ‘capture’ people to speak throughout history (Fleck, 1979; Gee, 1992) or people can ‘capture’ Discourses to make strategic choices, maneuver or simply survive (Bauman & Briggs, 2003; Giddens, 1984). It is important to note that many factors limit these notions and contestations of discourse, including the historical and cultural setting, the economy, the joint histories of the groups or individuals, power relations and many more. It is theorized in the present book that the ‘agency’ that takes place, often happens within these spaces. In spite of limitations, adolescents can negotiate their positions, values and future projections. In this manner, Discourses can be perceived as ‘identity kits’ or ‘forms of life’ (Gee, 2007). As people form numerous theories about their reality, ‘cultural models’ can distinguish what is common sense, what is typical, what is normal and what is not. Gee claims that certain cultural models prevailing within certain social groups are likely to affect our agency, basically providing some limitations or boundaries. It is not to suggest that these discourses are set in stone, the opposite is true. Discourses that constitute each person

Introduction 9

change as our life trajectories change. In some cases, certain Discourses can be in opposition with each other (Gee, 1989: 7) and cause tension between values, beliefs, attitudes, language choices and ways of being in the world. As this book shows, this issue becomes critical for adolescent immigrants and their families. Gee’s theory implies that ‘meaning’ in a language is situated. It is bound with people’s experiences and ‘perceptions relative to the Discourse they are presently using language within’. In this perspective, ‘words mean only as they are situated within a Discourse and they take on other meanings if they are situated differently within that Discourse or another Discourse’ (Davies & Harré, 1990: 346). ‘Discourse’ is therefore about ‘the creation and limitation of possibilities, they are systems of power/knowledge (pouvoir/ savoir) within which we take up subject positions’ (Pennycook, 1994: 128). As Kramsch (2011) suggests, there is a link between ‘discourse, ideology, and identity’ particularly in language learning and teaching as has been shown by Young (2009: 1), who argues: ‘Discursive practice is the construction and reflection of social realities through actions that invoke identity, ideology, belief, and power’. If culture is being gradually seen as discourse and the production of meaning, ‘the development of intercultural competence is not only a question of tolerance towards or empathy with others, of understanding them in their cultural context, or of understanding oneself and the other in terms of one another’ (Kramsch, 2011: 3). This book contributes to this discussion by integrating the complexity of a socio-historical context and discourses operating within these contexts with adolescents’ agency and parental roles. It attempts to unravel some of the discourses present in their lives through an exploration of children’s small stories or narratives in which children often relate to the particular people, situations or places. These small stories and narratives along with ethnographic observations provide snapshots of their lives. This book further problematizes the notion of interviews as inauthentic ways of gathering information because narratives and small stories can be unexpected, spontaneous and rich (see De Fina, 2016b). This study also acknowledges the importance of parental involvement in contexts outside the home in children’s negotiations of their ethnolinguistic identities. In this way, the present study makes a contribution to the area of multilingualism, pointing to the importance of family external opportunities for language maintenance (sometimes the only opportunity). It is, however, evident that it is not only parental ideologies or socio-historical contexts and their discourses that shape children’s competencies, but also the kind of future they plan for themselves and their families. Agency is thus key to their socialization practices. From Socialization to Agency

Some scholars have critically viewed ‘socialization’ as over deterministic and goal-oriented toward adulthood (Rogoff, 2003; Zentella, 2005).

10  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

As Duranti et al. (2012) note, the same criticism applies to the concept of ‘enculturation’. This view often depicts children as passive recipients of ‘socialization’ practices aimed at the transmission of local norms and culture. For example, Boas (2004: 144) claims that children naturally conform to ways of acting, thinking and speaking. However, what this conceptual framework implies is that cultural knowledge is ‘reproduced through imitation and internalization without modification’ (Duranti et al., 2012). Similarly to this, scholars such as Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) believed that educators instill and inculcate knowledge and learners internalize implicit and explicit practices of a given habitus, gaining different types of cultural or social capital. It is, however, important to note that both Bourdieu and Passeron saw these pedagogic outcomes as oppressive – as ‘symbolic violence’. This is in strong opposition to Boas (2004) who sees cultural transmission as smooth and fruitful and not oppressive. Ochs and Schieffelin (2011) note that the term ‘socialization’ in ‘language socialization’ differs from these usages and draws inspiration from Sapir’s understanding of language and culture with language the driving force of socialization. He also argued for conceptual and behavioral independence of individual and culture in ‘Culture, Genuine and Spurious’ (Sapir, 1924: 114): ‘The major activities of the individual must directly satisfy his own creative and emotional impulses, must always be something more than means to an end’. This leads to notions of agency and its importance for LS where ‘novices participation in communicative practice is promoted but not determined by culturally informed persons’ (Ochs & Schieffelin, 2011). Duff (2012: 413) notes, for example, that agency and identity are closely related in the contexts of second language (L2) learning – ‘learners are not simply passive or complicit participants in language learning and use, but can make informed choices, exert influence, resits […] or comply, although their social circumstances may constrain their choices’. LS studies document the social and communicative positionings of children and other novices in different activity settings and the affordances of such positionings for situational and cultural competence. Researcher’s Background

My interest in this project grew following my immigration to Ireland in 2004, just after Poland’s accession to the EU, making it possible for me to travel to Western Europe for the first time without any particular restrictions or special visa requirements. I am part of ‘generation zero’ that constitutes more than 60% of the Polish immigrant population in Ireland (Poliski Express, 2007). Wandachowicz describes those who comprised the baby boom in the late 1970s and the early to mid-1980s as ‘generation nothing’ or ‘generation zero’. This generation grew up in a

Introduction 11

changing political system and experienced tremendous changes to social order. I was educated in a communist country but ultimately entered adulthood in a capitalist world. In a sense, many say that this generation can be perceived as a cross-linking element of both systems, a kind of ‘comm-capitalist’ hybrid (Singleton et al., 2013). I spent my childhood and younger years in the shadow of the Western world. Through little spaces in the Iron Curtain, this world presented itself to me as a world of prosperity and a place where even the boldest dreams could come true. Western records, colorful books, toys and tapes with English language stories were sent to us (myself and my brother) by an aunt (grandfather’s cousin) and later by my father who moved to New York for two years. At the time, this increased my fascination with Western culture – in my eyes synonymous with the English language. I pursued a career as a teacher of English but always dreamt about experiencing this culture more personally. Therefore, when it finally became possible, I decided to travel abroad and thus became part of the 2004 immigration wave. Ireland seemed a great choice at the time and soon after arrival, I was employed as a part-time literacy and language community education tutor with the local Vocational Education Committee. My main duties involved delivering not only English as a second language (ESL) classes but also classes where the emphasis was on improving students’ self-advocacy skills, sociological or intercultural knowledge and general oral language literacy skills. I also taught personal development courses to immigrant parents, students with mental disabilities and students from disadvantaged social backgrounds including juvenile offenders, young people from the Travelling Community (an officially recognized ethnic minority in Ireland) and refugees from all over the world. Many of the adult learners I taught during these years came from Slavic countries such as Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It is believed that these immigrants integrate well within Irish society because their ‘Whiteness’ makes them ‘invisible immigrants’, where linguistic features and not race distinguish them from the rest of society. For many years, I worked with individuals who had experienced learning difficulties or who had come to Ireland with very little or no English language skills. Most of these individuals came from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and some lacked basic literacy skills in their L1 and L2. They often felt culturally distant and alienated from their new society. Some of them had spent many years in Direct Provision (a number of years in a refugee camp). Many brought traumatic experiences with them to their new country, creating enormous educational challenges for most of them. Most of the parents I met during that time wanted to be part of their children’s education but felt lost in a new system, or were confused about home language maintenance, often receiving contradictory messages from their schools, friends and extended family members. I

12  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

started noticing power relations operating in society that were having a profound impact on individual people’s trajectories, especially those at the bottom of the social hierarchy. I started asking numerous questions related to culture, cultural hegemony more precisely, and the role of language and education in the process of becoming a member of a given society. This was the first time I had questioned my own identity and my own role as an educator. It was a breakthrough moment in my professional and personal development because I then decided to resume my education and undertake a research project within the migrant community, with the most vulnerable people, the immigrant children. I wished to hear the voices of those who were not heard or were underrepresented within societal power relations. I embarked on a longitudinal investigation in Trinity College Dublin (a PhD study) on the multilingual and multicultural experiences of immigrants in Ireland. It felt natural to start with my migrant community, with the children going through the transition from childhood to teenagerhood as, in my opinion, they were among the most vulnerable. Whereas some LS researchers such as Baquedano‐López (2011) are now researching in their communities, there remains a need for more LS studies to be undertaken in researchers’ communities. Researching a community from an insider perspective offers numerous benefits, in particular it allows one to study an issue in-depth and with special knowledge about the issue. The unique position of an insider offers access to people and information that can be difficult for an outsider to obtain. As in Fader’s study, her indepth knowledge of the Hasidic Jewish communities in Brooklyn allowed her to unravel very complex issues of the socialization of morality. Organization of the Book

I have two main goals in this book. The first is to examine the social and cultural worlds of Polish immigrant adolescents in Ireland, the way they seek membership and belonging to their communities of practice, the ways in which they develop socio-historical understandings across the languages and cultures of which they are part. The second goal is to shed light on schooling and family communities and the role they play in the socialization processes for these immigrant children and how this is set within a wider societal context. Four adolescents and their families took part in this study and are referred to as Kasia’s, Wiktoria’s, Janke’s and Marcin’s family. Janek and Wiktoria were attending Polish weekend schools at the time of data collection in addition to English medium schools. This situation provided a unique opportunity to observe and examine the role that a heritage education context played in their lives. Marcin and Kasia did not attend Polish weekend school so their socialization trajectory differed in many ways. The book is organized around three main themes: developing belonging and

Introduction 13

membership within communities of practice (Chapter 3), negotiation of socio-historical competences through languages and exercising agency (Chapter 4) and parental language ideologies and socializing practices (Chapter 5). Chapter 3 discusses the ways in which the four children obtain access to and membership of different social circles and communities of practice. The children employ specific strategies when negotiating their own understandings of selves with respect to others, often either differentiating themselves from certain groups or trying to display allegiances and loyalty to a group. By reflecting on these examples, including the educational settings, I illustrate and describe different approaches that the children take during these negotiations. The first part illustrates how the children seek membership and participation in certain communities of practice or how they reject participation or are rejected by it. In the second part, I show how accent and specific language choices play an important role in the process. Chapter 4 conceives that ‘language socialization’ is embedded in the notion that immigrants are socialized into using languages (L2 and L1), not only by acquiring their languages in the local D/discourse contexts, but also by developing their own agency, understanding the historically and culturally rooted values and beliefs of the host society while trying to maintain the values and beliefs developed within their previous cultural communities. This often results in transformation and change but can also be a source of personal conflict. This chapter shows the various ways in which the four children develop their own understandings of L1 and L2 cultural and socio-historical norms and values. The first part of the chapter illustrates the children’s language practices in addressing others and the second part discusses the ways in which the children construct an understanding of sociocultural norms and traditions across two cultures and two languages. It also exposes allegiances and affective aspects of these negotiations. Chapter 5 illustrates parental attitudes and ideologies with respect to the languages their children speak in Ireland, namely, Polish, English. Particular attention is paid to parental/family practices together with heritage language and culture maintenance strategies. The status of Irish and English is discussed within a greater societal context, highlighting dominant and ecological perspectives on language and culture. Additionally, in Chapters 3 and 4, special attention is given to issues of emotions and the socialization of morality as they were salient for two families. Background information about the Polish migrants in Ireland and key issues in socialization are provided in Chapter 1 and more specific information about the participants and the contexts in which the present research is rooted are discussed in Chapter 2. This chapter also describes the methods and research tools used. Final thoughts and concluding remarks are presented in Chapter 6.

1 Children, Migration and Socialization

Poles in Ireland: Long-Term or Temporary Migration?

According to Tadeusz Szumowski, Polish Ambassador to Ireland from 2006 to 2010, one view of current Polish migration to Ireland is that it is a temporary phenomenon (personal communication to Debaene, October 2007). However, more anecdotal evidence obtained by Debaene (2007) from 30 Poles (aged 20–45) has indicated that the vast majority (20 out of 30) claimed they would stay in Ireland for ‘up to 5 years’ and then return to Poland. ‘I don’t know how long I’m going to stay in Ireland’ was the most common answer among the study’s informants. Moreover, proof of the existing demand for services such as the internet and lowcost phone calls indicates the importance of maintaining contact with relatives and friends in Poland (Kropiwiec & Chiyoko King-O’Riain, 2006). It is also a strikingly mobile population: the ease of travel between the two countries – nine Polish cities are served by direct flights from Ireland and the number of scheduled flights on different routes offered by at least seven airlines is increasing – suggests that migrants can make regular trips home relatively inexpensively. Schömann et al. (2007) suggests that in contrast to old waves of migration from Poland (more political than economic in character), most of the current Polish immigrants in Ireland perceive their departure/ emigration from Poland as temporary – mainly to earn money and gain experience that can be used in Poland in the future (English language fluency is especially valued among Poles). As Schömann et al. (2007) points out, this way of thinking along with frequent visits to Poland, which are no longer limited by political and economic factors, may slow down or even slightly impede integration (which is no longer perceived as a pressing need). However, the picture emerging from various studies, including questionnaire data for a project funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS), does not entirely support this perspective. Some sources indicate, for example, that as many as half of the Poles in Ireland intend to stay permanently (Scally, 2007) and 14

Children, Migration and Socialization  15

Warsaw-based agency Kinoulty Research found that 50% of the Poles questioned would like to live in Ireland for as long as possible, while 18% want to stay permanently. Data gathered by the Polish market research agency Irish Times (2007) from research conducted in Ireland shows that 49% of their survey participants have no intention of returning home (at least not within the next 5 to 10 years). As Pelowski (2007) points out, migrants who stay in Ireland for more than 10  years are very likely to remain in Ireland permanently. It is a fact that the decision to return to Poland is less likely the longer the Polish immigrant stays in Ireland: As I know the language better, as I stay here longer, I want to live here. I got used to it. Or rather, I got unused to Poland. I don’t know if I will find myself back there. When I go there for a month for the summer, many things disturb me. I didn’t have that feeling before. Before, there was only homesickness. And now, when I’m in Poland I think that I’m coming back home when I come here. (Female, 34, administrator, cited in Kropiwiec & Chiyoko King-O’Riain, 2006: 34)

Due to the 2010 economic recession (increasing the unemployment rate by 11.0%) and the continuous outflow of immigrants from the EU 12 (the 12 accession countries that joined the European Union [EU] on or after 1 May 2004) representing 19.1% of total emigration from Ireland in 2010, Poles’ long-term plans and intended duration of stay in the host country were highly unpredictable. According to reports by Ruhs (2005) and Kinoulty Research, Polish migrants were employed across a wide range of sectors such as restaurants, hotels, offices, agriculture and health care, and as the data from the IRCHSS-funded project suggest, the art and publishing media. Many of these migrants lost their employment (approximately 9% of all non-nationals came from the EU27 states), yet those entitled to social welfare benefits may have been reluctant to return home until their benefits ceased. Additionally, as Monaghan (2007) observed, many Poles expressed the hope that the job situation was only temporary and that it might improve over time. As anecdotal evidence suggests, many Poles are ‘increasingly rooted in the Irish soil’ and established in their localities. ‘After 12 years we can see that the discussion about whether to go back to Poland pretty soon is mostly just talk’ (Rakowski, 2016). According to the 2011 and 2016 censuses, the Polish community is overwhelmingly young and well educated, with 92% under the age of 44. Polish peoples are concentrated in urban areas, but many sources suggest their presence in almost every Irish town and village. At some point in 2016/2017, the Polish government launched numerous campaigns encouraging young skilled Poles to return home, but with very limited success (Rakowski, 2016). The sociolinguistic situation of Polish immigrants in Ireland has unique features. On the one hand, Polish immigrants are from large

16  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

cohesive communities and have well-established links with their home country, but, on the other hand, evidence suggests that there is a widespread desire to become fluent in English and to be part of Irish society (Kropiwiec & Chiyoko King-O’Riain, 2006). In Poland, such fluency is perceived as a major asset in career planning as English is widely taught in Polish primary and secondary schools and is highly valued in many workplaces and various social situations. Gal (1979: 37) states: ‘social changes change social networks [and] relationships between people… social networks are extremely important and are needed to create the opportunity to use the language’. Poles experience many language and culture difficulties (Drinkwater et al., 2009; Kropiwiec & Chiyoko King-O’Riain, 2006: 45–46). The children of immigrants are also affected by the language barrier, especially when beginning their education in Ireland. As Guidera (2007) reported, one in five immigrant students in post-primary schools in Dublin had little or no English on beginning their education. Language support for immigrant children, then, is considered a significant step in fighting against social disadvantage (Drinkwater et al., 2009; OECD, 2007). As the same study suggests, social disadvantage among first-generation immigrants can be difficult to overcome as children who do not speak the same language at home as during school assessments are two and a half times more likely to be in the bottom quarter of performance indicators. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD, 2018) recommends that more should be done to train existing teachers in order to provide inclusive and multilingual education. Despite the obvious need for more resources to help migrant pupils, funds for the coming years are forecasted to be reduced. There is also a significant lack of resources and in-service training for teachers in schools with pupils from immigrant backgrounds with the response to the phenomenon varying from school to school (Lyons & Little, 2009). Nevertheless, a variety of institutions serve the Polish community in Ireland, promoting the Polish culture and helping newcomers to settle in Ireland. Polish ethnic institutions include the Polish Information and Culture Centre, the Polish Social and Cultural Association, the Polish House and the Polish-Irish Society. Such institutions provide free English tuition and offer free information services for newcomers in their native language. The Polish Social and Cultural Association promotes libraries with Polish books as well as organizing various cultural events. According to the National Economic and Social Council of Ireland (NESC, 2006: 235), Polish migrants who have language problems can turn to these associations or contact the Polish-Irish Society for advice on learning the English language or enrolling their children in culture courses. The Polish (Catholic) chaplaincy in Ireland was established in 2006. It offers religious worship in the Polish language and runs Polish weekend primary schools across the country. As regards education, there are

Children, Migration and Socialization  17

several Polish government-sponsored Polish-medium schools in Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Cavan and Waterford, where Polish, Polish history, geography, mathematics and religion are taught. Additionally, there are a number of private and community-led Polish schools around the country, which function as supplementary weekend schools. Their main concern is to provide Polish children with the ability to re-enter the Polish education system at the appropriate age or stage. The study ‘Hopes of Immigrant Children in Ireland’ (Ní Laoire et al., 2009) reported that parents concur that it is essential for their children to ‘keep up’ with the education system in their home country and maintain the language of their home country, even though they do not necessarily intend to return to Poland in the near future. Polish shops, pubs and restaurants are increasing in number across the country. One notices that Polish signs are becoming commonplace in public areas around Dublin and many services, for example medical providers, have Polish-speaking personnel. According to Singleton et al. (2013), an increased interest in the Polish community in Ireland between 2004 and 2008 (following EU accession in 2004) resulted in increasing enrolments in Polish language courses, and the number of Polish newspapers and TV and radio programmes also increased. All this was visible evidence that Ireland had made significant efforts to accommodate the Polish population. This, however, slowed down significantly during the 2009–2015 recession. Nevertheless, according to Debaene (2007), there was always a notable absence of support on the part of the Irish authorities for the home language and culture of children of Polish immigrants. Such support was mainly supplied by other agencies including the Polish government, the church and Polish cultural organizations. Integration with Wider Society

The available data regarding integration within Irish society (mainly from Singleton et al. [2013]) suggest that there is ‘a feeling of relative contentment – or at least an absence of widespread discontentment – as well as a sense that a sizeable proportion of the participants in question are prepared to become part of Irish society on a long-term or even permanent basis’. Additionally, the study ‘Hopes of Immigrant Children in Ireland’ (Ní Laoire et al., 2009) reported that the majority of children from Central and Eastern Europe made new friends through school. Going to school was a vital part of their socialization experience in Ireland. Immigrant children attending Irish schools are entitled to a 2-year English support programme. Once schools decide that the child has attained B2 level, he or she is no longer provided with extra English classes. Children participating in the research described in this book were no longer availing of this programme. Irish schools do not provide formal support for

18  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

children’s heritage language. For this reason, many children avail of some form of ‘heritage’ language education through the supplementary weekend schools. Blackledge and Creese (2010: 536) found that ‘there was a clear sense that the teaching of “language” was inexorably intertwined with the teaching of “heritage” among participants’. For example, the Integrate Ireland Language and Training (IILT) 2010 study conducted in Trinity College, Dublin, highlighted that making new friends in Ireland and maintaining contact with friends in the children’s home countries were highly important. They often made friends with children from their home countries or other immigrant children (IILT, 2009). The conviction that people and places ‘back home’ were changing while they were not was very common and the children sometimes found this difficult. The IILT (2009: 62) study pointed to the fact that migrating to Ireland had changed some aspects of these children’s personalities ‘such as having to be more outgoing and confident to make new friends’. However, relatively little is known about immigrant children and their own experience of migration and settling down in Ireland. For that reason, this book focuses on Polish children (constituting the largest ethnic minority in Ireland in 2019 according to Census 2016 [Central Statistics Office, 2016]), their families and school communities and attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of children’s own voices and experiences. Context of Adolescence

Adolescence is a difficult period to define. ‘It is a process rather than a time period, a process of achieving the attitudes and beliefs for effective participation in society’ (Rogers, 1981: 10). The difficulty is in defining not when the period starts but when the adolescent becomes an adult. It is also a time of great physiological and psychological change and development. During puberty, adolescents undergo physical and psychological changes, such as changes in body shape and height, sexual differentiation, as well as personality changes including self-concept construction, selfactualization, achieving a sense of identity and cognitive and emotional changes. Adolescence is also the stage of rapid cognitive development in a person’s life (and the thoughts, ideas and concepts developed during this period greatly influence the individual’s future, playing a major role in character and personality formation. Additionally, adolescents may experience emotional difficulties during puberty. Psychological changes such as emotional turmoil and personality construction experienced by adolescents are sometimes attributed to the search for a unique social identity: ‘An adequate selfconcept is vital to an adolescent’s well-being’ (Rogers, 1981: 30). Psychologists such as Hall (1904; cited in Cravens, 2006) have denoted this period as one of ‘Storm and Stress’ and, according to Hall, conflict at this developmental stage is normal. Conversely, Mead (1961) attributed the

Children, Migration and Socialization  19

behavior of adolescents to their culture and upbringing. However, Piaget (2003) assigned this stage in development with greatly increased cognitive abilities; during adolescence an individual’s thoughts start to take on more of an abstract form and egocentric thoughts decrease, allowing the individual to think and reason over a wider perspective. There is, however, no consensus about what causes the emotional difficulties that are often experienced during this period. Self-Concept Formation

According to Konopka (1973), the search for self begins in childhood; however, ‘intellectual and emotional awareness of self, which emerges from interaction with others, is especially characteristic of adolescence’. Young people may experience ‘feelings of isolation, unreality, absurdity, disconnectedness from their interpersonal, social and phenomenological world’ (Keniston, 1975: 11). As Rogers (1981) points out, self-concepts become less concrete and more abstract with advancing years. Adolescents start to perceive themselves in terms of intrinsic personality characteristics and qualities that contribute to producing a unique self. They do not add new abstract ideas to earlier concrete descriptions of themselves, rather they perceive themselves in a new and complex way. In psychology, identity differs from self-concept in that it is a feeling of distinctiveness from others, whereas ‘self-concept’ involves a person’s total picture of himself or herself (Rogers, 1981: 44–45). The person with a sense of identity feels ‘all of a piece’. Identity formation is considered to be one of the most engaging and important concepts for adolescent development. The adolescent who can form a set of beliefs about religion and politics and make decisions concerning his or her career is considered to have achieved ‘ego identity’ (Erikson, 1968: 167). Many factors and socializing agents, such as parents, peers and teachers, have an important impact on adolescents’ personality development. It is a widely held belief that everything an individual experiences (e.g. school, social circle, society and familial relationships) contributes to the formation of identity and the concept of self. However, certain experiences, such as interpersonal contacts, play a more fundamental role than others. Through others’ attitudes and opinions, adolescents learn how they are perceived, are often influenced by those opinions and, in turn, start to perceive themselves in the same way. Especially significant are the opinions of persons playing a central role in adolescents’ lives, such as peers and parents and, to some extent, teachers, who, when viewed from a social perspective, play the role of socializing agents. As parents have a central role in their children’s lives, they are often considered to be the most influential agents of socialization and play a significant role in the personality development of adolescents. During the early years, children are mainly socialized by their parents who enhance socialization by controlling access to other potential agents of influence.

20  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

They often provide their children with patterns of accepted social norms and conventions including sex-stereotyped moral behavior. Parents decide which school their children attend, and through middle childhood, they also decide who their children spend time with outside school. This situation changes during adolescence. It is claimed that with the beginning of the adolescent years, other agents of socialization such as peer groups and teachers modify and supplement parental influence (Lamb & Baumrind, 1978). During the early years, parents exert a great influence on their children; however, with the introduction of other socialization agents such as peer groups, teachers play a significant role in later years. ‘As we grow older the peer group remains a primary reference group and source of pressure and influence’ (Feldman et al., 1981). Conformity with current trends is often a driving force for dressing or behaving in certain ways. Frequently, a peer group replaces parents’ influence on social competence and provides additional pressure to conform with current norms and standards (Zigler et al., 1983: 86). Research suggests that peers are very important agents of socialization since they might have much less flexible notions of what is acceptable than adults do (Kohlberg, 1969). Peers have an influence on the social and cultural competence of children and adolescents. Evidence supporting this idea is available from studies of children who were deprived of social peer contact. These children were found to be socially incompetent (unpopular) or had greater probabilities of maladjustment in school with subsequent low achievement, delinquency or need for psychotherapy (Asher et al., 1977: 39). The latter may relate to minority language children, who, because of their ethnicity or poor language skills experience isolation from their peers or, in extreme cases, racism, discrimination or bullying. Moreover, teachers tend to encourage and model conventional behavior, thereby supplementing the pressures and demands of parents. As Zigler et  al. (1983: 87) point out, in the area of education and academic achievement it is often teachers, not parents, who exert greater influence over adolescents. For example, teachers can impact their students’ motivation to learn and their assessment of their abilities (Gruen & Zigler, 1968; Turnure & Zigler, 1964). Although schools have a significant impact on children’s socialization, their influence does not operate in isolation. Schools often reflect and shape social attitudes. ‘They change to meet current social climates, and they serve as implicit models for family practices. Thus, schools may play a role either in perpetuating or combating social problems’ (Zigler et al., 1983: 87). Cultural Continuities and Discontinuities between Home and School

Culture and ethnicity have a great impact on the psychological development of adolescents. Being brought up in a different culture and

Children, Migration and Socialization  21

speaking another language may impact general perceptions/views of the abilities and skills needed to succeed in that culture. Apart from the presence or absence of formal educational institutions (like schools), different cultures and ecological conditions make very different demands on individuals – including children who live in them. Those abilities that are valued and practiced in a society are likely to become better developed than those abilities or skills that are irrelevant to success in that culture. (Zigler et al., 1983: 87)

In other words, children from different ethnic backgrounds may perceive the same things differently or consider various things more or less important as a result of former socialization practices. They may possess various better-developed skills than their counterparts from other cultures. These differences in perceptions, conceptual processing, learning and memory may be related to the demands and practices of the society one lives in or one previously lived in. Thus, the problem of ‘discontinuity’ (the problems caused by discontinuity between the home environments and the school environments and also by home ecologies that are different from new school ecologies) appears when the transition from one mode of being and behaving to another is accompanied by noticeable differences in social tasks and expectations (Marcia, 1987). In this situation, an individual needs time to develop his or her own understanding of the new demands that are being imposed on him or her by the new environment. Phinney and Chavira (1995) acknowledge the importance of interaction between an individual and his or her environment/cultural context (particularly ethnicity that determines one’s cultural heritage, history and status within society) within which socialization occurs. Immigrant adolescents have an ethnic identity, that is, their personality may result from growing up in a particular society/ethnic group. Developmentally, minority adolescents are beginning to explore identity issues in general (Marcia, 1980) and their ethnic identity in particular (Phinney, 1989). During adolescence, minority youths begin to examine the meaning of their ethnicity and minority status. Therefore, adolescence is a very challenging period for minority adolescents as not only do they start searching for their unique self-identity but they also need to accommodate their ethnic and cultural identity within their own social identity. Language Socialization Perspective on Adolescence

Assuming the perspective that language socialization (LS) takes place across one’s life span allows the period of adolescence to be perceived as particularly important. It is ‘the period at which individuals in modern societies find themselves at the intersection between childhood and

22  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

adulthood, the period during which social identity formation becomes central’ (Langman, 2003: 182). If LS is perceived not as a developmental process leading to adulthood but as a ‘social practice’ (where individuals become agents of socialization), membership of a particular group (a community of practice) as well as ‘practice in its own right’ becomes fundamental to both LS and identity construction processes. As Langman (2003:184–199) points out, an individual ‘practices’ his or her identity concerning a wide variety of communities of practice ranging from a school group to a community group such as a church group or family. ‘In such practice, dimensions of identity-related to various social categories such as ethnicity, class, gender are practiced and negotiated in specific social settings’ (Langman, 2003: 182). Nevertheless, at various moments in our life, it frequently happens that one particular community of practice may become central – the most influential to one’s identity practice/construction. A review of the current literature suggests that children of all ages, especially adolescents, have a strong need to belong to certain groups/social circles. ‘No one but an adolescent can be fully socialized well-functioning member of certain adolescent group’ (Langman, 2003: 183). Taking the perspective of LS as a social practice phenomenon enables viewing both socialization and social identity construction from multifaceted perspectives (Eckert, 2000). Thus, adolescents engage in negotiating their social identity in ageappropriate ways (i.e. negotiating values, beliefs and power relations) in response to the social environment (communities of practice) in which they find themselves, for example, school settings, peer groups, family and other communities to which they belong. This book illustrates these processes, highlighting parental choices and adolescents’ own agency. Key Issues in Socialization and Second Language Socialization

Wentworth (1980) states that socialization can be viewed from various perspectives; however, the central element of socialization is the same. It refers to the role assigned to the individual in the process of becoming a member of society. Merton (1949) and Parsons (1937, 1951) perceived socialization as a passive phenomenon through which individuals internalize the values of society comprising those relating to personality and behavior to function in society. In comparison, for Mead (1961) socialization is a process in which individuals and society shape each other through social interaction. Theories within a ‘socialization-asinteraction model’ have focused on the processes of socialization, including symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969), phenomenology (Schutz, 1967), ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967) and structuration (Giddens, 1979) theory. These latter theories consider ‘the medium through which the ability to produce society is transmitted from member to novice’ (Wentworth,

Children, Migration and Socialization  23

1980: 79), which is ‘the interaction that constitutes socialization’ (Wentworth, 1980: 83). In other words, such theories focus on how children or novices acquire the knowledge, orientations, ideologies and practices that enable them to participate effectively in the social life of a particular community. This process – actually a set of interrelated processes – is realized through the use of language, which is the primary medium through which culture and knowledge are communicated. According to Talmy (2008), the theory of socialization most often adopted in studies concerning language and culture originates within all the aforementioned ‘processes’. LS has its roots in linguistic anthropology (Hymes, 1972; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986a); however, it also borrows from sociology (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu & Thompson, 1991), cultural psychology (Rogoff, 1990) and education (Duff & Hornberger, 2008), and from more recent research on literacy socialization (Budwig, 2001; Duff & Hornberger, 2008; Rymes, 1997). However, LS research does not limit itself to the aforementioned fields. It also has associations with psycholinguistics and developmental psychology (Bloom, 1998; Bugental & Goodnow, 1998). As Duff (2009) notes, LS differs from these other research disciplines in its more ethnographic approach. It explicitly recognizes culture as a significant factor influencing many aspects of an individual’s development across the lifespan, in which LS plays a partial but vital role. It also underlies the cross-disciplinary complexity of the process of LS and its dynamism concerning the practicalities of people’s lives. LS is the lifelong process by which individuals—typically novices—are inducted into specific domains of knowledge [such as knowledge of language and literacy], beliefs, affect, roles, identities, and social representations, which they access and construct through language practices and social interaction. (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1986, in Duff, 1995: 508)

It is, therefore, a very comprehensive and cross-disciplinary approach offering the possibility of an in-depth understanding of a studied context or community. Traditional research on LS focused on first language (L1) socialization, which takes place in early childhood (Ochs, 1988; Schieffelin, 1990; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986b). Therefore, primary theories of LS entail the processes by which an individual (child) becomes a member of the society in which he or she lives, through adaptation and internalization of the norms and practices accepted by that society. Children and other users of language develop competencies across cultural, linguistic and historical areas. These norms, practices and competencies are rooted in society, from which individual members transmit them to new members (Auer & Wei, 2007: 74–76). As young children interact with their caregivers, they learn not only how to speak, but also how to recognize, negotiate, index

24  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

and co-construct diverse types of meaningful social contexts. By engaging with others in various circumstances, children expand their horizons by taking on new roles and status. They also learn how to think, feel and express those feelings. Language acquisition, therefore, is much more than just a child learning to produce well-formed, referential utterances; it also involves learning ‘how to co-construct meaningful contexts and how to engage with others in culturally relevant meaning-making activities’ (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002: 342). More recently, researchers and scholars have expanded the scope of LS research to second language (L2) socialization, which is a lifelong and a ‘life-wide’ process across communities and activities. L2 socialization is a process by which an individual (a non-native speaker of a given language) seeks competence in an L2 and membership of a community of practice, to gain inclusion and the ability to actively participate in the practices of the community (Duff, 2009: 2). L2 socialization processes can be experienced by immigrants who seek competence in the language and a new community of practice and by people returning to a language they once used but have since lost proficiency. It can take place in a variety of language contact settings, such as a place where an L2 is the dominant language of a society, or in restricted and more isolated contexts, as in the case of foreign language classrooms or diaspora communities (see Duff, 2009). For many people living in multilingual or bilingual societies or in contexts described above, the contrast between ‘first’ and ‘second’ is often much less evident than these two labels suggest; ‘what was once a first language might lose ground, functionally, to an additional language, which then may become the person’s dominant language’ (Duff, 2009: 43). Additionally, some current studies have investigated the shifting identities of individuals that are often negotiated through LS processes within linguistically and socioculturally heterogeneous settings, characterized by contact between two or more languages and cultures (e.g. Bayley & Schecter, 2003; Eckert, 2000; Hoyle & Adger, 1998; Katz, 2000; Langman, 2003; Schecter & Bayley, 1997, 2003; Watson-Gegeo & Nielsen, 2003; Willett, 1995; Zuengler & Cole, 2005). Therefore, it is widely acknowledged in the literature that LS is experienced throughout one’s lifespan through social interactions between ‘experts’ (those who have more proficiency in, for example, a language, literacy and culture) and ‘novices’ (those with less proficiency). This occurs as an individual enters new ‘communities of practice’ such as schools or the workplace (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Thus, LS is claimed to be speech events at any given time in one’s life (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002; Ochs, 1986a; Ochs & Schieffelin, 2008). In other words, to become competent members of new sociocultural groups, individuals often continue to be socialized into new roles, status and practices throughout their lifespan. As Duff (2009: 2) notes, formal and informal socialization through more than one language and culture is a common experience and can be broadly found in numerous bilingual

Children, Migration and Socialization  25

and multilingual societies and communities. However, this has only recently emerged (Duff, 2003; Zuengler & Cole, 2005) as a systemic area of research in applied linguistics. As emphasized, children, adolescents and adults alike have their personal histories, desires, needs, fears, identities and choices concerning the discourses they negotiate, the stances they take and the power structures they encounter. As a result, the process and outcomes of LS in societies and communities undergoing social and cultural change cannot be predicted (e.g. Duff, 2002b). Agency, Parents and Socialization

Agency can be defined as one’s ‘socioculturally mediated capacity to act’ (Ahearn, 2001: 112). It should be noted that this concept is understood as a complex notion that is negotiated and achieved in culturally or linguistically specific contexts. This study follows this framework to understand Polish children’s agency. I consider agency as emerging from the positioning of oneself and others within a discursive practice because language often reflects one’s desired or ideal ways of being, as shown by Du Bois (1987), Duranti (2004) and Kockelman (2007). Studies such as Garrett and Baquedano-López (2002: 350) and Corsaro and Miller (1992) demonstrate that children have great potential for ‘interpretive reproduction’ as opposed to more reproduction of social norms and orders. More recently, Lanza (2007) and Wright-Fogle (2012) have shown that children are active and creative agents of socialization who create their social worlds. More recent studies of LS focus on how children socialize or influence their parents (Gafaranga, 2010). None of the parents in this study reported close relationships with their Irish neighbors or work colleagues. Thus, children in this study often socialized parents by bringing home new social norms. These norms were often contested and ended up somewhere on the ‘right and wrong’ continua. Perceived in this way, immigrant children in this study played an enormous role in their parents’ socialization. Children’s agency has also been found to be very important for parental language policy. Spolsky (2004) has distinguished three main areas of investigation of home language: (i) language practices, (ii) language ideologies and (iii) language management. Thus, children’s language learning in the home environment is mediated not only by parental language ideologies but also by learning and the role of children in society in general (De Houwer, 1999; King & Fogle, 2006). Multiple or competing language ideologies or conflicts between implicit vs explicit ideologies (King & Bruner, 2000) are often at play in the context of transnational families, which are the ‘genesis of language policies’ as Fogle (2012: 20) points out. Parental language strategies have often been at the center of these studies. The current study is adding to these developments by

26  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

illustrating how parental engagement in community organizations plays a significant role in the socialization of adolescents’ ethnic identity and language maintenance. This is different from other studies of bilingual LS or family language policy as the focus is not on parents’ language strategies (use of the L1) but on the choices they make for themselves about staying connected to the heritage community. Types of Agency

In L2 socialization research, the focus has been on the agency that leads to participation and legitimate membership within new communities of practice. Ahearn (2001: 130), in claiming that it is particularly useful to distinguish between different types of agency, distinguishes between (i) oppositional agency, (ii) complicit agency, (iii) agency of power and (iv) agency of intention. She also acknowledges that multiple types of agency are often exercised by participants in a given situation or context. In her analysis of transnational families, Fogle (2012: 29) shows multiple forms of agency at play. She describes how ‘newness of the institution and consciousness of the participants’ in the creation of the new family help them to both participate and resist in shaping the new norms. Fogle’s (2012) work on adoptive families is contributing to the types of agency experienced within the family context. She highlighted three types of agency: (i) resistance – ‘nothing’ responses; (ii) participation through the frequent uses of ‘wh-questions’; and (iii) negotiation of language choices with their parents. Moreover, Fogle and King (2013: 20) argue that older children have even greater agentive abilities ‘within transnational families, where family members with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds come together and the negotiation of such differences play a large part in establishing new family roles and relationships’. This approach to agency is very relevant to this study of immigrant adolescents and their families. In the present context, agency is displayed not only in the form of resistance and opposition but also in a more complicit or more intentional form. As shown in the following chapters, children’s agency is often exercised/ embedded within a larger sociocultural context and parents’ involvement in the contexts and communities outside of the home. Language Socialization and Education

Duff (2009) notes that a large amount of LS research has been deeply concerned with educational processes and issues, such as the positioning of diverse, and somewhat (potentially) disadvantaged, language learners in linguistic communities (Duff, 2008; Heath, 1983). Globally, issues in bilingual and multilingual learning communities (or monolingual-dominant societies with novices who are, or are becoming, multilingual) have gained increasing prominence in educationally oriented LS, especially

Children, Migration and Socialization  27

in regions such as Cameroon (Moore, 1999, 2008), Canada (Bayley & Schecter, 2003; Duff, 2003), Hungary (Duff, 1995, 1996), Japan (Cook, 2008), the Solomon Islands (Watson-Gegeo, 1992) and the United States (Baquedano-López & Kattan, 2008; Barnard & Torres-Guzmán, 2009; Bronson & Watson-Gegeo, 2008; He, 2008), to name just a few researchers and their work. Thus, the scope of LS research and perspectives has widened over time to include new populations of people; contexts affected by language contact and language shift; phenomena such as postcolonialism, transnationalism and globalization; socialization of morality; and, more recently, new content area specialization into which people seek membership. As Duff (2008: 112) notes, this expansion of the previous LS field and the linguistic ecology of communities reveals the critical importance of understanding learners’ prior experiences of LS and how those cumulative socialization experiences affect their present and perhaps future experiences and trajectories as language learners and users, often across multiple communities and timescales (see Kramsch, 2002). According to Schieffelin and Ochs (1986b), educational systems have always played a major role in the socialization process and LS, with educational institutions among the primary sites through which individuals are socialized to take particular roles in the society in which they live (Bayley & Schecter, 2003; Oakes, 1985; Olneck, 1995). When we extend the LS perspective beyond its initial setting to ‘secondary’ LS (which is experienced throughout one’s lifespan), as in the case of immigrants, it can be concluded that ‘schools are also significant sites of secondary socialization’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Education is also a significant domain in which the integration of immigrant groups, in terms of assimilation versus multiculturalism, can develop. For this reason, the cultural and linguistic diversity of classrooms in Irish schools poses one of the most urgent challenges for educators. As experience elsewhere has demonstrated, however, majority groups often make strong demands on immigrant minority groups for integration in the sense of assimilation. These majority groups are commonly very reluctant to promote, or even accept, the notion of cultural diversity as a determining characteristic of an increasingly multicultural environment, and schools may either represent this societal attitude or promote the idea of multiculturalism (Extra & Verhoeven, 1999: 4–6). Immigrant Children and Intercultural Competence

It is widely acknowledged in the literature that what we accept as the only logical and natural norms of behavior are often conventional for our own culture. Whenever we talk, ‘we bring into communication our culturally conditioned set of beliefs and speech habits’, both verbal and non-verbal (Stroińska, 1997: 22). This kind of communication may turn

28  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

out to be problematic or simply not work in a contact situation such as the case of immigration. But what does it mean to communicate successfully in rapidly changing multicultural landscapes? Various communication competence definitions underline the development of skills to transform one from a monocultural person into a multicultural person. ‘The multicultural person is one who respects cultures and has tolerance for differences’ (Chen & Starosta, 1996, in Jandt, 2004: 45). Byram (2000) and Kramsch (2011) propose an interesting outlook on these issues, calling for ‘intercultural competence’ to be key for successful communication and better retention of knowledge in these complex international settings. Intercultural competence is defined as ‘the ability to see relationships between different cultures – both internal and external to society – and to mediate, that interprets each in terms of the other, either for themselves or for other people’ (Byram, 2000: 10). It is then reasonable to perceive ‘intercultural competence’ to be a necessary skill in the multicultural environment, in particular, in the context of education where children from different cultures, speaking different languages at home, are engaged in complex learning tasks and interactions. Byram notices that it is the educators’ role to equip their students with this unique competence: The cultivation of such intercultural individuals falls on the shoulders of today’s educators. They should provide students with opportunities to help them define and design for themselves their ‘third place’ or ‘third culture’, a sphere of interculturality that enables these students to take an insider’s view as well as an outsider’s view on both their first and second cultures. It is this ability to find/establish/adopt this third place that is at the very core of intercultural competence. (Byram, 2000: 11)

Li and Kramsch (2011) explains that ‘intercultural competence’ is a ‘symbolic competence’ that does not replace the concept of communicative competence. Whereas communicative competence is distinguished by the negotiation of meanings in authentic contexts, ‘symbolic competence’ has to do with almost ‘non-negotiable discourse worlds’. These include the distribution of values and identities across cultures, and inventions of meaning that are often concealed behind frequent illusions of effective communication (Kramsch, 2008: 390). As experience elsewhere has demonstrated, the development of the aforementioned ‘symbolic competence’ might be crucial for the future academic and personal success of immigrant children. Studies such as Duff (2010) suggest that socialization within the academic/schooling environment, including language and cultural socialization, plays a big role in the overall success of these students. Socialization within a given language and culture includes not only oral and written forms, but also different genres, registers, speech acts, sociohistorical norms and the social meanings they index, which are diverse

Children, Migration and Socialization  29

by nature. As Roberts (2009, in Duff, 2009) suggests, this diversification naturally increases when individuals move to more complex uses of language such as academic or professional, or more technical or other specialized social spheres of language use. Therefore, the perspective on socialization presented in this book demonstrates that it entails not only learning a set of cognitive and linguistic skills but also cultural apprenticeship and norms. It underlines the historical and cultural nature of language development including literacy practices, social positions and identities that are related to locally shaped language practices, as outlined by Sterponi (2009) in her studies of literacy. The language of schooling can be understood in terms of Bourdieu and Thompson’s (1991) ‘habitus’ as it represents a set of historically contingent and culturally suited organizing principles that shape individual engagement with language including practices and studying the subject area. For example, it may happen that some children are not sharing the same discourses as their peers because they may lack the background knowledge about local culture or current educational practices (often being labelled as English as a second language [ESL] students) in a given sociocultural context (Waterstone, 2008). In this way, they may become silent and feel detached from and rejected by the social group they are trying to access, for example during ‘group work’ (see Duff, in press). These differences in perceptions and conceptual and emotional processing may be related to the demands and practices of the society one lives in or had previously lived in. As evidence elsewhere suggests, immigrant students remain involved in their primary communities and their cultural values and norms (family and friends); in turn, this requires more and more compromises to be made on logistical and ideological grounds (Duff, 2009). If not understood and supported, this might lead to psychological problems and, in extreme cases, to academic failure. The remaining chapters of the book tap into the aforementioned issues and shed light on how Polish immigrant children engage in developing their symbolic competencies across two languages and two communities of practice – school and their families. Their agency, stances and positions on the values and norms observed across two cultures are illustrated.

2 Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts

This chapter illustrates the complexities and the individuality of each family and each educational context. Detailed information about each participating family (four cases) including educational contexts is provided. Two major educational contexts played a significant role in the children’s lives. The first one was a monolingual educational context, which was represented by two families, Kasia’s and Marcin’s family. Both children, aged 14 and 13, were attending Irish mainstream schools only. At the time of data collection, Kasia was attending lower secondary school (junior high school) and Marcin was attending a national primary school. Education in this context took place exclusively through the student’s second language (L2 – English). Baker’s taxonomy of bilingual education represents this as a monolingual form of education for bilinguals involving mainstreaming and submersion with the goal being the assimilation of the migrant language student into the mainstream/dominant groups. It has to be noted, however, that these families found several ways of maintaining links with their cultural heritage. Blackledge and Creese (2010: 536) found that ‘there was a clear sense that the teaching of “language” was inexorably intertwined with the teaching of “heritage” among participants’. A similar bilingual/enriched educational context involved Wiktoria’s and Janek’s family. Both children attended Polish weekend schools in addition to English mainstream schools; thus, this context was seen as bilingually enriching as it aimed to foster the minority language and ‘culture’ of the child. Polish weekend schools work not only to maintain their students’ oral language skills but also to develop the literacy skills appropriate to the child’s age (according to standards observed in Poland) along with historical and geographical knowledge of Poland. Likewise, Blackledge and Creese’s (2010: 536) study illuminated how participants used the term ‘culture’ to refer to those elements of Bengali life and history which they wished to transmit through complementary schooling and how the authors of the study ‘interpreted this as “heritage”, distinguishing “heritage” from “culture”’. 30

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  31

They defined heritage as ‘elements of past experience which a group deliberately sets out to preserve and pass on to the next generation’. The explicit rationale for administrators, teachers and parents and a key aim of these heritage schools was for the children to learn Bengali because knowledge of the national language carried features of Bangladeshi/Bengali heritage. The same is the case with the majority of Polish weekend schools in Ireland. Additionally, some schools have a very practical purpose as they are accredited schools that offer qualifications to their pupils. The Polish government rationalizes funding for these schools by seeing Polonia as expatriates who may one day return to Poland. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that only a small percentage of Poles ever decide to return to Poland. This chapter focuses on the educational contexts along with more specific family trajectories. The following section discusses methodological choices and limitations. Methodology

The ethnographic methods employed in this study included participant observations and open-ended interview data. They provided grounds for emic and etic analysis of data. Small stories that occurred in the interviews were seen as ‘communicative events’. Saville-Troike (2003: 18) argued that although interview settings are often formal and artificial, they don’t need to be and can be a lot more than a useful supplement to observation (De Fina, 2016a). Ethnography has often viewed participant observation as the central and necessary methodological point of departure for any ethnographic endeavor. The theoretical framework that underpins this approach to data collection and analysis draws upon linguistic anthropology (Hymes, 1974) and interactional sociolinguistics (Thornborrow, 1995) that examine ‘talk’ as social action. The style of data collection and analysis focuses on exploring and collecting a wide range of materials without being constrained by a specific hypothesis (Edwards & Potter, 2001). Observations

Observational data were collected in participants homes and in the different school settings simultaneously over a period of 8–10  months. School observations included: English and mathematic classes, breaks, lunchtime, school events, Polish language classes in Polish schools, Polish youth club activities and full school day observations. Home observations included: homework, meals and watching TV. Three stages of data organization and analysis were identified: (i) description of the collected data, (ii) ‘initial sense-making’ of the observations and (iii) report in which experiences/findings were linked with data from audio recordings. Data derived from

32  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

observations are presented in the following chapters when describing cases or together with transcriptions analysis. Observational data were backed up with evidence from interviews (participants’ narratives cooperatively constructed with the researcher). Participants’ quotes were used to illustrate the claims. Moreover, a description of the home and educational settings was written down in a research journal. Both direct and participant observation of the four children and the contexts in which they actively participated in their everyday lives was employed in this study. There were a number of reasons why observation was used in this research project. First, the observation method has the potential to uncover what is actually going on in the given context/ community of practice as opposed to what is hoped or assumed to be happening. It provides important insights into external aspects of the language learning and socialization of the Polish students in their homes and external to home contexts such as heritage language schools, associations and clubs. Second, participant observation provides an opportunity to get insights into the more personal aspects of participants’ lives, allowing children’s linguistic performance and interaction to be experienced in naturally occurring social situations. It also aids in understanding the physical, social, cultural and linguistic contexts in which two languages (Polish and English) are used (van Lier, 1988). Furthermore, it is believed that focusing on one particular feature or problem while observing can obscure other valuable information emerging in the long run. For this reason, a general observations schedule was used at the beginning of the observation process and then a more specific schedule was developed that included reminders and comments (Goulding, 2005). The observations schedule included: (a) Primary observations: • Date • Time of day • Location • Actors present • Sequence of events and any interruptions (b) Secondary observations (researcher’s observations about others). (c) Experiential data (all data relating to my state of mind, emotions and any reflections or reactions). (d) Circumstantial and background data (descriptions, organizations, key roles, etc.). School and home observations of students, parents and teachers: (a) Classroom observations in English mainstream schools:

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  33

• English • Maths • History (b) Classroom observations in Polish weekend schools: • Polish • Polish history/geography (c) Extracurricular activities observed: • Sports day • International day • Breaks • Children’s day in Polish weekend school • Polish picnic • Polish club session • Breaks (staffroom) (d) Observation of home activities of students and their families: • Homework • Meals • Favorite TV shows, films • Barbeques/family time Ethnographic Interviewing

The analytic approach of the interviews was to learn about the ways the Polish students used and socialized their languages and how these were shaped in and by the given community of practice (including the educational context). The analysis of the recordings focused on learning how the participants viewed and experienced their social worlds and how these views and experiences fit into the existing literature on language socialization (Bogdan & Biklen, 2006). It is recognized that this approach can provide broader ways of understanding children’s experiences and feelings by analyzing not only what is being said but also ‘through the social construction and apprehension of meanings created during the discourse’ (Berg, 2009: 353). No predictions were made in advance and the participants were always free to initiate a new topic/theme or change it. The researcher’s prompts were initially designed to reflect themes that emerged as significant during ongoing ethnographic observations. Prompts and questions asked by the researcher were often enriched by newly observed issues that arose during recent observations or interviews conducted with another group of participants, for example, a participating child was asked about things that her/his mother had previously pointed out (triangulation). Once the patterns were identified, a further analysis

34  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

aimed at searching for additional relevant examples and counterexamples took place. Analytical analysis of observations and other materials revealed phenomena that were salient to a particular family and were echoed in the audio material collected. Interview data were transcribed. Transcripts were made in Polish following Duff’s (2008) transcription conventions (see Table 2.2). The transcripts were coded using the grounded theory protocol (Corbin & Strauss, 1990) in Microsoft Word and FileMaker for major themes. First, each transcript was translated into English, next transcript was coded for the main themes and prompts appearing throughout the recording period. Next, the transcripts were translated into English. The transcripts were subsequently analyzed in terms of the individual participant’s set of linguistic means found in the audio material and conversations, particularly the stances and positioning taken by the child participants. More specific information about the analysis, coding and other procedures used is available in this chapter, which describes each case in greater detail. There were three types of informants:

Teachers

Parents Children

Table 2.1  Total number of observation hours for each family/case over a period of two years Families/cases

Contact hours

Kasia

106

Wiktoria

207

Janek

206

Marcin

96

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  35

Table 2.2  Transcription conventions used [ Left bracket,

The beginning of overlapping speech

= Equal sign,

Used for latched utterances, indicates speech across turns without any pause or break, shown for both speakers

+ Plus sign

Marks a pause longer than 3 seconds

(Words)

The words in parentheses were not clearly heard; (x)-unclear word; (xx) two unclear words

Underlined

Words spoken with emphasis

Words in bold

Words spoken with very strong emphasis

CAPITAL LETTERS: @

Loud speech Laughter

(italicized words in parentheses)

Researcher’s comments, relevant details pertaining to interaction

Colon:

Sound and syllable is unusually lengthened, e.g., rea::lly

Period.

Terminal falling intonation.

Comma,

Rising, continuing intonation

Question mark?

High rising intonation, not necessarily at the end of a sentence

Criteria Used in the Study of Interviews, Narratives and Small Stories

The interview data were coded for narrative activities, particularly small stories. The criteria used included children’s retrospective, hypothetical and futuristic accounts of a situation, event, peer interaction and carer– child interaction. These included children’s assessments, evaluations and positionings about the past and the future. Thus, the interview transcripts, consisting of alignments, assessments, evaluations and arguments about actions, giving an affective focus to the recounting of every day, were coded as ‘small stories’. These included small stories spontaneously initiated by the participants such as ‘laughed at somebody’s accent’ or were co-constructed/initiated by the researcher. Small stories are defined as narrative activities such as ‘tellings of ongoing or past events, future or hypothetical events, shared (known) events, but also allusions to (previous) tellings, deferrals of tellings, and refusals to tell’ (Georgakopoulou, 2007: 5). Small incidents that may (or may not) have happened, mentioned to back up or elaborate on an argumentative point occurring in an ongoing conversation. Small stories can even be about – colloquially speaking – ‘nothing’; and as such indirectly reflect something about the interactional engagement between the interactants, while for outsiders, the interaction is literally ‘about nothing. […] Stance taking in small stories indicates that an activity is: “being offered or taken up as a story, thereby positioning participants as tellers-recipients-(co)- tellers, etc. and/or, consisting of events and characters in specific spatiotemporal scenarios whose actions and speech are assessable”’. (Georgakopoulou, 2007: 5)

36  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

Other interview data used in the manuscript served a supplementary role. They supplemented or provided more detailed explanations of the points being made. They also helped to triangulate information as it was possible to supplement a story with insights from a different informant such as a parent or a teacher in addition to the use of field notes from participant observations. For this reason, they were considered valuable and were included in the manuscript. More generally, this analytical process was inspired by the approaches to narratives proposed by Ochs and Capps (2001) and Goodwin (1990, 1997). It involved an ethnographically informed analysis of interactive and reflective positioning along with the social acts and stances taken by participants (affective, moral and epistemic – informed by Ochs [1996] and Kiesling [2009]). Narratives of personal experiences cover a range of discourse formats ranging from virtuoso verbal performances to more prosaic social exchanges. Because personal narrative is so varied and, more to the point, because it is a ubiquitous feature of ordinary conversation, it resists delineation in terms of a set of fixed, generic, defining features (Ochs & Capps, 2001: 54). Rather than identifying a set of elements or distinctive features that always characterize narratives, the authors propose concentrating on elements that are always relevant to a narrative. Ochs and Capps propose five dimensions that account for how personal narratives are realized in everyday social life: tellership, tellability, embeddedness, linearity and moral stance. They suggest that ‘the default narrative’ of personal experience is likely to fall at one end of the following continua: one or multiple active tellers (tellership), a highly or lowly tellable account (tellability), relatively detached from surrounding talk and activity or embedded in it (embeddedness), linear closed temporal and causal to open organization (linearity) and certain, constant moral stance (Ochs & Capps, 2001: 20). Tellership refers to ‘the extent and kind of involvement of conversational partners in the actual recounting of a narrative’ (Ochs & Capps, 2001: 24). Variations range from one teller recounting a narrative to a set of active tellers who collaboratively construct a narrative (by eliciting and supplying information). They also construct stances relevant to the events that have emerged. Tellability is related not only to the sensational nature of events but also to the significance of events for particular interlocutors and how events are rhetorically shaped in the narrative. Ochs and Capps (2001) note that narratives of personal experience typically report human events that touch our lives or are in some ways significant and meaningful to us. The present study followed the above conceptual framework when coding audio recordings for narratives and small stories. On the one hand, personal narratives resulted from certain themes being prompted/ indicated/proposed by the researcher, and on the other hand, participants had enough conversational space to initiate their own stories that were salient to them (e.g. several spontaneous small stories). In this way,

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  37

their tellability became open-ended. As a high level of familiarity was established over time, tellership between interlocutors (including the researcher) become more collaborative and fluid. Additionally, Ochs and Capps (2001: 25) define embeddedness as ‘an extent to which a personal narrative is an entity onto itself, separate from prior concurrent, and subsequent discourse is related to turn organization, thematic content, and rhetorical structuring’, ranging from relatively detached to relatively embedded. Linearity, on the other hand, may organize events across a lifetime or may organize events that transpire within a more limited time span. Conversational narratives of personal experience tend to focus on more circumscribed events (Ochs & Capps, 2001). Ochs and Capps (2001) also propose looking at narratives as mutually constructed by the co-participants during open-ended conversations. Conversations are seen as locally organized, informally constructed discourses displaying some level of orderliness. The direction of each conversation cannot be anticipated as ‘the flow of talk lies in the hands of the interlocutors; it is moment-by-moment, emergent interactional achievement’ (Ochs & Capps, 2001: 7). This was particularly relevant for the present study as the lack of a ‘formal canon’ for determining who can say what and when created great potential for those interlocutors with a ‘potentially’ lower social rank (children) to share their knowledge and evaluate narrated events and characters or even another interlocutor’s views or ways of telling the events (see Excerpts 3.12 or 3.20 in which Janeck assumes an expert role on numerous occasions). This enabled participants to expose their own ‘voices’. Moreover, in Ochs and Capps (2001) model of conversational narrative, conversation is seen as the medium for expressing/exposing unresolved life events, reconstructing and making sense of actual and possible life experiences. In turn, familiarity between interlocutors is perceived as an indication of conversational involvement. Active narrative participation indicates a high level of familiarity between interlocutors and passive narrative participation may signal social distancing by one of the interlocutors (Ochs & Capps, 2001: 8). For the aforementioned reasons, the researcher decided to draw particular attention to stance-taking and conversational alignment between interlocutors as narratives were seen as a ‘process’ versus a ‘product’. Finally, as Ochs and Capps (2001: 45) point out, ‘narratives of personal experience do not present objective and comprehensive accounts of events’; on the contrary, they present/represent individual interlocutors’ subjective perspectives on events or the behaviors of others. Moral stances have their roots in a community’s traditions and are transmitted through a variety of cultural forms, for example laws, religious beliefs, songs, proverbs and personal narratives. In some cases, personal narratives describe situations in which a certain violation of social expectations took place, for example, Wiktoria’s narratives about the violation of Sunday religious practices (Ochs & Capps, 2001: 46–47).

38  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

Narrators of personal experiences very often evaluate certain behaviors of characters whose actions, thoughts and feelings are interpreted in light of local/culturally specific ideas about what is good and what is wrong. Narrators also tend to shape their narratives in such a way as to portray themselves or their judgments as morally superior to those of other characters (the ‘looking good’ principle [Ochs & Schieffelin, 1989]). Kasia’s Family Life and Schooling At home

I was first introduced to Kasia’s mother in the local supermarket through a Polish shop assistant I knew from visiting the shop. Kasia’s family were from a working-class background, and she had one younger sister aged 4. At the time of data collection, her mother was expecting another child, a boy. Kasia’s father had been employed on construction sites but he now made a living as a caretaker for the local caravan park. He was also engaged in organizing events promoting strongman competitions in Ireland. Table 2.3 lists the members of Kasia’s family. Kasia’s father never learned English in any formal setting. He learned English in naturalistic settings such as workplaces and talking to people locally while performing everyday tasks such as shopping, banking and traveling. On numerous occasions, he complained about his written language skills and that they should be improved. As Kasia’s mother had never worked in Ireland, she did not have the same opportunities to acquire English as her husband. Except for two years of English language tuition in secondary school, she had not studied English. Her closest social circle had always constituted young Polish mothers with small children so she had little opportunity to speak English. On many occasions, both parents relied on Kasia’s oral interpretations of formal documents from the bank or other sources such as the health service or social welfare. The estate where they were living at the time of data collection accommodated a large number of Poles. There were also a large number of Africans and Eastern Europeans in general living in the area. Other than some social housing residents, very few of the houses were occupied by Irish citizens. Surprisingly, Kasia’s closest social circle constituted only Irish friends. She claimed to know all the children from her school because it was a small school accommodating approximately 200 children. She often added that her closest group of friends consisted of six girls with whom she ‘hung around’ daily. When they met outside of school hours, they regularly watched films or something on YouTube together. Sometimes, they went shopping or to the beach. Most frequently, they spent time on ‘MSN’ and ‘Bebo’ where they chatted with others; they also used Facebook. Kasia’s best friend Brida was an Irish girl who lived locally. They went to the same school, although they were not in the same class. They developed deep bonds. However, referring to the time after her arrival

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  39

Table 2.3  Kasia’s family demographics Family member

Relation to participant

Age

Education

English language competency

Kasia

–

13

Secondary school

B2 (all skills)

Agata

Mother

37

Post-secondary

A1 (all skills)

Adam

Father

39

Post-secondary

A2+ (spoken)

Sarah

Sister

4

Pre-school

Random words

in Ireland, Kasia mentioned difficulties in finding friends and communicating with other children. She often pointed to the fact that she had little in common with other children, she did not share their knowledge of pop culture and popular websites so it was difficult to find topics to talk about with her new Irish friends. This, in turn, created a sort of distance between her and her newly acquired friends that she was trying to overcome. Most of the time, Kasia did her homework after dinner. She did it on her own, as her mother could not provide any help except for mathematics. Then, usually after 5pm, she would meet her best friend Brida, either at Brida’s house or Brida would come and spend time in Kasia’s room. On a few occasions, Kasia and Brida were kind enough to invite me along while they listened to music or watched something on the computer. They loved the ‘Vampire Trilogy’ and Kasia had Twilight and New Moon film posters on her walls. Kasia often used random English words when describing her school or what she did at school. She was reluctant to engage Brida in more of the Polish traditions. Most of the time, she took Brida upstairs to her room saying that they had something important to do like organizing songs for their friends or project work. Polish was the language of Kasia’s home, and Kasia spoke Polish to her parents most of the time. There were times, however, when Kasia used English or tried to use English with her mother especially when relating events that took place in school. Her mother would switch back to Polish and often repeated questions in Polish. Kasia used English words and phrases from time to time. Polish TV was available at home but Kasia rarely joined the family to watch Polish TV programmes. She watched cartoons with her younger sister or switched to channels available in English. Kasia spoke English to her sister when they were together. Kasia’s mother did not support this choice as she felt excluded from conversations and she insisted that Polish should remain the language of home. Kasia’s Polish language experience was thus restricted to the home domain. At school

On negotiating access to Kasia’s school with the principal teacher, I was able to make a number of observations of English and maths classes from March until June 2010, approximately once a week. I also informally

40  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

observed several classes such as Irish, history, French and geography and had the opportunity to speak with the different teachers and administrators in the school, such as Debbie (English teacher), Peter (Kasia’s former English teacher) and Ann (maths teacher). Additionally, I spoke informally to Kasia’s Irish and geography teachers. I occasionally attended assemblies and some school events such as international day and sports day and I had access to the literacy materials used in the classroom; however, I did not have any access to school or course documents such as curriculum guides, exams or assignments. Sometimes, I was able to obtain copies of exams, course materials and notebooks from Kasia herself. When negotiating my presence in Kasia’s school, I ‘had to’ agree with Kasia’s suggestion to make my presence less obvious by not using ‘Polish’ with her in school. I was presented to her classmates as a university trainee, studying to be a teacher. At the time of data collection, Kasia’s school was a new post-primary school set up by the local initiative. It was an interdenominational school catering for about 282 boys and 162 girls (2010/2011). For the first year, it was housed in temporary premises at the local hotel. The classrooms were small and some did not have a door. The local administrators were, however, satisfied that they had enough space to set up general classrooms. Classrooms for specialist subjects such as art, home economics, woodwork, technical graphics, science and computer studies were also established. Each school day started with a whole-school assembly that lasted about 20 minutes. The teachers announced the most important events for the day, the whole school community prayed and then returned to their daily duties. The school policy, discipline and specific programmes were discussed during the current school year. At the end of this school year, the school was moving to new premises. The new school building was one of three buildings, forming an educational campus with shared sports pitches in the area. The new school was designed to cater for up to 1000 pupils. The Junior Cycle builds on the education received at primary level and culminates with the Junior Certificate Examination. Kasia began this cycle at the age of 12 and so she would sit her Junior Certificate Examination after a further 2 years. Kasia was required to sit exams in English, Irish, maths, history, geography and science as well as a number of chosen subjects. Thus, far, Kasia had taken art, French, religious education, Spanish, music and business. Other subjects include physical education and social personal and health education (SPHE). Marcin’s Family Life and Schooling At home

Marcin’s hometown is a small town located in County Meath. Together with the neighboring villages, it expanded greatly during the previous 10 years and caters for large numbers of commuters to Dublin. There

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  41

are two Catholic primary schools in the town: (i) junior school: infants to second class and (ii) senior school: third to sixth class, and two non-Catholic schools outside the town that serve east Meath and south Louth, both with a multidenominational ethos. The town also has two pharmacies, one church, several take-away food outlets and restaurants, two hotels, three supermarkets, three pubs and a credit union. Tourists visit the town during the summer months. A few Polish families live in the center of the village. However, they do not meet on a regular basis as neither a Polish association nor an organized Polish community exist in the village. At the time of data collection, Marcin’s family included his parents Anna and Patryk, his father’s sister (Aga) and their three children: Marcin (13), Adam (4) and Zuzia (2). They were a middle-class family. Anna arrived in Ireland in October 2004 and her husband (Patryk) joined her six months later with their son Marcin. They did not intend to stay, but as the years passed they decided to take a ‘wait and see’ approach – and consequently stayed. After a few years, Aga (Marcin’s aunt) decided to follow her brother’s family and had been living with the family since 2007. At the time of data collection, Marcin’s mother was not working outside the home, as she stayed at home to take care of his younger siblings aged two and four. She used to work as a shop assistant in the local supermarket. In Poland too, she did not work in her profession (she has a degree in philosophy), but was employed as a manager of a big supermarket in Silesia. In terms of ‘cuisine’, Anna was the one who decided on the weekly shopping. She was open to different kinds of food such as Asian and healthy options including modern cuisine. Marcin’s father worked for a local company/leisure center at that time. He had never learned English in any formal context. All the language competence he currently had was acquired in Ireland in naturalistic settings and workplaces. Anna, on the other hand, had some language competence on arrival in Ireland. She self-assessed her English language skills ‘as being an independent user of language without the necessity of relying on any third party’s skills when dealing with officials etc.’. Their closest social circle constituted mainly Polish friends living locally, as well as some foreign nationals. They loved traveling and both spent most of their free time visiting other countries in Europe and the United States. Marcin’s family spoke Polish at home and it was the main language used among all members of the family. There were, however, some situations when Marcin switched to English completely or code-switched. These situations took place occasionally when Marcin reported about school events, recalled films watched in English (or his Irish friends visiting him at home) or turned off Polish voice-over translation when watching TV. He also switched to English to talk to his younger brother. The ‘reading before bed’ routine came up as an important everyday practice. He read in English, but his parents (especially his father) strongly encouraged him to read in Polish before bed. His room had a big shelf containing books.

42  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

The majority of the books were about planes/aircraft and airports and some were books from school (i.e. Green Books) and nursery rhymes. There were also a few titles (novels) in Polish. Marcin provided the explanation that the majority of the books/texts that he read in Polish were novels ‘książki fikcyjne’ [fiction, novels] translated into Polish. (See the following example of notes from a research diary.) Note 1. Date: 11 January 2010 Marcin’s attitude to Poland and Polish culture is rather negative at the moment. He does not want to go back to Poland and he thinks it would be ‘a catastrophe’. Marcin’s mum commented today that this could be because of their attitude (that Marcin does not want to go back to Poland) as they had experiences when they have started their grown-up life in Poland and experienced great economic difficulties. At school

Marcin attended a Catholic primary school that operated under the patronage of Bishop Michael Smith in the diocese of Co. Meath. It was a senior primary school located on the east coast of Ireland. The new school building was first established in December 2010. Currently, there are 12 mainstream classes that cater to children from third to sixth class. The primary school curriculum consisted of six curriculum areas that were further divided into 11 subjects: • • • • • • • • • •

Irish; English; mathematics; social, environmental and scientific education; history; geography; science; arts education: music, visual arts, drama; physical education; and social personal and health education.

Marcin’s school assemblies were a very common way of sharing children’s achievements. Whole-school assemblies celebrated the school community and up-and-coming school events. Marcin took part in the numerous extracurricular activities, such as Green school, Christmas carols and Easter plays for the parents or international day. International day involved recognizing different students’ ethnic backgrounds and acknowledging their identity through the presentation of posters.

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  43

Students made colorful posters that showed places, flags, symbols and favorite foods. Wiktoria and Janek and Polish Weekend School

The bilingual/enriched educational context involved Wiktoria’s and Janek’s families who attended Polish weekend schools in addition to English mainstream schools. Polish weekend schools work not only to maintain their students’ oral language skills but also to develop the literacy skills appropriate to the child’s age (according to standards observed in Poland). It is an ambitious plan as the scope of the curriculum is limited to a few hours per week and is delivered on Saturdays or Sundays. Polish heritage language education takes place through supplemental schools run over the weekends and financially supported by the Polish government. The two Polish weekend schools described in this book are among five schools of this type in Ireland. In addition, there are many private initiatives operating as Polish weekend schools. In 2013, it was estimated that there were about 24 such schools and the number was growing. The official Polish weekend schools (Szkolny Punkt Konsultacyjne) operate in accordance with Polish legislation and are supported by the Polish government, albeit in a limited way. The reasoning behind such support is set out in the legislation relating to the basic curriculum for Polish diaspora children (see ORPEG Ośrodek Rozwoju Edukacji Polskiej za Granicą). There, it is underlined that, through offering and promoting a first-hand cultural connection between the Polish diaspora and the ‘Ojczyzna’ [Mother Nation], children will have a greater opportunity to fit back into Polish society and into employment should they return to Poland. Polish weekend schools operate in accordance with National Polish School standards except that a separately developed curriculum is used for Polish children living abroad. For details see The System of Education in Poland, prepared by the Polish Eurydice Unit in consultation with the experts from the Ministry of National Education, 2010 (Kolanowska, 2018). Age groups range from pre-primary (Przedszkole: 3–6 years), primary (Szkola Podstawowa: 6–13 years), Lower Secondary General (Gimnazjum: 13–16 years) to Higher Secondary General (Szkoła Średnia: 16–18/19 years). Older students are taught five curricular subjects: Polish language and literature, Polish history, religion, mathematics and geography. Each subject is taught through Polish by native Polish teachers who qualified in Poland and hold a third-level degree in their subject area. It is worth noting that while Polish weekend schools prepare students for Polish state exams, students only occasionally take up this option. None of the student participants in this study had taken the option. These exams include the Polish version of the Junior and Leaving Certificate and need to be taken in Warsaw. The school day itself reflects the Polish operational system, for example parents may not visit

44  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

classrooms without a prior appointment, there are 5–10  minute breaks after each lesson and a school council operates in accordance with Polish legislation. The weekend schools are much more than a regular school, they are a social place for both parents and their children where new Polish friends are made and urgent and important matters are discussed. It is a place where the Polish school system continues its operation. It connects a local Polish migrant community with the Polish education system in Poland, providing a link with an individual’s personal past and first-hand cultural and linguistic experience. This cultural experience is strengthened by many extracurricular events. Wiktoria’s Family Life and Schooling At home

Wiktoria’s family includes Ala (her mother), Rafal (her father), her younger brother Tomek (12) and Wiktoria (14) herself. Both parents are physiotherapists (technicians). They live in a semi-detached house in a nice quiet area of a county town in the north-central part of Ireland, near the border with Northern Ireland. Wiktoria’s father immigrated to England in 2006 with the aim of settling down and preparing for the arrival of his family. As he could not find employment within his profession, he came to Ireland where he was offered a job as a masseuse. Ala and the children joined Rafal in August 2007. They often said they were oriented toward starting a new life and settling down in Ireland as they had sold their personal possessions including their apartment in Poland. This, however, contradicted Wiktoria’s mother’s frequent but subtle confession when she stated that one day they would like to go back to Poland and that was one of the reasons why their children attended Polish school. Their overt attitude was toward maintaining strong connections to their identity. Even though they both perceived life in Poland as full of hardship and economic struggle, they never stopped valuing Polish culture, traditions and Polish moral standards. In many ways, Wiktoria’s parents incorporated Polish culture and national heritage, including religious practices, into their daily lives (Polish TV, Polish food, children attending Polish weekend school, regular contacts and visits to Poland and to extended family, being active members of a Polish association, attending Polish Mass weekly). The Polish association was an initiative of a local Polish priest, with the ‘simple aim in mind’ of helping those members of the community who did not know English or had difficulties settling down. Wiktoria’s parents maintained a lived connection to Polish religious practices and language through attending Polish Sunday Masses, celebrating Polish religious holidays and being active members of the Polish association led by the local Polish priest. The religious practices of the family played an important role in their everyday lives. Such practices

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  45

often shaped their weekly routine and were prioritized over other secular activities. They used Polish during all these activities. At school

Wiktoria attended a national primary school during the week and Polish weekend school on Saturdays. Her English mainstream school is a rural, mixed school, with the children coming from middle-class families. It is a denominational school, having a Roman Catholic ethos, bound by the rules for national schools and the Department of Education and Science. The school ethos states that while ensuring the teaching of this faith, the school strives to tolerate and understand all religious beliefs and that a respect for pluralism and diversity is promoted. At the time of data collection, the school comprised six classrooms, with a generalpurpose hall in the school and a staff room upstairs. Along with the principal and vice-principal, there were three other classroom teachers, two of whom had the extra role of learning support teacher and language resource teacher. During weekends, particularly Saturdays, Wiktoria attended Polish weekend school (Szkolny Punkt Konsultacyjny). It is situated on the outskirts of the county town and occupies one of the houses in a local estate. Like the rest of the school’s students, Wiktoria refers to all teachers by their first name preceded with ‘Pani/Pan’ Miss/Mr. The staff attempts to create a ‘more relaxed’ atmosphere while trying to keep discipline in their classrooms by constantly reminding students about speaking Polish and being quiet when the teacher is talking. In some ways, both the students and the teachers are very conscious of the fact that this is a ‘weekend’ school. However, students are often under pressure from term exams and getting good marks. Most of the students appreciate the time they spend in the school, volunteering to participate in various school activities and extracurricular events. There is, however, a group of students who are not very willing to attend an ‘additional’ weekend school and are in school against their own personal wishes. Wiktoria belonged to the first group and was happy to attend the school where she had many friends such as Ania, Kasia and Ewa with whom she used to spend breaks or ‘hang out’ during school picnics. She laughed a lot and was well integrated with the other children in her classroom. For example, the girls (including Wiktoria) used to chat about going to different post-primary schools and the new boys and girls attending these schools. They would exchange their opinions about schools or popular YouTube or Facebook stories on a regular basis. They also commented a lot about the ‘bad behavior’ of boys from their classes. From time to time, they complained about being overloaded with homework from both schools. The fact that this topic was mentioned on numerous occasions could have been an effect of the researcher’s presence. Polish was

46  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

the dominant language of the school, but during breaks the children used English with each other. They were often told off by their teachers for using English in Polish school. I later found out from Wiktoria that some of the students initially considered my presence in the school as ‘suspicious’. On the one hand, I was spending breaks chatting with the students and, on the other hand, I talked with the teachers a lot and kept my bag in the ‘teacher’s’ staff room, which was the teachers’ exclusive environment. After about a month, my presence in the school was taken for granted by both the students and the teachers and I managed to negotiate a sort of ‘neutral ground’ on which I was able to communicate with students, teachers and parents. I became a trusted member of the school community after a period of about two months when I was finally invited to a school picnic and was allocated some minor responsibilities such as organizing balloons with the children and checking the sausages (being grilled). Janek’s Family Life and Schooling At home

Janek’s parents arrived in Ireland in 2006. Janek’s father Marek arrived in February 2006 and Ewa (Janek’s mother) joined him in September of the same year. As a medical doctor, Ewa found employment almost immediately upon her arrival in Ireland. They made friends with their Irish neighbors and report having great memories of their initial experience in Ireland. Marek is a professional driver. However, at the time of data collection for this study, he remained unemployed. The children joined their parents shortly afterward. Initially, the family did not have very specific plans regarding returning to Poland in the near future; however, they did not exclude the possibility of spending their retirement there. Janek’s mother kept strong links with the Polish language and culture. Her attitude was reflected in her daily choices. She was a member of the Polish association and was responsible for organizing the library in the Polish weekend school. She was also a member of the Polish school’s management board and was involved in initiating and running the Polish youth club. The Polish language was used widely across different domains in the case of Janek’s family. Janek used Polish with his Polish teachers, his Polish school mates and friends of the family. His room had lots of books in Polish and he read Polish novels such as ‘W pustyni I w puszczy’ by Henryk Sienkiewicz and ‘Kamienie na Szaniec’ by Aleksander Kaminski. Janek’s mother encouraged him to read before bedtime and he tried to do so as much as possible. It was clear that he liked reading in Polish for pleasure. Janek’s mother was highly invested in organizing the Polish library for the Polish children attending Janek’s Polish school. Janek occasionally watched Polish TV with his parents, but he preferred to spend time on his

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  47

laptop. He used English as the main browsing language. Janek’s mother once revealed that English is the preferred language (among Janek and his siblings) when it comes to watching TV in their house. At school

At the time of data collection, Janek was attending both Irish mainstream school and Polish weekend school. His junior high school is a Catholic, co-educational secondary school in the Marist tradition, in the center of the county town. The college caters to the educational needs of over 650 students. In addition to his Irish mainstream school, Janek attended a Polish weekend school. His Polish school is a private initiative and is located on the premises of the Irish mainstream school. Most of the classes take place in four rooms. Janek’s class was allocated to the art room, with plenty of artwork on the walls. In addition to Polish weekend school, Janek was also a member of a Polish club. The club was established in the local area in 2011. It was set up in cooperation with the local Irish association, which supported the opening of youth clubs in different counties. The club caters for young people from ages 12 to 16. Meetings are held regularly every Thursday. The members of the club take part in various activities, such as arts and crafts competitions. Additionally, the club plans to introduce sport and dancing activities in the near future. Members of the club take part in events such as the Rainbow Children’s Day (Polish picnic) organized by the Polish community in Ireland, ‘Polonia’; Children’s Day and Mother’s Day celebrations; and a party organized for all the youth clubs in the local area. During the period of data collection, Janek was actively engaged in organizing the Polish picnic ‘Teczowy dzien dziecka’ [Rainbow Children’s Day]. His sister was involved in ‘song preparation’ for this event. Along with the other members of the ‘Polish Youth Club’, Janek was involved in activities such as singing traditional Polish songs, making short documentary films about life in the Polish school and writing articles in cooperation with the local newspapers Leader and the Polish Gazeta Polska about the event (field notes, October 2010). Limitations of the Methodology Used

All information gathered was cross-checked and verified by obtaining information from different sources: the children, their parents, their teachers and the researcher’s own direct observations. The information was collected in different contexts and locations. The interviews were combined with observations of in-class and home interactions. The four participating children had achieved high levels of English language skills according to their teachers and schools. They were formally assessed by their schools and were considered to have reached B1 (Common

48  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

European Framework of Reference for Languages [CEFR]) level or above in all areas of L2 skills: listening, speaking, writing and reading. However, the participating students’ English teachers reported problems in areas such as syntax. Kasia (14) and Marcin (13) were generally more self-confident and reluctantly reported L2 language problems. Wiktoria (14) and Janek (15), on the other hand, mentioned a few instances of lacking confidence in their L2 use. Additionally, other contextual factors and variables, such as differences in the children’s age on arrival, could potentially have played a role in their choice of language socialization strategies. Marcin was the youngest of the four participants at the time of his arrival in Ireland as he was only 7 years old. Kasia arrived when she was 9, Wiktoria was 10 and Janek was 12 years old. Thus, Marcin spent the longest time in Ireland and Janek the shortest at the time of data collection for this study. All the children were the eldest child in their family and had younger siblings of different ages. The method of data collection and analysis focused primarily on exploring and collecting rich information regarding the student participants’ language socialization practices in both home and school contexts, at the same time allowing their own voices to be heard throughout the study. A multiple case-study design using ethnographic approaches to data collection has a number of advantages. A high degree of completeness and depth of analysis is achieved through a very detailed description of cases (four students situated in two different educational contexts), including triangulated perspectives from other participants in the study such as teachers and parents. Two types of triangulation were used for the purposes of this study: (i) triangulation within methods (analysis and comparison of data collected through interviews, observations and documents) to obtain a more holistic perspective (in this way findings could also be confirmed or questioned) and (ii) informant triangulation to check the validity of the findings. Questions in interview schedules were constructed to allow for cross-checking of information from three groups of informants. For example, when the students were asked how they felt about the school, both the parents and the teachers were asked a similar question. It is believed that by relating data gathered through different means and from different sources, the robustness of the findings is increased (Berg, 2009: 5–8; Fielding & Fielding, 1986: 31). Large quantities of primary data, such as interview transcripts, transcripts of classroom discourse, writing samples and the researcher’s journal, were thoroughly examined, presented and interpreted in light of the educational contexts. Moreover, this method allowed for a deeper understanding of the particular case and its impact on certain aspects of participants’ language socialization, literacy practices and identity construction. Students’ actual experiences and their own perceptions of their language abilities, their linguistic and social identities and opportunities

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  49

for the future were also presented and analyzed. Thus, the case-study design allowed the students’ voices to be heard throughout this study. As Duff (2008: 35) points out, ‘case studies are now usually associated with interpretive qualitative research in the field of applied linguistics’. Qualitative methodology is believed to be better suited to exploring issues rich in contexts, such as language socialization in general or the role of identity in language learning (Heigham & Croker, 2009: 68). This type of study design has gained in popularity in recent years. As Heigham and Croker (2009: 67) argue: ‘the emergence of a new kind of researcher – one who seeks to understand the world not only in terms of generalities produced by quantitative methods but also through close and extended analysis of the particular’. Along with the changing scientific theory which now acknowledges the multidirectional character of language learning, there has been a growing acceptance of and increase in qualitative research in education (case studies), applied linguistics as well as the social sciences (Ellis & Larsen-Freeman, 2006, in Duff, 2008: 31). On the other hand, there are certain limitations to the case-study design that need to be acknowledged and addressed. The disadvantages often mentioned in the methodological literature include low levels of generalization and issues connected with objectivity, reliability and replicability. The issues of generalizability and those connected with objectivity need to be addressed. ‘Multiple case studies are instrumental in nature … they are chosen because it is believed that understanding them will lead to better understanding, and perhaps better theorizing, about a still larger collection of cases’ (Stake, 2005: 446, in Duff, 2008: 49). Therefore, in this kind of study, analytic generalization is made not to populations but to theoretical models. These models, in turn, consider the complexity of the language and culture learning process in terms of relationships that exist among various factors. Additionally, as Gall et al. (2003: 466) argues, suitably rich descriptions of research participants and contexts allow ‘readers of the case study to determine the generalizability of findings to their particular situation or to other situations’. Child-Centered Approaches

The methodology for this project attempted to incorporate the student’s own perspectives and to reveal his or her needs as well as his or her hopes for the future. This was best achieved by using children-centered methods grounded in a common theoretical perspective on adolescence and their psychological development which recognizes that adolescents are active sociocultural producers in their own rights, ‘recognizing children as people with abilities and capabilities different from, rather than simply less than adults’ (Greene & Hogan, 2005: 154). The methods employed in this study included empowering children by constructing ‘ground rules’ with the students themselves prior to the interviews in

50  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

order to co-construct the meaning between the interviewer and the child – to share the discursive framework of the open-ended interviews (Greene & Hogan, 2005: 144–154). This approach involved spending time with the young participants in their school settings, building up relations of trust and getting to know them with a general aim in mind: ‘engaging children in our [this] research so our [this] research on childhood can be effected through research with children’ (Greene & Hogan, 2005: 154). Consequently, the methodology of the present study was designed to provide some contextual features of individual student’s social background, records of his or her personal histories as well as detailed characteristics of the communities of practice in which LS took place. Layers of Analysis and Coding

Transcripts were coded for narratives and small stories following the work of Ochs and Capps (2001) and Georgakopoulou (2007) and translated into English. Interviews with English mainstream teachers were conducted in English. The analytic role of the interviews was to learn about the ways the Polish students use and socialize their languages and cultures, and how these are shaped in and by the given community of practice (including both home and educational contexts). This analytical process was informed by ethnographic analysis of interactive and reflective positioning along with speech acts and actions (social acts) with a particular focus on stance-taking (both affective and epistemic stancetaking) and social identity construction as it was negotiated over a certain period of time, following on the works of Goodwin (2000), Kiesling (2009), Ochs (1996) and Ochs and Capps (2001). The analytical process was also informed by Georgakopoulou (2007), perspectives on personal narratives and conversations by De Fina (2016b), as well as positioning theory by Davies and Harré (1990) and Kiesling (2009: 171–194). Georgakopoulou (2007: 2) proposes an investigation of the narrative structure by concentrating on one element of the narrative structure instead of all of them. As Georgakopoulou (2016) further explains, ‘small stories research was developed to account conceptually and analytically for a range of narrative activities that had not been sufficiently studied nor had their importance for the interlocutors’ identity work been recognized’. These include fragmented and open-ended tellings without a specific beginning, middle or end. They are often heavily co-constructed, ‘rendering the sole teller’s story ownership problematic’ (Georgakopoulou, 2016: 266). As Duranti (2005: 421) states ‘small stories research has been intended as a model for, not a model of narrative analysis’. Georgakopoulou suggests that in the instances of ‘small stories’, structure is sequentially based and evolving. Thus, narratives in the present study are considered to be all kinds of short stories/storylines cooperatively produced or constructed by participants and interlocutors (including the

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  51

Table 2.4  Total number of hours of audio recording Case study

Interviews conducted (h)

Case I: Kasia

9.85

Case II: Wiktoria

6.81

Case III: Janek

8.65

Case IV: Marcin

7.53

researcher herself). They include spontaneous retrospective accounts of past events or narrative activities related to present or future events, real or hypothetical. The narratives and small stories during interviews were very important as they recurrently appeared in children’s stories, whenever the chance to talk about them occurred. They included events from the distant or more recent past or were concerned with retrospective accounts of different situations, generalizations, assessments or justifications of particular behaviors. While many narratives were constructed by the co-participants (including the researcher and the children’s parents), a significant number of narratives were spontaneous in nature and were often initiated by the participants themselves. These played a great role and turned out to be very significant. Along with De Fina’s (2016b) arguments, this study advocates that it is possible to move beyond the dichotomy between ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ data, where authentic methods are represented by participant observation and inauthentic are artificially elicited, for example, in interviews. As Baynham and De Fina (2016: 39) suggests ‘current developments in sociolinguistics are problematizing the notion of the “authentic” in everyday interactional contexts and here we seek to also problematize the notion of the interview as inauthentic’. She provides an interesting case of Tulio Maranhão’s account of how in a study undertaken in northeast Brazil, the author gathers unexpected narratives of ‘fishing prowess’ instead of the intended classification of fishing and their cognitive planning. Similarly, the main intention behind interviews accounted for in this study was not to display or elicit children’s agency in the form of small stories. Rather, it was a means of data triangulation. Small stories that were co-constructed were spontaneous and reappeared. Narrative as a small story was not the primary focus of this study, yet interview data proved to be rich in narrative talk and, indeed, turned out to be crucial in making sense of the data. On Stances and Positioning Taken by Participants

This study follows on from Baynham and De Fina’s (2016: 32) approach to narrative and storytelling which is practice oriented and ethnographic in nature. This approach highlights the practice of

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meaning-making and its particular usefulness in studies of immigrants, transnational communities and individuals. It has the potential to throw light on how these groups act within and experience the process of relocation and displacement and on how they construct their identity and the power relations in which they are embedded (Baynham & De Fina, 2016: 33). As Baynham and De Fina (2016: 33) points out, an influence on recent developments in narrative analysis has ‘come from the need for the close study of discourse phenomena through ethnographic lenses and with particular attention to the contextualization of meanings in local interactions’, for example in studies such as Rampton (2006) or Otsuji and Pennycook (2010). The way individuals represent and negotiate their identities is to be ‘negotiated not presupposed’. The narrative within that framework is seen as social practice (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2008, 2015) that is included within a specific context. Within this framework, storytelling is seen as a process that contains presuppositions, co-constructions and negotiations by participants. De Fina and Georgakopoulou (2008, 2015) have demonstrated that narratives can be used in less recognized ways in a variety of contexts, for a variety of reasons and with different effects, which are also pursued in this study. This book investigates issues related to identity and ways of positioning self and others, parental roles and socio-historical contexts. Agency plays an important role in this process. It is broadly defined as ‘the degree of activity and initiative that narrators attribute to themselves as characters in particular story worlds’ (Baynham & De Fina, 2016: 41). Within that framework, ‘stance is a public act by a social actor, achieved through overt means, of evaluating an object, positioning the self, and aligning with other subjects in respect of any salient dimension of the stance field’ (Baynham, 2007: 163). During daily interactions with others, we often take certain stances or we position ourselves reflectively with respect to previous events or people we know. Stances and positioning are very important in our day-to-day construction of our values, norms, beliefs and identity. There are observable patterns in our stancetaking and positioning. Thus, when analyzing transcripts for stances or positioning, numerous practical questions appear. What counts as a stance and what does not? What kind of positioning or stances is being taken by participants? To resolve these issues, certain choices were made and the theoretical framework (below) was adopted. ‘Stance’ was broadly defined as ‘the expression of personal feelings and assessments’ (Biber, 2006: 57). The literature indicates that each time a speaker is assessing an object, other people or events, he or she is taking a stance. Stances and their affective and epistemic dispositions are constructed locally and are interactionally negotiated. Stance-taking is often considered to be fundamental to social life as a way of explicitly or implicitly invoking our presupposed system of values. It also contributes to the reproduction of those values on a societal level (Du Bois, 2007: 173). In

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  53

other words, stance-taking acts are dialogic in nature and involve two or more interlocutors creating intersubjectivity. By taking on this perspective, we can imply that LS can be seen as socialization into stance-taking practices, learning to display phonological, morphological and syntactical structures as resources to index epistemic and affective stances (Cook, 2011 in Duranti et al., 2012). Synthesizing the literature on stance-taking, this study adopted the definitions of epistemic and affective stances provided by Ochs (1996: 410). Epistemic stance is perceived as referring to knowledge or belief vis-á-vis some focus of concern, including degrees of certainty of knowledge, degrees of commitment to the truth of propositions and sources of knowledge, among other epistemic qualities (Chafe & Nichols, 1986). ‘Affective stance’ refers to mood, attitude, feeling and disposition, as well as degrees of emotional intensity vis-á-vis some focus of concern (Labov, 1984; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1984). In linguistic terms, an epistemic stance is directly indexed by evidentials such as a variety of linguistic categories like verbs; adverbs (Biber & Finegan, 1988); sentence particles (Cook, 1990; He, 2001); and conditionals (Akatsuka, 1985). Kiesling (2009), for instance, places primary focus on the ways a speaker relates himself or herself to the content of an utterance and on the means through which he or she relates to the interlocutor. Thus, an epistemic stance here can be defined as the level of certainty a person has with regard to his or her own assertions, and the affective/ interpersonal stance as a person’s expression of his or her relationship to his or her listeners (Kiesling, 2009: 172). For an analysis of epistemic stances, the present study also drew on Leech’s (2003) work on aspects of modality such as epistemic modality (participants expressing possibility) or deontic modality (participants expressing necessity). Modality is often expressed in three ways: (i) modal verbs such as should, shall, would, will, could, can, may, must (and their Polish equivalents); (ii) ‘semi-modals’ such as have to, need to and want to; and (iii) various modal adverbs such as perhaps, probably, necessarily and inevitably. The deontic modality is often used to, for example, express authority, whereas the epistemic modality can construct different representations of the world. The term ‘investment’ was used mainly to point to the level of participants’ engagement in a particular talk (how strongly invested the speaker is in the talk [Kiesling, 2012]). Affective stance, on the other hand, is indexed through a wide range of linguistic structures and semiotic signs including phonological properties (Kiesling, 2005), pronouns and address terms (Ochs, 1986b), adjectives and verbs, conditionals, honorifics and particles (Cook, 2011 in Duranti et al., 2012). Moreover, since social identities are constituted and encoded by linguistic structures, stance-taking practices serve as primary semiotic resources for daily identity and activity construction (Bucholtz, 2006; Cook, 1996; Kiesling, 2005: 15). Participants’ assessments of propositions or events and self-evaluations were considered to be important components of stance-taking.

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Goodwin and Goodwin (1987: 28) define assessments as activities for evaluating, in some way, the persons and events being described within their talk. It is also argued that ‘assessments reveal not just neutral objects in the world but an alignment taken up toward a phenomenon by a particular actor’ (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1987: 28). Thus, assessments are seen as subjective and fluid and to be analyzed more in terms of alignment with a particular or described event, phenomenon or speaker. ‘Alignment’ is thus considered to play an important role in the process of stance-taking. However, this study adopted the extended view on alignment proposed by Stivers (2008) as he distinguishes between interlocutors’ ‘alignment’ and ‘affiliation’. ‘Alignment’ is believed to be achieved through the mutual cooperation of the interlocutors in an ongoing activity, whereas ‘affiliation’ is when ‘the hearer displays support of and endorses the teller’s conveyed stance towards the events being described as, for example, funny, sad, horrible, or exciting’ (Stivers, 2008: 36). In other words, the speakers can be cooperative in the sense of providing clues on whether to continue but may not necessarily affiliate with what is being said. Stances in this study are considered compositional and far from being static and monologic. They are compositional in the sense of the interrelation between, for example, affective and epistemic modalities. Stances are treated as negotiable over time and this study only presents snapshots from these negotiations. As Kiesling (2005) points out, speakers/interlocutors might take on ‘bids’ rather than ‘definite stance-taking’ and as such, they need continual renewal. Thus, these bids can be perceived as negotiations of self that take place over a particular length of time in a particular context through discourse. In this sense, they contribute to an overall construction of identities and may also be perceived as windows through which some positions toward societal or cultural ideologies are reflected. The present study follows on from Davies and Harré’s (1990) ‘positioning theory’. The theory of speech acts played a vital role in ‘positioning’ theory; however, it was challenged by Davies and Harré (1990). They perceived ‘speech acts’ as deterministic in nature. Instead, they proposed the theory of ‘positioning’ as a supplementary concept. The second layer of the analysis in the present study builds on the positioning theory proposed by Davies and Harré (1990). They suggest that people follow formally unspecified rules of discourse which are governed by their previous cultural, historical and social background knowledge, their previous experiences and so on. In other words, they suggest that speakers exercise their ‘agency’ through the language choices they make. Positioning is divided into (i) reflective positioning in which one is positioning oneself and (ii) interactive positioning – what one says positions the other or invokes a particular role upon him or her (Davies & Harré, 1990: 49). ‘In speaking and acting from subjective positions people are bringing to the particular situation their history as subjective being, that

Participants: Children, Their Families and Socialization Contexts  55

is the history of one who has been in multiple positions and engaged in different forms of discourse’ (Davies & Harré, 1990). Thus, positioning here is seen as different from ‘stance-taking’ in the way that it is related in more direct ways to the positions constructed with respect to abstract or hypothetical, conversational or retrospective narratives constructed by participants. This proved to be vital for an analysis of the narratives and monologues provided by the participants. The term ‘discursive practice’ is used in this analysis to describe how participants produce ‘social and psychological meanings in discourse’ (Davies & Harré, 1990: 45). Particular focus was on the linguistic means by which individuals reflectively positioned themselves. It was believed that taking on ‘positioning theory’ (Davies & Harré, 1990) had the potential to unravel silent aspects of participants’ personal experiences of the past (providing links with their personal past), e.g. all instances of talk or tellings reflecting on the past, present or hypothetically the future. Since discursive stance-taking is considered more local and more instant (Kiesling, 2009; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1996), an analysis of the linguistic means by which different participants or interlocutors are taking stances during conversations creates the potential for examining relationships between individual speakers (here and now) and between speakers and talk. For these reasons, affective and epistemic stance-taking was analyzed in parallel with reflective and interactive positioning, particularly reflective positioning. Combining these two approaches resulted in consistent in-depth analysis of transcripts. Notes on Translation

When changing syntax or using idiomatic expressions and collocations, some aspects of the discourses turned out not to be transferable from Polish to English. Especially when analyzing stance-taking or identifying effective language, this issue became salient as some expressions in one language had a greater or weaker impact than in the second language. For example, in the Polish language, double negatives are often used to intensify negativity. The question then arose whether to provide a direct translation or look for more distant expressions that would, in turn, reflect the discursive impact of the expression or intensifier used by the speaker. To avoid changes in meaning being ‘lost in translation’, it was decided to provide the closest translation possible. The participants were consulted about the translations on an ongoing basis.

3 Power of Belonging

Identity and Membership

This chapter presents data from four different families, more specifically, the children, who were constantly negotiating their understandings of themselves concerning others, either differentiating themselves from certain groups or trying to display their allegiance and loyalty to a group. By reflecting on these examples and including educational settings, the different strategies children employed during these negotiations are illustrated and described. The first part of the chapter illustrates how children seek membership and participation in certain communities of practice and how they reject them or are rejected by them. The second part demonstrates how accent and specific language choices and ideologies play an important role in the process. The relationship between language development and identity construction has gained increasing interest. Many studies have attempted to analyze how incorporating an additional language and culture impacts one’s sense of who one is. Learning an additional language and becoming part of a new community often entail modifying one’s self-perception in relationships with others. For example, for immigrants, the issue of constructing a new or different identity is often a hallmark or a guarantee of one’s cultural and linguistic development (Boxer & Cohen, 2004: 9). According to Miller (2003), immigrant adolescents, like adults, possess a personal identity (a sense of self that is constantly being negotiated) that is manifested through their primary communicative and sensemaking resource, namely their first language (L1). Therefore, deprived of that essential resource due to immigration to another country, students are unable to meaningfully represent their sense of self to others (Miller, 2003: xiii) or their representation of who they are is limited to a somewhat restricted second language (L2) repertoire. This makes the negotiation and reconstruction of new emerging social identities very difficult to near impossible. In the foregoing situation, as Miller (2003: 57) points out, a significant amount of goodwill from both sides is needed to communicate or otherwise ‘[the immigrant students] may be 56

Power of Belonging  57

assumed somehow deficient or worse’. That is why being audible to others is essential if one is to belong to a group and actively engage in both the negotiation of identities and the language socialization (LS) process. Thus, what is identity? In a broad sense, Wortham (2004: 176) defines social identification as occurring when individuals or groups are ‘publicly recognized’ as ‘categories of people’. Models of identity ‘emerge over decades and centuries’ and thus are socio-historical (Wortham, 2006: 7). Local identities are affected by historical identities and familiar socio-historical models (Wortham, 2006). Chapter 4 deals with these issues in more detail. Gee (2007: 99) takes a more micro perspective and defines identity as ‘being recognized as a certain “kind of person” in a given context’. Gee talks of identity differences based on social and cultural views of identity, each of which is influenced by different forms of power, though they all affect one another. Gee (2007: 101) describes them as ‘four ways to formulate questions about how identity is functioning for a specific person (child or adult) in a given context or across a set of contexts’. Language plays an important role in the process of constructing these ‘identities’. We use language every day to conduct our social lives, and that, consequently, is connected with culture. ‘When we use language in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways’ (Kramsch, 1998: 3). For example, the way people use language, written or spoken, creates meanings that are understandable to a certain group of people. Through features such as tone of voice, accent and gestures, ‘language embodies cultural reality’ (Kramsch, 1998: 3). It is not the case, however, that language entirely determines how we perceive others and how others perceive us. According to Gee (2007: 7), ‘a Discourse is a sort of “identity kit” which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize’. It not only involves ways of ‘talking, listening, writing, and reading’, but also ‘integrates acting, interacting, believing, valuing, and feeling into patterns associated with a recognizable social network, or affinity group’ (Gee, 1996, 1999). Thus, we belong to certain Discourses within which there are common identities and ways of being that are recognizable as appropriate, normal or right to other members of the same Discourses. As Gee (2007) points out, it is because of these features that members of certain Discourses can categorize others as either ‘outsider’ or ‘insiders’. It is important to note, however, that ‘the individual is the meeting point of many, sometimes conflicting, socially and historically defined Discourses’ (Gee, 2007: 162). It is widely acknowledged in the literature that social and cultural identity takes place through recognizing people’s Discourses in their daily interactions – ‘language is a symbol of our identity, conveying our preferred distinctiveness and allegiances’ (Baker, 2007: 81). For example, the

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children and their families presented in this book have taken on different Discourses and strategies to either convey their ‘distinctiveness’ or represent their ‘allegiances’ with majority or minority groups. Norton (2000) supports Gee’s (2007) claim that ‘some form of apprenticeship is required to obtain access to and thereby learn a D/discourse’. Norton (2000) suggests that it is very important to have access to social networks outside of school/class times. That is why it is natural for many adolescents to seek to belong to groups with similar cultures to their own. Authentic interactions are essential not only for language learning but also for feelings of belonging which are important during the adolescent years. We no longer solely depend on our family but seek to belong to something bigger. Concerning immigrant students, some tensions may arise as they attempt to stay connected to their family and heritage language and culture and, at the same time, try to access new groups and establish new friendships. As Gee (2007) suggests, entering new communities means accessing new Discourses and requires taking on an identity that is congruent with the Discourse operating in a particular group, time and place. However, as Gee (2001) claims, this may not be completely ‘priceless’. There is a ‘price’ (Gee, 2001) for membership and as Gunderson (2001: 243) suggests: ‘In many ways, the degree of a student’s success in school in Canada is a direct measure of the degree of first cultural loss’. Aspects of identity such as membership status, the social roles people assume and the stances they take in regard to those roles, participation and practices or activities have always been important concepts in LS research. The development of ‘practice theory [Bourdieu] was a crucial element in the language socialization research paradigm’s formulation, providing a strong but flexible framework for its routine-based and activity-based analytic approaches’ (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002: 344). Community of practice theory presumes that particular activities and interactions are performed on a regular basis by members of any community (as part of human sociality). Taking that perspective allows us to examine the nature of those interactions and socializing routines. This focus is rooted in the works of Garfinkel (1984) and Heritage (1987), and on the assumption that cultural knowledge is implicit – that is, it is a part of ‘practical consciousness’ but not ‘discursive consciousness’ (Giddens, 1979) – and therefore may not be explicitly reflected upon or spoken about. Thus, an analysis of everyday routines such as participation in peer social circles and their activities provides the ‘background’ (implicit) knowledge about what guides and organizes different social activities that individuals often perform but rarely speak about openly (see Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002: 343). Participants of this study turned out to be actively negotiating their access to their peer groups and their activities. Routine is perceived as being socially constructed, negotiated, situated and contextually grounded and, in this way, LS research can be regarded as following from or reflecting ‘practice theory’ and the notion

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of ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1980). It provides grounds for examining how novices and ‘experts’ engage each other in ‘emergent’, ‘situated interactions’, many of which are routinized to some degree. Within these negotiated and constructed interactions, participants co-operatively engage or activate their cultural knowledge through practices as well as through emotions, affective stances (Schieffelin, 1990) and moral and normative evaluations. Activities are embedded in the wider sociocultural context or structure from which they derive their significance for those who perform or participate in them. Activities, then, provide ‘the raw materials of empirical analysis and serve as windows on underlying principles of social organization and cultural orientation’ (Schieffelin, 1990). Membership in native or heritage language speakers’ groups, language choices or attempting a native accent played a crucial role in negotiations of the participants’ identities. These identities were often dynamically constructed and negotiated through interaction within these two communities of practice (Polish and Irish). From the social constructionist perspective adopted in this book, social identity is seen as an ongoing process of social differentiation. The fact that ‘social identity categories have different configurations and meanings across time and space is evidence that they are socially constructed, rather than reflections of essential nature’ (Bailey, 2007 in Wei & Aurer, 2007: 345). As Heller and Duchene (2007: 15) points out, identity has to be understood as a social construct. She argues that, by definition, social constructs have to be constructed: ‘The process of construction can be long and complicated [as] people do not necessarily agree on what to construct or how to construct it, and even if they do, it can take time to find the way there’ (Heller & Duchene, 2007: 14). This has turned out to be particularly true for the young participants of this study who have been engaged in their negotiations since the moment they arrived in their new country. Consciously or subconsciously, these processes of construction are present in their lives and surfaced on numerous occasions during our conversations and family talks. The excerpts included in this chapter are only snapshots of their experience. They represent negotiations of identity that are taking place in particular moments and specific contexts. Therefore, identity in this study is seen as creatively and discursively constructed as participants exercise their agency within the cultural contexts in which they are located both spatially and temporally. The following sections attempt to illustrate the aforementioned issues.

Constructing ‘Belonging’

Kasia, who was 12 at the time of recording, rarely if ever talked in school about Poland, Polish history, culture or being Polish. She did not

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attend Polish weekend school. She came to Ireland about six years earlier with her parents. She did not offer any information regarding her origins unless openly asked to do so. Debbie (Kasia’s current English teacher), for example, reported that she did not know where Kasia was from ‘unless she would have asked her’ (field notes, October 2010). She also added that Kasia had never volunteered any information about her own origins during English or history classes. When asked about how her Polish origin was perceived in school, Kasia frequently stated that she would not talk about that, particularly because it was ‘not something that draws others attention’ (extracted from field notes). During my observations, I noted that a number of Eastern European children attended the school. I spent some breaks with her former English teacher Peter who knew Kasia well (about two years), and he agreed to talk about Kasia’s interactions with others. Date: 7 October 2010 I’ve spent break walking around the yard with Peter, Kasia’s former teacher. We were talking about school days, organization, Kasia’s engagement with others. We were hoping to see Kasia around as Peter mentioned that most of the time Kasia and her friend Brida hang around him during breaks. He said that they must have spotted us together today and obviously decided not to join us. Kasia later commented to me that they did not want to ‘disturb us’.

Petevwr told me that a group of about six girls spent breaks together even though they did not attend the same class. Five of the girls were from Latvia and Lithuania and one girl was Ukrainian. However, no Polish girls mingled with them. At one point, Peter drew my attention to this during the following conversation: Excerpt 3.1: Those who are from Eastern Europe (19 October 2010) 128. P:  It’s funny as well that like in the second year groups those people arriving (x) those people who are from eastern Europe the first year very much e: ee group together even though they are not from the same country [ 129. G: Aha:a]++ 130. P:  So if you take like Katrina and Lisa e:m and now they have taken one or two of the first years - where is Katrina from in Ran Rose? She’s Ukrainian? 131. D:  No idea. That’s terrible. 132. G:  Katrina? The big girl? 133. P: Yea! 134. G:  Yea, she’s from Ukraine.

Power of Belonging  61

135. P:  And she would hang out a lot with the second years and they’d spoken + I actually think sometimes Russian to each other and e:ee they would very much seem to a::a associate themselves with where they are from + while Kasia would very much not at all - and she would be the opposite also.

In this excerpt, Peter talks about the different ways students selfrepresent themselves in school. He points out that some first- and second-year students from Eastern Europe (relatively new immigrants) tend to form a separate group ‘even though they are not from the same country’. He tries to identify students that belong to this group. The researcher helps to identify the students along with Debbie (the English teacher) who still does not recognize all the names. She even makes a self-evaluative statement: ‘that’s terrible’ (that she has no idea where the students are from). Katrina is identified as a member of the Eastern European group of students. She is from ‘Ran Rose’ (name of Kasia’s class) and is identified as Ukrainian by the researcher. Peter describes the Eastern European group of students, making an explicit statement that Katrina, as well as other students from this group, ‘would very much seem to associate themselves with where they are from’, whereas Kasia does not – ‘Kasia would very much not at all’. He also makes the point that the students from this group speak Russian with each other. Peter sees these students as positioning themselves as Eastern Europeans not only as they display their foreign identity through openly using Russian but also as they ‘group together’ to maintain the links with their personal past. On the contrary, Kasia is ‘the opposite’. Thus, as Peter implicitly suggests, Kasia positions herself as linguistically and culturally distinct from the Eastern European group in school. It needs to be noted here that younger generations of Poles rarely if ever speak Russian anymore. A speaker of Polish does not automatically understand Russian, and for many historical and sociopolitical reasons it could be offensive for a Pole to be classified as a speaker of Russian. Therefore, Kasia avoided and disassociated herself from this particular social group in her school. However, she strived to belong to the majority social group in her school – the group of Irish girls in her class. At the beginning of each school year, an intercultural day is organized for all students. Kasia, however, did not participate. The following excerpts give a very brief account of an intercultural day that took place at the beginning of the school year. Field notes excerpt 62. Date: 26 February 2010 International Day is usually organized once a year, at the beginning of spring. The students are encouraged to share their own cultural background with

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other members of the school community. Students from each country are asked to set up a table or prepare a song, or a short performance connected to their national heritage. All children are strongly encouraged to participate. Kasia, however, did not consider this day to be a special event. Excerpt 3.2: One boy from Africa came out and began to sing (1 March 2010) 710. K:  Mieliśmy coś takiego, ze były inne kultury, wyszedł taki jeden z Afryki i zaczął śpiewać tak po afrykańsku, taką fajną piosenkę, ale ja bym nie chciała, jakby mnie zapytali, to ja powiedziałam nie, dzięki.

[We had something like that, there were different cultures, this/ one/ (boy) from Africa came out and began to sing in African, such a nice song, but I would not want to when they asked me, I said no, thanks.]

In this short account of the event, Kasia describes a boy from Africa who sang his tribal song wearing a colorful tunic. She uses ‘taki jeden’ (a colloquial expression referring to the characteristics of the unnamed boy) to describe him. The phrases ‘taki jeden’ and ‘tak po afrykańsku’ used colloquially have a trivializing effect and display Kasia’s affective attitude/stance toward this event – some level of nonchalance or indifference about the event. She also explicitly states that when asked, she rejected participating in the event. In this way, Kasia is displaying agency and is resisting her own cultural heritage. The way she describes the event has a trivializing effect on the event. By means of this short narrative and by the social act of not participating in the intercultural day, Kasia differentiated herself from the group of immigrant students and positioned herself among the locals – the native discourse community. Kasia adopted a similar strategy aimed at positioning herself as ‘a local’ among the wider community in her town. The town is located on the eastern coast and has three supermarkets, two pharmacies, several take-away food outlets and restaurants, three pubs and a credit union. There are two local schools, both primary and secondary. The town has expanded in recent years to cater for large numbers of commuters to Dublin. There are about 10 Polish shop assistants working in local supermarkets, who are generally well known by the wider town community. Poles living locally address each other by name and speak Polish with each other. They know most of the Polish people living locally, among them Kasia and her family. As a frequent visitor to this local supermarket and a person of Polish heritage, the researcher observed patterns of Kasia’s language practices with the Polish shop assistants. She

Power of Belonging  63

had decided to use English with all of them. One day, one Polish shop assistant explicitly expressed her disapproval of such behavior. Field notes excerpt. Date: 5 March 2010 I had a very interesting conversation with a local shop assistant who is also Polish. I am using that shop almost every day to buy coffee and a breakfast roll as it is on the way to school, near the bus stop. Today in the shop she asked me: ‘Do you know this girl? I think her name is Kasia, right? She always does this – she’s Polish I know that that girl is ashamed of her Polish origin – sad, very sad’.

Drawing on this incident and my own observations, I decided to ask Kasia about her language use. Excerpt 3.3: I do not like to be seen somehow other (9 March 2010) 203. G:  A jak jesteś tutaj w sklepie albo coś i wiesz, ze tutaj ktoś jest Polakiem, kto obsługuje [to mówisz po?

[And as you’re here in the local supermarket or something and you know that someone here is a Pole, who serves [so you speak to them in?]

204. K: [Angielsku. [English.]

205. G:  [Angielsku, ale dlaczego tak wybierasz?

[English, but why do you choose English?]

206. K:  Nie wiem.

[I do not know.]

207. G:  Jest to bardziej naturalne dla Ciebie, czy jak?

[It is more natural for you, or what is it?]

208. K:  Tak jakoś, automatycznie.

[I do it somehow automatically.]

217. G:  A jak jesteś z koleżankami np. ze szkoły?

And when you are with friends from school for example?]

218. K:  O :o! To wolę mówić po angielsku. Bo jakoś (1) tak bardziej, nie lubię się tak jakoś (2) odróżniać tylko wolę mówić po, wolę po angielsku.

[O:o! then I prefer to speak English. Because, like it’s more somehow, I do not like to be seen somehow other so, I prefer English.]

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In this excerpt, Kasia and the researcher talk about her language choice in the context of shopping in the local supermarket. This context is particularly interesting because the act of speaking Polish openly would instantly expose Kasia’s ethnic identity. In Line 203, the researcher tries to solicit an explanation from Kasia by relating to a hypothetical situation similar to the one observed by providing prompts like ‘A jak jesteś tutaj w sklepie albo coś i wiesz, ze tutaj ktoś jest Polakiem, kto obsługuje to mówisz po?’ [And when you’re here (Kasia’s local village) in the local supermarket and you know that someone here is a Pole – someone who serves you, so you speak to them in?]. Kasia’s short explicit response is that she uses English in this situation. Next, the researcher tries to elicit a more detailed answer regarding her choice. This time, Kasia gives an answer without much thought and responds ‘nie wiem’ [I do not know]; however, in the next line (Line 208) when given a prompt ‘Jest to bardziej naturalne dla Ciebie, czy jak?’ [It is more natural for you?], she provides the explanation that it is done ‘jakos’ [somehow] ‘automatycznie’ [automatically]. The previous explicit response along with a pronoun – the epistemic marker ‘jakoś’ [somehow] – used in this context suggests that Kasia does not know or does not want to comment on the motives behind her linguistic behavior or verbally performed social act. Again, these examples show Kasia’s resistance to using Polish. I suggest that this type of behavior was intentional, making it possible for Kasia to construct an identity that she desired for herself. Kasia is recognized as a certain ‘kind of person’ in this particular context: she positions herself as one of the majority speakers (Gee, 2001: 99). Belonging to a certain ‘Discourse’ requires certain actions such as ‘feeling into patterns associated with a recognizable social network’ (Gee, 1996: 131), as shown in the second part of the excerpt. Kasia was often accompanied by her friends when visiting a local shop as they made their way home from school. While Kasia explicitly expresses a strong preference for English in this particular situation (Line 218), prosodic features of her discourse provide additional dimensions. The animated tone of voice and discourse markers ‘to’ [then]; ‘Oo!’ [Ooh] and emphatic stress reflect a feeling of strong allegiances toward her friends. Kasia also provides an additional explanation for her choice, that she does not want to be perceived as ‘jakoś odróżniać’ [somehow other] (Line  218). The actual explicit act of using Polish in this situation would make Kasia feel ‘other’ and she believes it would position her among ‘others’ and could potentially threaten her membership in the group of majority language speakers. However, frequent use of the epistemic marker – the pronoun ‘jakoś’ (3×) [somehow] – in this excerpt might provide some clues about a feeling of uncertainty or doubt in her belief of the legitimacy of her choice.

Power of Belonging  65

Being an ‘Insider’ Marcin: ‘Going to the pub’

I met Marcin’s family through his primary school. At the time, I was living in the neighboring coastal village. As it is a small village, people generally know each other from small social gatherings such as ‘lighting the Christmas lights’ and sand sculpture competitions. These occasions provide many informal opportunities to meet people from one’s village. Getting in touch with Polish people came naturally to me as I was part of the same community. I believe this granted me a privileged position in which I was trusted by my participants. I was relying not only on this natural bond but also that our relationship would grow, as I often took part in many informal, familial events in their lives. I developed a very positive relationship with Marcin during that time. On one occasion, I even commented in my research diary how content I was because of the kind of relationship I had managed to establish with him: Date: 22 March 2010 As Marcin spends lots of time outside, he is good friends with some local boys. They meet on a regular basis and it is really nice to see how well they get on with each other. I must say that I am getting on really well with Marcin as we laugh a lot during our conversations. I have a feeling that he treats me like his friend – at least his equal.

Marcin (12 at the time of recording) had arrived in Ireland six years previously and had often displayed a strong desire to belong to the group of majority language speakers both in and outside of school. Issues of membership and belonging were key in his socializing practices. In my observations, I often noticed how well integrated and at ease he was with his Irish peers. His strategies, however, were different from those displayed by Kasia. The following is an excerpt of Marcin’s small story about his friends and how they spend time together outside school. Even though Marcin comes from a relatively small coastal village, there are three local pubs in the area. One day, Marcin revealed that one form of entertainment for him and his friends was going to the local pub to get ‘free juice’. I later found out that the pub mentioned in the following excerpt offers ‘juice’ to the local teenage boys a few times a week during off-peak hours. This practice is seen as something taken for granted. The pub has been refurbished in a pastiche of its original style to increase its attractiveness to tourists. It is a nice, spacious place and features live Irish music on Sundays. There is generally a very close and informal atmosphere between bar staff and customers. There are a few regular customers who seem to know each other quite well.

66  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

Excerpt 3.4: Well, we go to the pub! (4 May 2010) 106. M:  Czterech takich najlepszych.

[Four such best.]

107. G:  Mhh, no. ok, co robicie razem? Jak się spotykacie, oczywiście nie musisz mi wszystkiego opowiadać@

[Mhh, no. ok, what do you do together? when you meet, of course, you do not have to tell me everything @]

108. M:  @ Nie no jedziemy do G>(nazwa miejscowości) do pubu czasem

[@ No well, we go to G> (name of the town) to the pub sometimes]

109. G:  @ To co robicie w tym pubie?

[@ So what are you doing in this Pub?]

110. M:  PIJEMY (as if it was the only possible answer)

[WE’RE DRINKING]

111. G:  ALE CO PIJECIE ? @ (zdziwienie i podniesiony ton głosu)



[BUT WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING?] (surprised, raised tone of voice said louder)

112. M:  @@ Sok,

[@@ Juice]

113. G:  Ok. Wpuszczają was do pubu, tak?

[Ok. Do they let you in to the Pub, right?]

114. M: tak

[Y:es] 115. G:  Bez problemu?

[Without a problem?]

116. M:  Przed ósmą bez rodziców możesz być w pubie.

[You can be/you are allowed in the Pub without your parents before eight]

117. G:  MMHH

[MMHH]

118. M:  Po 8 to trzeba być z rodzicami.

[After eight you have to be with your parents.]

Power of Belonging  67

119. G:  Mhh, i możecie sobie zawsze sok kupić.

[Mhh, and you can always buy yourself juice.]

120. M:  Za DARMO.

[For FREE.]

121. G:  ZA DARMO jest sok? (zdziwienie) za darmo

[Is the juice FOR FREE?] (said with surprise)

122. G:  Jaki to pub jest? Ja też dostane za darmo?

[What pub is this? Will I get one for free as well?]

123. M:  W X (nazwa miejsca)

[In X (name of pub)]

124. G:  (xx) Powiem, dziecko jest tu,

[xx I say a child is here,]

125. M:  Na pewno jak powiesz Ribena albo blackberry i zawsze dają

[For sure, when you say Ribena or blackberry and they always give].

The researcher initiates the topic by asking a general question about things that Marcin and his friends do together outside of school hours. She makes the point that Marcin does not have to reveal details if he does not want to. Marcin aligns with this comment but rejects her proposition. By using the negative polarity marker ‘nie’ [no] and exclamation ‘no’ [well], Marcin expresses his willingness to provide details. Next, Marcin decides to talk about ‘going to the pub’ with his friends. This, in turn, evokes the researcher’s affective reaction: she uses prosodic features (her entire question is stressed), her tone of voice is animated and she laughs at the end. Marcin gives a short and blunt reply using a raised tone: ‘Pijemy’ [We’re drinking]. This evokes the interlocutor’s immediate alignment as she asks a question in a sarcastic tone (implicitly indicating that she associates going to the pub with drinking alcohol): [but what are you drinking?]. The use of ‘ale’ [but], an adversary conjunction, along with a raised tone of voice makes this a ‘sarcastic’ question and shows a high level of familiarity between the interlocutors. This comment provokes Marcin’s spontaneous reaction, as he reacts with laughter and responds that they are drinking juice. The researcher decides to continue on the topic and asks an indirect question implicitly expressing her disbelief as she adds in Line 115, ‘Bez problemu?’ [Without any problem?]. She presupposes that it is unusual for children to be in a pub without parental supervision. Marcin aligns with that presupposition as he replies that children are allowed to be in a pub before 8pm without supervision. The researcher acknowledges that response with an interjection [MMHH],

68  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

but she puts an emphatic stress on it. This, in turn, elicits Marcin’s confirmation of the previously made claim, but this time he highlights that after 8pm children have to be supervised by their parents. In Line  119, the researcher makes a clarifying move by resuming the proposition made about drinking juice in the pub. She, however, suggests that Marcin and his friends are ‘buying’ juice. Marcin decides to align with this inference and immediately corrects the interviewer’s presupposition by explicitly stating that the juice is free. He puts an emphatic stress on the adverbial phrase ‘za darmo’ [for free]. The researcher again expresses her surprise and disbelief with regard to this proposition (emphatic stress is put on ‘za darmo’ [for free]). She sustains her affective reaction by seeking the name of the pub and by asking if she can also get free juice in this pub. This evokes Marcin’s blunt response when he provides the actual name of the pub in Line 123. In his affective utterance, he takes on an epistemic stance (high level of confidence); in Line  125 [For sure, when you say Ribena or blackberry they always give it to you], he uses the epistemic modality markers such as ‘na pewno’ [for sure] or the generalization ‘zawsze’ [always] to make his claim more evident. This excerpt illustrates Marcin’s participation in one of the local cultural practices – ‘going to the pub’. Throughout this excerpt, he constructs a very positive affective stance toward this practice as the following features of the conversation suggest: (i) animated tone of voice, (ii) laughter, (iii) emphatic stress on ‘za darmo’ [for free], (iv) generalization ‘zawsze’ [always] and (v) epistemic modality marker ‘na pewno’ [for sure]. These features also show high familiarity and relations of trust between Marcin and the researcher. As Gee’s (1996) theory of Discourse proposes, it is not only how we talk but also what we do and what we believe that make us true members of a given community. The researcher’s position comes from her Polish cultural norms displayed in this conversation. In Poland, it is unacceptable for children (under 16) to stay in a bar or pub unsupervised at any time. It is against commonly accepted social norms as gatherings and socializing in local bars and pubs are understood differently. Many Polish people living locally in Marcin’s village spend the weekend afternoons at their friends’ houses, as there is no tradition of ‘going to the pub’ in Poland (research journal, 4 May 2010). Thus, Marcin could not have observed the custom from his parents. It was his own way (agency) of gaining access and being granted membership in the local boys’ social circle. Marcin decided to join them enthusiastically, constructing himself as ‘one of the locals’ without questioning the practice. However, on numerous occasions, Marcin pondered on his own ‘Irishness’ or ‘not being Irish’. He often compared himself with his younger siblings who were born in Ireland and could call themselves ‘Irish’. This issue was far more complicated for him and made him question his identity.

Power of Belonging  69

‘My siblings are more Irish than I am’

This excerpt is part of a longer exchange between Marcin and I and it illustrates Marcin’s stance-taking regarding his ethnic identity and his future life. Marcin has two younger siblings, a brother and a sister. They were born in Ireland and are now attending a creche (his sister Lila) and Junior Infants (his brother Max). Marcin’s mother often expressed her worries and concerns about Marcin’s lack of interest in the Polish language and Polish books. His parents were not sure what the future would hold. Both of them were working in low-paid jobs before Marcin’s younger siblings were born, but now his mother no longer works outside the home. The money they earned did not allow them to buy property. Under these circumstances, the future seems vague and uncertain, as was the case for all the families who participated in this study. The possibility of returning to Poland, even though not explicitly admitted, existed as a ‘threatening’ alternative (Observation diary, 23 September 2010). Marcin’s mother mentioned their life in Poland on numerous occasions and she made a connection to Marcin’s attitude. I made the following observation that day: Date: 28 September 2010 Marcin’s attitude to Poland and Polish culture is rather negative at the moment his mum said today. He does not want to go back to Poland and this would be a ‘catastrophe’. Mum commented today that this could be because of their own attitude – their bad experiences when they’ve started their grown-up life in Poland as they experienced a lot of economic difficulties even though (mum) has third level education (Master’s in Philosophy). Excerpt 3.5: My brother and my sister are more Irish than me (9 November 2010) 94. G:  I ten język i ta kultura, (która) jest bliższa twojemu sercu? Pomyśl o różnych rzeczach takich jak kontakty z rodzicami w domu też ze znajomymi, co miałeś z polski z rodziną, pomyśl też o znajomych Irlandczykach tutaj, co jest ci bliższe, czy właściwie to wszystko jest na równi

[And (which) language and culture is closer to your heart? Think about things such as relations with parents at home or with friends, with the Polish family in Poland, think also about your Irish friends here, who is closer to you, or actually, maybe it is all the same?]

95. M:  Irlandia mi jest bliższa+

[Ireland is closer to me +]

70  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

96. G:  mimo wszystko Irlandia jest ci bliższa? (animated tone of voice, affectively charged – said with disbelief/)

[in spite of all that, is Ireland closer to you?



(animated tone of voice, affectively charged said with disbelief/with surprise)] 97. M: Mhh [Mhh]

98. G:  i ta kultura i język jest ci bliższa, nawet jak weźmiesz te wszystkie rzeczy pod uwagę - a czemu?

[and this culture and the language is closer to you, even though you take all these things into account - so why is that?]

99. M:  mój brat i moja siostra są Irlandczykami

[my brother and my sister are Irish]

100. G:  bo się tu urodzili tak ? i uważasz, bardziej Irlandczykami niż Polakami?

że

są

[because they were born here right? and you think that they are more Irish than Polish?]

101. M: ee:e

[ee:e] 102. G:  rodziców Polakami

wszystkich

macie

tych

samych,

są

[all your parents are the same, they are Polish]

103. M:  myślę, że bardziej są Irlandczykami niż ja na pewno

[I think that they are more Irish than I am, for sure]

104. G:  niż ty? Dlaczego? ty spędziłeś ile lat w Polsce? parę.

[than you? why? how many years have you spent in Poland? a few.]

105. M:  w sumie to pięć

[five in total]

106. G:  a kim bardziej chciałbyś być? Polakiem czy Irlanczykiem?@ czy to jest bez sensu w ogóle pytanie

[and who would you like to be more? Polish or Irish? @ or this question does not make any sense]

107. M:  Irlandczykiem [Irish]

Power of Belonging  71

108. G:  Irlandczykiem mmh a to, czemu?

Irish mmh and why is that?

109. M:  bo się bardziej tutaj widzę niż w Polsce

[I can see (my future) more here than in Poland]

In this excerpt, the researcher and Marcin discuss the theme of belonging to a particular community/culture. In this excerpt, culture is defined in a broader sense as the researcher points to family and friends as playing an important role in the process of feeling part of a cultural community. In the first lines, the researcher provides different suggestions with regard to belonging to a given culture or identifying with both cultures as potential options. Marcin chooses to take a side and he identifies with Ireland in Line 95: ‘Irlandia jest mi bliższa’ [Ireland is closer to me]. Marcin is strongly invested in his claim as he defends his point of view despite the researcher’s explicit (affectively charged) statement of disbelief; Line 96: ‘Mimo wszystko Irlandia jest ci bliższa?’ [In spite of all that] or: ‘i ta kultura i język jest ci bliższa, nawet jak weźmiesz te wszystkie rzeczy pod uwagę – a czemu?’ [and this culture and the language is closer to you, even though you take all these things into account – so why is that?]. The researcher’s question is designed to express her own affectively charged stance of disbelief – (emphatic stress is put on the phrases: ‘pomimo wszystko’ [in spite of all that] and ‘a dlaczego’ [so why is that]; there is also the use of generalization in ‘wszystko’ [all] as a discursive intensifier). She is a co-participant in this conversation. When asked for clarification ‘so why is that?’, Marcin replies that his brother and sister are Irish. In Line  102, the researcher aligns with this idea but provides her own assumption regarding the motives behind Marcin’s reasoning. Namely, she implies that being born in Ireland does not make someone more Irish than Polish. Marcin chooses to say nothing. Next, the interlocutor undermines the legitimacy of such reasoning by pointing out that both of Marcin’s parents are Polish. Marcin, however, decides to reiterate his opinion and states: ‘Myśle że bardziej są Irlandczykami niż ja na pewno’ [I think that they are more Irish than I am, for sure]. In this way, he takes on an epistemic stance of confidence, ‘na pewno’ [for sure], being certain about the way he feels and thinks of his younger siblings’ ethnic identity. Thus, he is strongly invested in his claim. At the end of the conversation, the researcher decides to ask a very direct question regarding Marcin’s own preferences for his ethnic identity (however, she demonstrates some level of uncertainty regarding the appropriateness of such a question). In turn, Marcin provides a short and direct answer that he would like to be Irish. In the next line, he is inclined to defend his view again and validates his claim by saying ‘bo się bardziej tutaj widzę niż w Polsce’ [because I see (my future) myself here more than in Poland]. This last statement is an explicit acknowledgment

72  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

(speech act) of identifying with Irish culture and constructing himself as belonging to Irish culture and the language, an ethnic identity. In this excerpt, Marcin strongly identifies with Irish culture and the language irrespective of the kind of future his parents has envisaged for him. In terms of his ethnic identification and future projections, he perceives his younger siblings to be Irish (as both of them were born in Ireland), and he wants to be considered Irish. Constructing ‘Not Belonging’ or Out of ‘Otherness’

The situation was completely reversed for Wiktoria (14) and Janek (15). They both experienced many personal conflicts owing to their cultural, ethnic and linguistic identity. Their lack of belonging to an L2 community of practice in their schools was in a sense reconciled by regular contact with and active participation in the Polish peer groups accessed through Polish weekend schools or the Polish youth club (Janek). As Gee suggested, if a person cannot engage in a ‘Discourse’ in a fully committed manner – she/he is not an ‘insider’ (2001). If one does not manifest an identity associated with a given Discourse, then one simply does not have that identity. This was true for Janek and Wiktoria as they identified with their heritage language and culture. Interestingly, ‘the various Discourses which constitute each of us as persons are changing and often are not fully consistent with each other; there is often conflict and tension between the values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, uses of language, and ways of being in the world which two or more Discourses represent’ (Gee, 1989: 294). Both Janek and Wiktoria experienced some tension with respect to both cultures as will be illustrated in the following sections of this chapter. In Gee’s (2001) terms, all children paid the ‘price’, as Wiktoria and Janek were not very successful in terms of accessing an Irish native speaker social group, they felt ‘other’ or their membership in the majority language speakers’ groups was rejected or, as in the case of Kasia and Marcin, they resisted or disassociated themselves from the language and culture of origin in favour of gaining membership and belonging to the new culture. Wiktoria: ‘Pack of lies’

Wiktoria was approximately a year older than her schoolmates. On starting her new school, it was decided that she would feel better with younger children and she was placed with children who were one or two years younger than her. Wiktoria’s mum commented: Excerpt 3.6: Our children should be moved one year back so that they have a chance to learn the language (3 April 2010) 134. WM:  We decided, I mean there was such a suggestion from a teacher here in Ireland, that both of our

Power of Belonging  73

children should be moved one year back so that they have a chance to learn the language. But all in all it was just Wiktoria who was moved back, […] Wiktoria would only have a year before she would go to college, so she would not have known the language well enough, it wouldn’t be fluent, (we did that ) so that she had a lower language barrier to enter college…

This was a delicate issue for Wiktoria herself. She did not feel at ease when talking about it. She was immediately withdrawn and never wanted to expand on any issues related to this matter. In fact, some of the children in her class were almost two years younger than her and she used to call them ‘maluchy’ [babies]. She also commented on her classmates’ behavior, perceiving it as negative and childish, and on not having anything to talk about with them. One afternoon, I had a chance conversation with Wiktoria about these issues. The following excerpt illustrates her attitudes and stances. Excerpt 3.7: Well pack of lies here as well… (8 May 2010) 323. G:  + A czy odczuwasz dystans pomiędzy Tobą a koleżankami z Irlandii? [...] 324. W:  No:o x czasami jest taka bariera, jak np. czasem boję się (affect) powiedzieć coś śmiesznego bo się boję że nie zrozumieją tego a albo sobie pomyślą ‘przecież to marne’ no ale+

[We:ell x sometimes there is a barrier when for example I am



afraid to say something funny because I am afraid that they won’t understand this or they’ll think ‘it’s miserable’ well but+] 325. G:  I po prostu wolisz przemilczeć i tego nie mówić!

[And you just prefer not to say it!]

326. W: Tak,

[Yes,] 327. G:  X albo że nie macie takiego wspólnego tematu do rozmowy, że czymś innym one żyją a ty uważasz to za jakieś nudne albo coś? Czy zdarzają się takie sytuacje że tak myślisz?

[X or that you don’t have a common topic for conversation, that

they live a life of something else (live differently/find different

74  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience



things interesting) and you consider it boring or something? Are there any situations that make you think so?]

328. W:  one lubią inną muzykę niż ja,

[They like different music than I]

329. G:  acha + rozmawiają pewnie o tym ty nie bardzo się tym interesujesz

[mmhm +they talk about this and you probably are not so interested]

330. W:  Ta::ak, one mówią najczęściej o takich rzeczach jak np. programy telewizyjne albo coś na YouTubie znajdą – jakiś filmik i + ja nie mam z nimi tak kontaktu jak, nie wiem , np. na face booku nie mam ich i+

[Ye:es, they talk about such things grammes or about something they find – some videos and + I don’t keep in them, I don’t know, for example, I them on Facebook and + ]

as TV proon YouTube touch with don’t have

331. G:  A dlaczego ich nie masz?

[And why don’t you have them?]

332. W:  bo:o one + chyba nie mają profilu, + nie udało mi się ich znaleźć, a tak to one x by przesyłały te śmieszne filmiki, a tak to cały czas gadają o tych śmiesznych filmikach na you tube, + i ja+nie wiem, o jakie filmiki chodzi, więc nie mogę się z nich po prostu śmiać, ale++

[be:ecause they + I think they don’t have profiles, + I was unable to find them, and otherwise x they would share these funny videos, and then they talk about these funny videos on YouTube all the time, + and I don’t know what videos they are talking about so I can’t just laugh at it, but ++] + Ostatnim razem w tamtym tygodniu mieliśmy tak jakby taką muzykę i + w ogóle pani puściła moją ulubioną piosenkę John Lenona i wiesz wszyscy się zdziwili + +że ja o ten, o ‘jakich ja staroci słucham i ten’



[Ye:es, well and e+ recently last week we had something like ‘music’ (kind of) and + (Ms/pani) played my favorite song of John Lenon and you know before everyone was surprised + + that I oh you’re listening to so old stuff and this] 333. G:  @ mi się też jego piosenki podobają @

[@I like his songs as well@]

Power of Belonging  75

334. W:  no i nagle wielka przemiana od dziewczyn bo mówią, że od dawna o tym wiedziały i lubią tą piosenkę + no też tutaj kłamstwo się

Kłania [well and suddenly, a huge change from the girls (complete change of mind) because they are saying that they knew about it (the song) for a long time and that they like this song + well pack of lies here as well]

At the beginning of this excerpt, Wiktoria admits that ‘bariera’ [a barrier] exists between her and her Irish classmates. First, she points to humor as one of the sources of such distance. She is afraid that her peers will not understand her jokes or will be critical in their comments [They will think that it’s miserable]. On the one hand, Wiktoria wants to approach the oldtimer group (group of native speakers), but on the other hand, she does not want to be ridiculed or misunderstood by her peers. In this way, she is constructing the affective stance of an ‘outsider’ – not belonging to the ‘old-timer’ group. For her, accessing that group is problematic. In Line 327, the researcher suggests some possible reasons that could be creating barriers between Wiktoria and her Irish schoolmates, such as having different interests or not sharing the same knowledge about things. Wiktoria immediately aligns with this proposition and provides a comment that they like different music than her. ‘One’ [they] and ‘ja’ [I] pronouns used with emphatic stress emphasize the differences between Wiktoria and her peers. The researcher decides to offer a hypothetical explanation of not being interested in the same type of music. Wiktoria nods, but she points to other commonly shared social activities (outside of school) used by her Irish schoolmates such as Facebook and YouTube. When mentioning these activities, Wiktoria implicitly indicates that she is not part of them. In the next sentence, she provides an explanation for such a state of affairs; namely, she explains that she does not have contact with her friends on social media such as Facebook. In this way, she is an ‘outsider’ again – someone who stays outside of her peer group. When asked why she is not ‘friends with them’ on Facebook, she gives an equivocal reply: [be:ecause they + I think/maybe they don’t have profiles, + I was unable to find them]. In her justifications, she is implicitly denying or hiding that there could be other reasons for not being friends on Facebook with these girls. She provides some minor/irrelevant ‘excuses’ instead. In this way, Wiktoria is displaying allegiances with the girls in her class, in particular, by justifying their behavior and by trying to make a good impression on the researcher when she decides to further justify their choices as she adds: [well, otherwise they would have sent these videos, but because of this (that I am not friends with them on Facebook) they keep talking about these funny videos all the time]. Wiktoria is excluded from these interactions. By openly admitting that she is not part of the group

76  The Multilingual Adolescent Experience

because of ‘denial of access to the peer group’, she would also be admitting (in front of the researcher) that she is a sort of classroom ‘loser’, and that could be humiliating. Thus, in the next utterance, Wiktoria explicitly admits that she has no access and no knowledge of the ‘funny videos’ so she can’t laugh at them. She decides to stay ‘outside’ the group and does not participate in these interactions. During our conversations (following my observations), it became clear that it is very problematic for Wiktoria to participate in her peers’ (classmates) interactions as she does not share the same cultural or social media knowledge. However, at the time, the reason for not sharing this knowledge remained ‘unclear’ as Wiktoria constantly provided some minor excuses for being excluded from this social activity (as in the foregoing example). Affective features of the conversation suggest that she feels excluded from the group. The constant use of the pronouns ‘they’ and ‘them’ and the tone of voice – regretful and quiet – indicate that this state of affairs was not necessarily a desired one. Wiktoria decides to initiate a short narrative in which she takes on a negative affective stance toward girls in her class. She provides a retrospective account of a situation when the girls in her class had initially criticized her choice of favorite song and then, after the very same song was picked by the teacher, they changed their minds and denied what they had previously told Wiktoria, namely that the song was ‘staroć/staroci’ – oldfashioned. Wiktoria’s critical attitude toward her Irish female classmates may reflect disappointment and grief because of her previous inability to participate in the peer group’s practices/interactions. This is also the first time that she openly refers to her peers as ‘liars’. They were not consistent in their opinions, changed their minds easily and expressed little loyalty in Wiktoria’s eyes – [well and suddenly, a huge change from the girls (complete change of mind) because they are saying that they knew about it for a long time and that they like this song, well pack of lies here as well]. With her last words, she takes on a negative affective and moral stance. This is the time when Wiktoria makes a clear distinction between herself and ‘them’ – the girls in her class – ‘the liars’. In the aforementioned excerpts, Wiktoria implicitly positions herself as an ‘outsider’ – someone who does not participate in social activities and does not share the same interests or likes as her peer group. She does not belong with the ‘liars’. She constructs a negative affective stance toward the two situations described and her schoolmates. She uses explicit features of discourse such as affective verbs like ‘boję się’ [I’m afraid]) or emphatic stress ‘jakich ja staroci słucham’ [what oldfashioned things I’m listening to], the discursive intensifier ‘wszyscy’ [all] and tone of voice (animated, regretful in places). All these features reflect a feeling of being rejected by the group and, to some extent, rejecting the group. The recurrent use of the pronouns ‘they’ or ‘them’ echoes her negative moral stance – she does not participate in what she

Power of Belonging  77

considers ‘lying’. She refuses to participate in their interactions. Her agency takes a form of refusal of participation, not belonging to the new culture and language. ‘Not belonging’

Wiktoria was not a very social teenager. She was naturally shy, very sensitive and had difficulty making new friends; however, she kept on trying to approach the old-timer group. She felt a lot more ‘at ease’ in her social interaction during Polish weekend school. She had one close friend among the Polish girls she met in the Polish school. Date: 17 January 2011 Wiktoria goes back to the theme of Irish school and not having any friends there. She told me today that ‘these are just children’. She often disidentifies with them completely. Topic of ‘skarzypytctwo’ (being sneaky) came back again, about children being sneaky on every silly occasion. In comparison, in Poland it is not like that, it is something that is not acceptable among kids.

Wiktoria never recalled closeness in these relationships or displayed any allegiances toward her Irish schoolmates. In the following short exchange, Wiktoria further recalls moments when she feels like an ‘outsider’ or a ‘novice’ when trying to form relationships with her peers. Excerpt 3.8: When you say you are Polish they just treat you differently (12 February 2011) 429. G:  mm czy jeżeli jesteś e:ee np. się ktoś ciebie zapytał w szkole no nie wiem, ee:e kim jesteś to co byś odpowiedziała?

[mmh if you are, e:ee for example if someone asked you in school ‘who are you’ so what would you answer?]

430. W:  @

[@]

431. G:  może dziwne pytanie, ale jak ktoś by zapytał to, co odpowiadasz

[maybe it is a strange question, but what would you say if someone asked you?]

432. W:  Kim jestem?!@

[Who am I?!@]

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433. G:  mhh, czy się zastanawiałaś nad tym? +xx czy co pierwsze przyszło by ci do głowy? No nie wiem, człowiekiem? Polką?

[mhh, did you think about this? +xx what is your first thought? well, I don’t know, human being? Polish?]

434. W:  no:o zawsze mówię że Polką, tak.

[ye:aah I always say I’m Polish, yes.

435. G:  Mhh, czy jesteś dumna z tego ze jesteś Polką?

[mhhm, are you proud that you’re Polish?]

436. W: +

[+] 437. G:  Czy uważasz że to coś fajnego? Czy chciałabyś byś tak samo jak tutaj byc Irlandką?

[do you think that this is something cool? Or would you like to be the same as here – Irish?

438. W:  Jak się powie że Polką to cię tak inaczej cie [odbierają

[When you say you are Polish they just [treat you differently]

439. G:  odbierają?]

[treat/see you differently?]

440. W:  tak, i w ogóle mniej do ciebie rozmawiają i powoli do ciebie mówią żebyś ty zrozumiała

[yes, and they talk to you less and they talk slowly so as you could understand]

441. G:  ale ty nie potrzebujesz żeby do ciebie tak mówili

[but you do not need them to talk to you like that]

442. W:  NO Właśnie[1]! modality)

(strong

conviction,

epistemic

[YEA Exactly!

As this excerpt illustrates, revealing Wiktoria’s Polish identity results in her being treated differently [they just treat you differently, they talk to you less and they talk slowly so as you could understand]. Wiktoria is reflecting here on situations when the linguistic strategies used by her peers make her feel like a ‘novice’ (someone with lower linguistic and sociocultural knowledge). As she points out, ‘they’ – her classmates – start using different linguistic strategies such as slower speech or

Power of Belonging  79

simplistic words than in their normal communication. Wiktoria is, however, metalinguistically aware of these strategies and their actions evoke strong feelings of regret (regretful tone of voice) and objection, as she does not want to be positioned as a novice. In turn, Wiktoria’s comment invokes the researcher’s strong affiliation, as she says in an animated tone of voice: ‘ale ty nie potrzebujesz żeby do ciebie tak mówili’ [but you do not need them to talk to you like that]. This statement gives rise to a very confident and happy reply from Wiktoria. She does not agree with being positioned as a ‘novice’ as she replies to the interlocutor with a great deal of confidence, emphatic stress and an epistemic modality marker, ‘NO Właśnie’ [Exactly]. Her affectively negative stance toward the old-timer group’s positioning of her as a novice, taken up in this discourse segment, embodies her peers’ ‘refusal’ of participation in their interactions, as repetitive positioning as a novice by her peers was implicitly considered by Wiktoria as a ‘refusal of participation in their group’. Janek: ‘I’m a stranger’

Janek (14 at the time of recording) was the eldest of all the participating children. He did not have many friends, a fact he often articulated by saying that as he lives far away from the town he cannot make friends easily. Janek would spend a lot of time alone in his room in the attic. In school, he would spend breaks with a particular peer group or by himself. When describing his relations with his classmates from his Irish mainstream school, Janek often pointed to ‘sitting near each other’ or ‘spending breaks together’ as the only means of spending time with his classmates. He occasionally mentioned five classmates but did not perceive them as ‘very close’. In fact, Janek did not spend much time socializing with his peers, a reason for this being the distance from the school. However, this was not the only reason. Janek preferred to keep relations with his classmates pretty open, not getting too involved. Similarly to Wiktoria, he preferred to see a lack of deeper relationships as something out of his and his schoolmates’ control. Even though he did not invest much energy in creating relationships with his peers, he often made reference to one particular person in his class – affectively describing him as ‘denerwujący’ [annoying] or ‘caly czas mi dokucza’ [teasing me all the time]. Later, Janek explained that they were friends as they spent time together just by sitting next to each other or by spending breaks together, as he made the comment: ‘+ Z takimi najłatwiej się zaprzyjaźnić’ [This kind of person is the easiest to make friends with]. From my observations (see Extract 3.9 from field notes), however, this was not clear and I decided to initiate a conversation about this relationship. This lack of clarity was also expressed by Janek’s maths teacher.

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Excerpt 3.9: He’s well able, not like somebody who doesn’t understand things (14 October 2010) JT

I’m not quite sure he’s very well e:em integrated? he’s managed the language well, he’s well able, + not like somebody who doesn’t understand things, xxteach things it’s not for Janek , he’s very well able he’s way up at the top of his class xx fantastic student.

In this short comment, Janek’s maths teacher points to Janek’s linguistic competence and very good performance during classes. One thing that he is unsure of is the level to which Janek is integrated with his classmates. My own observations confirmed the math’s teacher point. As I wrote: Date: 25 September 2010 I have noticed today that Janek has one friend with whom they are close -sort of. It is really hard to know as they laugh a lot and then out of a sudden I see Janek spending his breaks or free time on his own.

As a result, I have decided to initiate the following exchange: Excerpt 3.10: I’m strange, he’s strange so we stick together (13 November 2010) 291. G:  Do::bra.A jakbyś miał, no nie wiem, no, bo ty konkretnie nie masz + takiego najbliższego przyjacie:la tutaj, to byłby Polakiem czy Irlandczykiem?

[Ri::ght. And if you had, for example, I do not know, because you do not have a specific best frie:nd here, + would he be a Pole or Irish?]

292. J:

Gdybym miał + czy jeśli?

292. J:  [If I had a + or do I?] 293. G:  Znaczy, no, bo ty mówiłeś, że nie masz no nie? 293. G:  [I mean, well, because you said that you don’t have one, right?] 294. J:  Raczej mam takiego jednego, ale jest Irlandczykiem.

[I’d rather say, I have one, but he is Irish.]

295. G:  Jest Irlandczykiem tak? I to jest taki super przyjaciel? + Dobra.

[Is he Irish yeah? And he’s a very good friend? + Right.]

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296. J:  Ja jestem dziwny, on jest dziwny, więc się trzymamy razem.

[I’m strange; he’s strange so we stick together.]

In this excerpt, the researcher suggests that Janek does not have a best friend but he rejects that suggestion by saying ‘Raczej mam takiego jednego, ale jest Irlandczykiem’ [I’d rather/I think I have one, but he is Irish]. First, he uses the adverb ‘raczej’ [quite/rather], an epistemic modality marker to implicitly indicate some level of uncertainty. He also uses the adversary conjunction ‘ale’ [but] to emphasize that his best friend is of Irish nationality not Polish. Janek could have made the presupposition that the researcher expected his best friend to be Polish. The researcher, in turn, aligns with his response and indirectly tries to elicit more details regarding the relations between Janek and his friend. This does not evoke any particular details except for the statement: ‘Ja jestem dziwny, on jest dziwny, więc się trzymamy razem’ [I’m strange; he’s strange so we stick together]. In this line, Janek reflectively positions himself among the ‘strange ones’ – the outsiders. What is more interesting, he positions his best friend as ‘other’ dziwny [strange] as well. In this way, he emphasizes that he only fits in with ‘strange persons’ – the others – and that this is the very reason why they ‘stick together’. Similarly to Wiktoria, Janek disassociates (disaffiliates) himself from the majority of his Irish peers. It is interesting to see how Janek further comments on his friend. Excerpt 3.11: No, he would not advise me, because he’s a bit stupid (13 November 2010) 297. G:



Jakbyś na przykład, nie wiem, miał jakieś takie, no nie wiem osobiste problemy czy coś, to byś się mu mógł zwierzyć? On by zrozumiał i by ci coś doradził? No faceci sobie pewnie xx nic, z tego się bardzo nie [zwierza:ją, ale + No:o wiesz, o co mi chodzi, możesz mu zaufać w różnych takich sprawach poważnych. [Like, for example, I do not know, if you had any such, I do not know, personal problems or something, would you be able to confide in him? Would he understand and would he advise you? Well, guys probably do not [confi:de in each other so much x, but + You know what I mean, you can trust him in a variety of serious matters.]

298. J:  [(x) nie + nie + nie doradziłby mi, bo jest trochę głupi, ale + zrozumiałby raczej. 298. J:  [(x) no + no + he would not advise me, because he's a bit stupid, but + he’d rather + understand.

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299. G:  Zrozumiałby? I był-współ-był wspierał cię jakoś?

przynajmniej

[Would he understand? And was-support was at least supportive in some ways?]

300. J: Tak.

[Yes] 301. G:  Czyli to taki, dobry przyjaciel tak? @ Tylko trochę głupi. @ To brzmi + wesoło. + Em rozumie +

[So he is a good friend, right? @ Just a little stupid. @ It sounds + funny. I see + Em + I understand+]

302. J:  Dziwnie kontrastujemy ze sobą on tak wolno my::śli, ja jestem taki błyskotliwy i + śmiesznie to wygląda.

[We contrast with each other in a strange way, he thi::nks so slowly, I'm so bright/smart and + this looks so funny.]

In this excerpt, the researcher and Janek talk about the more personal aspects of the friendship between the two boys. The researcher brings up various aspects of friendship such as being able to confide in someone, look for advice with personal problems or being able to trust your friend with more serious matters. Janek gives a response that surprises the interviewer (Line 301, prosodic features of the discourse such as rising intonation followed by laughter). Even though he describes his friend as being ‘troche głupi’ [a bit stupid] or thinking slowly ‘myśli wolno’ [he thinks so slowly], Janek agrees (to some extent) with the researcher’s proposition that his friend would potentially show understanding of his problems. Janek uses the adverb ‘raczej’ [rather] here as an epistemic modality marker to mark his uncertainty whether his friend would be able to understand and support him in a way that he himself would appreciate. He also uses the polarity marker ‘nie’ [no] three times to reject the interviewer’s proposition that his friend could give him advice if needed. In Line  302, Janek reflectively positions himself as ‘taki błyskotliwy’ [so bright] and contrasts himself with his friend by saying: ‘on tak wolno my::śli, ja jestem taki błyskotliwy i + śmiesznie to wygląda’ [he thi::nks so slowly, I’m so bright/ smart and + this looks so funny]. He emphasizes this difference by using the pronouns ‘taki’ [such] and ‘tak’ [so] to intensify his own positive qualities and the negative ones of his friend. He adds that this contrast between the two of them makes them ‘look strange’ together – reinforcing his previous way of positioning himself among ‘the strange ones’, not belonging to the majority. He further signposts his identity or lack of membership in the majority group by pointing to several differences between ‘them’ and himself. One of these differences is their inability to understand his jokes.

Power of Belonging  83

‘They do not understand jokes’

One time, Janek made a point about ‘his’ jokes being different from those of his classmates and not sharing the same sense of humor. In fact, Janek rarely made any humorous comments in school but he often laughed at his friends’ jokes. He was generally quiet (when compared to others in the classroom) and gave the impression that he never wanted to get himself into trouble. His English teacher made a specific comment about Janek’s interactive practices in his English classroom, describing Janek as ‘focused’ and ‘following what he has been given’. In his essay entitled ‘How Do You Do Well in School?’, Janek said: ‘Do what the teacher says, follow all the work that you’ve been given and that way you won’t get into trouble, you won’t get hassled’ and ‘that’s very much the way he is’ (Peter, Janek’s teacher). In the following excerpt, the researcher asks direct questions regarding the aforementioned issues. Excerpt 3.12: They do not understand jokes (15 January 2011) 257. G:  Ehym. + E::m czy na przykład, no nie wiem. + Czy odczuwasz jakiś dystans pomiędzy tobą, a nimi? […] 258. J:  [Żartu to nie rozumieją @

[They do not understand jokes@

259. G:  Żartu nie rozumieją takiego?@

[They don’t understand jokes? @ ]

260. J: Nie.

[No.] 261. G:  Aha. + Jakiś przykład? + Coś ci przychodzi do głowy?

[Aha. + Some examples? +Something comes to your mind?]

262. J:  Hm. Teraz akurat nie.

[Hm. Not right now.]

263. G:  No dobra, to jak [ci się kiedyś przypomni [to

[Oh right, if you remember about something [then]

264. J:  [Nie mogli (oni) zrozumieć, że + ktoś nie mógł widzieć lasu, bo drzewa go zasłaniały.

[They could not understand that one could not see the forest for the trees hid it.]

265. G:  Aha: + @ + Nie mogli tego zrozumieć, tak?

[Aha: + @ + They could not understand this one, yeah?]

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266. J: Nie.

[Yeah] 267. G:  Nie było po prostu śmieszne dla nich?

[It was just not funny for them?]

268. J:  Nie. Dla nich, ale Polacy się z tego śmieją.

[Not for them, but Poles are laughing from it.]

In this excerpt, Janek provides an example of a joke that was funny to him, yet it was not funny to his Irish peers. Janek uses the discourse marker ‘ale’ (adversary conjunction ‘but’) in Line 268 to emphasize that Poles laughed at his joke whereas ‘they’ (his Irish peers) did not. In this way, Janek constructs himself as being different, not fully belonging to the group of his Irish peers. Although he used symbolic deixes such as the third-person plural ‘nich’ [them] and ‘oni’ [they] to describe his Irish schoolmates, he never used the first-person plural pronoun to describe or demonstrate his explicit allegiances with the Polish either. His personal identification then is not straightforward in this excerpt. He neither identifies with his classmates (Irish old-timers) nor does he display strong allegiances with Poles. Through the use of symbolic deixes, Janek constructs himself as being distant from the community of his peers. However, he explicitly demonstrates allegiances with the Polish sense of humor, but not necessarily with the Polish community as a whole or on a more personal level, as he uses generalizations about the Polish instead of using the first-person plural pronouns. This excerpt is an example of Janek’s negotiation of his identity in terms of ‘membership’ and affiliation with the two communities as a contrastive use of pronouns has been shown to demonstrate different identities in narratives in the past (De Fina, 2003; Schiffrin, 2002). Referring to Gee’s (2007) discussion on ‘Discourse’, one needs a common way of thinking, feeling or being that is recognizable as appropriate for the particular Discourse in order to gain membership within that group. Even a sense of humor can vary among groups; what is funny to some is not necessarily funny to others. It is often through the use of these nuanced discourses that members of a given Discourse recognize others as ‘insiders’ or ‘outsiders’. Moreover, being a successful and identifiable member of a Discourse (as in the case of Kasia and Marcin) conveys that one’s identity is reflected in that Discourse. This might imply that Janek does not identify himself with the majority Discourse in his classroom and does not see himself as a member of that group/Discourse. Technologically ‘different’

Janek also made reference to the fact that he does not need the same kind of technology as his Irish peers; therefore, in this way, he differs in his attitude toward modern technology.

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Date: 17 September 2011 Janek had a laptop that he shared with his sister. He has never complained about sharing his computer with his sibling or not having other modern devices popular among boys his age. What was surprising, he chose not to have a mobile phone. However, his attitudes towards phones were changing and finally, he decided to get a phone.

The following excerpt is an example of such orientation. Excerpt 3.13: They all have to have a computer, Play Station (17 September 2010) 276. J:  No:: ci są tacy technologiczni inaczej .

[Well:: they are so technologically different/ other.

277. G:  Którzy? Who?

278. J:  [Koledzy, ci Irlandczycy.]

Friends, these Irish.

279. G:  Ehym. W sensie? Że są:, nie wiem

[Ehym. In what sense? that they’re:, I don’t know]

280. J:  Każdy ma kom-[musi mieć komputer, Play Station

[Each of them/they all has- [have to have a computer, PlayStation]

281. G:  [A:: wie::m, (xx) wydawało mi się, że w sensie, że są: strasznie: + Aha-aha-aha. A ty taki nie jesteś?

oh:: I know, (xx) I thought that in a sense, that they are terribly: + Aha-aha. And are you not like that?

282. J:  Nie, mi wystarcza komputer.

[No, computer is enough for me.]

283. G:  Ehym,Czyli nie przywiązujesz takiej wagi do tego, wszystkiego. Nie widzisz w tym, że to jest takie super ważne.

[Ehym. So you don’t pay so much attention to all that. You don’t see it as super important.]

284. J:  Ale telefon musze sobie kupić w końcu.

[But I have to buy a phone at least.]

285. G:  A masz-nie masz telefonu?

And do you , don’t you have a phone?

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286. J:  Nie::, do tej pory jeszcze nie: potrzebowałem.

[No:: I haven’t needed one so far]

287. G:  Nie miałeś [telefonu.

[You have never had a [phone.

288. J:  [Ale zaczynam potrzebować.

[But I start to need one.]

289. G:  Aha i nigdy nie żałowałeś w sumie, że nie miałeś wcześniej?

[Aha and in all, you have never regretted that you haven’t had it before?]

290. J:  Nie:: jeszcze nie. + Chociaż czasami jak szkoła się wcześniej kończyła + to do sekretariatu musiałem iść zadzwonić po tatę.

[No:: not yet. + But one time, when school closed earlier I had to go to school’s reception to make a phone call to my dad. ]

In this excerpt, Janek points to one characteristic that makes him different from his Irish peers. He suggests that they are ‘technologiczni inaczej’ [technologically different/other] – that it is very important for them to have modern technological equipment: ‘Każdy ma kom-[musi mieć komputer, PlayStation’ [Each of them has- [has to have a computer, play station]. Janek makes his utterance in such a way as to underline the ‘importance’ and ‘necessity of having those appliances’ to his peers. It is essential for them, but not for himself. By using the third-person plural to describe Janek’s Irish peers, Janek constructs himself as different. He also takes on an epistemic stance (displays a high level of confidence with regard to his propositions) ‘każdy’ [each one] and ‘musi’ [modality marker ‘must’]. The researcher, however, presupposes that all teenage boys would have similar desires. For this reason, she asks Janek if he is not the same – sharing the same technological interests as his friends. In Line 282, Janek contrasts himself with his Irish friends and explicitly admits that he is not like them because for him it is sufficient to have a computer. However, in Line  284, he states that he must buy himself a phone. The researcher expresses her surprise at this through the prosodic features of her discourse such as raised intonation, a surprised tone of voice (Lines 285 and 287). Janek reveals that he has never owned a phone (mobile), but he has now started to need one. The researcher asks him if he has ever regretted not having his own mobile, which evokes Janek’s immediate response ‘nie:: Nie:: Jeszcze nie’ [not yet]. Then, he hesitates and provides an example of a situation in which having a phone would have been useful: ‘when school closed earlier, I had to go to school’s reception to make a phone call to my dad’. Janek explicitly states that not having a phone has not been an issue before; however, this is changing

Power of Belonging  87

now. The social act of not having a mobile makes him distinctively different from his peer group. Again, he is not distancing himself from the Discourse of his schoolmates. Most (if not all) of Janek’s schoolmates have phones and have access to social media. Not being part of that makes Janek distinctively different from others. Rejection of Participation

Janek never talked about Irish holidays or school events connected with the celebration of Catholic holidays without prompts from the researcher or his mother. His college, however, celebrated various Catholic holidays during the school year. The following conversation took place shortly after St Patrick’s Day. Excerpt 3.14: I was home on Thursday (St. Patrick’s Day) (19 March 2011) 149. G:  Ehym. Czyli masz tam różnych znajomych. + Em:: Czy świętujesz święta irlandzkie? Jakie? I dlaczego?

[Ehym. So you have different friends there. + Em:: Do you celebrate Irish Holidays? Which? And why?]

150. J: N:ie.

[N:o.] 151. G:  Nie? Żadnych?

[No? None?]

152. J:  Nie. + W czwartek siedziałem w domu.

[No. + I stayed at home on Thursday.]

153. G:  A:: + Rozumiem w czwartek siedziałeś w domu. A rozumiem, żadnych nie świętujesz.

[Oh:: + I see/understand, you stayed at home on Thursday. Oh I understand, you don’t celebrate any.]

154. J:  Nie. + Irlandzkich nie.

[No. + Not Irish]

Janek does not display any allegiances with Irish culture and explicitly makes the claim that he does not celebrate any Irish holidays. He knows about the holiday (St Patrick’s Day), but explicitly expresses his rejection (the polarity marker ‘nie’ [no] is used four times in this excerpt) of participating in this cultural practice. Refusing to celebrate St Patrick’s Day is a social act – it demonstrates a lack of identification with Irish culture and that Janek is showing no allegiance to his Irish peers as they celebrate.

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Accent and Other Language Practices as Belonging or Not Belonging

Similar to Gee (1992), Hall (1996: 4) suggests that identities are negotiated within discourse – co-constructed with respect to personal histories and historic and institutional sites ‘within discursive formations and practices’. This has several implications for individuals. The process of becoming a member of a new society by acquiring new linguistic, social and cultural practices is thus perceived as selftransformative through the discourse in which one is operating on an everyday basis (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2001). However, as the foregoing extracts demonstrate, the process of identity construction is complex and involves children’s own agency exercised through multiple means such as lack of participation in holidays or events, not using certain forms of technology or not sharing the same sense of humor. Both Janek and Wiktoria report not being active on social media or in Janek’s case not having a mobile phone. This act of rejecting the dominating Discourse makes both participants distinctively different. They are coconstructing themselves as ‘outsiders’. Language is not conceived of as a neutral medium of communication but is often understood with reference to its social meaning and having a specific accent can be linked to Gee’s framework of identity construction. This has also been emphasized by many other scholars such as Hall (1996), Lippi-Green (1997), Miller (2003), Norton (1997), Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004) and Rampton (1995); namely, that identity is constructed discursively. Lippi-Green (1997) describes language as the most visible way of establishing and advertising our social identities. This chapter of the book discusses the choices taken with respect to explicit language use and accent inclinations. It provides examples from children’s lives and their negotiations of their own place within their communities of practices through dynamic language use choices. Some of the children openly opt for a native speaker’s accent (Irish-English variety) whereas others reject it. What are the reasons for their choices? The following excerpts illustrate these issues. Kasia: Accent as negotiation of ‘self’

Kasia was a talkative girl. She spoke a lot, when and where she could. She often teased her friends (especially the boys) and played different word games (especially with one girl with whom she was very close). She also aspired to speak without a Polish accent as I had noticed and later discovered from her mother. Kasia’s mother (Agata) often mentioned Kasia’s suggestions to speak English at home, ‘so Kasia spoke it herself’ as her mother sarcastically added as ‘no one has been tempted to’. Kasia’s teachers also mentioned the issue of an accent and being unable to tell where she was from. Debra, Kasia’s new English teacher, was not sure

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of her opinions so she later contacted me with Kasia’s previous teacher for more insights. I was particularly surprised that Debra did not know where Kasia was from (extracted from field notes). Date: 23 September 2010 I perceive Kasia as very well integrated, having long-lasting friendships, meeting her friends outside of school hours. Today I decided to approach Kasia’s new English teacher (Debra) for the first time. She was sort of surprised when I asked her about Kasia’s English or any issues with English. She did not know where Kasia was from. She made a comment about Kasia being very quiet and about not being able to tell from her accent. She clarified with me that Kasia was also Polish.

The interviews conducted with Kasia’s teachers included Debra (her current English teacher) and Peter (her previous English teacher). I also spoke to Ann, her Maths teacher. Debra had just returned from maternity leave, so for more detailed information I contacted Peter. On many occasions, I had the impression that Kasia was a completely different student while in his class. Obviously, I did not have the opportunity to observe any of his classes as they took place during the previous term, but often what both teachers reported about Kasia was contradictory. Peter claimed that Kasia was very outspoken, having an open and friendly personality. Debra, on the other hand, perceived Kasia to be a quiet student. My own observations so far suggested that Kasia remained quiet in Debra’s class (among other classes) but was lively and talkative during breaks or during interactions with her classmates. While the teacher interviews included questions about Kasia’s identification and integration in the classroom, the topic of accent was initiated by Peter one afternoon quite spontaneously (see the following excerpt). In fact, this topic emerged unexpectedly during one of the observations conducted with Debra when Peter joined the discussion about Kasia’s silence during classes, having a different opinion from Debra (extracted from fieldnotes). Excerpt 3.15: I would wonder if she’s conscious of her accent (16 September 2010) 160. P:  I would wonder if she’s conscious of her accent [because + […] I don’t know if it’s from the American TV or the TV slang that she speaks, raising her voice at the end of the sentence all the time ++ you can also hear x Australian verb x sort of questioning and she does that an awful lot as well she’s very much like + there is a beginning of a sentence and that person is of x junior kings and at the end of the sentence you’re like oh wow! you can be from anywhere @ +

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In this excerpt, Peter initiates the topic of her accent by suggesting that Kasia might not be aware of her accent. He makes some explicit references regarding the origins of Kasia’s accent. He provides ‘American TV’ or ‘the TV slang’ as two possible sources of her accent. ‘The TV slang’ in his utterance may indicate some unspecified slang or a particular ‘TV slang’ unfamiliar to him. Next, Peter makes an explicit comment about Kasia’s ‘rising voice’ (rising intonation) at the end of each sentence. He adds that some aspects of language (unclear words) characteristic of the Australian English variety are present in her linguistic expressions. To emphasize his point, he uses (emotive language) the adverb ‘awful’ followed by ‘lot’ along with an emphatic stress on those two words. In the next line, he draws attention to some sort of ambiguity created through the accent variety used by Kasia. Through his explicit statements, the paralinguistic features of the language such as an animated tone of voice and the discourse markers ‘oh’ and ‘wow’, Peter emphasizes that it is very hard if not impossible to guess both Kasia’s origins and the origins of her accent. The following excerpts illustrate how triangulation of the information obtained from teachers, parents and children worked. In many instances, it helped to understand children’s own stances and the way they were perceived by others. The first excerpt comes from my conversation with Kasia where I decide to clarify information obtained from both her mother and her teacher. Excerpt 3.16: I speak similar to them (23 September 2010) 412. G:  Czy chciałabyś mówić z takim samym akcentem, jak Irlandczycy, czy może już tak jest? Czy tak samo Ci się wydaje, ze już mówisz, jak oni?

[Would you like to speak with the same accent as the Irish, or maybe you speak like that already? Do you think that you speak, in the same way, as they do?]

413. K:  Sądzę, ze już mi się wydaje, że już tak podobnie.

[I think, that now it seems to me that I speak similar (to them) already.]

414. G:  Uhum. A jak to jest dla Ciebie ważne, + bardzo ważne, żeby tak mówić jak oni?

[Uhum. And how important is this to you? + very important to sound like them?]

415. K: Tak.

[Yes.] 416. G:  Żeby Cię nie rozróżniali np.?

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[So for example so they do not distinguish you (from a native speaker)?]

417. K:  Sądzę, ze to jest dla mnie bardzo ważne.

[I think that it is very important to me.]

418. G:  I sądzisz, ze to już się stało, rozróżniają, że jesteś z Polski?

że

Cię

nie

And you think that this has already happened, that they do not distinguish you? That you are from Poland?]

419. K:  No tak jakoś już nikt nic nie mówi, więc chyba jest już tak.

[Well somehow no one says anything, so I guess it is like that now.]

In this excerpt, Kasia and the researcher co-construct Kasia’s retrospective assessment of her accent. Based on her observations, the researcher asks Kasia two divergent questions. The first one relates to Kasia’s preferences for a specific speech variety (Irish accent/regional variety) and the second one is linked to an actual self-assessment of trying for a local native speaker’s accent. That is, assessing whether she has the same accent as her peers. In response, Kasia makes a self-evaluative statement ‘już mi się wydaje, że już tak podobnie’ [I think, that now it seems to me that I speak similar (to them) already]. ‘Juz’[1] particle in this context indicates that not only does she already consider herself to speak with a similar accent but also that this accent variety meets her expectations. In the next line (Line 414), the researcher resumes the theme of preferences for a specific accent variety and tries to elicit the degree of significance for Kasia of having the same accent as her friends by asking ‘and how important is this to you, + very important to sound like them?’. Kasia gives a positive response ‘tak’ [yes] but still does not provide any cues regarding the degree of importance. The interviewer again tries to solicit a more detailed response, providing a particular purpose for such action – ‘żeby cię nie rozróżniali na przykład’ [so they do not distinguish you (from a native speaker) for example]. Kasia immediately gives an explicit response that having the same accent as her peers is very important to her (Line  417). There is a high level of alignment between Kaisa and the researcher in this excerpt. Discourse features such as emphatic stress and discursive intensifiers ‘bardzo’ [very] not only implicitly manifest Kasia’s strong alignment with the researcher but also (affective stance) the desire to belong to her preferred social group. A greater preference for a native accent along with an investment – an actual speech/social act of trying for a native speaker accent in this excerpt – enables Kasia to position herself as an insider within her preferred social circle.

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In Line  418, the interviewer aligns with Kasia’s previous self-evaluative statement; however, she adds the statement ‘że jesteś z Polski’ [that you are from Poland]. In Line 419, Kasia takes the initiative and validates the claim by saying ‘No tak jakoś już nikt nic nie mówi, więc chyba jest już tak’ [Well somehow no one says anything, so I guess it is like that now]. Having said that, Kasia presupposes that there had been previous comments about her accent (to be foreign). Now, however, she may (as she is guessing) speak with the same accent because no one says anything. The use of the discourse particle ‘już’ [now] implies that the comments about her accent no longer occur. Yet, the frequent use of the epistemic modality marker ‘jakoś’ [somehow] or ‘chyba’ [guess] in this excerpt uncovers an epistemic stance – a feeling of some level of uncertainty about the proposition of having the same accent as her peers. High alignment between the researcher and Kasia suggests that she is invested in what they are talking about. ‘American accent’: Kasia’s Perspective

The topic of accent came up again while Kasia was talking about her interest in a film. During the observations and interviews, it turned out that Kasia watched a lot of films and soaps in English on her laptop. She used websites such as Netflix.ie, where she had unrestricted access to American, British and Australian films (extracted from field notes, September 2010). Excerpt 3.17: I have a very American accent (23 September 2010) 112. K:  Mówią mi np. niektórzy, np. ze mam bardzo amerykański akcent, przez to, [że dużo filmów oglądam, (chwalenie się) [For example, some people tell me, for example, that I have a very (direct translation) American accent, [because I watch a lot of films] + sounds proud and very sure of the fact

In this excerpt, Kasia makes an explicit self-evaluative statement about her own accent. She speaks about her accent with excessive pride and uses a discourse boaster ‘bardzo’ to emphasize her claim: having ‘bardzo amerykański accent’ [strong American accent]. She presupposes that she has an American accent as ‘niektórzy’ [some people] say so. Having relied on ‘some people’s’ judgment regarding her accent, Kasia considers them as legitimate members of her social circle. She provides an explicit explanation regarding the origins of her accent when she says that her American accent is a result of watching a large number of films: ‘przez to [że dużo filmów oglądam’ [Because I watch many films]. More

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telling, perhaps, is the fact that Kasia’s dream is to be an actress in the United States in the future. For this reason, she tries to watch as many films as possible. She uses not only American websites but also iitv.pl, maxvideo.com and netflix.com. These websites allow their users to watch a great range of films (from different sources) after registration. She associates her American accent with the films she has been watching on those websites. That, in turn, explains why her teacher Peter considers her accent to have some features specific to ‘American TV or TV slang’. Having an American accent helped Kasia to position herself among English language speakers. At the same time, it was creating a distance between her and other immigrant students, particularly the Eastern European children in her school. Accent and Kasia’s Mother’s Perspective

On many occasions, Kasia’s mother Agata mentioned the ways in which Kasia’s Polish was different or changed. She often pointed to English words that ‘Kasia is mixing’ within her Polish sentences. From the very first time, I noticed that this was a delicate issue for Agata as she often used more emotional language when discussing these matters. Excerpt 3.18: Kasia already speaks completely different (5 October 2010) 230. G:  Czy zauważyłaś coś szczególnego w sposobie, jaki mówi? Rozmawiałyśmy o tym, ze wtrąca te słowa itd., a czy akcent też jej się zmienił? Have you noticed something particular of the way in which she talks? We were talking that she is mixing up (English) words etc., and in terms of accent, has it changed? 231. R:  Powiem Ci, ze ja uważam, ze tak. Trochę zmiękcza i jakoś tak inaczej mówi. Ale zauważyłam to dopiero, jak znajomi mówili. Pojechaliśmy do Polski i ‘o jeny, Kasia już zupełnie inaczej mówi, jakiś akcent ma’. Tak samo, jak tu przyjechali rodzice, to mówili: ‘o, ona już zupełnie inaczej mówi’. Bardziej ludzie mówili.

[I can tell you that I think she does. (Her tone) is a little softer and she speaks somehow differently. But I’ve noticed it after our friends said so. We went to Poland and ‘oh dear! Kasia already speaks completely different, she has an accent.’ Just when the parents (Kasia’s grandparents) came here, they noticed, ‘oh, she speaks differently. (So), more the people were saying (that she speaks differently than I have noticed it).]

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In this excerpt, Kasia’s mother is asked whether she has noticed anything specific concerning the way Kasia now speaks, particularly with regard to her accent. She explicitly admits that some changes have taken place. She points to Kasia’s softer pronunciation of Polish sounds: ‘trochę zmiękcza’ [(Her tone) is a little softer] or more generally that ‘jakoś tak inaczej mówi’ [she speaks somehow differently]. Discursive features of this utterance such as ‘jakoś[2] tak’ indicate that Kasia’s mother does not know the reasons for nor the extent of the observed changes in her daughter’s pronunciation. Additionally, she makes an explicit statement that she has only noticed these changes when her friends and family have pointed them out: ‘znajomi mówili’ [friends said so] or ‘Tak samo, jak tu przyjechali rodzice’ [Just when the parents (Kasia’s grandparents) came here, they noticed]. While Kasia’s mother explicitly expresses uncertainty and ambiguity regarding the changes in her daughter’s pronunciation or use of Polish, she provides a discursive account of the extent to which those changes have taken place. First, she provides direct quotes of her friends and parents comments: ‘o jeny, Kasia już zupełnie inaczej mówi, jakiś akcent ma!’ [Oh dear Kasia already speaks completely different, she has an accent]. ‘O jenny!’ [Oh dear] and ‘Zupełni’[4] [quite/entirely] (×2) an exclamation and adverbial intensifier used here for emphasis. The ‘Już’[5] [already] particle, in turn, highlights that the communicated state of affairs (Kasia speaking with a different accent) began earlier than expected. Next, in the comment ‘jakiś akcent ma’ [she has an accent], the ‘jakiś’ [some] pronoun is used to construct a stance or express the speaker’s supposition or belief about the accent change only to a certain degree or being unsure about the features and origins of the accent itself. Finally, the animated tone of voice and emphatic stress and the discursive intensifiers ‘o jeny’ and ‘zupełnie’ reflect a high level of certainty (epistemic stance) regarding the actual change in Kasia’s accent. This short narrative concludes with the statement: ‘Bardziej ludzie mówili’, indicating that Kasia’s mother’s supposition about Kasia’s accent is not only her own observation but it is also based on the opinions of other people whom she considers legitimate members of the Polish community, such as friends from Poland and Kasia’s grandparents. Marcin: Having the same accent?

Accent was an important issue for Marcin, who also aspired to be part of his peer group. The issue of ‘accent’ was often noticed by his parents. They, however, did not see it in the way their children did. They would often point out how English influences communication between themselves and their children and how children mix or borrow words from English. Sometimes they pointed to their accent (in Polish) being softer or just simply different. Again, as in Kasia’s case, I decided to ask Marcin about his accent. He claimed that he already spoke with the same accent and that people did not know where he was from. When asked if

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he wanted to speak with an Irish accent and be indistinguishable from his Irish peers, he provided a brief self-evaluative comment: Excerpt 3.19: The teacher did not distinguish me (21 October 2010) 166. G:  Ok, czy chciałbyś mówić z takim samym akcentem jak Irlandczycy czy już mówisz? jak ci się wydaje? że ciebie właściwie nie można rozróżnić jak mówisz, po angielsku?

[Ok, would you like to have the same accent as your Irish peers? Or you already have it, what do you think? That you’re almost indistinguishable when you’re speaking English]

167. M:  Jak mówię po angielsku to nie można, pani mnie nie rozróżniła wcześniej [When I speak English it’s not possible, Miss (teacher) didn’t distinguish me (by my accent) earlier]

This excerpt displays Marcin’s positive self-assessment with respect to his own ‘accent’ when speaking English. It exposes Marcin’s high level of certainty regarding speaking with the same accent as his peers as he legitimizes his claim by saying that ‘Miss’ (his teacher) does not distinguish him from others by his accent. Thus, he does not feel different from his Irish classmates when it comes to speaking. In the next exchange, Marcin complains about not knowing about ‘The X Factor’. Thus, it is important to know not only ‘how’ to speak but also ‘what’ to speak. In the following excerpt, he points to the importance of sharing common topics of conversation with his schoolmates. Excerpt 3.20: In school everyone talks about X-factor and I know nothing about it (25 November 2010) 147. G:  Ehym. + A chciałbyś y:: nie wiem + bo macie tu tylko polską telewizje, nie? + [] Macie tylko polską telewizje na razie? Nie macie żadnych programów po irla-po angielsku?

[Ehym.+ And because you having only Iri-English

would you like y:; I don’t know + have only Polish TV, yea? + You’re Polish TV so far? You don’t have any channels?]

148. M:  [Hmm?] + Nie.

[Hmm? No.]

149. G:  A chciałbyś czy nie?

[And would you like to have or not?]

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150. M: Tak.

[Yes.] 151. G:  Czemu? [Why?] 152. M:  No bo::, w sz:kole wszyscy rozmawiają o ‘X Faktorze’ ten, a ja nic nie wiem o tym. + [Mniej tematów.

[Well because:: in school, everybody talks about X Factor well, and I know nothing about it. + [Less topics. ]

In this excerpt, Marcin complains (an affectively charged utterance) about not having any Irish TV channels. He explains that ‘wszyscy rozmawiają’ [everybody talks] about The X Factor and he knows nothing about the subject: ‘nic nie wiem’ [I know nothing about this]. By double negation or generalizations such as ‘wszyscy’ [everybody] and ‘nic’ [nothing], he makes his claim more evident, affectively charging it. Implicitly, he also makes strong allegiances with his classmates as his individual volition is to be an active participant of the old-timer group in his school; he reveals a great desire to share the same discourses with his classmates. Wiktoria: ‘They wouldn’t laugh at somebody’s accent’

When I asked Wiktoria if she wanted to speak with the same accent as her Irish peers, she remained silent; she rarely initiated or responded to my questions concerning her Irish classmates (field notes). She never felt fully comfortable talking about what was going on in her Irish school. At the same time, she demonstrated strong allegiance toward her Polish heritage. One afternoon, I decided to ask her opinion about Polish being part of the school curriculum and how would that make her feel. Surprisingly, she touched upon the issue of speaking with a specific accent and its sociological consequences. Excerpt 3.21: They wouldn’t laugh at somebody’s accent (23 January 2011) 96. G:  A czy chciałabyś żeby język polski był na liście przedmiotów w szkole [...] [and would you like Polish to be on the list of subjects? ] 97. W:  no, bo + byłabym wtedy najlepsza i w ogóle i chyba by mnie nawet na to nie puścili, jeśli jestem polką no i musiałabym się uczyć tego polskiego no, ale też by fajnie było, bo Irlandzczycy by się dowiedzieli z drugiej strony jak to

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jest mówić po polsku i nie śmiali by się z tego, jaki akcent mają niektórzy takie tam

[well because+ I would have been the best, and in all, probably I would have not been allowed (to attend) because I am Polish, and I would have to learn this Polish, but on the other hand, it would be cool because Irish would have known how it is to speak Polish and they wouldn’t have laughed at somebody’s accent and so forth]

This excerpt is another example of a small story. It illustrates Wiktoria’s stance repertoire that predominantly includes the negative, resigned attitude of an outsider. Here, accent is identified as a source of being positioned as ‘other’/an ‘outsider’ or even embodies a sort of rejection: ‘nie śmiali by się z tego jaki accent mają niektórzy’ [they wouldn’t have laughed at the kind of accent some people have]. When asked if she would like to have the Polish language as an optional language on the school’s curriculum, she demonstrates some level of uncertainty, but she points to one important social factor: knowing how it is to speak (another language like Polish) could result in a positive change in their attitude toward different accents: ‘bo Irlandzczycy by się dowiedzieli jak to jest mówić po polsku i nie śmiali by się z tego jaki akcent mają niektórzy’ [the Irish would have known how it is to speak Polish and they wouldn’t have laughed at somebody’s accent]. This small story reports about not sharing the same Discourse as her peers. Affective features of this account show that this is problematic for Wiktoria and, among other things, it makes her feel excluded from her peer interactions. Her peers are not interested in her identity as she is not a member of the dominant discourse. Interpreted within Gee’s (1989) notions of dominant and non-dominant Discourses, Wiktoria’s classmates are not only unaware of their own dominant Discourse but are also unlikely to recognize and value an identity that is different from the dominant Discourse. As Gee (1989) notes, this can be a powerful yet implicit form of exclusion. Janek: Rejecting Native Accent

The theme of ‘having a different accent’ was initiated by Janek on many occasions. His accent made him distinct among native speakers. It needs to be noted that Janek was the eldest among all of the participants. Even though he had been in Ireland for seven years at the time of data collection, he claimed to have a slightly different accent to his peers. Most of the time, random words or phrases would make him ‘sound different’ as his classmates would say. There were also some differences in his pronunciation of short and long vowels (extracted from field notes and classroom observations). Janek recurrently reported or drew on examples of the situations in which his accent made him feel different or distinct. Nonetheless, Janek was

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not trying to ‘fix’ his own accent in any way. In fact, he deliberately avoided speaking with the same accent as his peers. The following excerpts illustrate Janek’s own stance-taking with respect to his pronunciation and accent. Excerpt 3.22: I’d rather have a British accent (4 December 2010) 517. G:  Dobrze. + Czy chciałbyś mówić akcentem jak Irlandczycy?

z

takim

samym

[Right. + Would you like to speak with the same accent as Irish?]

518. J: Nie::. [No::]

519. G:  I żeby tak się nie odróżniać od nich.

[And so you aren’t distinguishable from them (the native speakers)?]

520. J:  Raczej jak brytyjczycy.

[I’d rather have a British (accent).]

521. G:  Jak brytyjczycy. + Ehym. + [Uważasz, że brytyjski jest lepszy?

Like British. + Ehym. + [You think that British is better?]

522. J:  [Czyściej, łatwiej zrozumieć ich. + Ehym.

[Clearer, it’s easier to understand them. + Ehym.]

523. G:  Czemu? [Why?] 524. J:  No, bo to od nich się wszystko zaczęło i nie mają żadnych przekształconych rzeczy. + Jak tutaj albo w ameryce. + Najłatwiej się słucha oryginału.

[It’s just because it has all started from them and they don’t have any transformed things. + Like here or in America. + Original is the easiest to listen/follow.]

525. G:  Ehym. A tutaj nie jest jak (x)?

[Ehym. And here it is not like (x)?]

526. J:  Przeciągają i takie tam +

[They are lengthening (things) and stuff +]

In this excerpt, Janek explicitly expresses his preferences for a particular accent variety. He does not want to speak with the same accent as

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the old-timers/native speakers from his school. He reveals that he would like to speak with a British accent. The researcher immediately aligns but does not affiliate with his proposition and makes an explicit suggestion that Janek thinks that a British accent is ‘better’. She neither provides any inferences nor points to any specific reasons why a British accent could have been considered better. Janek gives a general justification for his opinion by saying that a British accent sounds ‘czyściej/czystrzy’ [clearer/ purer] and is ‘łatwiej zrozumieć’ [easier to understand]. This, in turn, evokes the researcher’s prompt reply – as she is asking for clarification. In Line 534, Janek gives a discursive account providing motives behind his reasoning. He suggests that British English is the original version of English. He makes an inference about the historical origins of the English language: ‘od nich się wszystko zaczęło’ [It has all started from them]. In this way, he presupposes that Irish and American English varieties are not ‘original’ as there are many ‘przekształconych rzeczy’ [transformed things] in these language varieties. By saying ‘przekształconych rzeczy’ [transformed things], Janek makes an implicit comment on aspects of language variety that are specific to Irish and American variations – ‘Przeciągają i takie tam’ [they’re lengthening things and stuff] – and aspects of pronunciation. This excerpt shows the ways in which Janek reproduces some wider ideology regarding British English superiority over other varieties, e.g. Hiberno-English (Irish English) or American English. This ideology has colonial connotations and is widespread among many Poles (anecdotal source) although not many Poles question the source of their belief. The preference for a British accent could also be a holdover from Soviet-era schooling when having a British accent would have disassociated one from the United States. Janek is, however, displaying uncertainty (epistemic stance) regarding his propositions through the use of epistemic modality markers such as ‘raczej’ [rather] or the prosodic features of his discourse ‘nie:’ [No:::] or the phrase ‘takie tam’ [and stuff] to generalize instead of supporting his argument with some evidence or examples. Interestingly, a similar idea regarding the superiority of a British accent over an Irish one was implicitly expressed by Ewa (Janek’s mother); see the following extract in which Ewa explains that she tries not to speak with an Irish accent, justifying her choice by saying that she is not easily influenced by external factors. She makes it very explicit: Excerpt 3.23: Well sometimes you’re right but sometimes it is because you speak something with the Irish accent (4 December 2019)

‘Że ja coś mówię, a mój Janek mnie poprawia ‘Mamo:: przecież to nie tak się mówi’. Ja mówię no + No czasami masz racje, ale czasami to, dlatego że ty mówisz irlandzkim akcentem a ja staram

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się angielskim cały czas, bo ja jakoś nie-nie-nie jestem taką osobą, która łatwo podda się takim wpływom’

[It’s when I say something and Janek corrects me ‘you just don’t say it this way’ and I say, ‘well sometimes you’re right but sometimes it is because you peak something with the Irish accent and I try to speak with the English (British) accent because I am not such a person who would be easily influenced by others’].

In consequence, Janek’s own negotiations of his linguistic identity could have been, and surely were influenced by his mother. ‘Sheet’ [SHIT]: ‘They want to hear this word’

Janek’s friends mocked him each time he confused his use of long vowels and short vowels. He often reported being confused with two words: Excerpt 3.24: They tease me so when I say this word (15 January 2015) 882. J:  Nie, nie jest to. + Jedny-dwóch-dwa słowa cały czas + mylą: [mi się.

[No, no it’s not this. + One-two-two words are confusing all the time:  [I confuse them]

883. G: [Które?

[Which ones?]

884. J:  Raczej. Nie mylą mi-mi się, tylko nie potrafię tak jednego wypowiedzieć, żeby + się: ten drugie. + Żebym nie powiedział drugiego + Bo z-zawsze tak [niezde

[I’d rather say, they are not confusing, but I can’t say one in a way that it doesn’t sound like the second one. + So I do not say the second one + Because it’s a-always such [niez]

885. G:  [To co mówisz, powiedz+

[So what do you say, say it+]

886. J:  Tak się dener-tak mi dokuczają, że jak mówię im to słowo to oni wtedy mówią, ‘Co:? To drugie?’

[They’re stre-they tease me so when I say this word they say ‘What? The Second One?’]

887. G:  Ehym. Co-co? Jakie to słowa?

[Ehym. What? What words are they?]

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888. J:  No kartka papieru. @

[well sheet of paper.@]

889. G:  Aha::, że sheet, tak?

[Aha::, ‘sheet’, yeah?]

890. J:  Ta:k. + Cały czas to mówię + a oni cały czas hahaha@.

[Ye:s. + I say it all the time + and they @ (onomatopoeic sounds to show laughter) all the time]

891. G:  No bo [w angie

[It’s because [in Engl]

892. J:  [To mnie-to mnie denerwuje najbardziej.

[[This makes me nervous/frustrated the most.]

893. G:  Bo w angielskim masz samogłoski są znaczy masz inne dźwięki, wiesz? I masz długie ‘i’. Na przykład masz, a p-a powiedz, że mieszkasz w Irlandii.

[Because in English you have vowels, I mean different sounds, you know? And you have long (i:) for example you have, and p-a say that you live in Ireland.]

894. J: Nie.

[No.] 895. G:  Powiedz ‘mieszkam’.

[Say ‘live’]

896. J:  I li:v.

897. G:  Nie li:v. Lɪv.

[No li:v. Lɪv]

898. J:  No to właśnie jest irlandzka mowa.

[Well that’s just the Irish speech]

This excerpt not only illustrates Janek’s relations and interactions with his classmates but also exposes pronunciation difficulties as a source of ‘otherness’. Janek reveals that there are two specific words that confuse him, as he articulates the problem: ‘nie potrafię tak jednego wypowiedzieć+ Żebym nie powiedział drugiego’ [I can’t pronounce one word so as I do not say the second one]. The researcher aligns with Janek in the next line and tries to provoke Janek to say the problematic words. Instead of saying the words, Janek chooses to reject the researcher’s proposition and elaborates on the reaction of his classmates. The interviewer does not align with his comment and keeps asking about the

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words, ‘Jakie to słowa?’ [what words are these?]. In turn, Janek tries to avoid pronouncing the words. When he finally decides to say the word, he says it in Polish not in English ‘no::[1] kartka papieru’ [well::, sheet of paper]. The interjection ‘no’ [well] said with falling intonation displays Janek’s negative affective stance (reluctance, unwillingness to saying the words). The researcher pronounces the word ‘sheet’ in English and Janek aligns with her by pointing out that he says this ‘all the time’. In this way, Janek avoids saying the word and underlines that he pronounces the word the same way as the interviewer. Janek uses discursive intensifiers ‘cały czas’ [all the time] (to highlight the frequency with which the situation occurs) or ‘najbardziej’ [the most] and then instead of using the phrase ‘śmieją się’ [they’re laughing], he uses onomatopoeic sounds imitating laughter to underline the intensity of his emotion. He also puts emphatic stress on the words ‘cały czas’ [all the time] to emphasize his point. This, in turn, evokes the researcher’s position as an expert as she decides to provide some potential reasons for why the pronunciation of the word ‘sheet’ could be difficult for a non-native speaker. In Line 893, the researcher makes a presupposition that the pronunciation of the long vowel ‘i:’ is problematic for Janek. She prompts him to say the word ‘mieszkam’ [live (verb)] in English as her intention is to draw Janek’s attention to the short ‘ɪ’ in the word ‘live’ [Lɪv] and the long ‘i:’ present in the word ‘leave’ [Li:v]. Janek’s initial reply is an open rejection of the researcher’s proposition. As De Fina (2016a) suggests in her discussion of positioning theory, Janek might have been afraid of losing face since the researcher turned out to be an ‘expert’ in this matter. His resistance could have been connected to that factor. How a conversation unfolds depends on the interplay between positions, storyline and speech acts (Harré & Moghaddam, 2003: 5). Janek does not challenge the researcher’s expert position here. He first tries to ‘reject’ the researcher’s proposition but then decides to comply with it. In Line 896, he decides to pronounce the word ‘live’, but he makes a mistake and instead of saying ‘live’ (short ‘ɪ’ sound) he says ‘leave’ (long i: sound). The interviewer maintains her role as an expert and immediately corrects Janek. She uses the negative polarity marker ‘nie’ [no] and provides the correct version of the word. This evokes Janek’s spontaneous remark: ‘No to właśnie jest irlandzka mowa’ [Well, that’s just the Irish speech]. Janek presupposes that the existence of long and short ‘I’ is specific only to Irish English. He takes on an epistemic stance (a high level of certainty is displayed through the discourse marker ‘wlaśnie’ [just meaning precisely]). His utterance is also affectively charged: he places emphatic stress on ‘this’ and the exclamation ‘no’ [well]. It can also be presupposed here that Janek is unaware of some phonetic aspects of English pronunciation (i.e. short and long vowels). His reluctance to align with the researcher’s prompts to say the problematic word ‘sheet’ and then to pronounce the word ‘live’ can be seen as a social act (of avoiding an ‘expected’ criticism from the

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researcher or simply some fear of making mistakes or losing face). The following excerpt is a continuation of this theme. Excerpt 3.25: They hear different word (15 January 2011) 914. J:  Najgorzej jest jak się pytam o tą kartkę tam nauczycielke nową.

[It’s the worst when I ask for this sheet of paper our new (female) teacher.]

915. G:  Jak co?

[When (you do) what?]

916. J:  Jak nam jakąś-jak[ąś kartke nauczycielka dała. + Wtedy się dopiero śmieją

[When the teacher gave as this-th sheet of paper.+ Well (dopiero interjection, translation does not reflect emotional impact of the interjection) then they laugh

917. G:  [Nauczyciel? Aha, aha. + No, bo-no bo wiesz. No, bo nagle mówisz to tak jak Oni słyszą inny wyraz@ Wiesz? + No, ten. Więc to jest tak, że oni słyszą wyraz i dlatego [wiesz.

nagle tak im brzmi. więc-więc ten inny

[The teacher? Aha, aha. + It’s just you know because of that suddenly. You say something and suddenly it sounds for them like (something else). They hear a different word@ you know? + Well, so so just. So this is that they hear this different word and that’s why [you know]

918. J:  [Oni chcą słyszeć ten wyraz.

[They want to hear this word.]

The theme of saying the word ‘sheet’ and the kind of reaction it evokes came up again when talking about Janek’s interactions and relations with his classmates. Janek initiated the topic himself as he decided to talk about the situation; this time explicitly articulating the problem: ‘It’s the worst when I ask for this sheet of paper our new (female) teacher’. When he asks a new teacher about a sheet of paper, his classmates burst out laughing. He uses the intensifier ‘najgorzej’ [the worst] and the adjective ‘źle’ [bad] in its superlative form to make his complaint even more evident. In this excerpt, Janek’s utterances are affectively charged: emphatic stress is put on the words ‘wtedy[3] się dopiero’ [Well then they laugh] and ‘chcą’ [they want] and the discourse marker ‘się dopiero’ [well then]. Moreover, the researcher’s proposition that the situation is a result of

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the mispronunciation of the word ‘sheet’ is immediately and explicitly rejected by Janek. He corrects the researcher, emphasizing the intentional character of his peers’ reaction: ‘Oni chcą słyszeć ten wyraz’ [They want to hear this word]. An animated tone of voice along with emphatic stress on (want) in this utterance displays Janek’s affective attitude toward the situation. Moreover, Janek displays a high level of ‘confidence’ with respect to the intentionality of his peers’ reaction. In this way, he constructs a negative stance toward this situation. To be ‘more equal than the others’: Symbolic Power of Language

Many researchers, such as Cummins (2000), Norton (2000) and Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004), highlight the fact that languages and identities are embedded within power relations. As Pavlenko points out, the fact that ‘languages – and language ideologies – are anything but neutral is especially visible in multilingual societies where some languages and identity options are, in unforgettable Orwellian words, more equal than the others’ (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004: 3). Correspondingly, Cummins (2000) and Norton (1997) argue that relations of power in the social world affect the social interactions between L2 learners and native speakers of a language. Norton (2000) argues that L2 acquisition theory needs to develop a conception of the language learner as having a complex social identity that must be understood with reference to larger, and frequently inequitable, social structures, which are reproduced in day-to-day social interactions. As this study shows, having a different accent or pronouncing some words differently is often associated with being ‘other’ and not belonging to the majority group of language speakers. This, in turn, has the social and cultural consequences of having restricted access to certain types of ‘habitus’ – cultural, social and linguistic capital. In his theoretical work on social structures and the symbolic power of language, Bourdieu and Thompson (1991) claims that as language and social life are inseparably linked together, linguistic relations are also power relations. This model draws on a Saussurian paradigm that treats the social world as a universe of everyday symbolic exchanges and acts of communication that are to be deciphered by means of a cipher or code, language or culture. Bourdieu and Thompson (1991: 2) depicts everyday linguistic exchanges as ‘situated encounters between agents endowed with socially structured resources and competencies’ in such a way that ‘every linguistic situation’, even the personal one, bears ‘the traces of the social structure that it both expresses and helps to reproduce’, thereby embedding it within societal power relations. Central to his conception of linguistic practice is the understanding of cultural context – taking into account the sociopolitical/socio-historical factors and other social conditions that are part of the production and reception of a language.

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In this perspective, language learning and language maintenance are instruments of symbolic power, agency and legitimation, because, according to Bourdieu, ‘in the routine of everyday life power is rarely exercised as an overt physical force’; rather, it is transformed into ‘symbolic form’ and thereby endowed with a kind of ‘legitimacy’ that it would not otherwise have. Therefore, Bourdieu’s notion of ‘symbolic power’ is to be understood as a very tacit form of social and cultural domination taking place within everyday social interactions. It is either symmetrically or asymmetrically inherent and distributed in every social interaction in different contexts. As Bourdieu and Thompson (1991: 40) notices, even ‘the relations of communication par excellence – linguistic exchanges – are also relations of symbolic power in which the power relations between speakers or their respective groups are actualized’. Therefore, speaking with the same accent and sharing the same discourses in use would have the potential to grant one the social position to which one aspires. As was shown in the examples provided in this chapter, children are deeply embedded within these relations of power without being explicitly aware of them. Research by Gee (1996), Lippi-Green (1997) and Miller (2003) emphasizes that there are serious consequences for language users who do not operate in the dominant discourse. Differences in accent, grammar and vocabulary, for example, can be indicators of the social position of the speaker. These implications are best explained by three central ideas of Bourdieu’s work: the concept of ‘linguistic habitus’, the concept of linguistic capital and the concept of the linguistic market, in which linguistic or cultural products are not equally valued. Not having the same accent, mispronouncing and, most importantly, not operating in the dominant discourses such as being part of Facebook, having a mobile phone, having a ‘YouTube’ account, etc., would make one a non-conformist at best and an outsider, a stranger, an outcast in the worst-case scenario. Wiktoria and Janek’s cultural and linguistic capital was not valued by their peers. As Goodwin and Kyratzis (in Duranti et  al., 2012: 365–391) suggest, peers often use compliments, critiques and teasing ‘to frame their comments as evaluative and to categorize social distinctions in terms of physical, social, and class orientations’ (Duranti et al., 2012: 274). As illustrated, ethnicity figures prominently in multi-ethnic settings such as schools, and judgmental and negative labels index local cultural values or Discourses (following on Gee’s theoretical framework). Practices used for membership categorization are prominent in peer interactions. As Bourdieu argues, individuals from different groups or social classes have not only different accents and intonations but also different values and beliefs about the external world. Their way of identifying with certain worldviews is a manifestation of the socially constructed ‘habitus’ of which they are part. It was particularly clear for both Wiktoria and Janek that they had different values and worldviews that were

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predominantly influenced by their heritage culture. Therefore, their ethnicity and social background were embodied dispositions that had serious consequences for their uptake of certain linguistic and sociohistorical or sociocultural competencies. In linguistic terms, this involved not only the production of grammatically correct discourses but also the social capacity to use appropriate linguistic expressions and discourses adequately and highly valued in specific situations. As Bourdieu and Thompson (1991: 41) argues, this is a social competence – ‘namely, that of the legitimate speaker, authorized to speak and to speak with authority’, being valued for how they speak and what they say. It is because of the position of these social and linguistic competencies that one is considered a ‘legitimate speaker’ of a language and culture as in the case of Kasia and Marcin, or is only granted restricted access to it as in the case of Janek and Wiktoria. Bourdieu and Thompson (1991) further explains that newly embodied dispositions, as well as previously acquired dispositions in certain habitus, control, to some extent, both the language practices of an individual (agent) and his or her belief system. They influence and impact on an individual’s anticipation of the value that linguistic products (as in the case of Janek and his pronunciation) will receive in certain linguistic markets, for instance among peer groups in educational institutions. This anticipation further reinforces one’s social position as one starts to perceive oneself the way that one thinks one is perceived by ‘dominant’ others – those operating in the dominant discourse. Bourdieu and Thompson (1991) called these dispositions ‘capital’ that each individual is endowed with by his or her habitus, which includes the following forms of capital: economic capital (material wealth); cultural capital (knowledge, skills and other cultural acquisitions, educational qualifications); symbolic capital (accumulated prestige or honor); and linguistic capital (language one learns in one’s habitus). Different forms of capital can be transformed from one form into another: for instance, educational qualifications can be converted into economic capital. This is also the case with language and culture, when some linguistic products (e.g. expressions) are valued more highly than others in certain markets (Bourdieu & Thompson, 1991: 11–23). Thus, the question arises why the minority or heritage language of an individual is not perceived as a form of capital in everyday social interactions, but rather as some sort of impediment (as Kasia thinks it is best not to mention where she is from, Marcin wants to be Irish and Janek and Wiktoria are distinctively ‘other’ and excluded from social activities). It is clear from this study that all the children participants were affected by symbolic power. In the Editor’s Introduction to Bourdieu and Thompson’s (1991) work, Thompson explains that it is the value of symbolic power, albeit related to the concept of ‘cultural hegemony’: Presupposes certain forms of cognition or belief, in such a way that even those who benefit least from the exercise of power participate, to some

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extent, in their own subjection. They recognize or tacitly acknowledge the legitimacy of power, or of the hierarchical relations of power in which they are embedded; and hence they fail to see that the hierarchy is, after all, an arbitrary social construction, which serves the interests of some groups more than others. (Bourdieu & Thompson, 1991: 3) Language, Identity and Emotions

As was stated at the beginning of this chapter, identity can be seen as discursively created according to the cultural systems in which people are located, both spatially and temporally. The presented snapshots from early adolescent experience categorized each of the four participants in relation to their orientation to Polish versus Irish culture and language in order to illustrate membership and belonging to certain groups. The role of positioning and membership categorization in identity work is huge (De Fina, 2016a). One should not, however, underestimate the role of agency in the process, as numerous studies such as Fogle (2012), Gafaranga (2010) and Gallagher (2007) have demonstrated. The children who participated in this study are in a specific place in their lives as they are in the early adolescent years. This also impacts on their identity because it often places ‘peer groups’ in a central position. This is the time of even greater children’s agency, self-discovery and a desire to exercise individual choices. Contrary to the earlier years, parental influences and involvement might generally be weaker; however, as will be highlighted in the remaining chapters, implicit and more tacit parental choices, actions and attitudes can play a very important role in their children’s language and culture socialization. When a second language and culture are being added and socialized, they change one’s sense of self as new norms and cultural and linguistic patterns are being observed. This process can also greatly affect individuals’ emotional states, because across different communities, individuals are expected to recognize and display emotions in culturally defined ways and according to local norms and preferences (Garrett & BaquedanoLópez, 2002). In other words, not only particular ways of thinking but also specific ‘ways of feeling’ are one of Gee’s (1989, 2007) characteristics of a given Discourse. For example, ‘affect’ is linguistically mediated and permeates talk, infusing words with emotional orientations (Ochs, 1986a; Ochs & Schieffelin, 1989; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986b). In the context of bilingualism, it may happen that one language can turn out to be incompatible with one’s emotional world at a particular point in one’s life. For example, when Wierzbicka (2004: 100, in Wei & Aurer, 2007) refers to her own personal experience of emotionality while talking about her baby granddaughter, she confesses that, for her, English does not have the same emotional force as Polish. She also adds that English lacks exact semantic equivalents of words used in Polish to talk about babies; therefore, in this

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context, Polish feels irreplaceable (Wierzbicka, 2004). This raises the following questions: ‘Do bilinguals feel different people when speaking different languages?’ (Pavlenko, 2006: 1). Do they experience inner conflicts? Consider this example: I wait for the spontaneous flow of inner language which used to be my night-time talk with myself… Nothing comes. Polish, in a short time, has atrophied, shriveled from sheer uselessness. Its words don’t apply to my new experiences… In English; words have not penetrated to those layers of my psyche from which a private conversation could proceed. (Besemeres, 1998: 107)

In the foregoing example, it is evident that the person (Eva Hoffman, emigrated at 13 years of age from Poland to Canada) is experiencing an inner conflict, and that one language is considered to have more of an emotional hold than the other. In her book, Besemeres (1998) reported that her inner speech seems to be mostly in English; however, Polish expressions always emerge automatically in emotional situations. She also reported experiencing some duality, being two different people within herself depending on which language she is using. Her ‘Polish self’ is ‘romantic’, whereas her ‘English self’ is more ‘pragmatic, rational’. A similar experience is recounted by Tzvetan Todorov (1994) and Brock (1950), both of whom have reflected on their sensitivity to intrinsic links between languages and selves. They both recall that they are fully aware that their voices sound different in two different languages, even when telling the same story (Pavlenko, 2006: 1–6). Correspondingly, Pavlenko (2002: 111 in Wei & Aurer, 2007) argues that L2s that are learned and socialized after puberty may not have the same emotional impact. As Dewaele (2007: 122) points out, it is a fact that an L1 has strong emotional powers and emotional connotations in bilingual individuals; however, as some studies demonstrate, it is possible that for some bilinguals, languages learned later in life may gain the same emotional hold as those learned in their childhood. The excerpts in the following section come from Janek and his teachers. They are examples of Janek’s L2 literacy skills socialization, illustrating the ways in which Janek discursively constructed his own understandings of problems he experienced with literacy development in his L2. In these excerpts, he was interviewed by the researcher in his own home. Additionally, his English teacher’s transcripts are provided and analyzed. Janek: ‘He just does not write enough for it’

Janek often raised the theme of being uncomfortable with ‘writing longer texts in English’. He also often compared his writing skills in Polish and in English. The following excerpts exposed Janek’s stances in relation to his literacy skills in English and Polish. ‘G’ stands for researcher.

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Excerpt 3.26: You need to write long answers (5 March 2011) 761. G:  To dobra. + Y::m czy jest coś tutaj w Irlandii, że to sprawia, że czasami nie lubisz szkoły? Czyli masz na przykład jakieś przedmioty których nie lubisz+.

[Right. + Y :: m is there anything here in Ireland that makes you dislike the school sometimes? So, for example, do you have any subjects that you don’t like+.]

762. J:  Tak, angielski.

[Yes, English.]

763. G:  Angielski. + Dlaczego?

[English. + Why?]

764. J:  No bo musze pisać te dłu::gie rzeczy i jeszcze +

[It’s because I have to write these lo::ng things and even more]

765. G:  I masz [y::]

[And do you have [y::]]

766. J:  [Długie-długie odpowiedzi w ogóle pisać trzeba + zamiast tak ściśle.

[You need to write long-long answers and all + instead of writing (scientifically/briefly/ up to the point)]

767. G:  Ehym. + A masz z tym właśnie trudności.

[Ehym. + And you’re having difficulties just with this.]

768. J: Tak.

[Yes.]

In this excerpt, Janek mentions that he does not like English because writing in English entails composing long texts; he says: ‘musze pisać te dłu::gie rzeczy i jeszcze’ or ‘długie odpowiedzi w ogóle pisać trzeba + zamiast tak ściśle’ [It’s because I have to write these lo::ng things and even more + instead of writing briefly]. Janek displays his affective stance in this excerpt by using the modal verb ‘have to’ (deontic modality). He expresses and emphasizes the strong obligation caused by external circumstances. Moreover, he places emphatic stress on the word ‘dłu::gie’ [long] to further emphasize his point. By emphasizing the necessity of writing longer texts in English, Janek is constructing a negative affective stance toward writing in English. He further

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explains his standpoint in the following description of classroom writing activities. Excerpt 3.27: Suddenly everyone goes silent (5 March 2011) 802. J:  Wszyscy-znaczy się rozmawiam i nagle wszystko cichnie i ja dalej siedzę przez tych jakieś dziesięć minut. Potem dopiero ja się rozglądam wszyscy coś piszą i ja musze dopytać co się dzieje. + A oni mówią, że jakiś esej mamy pisać.

Everybody - I mean, I’m talking and suddenly everybody goes silent and I’m still sitting for some ten minutes. Only then I look around (to realise that) everyone is writing something and I have to find out what is happening. + And they say that we have an essay to write.]

803. G:  A ty siedzisz.

[And you’re sitting.]

804. J:  A ja rozmyślam...

[And I wonder…]

805. G:  I jak tutaj-to fajne to było uczucie czy takie nie bardzo?

[And – was this a good feeling or not really?]

806. J:  Bardziej takie + e:m + takie dyskomfortowe, bo nie wiedziałem o czym w ogóle mam pisać. Każdy już był zajęty pisaniem, więc.+

[It was rather + e:m + quite uncomfortable because I did not know what about I’m going to write at all/I had no idea what to write about. Everyone was already busy with writing, so.+]

In this excerpt, Janek does not mention an actual technical difficulty with writing texts in English; rather, it is not sharing the discourse in use and not being able to find and reflect upon the topic that is causing difficulties. In particular, he gives a retrospective account of a situation in which he was unable to complete an assigned task (write an essay) because of not knowing what to write. He revealed that the situation made him feel [quite] uncomfortable; however, the discursive features of this narrative point to ‘confusion’ and a lack of ability to participate in an activity. As Janek comments on the situation: ‘a ja siedzie:; siedze’ [I’m sitting and sitting] or ‘i nagle wszystko cichnie i ja dalej siedze przez tych jakieś dziecięć minut’ [and suddenly everybody goes silent and I’m still sitting for some ten minutes]. Janek intentionally repeats the word

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‘siedzę’ [sitting] three times in this excerpt. He repeats this word to affectively index the length of time spent wondering and not knowing what to do. Intensifiers such as ‘wszyscy’ [everybody], ‘wszystko’ [everything], ‘w ogóle’ [at all] and ‘nagle’ [suddenly] or the discourse quantifier ‘dziesięć minut’ [ten minutes] are used to construct a negative affective stance toward this activity. What is more, Janek’s English teacher initiated the topic of writing ‘limited’ texts on numerous occasions. She was not expressing her concerns with regard to the ‘correctness’ of his texts, but the limited amount of text in his essays or stories. She expressed her doubts on numerous occasions, as she was not sure whether the situation was caused by a lack of ability or factors connected to Janek’s personality: Excerpt 3.28: I’m trying to get him to give a little bit more information (28 March 2011) TE:

[I think he’s only been you know I think he’s very smart. I think you know+ now not only English+ No PROBlems, + Again he’s only thing is I’m trying to get him to give a little bit more information, elaborate a little bit more. He’ll give the answer, but you know sometimes in English you have to talk about well,]



[Offering opinion of a novel or a poem + yes he can do that, again it’s just limited in what he’d say ‘I liked it because’ and he gives a little reason, and I say but WHY did you like it? you know so it’s a – he needs to take this a step further. I am not sure whether it’s to do with ability or so he wouldn’t be terribly interested + it does not appeal to him].

In this excerpt, Janek’s teacher comments on Janek’s general qualities, as she considers him to be ‘smart’ not only with regard to English as a subject but also in a more general sense. However, she points out that she is having some difficulties getting him to write more. She expresses her doubts about whether Janek writing short answers is due to lack of ability, lack of interest or that the assigned tasks do not appeal to him. In the next excerpt, she further illustrates her point: Excerpt 3.29: It’s his personality (28 March 2011) TE:

It’s not this, he’s the only thing I think + it’s his personality he’s well able to describe feelings, experiences, reactions, but he just does not write enough for it – and I don’t think it’s the lack of ability, it’s just his personality.

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Janek’s teacher offers her assumptions with regard to the ‘limited/ brief’ nature of his assignments. She makes the presupposition that the fact that he writes short answers is due to his personality. She demonstrates a high level of certainty through the epistemic stances that she takes here, as she reflectively assesses Janek as being ‘well able’ and by stating: ‘I think it’s his personality’ and ‘I don’t think it’s the lack of ability’. She also uses the discourse marker ‘just’ to trivialize the problem (of the limited length of Janek’s texts). In the following excerpt, Janek makes a comparison between his written skills in Polish and English: Excerpt 3.30: In English – sometimes the effect is rather flat-lifeless (9 April 2011) 334. J:  Tak, bo jak, po polsku to mogę składać takie + ba:rdzo skomplikowane jakby zdania, a po angielsku to [+ czasami tak prosto to wychodzi raczej prosto + bez wyrazu+

[Yes, because in Polish, I can make + ve:ry complex sentences, and in English [+ sometimes the effect is rather flat/lifeless/no emotional impact .]]

391. G:  Dobra. I zadanie jak robisz to też masz problem?

[Right. And when you’re doing your homework are you having problems too?]

392. J:  Raczej jeśli mam napisać cztery strony z angielskiego to+

[I’d say when I need to write four pages in English then+]

393. G:  To jest jednak problem troche?

[Then, this is, a little problem?]

394. J:  Jednak tak. powodow.

+

Ale

to

raczej

z::

osobistych

[Well yes. +But it’s rather because:: of my own personal reasons.]

Here, Janek makes the point that he can write longer ‘more complex sentences’ in Polish, whereas in English his sentences are rather ‘flat’ – without much emotional impact. Between Home and School: Two Persons in One?

It can be debated here whether Janek’s ‘not sufficient’ or limited participation and completion of writing activities is related to a fear of being

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singled out, limited language proficiency (strong B2+ CEFR) or his personal choice of not sharing the same affective stances as his peers. When we consider the second example in which Janek reveals that ‘personal reasons/matters’ are restricting him from writing longer texts in English, but not in Polish, we come to realize that some other factors may be at play. This chapter has shown that there are emotional discontinuities between home and school literacy practices. Minority language adolescents often perceive the same things differently from their majority language peers. It also happens that reading and writing in an L2 has a different emotional hold for them as a result of former socialization practices through their L1. Young people may invest more of their efforts in activities that are highly valued in a new society as they are sensitive to the relations of power inherent in every society. These differences in perceptions and conceptual and emotional processing may be related to the demands and practices of the society one lives in or one previously lived in. Janek started learning English at the age of 7; however, Polish has remained the language in his home to the present day. Dewaele (2007) contends that emotions caused by similar stimuli may be experienced and expressed differently in different languages and, as a consequence, the same person might be perceived differently by his or her interlocutors. Janek was perceived as a quiet introvert, a science-oriented boy with limited emotional and linguistic expression in English, basically, not expressing his feelings. This was not the case in the Polish weekend school. Thus, the problem of ‘emotional discontinuity’ – the problems caused by the discontinuity between the home environments (including emotional expression) and the school environments and also by home ecologies that are often different from new school ecologies appear when the transition from one mode of being to another takes place (Marcia, 1987). In this situation, an individual needs time to develop his or her own understanding of the new demands that are being imposed on him or her by the new sociocultural and socio-historical circumstances. It is also important to accommodate these new observed ways of being in the world within existing norms and culturally specific values. Moreover, culture and ethnicity have a great impact on the psychological development of adolescents. Being brought up in a different culture and speaking another language may impact general perceptions of the abilities and skills needed to succeed in that culture. Adolescence is a very difficult period for minority adolescents as not only do they start searching for their own unique ‘self’ identity, but also they need to accommodate their ethnic and cultural identity within their own social identity. As will be shown in the remaining chapters, socialization of morality including a norms and beliefs system is also being negotiated during these years. Finally, emotions play a very important part in our daily life. During the adolescent years, an individual’s emotional state is often challenged by the physical and psychological aspects of puberty. This period might

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be especially difficult for immigrant adolescents, as they not only have to face the difficult years of puberty but they must also accommodate all the aforementioned conflicts. While this book deals with the Polish-Irish context specifically, immigrant students worldwide are likely facing the same or similar challenges. Thus, it seems reasonable to facilitate and raise awareness among adolescents and all those involved in their education about this particular phenomenon involved in the process of L1 and L2 socialization in multilingual contexts.

4 Agency and SocioHistorical Mediation

It is common knowledge that language and culture are part of the human condition. We use language every day within certain cultural contexts to conduct our social lives. ‘When we use language in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways’ (Kramsch, 1998: 3). That is why, for some language socialization (LS) scholars, ‘language learning and enculturation are part of the same process’ (Watson-Gegeo, 2004: 39). This viewpoint was shared by Heath (1983) and Agar (1994), and partly by Schieffelin and Ochs (1986b), for whom learning a language is acquiring both linguistic knowledge and sociocultural knowledge. As we have seen in Chapter 3, interactive acquisition of specific cultural perspectives, allowing oneself to act in an acceptable sociocultural manner, along with certain linguistic practices, often grants membership to a particular social group (Ochs, 2002: 99–114). Schieffelin and Ochs (1986b) concluded that socialization is the interactive acquisition of expected ways of thinking, feeling and acting through participation in social interactions (see also Ochs, 1986a: 2–5). LS is thus perceived as an interactive and sociocultural process that lines both socialization through language and socialization to use language utilizing the exposure to and participation in language-mediated interactions. However, both the acquisition of a language and LS do not happen in isolation from highly contextualized sociocultural phenomena taking place in rich socio-historical contexts. For that reason, it is believed that they should not be studied in isolation from each other. ‘Since language reflects our conceptual systems, it will reflect the social aspects of our conceptual systems. Thus, seeing language from a cognitive perspective entails seeing language from a social and cultural perspective’ (Piers de Oliveira, 2001: 37, in Train, 2003: 433). Thus, sociocultural theory (SCT) views the acquisition of language as a sociocultural phenomenon, linking two perspectives on language: the social/interactional with the cognitive. SCT connects the role of a language as a mediating tool with social interaction and the development of higher-order mental processes (Lantolf, 2000). Gee’s description of what is required to acquire a Discourse/discourse follows the Vygotskian model of apprenticeship (zone of proximal 115

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development) considering immersion and scaffolded interaction in the D/ discourse (Heath, 1983; Vygotsky, 1978) with members who have already mastered the discourse. It is a collaborative process of active engagement between ‘experts and novices’. As Hall (1997: 303) points out, a sociocultural theoretical framework considers the learner to be an ‘active and creative participant (as more recent studies show, having their agency) in what is considered a socio-cognitively complex task’. In the context of immigration, the development of socio-historical and sociocultural understandings often turns out to be crucial for successful functioning within society. It is important to note that while many socializing situations involve experts socializing novices, the reverse is also commonplace (Goodwin, 1996; Heath, 2012). It is not uncommon, for example, for young children to socialize their grandparents in the use of modern technologies such as the iPad or smart phone. The theory of ‘acculturation’ provides a framework with which we can look at socializing situations involving older persons (often experts) and younger persons as novices and how new knowledge is transmitted from the expert to the novice. According to Jones and Ghuman (1995: 215), acculturation may be defined as ‘the degree to which migrant communities take up the norms, values, customs and social practices of the host society’. A more detailed definition, distinguishing between these degrees is offered by Berry. As Berry (2007: 543) puts it, acculturation is ‘the dual process of cultural and psychological change that takes place as a result of contact between two or more cultural groups and their members’. At the group level, it involves changes in social structures and institutions and cultural practices. At the individual level, it entails changes to an individual’s behavior patterns and is often the result of a long-term process. The acculturation theory (Berry et  al., 2006), however, takes some account of individuals’ agency, albeit constrained within specific contextual factors. ‘The same two acculturation processes and the same four acculturation categories describe all migrants equally—regardless of the type of migrant, the countries of origin and settlement, and the ethnic group in question’ (Schwartz et al., 2010: 238). As Schwartz argues, many psychological approaches to acculturation, such as Berry (1980) and Phinney (2003), have examined migrants in isolation and suggested that individual differences in acculturation outcomes are the result of specific choices made by migrants. These studies, however, did not recognize the important role played by highly contextualized factors. A more nuanced framework based on Berry’s model is needed, taking account of complex variations and specific circumstances in particular. As shown in the extracts in previous chapters, immigrant adolescents often develop their strategies for balancing the challenges of migration. These strategies are embedded within their agentive capacity, discourses and ideologies operating in the society, in a particular place and moment in history.

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Socio-Historical Context and Discourses

This chapter theorizes that ‘language socialization’ for this study’s participants is embedded within the historically and culturally rooted values and beliefs of both their society of origin and their new host community. An investigation of social identification often involves giving thought to different ‘timescales’ within which certain categories of identities circulate (Cole, 1996). This can be linked to Gee’s (1999, 2001) framework of primary and secondary discourses. As immigrants cross borders, they become part of the new operating discourses. Gee (2001) points out that until a secondary discourse is acquired, one is unable to depict the kind of discourse he or she is or was operating within. So, from where does a person get his or her cultural models? In most cases, Gee (2007) explains, it is through our interactions with others, engagement with texts and media in society and within our cultural spheres. In other cases, one’s cultural models can come from one’s thoughts and personal research into the matter (Gee, 2007: 34). Most times, people get their cultural models from shared basic assumptions used by a particular society or social group. They often become primary discourses or dominant discourses within a particular group or society. Gee (2007: 111) calls these assumptions ‘master myths’ as ‘these myths hide from us other ways of thinking, even ways that coexist in society with the master myths’. They seem ‘inevitable’, ‘natural’, ‘normal’, ‘practical’ and ‘common sense’, though other cultures and people at other times in history have found them ‘odd’, ‘unnatural’ and violations of common sense (Gee, 2007: 111). What Gee argues here is that all discourses are the product of history. We learn our cultural models through socialization, as discussed at the beginning of this section. However, if we take Gee’s standpoint that cultural models/primary discourses convey values, moral assessments and specific perspectives, we can see that operating within two social groups/ communities may pose interesting challenges. As the examples from Wiktoria, Janek, Kasia and Marcin suggested, the cultural models or discourses of non-mainstream students, rooted in their homes and communities, often conflicted with those of the mainstream. As we will see in this chapter, the values of mainstream culture are in opposition to non-mainstream students’ home cultures and social identities, as the examples of Wiktoria and Janek show. As Gee (2007: 162) points out, ‘the values of mainstream culture are, in fact, often complicit with the oppression of non-mainstream students’ home cultures and other social identities’. Yet, using their ‘agentive’ capacity, children among other individuals can renegotiate their positions and stances toward their reality. Claire Kramsch points to ‘symbolic competence’ to be of key importance in these interactions. Kramsch (2006) explains that ‘symbolic competence’ means having ‘the ability to manipulate symbolic systems, to interpret signs and their multiple relations to other signs, to use semiotic

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practices to make and convey meaning, and to position oneself to one’s benefit in the symbolic power game’. She distinguishes three dimensions of language as a symbolic system: (i) symbolic representation, (ii) symbolic action and (iii) symbolic power (Kramsch, 2011). Kramsch and Whiteside (2015: 3) highlights that one needs to position oneself as a multilingual subject in order ‘ to understand the cultural memories evoked by symbolic systems, to perform and create alternative realities, and to reframe and shape the multilingual game in which one invests’. It is essentially the ability to understand that: the symbolic value of symbolic form and the different cultural memories evoked by different symbolic systems, to draw on the semiotic diversity afforded by multiple languages to reframe ways of seeing familiar events, create alternative realities and find an appropriate subject position between languages. (Kramsch & Whiteside, 2015: 4)

In recent years, it has been understood as a dynamic, flexible, locally contingent competence (Leung et al., 2014; García & Wei, 2014), a postmodern, ecological competence (Byram, 2011; Molina et  al., 2011), a nuanced way of teaching culture beyond national stereotypes (Baker et al., 2016), related to intercultural competence (Gassenbauer, 2012; Kearney, 2010, 2015) but distinct from intercultural communicative competence (Byram, 2011), performative competence (Canagarajah, 2014) and meta cultural competence. Back (2016: 1–22) argues that ‘recent approaches to symbolic competence have underlined its spontaneous, transcultural, and emergent elements’, which allow one to interpret utterances and ‘develop consciousness of how meanings are manipulated’, consequently restructuring the content and context of interactions by drawing on shared semiotic resources (Baker et al., 2016; Hult, 2014; Kearney, 2010). Kramsch (2009), similar to Gee (2007), suggests that language is a meaning-making system where different D/discourses operate at different levels of social organization. Here, language is not only a ‘meaning-making system’ but also the historical sedimentation of meanings that we call our ‘selves’ (Gee, 2007: 2). This framework highlights the role of histories and symbols and our ability to identify, dwell on and restructure these elements. Concerning cross-cultural communication, this indicates that one understands not only the surface level of a discourse but also ‘what they remember from the past, what they imagine and project onto the future, and how they position themselves in the present’ (Kramsch, 2006: 251). Moreover, Blommaert writes: whenever discourses travel across the globe, what is carried with them is their shape, but their value, meaning, or function do not often travel along. Value, meaning, and function are a matter of uptake, they have to be granted by others based on the prevailing orders of indexicality, and increasingly also based on their real or potential ‘market value’ as a cultural commodity. (Blommaert et al., 2005: 72)

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Thus, the ‘symbolic power’ aspect of symbolic competence discusses ‘the intertextual relations it establishes with other discourses, the moral values it expresses, the subjectivities and historical continuities (or discontinuities) it constructs’ (Kramsch, 2011: 3). Symbolic competence is involved in the ‘symbolic power game’ of challenging established meanings and ‘redefining the real’ (Kramsch, 2006, 2009). When defining the interculturally competent speaker, Kramsch (2011) suggests he or she should ask the following questions: Not which words, but whose words are those? Whose discourse? Whose interests are being served by this text? What made these words possible, and others impossible? How does the speaker position him/herself? How does he/she frame the events talked about? What prior discourses does he/she draw on? (Kramsch, 2011: 4)

The following sections attempt to illustrate how participants of the study positioned themselves (mainly reflectively) within and across different symbolic spaces, with particular cultural memories and within social symbolic power. I present some snapshots from this experience, depicting particular moments in the participants’ life trajectory – their early adolescent years in Ireland. The four children developed their understandings of first language (L1) and second language (L2) cultural and socio-historical norms and values in various ways. This task was complicated by the fact that these children were trying to accommodate newly observed L2 norms and values within an existing system of values and norms acquired in and through their L1 (Polish). For example, Kasia and Marcin noticed that during their trips to Poland, Polish people, i.e. passers-by, looked at them with suspicion or were unfriendly. This was due to the differences in expressing ‘politeness’ in Polish. Seldom would a Polish person pass another Polish person on the street with a smile on their face or greet a stranger with a nod or formal/informal greeting. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Poles, in general, are suspicious of each other. In other words, a Pole does not trust another Pole unless he or she is part of his or her extended family or social circle. The opposite is the case in Ireland. People generally assume that the newly met person is a decent, honest person and greet him or her with a smile. Kasia (14) and Marcin (13) demonstrated great sensitivity to these issues. All four children were found to develop competencies to integrate both Polish and Irish cultures in terms of socio-historical norms and values. Yet, as this chapter illustrates, these competencies underwent constant evaluations, and some old norms were rejected in favor of new ones. Over time, some norms were found contradictory, mutually exclusive or incompatible. The following discussion outlines all the individual differences between the four cases in more detail. The first part of the chapter discusses the language practices in addressing others and the second part discusses the construction

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of understanding sociocultural norms and traditions across two cultures and two languages. Language Practices when Addressing Others

Interestingly, Kasia’s mother mentioned contexts and Kasia’s manner of approaching Polish people in Poland. When talking to much older Polish people, she addressed them ‘na ty’. She did not address them by their name, but failed to use ‘Pan’ or ‘Pani’ in the contexts where these pronouns were required. Extracted from field note. Date: 9 September 2011 Kasia’s mum complained about Kasia not using the right linguistic forms when speaking Polish. She pointed out that during their holidays (they just got back two weeks ago) her friends were pointing to Kasia’s speaking differently, especially highlighting negative comments from her parents (Kasia’s grandparents).

In school, Kasia addresses her teachers ‘Chailleann’ [Ms] or ‘A dhuine uasail’ [Mister] in Irish. In her previous school, the students were allowed to address the teachers in English. In her new school, they use Irish for that purpose. When the students talk about their teachers, they use Mr or Ms and the surname of the teacher. Except for these formal contexts, Kasia does not use Mr or Ms. In informal contexts, such as talking to her friends’ parents, she rarely uses the titles Miss/Ms/Mrs or Mr. Instead, she uses less formal modes of greeting, such as Hi or Hello. For example, when addressing her Irish friends’ parents, she addresses them by their first name or ‘na ty’[1] [per ‘ty’], as she explains: Excerpt 4.1 They don’t really care (16 September 2011) 433. K:  ‘Im to bardzo nie zależy ale bardziej na ‘ty’ mówię. Nie mówię na przykład ‘Miss’.’

[They (friends’ parents) do not really care, but I use per ‘you’ more. I’m not saying like ‘miss’]



‘Tutaj nigdy nie zwracają uwagi’



[Here they never pay attention].

In these short phrases extracted from a longer Excerpt 4.1, Kasia makes the claim that use of ‘Pan Pani’ [Miss/Ms/Mrs or Mr] – greater formality – is not necessary when addressing much older unfamiliar individuals in Ireland. She uses intensifiers such as ‘bardzo’ [really] and ‘nigdy’ [never] to make her claim even more explicit and to highlight her

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stance – a high level of certainty about the aforementioned claim. When provided with the hypothetical example of an equivalent situation taking place in Poland, she expresses a high level of uncertainty and confusion of the Polish modes of addressing: Excerpt 4.2: So they’d rather not want to be addressed like that (16 September 2011) 444. G:  Jesteś w Polsce i np. idziesz do koleżanki i jest jej mama, to mówisz do niej ‘Marysiu albo @@@

[You are in Poland and you go to your friend and there is her mom there, so you say to her ‘Mary’ or @@@]

445. K:  Nie, nie @@@ raczej nie. Sądzę, ze to tak, raczej (3.0) znając polski, to raczej nie chcą, żeby tak mówić. Bardziej chyba ‘pani’, ‘pan’.

[No, no @ @ @ probably not. I believe/think that more of (3.0) having known Polish, so they’d rather not want to be addressed like that (by name). More (they want) I think/guess ‘madam’, ‘sir’/Mr or Ms.]

This excerpt shows Kasia’s understanding and assumptions about formality/modes of addressing in Polish. In Line 445, Kasia displays her epistemic stance concerning the usage of ‘pan/pani’ in Poland by using epistemic modality markers such as ‘sądzę’ [I think], ‘raczej’ [rather] and ‘chyba’ [I guess/think]. In this way, she expresses her inferences and makes presuppositions based on her knowledge of the Polish language – in Poland people do not want to be addressed by their name or ‘per ty’ [per first name or pronoun ‘ty’]. The reason for this is unclear to Kasia, but she knows that people do not want to be addressed in such a way. This, in turn, reflects Kasia’s agency in continuing with the practice even though she knows it is not something people expect. It is not clear why she does that. Kasia often highlighted differences between Poland and Ireland by making references to how ‘awkward’ or ‘terrible’ things were in Poland, during holidays. One time, however, she made very negative explicit comments about how she felt in Poland. When I was about to leave, I told her that I was going on a short holiday to Poland. I wrote the following in my research diary a few minutes after our conversation: Date: 3 September 2011 ‘How could you survive there for so long’ ‘I admire you for this’ ‘I hate Poland’

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‘you know, its because I have no friends there, well I have but I do not like talking to them, I could not make it for one week, I cried after a few days’

Kasia’s negative stances echoed her mother’s words, often pointing to being embarrassed when Kasia violated linguistic and social norms in Poland. As a result, I decided to initiate a conversation about these norms. The following excerpt is part of a longer conversation that took place between me and Kasia shortly after her holidays. From our previous conversations and numerous observations, including Kasia’s way of addressing me or her mother’s friends who were frequent visitors in Kasia’s house (from field notes), I stated: Excerpt 4.3: Do not say this – do not address (them) by name (3 September 2011) 448. G:

Czyli podejrzewam, że dla Ciebie, to nie jest dziwne, że zwracasz się na ‘ty’ do dorosłych osób (w Irlandii), no nie, że mówisz ‘you’, [So I suspect that it is not strange that you address adults (in Ireland) per ‘you’]

449. K:  No tak.

[Oh, yes (direct translation) or No, it is not]

450. G:  To nie jest dziwne. A dziwnie się czujesz, jak

[This is not weird. And do you feel strange as] (Kasia interrupts)

451. K:  Chociaż dziwnie się czuję, jak jestem w Polsce i się czasami zdarza, że jak mówię po polsku, tak mówię po prostu do nich, np. na ‘Ty’, no to mama zawsze zwraca mi uwagę, np. ‘nie mów tak’, ‘nie mów po imieniu’ albo ‘nie mów na ty’.

[Though I feel weird, when I’m in Poland and it happens sometimes that when I speak Polish, I just say to them, for example, ‘per you pronoun’, well then, my mom always draws my attention (in a negative sense - *tells me off) for example, ‘do not say this,’ ‘Do not address (them) by name’, or ‘do not address them per ‘ty’ (per ‘you’).]

In Line 446, the researcher presumes that Kasia does not feel ‘dziwnie’ [weird] when addressing unfamiliar people ‘na ty’ in Ireland based on her observations and Kasia’s mother’s accounts. In this way, she attempts to start a conversation with aligning with Kasia’s stance about addressing unfamiliar people ‘na ty’ in Ireland through the use of epistemic modality markers: ‘czyli podejżewam’ [so I suspect]. In Line  450, she tries to

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elicit more specific information regarding this issue. Interestingly, Kasia decides to interrupt and does not align with the researcher’s suggestion. She gives a retrospective account (small story) of the situations in which she was addressing people in Poland ‘na ty’ and the kind of effect it had on herself and her mother. Kasia felt ‘dziwnie’ [weird, odd] and her mother took on a negative affective stance in her verbal assessment of her daughter’s speech acts. According to Kasia, her mother expressed affectively charged negative stances through the syntactic expression of the modality/imperative mood of the verb ‘mówić’ [say/talk]: ‘nie mów tak’, ‘nie mów po imieniu’ or ‘nie mów na ty’ [‘do not say this’, ‘do not address (them) by name’ or ‘do not address them per “ty” (per you)’]. She was correcting Kasia. Kasia’s lack of use of these socially accepted norms in the Polish language evoked an obligation on her mother to act as a socializing agent. The invalidity of the mode ‘na ty’ in this context, however, remains unclear to Kasia. She uses a discourse marker ‘po prostu’ [just] to trivialize the situation and her mother’s expertise. In this way, she validates the legitimacy of her own choice (of the use of the informal mode of addressing). This short narrative segment illustrates that Kasia fails to recognize that the Polish language requires different modes of addressing than English. She is omitting personal pronouns in the nominative ‘Pan’ or ‘Pani’ and ‘Państwo’ in Polish (Feldstein, 2001; Slownik Jezyka Polskiego, 2019). Instead, she uses second-person pronouns and applies them to family members and close friends as well as strangers and much older people. Different forms of addressing in Polish, however, have a built-in sociological aspect indicating an addressee communicative relationship built upon the values of ‘power’ and ‘solidarity’ possessed by the interlocutors (Feldstein, 2001). When Kasia addresses somebody using the ‘na ty’ [per you] form instead of the ‘Pan/Pani’ form, she indexes (via first-order indexicality) that there is no need for deference toward the addressee. In other words, she does not perceive incongruity between her level of ‘power’ and/or ‘solidarity’ and that of her interlocutor and does not employ a more formal way of addressing that person to suit the contextual constraints of the particular speech event. In this way, she is violating the rules of Polish grammar and her language practice might be perceived as a sign of disrespect by some native users of Polish. ‘I talk with more grown-up voice’

Kasia’s parents often rely on her English language skills in many different situations. Sometimes, she has to deal with officials in the bank or social welfare office. Based on these observations, the interviewer initiated a topic by asking a series of questions regarding the situation itself and Kasia’s metalinguistic abilities:

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Excerpt 4.4: I talk with more grown-up voice (30 September 2011) 434. G:



A jak jesteś tutaj, no nie wiem?, + czy zdarzyło Ci się tutaj, że rodzice wysłali Cię gdzieś, coś załatwić, np. do banku albo w urzędzie coś? ++ Tak? [And when you’re here (in Ireland), I do not know? + Has it ever happened that your parents sent you somewhere to do something, such as a bank or office? ++ Yes?]

435. K: Uhum.

[Uhum] 436. G:  I co wtedy? Jak do ludzi się zwracasz?

[And then what? As to the people you turn?]

437. K:  Tak bardziej dorośle mówię.

[So I talk with a more grown-up voice/in a more grown-up way.]

438. G:  To znaczy?@@@

[What do you mean? @ @ @]

439. K:  Tak bardziej mi się zmienia głos, nie mówię, jak do koleżanki, tylko, ale nie mówię też ‘pan’ albo ‘pani’, tylko po prostu mówię tak bardziej dorośle.

[I change the voice more, I do not talk like to a friend, but, I do not say ‘Mr’ or ‘Mrs’ either, I just talk in a more grown-up way.]

440. G:  Czyli, ze używasz troszeczkę?

ich

słów,

takich

innych

[So, you use their words but a little bit different ?]

441. K:  Nie, czyli używam bardzo podobnych słów, bo oni tutaj nie używają trudnych słów. Mówię normalnie, ale takim bardziej dorosłym głosem. [No, so I use very similar words because here they do not use difficult words. I talk normally, but with the more grown-up tone/voice.]

As this excerpt shows, Kasia observes that in settings such as banks or social welfare offices, English is used more formally; however, she does not know how to describe or define the differences she notes (in style, register, etc.). This excerpt illustrates how Kasia constructs her stance with respect to English language use in more formal contexts. She is describing

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her own understanding of ‘formality’. The very first thing she reports is the change in the tone of her voice when talking to an official in Line 437: ‘Tak bardziej dorośle mówię’ [I just talk in a more grown-up way] or in Line  439: ‘Tak bardziej mi się zmienia głos’ [I change the voice more]. The interviewer expresses her surprise with laughter and asks for further clarification. Kasia provides very explicit clarification by saying that ‘nie mówię, jak do koleżanki, tylko, ale nie mówię też ‘pan’ albo ‘pani’, ‘tylko po prostu mówię tak bardziej dorośle’ [I do not talk like to a friend, but, I do not say ‘Mr’ or ‘Mrs’ either, I just talk in a more grown-up way]. In Line  440, the interviewer gives Kasia a prompt, ‘Czyli, ze używasz ich słów, takich innych troszeczkę?’ [So, you use their words but a little bit different (than your own)?] to indicate the use of a more formal register in these contexts, in particular, through the use of a formal lexicon. Kasia, however, gives a negative response. She makes a solid claim that she is using very similar words (both with friends and officials) because here (in Ireland) people do not use difficult words (to express formality). She adds that she speaks normally but with a more ‘dorosły’ [grown up] voice. In this way, she is demonstrating her epistemic stance through the evidential marking of her last statement. She is also using discursive intensifiers such as ‘bardziej’ or the discourse marker ‘po prostu’ for greater emphasis. In addition, Kasia makes a presupposition: contrary to ‘tutaj’ [here] (Ireland) there is another place (Poland) where difficult words are used in settings such as banks and public offices. Marcin: Greeting Others or Acknowledging Social Hierarchy?

Conversations between the I and Marcin mainly took place in his room at home. Relations between the I and Marcin were established over a period of two years as he took part in the pilot study during the previous year. Since that time, I had been a frequent guest at Marcin’s house. We often chatted or had short conversations with other family members. During those visits, I often exchanged humorous comments with Marcin. This greatly helped to build up relations of trust with little disparities of ‘power’ between myself and the participants. Marcin occasionally visited Poland. He was particularly close to his paternal grandmother. She played a significant role in the family’s life as she visited Ireland regularly and stayed for a while to help mind his younger sibling: Date: 12 November 2010 Marcin’s grandmother played a significant role in the family’s life. Her name is Tosia. She visited family for Halloween break and she is staying ‘for two more weeks’ as Marcin told me today. She was helping to mind his younger sibling as they ‘become impossible’ (Marcin’s own words).

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Marcin often pointed to what his grandmother said or criticized. One afternoon, the theme of addressing an unfamiliar person was initiated as I had observed that Marcin was a little unsure of how to address Polish people much older than him – such as when his grandmother visited. He always said hello to his mom’s female friends. They, however, addressed him using ‘czesc’ first and so he replied accordingly. When a person of his grandmother’s age visited, he avoided responses: Date: 11 February 2011 When I was leaving, Marcin’s house a few days ago, his mom’s friend came with her own child and brought her own mother to meet Marcin’s grandmother. Marcin’s parents were planning on holidays and wanted his grandmother to feel comfortable while they are away. Tosia (grandmother) did not speak any English and needed to know there was someone around in the case of emergency.

When they entered the house I was about to leave and noticed Marcin to quickly open the door and disappear, calling his mother, avoiding an open contact with them, no greeting. I did not pay attention to this situation first but situation repeated itself again. This was not like Marcin’s typical behaviour as he is normally very curious and talkative. I need to ask him about greeting others. The following conversation between me and Marcin took place shortly after this observation. I initiated the topic: Excerpt 4.4: I say ‘Hi’ to the young ones and to the very old ones ‘Good morning’ (14 February 2011) 168. G:  + Jak zwracasz się do kogoś obcego? No właśnie w jaki sposób się zwracasz do kogoś obcego kto jest dużo starszy od ciebie? Która ta osoba jest np. Polakiem to mówisz co? Jak się witasz?

[+ How do you address someone unfamiliar/a stranger? Exactly how are you addressing someone who is much older than you? This person is, for example, Polish, so what do you say? How do you greet them?]

169. M:  Cześć.

[Hi/Hello.]

170. G:  @ ale ich nie znasz ale np. jak nie znasz? no bo jak znasz dobrze znajomych rodziców to mówisz ‘cześć’ nawet jak są to znajomi rodziców i są dużo starsi od ciebie

[@ but you don’t know them but for example when you don’t know (them)? because when you know them

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well (your parents’ friends) you say ‘hi’ even though they are your parents’ friends and are much older than you] 171. M:  (kiwa głową) [nodding]

172. G:  Ale załóżmy że przyjeżdża do ciebie koleżanka babci z babcią to jak mówisz do koleżanki babci?

[But let’s say that your grandma’s friend comes in with your grandma, so what do you say?]

173. M:  =Dzień dobry

[Good morning]

174. G:  @ już nie mówisz ‘cześć’ do babci koleżanki

[@ so you don’t say ‘hi’ anymore to your grandma’s friend]

175. M: Nie [No.]

176. G:  A do koleżanki mamy która:a e przyjeżdża z mama z Polski której nie znasz? -taka sytuacja np. to co mówisz ‘cześć’ czy ‘dzień dobry’

[And to your mum’s friend the one who comes with your mum from Poland whom you don’t know? – such situation for example, so do you say ‘hi’ or ‘good morning’]

177. M:  ‘cześć’ (cichym niepewnym glosem)

[‘Hi’] (said quietly, uncertainly]

178. G:  ‘Cześć jednak a dlaczego ta rozbieżność taka?

[‘Hi’ though, why such discrepancy?]

179. M:  Do młodszych mówię ‘cześć’ a [do

[I say ‘hi’ to the young ones and [to]

180. G:  takich bardzo starych ‘dzień dobry’]

[to the very old ones ‘Good morning’]

181. M:  STARSZYCH [OLDER]

182. G:  @ staży @

@ Elderly @

183. M:  Mnie irytuje to że w Polsce że zawsze młodszy musi mówić pierwszy

[It annoys me that in Poland it is always the younger person who says/greets first]

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184. G:  Acha, tutaj tak nie jest?

[Acha, it’s not like that here]

185. M:  TUTAj tak nie jest tutaj to nie +

[HERE it’s not like that here it’s not +]

186. G:  A skąd wiesz że w Polsce młodszy zawsze musi mówić pierwszy

[And how do you know that in Poland it is always the younger one who must (greet) first]

187. M:  Babcia na mnie krzyczała że jej koleżanka musiała pierwsza powiedzieć mi a ja nie powiedziałem jej, ale ja nie wiedziałem, o co chodziło,

[Grandma told me off when her friend had to greet me first, and I said nothing, but I didn’t know what it was about]

188. G:  Mhhh, czyli młodszy ‘dzień dobry’

musi

pierwszy

powiedzieć



[Mhh, you mean younger one has to say ‘Good morning’ jjfirst]

189. M:

Tak

[Yes]

This excerpt illustrates how Marcin constructs his affective and epistemic stances with respect to Polish modes of greeting. In the first part of the conversation, he exposes his epistemic stances in his use of greetings such as ‘cześć’ [hi] and ‘dzień dobry’ [good morning]. Marcin unravels his own assumptions regarding the differences between the two based on his sociocultural knowledge of Polish norms. He reports that he is using ‘cześć’ [hi] when greeting a person equal in age to his parents and ‘dzień dobry’ [good morning] with a much older person (his grandparents’ age). He justifies his answer by explaining that he greets ‘młodszych’ [the younger] with ‘cześć’ [hi] and ‘starszych’ [elderly] with ‘Dzień Dobry’ [good morning]. In Line 183, he makes an explicit comment regarding recognition of the Polish social hierarchy. He points out: ‘mnie irytuje to że w Polsce to że zawsze młodszy musi mówić pierwszy’ [it irritates/annoys me that in Poland it is always a younger person who must speak (greet) first]. He takes a negative affective stance (of irritation) toward this norm through the use of discourse markers such as the intensifier ‘zawsze’ [always] and the verb ‘irytatować’ [irritate], the modal verb ‘musi’ [must] and prosodic features such as a raised tone of voice. He further justifies his stance by pointing out that failure to adjust to this norm resulted in a strong negative reaction – being told off (‘krzyczała’ [telling off]) by his grandmother. In his defense, he is taking on a ‘novice

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identity’: ‘ale ja nie wiedziałem o co chodziło’ [but, I did not know what it was about]. Thus, Marcin positions himself as a novice within this Polish social norm through an open rejection of adjustment to it. In this way, he also demonstrates his strong allegiances with Irish social and cultural norms. A few issues regarding politeness and formal versus informal ways of greeting in Polish and English, respectively, have been raised in the preceding excerpt. The most common form of greeting in Polish is to greet someone with a phrase like ‘Dzień dobry’ [good morning], ‘dobry wieczór’ [good evening] or less formally ‘cześć’ [hi], ‘hej’ [hey] or even ‘Szczęść Boże’ (religious connotation). Greetings such as ‘Dzień dobry’, ‘dobry wieczór’ and ‘Szczęść Boże’ are reserved for someone with whom the speaker is very familiar or whom the speaker knows by sight but is older than the greeting person. There are also situations in which it is common to greet a stranger using the aforementioned greetings. ‘Cześć’ [hi] in turn, is a type of greeting used with very familiar people such as family, friends and close colleagues; nowadays, it is mainly used among colleagues and friends of approximately equal age. There are also a few sociocultural conventions in relation to the order of greeting. In formal contexts and some informal situations, an old socially accepted convention is still in use, namely that the person standing lower in the social hierarchy greets first – for example, an employee to his superior, a student to a teacher, a younger person to an older person and a man to a woman. It should not, however, be based entirely on the social hierarchy calculation of ‘who is more important’. The polite person simply greets the other. There is no such convention when it comes to English. Marcin and Kasia resist this type of hierarchy. Kasia openly resists this form of greeting by saying that this is how ‘they want to be addressed’. Thus, she is demonstrating that she knows the greeting but does not follow it. Marcin takes a similar position and shows his allegiances with Irish social norms. Wiktoria: Being Polite or Lying?

Wiktoria recurrently showed a lack of allegiances toward her Irish schoolmates. The theme of ‘liars’ returned each time. Wiktoria talked about her classmates from Irish school; however, this was not the case when it came to her Polish schoolmates. When asked about her friendships/social circle in Ireland, she immediately made a distinction between ‘przyjaciółka Polka’ [Polish girlfriend/best friend] and ‘koleguję się z kilkoma Irlandkami’ [I’m a colleague of one Irish girl; a few Irish girls]. At some point, I wondered how she felt around her schoolmates from Polish weekend school. During my observations in the Polish school, I noticed that she was generally accepted by her schoolmates and that she participated in their social interactions.

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There were numerous instances of situations that made me believe that she got on well with the children from that school: Date: 1 June 2011 Wiktoria is a well-balanced and responsible girl compared with some of her schoolmates. She gets on well with her classmates. Today when she entered the classroom, girls made space for her immediately after noticing her.

Wiktoria continued to make random comments about her schoolmates from Irish school as being ‘childish’ or ‘children from my class’. In fact, Wiktoria was at least one year older than her classmates. Date: 15 June 2011 Wiktoria does not seem to be happy in Irish school. She keeps going back to the theme of friendships- an actual lack of friendships in Irish school. She keeps calling them ‘dzieciaki/children from my class’ whereas she does not consider herself a child anymore. She told me it is her last year in this school and that she is excited to move to junior high school next September.

The following excerpt is part of a longer conversation about friendships. This was the first time the Wiktoria’s father had decided to join our conversation. He did not take part in the interviews but decided to express his opinions spontaneously. Wiktoria and I were sitting in the living room and he was cooking dinner in the kitchen. As there was no wall between the kitchen and living room, he could hear our conversation. He appears as ‘T’ (Tomek) in the following excerpt. Excerpt 4.5: They lie a lot (28 May 2011) 218. W:  koleguję się z jedną Irlandką, z kilkoma Irlandkami w Irlandzkiej szkole. Mam jedną przyjaciółkę Polkę tutaj, mieszka obok mnie

[I am friends with /I am a colleague with one Irish (girl), with a few Irish (girls) from Irish school. I have one friend, a Pole here; she lives next door to me]

219. G: Mhh

[mhh] 220. W:  A reszta, +

[And the rest…+]

221. G:  A czujesz, że np. ta polka to jest twoja taka najlepsza przyjaciółka czy? Tak samo jak te koleżanki z Irlandii?

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[And do you feel that this Polish (girl) is your best friend or is she the same as your Irish friends]

222. W:  No, mhh zawsze mogę jej powiedzieć jakieś problemy czy coś + a Irlandkom to nie wiem czy mówić takie rzeczy czy coś, bo mogą to inaczej odebrać, ++ one kłamią dużo i w ogóle no! +

[Well, mhh I can always talk to her about problems or something + and with Irish I do not know whether to say these things, or something, because they can understand this differently/misunderstand, + +, bah, they lie a lot and all! +

223. G: Mhh

[Mhh} 224. W:  i tak [nie

[and so in

225. T:  nieszczerze? [Insincere?] 226. W:  tak, nieszczerze.

[yes, insincere.]

227. G:  dlaczego myślisz że są nieszczerzy? Czy zdarzały się takie sytuacje?

[Why do you think that they are so insincere/ dishonest? Were there any such situations ?]

228. W:  Zdarzają się takie sytuacje na przerwach np., że zrobią coś i nagle - kamienna twarz, powaga, i mówią, że: ‘ja tego nie zrobiłem’ +

[There are such situations during breaks, for example, that they do something (wrong) and then suddenly – stone face, seriousness, and they say: ‘I didn’t do it’ +]

229. G:  Acha, czyli xxx i moment i kamienna mina i jest acha@

[Mhh, so xxx and moment and (they give/have) stone face and mhh@]

230. W:  tak, ale dużo kłamią

[yes, but they lie a lot]

231. G: Acha, [Mhh]

232. T:  dorośli tak samo, Irlandczycy w sumie nieszczerzy są, wolą skłamać, nie czują ciężaru kłamstwa, które popełniają, bo dla nich to jest normalka,

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że ktoś tam kogoś podał do służb specjalnych. W Polsce jest to z kolei dość niskie zachowanie w hierarchii zachowań, bardzo takie, takie dość źle ocenianie [Adults as well, the Irish in total/in all are insincere/dishonest, they prefer to lie, do not feel the burden of the lie, for them, it’s normal that someone reported someone to special services. In Poland in turn, it is quite low behavior, in the hierarchy of behaviors, evaluated pretty badly]

233. G:  tak kablowanie [to jest takie

[yes, yes, denunciation]

234. T:  Natomiast, tutaj tak się nie piętnuje kłamstwa+ tutaj taką furtką wyjścia z trudnej sytuacji jest kłamstwo gdzie np. wiele rzeczy, wiele wskazuje na to, że było zupełnie inaczej

[However, here lies are not stigmatized so much + here a lie is a sort of a gate out of a difficult situation where a lot of things, a lot suggests that it was completely the opposite/different]

235. G: Acha

[mmh] 236. T:  A osoba, do której ma się zaufanie potrafi powiedzieć, że nie, to są Irlandczycy, zresztą Brytyjczycy mają podobnie,

[and the person that you trust can say that no, this is the Irish, anyway British are the same/ do likewise]

237. G: mhh

[mhh] 238. T:  Polacy są bardziej szczerzy

[Poles are more honest]

239. G:  mhh Polacy są bardziej szczerzy w tych relacjach między ludzkich?

[Poles are more relations?]

honest

in

the

interpersonal

240. T:  Polacy dbają żeby jednak nie kłamać

[Poles care more so they do not lie]

Wiktoria recurrently shows her lack of allegiances toward her Irish schoolmates/friends. When asked about her friends/social circle in Ireland, she makes an immediate discursive distinction between

Agency and Socio-Historical Mediation  133

‘przyjaciółka Polka’ [Polish girlfriend/best friend] and ‘koleguję się z kilkoma Irlandkami’ [I’m a colleague of one Irish girl; a few Irish girls]. The researcher tries to elicit more information about the Polish friend and asks if she is Wiktoria’s best friend: ‘ta polka to jest twoja taka najlepsza przyjaciółka czy?’ [is this Polish girl your best friend?]. This provokes a more explicit and detailed description of the relationship between her and her Polish friend as well as between her Irish friends/ schoolmates and herself. She takes on a critical stance toward her Irish friends by contrasting them with her Polish friend as she says: ‘zawsze mogę jej powiedzieć jakieś problemy czy coś + a Irlandkom to nie wiem czy mówić takie rzeczy czy coś bo mogą to inaczej odebrać’ [Well, mhh I can always talk to her of any problem or something + and with Irish I do not know whether to say these things because they can understand this differently/misunderstand]. In this utterance, she constructs a critical stance (distrust) toward her Irish schoolmates which is implicitly underlying her fear of being misunderstood or not sharing the same discourses (the same cultural understanding of the world). In other words, when expressing her doubts whether she should be sharing some more personal problems with her Irish friends or not – ‘nie wiem czy mówić’ [I do not know if I should say it (or not)] – she is afraid of some sort of communication breakdown or lack of compassion or understanding. As a consequence, she decides to justify her opinion or argumentation with: ‘one dużo kłamią i w ogóle no!’ [Bah, they lie a lot and all!]. This effectively indexed utterance (emphatic stress on ‘they lie a lot and all’, discourse intensifier ‘a lot’, interjection ‘no’[1] [bah]) not only mirrors her lack of allegiances with her Irish peers but also suggests a negative moral assessment of their perspective or standpoint on ‘lying’ and ‘right and wrong’. Next, the researcher aligns with Wiktoria’s evaluative statement [they lie a lot] and Wiktoria pauses for a moment. Wiktoria’s father joins the conversation and uses the word ‘nieszczere’ [dishonest/insincere] to replace ‘lie a lot’. Wiktoria immediately picks up on the word and repeats it. The interlocutor expresses her genuine interest and asks the reasons for such a proposition. Wiktoria replies to her prompt and provides a retrospective account (personal narrative) of some previous situations that took place in her school. She recalls situations when something ‘bad’ had happened in school and all the children knew who was responsibility but decided to keep quiet and lie instead: ‘Zdarzają się takie sytuacje na przerwach np. że zrobią coś i nagle kamienna twarz powaga, i mówią że ja tego nie zrobiłem’ [There are such situations during breaks for example that they do something (wrong) and then suddenly stone face, and they say: ‘I didn’t do it’]. The researcher aligns with Wiktoria’s evaluative statements first by a sympathizing interjection, and then with short laughter. This reaction (laughter) evokes a decisive reply (speech act) from Wiktoria as she decides to defend her viewpoint with a firm voice and emphatic stress: ‘tak, ale dużo kłamią’ [yes, but they lie a lot].

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Wiktoria’s father decides to join the conversation again (Line  235). He strongly aligns with his daughter’s view by explicitly acknowledging it throughout his narrative: ‘dorośli tak samo’ [adults do the same] or ‘Irlandczycy w sumie nieszczerzy są’ [Irish are insincere in all] and ‘wolą skłamać’ [they prefer to lie]. He takes on a critical moral stance as he continues that ‘they’ ‘nie czują ciężaru kłamstwa’ [do not feel the burden of a lie] – for them, it is normal that a person reports to the civil authorities about some offense of another person. He concludes by providing a short reference to Polish moral standards; namely, he states that this type of behavior is perceived as fairly low in the hierarchy of social behaviors in Poland. Implicitly, Wiktoria’s father perceives such actions as violating Polish moral standards. Of note, all kinds of denunciations have been made against the moral standards and values of most Poles as they are associated with the communist era. The researcher immediately aligns with Wiktoria’s father and provides an informal (idiomatic) expression for denunciation ‘mmh kablowanie’. As a result, Wiktoria’s father resumes his evaluative narration and further explains: ‘tutaj tak się nie piętnuje kłamstwa + tutaj taką furtką wyjścia z trudnej sytuacji jest kłamstwo’ [here (in Ireland) lies are not stigmatized that much, here lies are a sort of a gate out of a difficult situation]. In the next line, he compares Irish moral standards with those of the British by saying ‘zresztą Brytyjczycy mają podobnie’ [anyway the British do likewise] and then contrasts them with Polish moral standards: ‘polacy są bardziej szczerzy’ [Polish are more sincere]. Not only is he generalizing about both Poles and Irish, but he is also placing Polish moral standards as superior to those of the host country: ‘Polacy dbają żeby jednak nie kłamać’ [Poles care so not to lie] as it is against their culture, their moral standards. He also presupposes that ‘insincerity’ or ‘lying’ is in accordance with the moral standards of the host country and is widely accepted by society. In contrast, for him, both behaviors are perceived as very negative. Thus, through his overgeneralizations, he constructs a critical moral stance toward these behaviors and Western culture in general. This narrative also reveals his strong allegiances with Poles (Poles are seen in a positive light/romanticized view) and his positive affective stances toward Polish moral standards/values and cultural heritage constructed throughout this discursive account. It is widely acknowledged that what we accept as the only logical and natural norms of behavior are often conventional for our own culture. Whenever we talk, ‘we bring into communication our culturally conditioned set of beliefs and speech habits’, both verbal and non-verbal (Stroińska, 1997: 22). According to Stroińska (1997), speech habits and norms are culturally specific and are shaped by the place and time in which a given group of people grow up. Perceiving such norms as the only correct possibilities in cross-cultural contexts may lead to language-based stereotyping or misunderstandings. That is why

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representatives of two different cultures, speaking different languages are likely to experience communication difficulties. For example, in some situations, the Polish language requires greater formality (more polite forms of expression) than English. As in the case of Kasia and Marcin, when a younger person speaks with an elder, or when addressing someone a speaker does not know well, failure to use polite forms, such as Pan (Sir)/Pani (Madam), is seen as showing complete disrespect. In consequence, when speaking English, Polish people may feel that English is less formal, as in the case of Kasia. She feels that to speak English in formal contexts is not as complicated as it is in Polish as it is enough to speak with a grown-up voice. They may also perceive the English language as creating less social distance between its speakers. This is because English speakers (in Ireland) do not use polite forms such as Mr, Mrs or Miss in situations where Polish speakers do. Kasia and Marcin socialize politeness rules through the medium of English but apply them to the equivalent contexts in the Polish language, which brings surprising results. Moreover, Stroińska (1997) points out that whereas the English language requires its speakers to use polite forms and not the direct questioning of or directly expressing opinions about others, the Polish language and culture allow its speakers to do so. Poles, along with most Eastern Europeans, as well as Germans ‘tend to be direct when they express opinions or when they disagree, since an argument is not only considered a good way of exchanging ideas, but also an enjoyable form of conversation’ (Ronowicz, 1995: 80). Being direct, for example, may result in intercultural misunderstandings or even negative stereotyping of a whole nation, as it is likely that members of the same language and cultural community would have a tendency to exhibit unified linguistic behavior and in this way may often violate the cultural traditions of their conversational partners from a different culture. Consider an example: The Polish worker: ‘I do not trust Irish. They are nice and friendly, or they seem to be, but they think something else, and behave very differently in situations…’ (Kropiwiec & Chiyoko King-O’Rian, 2006: 38). This example mirrors Wiktoria’s and her father’s stance or opinion as they perceive their Irish peers or co-workers in a very similar way – as ‘insincere’. One explanation can be related to the fact that linguistic utterances seen as a form of expressing politeness and good manners in English can be associated with ‘insincerity’ in another language. Smiling at a person and saying ‘we are well’ but having a lot on their mind, maybe some health problems, would be seen as ‘insincere’ in Poland. Communication fails in these situations probably due to a lack of understanding of the differences between the Polish and English language politeness modes – or the tradition among native English speakers to use polite language and not to be direct. As a result, Irish people may be perceived as insincere, and Polish people may be regarded as rude.

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In Between Two Cultures

Immigrant children in Ireland, such as Poles, often grow up in a socioculturally complex environment. A few studies forefront the centrality of sociocultural dynamics between the ethnic, religious and sociolinguistic differences in a multicultural society. In diverse societies (and Ireland has recently become one), competing socio-historical systems within, for instance, immigrant communities, highlight the relationships between religion, tradition and citizenship (being Polish). The perception of what is a norm, however, can change in the rich multilingual context. The way traditions are perceived and sociocultural understandings are transmitted from one generation to the next is no longer straightforward. It undergoes certain transformations and reinventions. The construction of the sociocultural understandings of norms and practices was a mundane task for every participant. The socialization of certain sociocultural understandings was often manifested in children’s daily choices of or positioning toward these norms. The excerpts in this chapter highlight the most relevant aspects of these negotiations. There are some examples of studies that illustrate the complexities of such contexts. In her analysis of socio-historical and moral education among Khmer parents and children in Philadelphia, Smith-Hefner (1999) provided an example of how ‘morality’ can change in an urban context. She illustrated that the Khmer’s morality was often rooted in ethnic and religious practice and knowledge. In the context of migration, ‘tradition’, however, can be reinvented, transformed or rejected. Below, I take a socio-historical context into account when discussing the socialization of morality, drawing on my own research with Polish families, particularly, Wiktoria and her family. Marcin

In this excerpt, Marcin talks about situations when he visits Poland. The family visited Poland occasionally, especially during holidays. These visits were not very frequent as Marcin’s family was often visited by his paternal grandmother. Marcin, however, points out some striking differences: Excerpt 4.6: People frown upon me (3 September 2010) 16. M:  Krzywo mi się @ Ludzie na mnie się patrzą wiesz +[ten no::, inaczej. + No::, ale tak inaczej nie. + Bo: tak już często nie jeżdżę, ale tam żadnych kolegów nie mam w Polsce ani nic. Miałem jednego kolegę, ale on, jego już tam nie ma.

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[People frown@ People frown upon me, you know + [there well::, different. + Well, but it’s different, it is. + Because: I don’t go so frequently, I have no friends there or anything/ no friends I don’t have. I had one friend, but he, he’s not there anymore.

A negative affective stance toward Poland is constructed throughout this excerpt. When reflecting on the differences between Poland and Ireland, Marcin makes a point about people in Poland being unfriendly, even hostile. He uses ‘krzywo się patrzeć’ [frown upon somebody], a colloquial Polish expression literally meaning ‘to look at someone in an unwilling, unfriendly or unhappy manner’, used when describing someone rather hostile, along with a double negation ‘żadnych kolegów nie mam’ [have no friends there/ literal translation including double negation: no friends I don’t have] to negate some actions such as having friends or visiting friends in Poland. During my observations, I noticed that Marcin’s family celebrated most Irish holidays including St Patrick’s Day and Halloween. As I observed elsewhere, not all the Polish families participated in these festivals. For example, Marcin’s family decorated their house for Halloween and were organizing a costume party for their friends. This was their third Halloween party as Anna (Marcin’s mum) told me they do it every year. Date: 18 October 2011 I have been nicely surprised today as I have been invited to Halloween party in Marcin’s house. Anna rang me to invite me. I agreed and offered to help with decorations. Halloween decorations (22 October 2011) We have decorated Marcin’s house today. Younger children helped too. We have made spiderweb together.

I feel that I have managed to build a very good bond with the family. In the conversation today I have asked Marcin about Polish holidays as I often wondered whether the family celebrated any Polish holidays. This conversation took place a week after the Halloween party. This could be the reason why Marcin referenced Halloween and Polish ‘equivalent’ of the holiday. Excerpt 4.7: First of all, so how many of-of our relatives are dead (21 October 2011) 169. G:  Ehym. A polskie święta?

[Ehym. And Polish Holidays?]

170. M:  [Znaczy:: + Jakie?! (zaskoczony)

[You mean::+ What?! (surprised tone)]

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171. G:  [Kiedy? + No właśnie jakie? + No właśnie Marcin, jakie?@ (powiedziane z sarkazmem)

[When? + Exactly what (holidays)? + Exactly Marcin what (holidays)?@ (said sarcastically)]

172. M:  Jak można powiedzieć, że święta no to tak. + Nie: ma żadnych polskich świąt, + czy są jakieś? Jak jest Halloween to jest coś innego w Polsce. []+ Co to?@ + Wiem, że się jedzie na cmentarze i ten się odwiedza + [tych.

[Talking about holidays, so holidays well are such as. + No: there are no Polish holidays, + or maybe there are some? When there is Halloween here there is something else in Poland. + What’s that (called)?@ I know that you go to cemetery and you visit + [these]

173. G:  [No właśnie.] + [Ehym. Zmarłych groby[4], tak. + [To prawda.

[[Exactly.] + [Ehym. Graves of the dead ones, yes. + [That’s true/right]

174. M:  [Zmarłych groby.

[Graves of the dead ones.]

175. G:  Pierwszego listopada, ehym. W Polsce tak się-tak się obchodzi. Tylko, że tutaj nie bardzo jest jak pojechać na cmentarz. + [@ I odwiedzać groby + swoich krewnych.

[First of November, ehym. It’s celebrated thatway that way in Poland. But, in here you can’t really go to the cemetery. + [@And visit graves + of your relatives.]

176. M:  [@ + Po pierwsze, że ile-ile naszych krewnych nie żyje + Była jedna + byłem na moim pierwszym tym + w tym roku byłem na moim pierwszej pogrzebie. + [W całym moim życiu. No::.

[@+ First of all, so how many of-of our relatives are dead + There was one + I was on my first, this+ I was on my first funeral this year.+ [In my whole life. Well::.]

177. G:  [Ta::k?] + W Polsce?

[[Ye::a?] + In Poland?]

178. M:  Ehym. + W [Polsce.

[Ehym.+ In [Poland.]

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179. G:  [I jak? [And?]

180. M:  No: dobrze. Nie wiedziałem jak się ubrać nawet + na pogrzeby. + A tuta j wiesz + wszyscy.

Yeah: well. I didn’t even know how to dress + for funerals. And here + everyone you know.]

181. G:  A tutaj jest jakoś inaczej na pogrzebie?

[And is it somehow different here at funerals?]

182. M:  Nie:. Jest tak samo tylko, że tutaj

[No:. It’s the same, but here]

183. G:  Ty byłeś tu na pogrzebie?[] Jakimś ze szkoły albo coś?

[Have you ever been on funeral here? Maybe from school or something?]

184. M:  [Nie.] + Nie. + Nie:: jest tak samo jak + No:: tak samo jest na pogrzebach. Widziałem parę pogrzebów przy szkole jak szły do tego i ten. + No i większość jest takich samych.

[No.] + No. +No:: it’s the same it’s the same at funerals. I saw besides the school when they were and. + Yeah and most of them are

like + yeah:: a few funerals going to this, the same.]

In this excerpt, the researcher and Marcin talk about Polish holidays. In the first line, the interviewer asks an open question about Polish holidays. Marcin replies with surprise and even wonderment: ‘Znaczy:: + Jakie?!’ [You mean:: + What?!] (surprised, with an animated tone of voice/prosodic features of an utterance such as a high pitch and rising intonation on [you mean]). The researcher replies in a sarcastic tone – the discursive marker ‘właśnie’ [exactly –repeated twice] and laughter. Laughter at the end of this utterance indicates surprise that Marcin seems not to know any holidays. It elicits a detailed reply as Marcin tries to think of Polish holidays as the interlocutor’s reaction draws his attention to the fact that there are Polish holidays that he should know about. He thinks aloud as he asks himself a question: ‘Nie: ma żadnych polskich świąt, czy są jakieś?’ [No: there are no Polish holidays, + or maybe there are some?]. Then, he mentions that there is something else in Poland other than Halloween and it takes place at the same time. Next, he asks himself a question again ‘co to?’ [What’s that?] and laughs as he does not remember the name of the holiday. In this way, he expresses confusion with respect to Polish holidays. Instead of naming a holiday, he decides to describe it, but he misses the necessary Polish vocabulary. ‘Wiem, że się jedzie na cmentarze i ten się odwiedza + [tych.’ [I know that you go to the cemetery and you visit + [these]]. Marcin,

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however, highlights what he thinks is correct in his knowledge of a holiday – the epistemic modality is expressed here by the word ‘wiem’ [I know]. Next, he loses his confidence at the end of this narrative segment and pauses – waiting for the interviewer’s reaction. This elicits the interlocutor’s alignment, ‘no właśnie’[5] [exactly] and a prompt ‘zmarłych groby’ [graves of the dead ones]. Marcin immediately picks up this short prompt as he repeats it after the researcher (a high level of alignment between both of them is achieved). The researcher offers a further explanation of this tradition, but she makes the point that it is [really] not possible to celebrate this holiday in Ireland as there are no relatives buried in Ireland. As a result, Marcin makes a point in which he undermines the significance of celebrating this holiday: ‘Po pierwsze, że ile-ile naszych krewnych nie żyje’ [First of all, how many of our relatives are dead?]. Next, he decides to initiate a new narrative and talks about his first funeral in Poland. In this way, Marcin presupposes that relatives are the people he knows. He does not think of relatives in terms of ancestors. He fails to recognize that in Poland many families visit the graves of their ancestors and extended family members they have never met. It is also common to visit the graves of soldiers or politicians buried in the local cemeteries. In the small-story segment about funerals, Marcin explicitly expresses his puzzlement with regard to ‘appropriate’ clothing (dress code) for funerals: ‘Nie wiedziałem jak się ubrać nawet[6] + na pogrzeby’ [I didn’t even know how to dress + for funerals. And here + everyone you know]. He takes on the stance of a novice – someone who has limited knowledge of this practice. He finds this Polish social practice a ‘distant one’ – something that brings uncertainty and confusion regarding a socially recognized norm. He does not identify himself with this practice. Lack of social knowledge/social representation/knowledgeability is explicitly displayed here through the negative form of the verb ‘wiedzieć’ [know] and is emphasized through the use of the discursive marker ‘nawet’ [even] and through taking on the stance of a ‘novice’. Finally, Marcin compares the Polish ways of celebrating funeral ceremonies with the Irish ways. The interviewer picks up on this act and asks questions related to the difference between the Polish and Irish ways of celebrating. Marcin admits that, in general terms, funeral ceremonies look the same in both countries; however, he is aware of some subtle differences. Resisting Culture

Janek never talked about Irish holidays or school events connected with celebrating Catholic holidays without prompts from the researcher or his mother. His school, however, celebrated various Catholic holidays during the school year. The following conversation occurred shortly after St Patrick’s Day, which took place on Thursday the 17th of March. As it is a day off school, many families go to see the St Patrick’s Day parade. I

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assumed that Janek and his family had attended the parade as his mother said they were planning to go (Research diary, 11 March 2011). I asked Janek about Irish holidays (hoping to initiate a conversation about the St Patrick’s Day parade) and was surprised by Janek’s revelation: Excerpt 4.8: I stayed at home on Thursday (19 March 2011) 149. G:

Emm…Czy świętujesz święta irlandzkie?

[Ehym. Em:: Do you celebrate Irish Holidays?

150. J: N:ie.

[N:o.] 151. G:  Nie? Żadnych?

[No? None?]

152. J:  Nie. + W czwartek siedziałem w domu.

[No. + I stayed at home on Thursday.]

153. G:  A::+Rozumiem w czwartek siedziałeś w domu. A rozumiem, żadnych nie świętujesz.

[Oh:: + I see/understand, you stayed at home on Thursday. Oh I understand, you don’t celebrate any.]

154. J:  Nie. + Irlandzkich nie.

[No. + Irish not.]

Janek does not display any allegiances toward Irish culture and explicitly makes a claim here that he does not celebrate any Irish holidays. He knows about the holiday (St Patrick’s Day), but explicitly expresses his rejection (the polarity marker ‘nie’ [no] is used four times in this excerpt) of participating in this cultural practice. Refusing to celebrate St Patrick’s Day is a social act – it demonstrates a lack of identification with Irish culture and that Janek is showing no allegiance to his Irish peers as they celebrate. The following excerpt further illustrates Janek’s agency with relation to Irish culture and participation in cultural practices. In the following excerpt, I decided to ask Janek if he knew why the St Patrick’s Day holiday was celebrated. I was not sure why he had decided not to join the celebration: Excerpt 4.9: I’m not interested in it (16 April 2011) 929. G:  + Na przykład no nie wiem, dlaczego się obchodzi świętego Patryka?

[+So for example, I do not know, why is St. Patrick’s Day celebrated?]

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930. J:  Nie. Takie rzeczy to były w pierwszej klasie podstawówki. Ominąłem je

[No. These things were (taught) in first class of primary school. I skipped it.]

931. G:  Aha. I teraz już tak naprawdę dowiedzieć sam. + Takich rzeczy.

musiałeś

się

[Oh. And now you just really had to find out yourself. + These things.]

932. J:  Jeszcze się nie dowiedziałem nawet.

[I have not even found out yet.]

933. G:  Nie dowiedziałeś [się?

[You have not found out [yet?]]

934. J:  Nie:: interesuje mnie to

[no::/I’m not:: interested in it.]

935. G:  Że święty Patryk wypędził węże?

[That St. Patrick banished the snakes?]

936. J:  Ojejku wę:że:.

[Oh pff sna:kes:. (Ojejku – to indicate lack of importance of something)]

937. G:  Żartuje (xxx).

[I’m joking]

938. J:  Co takiego strasznego w tych wężach? + [Każdy może wypędzić węża.

[What’s so terrible/horrifying about snakes?] + [Anyone can banish the snake]

these

939. G:  [Wydaje mi się-wydaje mi się-wydaje mi się, że węże są tutaj sybmolem + y:: słuchaj poganizmu. Po-pogaństwa, które było w Irlandii, dlatego jest +. Znaczy oni niby wierzą to, że dosłownie no nie? To jest senteeex. Że (xxx). Ale głównie chodzi o to, że sprowadził po prostu chrześcijaństwo do Irlandii.

[It seems to me-it seems-it seems to me that snakes are a symbol here + y :: of paganism. Pa-paganism, which was in Ireland, so it is +. I mean, they are supposed to believe in that literally don’t they? This is a senteex. That (xxx). But the main point is that he just brought Christianity to Ireland.]

940. J:  Wiem. Chodziło chyba o to, że wypędził szatana. + Tak jak w tym [raju.

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[I know that. The idea probably is that he banished Satan. + As in this [paradise.]

This excerpt is another example of Janek’s construction of negative affective stances toward (aspects of) Irish culture. In this conversation, Janek and the researcher discuss the origins of the St Patrick’s Day holiday. Reference is made to the legend about St Patrick banishing snakes from Ireland. First, Janek makes a comment in which he implicitly states that he has very little or no knowledge about the origins of the holiday, as he says: ‘Nie. Takie rzeczy to były pierwszej klasie podstawówki. Ominąłem je.’ [No. These things were (taught) in the first class of primary school. I skipped it]. When the interviewer makes a suggestion that Janek had to find about ‘these things’ (pointing to other aspects of Irish culture that Janek might have ‘skipped’ due to his arrival in his teen years) by himself, he explicitly rejects this. He uses the discourse marker ‘nawet’ [even/unconcerned] – modifying the whole utterance – adding an aspect of ‘unconcern’, implicitly pointing out that he could have possibly found out, but he has not done so thus far, judging by the length of time he has spent in Ireland. When responding to the interviewer’s question (expressed with surprise), he not only sustains his point but makes it even more evident by saying ‘Nie:: interesujemnie to’ [I’m not interested in it] (Line  934). In this way, he displays a high level of investment in his claim. In Line 935, the researcher makes a reference to the legend about St Patrick and the snakes. In response, Janek uses the exclamation ‘ojejku’ [oh pff] and affectively indexes a word: ‘wę::że’ [snakes] to mark his utterance. In the next line, he highlights his stance when he asks a sarcastic question ‘co takiego strasznego w tych wężach?’ [what’s so horrifying about these snakes?] (prosodic features: speaking more slowly and with a lower pitch – indicating a counter-factual statement; see Boxer, 2002). Additionally, the comment: ‘Każdy może wypędzić węża’ [everyone can banish a snake] undermines the importance of St Patrick’s act of casting the snakes out of Ireland. Janek’s response invokes the interviewer’s identity as an ‘expert’; however, she displays a low level of confidence in what she proposes – ‘wydaje mi się’ [it seems] repeated three times. She makes a suggestion that the ‘snakes’ in the legend about St Patrick could have been referring to the serpent symbolism of the Druids. However, in the legend of St Patrick taught in schools, the story relates to the significance of Patrick’s sainthood and his mission in Ireland. Not much is said about snakes being associated with Druids or paganism. The interviewer aligns herself with Janek by making an inference about the legend being treated literally by ‘nich’ [them/the school children], but she summarizes that most of the story is about St Patrick bringing Christianity to Ireland and replacing old cults. Janek aligns with that perspective (proposition) by comparing the act of St Patrick with the biblical legend about Satan

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being banished from the Garden of Eden. In this way, he reveals his own understanding of the holiday and the reasons for celebrating. This excerpt is an example of Janek’s agency – his social act (of staying at home) and negative affective stance toward St Patrick’s Day. He does not identify himself with this tradition. He takes on a negative affective stance, criticizing the importance of the holiday even though he is well aware of the origins of the holiday and the reasons for celebrating it. Janek constructed further negative affective stances toward Irish traditions. Excerpt 4.10 is another example illustrating his agency. Excerpt 4.10 They have only one ‘dance’ (7 May 2011) 178. J:  Bo:: + nie:: + Na przykład irlandzki taniec, to w ogóle nie wiem, co to jest. [] W ogóle nie wiem jak to się tańczy. + Z resztą nikt tutaj nie wie + oprócz Irlandczyków, a tak to ci, którzy przyszli to + nie obchodzi ich w ogóle. [] + A jak proszą, żeby zatańczyć coś polskiego to wtedy człowiek mówi, że jest dwadzieścia różnych tańców, a oni mają tylko jeden. I nie mogą tego (x).

[Because:: + no:: + For example, Irish dancing, I do not know what that is at all I have no idea what that is. + [] I do not know how to dance it at all/I have no idea how to dance it. + Anyway, no one here knows + apart from the Irish, and so those who came to/arrived + do not care about it at all. [] + and when I was asked to dance something Polish, one says that there are twenty different dances and that they have only one. And they cannot]

This excerpt illustrates Janek’s stance-taking in relation to Irish traditions. In this short narrative account, Janek takes negative stances against Irish dancing. He constructs his affective negative attitude through taking on negative epistemic stances as well as negative affective stances. The negative polarity marker ‘w ogóle’ [at all] functions in this narrative segment as an affective modifier and is used three times. Additionally, affectively indexed discourse intensifiers such as ‘nikt’ [no one] and ‘tylko’ [only] are used. ‘W ogóle’ [at all] is used, for instance, together with the verb ‘wiedziec’ [to know] in the negative form, and with the verb ‘obchodzic’ [to care] to mark both affect and epistemic modality – a high level of confidence and investment/belief in what he says. First, Janek argues that he has very little or no knowledge of Irish dancing. Then, he makes an implicit reference to the ignorant attitude of

Agency and Socio-Historical Mediation  145

other ethnic minorities living in Ireland toward Irish dancing: ‘Z resztą nikt tutaj nie wie + oprócz Irlandczyków, a tak to ci którzy przyszli to + nie obchodzi ich w ogóle’ [Anyway, no one here knows + apart from the Irish, and so those who came to/arrived + do not care about it at all]. Next, he contrasts Irish and Polish culture by providing details of a number of dances specific to each culture. He admits and highlights the richness of Polish culture (referring to a large number of Polish dances – ‘twenty’) and at the same time, he is radically undermining the Irish culture (they have only one dance – a very small number of dances). In this narrative, the numbers ‘twenty’ and ‘one’ serve as discourse quantifiers to emphasize the contrast between the two cultures. Janek also makes a presupposition regarding Irish and Polish dancing traditions; however, he does not explicitly point to the source of his knowledge. He points to a great number of Polish folk dances[3] (they vary according to the region of Poland). He also makes a reference to one type of Irish dancing, which is ‘step dancing’. It is not evident whether he does not know about other kinds of Irish dancing or he is not acknowledging them. Janek constructs an epistemic stance (high level of certainty) as he is very invested in what he is saying. His high degree of confidence is marked in two ways here. He uses generalization: ‘człowiek mówi’ [one says/all men] (not only himself but in general ‘one’ [man]) and evidentiality marking by saying ‘a oni mają’ [they have]. Balancing language learning and maintenance goals through the development of cultural and socio-historical competences in the two languages, Polish and English, has been found to be highly beneficial to each participant. The foregoing examples illustrate ways in which Marcin and Janek construct their own understandings of culturally specific norms and traditions. They also illustrate the children’s own agency. For example, in the case of Marcin (about funerals), he resists his heritage culture and misinterprets/classifies some social behaviors like ‘krzywo mi sie przygladaja’ as hostile whereas it has other cultural meanings familiar to Polish people living in Poland. It may also happen that new cultural and socio-historical norms are being rejected, as in the case of Janek. His socialization took the form of ‘resistance’ or, in other words, ‘agency’ (Ahearn, 2001). His agency was overtly manifested through a lack of participation in celebrating Irish holidays and by demonstrating a lack of interest in Irish socio-historical norms and traditions. Whereas the study ‘Poles Apart’, conducted with Polish immigrants in Ireland in 2007–2008, revealed two significant groups (Integrated and Separated) among Polish immigrants, this study (albeit on a much smaller scale and not generalizable) draws attention to the assimilated group. It is important to point out that the study ‘Poles Apart’ included the first generation of immigrants not including any children. The study explicitly divided Polish immigrants into two groups based on their attitudes toward integration into Irish culture: one group was ‘open for integration

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and for exchanging cultural issues’, whereas the other group was ‘very closed for integration and exchanging cultural issues’. In response to this situation, the Polish Embassy and the Church attempted to establish an ‘ideal type’ of immigrant attitude: ‘so that Polish people still don’t forget where they come from, but on the other hand so they could integrate with the Irish culture, they could find you know a perfect balance between the two you know’ (Ahearn, 2001: 109). This study, however, indicated that other attitudes are present among Poles living in Ireland, drawing our attention to school children and their acculturation strategies. As shown in Chapter 3, power relations in society are not neutral and children are sensitive agents of socialization. Outwardly, immigrants are free to decide on their acculturation strategy. However, only on the surface because, as Berry and Annis (1974) point out, the majority of society may enforce certain restrictions that constrain the choices immigrants make. As mentioned in Chapter 3, power and authority in society are almost never exercised overtly, rather their influence emerges tacitly. For example, integration can be the strategy chosen by immigrants, but it can then only take place when the host society is prepared for diversity both on a micro level, e.g. language use, food preference, parent–child relations and social identity, and a macro level such as the adaptation of national institutions and systems, e.g. education, health, justice and labor (Berry, 1990). For Polish adolescents from immigrant families, acculturation strategies are largely shaped by their families and the communities they belong to, including the schools they attend. Their acculturation attitudes are absorbed from their parents, their peers and the educators with whom they interact (Berry et  al., 2006: 303–322). As it is later shown in the sections in this chapter (about Wiktoria) devoted to community/parents and educators, educational policies and wider sociopolitical ideologies play a significant role in shaping these micro attitudes. Thus, different attitudes/preferences, such as a preferred social circle, eagerness to learn new languages, maintenance of heritage language and culture and the degree of adherence to their family’s cultural values may be the result of ‘contextual factors’ – personal characteristics or the community the adolescents live in, and their experiences with discrimination (Berry et  al., 2006: 303–322). In the Polish-Irish context, acculturation can be seen as a very dynamic process that is powerfully bonded with language, culture and identity options that are set within complicated societal power relations. As Baker and Wright (2017: 4) state, bilinguals gradually become bicultural or multicultural as L2 learners ‘have both physically and symbolically crossed the border’ (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2001: 74). Sometimes, however, it may happen that newcomers may experience anxiety, confusion and chaos on their way to becoming bilingual and bicultural, as both Wiktoria’s and Janek’s cases may indicate. They often noticed many differences between their native and host cultures, but still wanted to

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adapt to the host society’s norms and typical patterns of behavior. That, consequently, might be accompanied by ‘acculturative stress’ which can be defined as ‘the stress [with] the accompanying psychological difficulties [that] is often observed in immigrants struggling to adapt to a new culture’ (Reber & Reber, 2001: 5). Hovey (2000) lists discrimination, lack of social resources and feelings of not belonging as three potential stressors in the acculturation process. Additionally, according to Berry and Kim (1988), marginalization is one of the most stressful experiences for immigrants. Consider an example of a Polish person experiencing acculturative stress in the form of isolation and marginalization: ‘It is so hard. I don’t know why exactly. But maybe, maybe it is the differences between our mentality, our culture, our manners (…) Maybe because of that it is very difficult to make friends’ (Poles Apart Report: 182) Finally, in the case of immigrants, integration into a new culture and acquisition of the language of the host country are crucial for their successful functioning in a given society; however, should they abandon their native culture and language in order to be successful in the new cultural and linguistic environment? The answer to this question is best summarized by Dubet and Lapeyronnie (1992: 91–92) who state that the ‘acculturation process should not be perceived in terms of loss and acquisition but also as a creative process, from which new societies emerge’. In other words, in order to become competent members of new social groups, individuals often continue to be socialized into new roles, status and practices throughout their lifespan. Similarly, ‘acculturation signifies the ability to master the dominant cultural codes and is not necessarily synonymous with the dissolution of the heritage culture or with the loss of the specificities of the immigrant milieu…’. To the contrary, success and acculturation, in facilitating mastery of the social environment, permit immigrants to maintain a living connection with their origins (Dubet & Lapeyronnie, 1992: 91–92). )

Agency or Adherence to a Moral Code: The Case of Wiktoria?

The socialization of morality often plays a vital role in the process of acculturation – becoming a member of a particular social group – as it defines ‘dos and don’ts’, norms and values that are cultivated by that group. Negotiations of morality/religion came up as one of the most important themes in Wiktoria’s life at the time of data collection. According to Sterponi (2003), morality can be defined as ‘a situated practice enacted in social interaction’, as illustrated in the studies by Baquedano-López (1997), Capps and Ochs (1995), Duranti (1993) and Goodwin (2002). Wiktoria constructed her moral stances together with her parents during discursive events such family dinners or conversations initiated by the researcher. These conversations often served as a discursive forum during which allegiances and moral stances were

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negotiated and displayed. Some scholars locate these local (micro) practices within socio-historical relations of power and knowledge (Kulick, 1992). Others, such as Foucault (1997: 352), claim that the main field of morality, in our society, is the part of ourselves that is most relevant for morality – our feelings. Taking these approaches allows us to understand the interplay between affect and the construction of morality. For example, by building on Foucault’s approach, Kulick and Schieffelin (2004) argue that LS studies have the potential to make a significant contribution to our understanding of ‘theory of becoming’ as they illustrate how habitus and the ‘performative power of language’ are acquired through everyday interactions. They focus on the processes by which subjectivities are produced through affect. As Fader (2011: 324) points out ‘Foucault’s framework adds a more theoretical dimension to the language socialization paradigm’ linking everyday interactions that socialize children to become ethical/moral subjects with ‘broader historical and cultural forms of modernity’ such as agency and power. Foucault’s approach offers a theoretical framework for attending to how ‘embodied attachments to historically specific forms of truth come to be forged’ or perceived as an objective truth (Mahmood, 2005: 34). The parallel view is shared by McKay and Wong (1996), who emphasize the importance of ‘agency enhancement’ and ‘identity enhancement’ by focusing on the importance of social identities and how these relate to multiple discourses. ‘Agency’ is a multifaceted construct (Bandura, 2001; Cummings & Schermerhorn, 2003; Kuczyński, 2003) that includes cognitive, behavioral and motivational dimensions. The concept of agency enhancement derives from identities that afford learners a sense of power over their environment and thus their learning. Although Foucault’s work focused more on ethical practices that develop moral subjectivities, indicating that they are fundamentally political, embedded in sociopolitical or socio-historical contexts, often creating culturally and historically specific forms of sociability, his ultimate framework considered the unequal distribution of power in society. Studies of the socialization of morality can be of particular importance when it comes to Eastern European children as little attention has been paid to children in studies of morality in post-communist societies with a long non-liberal tradition. In these contexts, morality has often been conceptualized as adult cultural norms for behavior without necessarily locating those norms in changing socio-historical contexts. Understanding immigrant children’s experience is then crucial to an understanding of broader processes of social reproduction and change. The current section is therefore dedicated to these matters as they occurred quite spontaneously on many occasions during my conversations with Wiktoria and her parents. At times, they were seen almost as a pressing issue for the family. The following excerpts illustrate Wiktoria’s negotiation of moral stances.

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Wiktoria

Celebrating religious holidays in typical Polish fashion was a priority for Wiktoria’s family. Attending Sunday Mass was a particularly important event of the week. The whole family regularly attended a local Mass every Saturday or Sunday. Wiktoria’s LS practices were widely shaped by her religious practices such as attending Polish Sunday Mass or meeting a Polish priest through Polish school events or through the Polish association. Religious practices along with issues of morality and their legitimacy were often negotiated through the family’s daily interactions and dinner time talks as can be seen in the following examples: Excerpt 4.11: For ‘them’, it is not so important whether they had a confession or not (21 May 2011) 195. G:  [Do you think Ireland is very different from Poland and in what sense + well?] 196. W:  [Yes, I’m sure e:ee education is a little bit different, and yet the Masses such as Holy Communion] 197. G:  [mmhh that is, religious practices+] 198. M:  [Well, almost 95% of the church (Mass participants) proceed to the Communion; they have a completely different attitude to these issues] 196. G:  ((nodding)) [mmhh, I’ve noticed that] 197. F:  [They take Communion because they consider it to be a feast to which you are invited and that it is not proper to refuse the treat and they go to Communion. For them, it is not so important whether they had a confession or not, if they have light sins or they do not have these sins. They want, so to speak, to do good to God. They do not want to offend God by not taking Communion. And here, as we have talked with the priest, here ‘this’ person should not really go to Communion +- he knows about it but, but he cannot say: ‘I will not give it to you’ – as a person is approaching. As a result, he gives Communion (to this person), because it is our own conscience in the end, whether you receive Holy Communion or not.] [it is actually at the door of your own ethics, it is made easier here] 198. G:  [your own conscience] (nodding) 199. T:  to już jest ułatwiają

na

karb

sumienia,

tutaj

to

tak

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[it is actually at the door of conscience, it is made easier here]

200. M:  to samo np. przyjęcie pierwszej komunii świętej np. bywa w pią::tek w so::botę, niekoniecznie w niedzielę. U nas to jest takie wydarzenie[życia!

[the same with receiving First Holy Communion it is done on Fri::days on Sa::turdays, not necessarily on Sundays. In our (country) it is such a life event!]

200. M:  [the same as receiving First Holy Communion it is done on Fri::days on Sa::turdays, not necessarily on Sundays. In our (country) it is such a life event]

In this example, Wiktoria, her parents and the researcher discuss aspects of religious practices that differ between both countries. As Wiktoria provides some examples of such differences, her mother and father align with her proposition that Holy Communion practice in Ireland differs considerably from that in Poland. Wiktoria’s mother makes the point that 95% of people participating in Masses in Ireland receive Holy Communion. This is followed by an evaluative (moral stance) statement: ‘oni mają zupełnie inne podejście do tych spraw’ [they have a completely different attitude to these issues]. The pronoun ‘oni’ [they] and the intensifier ‘zupełnie’ [entirely, completely] are used to affectively emphasize the contrast between the attitude of Irish and Polish Roman Catholics. In contrast, in Poland, few people receive Holy Communion during Mass as there is a common belief among people that they are generally sinful and they need to go to confession beforehand; thus, they prefer not to receive Holy Communion so as not to offend God. The researcher acknowledges the point with a nod and the interjection ‘mmh’ and by explicitly admitting ‘tak zauważyłam’ [Yes, I have noticed]. In this way, she exposes her alignment and, to some extent, affiliation with the above statement. Next, in Line 200, Wiktoria’s father decides to elaborate on these issues and provides a discursive account of his own personal interpretation of the newly observed religious practices. He makes a clear division between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Multiple uses of the personal pronouns ‘us’ – used implicitly as opposed to explicitly using ‘them’ – ‘oni’ [they] and ‘u nich’ [in them] (them – inflected, third-person plural with the proposition of place ‘u’[in]) describe the actual practice. In his argument, he explicitly states that it does not matter to the people here whether they have been to confession or not, but it does to ‘us’ Poles as we are morally advanced. In turn, what matters here is not to offend God by not receiving Holy Communion, so it is the opposite way. He concludes by stating that here it is a matter of our own conscience. He decides to embark on the local Polish priest’s opinion, as he considers him a legitimate and authoritative

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person. His utterance, ‘jak żeśmy z księdzem rozmawiali to tutaj osoba że ta osoba do końca nie powinna iść do komunii- on wie o tym’; ‘I on daje jednak tą komunię’ [And here, as we have talked with the priest, there is ‘this’ person that should not really go to Communion + and he knows about it]; [However, he gives Communion to that person]. In the next line, the researcher expresses her alignment with a nod and repetition: ‘własne sumienie’ [your own conscience]. This, in turn, elicits an evaluative statement from Wiktoria’s father ‘tutaj to tak ułatwiają’ [here it is made easier] said in a lower tone. In this expression, he takes on a critical moral stance – here, in Ireland, it is made easier for people whereas back in Poland it is not (presupposition) – as it is how it should be. Wiktoria’s mother decides to contribute to the moral stance taken by her husband and points to another common religious practice that is celebrated differently in Ireland. In her opinion, holding ‘First Holy Communion’ on Fridays or Saturdays undermines the value and importance of this religious practice. In contrast, ‘u nas’ [in us/our country/Poland)] (in Poland it is treated as a very important event because it always takes place on Sundays, as it should mark the value of this experience). Additionally, her animated tone of voice and emphatic stress on the personal pronoun ‘u nas’ along with the explicit statement ‘to jest takie wydarzenie życia’ [In our (country) it is such a ‘life’ event] reflect a high level of certainty and clearly demonstrate her understanding of the appropriate ways of religious worship and a negative moral stance toward the host country’s religious practice. These exchanges between Wiktoria’s mother and her father disclose strong allegiances toward Polish moral standards (strong identification with the Polish and religious practices cultivated in Poland) as well as the local Polish community (in particular, the Polish chaplaincy community). Excerpt 4.12: They take Christmas Eve so terribly easy (30 April 2011) 184. W:  [Certainly Polish culture is closer to me + Irish for example, they take Christmas Eve so terribly easy!! they normally go to a restaurant for lunch on Sunday, so for me, this does not suit me, it feels so strange – on Sunday – holy day to go to a restaurant or to a pub.] 185. G: mmhh

186. W:  [I do not know, and I do not know, Irish are so terribly relaxed about this all] [mmh, for example, there is no food blessing (blessing of the baskets) here!]

In this example, Wiktoria reproduces her parents’ strong allegiances with ‘Polish moral standards’ that are exposed in her stances (affective

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and moral) toward religious practices. She acknowledges that the Polish culture is closer to her heart or suits her better. In her understanding of culture, religious practices characteristic of the Polish community of practice where she grew up are superior to the new culture. She also positions herself as an insider/native speaker of that community when she makes a clear distinction between the personal pronouns used to describe particular groups of people ‘oni’ [they] in reference to members of the host society and ‘my’ [we] toward Poles. In this way, she strongly identifies with those practices. On the other hand, she takes a negative/ critical stance toward the host country’s moral standards underlying religious practices as she points out: ‘to oni to tak wigilię tak strasznie biorą luzem’ [Christmas Eve is taken so terribly easy] or ‘tak to strasznie Irlandczycy biorą to wszystko luzem’ [that Irish are so terribly relaxed about it all]. For example, there is no ‘sharing of opłatki’ – sharing wafer during Christmas Eve dinner to wish family members all the best for the new year; sharing ‘oplatek’ with someone is also seen as a uniting/reuniting practice among them. Thus, if there were any misunderstandings or arguments between family members, these are now erased and there is a new beginning to the relationship. Therefore, implicitly, in her judgment (evaluation) Wiktoria was taking into consideration many culturally specific customs surrounding Polish Christmas and their significance for Poles, such as Christmas Eve traditions (star supper, twelve special meatless dishes, the sharing of ‘oplatki’, etc.). However, she does not explicitly name these practices. The affective intensifier ‘strasznie’ [terribly] used twice in this short narration underlines Wiktoria’s lack of appreciation (negative moral affective stance) of the newly observed religious/traditional (Christmas Eve) practices or Sunday dinner practices. Going to a restaurant or a pub on Sundays is also perceived as something negative even diminishing the sacred qualities of Sundays (as Sundays were made holy by God). She points out: ‘do restauracji w niedzielę na obiady mi to tak, nie pasuje mi to’ [going to a restaurant for lunch on Sunday, so for me, this does not suit me] or ‘to jest tak to takie dziwne w niedzielę dzień święty chodzić tak do restauracji albo do pubu’ [it is just so strange on Sunday – holy day to go to a restaurant or to a pub]. Moreover, Wiktoria’s moral negative stance toward such practices positions her as a ‘novice’ in Irish culture. She lacks cultural understanding of the newly observed practices and classifies them not as different but as negative – ‘not as they should be’ (against her own moral standards). Wiktoria, Liberal Values, Religion and ‘Polishness’

Children’s agency involves their ability to reject or challenge the dominant moral discourses crucial to the reproduction of the moral community to which they belong. Their agency, however, is restrained by adults who often use affect to create a desire in children to follow or

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adhere to certain discourses, as in the case of Wiktoria and her parents (see above). As Ochs (1988) notes, this is a form of social control. Nevertheless, children’ s autonomy and agency change over the course of their lifespan, making it critical to consider how the construction of the self (and responsibilities for them) changes over time as well. The development of certain affective stances might with time form ‘allegiances’ to the values and norms appreciated in their culture which is culturally specific, not necessarily superior to the newly observed norms. This feeling of attachment/allegiance is, however, problematic and pervasive and might create significant confusion when observing new norms/values represented by the new society as in the case of Wiktoria’s family. She often shared her parents’ strong attachment to ‘Polish ethics’. She identified with Polish moral standards (represented by the local Polish community, Polish weekend school and the Polish chaplaincy members) and, more generally, the Polish ‘version’ of the Roman Catholic Church. In her allegiance with the Polish culture, practices which were characteristic of the Polish ‘community of practice’ were seen, in many respects, as superior to the newly observed ones in Ireland. With their strong identification with Polish moral standards, her parents reinforced her stances. They often took on negative moral stances with respect to practices such as: (i) the ‘majority’ of the host country’s parishioners receiving Holy Communion during Sunday Mass (whereas in Poland only a few people receive Communion); (ii) the celebration of Holy Communion on weekdays (in Poland, it is held on Sundays only); (iii) going to a restaurant or a pub on Sundays for a family meal (in Poland most people have their Sunday meal at home); and (iv) failure to set up a custom for the Easter blessing of food baskets (there is a special custom of blessing baskets on Easter Sunday in Poland). The role of the Catholic Church in Poland was never neutral or free from political and socio-historical underpinnings that shaped its’ ‘subjectivity’ through the centuries. It always promoted conservative and rather traditionalistic ideologies that reinforced patriotic principles as opposed to individual freedom or more liberal values, often associated with the West. For example, in his study of post-communist societies, Zhussipbek (2011: 6) shows that individual freedom/individual liberty was often perceived as the ‘elimination of God’s image in human nature, making humankind devoid of the sacred’ and the cultivation of individual freedom was associated with ‘absolute profaneness’. For these reasons, individual freedom – or the choice to spend Sunday with your family in the pub instead of attending Mass and having family dinner at home – is representing the liberal values of the West that are reducing ‘human dignity’. On the other hand, Polish Catholic traditions along with the many Eastern European versions of Christianity underline the importance of ‘liberty from sin’ – the sin of egoism. As a result, they are often perceived as superior and morally advanced by certain groups of conservative Poles.

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As shown in the example of Wiktoria, an LS approach to morality problematizes assumptions about what constitutes the religious, the secular, the political and even what is right and what is wrong in a certain context. Wiktoria was an active co-participant of these discourses and often expressed her concerns about newly observed moral standards, values represented by her Irish schoolmates. In Foucault’s (1997) terms, Wiktoria was trying to determine which acts (religious practices) are permitted or forbidden and the code that regulates the positive or negative value of the different possible practices. Wiktoria, however, was observing two codes operating in her daily life which were creating a conflict within her. As Fader (2011), in her study of Hasidic Jews, suggests, ‘focus on the everyday language between adults and children has the potential to challenge artificial distinctions between the religious, the social, and the political’. It would be very interesting to further investigate these issues in the future. Similarly, this study demonstrates the ways in which ‘embodied attachments to historically specific forms of truth come to be forged’ in everyday negotiations of identity and belonging among the Polish migrant community (Mahmood, 2005: 34). As Ochs and Capps (2001: 46) note, these types of conversations between children and their parents often provide a ‘discursive forum or a socialization site’ in which certain values, norms and standards are being reviewed, challenged and evaluated. Foucault (1997: 262) goes one step further by pointing out that ethical practices are part of a family’s everyday interaction and are linked with modalities of power on multiple levels, often interwoven with particular moral discourse. During family conversations and interviews, Wiktoria and her father collaboratively produced narratives that represented incidents in which the new society had violated ‘Polish’ moral standards. They both took a negative moral stance on this. On this basis, subjectivity was affectively produced and as a result, Wiktoria was adhering to these discourses. She became a moral subject within specific historical and cultural forms of power. Development of her own understanding and agency was in many ways restrained by her parents. In order to understand the discourses in operation in Wiktoria’s family, we need to take a macro/sociocultural perspective on what does it mean to be Polish or a Polish Catholic in Poland? What are the values and norms that characterize this post-communist society? It must be said that in Poland, society underwent a process of industrialization and modernization very late. Kuninski (1997) states that historically, traditionalistic (in the Weberian sense) attitudes persisted in Polish society for a long time, particularly among the peasants. These attitudes included preconceptions about work, money, saving and capital and were reinforced by the Catholic Church which was not favorable to liberal economic attitudes and a liberal way of thinking represented by Western societies (Kuninski, 1997). Historically, the political tradition and experience of the main political class, the gentry, were basically democratic rather than liberal, based

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on the notion of collective and political liberties rather than individual freedom. This tradition was greatly strengthened when Poland lost its independence, thus making the national cause an overwhelming fixation and resulting in the relative overvaluation of national freedom in comparison with individual liberty. As a result, historically, Poles placed great emphasis on their ethnicity/nationhood, religious beliefs and language in order to strengthen their sense of identity. This has been transmitted through generations up to the present day. According to Kuninski (1997: 5), present-day Polish civil society is less liberal in terms of its conceptualizations of the world – the good and the bad. Many ideas around patriotism are connected in many ways with the Roman Catholic Church. Conservative, traditionalistic and patriotic ideologies were often reinforced by the Catholic Church as opposed to Western liberal values (Kuninski, 1997: 5). Recently, Polish society has been undergoing significant changes, often mixing ‘traditional liberal and conservative elements with the experience of communism and the post-communist invasion of influential liberal-democratic ideas and free-market institutions’ Kuninski, 1997: 5). Zhussipbek (2011) links notions of liberalism in the Eastern European region with some stereotypical moral/religious underpinnings. He further points out that a stereotypical view of liberal values, particularly ‘a liberal understanding of liberty’ common to a great majority of conservative Eastern Europeans, portrays liberalism as ‘liberty to commit sin, even liberty to live like a beast’ (Zhussipbek, 2011: 7). Thus, the cultivation of ‘individualism’ – freedom of an individual to express his or her individuality (like meeting one’s family in a restaurant on Sundays) – can be perceived as a violation of the more collective perspective on ‘self’ in relation to others. In that sense, the liberal values of the West reduce ‘human dignity’, while the Eastern European version of the Christian understanding of liberty means ‘liberty from sin’ (Zhussipbek, 2011: 6). We might ask whether these historical religious narratives are transmitted to the next generation of Poles growing up in Ireland? Do Polish children themselves engage with these narratives? As illustrated above, Wiktoria and her family are an excellent example of such narratives still present in the daily lives of some Poles living abroad. Their children are likely to be growing up in an ideologically complex environment. There are studies that forefront the centrality of socio-historical dynamics between ethnic, religious and political differences in moral education for children. In diverse societies, competing moral systems within, for instance, immigrant communities highlight relationships between religion, ethnicity and citizenship. In the context of migration, ‘tradition’, however, can be reinvented, transformed or rejected as many other studies suggest.

5 Language Ideologies and Parents

Language Ideologies among Parents

Language ideologies play a significant role in all multilingual settings (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1995). Concepts of what language is, and of its relationship to cultural and individual identity, vary considerably across communities and often within the same community. This is because, in such societies, different cultural traditions coexist and mutually influence one another (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002: 345). Beliefs about what counts as a language, or who counts as a speaker of a particular language, along with widely differing attitudes toward code-switching and matters of language ‘purity’ or ‘standardization’ vary significantly among individuals. However, these beliefs, as well as other aspects of language ideology, inform and organize the everyday practices of each individual. This, in turn, provokes specific linguistic and sociocultural outcomes. These outcomes are sometimes opposite to those anticipated by the individuals who brought them about. Parents and their language attitudes and ideologies exert a strong influence on their children’s language development strategies. As Chin and Wigglesworth (2007: 123) suggests, it is reasonable to predict that positive attitudes of parents toward bilingualism will correlate with a higher level of language maintenance. Some studies support this hypothesis (i.e. Hamers, 1994), whereas others reject it. This was the case with the families described in this book. Although all of the parents were very positive about speaking Polish to their children and maintaining the Polish language in the family, only two families were successful in terms of heritage language and literacy development. As Chin and Wigglesworth (2007: 123) indicates, in order to understand how parents’ decisions influence their children’s bilingual development, ‘it may be necessary to look at their behavior rather than at overt attitudes’. For instance, Guardado (2008, 2009) examined Spanish-medium organizations in Metropolitan Vancouver that are actively reinforcing Spanish language maintenance through language ideologies, identities and language and literacy practices. Guardado’s (2008, 2009) research focused on parents 156

5 Language Ideologies and Parents

Language Ideologies among Parents

Language ideologies play a significant role in all multilingual settings (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1995). Concepts of what language is, and of its relationship to cultural and individual identity, vary considerably across communities and often within the same community. This is because, in such societies, different cultural traditions coexist and mutually influence one another (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002: 345). Beliefs about what counts as a language, or who counts as a speaker of a particular language, along with widely differing attitudes toward code-switching and matters of language ‘purity’ or ‘standardization’ vary significantly among individuals. However, these beliefs, as well as other aspects of language ideology, inform and organize the everyday practices of each individual. This, in turn, provokes specific linguistic and sociocultural outcomes. These outcomes are sometimes opposite to those anticipated by the individuals who brought them about. Parents and their language attitudes and ideologies exert a strong influence on their children’s language development strategies. As Chin and Wigglesworth (2007: 123) suggests, it is reasonable to predict that positive attitudes of parents toward bilingualism will correlate with a higher level of language maintenance. Some studies support this hypothesis (i.e. Hamers, 1994), whereas others reject it. This was the case with the families described in this book. Although all of the parents were very positive about speaking Polish to their children and maintaining the Polish language in the family, only two families were successful in terms of heritage language and literacy development. As Chin and Wigglesworth (2007: 123) indicates, in order to understand how parents’ decisions influence their children’s bilingual development, ‘it may be necessary to look at their behavior rather than at overt attitudes’. For instance, Guardado (2008, 2009) examined Spanish-medium organizations in Metropolitan Vancouver that are actively reinforcing Spanish language maintenance through language ideologies, identities and language and literacy practices. Guardado’s (2008, 2009) research focused on parents 156

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in scout groups and was based on contrasting the relative benefits of using Spanish in the home environment and in group activities, rather than English, the local dominant language. The research revealed that sometimes the parents’ ideologies and practices were inconsistent. Parents acting as group leaders were, for example, insisting on the use of Spanish (their native language) for Hispanic community-building purposes and as an act of resistance to English language domination, but at the same time continued to use English for high-status speech activities such as reciting the scouts’ pledge. Thus, as Duff (2009: 14) notes, they were inadvertently reproducing the dominance of English. Attitudes and language ideologies are very often reflected in the everyday use of a language, whether it is spoken in public or not, and on what occasions it is spoken (Gumperz, 1976). Parental language ideologies and attitudes are therefore likely to be socialized by children in many subtle ways, often without parents being explicitly aware of the process. Allport (1954) defines attitude as a ‘learned disposition to think to feel and behave toward a person (or object) in a particular way’ (Garrett, 2010). People are not born with attitudes, they acquire them during their lifetime, and attitudes differ among people. Attitude formation depends on what individuals have learned. Petty et  al. (1997) explain that the core of attitudes is the notion of evaluation. They write ‘that attitudes are commonly viewed as a summary evaluation of objects (e.g. oneself, other people, issue, etc.) along with a dimension ranging from positive to negative’ (Petty et al., 1997: 611). Attitudes are often categorized into three components: cognition, affect and behavior. ‘Cognition’ here signifies beliefs about the language or its speakers and the social importance of this language; for instance, the assumption that learning English will lead to increased employment opportunities (Garrett, 2010). The affective component involves feelings toward a given language or its speakers, serving as ‘a barometer that mirrors the extent to which we accept/agree or disagree with something’ (Garrett, 2010). This can be verbal and nonverbal. The difference between the cognitive and affective components might be vague, however. The behavioral aspect encompasses the ‘predisposition to act in certain ways, and perhaps in ways that are consistent with our cognitive and affective judgment’ (Garrett, 2010: 23). In the study of everyday discourse, we can observe these categories manifesting themselves through epistemic, affective stances and social acts that people perform daily. Our daily actions, such as language choices, opting for a certain language variety over another or a native speaker’s accent all constitute our attitude toward a certain language. The following sections discuss these issues in more detail. First, parental attitudes and ideologies toward the Polish language and culture are examined with specific attention paid to strategies and practices that parents employ to support their attitudes with action. Next, the status of English and Irish among participants is discussed and some conclusions are drawn.

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‘Polishness’ and Parents

In the case of Janek and Wiktoria, their parents’ attitudes were reflected in their daily choices, such as trying to immerse themselves and their families in ‘Polishness’. Polishness was represented by rich contacts with the wider community of Polonia living in Ireland. Active membership in Polish associations, Polish chaplaincy and Polish heritage schools often granted access to Polish language discourses and various language use domains such as high-status speech activities. Thus, attitudes were supported by actions and this had a great influence on both children. Wiktoria and Janek recognized the high status of their heritage language. Their heritage language was often presented to them as the language of a wider community of speakers, having great cultural, historical and familial value: Date: 28 August 2010 Janek’s mother is an active member of the Polish association, they are meeting every two/three weeks. She finds time to commit to these meetings which is quite impressive knowing she is working a lot in a local Surgery. She mentioned that the association decided to facilitate a library of Polish books for children. She was very happy about it. Ewa (Janek’s mother) was very actively engaged in many activities promoting Polish culture; she often justified her daily involvement in such activities in the way she spoke about them: Excerpt 5.1: Watch over and bombard them with the Polishness (19 September 2010) 392. M:  Czuwać nad tymi i-i-i z wszystkich stron ich bombardować tą polskością, bo wychowają się na-na takich, którzy po prostu wrócą może kiedyś do kraju coś i się tak tam zbłaźnią jakimś + [nieznajomością



[Watch over and and and bombard them with the Polishness from all sides because (otherwise) they will grow up (adults) who would just come back to the country may be and would make fools of themselves by saying something + [lack of common knowledge]

Excerpt 5.2: Without that they will be just as disabled (23 October 2010) 408. M:

[To nie jest-nie jest łatwo, ale-ale tak jak mówię no + bez tego będą-będą po prostu jak inwalidzi. Jak ja mówię - że ja nie chciałabym żeby, bo przeze mnie albo przez nas, ponieważ

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wyjechaliśmy z kraju, żebyście wy kiedyś odczuli to na własnej skórze, że nie znacie polskiej swojej-swoich korzeni?. Jak coś ja wszystko zrobię, żeby-żeby to wynagrodzić im. [It’s not-it is not easy, but-but, as I say well + without that they will-will be just as disabled (people). As I say to them –I wouldn’t like you to learn it the hard way that you don’t know your Polish heritage because of me or because of us since we left the country. I’d do everything to make it up to them.]

The next example comes from Wiktoria’s mother. She was actively engaged in the activities of the Polish association of which she was a member. She met with other members on a regular basis and she mentioned the association on many occasions. Date: 27 November 2010 I was invited to stay for dinner today. I accepted this invitation with pleasure. It was very nice and I felt very welcomed. Wiktoria’s father is the one who often cooks (from what I have seen so far) in their family, but today it was her mum who decided to cook. She did a delicious roast chicken dinner. It felt very special. Wiktoria’s mother talked a lot about their life here as they started and how challenging it still is at times. She pointed to chaplaincy and Polish association as playing a big part in their lives. I had a feeling that they offered each other a lot of support and were finding ways around different problems. She pointed to very practical help that some members offered in terms of help with documents, translation, choice of schools. She was very positive about it.

When asked about the ways in which Wiktoria’s parents try to maintain the Polish language and culture, Wiktoria’s mother decided to expand on the issue and provided a very explicit narration about keeping links with the extended family in Poland and the local Polish community (extracted from field notes). Excerpt 5.3: They’re still generally rooted in the Polish culture (18 December 2010) 219. U: Oni generalnie cały czas w tej polskości tkwią bardzo mocno, bo mają kontakt z rówieśnikami, którzy tam zostali w Polsce. I’m np. zaproponować wakacje egzotyczne, to jest średni pomysł.

[They’re still generally rooted in the Polish culture deeply because they have contact with their peers who are there in Poland. For example, offering an exotic holiday to them wouldn’t be a good idea/the best idea.]

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220. G:

Im zaproponować wakacje w Polsce?

221. U:

W Polsce! Dwa miesiące siedzimy w Polsce praktycznie. I owszem, oni sobie chcą pojechać, jak jest gorsza pogoda, nad ciepłe morze, żeby było egzotycznie, ale tak naprawdę do Polski! + my też w dwóch światach w Polsce żyjemy, bo i w Krakowie i w Bielsku, bo dziadkowie tam mieszkają, ale 12 lat mieszkaliśmy w Bielsku, tam chodzili do szkoły, tam mają przyjaciół, całe swoje życie zostawili w Bielsku, więc jak jedziemy do Polski, to trzeba i tu, i tu odwiedzić, pooglądać i pozwiedzać. Ta polskość jest jednak na pierwszym miejscu.





222. G:

223. U:

[So if they are offered a holiday in Poland?]

[In Poland! Practically, we spend two months in Poland (per year). And yes, they (the kids) themselves want to go to the warm sea when the weather is bad here, so as to go to some exotic place, but really (they want to go) to Poland! We live in two (different) worlds in Poland, in Bielsko and in Krakow – because my grandparents live there, but we used to live in Bielsko for 12 years, they went to school there, they have their friends there, they left their whole life in Bielsko, so when we’re going to Poland, we need to go here and there to visit, to watch and explore. The Polish identity is, however, in the first place.]

Czy państwo są zadowoleni z tego, jak to się rozwija? Czy to wystarcza? Czy jest ok., ze jest szkoła weekendowa, ze potem jest szkoła irlandzka, ze macie możliwość wyjazdu do Polski? [Are you ‘państwo’ happy with how it all develops (keeping links with Polishness)? Is that enough? Is it ok? There is a Polish weekend school, then

a regular Irish school that you have an opportunity to go to Poland?] Tzn. ja jestem dodatkowo w Stowarzyszeniu Polaków mieszkających w Cavan i to powstało z takiej śmiesznej inicjatywy, bo przyszedł do nas ksiądz po kolędzie, polski ksiądz z polskiej parafii, i ja zapytałam, czy może by ogłosił, żebyśmy się spotkali po jakiejś mszy, żeby ktoś sernik przyniósł, + takie typowo polskie rzeczy, + albo szarlotkę, + albo makowiec. I on to ogłosił i tak się zaczęła sprawa. I faktycznie ludzie chętnie

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przyszli na górę, ciacho do ręki, W OGÓLE ciasta było tyle, ze SZOK. I z tego właśnie zrodził się pomysł, żeby zrobić to stowarzyszenie. Bo jest masa ludzi, którzy poruszają się słabo w angielskim, albo wcale. [I mean. I am also in the Polish Association living in …M. and it was created with such a funny/ small initiative, a Polish priest from a Polish parish came to us ‘po kolędzie’ on a pastoral visit just after Christmas, and I asked him if he could announce possibility of meeting some time after mass, so someone could bring a cheesecake, + such typical Polish things, or apple pie, or poppy-seed cake. And he announced, and so it all began. In fact, people were willing to come upstairs, cakes in hand, IN GENERAL there were so many cakes - shocking! /(animated tone). And this [event] gave rise to our association. Since there is a massive number of people who have poor English language skills or have none at all ...]

224. G:

[pewnie można sobie nawzajem pomóc.

225. U:

[+… mają różne problemy, o których nie wiedzą, jak z tego wybrnąć, gdzie się udać, a:aa my już mamy różne doświadczenia, każdy coś tam przeżył, gdzieś tam był, coś doświadczył, no to można się tym podzielić. I myślę, że to stowarzyszenie tez jakąś tam rolę pełni, bo imprezy różne tam przygotowujemy, robimy, jest fajnie, + bo tych ludzi jest naprawdę sporo i generalnie mogę powiedzieć, ze ludziom się chce.





[You can probably help each other]

[... (People) have different problems and they do not know how to solve them/get out of them, where to seek help, a:and we already have some various experiences, everyone/each one of us had experienced something, went somewhere, well, you can share it. I think the association plays a role in itself because we organize/do different events, it’s fun, because there are quite a few people involved and + in general, I can say that the people are willing to do things.]

226. G:

A czy to jest dużo osób? xx

227. U:

Liczba jest ruchoma, bo niektórzy muszą się wypisać, inni przychodzą. I wiem, że inni nam tego zazdroszczą, ze trzymamy się razem.



[And are there many people involved? xx]

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[The number is moving/is not fixed, because of some need to sign off/resign, others come/join. And I know that others envy us that we stick together.]

In the foregoing excerpts, Wiktoria’s mother makes an explicit narration about their ‘Polskość’ [Polishness] and how deeply it is rooted in their family and how it is passed to their children. She explains that keeping their Polishness alive is only possible by maintaining rich links with the children’s friends and family back in Poland. She constructs a very positive affective view/stance of Poland through her appreciation of connections with their extended family in Poland and implicitly by pointing to the need to visit some places such as monuments/ historical sites: ‘trzeba i tu, i tu odwiedzić, pooglądać i pozwiedzać’ [So when we’re going to Poland, we need to go here and there to visit (places), watch and explore]. The paralinguistic and prosodic features of this narration such as an animated tone of voice, ‘high pitch and lower tone’ emphatic stress – ‘ale tak naprawdę do Polski!’, reflect Wiktoria’s mother’s affective stance of encouragement and affirmation toward Poland and ‘Polishness’. Thus, for Wiktoria’s mother, the choice between spending holidays in some exotic place and Poland is clear. However, she admits that some doubts are expressed by other members of the family whether to go to some ‘ciepłe morze’ [warm sea {somewhere warm}] instead. She concludes by explicitly admitting that Poland is ‘jest jednak na pierwszym miejscu’ [Poland is, however, on the first place]. The researcher picks up on this short statement and asks: ‘Czy państwo są zadowoleni z tego, jak to się rozwija?’ [Are you happy with the way it (maintaining Polish language and culture) is all developing?] or ‘Czy to wystarcza’ [Is this enough?]. The interviewer also points to some other links such as the weekend Polish school in addition to regular Irish schools that could potentially be important in maintaining their (Ala’s) children’s ‘Polishness’. In response, Wiktoria’s mother gives a descriptive account of her engagement with a local Polish association which she considers relevant to the case. Although she is attributing the establishment of the association to her own suggestion made during a pastoral visit ‘po kolędzie’, she diminishes the significance of this proposition by saying ‘takie śmiesznej inicjatywy’ [with such a funny/small initiative]. By putting an emphatic stress on ‘polski ksiądz z polskiej parafii’ [a Polish priest from a Polish parish] and ‘takie typowo polskie rzeczy’ [such typical Polish things], she is emphasizing the role of the Polish priest in maintaining and providing rich links with Polishness such as preserving Polish traditions connected with pastoral visits after Christmas. When describing their first meeting after Sunday Mass, she is taking on a very positive affective stance through the discourse markers ‘i

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faktycznie’ [In fact], ‘wlaśnie’ [so] and the intensifiers ‘I w ogóle’, ‘tyle że szok’ [‘in general’, ‘shocking!’] said in an animated tone of voice. She concludes this narration segment by revealing a very practical motive behind this initiative. Many Poles living locally do not have the necessary English skills for everyday life in Ireland. The interviewer immediately aligns with the idea of helping others as she comments ‘Pewnie można sobie nawzajem pomóc’ [You can probably help each other]. This, in turn, provokes an even more detailed description of the association members and their diverse everyday experiences. Ala again constructs a very positive picture of the members as she describes them as ‘ludziom się chce’ [the people are willing], sharing all valuable information they might have, ‘można się tym podzielić’ [you can share it], and explicitly admitting her positive experience with this association, ‘jest fajnie’’[it’s fun]. By making the point that ‘I wiem, że inni nam tego zazdroszczą, ze trzymamy się razem’ [I know that others envy us, that we stick together], she makes a presupposition about others (outsiders) being resentful toward the members because they would like to be part of the group and for some reason they are not. This comment highlights her own positive affective stance (being proud/content) and her strong allegiances toward this particular community. She also makes a statement that this association plays somewhat (‘jakąś’, some, to some extent) of a role in cultivating Polishness for her own family, which is, in turn, reflected in the family’s everyday social acts (the children going to Polish school, the whole family attending Polish Mass together, the parents being active members of the local Polish community, taking part in cultural events promoting Polish culture). The situation was the reverse for Marcin and Kasia. Their parents were often oriented toward language maintenance at the surface level, but were not engaged in any formal Polish communities where the status of the language would be perceived as high or recognized by the wider community. Date: 2 December 2010 I’ve been talking to Marcin’s mum about Polish schools in Ireland. I have mentioned that there should be a new school opening more locally as I have found out from some of my students form the place I was teaching. She said that it would be very difficult logistically for her as she does not have a car for herself. She also felt it is a lot for a child to be sent to school six days in a row. I agreed it can be hard. She pointed to a fact where both herself and her husband try to encourage reading in Polish at home, also that they have TV in Polish.

Marcin’s parents were positive about the ways they used their heritage language in their home with their children and thought it was sufficient for the natural transmission of language from one generation to the next to happen as ‘it always has’. Yet, it was producing unexpected results,

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as shown below. Indeed, Chin and Wigglesworth (2007) warns that such an assumption is false. For example, Marcin’s mother expressed her confidence about children being able to continue speaking Polish in their future lives, as she noted: Excerpt 5.4: I think it is important so he continues speaking Polish (2 December 2010) 232. A:



Wydaje mi się, że jest ważna, bo np. nasza rodzina, dziadkowie, są tylko polskojęzyczni i w momencie kiedy on by się przestawił na język angielski mieliby problem w porozumiewaniu się. Poza tym jesteśmy Polakami. Wydaje mi się, że to musi być dla niego ważne. [I think it is important (so he continues speaking Polish) because, for e.g. our family, grandparents are speaking Polish exclusively, and in the situation of him (Marcin) turning into English they would have a problem communicating. Additionally, we are Polish. I think it must be important to him].

Excerpt 5.5: Well, after all, if he stopped using Polish it would really be sad for me (10 January 2011) 243. G: 244. A:



A czy zastanawiałaś się, czy ważniejsze jest, żeby umiał lepiej język polski, czy angielski? [Have you ever wondered what is more important, so he can speak Polish or English better?

No ale jednak w momencie, kiedy przestałby używać polskiego dla mnie to byłoby bardzo przykre i starałabym się to zmienić, żeby jednak używał tego języka polskiego. [Well, after all, if he stopped using Polish it would really be sad for me and I would try to change it, so he is using Polish language].

From the above examples, it is clear that, on the attitudinal level, keeping links to the Polish language is important to Marcin’s mother. She, however, makes an assumption that ‘it must be important for him’. She grounds her presupposition in another assumption: once one is born Polish they will continue to be Polish, and that would be of great benefit to the person. Parents, however, may not realize that their children may actually think and act otherwise as in the case of Marcin (extracted from field notes). A natural continuation of intergenerational language

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transmission may not occur ‘just naturally’. In the following examples, Marcin is commenting on his own abilities to speak Polish and English. He shows preference toward English. He also expresses his own ideas about his future use of Polish and English with his younger sibling. Excerpt 5.6: It is more difficult for me to speak in Polish than in English (12 September 2011) 179. M:

[Well, because (I know English better), I have to mix the words (code switch), I have to think about it all the time, in it is more difficult, it is more difficult to speak in Polish than in English.]

do not do not Poland for me

Marcin constructs an affectively charged negative assessment of his language skills in Polish. He complains explicitly in Line 179 about having difficulties fully expressing himself in Polish. He points to code-switching as something potentially negative, as he says: ‘nie muszę wtrącać słów’ [I do not have to mix/interject words]. He continues that he does not need to think a lot when he is speaking in English: ‘nie musze o tym myśleć cały czas’ [I don’t have to think about it all the time]. He uses the verb ‘musieć’ [have to] in the negative form to indicate necessity (deontic modality). The modal verb ‘muszę’ [have to] is used twice and may underline that this situation is against Marcin’s individual volition. In this way, he is affectively charging his utterances, implying that speaking in Polish is harder than communicating in English. Moreover, he contrasts his linguistic competence in Polish with English. He uses the epistemic modal verb (‘wiem’ [know]) in his declarative construction: ‘no bo wiem więcej angielskiego’ [because I know more English/know English better] to confirm/affirm his positive self-assessment with respect to English. I decided to ask Marcin about his future language choice as I made interesting observations one afternoon (see the following field note). On asking Marcin about his language choice when speaking to his brother in the future, he replied: Date: 4 November 2010 When I entered the boys’ room today to say hello they were both playing. So before I entered I hesitated as I did not want to be intrusive. I heard that Marcin’s younger brother addressed him in English – I was surprised as I guess I took for granted that they would speak in Polish with each other. This is something I should ask him about. Excerpt 5.7: We both understand how it is like (6 June 2010) 319. G:

[…]Myślisz do niego) mówić po polsku? Czy po Angliesku? […]

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[+ Do you think of speaking to him (to his brother) in Polish? or in English?

320. M:

[Po angielsku chyba. + No bo, oboje rozumiemy, o co chodzi.



[In English I think. + I mean, we both understand how it’s like/what it’s all about.]

Implicitly, Marcin considers English as the future means of communication between him and his younger brother. At the same time, he strongly identifies with English as he indicates that through English they will be sharing the same (cultural, social and linguistic) resources. Thus, English is thought to be taking a leading role in their personal lives in the future. In the next example, Marcin’s mother reports on his daily language use and language choices. Consider the following: Excerpt 5.8: He sends text messages in English (10 October 2011) 147. G:

A opowiada coś?

148. A:

Opowiada, że np. jakieś projekty robili.



Zaczyna po polsku, ale często się zdarza, ze pyta: ‘Mamo, czy mogę mówić po angielsku?’ Jest mu po prostu łatwiej. Jeżeli oglądają jakieś filmy i on mi próbuje opowiedzieć w domu, o czym był ten film, to też przechodzi na angielski.





150. G: 151. A:

[And is he retelling something?] [He recounts that for example, they were doing projects.]

[He starts in Polish, but it happens very often that he asks, ‘Mom, can I speak English?’ It is just easier for him. When they watch some movies and he is trying to retell them to me in the house, what was a film about; he switches to English as well.] A jak porozumiewa się telefonicznie z Tobą? Albo jak wysyła smsy?

[And when he talks with you over the phone? Or when he sends texts?] Smsy w języku angielskim. Ja mu wysyłam wiadomość po polsku, dostaję wiadomość po angielsku.

[He sends texts in English. I send him a text in Polish and I receive a reply in English.]

In this excerpt, Marcin’s mother reflects on Marcin’s daily language choice. She provides a retrospective account of Marcin’s speech

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events such as giving an account of school events or retelling the storyline of a film. She also reports that Marcin often starts in Polish, but then continues in English when retelling/recalling these speech events. At the end of this short narrative segment, Marcin’s mother recalls situations when she sent Marcin text messages in Polish and received replies in English. She also adds that it is easier for him this way. Her affective stance is displayed here through the discourse marker ‘po prostu’ [just] and the adjective in the comparative form ‘łatwiej’ [easier]; her epistemic stance shows a high degree of confidence as she uses the discourse marker ‘po prostu’ [just] and [precisely, requiring no justification]. Marcin’s own reflections on this issue not only confirm his mother’s assumptions but also uncover some subtle ways in which her own linguistic practices socialize Marcin to continue his current language pattern. In the following excerpt, Marcin was asked about language use with his parents: Excerpt 5.9: I think in English I do not think in Polish (25 September 2011) 153. G:

Mhh, and with parents does it happen that you talk in the same way?

154. M:

Po angielsku?

155. G:

Mhh, że coś im wtrącasz?

156. M:

Z mamą to bardzo.

157. G:

Bardzo?

158. M:

Prawie codziennie.

159. M:

[Ja myślę po angielsku jak liczę albo to po angielsku, nie myślę po polsku





[In English?] [Mhh, that you’re mixing (langauges)] [With my mum a lot.] [A lot?] [Almost every day.]

[I think in English when counting or something I just think in English, I do not think in Polish.]

Interestingly, in the last line, Marcin explains that he thinks in English: ‘Ja myśle po angielsku’ [I think in English]. Marcin indicates that his internal speech takes place through English. A similar fact was often pointed out by Kasia: ‘Nie przetłumaczyłam tego na angielski, tylko po prostu mam umysł po angielsku’ [I do not translate it into English, I just have my mind in English].

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In fact, Kasia’s mother has often reported on specific strategies or patterns in Kasia’s language use. In particular, she has observed the high frequency with which Kasia uses Irish social media and her high level of resistance to using equivalent Polish social media. Date: 10 February 2011 Kasia’s mother does not feel comfortable with Kasia’s being part of social media with her classmates. I think she is feeling uncomfortable with the fact she is unable to control it in any way. She complains about it a lot (today, again). Kasia has a laptop in her room and is using it a lot, every time I am coming in the afternoon, after school she is in her room either with her friend or alone. I know they are active on social media a lot as they talk about it a lot. I am not sure but I think it is about who said what and how ppl reacted to certain images or videos. Kasia does not share it with me much so I cannot be sure. Excerpt 5.10: I do not know where else she is ‘logged on’ (24 May 2011) 109. R:



Ale powiem Ci, ze zauważyłam to jak z kuzynem, czy z koleżanką z podstawówki piszą i jest na Gadu-Gadu i nie chce jej się rozmawiać i nie pisze prawie w ogóle, za to na jakimś Beeboo, czy MSM, czy nie wiem na czym ona tam jest zalogowana i z koleżankami, + gdzie przyszła dopiero ze szkoły, siedzi już i z jedna, z drugą i piszą. I mówię, ‘zobacz, tu Julita pisała z Polski’, ‘A ja nie mam z nią o czym rozmawiać’ i w ogóle.

[But I’m telling you, I’ve noticed when she is exchanging messages on Gadu–Gadu (Gadu–Gadu is a type of Polish MSN) with her cousin, or with a friend from primary school, she does not want to talk (to them) and she hardly ever writes at all, but on ‘some’ Beeboo or MSM, or I do not know where else she is logged on with her friends, the minute she comes back from school, she sits down, and writes with one or the other. And I’d say, ‘See, here, Julia wrote to you from Poland,’ (she replies) ‘And I have nothing to talk to her’ and that’s it.]

Kasia’s mother reports on events in which Kasia rejects using Polish social media, such as Gadu-Gadu, with her extended family and friends from Poland. She provides examples of situations in which Kasia’s resistance is clearly demonstrated: ‘koleżanki z podsatwówki pisza na GaduGadu i nie chce jej się rozmawiać’ [when she is exchanging messages on Gadu-Gadu with her cousin, or with a friend from primary school,

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she does not want to talk (to them) and she hardly ever writes at all] or ‘zobacz, tu Julita pisała z Polski’, ‘A ja nie mam z nią o czym rozmawiać’ [See, here, Julia wrote to you from Poland, (she replies) and I have nothing to talk to her]. On the contrary, she is constantly logged into MSN or Bebo. Kasia’s mother displays a lack of understanding of such behavior. She finds talking to the same friends only minutes after returning from school incomprehensible – ‘na jakimś Beeboo or, czy nie wiem na czym ona tam jest zalogowana’ [the minute she comes back from school, she sits down, and she writes with one or the other]. Kasia’s resistance to keeping links with Polish friends invokes her mother’s (cultural) responsibilities to remedy the situation. She tries to scaffold this task by encouraging Kasia’s use of Polish social media in order to keep in touch with Polish family and friends. On another occasion, Kasia’s mother drew my attention to Kasia’s language practices related to a description of her day in school. She has used various language strategies, mixing languages or code-switching similar to Marcin. Excerpt 5.11: ‘I beg you finish! Do not get me’ (7 October 2011) 175. KM:  Czasami zapomina słów albo język polski tak przekształca, ze ja mówię: ‘założymy słownik i będziemy sobie zapisywali, np. ‘mama, ale mi się ślizdże’ albo cos w tym stylu. No wiesz, zupełnie nie te końcówki, nie te słowa. Albo coś tam po angielsku, albo się zastanawia, czy jest coś do przetłumaczenia po angielsku, takie jakieś zachowania, ze mówię: ‘proszę Cię skończ! Nie denerwuj mnie!’  [Sometimes she forgets words or transforms the Polish language so much, so I say, ‘we will start a dictionary and we will write down, words for example ‘mom, but it’s ślizdże’ or something like that. Well, you know, just entirely wrong endings (words inflected incorrectly), not the correct words at all. Or something she is wondering if there is something to be translated in English such behaviors, so I say, ‘I beg you finish! Do not get me!’]

In this excerpt, Kasia’s mother elaborates on the situations when Kasia reports on school events. Kasia forgets Polish words, changes the Polish language when speaking, uses the wrong suffixes, uses the wrong words, code-switches or translates from English to Polish. Her mother provides an actual example of such language practices: ‘ślizdże’ (‘dże’

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suffix used instead of ‘zga’ for ‘ślizga’ [slide]). She concludes by explicitly displaying negative affective stances showing her disapproval. An animated tone of voice and discourse boosters ‘tak przekształca’ [transforms so much], ‘zupełnie nie te końcówki’ [entirely wrong endings] are coordinated to directly state her discontentment. In this excerpt, Kasia’s mother is again trying to remedy the problem by providing a solution: ‘założymy słownik i będziemy sobie zapisywali’ [we will start a dictionary and we will write down words]. However, they have not supported this idea with the actual act of starting a notebook. Date: 8 March 2011 As Kasia’s mother complained about Kasia’s Polish language I have started paying more attention to it too. I must admit that I have noticed certain issues (like Kasia was replacing Polish words with English sometimes) but not more than other kids really. I only noticed that she does not really read or write in Polish as I brought her a girl’s magazine (in Polish) and she never used it as it stayed in the living room and her mum said she was not going to use it. Kasia’s mother showed me their handbook of Polish words….there was nothing in it except for few words on first page. She said it does not make sense as she feels she is just forcing her instead of Kasia wanting to it. I have not commented on it much as I knew she was upset about it.

In the next excerpt, Kasia’s mum reports on Kasia’s idea to speak English at home: Excerpt 5.12: Kasia came up with the genius idea to speak English at home (18 December 2010) 151. R:

Kasia wpadła na ‘genialny pomysł’, żeby w domu rozmawiać po angielsku, to Kasia sama sobie rozmawiała. Nikt się na to nie skusił. [Kasia came up with the genius idea to speak English at home, so Kasia spoke it herself. No one has been tempted to.]

In Excerpt  5.12, Kasia’s mother strongly criticizes Kasia’s idea to switch to English at home. She takes on a critical stance in her short evaluative narrative (the speech act of assessing). She does not approve of Kasia’s idea. The paralinguistic features of her language such as a sarcastic tone of voice and hyperbole ‘genialny’ used as exaggeration along with emphatic stress ‘genialny pomysł’ [brilliant idea] display her affective attitude – a strong dislike of the proposed idea. She sums up with a short explicit statement: ‘nikt się na to nie skusił’ [no one has been tempted to (speak English at home)], to emphasize her point and make it even more evident.

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Excerpt 5.13: I’d rather my parents spoke English (at home), but we speak Polish (10 January 2011) 362. G:

363. K: 364. K:



Aha. A w domu, bo w domu mówicie po Polsku, to wolałabyś żebyście w domu mówili po angielsku? Żeby rodzice mówili po angielsku? [Mmh. And at home, because at home you speak Polish, you’d rather speak English at home? Your parents to speak English?] Wolałbym, żeby rodzice mówili (2.0) ale mówimy po polsku.

po

angielsku,

[I’d rather my parents spoke English, but we speak Polish.] Ponieważ jest takie, prościej się wymawia i się mówi i jest taka łatwiej do mówienia. Nie wiem, tak jakoś prościej mi. Znaczy jest praktycznie tak samo, jak się mówi, bo np. mówię po angielsku, to myślę po angielsku. Nie mówię sobie po polsku i nie prze, prze, [Because it is, it is easier to pronounce and it is easier to speak. I mean, it is practically the same because when I speak English I think in English. I don’t speak in Polish (in my head)and tran..tran}

In this excerpt, the interviewer picks up on the short narrative provided by Kasia’s mother (Excerpt 5.12) and asks Kasia a direct question about her own preference toward language use at home. The interviewer, however, modifies the question by adding ‘bo w domu mówicie po Polsku’ [because at home you speak Polish], signaling her familiarity with their home language use patterns. Kasia lowers her voice and gives a very explicit response that she would prefer her parents to speak English at home. Her affective stance is displayed explicitly by the use of the modality marker ‘wolała bym’ [I would prefer] and the tone of her voice. Kasia is emphasizing here that family members, including herself, speak Polish at home contrary to her own preferences by using ‘ale’ [but] and ‘mówimy’ [we speak]. She has changed the third-person pronoun (parents – ‘they’) into the first-person pronoun plural ‘mówimy’ [we speak] along with use of the discourse marker ‘ ale’ [but] to emphasize contrast. Kasia also provides justification for her prioritization of English over Polish. She concludes that her ‘mind is in English’ and that she does not need to translate from one language to another in her head. In fact, parents may not realize that they are socializing their children in ways that mean the children are only acquiring partial command of the ‘home’ language. Marcin spoke Polish to his parents at home and

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they watched Polish TV; however, he rarely used Polish in more formal contexts except on brief visits to Poland. He did not attend Polish heritage school nor did he belong to any Polish club. His parents were occupied with their daily routines, often sharing the responsibility for taking care of their children by doing shift work. They did not belong to any heritage associations or community. Kasia’s language socializing practices also had unexpected consequences in the more complex, familial context. Kasia’s mother assumed resigned or negative affective stances in relation to Kasia’s open resistance to ‘Polishness’, the Polish language and culture. Nonetheless, she did not link Kasia’s attitude with her own discursively reproduced image of Poland as ‘a country of hardship and limited opportunities’ (extracted from field notes and transcripts), as she often commented: Excerpt 5.14: In Poland, there is no improvement (9 January 2011) 122. KM:  W Polsce nie widać poprawy. Naprawdę tyle ludzi narzeka: moi rodzice, czy moja siostra, mąż bezrobotny, stracili pracę, nie ma pracy, finanse, te miesięczne wypłaty przerażające..’.  [In Poland, there is no improvement. Really, there are so many people who complain (about economic hardship): my parents, my sister – with her husband who are unemployed, they lost their job, there is no job, finances, monthly wages – scary/ terrifying].

Kasia’s mother, however, used several heritage language socializing practices to encourage Kasia to use Polish and embrace the Polish culture. For example, she used Polish at home exclusively, organized Skype conversations with grandparents, cooked Polish food, celebrated Polish holidays and watched TV in Polish. Occasionally, she discussed certain uses of the Polish language which she felt were appropriate in contexts outside the home. Since Kasia’s mother had positioned herself as Kasia’s main socializing agent of the Polish language and culture – an expert on her daughter’s Polish language socialization – she also had parental expectations with respect to the outcomes of her practices. Unfortunately, the outcomes of Kasia’s mother’s practices were often unsatisfactory/disappointing for her. A good example of this is Kasia’s mother taking for granted that Kasia should know and use the appropriate (modes of politeness) personal pronouns in Polish when addressing elder members of the Polish community (described in Chapter 4 in detail). However, Kasia neither possessed complete knowledge about the use of the aforementioned modes of politeness in the Polish language, nor was she willing to adapt to the Polish standards. By not

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offering possibilities to access wider heritage language communities who speak differently from the everyday language used in domestic contexts, the parents of both Marcin and Kasia (unconsciously) have denied them the opportunities to socialize more complex linguistic forms and learn about sociocultural norms. The heritage language was often perceived as more difficult, of lesser importance and not worthy of personal investment. This research suggests that parents’ attitudes are often important; however, it is not their attitudes but their actual ‘action’ or behavior in support of these attitudes that influences adaptation of a given strategy by their children (as in Guardado, 2008: 108–115). This is often the case in situations of language shift or attrition (Field, 1999; Garrett, 1999; Kulick, 1992; Meek, 2001; Schieffelin, 1994). Both Kasia’s and Marcin’s mothers noticed a certain level of heritage language attrition (extracted from field notes) in both children, including attrition of their literacy skills (almost not developed in both, extracted from field notes). Thus, it is not only parents’ overt language attitudes that play an important role in the process, but it is also their actual daily actions and behaviors that either promote partial heritage language socialization or provide rich varieties and contexts to socialize language through language. The above discussion suggests that it is important for children to have outside opportunities for heritage language socialization, either through parental engagement with associations or heritage language communities, their own visits to their country of origin and membership of heritage networks. It is also how parents actually position their heritage country and culture. High Status of English

Grosjean (1982: 117) points out that certain language ideologies are reflected in attitudes toward language users rather than attitudes toward language itself. It may happen, for example, that one language is perceived as more prestigious than another because it is associated with the higher social status of the people who speak that language, as is frequently the case with the language spoken by the group that holds political, cultural and economic power in a country. English is the language widely used in Ireland and is spoken by the majority of society. It tends to be perceived as a language possessing high social, cultural and economic value. Therefore, the motives for learning that language are very ‘practical’ in a sense, for those who are part of that society, for example, immigrants. As far as attitudes toward the majority language (in this particular case, English) are concerned, Lyon and Busfield (1996: 35), along with many other authors (Baker, 1992; Gardner & Lambert, 1972), state that two basic reasons motivate minority language groups to learn a second language: (i) ‘instrumental’ and (ii) ‘integrative’. ‘Instrumental’ reasons are associated with status in

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society, employment and other benefits inclusive to a given linguistic group; whereas ‘integrative’ reasons include the wish to become closely associated with members of the second language-speaking community and join their cultural activities. It could be hypothesized that in this particular context, learning English is associated with instrumental reasons whereas learning Irish could have a more integrative role. Indeed, English had a very high status among all the participating children and their families. They all considered English very important, opening up opportunities for a bright future. Date: 13 April 2011 I have realized today that all participants have spoken very positively about having a chance to learn English. I know that they have different opinions about the Irish accent but generally, they are very happy for their children to be learning English. I wonder of this very positive attitude is somehow connected with the general conviction in Poland about learning English to be opening many possibilities for the future.

The situation was, however, more complex when it came to Irish. Neither the parents nor the children in this study affiliated with learning Irish. This section focuses on participants’ attitudes toward English. Mothers’ perspectives Excerpt 5.15: Marcin’s mother: ‘In Poland, English becomes omnipresent’ (21 November 2010) 421. MA:  Wydaje mi się, ze w dzisiejszych czasach znajomość języka angielskiego, nie ważne w jakim kraju, jest bardzo przydatna i może ułatwiać życie. Nieważne, czy to jest dziecko z Polski, Niemiec, czy jakiego kol wiek innego kraju. [It seems to me that nowadays knowledge of English is very useful and can ease one’s life, no matter where in which country. It does not matter if it is a child from Poland, Germany or any other country...

 . W Polsce język angielski staje się wszechobecny, np. w mediach, także czasami, żeby zrozumieć wiadomości w TV trzeba parę słów angielskich znać. [Of course. In Poland, English becomes omnipresent, for e.g. in media, so sometimes you have to know a few words of english in order to understand the Polish news channel.]

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Excerpt 5.16: Janek’s mother: English is a universal language that enables communication in every country (12 March 2011) 114. JM:  Wydaje mi się, że to jest język uniwersalny i można się nim porozumieć w każdym kraju.  [I think, it is a universal language that enables communication in each country. Excerpt 5.17: You can communicate through English everywhere (14 May 2011) 56. J:  [Na pewno angielski, bo jeszcze + do ameryki.

[I’m sure English, because you can+ in America… well, in America+ you can communicate through English everywhere.

58. J:  Że z ameryką. + Wszędzie można się porozumieć po angielsku + ale wolalbym raczej mowic jak brytyjczycy

[Well with America. + You can communicate everywhere in English + but I’d rather speak like the British]

In the foregoing excerpts, both parents and children alike express their positive attitude toward English. Marcin’s mother makes a point about the importance of English and its role in Polish society. She recognizes English as a global language, while Janek notes that he would prefer to speak like the British. The following examples illustrate the children’s language choices when it comes to daily use of the media, the internet and reading practices. Use of media: ‘there is more written things in English’ Janek Excerpt 5.18: I use internet in English (2 October 2010) 121. G:  Dobrze a internet? W jakim języku korzystasz z internetu?

[Fine, and internet? What lanaguge do use when browsing the internet?

122. J:  Po angielsku.

[In English]

123. G:  Po polsku? Nie?

[In Polish? No?]

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124. J:  Po angielsku raczej. + Czasami trz: a się podzielić z innymi kolegami ze szkoły, więc po polsku raczej nie będą czytać.

[Rather (I use it) in English.+Sometimes you need to share with schoolmates, they will not read in Polish.

Marcin Excerpt 5.19: There is more written (information) in English (12 April 2010) 312. G:  Ehy::m, masz dużo książek widziałam o samolotach, nie?

[Ehmm :: m, I have noticed that you have a lot of books about airplanes, right?

313. M:  I też w internecie czytam na [Wikipedii

[I also read in the internet in [Wikipedia]]

314. G:  [I w Internecie. Su::per. I po angielsku wtedy czytasz czy po polsku?

[And on the Internet. Su :: per. And do you read in English or Polish then?]

315. M:  Po angielsku, bo po angielsku napisane niż po polsku.

jest

więcej

[In English, because there is more written (information) in English than in Polish.]

Kasia Excerpt 5.20: I have most recent episodes there in English (27 June 2010) 511. G:  Uhum, uhum, komedie lubisz, tak?

[Uhum, uhum. You klike comedies, do you?]

512. K: Uhum.

[Uhum.] 513. G:  A ile godzin dziennie? @

[And how many hours per day ?@ (as mother often complained about Kasia spending too much time watching something)

514. K:  + znaczy, ja oglądam to na komputerze, ponieważ tam mam najnowsze odcinki po angielsku, to + z 3, 4.

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[+well I mean, I am watching it on my computer because I have most recent episodes there in English

515. G:  Uhum, to lubisz, tak?

Uhum, so you like it?

516. K:  Tak, (xxx). [Yes] Wiktoria Excerpt 5.21: They translate it so badly (in Polish TV) that it is getting on my nerves (19 June 2010) 643. T:  (from the kitchen) jak mają wyłączność na pilota no yo ona zawsze przełącza na angielski +

[when they have exclusivity for the remote control, she (Wiktoria) always switches to English ]

644. G:  czyli czyli to na tej zasadzie? Tata ma rację?

[So so it is like that? Is Your dad right?]

645. W: ta:ak

[Ye:s] 646. G:  acha, a czemu tak robisz? Wolisz po angielsku?

[Aha, and why do you do that? Do you prefer it in English? ]

647. W:  tak,tak bo czasami to tak przetłumaczaja żle że mnie to po prostu denerwuje

[yes, yes because they translate it so badly that it is getting on my nerves

648. G:  czyli jak ty masz @ wyłączność na pilota to byłoby odwrotnie 90% angielskiego a reszta byłaby po polsku tak?

[So if you had exclusivity to use remote control it would be the other way round (as it is now, as the paranets control TV)-90% English and the rest would be in Polish?]

649. W:

@@ (prolonged laughter)

As in the preceding examples, English is perceived as the language of media, from reading about the plains to watching comedy channels, children prioritize English over Polish. As they noted, there is more

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information available in English and it is up to date (‘nowe odcinki’). The reasons for their language choice are, therefore, very pragmatic or instrumental. Similarly, when talking about their future plans, the children often pointed to English as being crucial to their future lives. Language of ‘success’ Kasia Excerpt 5.22: I prefer to learn English so I have a better life in the future (5 June 2011) 781. G:  Uhum, czyli, czyli np. Zastanawiałaś się, jaki język będzie Ci tam potrzebny do zrealizowania tych Twoich planów? [Czy, czy

[Uhum, so have you thought, what languages will you need to fulfill your future plans (dreams)]

782. K:  Angielski + [English]+

783. K:  Ponieważ wolę [(xxx) nauczyć tego, żeby mieć np. W przyszłości lepiej, żeby np. Można, żebym znała np. Się umiała porozumieć i pójść np. Na aktorstwo albo np. Na jakieś tam (xxx).

[because I prefer to learn (words not clear) learn it so for e.g. I have a better life in the future, so for e.g. I know, I can communicate and study acting or something like that]

783. G:  Czyli, czyli dlatego to jest ważne, bo uważasz, ze Ci to pomoże w przyszłości, tak?

[So, it is important because you think it will help you in the future, yea?

784. K: Tak. [Yes] 785. G:  (xxx), że spełnią się te twoje marzenia i plany?

[xx so your dreams and plans come true?]

786. K:

Uhum. (with a smile)

[Uhum.

Wiktoria Excerpt 5.23: You can also go abroad and make more than in Poland (18 June 2011) 234. W:

chciałam też jeszcze zostać nauczycielką angielskigo w Polsce ale nie wiem czy to bedzię dobry pomysł tak bo coraz więcej osób uczy

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się angielskiego a pozatym z angielskim ma się większe szanse na przyszłość, na studia i do pracy w ogóle można wtedy wyjechać za granicę i więcej pieniędzy zarobis niż w Polsce [I would like to be a teacher of English in Poland but I don’t know if it is a good idea + Because more and more people learn English and by the way you have better opportunities when you know English , you can also go abroad and make more money than in Poland ]

Wiktoria’s mother Excerpt 5.24: When you know English fluently, so many doors will open to you (18 June 2011) 341. WM:  Ja im to zawsze tłumaczę tak, że dzięki temu, że będą dwujęzyczni, a może i więcej języków, bo w college zaczyna się już francuski, niemiecki, gdybym ja umiała tak angielski, jakbym chciała, to byłabym dużo odważniejsza. Bo to nie jest to, ze ja mam odmowy propozycji pracy, bo tak naprawdę ja nie mam odwagi starać się tam, gdzie bym chciała. No tak jest i ja nie mama się co oszukiwać, bo mam jeszcze takie poczucie, że nie na tyle znam. Natomiast im zawsze tłumaczę, że jeśli będziecie znać płynnie angielski macie tyle drzwi pootwieranych, tyle możliwości, możecie sobie wybrać gdzie chcecie mieszkać, żyć, co chcecie robić.

[I alwyas explain to them, that because they have a chance to be biligual or know more lanaguges (becasue in college they will start French, German, if I only knew English, how I wish I knew, I owuld be a lot braver. It is not that I have job application rejections, it is ...that in truth I have no courage to apply for a job that I want. Well, it is like that and I should not fool myslef, because I don’t feel I know it that well. Wheras, I always explain to them, when you know Englsih fluently, so many doors will open to you, so many opportunities, you will be able to choose where you want to live and what you want to do.]

Status of English: An Open Door?

As Hornberger and Skilton-Sylvester (2000) note that two official languages might have very different status within the same jurisdiction. One

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needs to be mindful of the status of languages within jurisdictions with more than one official language which may have adopted bilingual policies. In reality, one tends to have a higher status than the other. The perceived status of a language by a society can impact the extent to which the language is spoken or is worthy of personal investment by the populations of immigrants. English in Ireland, widely spoken and playing the role of a second official language in Ireland, has a very high societal status. One cannot forget that the role of English language teaching and the disseminationof-English paradigm in globalization is great. Again, this attitude toward English was echoed in the attitudes and perceptions of the participating families who perceived English as ‘very important’, ‘omnipresent’ and ‘international’. As Wiktoria’s mother pointed out: ‘że jeśli będziecie znać płynnie angielski macie tyle drzwi pootwieranych, tyle możliwości, możecie sobie wybrać gdzie chcecie mieszkać, żyć, co chcecie robić [When you know English very well, you have so many doors open, so many life opportunities, you can choose where you want to live, what you want to do]. Moreover, English is the preferred language of the internet, social media and movies. Leitner (1992) describes English as a unique language among pluricentric languages, given that it is the most commonly used international language in domains such as science, tourism and technology. Dörnyei et al. (2006: 7) suggest that owing to their geopolitical importance, certain languages gain influence, ‘often at the expense of other languages, which leads to a new linguistic hierarchy’. According to Kasztalska (2014: 1) ‘Polish fascination with the English language and with cultures of English-speaking countries grew stronger after the fall of Communism and as a result of the influx of English-language music, movies, and new media’. Today, it is the most commonly studied foreign language in Poland (Kasztalska, 2014) in contrast to the previous decades when Russian, German or French were popular. There are numerous studies examining the attitudes of Poles toward English and English speakers alike. For instance, Kasztalska (2014: 255) suggests that ‘British and American English native speakers are generally held in high regard’ in Poland. Waniek-Klimczak (2008) administered a number of surveys among Polish students and showed that the majority of these students attempt to sound like a native British or American speaker. Furthermore, research found that most Polish teachers strive for native-like pronunciation, either British or American. It is, therefore, a very common viewpoint in Poland. This was echoed by two of the participating families, as both Wiktoria’s and Janek’s parents believed that the British variety of English, particularly British native-like pronunciation (‘speaking like the British’), has the highest position among world ‘Englishes’. Educator Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, however, points to the need to challenge these dominant language ideologies by encouraging educators, including teachers, to adopt ‘the ecology-of-language model’ instead of reproducing dominant worldviews. ‘The ecology of language’ model offers

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‘building on linguistic diversity, promoting multilingualism and granting linguistic human rights to speakers of all languages’ (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1998: 38). As Skutnabb-Kangas (1998: 30) explains further, it is nothing like the present ‘diffusion-of-English paradigm which assumes a parallel between universal/dominant language (English) and a universal/dominant economic system (capitalism)’. Instead, ‘the ecology-of-language paradigm’ offers individual choices, diversity and cultural richness (Hornberger, 2002: 8), Most importantly, it challenges the educational system, and underlines that ‘language educators must work hard alongside language planners and language users to fill the ideological and implementational spaces opened up by multilingual language policies’ (Hornberger, 2002: 28). Final Remarks

Research on language ideologies has enabled language socialization researchers to explicitly recognize that ideologies are not static or uniform phenomena within any given social group (Garrett & BaquedanoLópez, 2002). They vary greatly, may change with time and depend on individual experiences of the social order that may vary with class, age, gender, ethnicity, etc. (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002). The presented examples should, therefore, be treated as such, as snapshots of particular families living in particular contexts, having their own subjective histories and trajectories. There are various language ideologies among the different families and, as Gal (1998) points out, those ideologies may be contradictory. Indeed, according to Child (1943), bilinguals often face many social and interpersonal conflicts. For example, a minority language and culture can be completely rejected in favor of a majority language and culture (as in the case of Kasia and Marcin) by one group of immigrants, whereas another group can rebel in completely the opposite way (Wiktoria and Janek). Some groups may try to escape the conflict by withdrawing and refusing to think of themselves in ethnic terms at all. Gardner and Lambert (1972) made some interesting discoveries concerning these social conflicts between language ideologies. They found that some unresolved conflicts of cultural allegiances and ambivalence about identity (which are aspects of language ideologies) often impede the process of learning and the later command of two languages. Henry and Apelgren (2008) state that Gardner et al.’s (1983: 11) study has shown that ‘L2 attitudes are a direct product of the learner’s identification with the language, the culture and the speakers of the language community’. Indeed, attitudes may influence resistance or acceptance/willingness to use a given language (Dörnyei & Griffee, 2010). Finally, the present chapter illustrated that the Polish language and culture are very important to Polish parents and they would like their children to retain the language. Unfortunately, this research also revealed that this desire is not always supported by action. Parents do not know

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how to support their children’s multilingualism or have rather limited knowledge with respect to the Irish and English language and their status in Irish society. In their everyday conversations with their children, they often reproduce the dominant view rather than critically understanding their own situation. In addition, they are often unaware of the fact that speaking the Polish language at home might not be enough for their children to retain it or develop linguistic skills according to their age. Thus, in support of the ‘ecology-of-language paradigm’, multilingual development is much greater at an attitudinal level than it is at an actual ‘behavioural level’. There are degrees of confusion and misinformation among immigrant parents and children alike arising from ambiguity in language policy or lack of support from schools.

6 Conclusion and Implications

Negotiation of Internal and External Family Socialization Processes

Building upon prior language socialization (LS) research in the context of migration, this study has examined how older children negotiate family internal and external socialization processes (e.g. small stories, narratives) and how parental ideologies and practices, peer socialization, language status and societal demands come together in immigrant adolescents’ lives. I have examined how older children (adolescents) play an active role in the process of migration – settling into a new country. By taking an LS approach, I have integrated the complexity of the socio-historical context and adolescence attitudes/agency with the parental role. To conclude this book, I will resume a discussion of Gee’s Discourses and Kramsch’s symbolic competence, engagements and affiliations that I started in Chapters 1, 3 and 4. I will consider how LS studies could better use the concepts in light of the findings from the present study. I will also provide a summary of children’s socialization processes and discuss the role of parental involvement in contexts outside of the home for immigrant children’s language and culture maintenance. Finally, I will discuss implications from this study for the support of immigrant adolescents. A Complex Interplay of Engagements, Alignments, Socio-Historical Contexts and Agency

As I pointed out in Chapters  1 and 3–5, parental ideologies and practices, peer socialization, language status and socio-historical context exerted different demands on immigrant adolescents. Each of these groups operated within certain systems of power and knowledge; discourses or ‘truths conventionally agreed-upon’ that were both creating and limiting possibilities, within which adolescents took up their new subject positions. A few studies in the European context have investigated the home– school community dynamics of minority LS. This study adds to these studies (Gafaranga, 2010; Said & Zhu, 2019; Van Mensel, 2016), in particular, the studies conducted by García-Sánchez (2014) and 183

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García-Sánchez and Nazimova (2017), specifically by investigating first and second language socialization both in the family and outside of the family contexts and by integrating the socio-historical context with adolescents’ identities and ways of belonging. As García-Sánchez and Nazimova (2017) point out, there is a need for this type of research in the future European context as it aims ‘to incorporate more critical perspectives to document how local relations of power are shaped by the sociohistorical and macropolitical dynamics regulating belonging’. García-Sánchez (2016), for example, has shown that the LS paradigm can provide a powerful methodological and conceptual framework for examining marginalization as emerging from ‘the dialectic intersection between individuals’ developmental trajectories of socialization and the unequal structural and ideological arrangements that shape and constrain those trajectories’ (García-Sánchez & Nazimova, 2017: 12). The current study significantly adds to this understanding. Building on the discussion of ‘symbolic competence’ in Chapter 4, in which Kramsch reflects on how individuals can place themselves ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ the discourses of others and how symbolic competence would require one to reflexively embrace the subjective, socio-historical and ideological dimensions of these discourses, this study showed how adolescents reflexively position themselves inside these discourses. Thus, it was not only parents’ language ideologies and practices that influenced these adolescents’ competencies, but also the future they planned for themselves and their families and their engagement in different communities outside of the home that were of significance. Although the children did not consciously or reflexively position themselves ‘outside’ of the discourses of others, they did exercise their agency and created new subject positions and possibilities for themselves. The young participants of this study were actively engaged in the task of identifying and deconstructing the discourses or identities imposed on them by either their parents or their peer groups. By employing future projections and imaginings, they began to create alternative discourses of immigration. All of the children in some way or another resisted or did not participate in certain D/discourses or practices. They supported their resistance or not participating/not belonging with negative stances, thereby constructing their positions. Kasia and Marcin rejected being positioned as ‘other’ and, on numerous occasions, tried to reconstruct their identity by affiliating themselves with their Irish peers. Wiktoria and Janek also rejected the dominant discourses of ‘otherness’, but not through affiliation with the majority, their Irish peers, but by highlighting belonging to their heritage culture and language and constructing positive stances toward it. Wiktoria and Janek did not accept the new identities that were made available to them by their Irish peers, and rejected them by positioning themselves outside of these discourses. It was often through negotiation of alignments and engagements with cultural or socio-historical

Conclusion and Implications  185

norms and values and through seeking membership in the communities in which the discourses/values were operating that the children’s agency was present and socialization took place. Additionally, valuing home language, parental engagement in contexts outside of the home played a vital role in the process. These processes were often embedded in the wider social discourses of power present in Irish society and Eastern European ideologies characteristic of post-communist societies. The following discussion of children’s socialization patterns summarizes and concludes the findings of this study. Janek and Wiktoria

There were considerable similarities between Wiktoria (14) and Janek (15) on many levels. They both attended heritage language schools in addition to English medium schools. Wiktoria and Janek constructed negative stances concerning newly observed sociocultural norms and standards in Irish English. They often perceived Polish sociocultural norms as superior. Janek’s socializing practices took the form of ‘resistance’ to ‘otherness’, but not affiliation with majority/Irish peers (Ahearn, 2001). He constructed himself as ‘different’ or ‘strange’ within his Irish peer group. Janek was able to position himself outside of their discourses through having different interests, considering himself to be brighter and smarter, being bilingual and proud of his Polish ethnic background. He was the only participant who openly approached the researcher in school and used Polish in front of his Irish classmates. His agency was manifested through a lack of participation in the celebration of Irish holidays or by demonstrating a lack of interest in Irish socio-historical norms and traditions. Janek intentionally avoided the celebration of St Patrick’s Day, considered Irish dancing of minor importance compared to Polish dancing traditions and decided to consciously resist the native speaker’s accent. Janek expressed a strong preference for speaking with a British accent instead, positing himself within wider Polish discourses on American vs British accents. As discussed at the beginning of this book, resistance constitutes one type of ‘agency’ that is often open to novices and, in particular, to second language learners like Janek. However, as Duff (2002a) and Morita (2004, in Duff, 2009: 7) argues: ‘overt participation’ or lack of ‘participation’ in majority cultural or linguistic activities cannot be the only measure of language and culture learning. Indeed, in the case of Janek, the majority of the cultural norms and values were resisted in favor of heritage culture ones. However, Janek believed that being a competent user of the English language would grant him access to highly valued linguistic capital in the future (Bourdieu, 1977). In his projections on his future, Janek perceived English language learning as worthy of his engagement. Janek and his mother placed great importance on learning English both in the school context and at home.

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For example, Janek attended some private English language lessons for the first years after arriving in Ireland and decided to buy a phone and make friends with a ‘strange’ boy from his class. This might indicate that on a deep, personal level, he wanted to belong to the new culture and society, but not necessarily to its dominating discourses which made certain identities available to him but restricted others. By exercising his agency, he positioned himself outside of these discourses. It can be argued that this was one of Janek’s very first steps in searching for or even ‘acquiring symbolic competence’. As the previous discussion of Kramsch or Gee’s theory of Discourses indicates, one can position oneself outside of ‘primary societal discourses’ only after entering new discourses, as in the context of immigration. It would be interesting to see more research focusing on how or if ‘symbolic competence’ can be acquired in naturalistic settings and in what circumstances. Moreover, Janek constructed affective stances of emotional affiliation to his Polish language and cherished his previous and present engagements with the Polish culture, including his membership of the Polish weekend school and the Polish youth club. Janek’s mother exerted a very strong influence on Janek in this regard since she was actively engaged in many ways in the Polish weekend school’s activities, i.e. organizing a Polish library, picnics, etc. Thus, the Polish language and culture were silently socialized by all members of the family (including Janek) through meaningful ways within various contexts outside of the home. This is different from other studies that place importance on studying parental linguistic strategies and do not pay attention to parental/family involvement in the context outside of school. This study finding indicates that this type of engagement is very important as it makes the language and culture ‘tangible’ and allows one to form positive affiliations with the heritage language in the larger sociohistorical context. By claiming that ‘swearing’ in English did not have the same emotional impact on him as it did in Polish, Janek not only revealed his strong alignment with his Polish heritage, but also that one’s second language (English) does not match complexity of a person’s emotional world (see Pavlenko, 2006). For example, when Wierzbicka (2004: 100) referred to her personal experience of emotionality while talking about her baby granddaughter, she confessed that English does not have the same emotional force as Polish. Janek made a similar point, specifically that English lacks the semantic equivalents of ‘swear’ words and this is the reason why Janek felt that ‘swear’ words in English did not have the same effective impact on him, that they were somehow ‘weaker’. This can have serious implications when it comes to using monolingual approaches as they can have harmful effects on a child’s bi/multilingualism as in Janek’s case. Janek could have been offered an analysis of a Polish piece of poetry or a commentary on his favorite heritage author. In that way, he could

Conclusion and Implications  187

have built on his language skills more fully. Moreover, this could have stimulated the kind of emotional response that his teacher was talking about and the flow of thoughts that he could later put down on paper. It is important to note that heritage languages/minority languages need to be positioned in a normative way by the education system, not as something exotic or rare. Ireland is a perfect place for that as it is a bilingual state. Both Irish and English are official languages of the state. Building on multilingual approaches to learning would have positioned the multilingualism of the immigrant children in a different light (moving away from the deficit perspective) at the same time adding importance and value to the Irish language and culture. This study highly recommends moving in that direction when revising the junior and high school curriculum in the coming years. Wiktoria was a lot more reserved in her contact with the group of majority language speakers when compared to other participants. She desired to be part of the Irish peer group but was constantly trying to negotiate her position within the two discourses (newly observed cultural norms and her moral standards). At the same time, she had been experiencing a personal conflict on that ground. Her way of placing herself outside of dominating discourses was through developing her moral codes that allowed her to affiliate with certain peers or sets of norms and values. For example, she positioned her Irish peers as ‘liars’ or ‘just children’. Her stance repertoire regarding her Irish peer group predominantly included negative moral stances or the recurrent, resigned affective stance of an ‘outsider’ or a ‘novice’ (someone with lower linguistic and sociocultural knowledge). She also decided to stay ‘outside’ the group of majority language speakers or chose not to participate in their conversations, thereby rejecting dominant discourses that positioned her as ‘other’ or ‘novice’. For example, in her narratives and small stories, her critical stances toward her Irish classmates mirrored her disappointment and grief because of earlier refusals in their interactions. Rightly or wrongly, she perceived them to discriminate on this basis (when they slowed down their regular speech or restricted their vocabulary to a more simplistic range). As van Dijk (1997) suggests, categorization and representations of the ‘other’ are shaped by others’ representations and discrimination can be constructed on this basis. It was highly problematic for Wiktoria to participate in her peers’ discourses and, as a consequence, she felt excluded from their community. Correspondingly, she expressed deep fears with the possibility of rejection when starting a new English medium school in the future on the grounds of not ‘sharing the same discourses’ – the same pop culture or social media knowledge. Although she constructed negative affective attitudes toward some culturally specific behaviors of her Irish schoolmates, she aspired to become a proficient user of English and expressed hopes to become part

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of the group of majority English language speakers. This suggests, similar to Janek, that at a deeper level she wanted to belong with her peers. She was simply rejecting the kinds of ‘identities’ that were imposed on or made available to her within the dominant discourse of her school or Irish peers. In consequence, Wiktoria adapted critical stances, mainly of ‘distrust’ toward her Irish peers. She often reflectively positioned her peers as ‘insincere’ or even ‘liars’. Again, these socializing practices mirrored a broader familial context. Her parents strongly identified themselves with these stances, providing further reinforcement of them. For example, Wiktoria’s father strongly affiliated with Wiktoria’s negative moral evaluations, perceiving her stances through the lens of Polish history and sociocultural norms. That is, the associated ‘insincerity’ (or reporting to the authorities about the misbehavior/misconduct of others) with denunciation and the time of communism and Nazism. This culturally specific understanding of this new norm reflects the larger socio-historical context. As Wagner and Hayes (2005: 150) point out, historical experiences may have a long-lasting effect, be drawn out over a longer period and touch individuals through generations. A collectively experienced past which is transformed into dominant images and interpretations (discourse) forms ‘the everyday knowledge’ of a whole generation of Poles, even those who left the country. Again, these study findings highlight the importance of studying socio-historical subjectivities/discourses to understand the socialization of migrants. It warns us against overgeneralizations, pointing to the fact that acculturation processes might be a lot more context specific than previous studies claimed. Kasia and Marcin

Conversely to Wiktoria (14) and Janek (15), Kasia (14) and Marcin (13) resisted being positioned as ‘other’ by affiliating strongly with Irish sociocultural norms and by seeking membership of their Irish peer communities. Their rich engagement with their Irish peers helped them to develop knowledge and identities that embraced new norms and discourses operating within the group. They did not develop similar competencies in Polish as they had no contact with Polish peer groups. There were no possibilities for creating external to home affiliations with their heritage culture. As discussed in the previous chapters, Marcin’s and Kasia’s full participation in the local Irish children’s social practices and adherence to second language norms and values granted them membership within the majority of English language speakers. They resisted ‘otherness’ by assuming the identity of ‘insiders within majority’, thereby complying with primary discourses in Irish society. At the same time, Kasia and Marcin often disassociated themselves from some of the common sociocultural norms and values in Poland. For example, they both

Conclusion and Implications  189

noticed that during their trips to Poland, Polish people, i.e. passersby, looked at them with ‘suspicion’ or were ‘unfriendly’. Kasia adopted several different strategies to gain access to and actively participate in the local native speaker peer groups in her school. Specifically, through negative stance-taking toward ‘Polishness’, verbally performing social acts such as choosing the local English native speaker accent, diminishing the significance of her own cultural heritage, favoring English over Polish when communicating with other adult members of the local Polish community, affiliating strongly with the Irish children from her school and avoiding contacts with Eastern European schoolmates, Kasia deconstructed her immigrant identity. She was no longer perceived as ‘other’; moreover, she was perceived as a ‘normal’ and ‘ordinary’ girl as she knew how to operate within what Gee (2007) conceptualized as primary discourses. High levels of preference toward the local native speaker’s accent or an American accent accompanied by an investment in speaking without a Polish accent and a rejection of the use of the Polish language in public places are examples of what Ochs (1993) calls a verbally performed ‘social act’ of allegiance with her peers. Kasia believed that by possessing an appropriate accent she would be considered as a more authoritative speaker of English and thus would be granted membership of the group of majority English language speakers in her school. In Bourdieu and Thompson’s (1991) terms, she is subscribing to the notion that native speakers of English possess a sort of symbolic power over those who do not have the ‘right accent’ or possess ‘faulty syntax’. Kasia’s strong preference toward English and English native speakers was demonstrated in the form of resistance and language choice. For instance, she chose English over Polish in the local shop even when speaking with Polish shop assistants, or performing acts of politeness in English but resisting them in Polish, i.e. omitting personal pronouns in the nominative case: ‘Pan’, ‘Pani’ or ‘Państwo’ and using second-person pronouns ‘Ty’, ‘Wy’ instead. In Bourdieu’s (1977) terms, Kasia anticipated the value of certain linguistic and cultural products, recognizing that they are valued in certain linguistic markets, in secondary and tertiary educational institutions and among native speakers of English in her school. The linguistic strategy she adopts is a consequence of being subjected to a dominant discourse. In a political sense, Kasia might be seen as reproducing the ‘coercive’ discourses or dominant relations of power inherent in society (Cummins, 2001); she is undermining the importance and value of Polish in favor of English. Thus, Kasia’s language attitudes and ideology reflected in her daily socializing practice become part of larger (macro) societal processes of reproducing dominant discourses (Pavlenko, 2004: 133). Kasia’s language socializing practices had consequences in the more complex, familial context. Kasia’s mother assumed resigned or negative affective stances concerning Kasia’s open resistance to ‘Polishness’, the

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Polish language and culture. Kasia’s mother reported using several Polish language socializing experiences to counter Kasia’s practices such as only speaking Polish at home, organizing Skype conversations with grandparents, cooking Polish food, celebrating Polish holidays and watching TV in Polish. Occasionally, she discussed certain uses of the Polish language which she felt were appropriate in contexts outside the home, particularly during visits to Poland. Since Kasia’s mother had positioned herself as Kasia’s main socializing agent of the Polish language and culture – an expert on her daughter’s Polish LS, she also had parental expectations concerning the outcomes of her practices. She did not, however, provide any external possibilities for heritage language use as she did not engage with any Polish associations, clubs or Polish schools. As a result, there were very few opportunities for Kasia to create meaningful affiliations and engagements with the Polish culture and language. As Garrett and Baquedano-López (2002: 345) argue, parents often assume that the ‘home language’/‘heritage language’ will continue to be reproduced across the generations, just as it ‘always has’, simply because they speak the language to their children. This study finding highlights the importance of providing external socialization opportunities where the heritage language and culture are part of something ‘bigger’ than the family unit. Kasia’s mother did not realize that since Kasia didn’t have these opportunities, she did not socialize sociolinguistic competences in Polish. Neither had she developed adequate literacy skills in Polish. As many studies suggest, this partial/incomplete LS often leads to language shift or attrition (Cummins, 2001; Field, 1999; Garrett, 1999; Kulick, 1992; Meek, 2001; Schieffelin, 1994). This study supports these claims and underlines the importance of providing ‘external’ to family supports for the heritage language and culture of immigrant children. There are numerous ways in which this can be done in the school context. Multilingual approaches can also help develop ‘symbolic competences’ in children. Marcin was strongly oriented toward belonging to the group of majority language speakers. His strong allegiances with his Irish peers, Irish ethnicity and the English language and his genuine willingness to participate in social activities reflected his strong affiliation and desire to belong to the majority language speaker group. Similar to Kasia, Marcin was also strongly invested in constructing his identity as an ‘insider’ and deconstructing ‘otherness’. He used several strategies to achieve this goal, e.g. displayed strong allegiances with Irish ethnic identity; participated and identified himself with a particular peer group of native speakers in his school; exerted conscious efforts to pass for a native speaker; relied heavily on the opinions of his Irish peers and teachers; constructed regretful affective stances on the grounds of not always sharing or accessing the same discourses with his peers, i.e. not having Irish TV; and not

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getting the same number of Christmas presents as his Irish classmates. He revealed strong language preferences toward using English at home when talking with his younger brother and perceived English in terms of ‘their future means of communication’. Through the aforementioned social acts and second language socialization practices, Marcin made himself heard and acknowledged within the group of native speakers in his school. By overt participation in this peer group’s social activities outside of school, he was able to build close relationships with them. For example, Marcin’s participation in the local boys’ social practices such as ‘getting juice in the pub’ had an impact on his cultural identification and the socialization of the social norms and values of his Irish peers. This complete integration with the majority of English language speakers both in school and outside formal settings played an important role in Marcin being considered an integral part of this group by its members. As a result, Marcin was very successful in getting access to Bourdieu and Thompson’s (1991) highly valued linguistic and cultural capital of the majority language speakers. Not only did he get access to formal linguistic resources represented by his school, but he also created an effective social network in and through the second language which provided him with the symbolic ‘benefits’ of a confident language user, a strong sense of self as well as knowledge of the discourses in use. Similar to Kasia, he complied with the dominant/primary discourses (as Gee [2007] calls them) of the host society. The interactive acquisition of specific cultural perspectives allowed Marcin to act in an acceptable sociocultural manner, which along with language learning empowered him and finally granted him membership of a majority language speakers’ social group – his favourite native speakers of English peer group (Ochs, 2002: 99–114). On the other hand, through affectively charged stances of resentment, resignation toward Poland, the Polish language and culture and negative assessments of his language skills in Polish, Marcin resisted his Polish linguistic, social, ethnic and cultural identity. Moreover, through positioning himself as a ‘novice’ within the group of Polish language users, i.e. when celebrating Polish holidays, participating in family events in Poland or constructing negative affective stances concerning Polish modes of politeness and greetings, Marcin reinforced his resistance. However, he hardly ever expressed his agency outwardly; on the contrary, he did it rather tacitly by choosing, for example, not to talk about some Polish traditions known to him or positioning himself as a ‘novice’. With respect to literacy skills development in the Polish language, Marcin constructed positive stances toward his ‘claimed’ ability to read in Polish; however, he preferred to read about his hobby (planes) in English. It is worth pointing out that Marcin’s mother’s retrospective accounts of Marcin’s reading practice contrasted markedly with Marcin’s own accounts. Namely, she was convinced that Marcin did not like

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reading in Polish. She even compared this activity to giving him a punishment. This can suggest that Marcin could have been aligning with the researcher who was Polish or it could have been his desire to construct some meaningful affiliations/connections with his past. Marcin’s negative self-assessments of his Polish language abilities (especially his literacy skills), his frequent code-switching practices and his internal speech being through English suggest that his Polish language literacy skills were not well developed concerning his age. As in Kasia’s case, his contact with the heritage language and culture was very limited. It was restricted to using Polish with his parents, siblings (not always) and grandparents (through Skype and during his grandmother’s visits) and watching Polish TV. These limited context and language use possibilities contributed to Marcin’s heritage language being gradually replaced by English. Cummins (2001) argues that in cases like this, literacy skills in the first language deteriorate to a level where it is impossible to develop a student’s academic growth through that language. He warns that in some extreme cases there is a complete shift in language during the school years. He distinguishes a distinctive group of children who start school unilingual in their first language and leave school virtually unilingual in English. Marcin’s first and second LS practices so far support Cummins’ findings. Again, the findings of this study strongly support the need for external to family supports for heritage language and the development of multiliteracies more specifically. Also, parental involvement with external contexts is crucial for the children’s heritage LS as it is through meaningful engagement and participation in external socialization sites that children build affiliations and create positive bonds with culture and language. More studies exploring the potential of external to family or classroom socialization sites would be beneficial for our understanding of language and culture maintenance in the context of migration. The findings of this study clearly show that parents’ engagement in community organizations and the kind of future they see for themselves and their family are very important to children’s ethnic identities and language maintenance. Nevertheless, all the children recognized the importance of learning English and perceived it as high status and worthy of personal investment. Moreover, as demonstrated in Chapter  5, they often connected their future with English. Implications for Supporting Immigrant Adolescents

The parents and children often positioned themselves inside certain discourses which was mirrored by their choices and identities. Yet, they rarely questioned or reflected on the choices or discourses in which they functioned. They did not recognize that their own perspective could be culturally determined rather than neutral. This was also the case with the children’s school peers and teachers who remained engaged within

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their own ‘truths’/primary discourses. None of the schools offered meaningful multilingual approaches to teaching nor did they offer tuition of the children’s heritage languages. The curriculum used in schools pays little attention to children’s heritage languages and cultures. There is no recognition of multilingual approaches to the literacy development of immigrant children. As many studies report, in Ireland, there is still a huge misrecognition of immigrant students’ linguistic capabilities by their schools (McGorman & Sugrue, 2007; Nowlan, 2008; Wallen & Kelly-Holmes, 2006) presenting these children from a ‘deficit’ perspective (Devine, 2005). This is likely to have damaging effects on the students (Ortega, 2014). The study presented in this book confirms and supplements these findings with the findings from the Polish project IRCHSS, 2007–2008 (Singleton et  al., 2013), particularly that micro-interactions between Polish students and their peers, educators and communities are partially shaped by the macro-structures and primary discourses, such as the Department of Education and Science policy (very limited English as a second language [ESL] provision, very little or no recognition of the heritage languages of the students, the scale and nature of support for home language provision, teachers’ training, the culture-specific nature of the post-primary curriculum). Singleton et al. (2013) state that: In the light of research indicating that lack of support for the home language is likely to lead to deleterious/harmful effects, not only in respect of that particular language but in terms of linguistic and cognitive development generally, it seems short-sighted on the part of the Irish educational authorities not to make any kind of contribution in this area. (Singleton et al., 2013: 23)

Indirectly, these study findings confirm these assumptions. The schools of the children participating in this study organized intercultural days, yet positioned immigrant children as ‘others’, thereby invoking resistance from some of them. Kasia is a perfect example. The participating adolescents were classified as ‘not problematic’ and thus positioned as ‘successful’ immigrant students by their schools. However, it must be pointed out that expectations toward immigrant students and the majority can be very different. In many ways, the children in this study remained invisible immigrants in their schools. It was their accent or language that distinguished them from others, not their color, which other studies have shown is a common occurrence for Slavic groups of migrants. Janek’s ‘resistance’ to writing longer and emotionally responsive texts in English was not recognized as a cultural issue and he was positioned as a ‘lower ability student’ and offered ordinary level English in the Junior Certificate as a consequence. His teachers did not know or were not interested in his heritage language abilities. Both Janek and Wiktoria had well-developed Polish literacy skills. These skills remained

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pretty much invisible in their English mainstream schools. This shows their schools’ complete lack of awareness of multiliteracy and multilingual approaches. Marcin and Kasia’s schools did not question their heritage language skills. The language that the children used daily was seen as separate and the heritage language was not of any concern to the majority school teacher. It can be argued that these immigrant children’s bilingualism was unacknowledged, unsupported and ignored in the school context. It was only through the immigrant parents’ choice to find possibilities for external to family heritage LS for themselves and their children that the bilingualism of the children was supported. It can be argued that the educational context failed these multilingual children. The students’ cultural and social identity, their cultural background and experiences as immigrants were not reflected in the available materials and educational programmes proposed by the Irish educational system. Nevertheless, ‘regardless of institutional constraints, educators have individual and collective choices in how they negotiate identities with students and communities’ (Cummins, 2009: 262). This is because there is always variation among individuals, a variation which is socially structured and is, at the same time, a ‘wellspring of ongoing social dynamics’ (Schieffelin, 1990: 87). It should also be pointed out that all the participating parents in this study found the Polish language and culture to be of great importance. All of them expressed the wish for their children to retain heritage customs, traditions and language. Unfortunately, this desire was not always supported by action. The parents did not know how to support their children’s bilingualism or had rather anecdotal knowledge concerning the bilingual and bicultural development of children. Moreover, although the general orientation of the children and their parents was toward adaptation to the host society, conflict often occurred between the new and old discourses, the desire to become a part of a new culture and the desire to remain connected to the native heritage and language. This indicates that more support for parents is needed not only concerning their children and their bilingualism but also in terms of intercultural understanding, the ‘development of symbolic competence’ in particular. This could be done through state adult education programmes for immigrants. The young participants of the present study constantly tried to accommodate Polish values, norms and culture within the wider sociohistorical reality in which they live. By wider socio-historical reality, I mean being a child of contemporary European migrants. Today, being an immigrant poses even more challenges than it did before. Previously, immigration was understood in terms of permanent settlement in a new country and adopting a new country’s values and cultural norms. Today, we migrate for economic reasons more often, thus the possibility of migration to another country or even going back to the country of origin is always present. We not only have to meet

Conclusion and Implications  195

the challenges of language learning but also need to gain intercultural competence to find employment in the very competitive labor market worldwide. Even though this book looked at the Polish-Irish context specifically, this has become very much the norm around the world as more and more people decide to migrate each year (see World Migration Report, 2013). What seemed to be the new world order a decade ago has become the norm for millions of people around the world today. Migrant children have to balance competing realities, often without much support from their parents or schools. The ethnocentric or culture-specific nature of the school curriculum, as well as the promotion of mutually incompatible cultural values and discourses, does not serve the best interests of the immigrant children. In this book, I showed how multiple demands of peer groups, parents and larger social demands come together in an immigrant adolescent’s life. This study also demonstrated that these children’s experiences are culturally determined rather than empowering them to gain intercultural competence. As a result, children make their way without mediation or support from their Irish teachers or peers and with limited support from their parents. As García-Sánchez and Nazimova (2017: 443) point out, ‘language and interactional processes that are at the core of immigrants’ identity negotiations will be a major focus of elaboration in language socialization studies in Europe’. It is because this type of focus will expose how immigrant groups are able to simultaneously negotiate different identities while negotiating ‘commonality of belonging, particularly in relation to the marginal and, in many cases, degraded positionalities that immigrant communities come to occupy in local and national indexical orders’ (García-Sánchez & Nazimova, 2017: 443). García-Sánchez and Nazimova (2017: 443), for example, has called for ‘documenting the dynamic interplay between these sources and mechanisms across contexts of people’s everyday lives to find how mechanisms contradict and reinforce each other and, in turn, how these paradoxes impact how trajectories of marginalization emerge and become more or less enduring’. This study has added to this discussion. However, there is a need for more studies of this type across different contexts, mainly studies that combine critical perspectives examining how local relations of power are shaped by the wider socio-historical and macro political dynamic forces normalizing belonging (Duff, 2008). Like the ‘ecology for language paradigm’, I call for an ‘ecology for culture paradigm’, instead of reproducing ‘determinant’ aspects of cultural or linguistic views; where we not only appreciate and value one’s cultural richness and one’s linguistic heritage but also incorporate this ecology within a greater global context. Only then will we be able to see the specificity of each culture, language or its value and perceive it as such, as socially constructed phenomena, at the same time empowering us to make informed choices and decisions in our

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lives. Bigger choices that serve the best interests of those making them and those affected. Finally, alternative discourses of migration are needed, particularly moving away from deficit perspectives. If we do not take the time and effort to better understand children’s experiences and step away from ‘multicultural management’ and try to seek to empower children with ‘symbolic competence’, we will never be able to create a truly cohesive multicultural society. The findings of this research strongly echo Houxiang and Kramsch’s (2010: 114) call for the need for symbolic competence, a ‘third place’, which is a metaphor for positioning the self both inside and outside the discourses of others. This would allow an individual to stand outside each culture and see its values and norms, not in terms of ‘better’ or ‘worse’ or ‘mutually exclusive’, but in terms of mutually appreciated difference. Irish government policymakers need to address these issues in the near future, not only as a response to the growing Polish community in Ireland but also as a reaction to the great influx of immigrants to Ireland in general. Any country that opens its borders to the international community can expect to encounter the same linguistic and cultural challenges. Notes on Participants

Kasia and her family stayed in Ireland and decided to settle. She studies psychology in Maynooth University. Marcin studies intercultural studies in Dublin City University and Wiktoria is studying art history in Trinity College Dublin. I have lost contact with Janek’s family after his Leaving Cert Examination. He did the advanced-level English examination.

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Index

negative affective stance 76, 102, 104, 109, 122, 128, 137, 143–4 outsider/insider categorizations 75, 97, 163, 187 parents’ 162–3, 170 pronouns 53, 76, 150, 171, 189 prosody 67, 68 repetitions 110–11 towards peers 79 towards Polish 165 affiliation 54, 81, 84, 150, 184–92 affinity groups 57 Agar, M. 115 age on arrival 48 agency and acculturation 116 conclusions on 183–5 Discourses 8 expressed through language choices 54 and identity 10, 88, 107 Kasia 62 and language socialization 9–10 and moral codes 147–55 multi-faceted 148 and narrative 52 and parental influence 25–6, 154 positioning 184 refusal to participate 77, 141–2 rejection of moral discourses 152–5 resistance as 26, 145, 184, 185, 189, 191 retrospective narrative 7 and socialization 9–10 and socio-historical mediation 115–55 symbolic power of language 105 transformative potential 6

accent aiming for local 91, 98 aiming to be without a Polish 88 American accents 89–90, 92–3, 99, 180, 185, 189 belonging/not belonging 59, 88–94 British accents 98–9, 180, 185 changes in Polish 94 and identity 57 indicating ideologies 157 Irish accents 91, 95, 98–100 Janek 97–104, 185 Kasia 88–94, 189 Marcin 94–6 native speaker accents 180 as negotiation of ‘self’ 88–92 self-awareness of 89–90 symbolic power of language 105 Wiktoria 96–7 acculturation 116, 146–7, 188 address terms 53, 120–3, 126, 129, 135 adjectives 53, 103, 167 adolescence, as context of study 18–19, 20–2, 107 adverbs 53, 81, 82 adversary conjunctions 81, 84 affective issues to do with identity and language 107–8 affective stance colloquialisms 62 and cultural allegiance 153 discourse markers 167 generalizations 96 and ideologies 157 and language socialization 53, 55 markers 76, 186, 187, 191 modality markers 171 modifiers 144

213

214 Index

types of 26 Wiktoria 152–5 Ahearn, L.M. 25, 26, 145, 146 Akatsuka, N. 53 alignment 54, 133, 134, 140, 143, 150 Allport, G. 157 American accents 89–90, 92–3, 99, 180, 185, 189 Annis, R.C. 146 Antonsich, M. 3 Apelgren, B. 181 apprenticeships, to Discourses 58 Asher, S.R. 20 assimilation 27, 30, 145 attitude formation 157 attrition/shift 173, 190, 192 Auer, P. 6, 23 Aurer, P. 59, 107, 108 Australian English 89–90 authenticity 51, 58 authority 106 Back, M. 118 Bailey, A.L. 59 Baker, C. 30, 57, 146, 173 Baker, D.L. 118 Baker, J. 3 Bakhtin, M.M. 8 Baquedano-López, P. 6, 12, 24, 25, 27, 58, 107, 147, 156, 181, 190 Bauman, B. 8 Baumrind, D. 20 Baynham, M. 7, 51, 52 behavioural issues at school 45 belonging/not belonging 56–114, 147, 186 Berg, B.L. 33, 48 Berry, J.W. 116, 146, 147 Besemeres, M. 108 Biber, D. 52, 53 bids on stances 54 Biklen, S.K. 33 bilingualism see multilingualism Blackledge, A. 18, 30, 104 Blommaert, J. 118 Boas, F. 10 Bogdan, R.C. 33 books 41–2, 46 borrowing words 94

Bourdieu, P. 10, 23, 29, 58, 59, 104, 105, 106, 185, 189, 191 Boxer, D. 56, 143 Briggs, C.L. 8 British accents 98–9, 180, 185 Brock, I. 108 Bruner, G.C. 25 Bucholtz, M. 53 Budwig, N. 23 bullying 20 Busch, B. 3 Busfield, J. 173 Byram, K.A. 118 Byram, M. 28 Canagarajah, S. 118 Capps, L. 36, 37, 50, 147, 154 case-study design 48–9 Catholic church 16–17, 44, 87, 140, 149–54, 162–3 Catholic schools 42, 45, 47 Chafe, W. 53 Charalambous, C. 5 Chavira, V. 21 Child, I.L. 181 child-centered approaches 49–50 Chin, N.B. 156, 164 Chiyoko King-O’Riain, R. 14, 15, 16, 135 clarifying moves 68, 71, 99 co-construction of identity 88 co-construction of meaning 24, 33, 35, 50 co-construction of narrative 37, 50–1, 52, 91 code mixing 93, 94, 169–70 code switching 39, 41, 156, 167, 169–70, 192 coding of data 34–5, 36–7, 50–2 Codó, E. 5 Cohen, A.D. 56 Cole, K.M. 25 Cole, M. 117 collectivism 155 colloquial language 62, 137 colonialism 99 Common European Framework of Reference 3, 47–8 communicative competence 28, 118

Index 

communicative events 31 communities of practice 22, 24, 58–9, 72, 153 conditionals 53 conjuctions 81, 84 Conteh, J. 2, 4 contestation 8 contexualization of meanings 52 Cook, M. 6, 53 Corbin, J.M. 34 Corona, V. 5 Corsaro, W.A. 25 Council of Europe 3 Creese, A. 18, 30 critical moral stances 170, 187, 188 critical multiculturalism/interculturalism 3 Croker, R. 49 cross-cultural communication 118, 134 cultural belonging 71 cultural capital 104, 105, 106, 191 cultural competence 10, 20, 23, 29, 95, 106 cultural contexts 104 see also sociocultural contexts cultural continuities, home-school 20–1 cultural diversity 27, 146, 181 cultural events 87, 137, 185, 191 cultural hegemony 106–7 cultural heritage 21, 30 cultural identity 6 cultural knowledge 10, 58, 76, 115 cultural loss 58 cultural models 117 cultural psychology 23 cultural resistance 140–7 Cummins, J. 104, 189, 190, 192, 194 Darmody, M. 2 data analysis 4, 31–3, 34, 48, 50–2 data coding 34, 35, 36–7, 50–2 data transcription 34, 35 data triangulation 34, 36, 47–9, 51 Davies, B. 50, 54–5 De Fina, A. 7, 9, 31, 50, 51, 52, 84, 102, 107 De Houwer, A. 25 de Jong, E.J. 2 Debaene, E. 14, 17

215

deficit-based approaches 2–3, 193, 196 deixis 84 deontic modality 53, 165 developmental psychology 23 Devine, D. 2–3 Dewaele, J.M. 108, 113 dialects 3 diaspora communities 24 diasporic identities 5 differentiation 3 Direct Provision 11 disassociation 61, 72, 81, 99, 188 discontinuities between cultures 21 Discourse belonging/not belonging 64, 68, 72, 84, 88, 97 conclusions on 183–4, 186 dominant discourse 97, 105, 106, 117, 184, 187, 189, 191 and identity 7–9, 57–8 and language socialization 7–9 master myths 117 primary discourses 117, 186, 188, 189, 191, 193 sociocultural processes 115–16 socio-historical context 117–20 ways of feeling 107 discourse analysis 4 discourse boasters 92 discourse conventions 37 discourse markers 84, 90, 103, 112, 123, 128, 140, 143, 162–3, 167 discourse particles 92 discourse phenomena 52 discourse quantifiers 145 discrimination 20, 146, 147 discursive intensifiers 71, 76, 91, 94, 102, 103, 120–1, 128, 133, 144, 150, 152 discursive practice 55 dominant discourse 97, 105, 106, 117, 184, 187, 189, 191 Dörnyei, Z. 180, 181 double negation 96, 137 Drinkwater, S. 16, 145–7 Du Bois, J.W. 25, 52 Dubet, F. 147 Duff, P. 10, 23, 24–5, 26, 27, 28, 34, 49, 157, 185, 195

216 Index

Duranti, A. 10, 25, 50, 53, 105, 147 Eastern European people, grouping with other 60–1, 93 Eckert, P. 22 ecology of culture paradigm 195–6 ecology of language model 27, 180–1, 182, 195 economic recession 15 education policies 2, 193 educational theory 23, 26–7 Edwards, D. 31 ego identity 19 Ellis, N.C. 49 emergent situated interactions 59 emotions see also affective stance in adolescence 113–14 different languages and different emotions 107–8, 113, 186 language, identity and emotions 107–8 and morality 148 emphatic stress indicating affective stance 64, 68, 75, 76, 79, 91, 102, 103, 109, 162, 170 indicating epistemic stance 69, 90, 94 indicating moral stance 133, 151 employment 15 enculturation 10 engagement 53 English as a Second Language (ESL) 11 English language adolescents’ preference for 63, 165 examinations in 40 as global language 175, 180 high status of 173–8, 179–81, 192 inner speech 108 on the internet 47 language ideologies 157 as the language of ‘success’ 178–9 and life in Ireland 163 official language status 180, 187 in Poland 174–8, 180 in Polish homes 39, 88, 165–6, 170, 191 at Polish weekend schools 46 politeness 135 thinking in 108, 167, 171 TV/films 47, 92–3, 95–6

using young people as interpreters 123–4 English proficiency and ability to socialize with peers 20 as focus of education policy 2–3 as goal of Polish immigrants 14, 16 English support programmes 17 enriched educational models 30, 43–4 epistemic stance certainty 53, 94, 95, 102, 112, 121, 145, 151 choice of words 140 confidence 71 critical moral stances 133, 134 discourse markers 167 epistemic modality markers 53, 68, 79, 81, 82, 86, 92, 121, 122, 165 evidential marking 125 greetings 128 indicating ideologies 157 investment in 145 linguistic resources indicating 53 markers 64, 68, 92, 99 negative epistemic stance 144 uncertainty 53, 64, 71, 81–2, 92, 94, 97, 99, 121 equality 3 Erikson, E.H. 19 ethnicity 6, 20–1, 22, 105 ethnography 9, 12, 23, 31, 33–5, 36, 47–9, 51, 181 evaluation, and attitude formation 157 evidential marking 53, 125 exclamations 143 expert positioning 24, 37, 59, 102, 116, 143 external supports for heritage language 190, 192 Extra, G. 27 face-saving 102–3 Fader, A. 6, 12, 148, 154 family links 14, 125–6, 159–62, 169, 192 family socialization 4, 5–7 Feldman, S.S. 20 Feldstein, R. 123 Fielding, J.L. 48 Fielding, N.G. 48 films 92–3

Index 

Finegan 53 Fleck, L. 8 Fogle, L. 25, 26, 107 food 41 formal register 124–5, 135 Foucault, M. 148, 154 friendships see also peer socialization having same accent 91 Janek 79–88 Kasia 38–9, 64 Marcin 65–8 and migrant children 18 at school 17 weekend schools 45 Wiktoria 72–9, 129–35 funnel-and-filter 3 Gadu-Gadu 168–9 Gafaranga, J. 4, 25, 107, 183 Gal, S. 16, 181 Gall, M.D. 49 García, O. 118 García-Sánchez, I.M. 4, 5, 6, 183–4, 195 Gardner, R.C. 173, 181 Garfinkel, H. 58 Garrett, P. 6, 24, 25, 58, 107, 156, 157, 173, 181, 190 Gee, J.P. 7–9, 57, 58, 64, 68, 72, 84, 88, 97, 105, 107, 115, 117, 118, 183, 186, 189, 191 gender 22 generalizability 49 generalizations 7, 49, 51, 68, 71, 84, 96, 99, 134, 145 Georgakopoulou, A. 7, 50, 52 Georgakopoulou, G. 35, 50 gesture 57 Ghuman, P.A.S. 116 Giddens, A. 8, 22, 58 Glenn, Ch. L. 2 Goodwin, C. 50, 54, 116 Goodwin, M.H. 7, 36, 54, 105, 147 Goulding, C. 32 grandparents 125–6, 192 Greene, S. 49–50 greetings 119, 128, 129 Griffee, D.T. 181 Grosjean, F. 173 grounded theory protocol 34

217

group membership, and identity 56–9 group work 29 Guardado, M. 156–7, 173 Guidera, A. 16 Gumperz, J.J. 157 Gunderson, L. 58 ‘habitus’ 29, 59, 104, 106, 148 Hall, S. 18, 88, 116 Hanks, W.F. 6 Harré, R. 50, 54–5 Hayes, N. 188 He, A. 6 Heath, S.B. 26, 115, 116 Heigham, J. 49 Heller, M. 59 Henry, A. 181 heritage, identification with 72, 96, 134, 153, 185–8 Heritage, J. 58 heritage, negative attitudes to 56–9, 69, 72, 121–2, 137, 188–92 heritage language education 18, 30–1, 43, 59, 193 see also weekend schools heritage loss 58 see also language shift/ attrition heritage maintenance 147 Hogan, D. 49–50 Holliday, A. 32 home country links 14, 16, 18, 29 honorifics 53 Hornberger, N.H. 23, 179, 181 Houxiang, L. 196 Hovey, J.D. 147 humor 75, 83, 84, 88, 125 hybrid registers 5 hybridity 8 Hymes, D. 23, 31 identity and accent 88 and acculturation 146 and adolescence 18 and agency 10, 88, 107 and choice of language 62–4 co-construction of identity 88 construction of 54, 88, 107, 153 deconstruction 189

218 Index

Discourses 8–9, 57–8, 97, 107 ego identity 19 and ethnicity 21 formation of 19, 22, 52, 88, 107 and group membership 56–9 indicated by linguistic structures 53, 57 language, identity and emotions 107–8 language constructs 57 and language development 56 and language socialization 6 maintaining strong connections 44 and narrative 7 negotiation of 24, 52, 56–9, 88, 154 positioning 52 pronouns indicating affiliations 84 rejection of 188 at school 112–14 and self-concept 19 shifting 24 social identity formation 22, 56–9, 88, 104, 117, 148 stance-taking 52 studies of adolescent 4–5 ideology 9, 25, 54, 104, 156–82 idiomatic expressions 134 Imhoff, G. 2 immersion 116 imperative verbs 123 implicit exclusion 97 implicit knowledge 58 inequality 2 inferences 121, 143 informal events, as research tools 65 informal socialization 24–5 inner speech 108, 167, 171 in-service teacher training 16 insider perspectives 12 insider/outsider categorizations 57, 65– 8, 72–7, 88, 163, 184–5, 190–2 instrumental reasons to learn a language 173–4, 178 Integrate Ireland Language and Training (IILT) 18 integration within wider Irish society 17–18, 145–6 integrative reasons for learning a language 174

intensifiers 71, 76, 91, 94, 102, 103, 120– 1, 128, 133, 144, 150, 152 interactional sociolinguistics 31 interactive positioning 54 intercultural communicative competence 118 intercultural competence 5, 9, 27–9, 118, 119, 195 intercultural events/days 61, 193 intergenerational language transmission 163–5 interjections 102 International Day 61–2 interpreters, using children as 38 interpretive reproduction 25 intersubjectivity 53, 54–5 intertextuality 119 interview methods 4, 9, 31, 32, 33–8, 47–9 intonation 82, 86, 89–90, 102, 105–6 Irish accents 91, 95, 98–100 Irish associations 47 Irish holidays 136, 140–1 Irish language 120, 174, 187 Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) 14, 15, 193 Irish Times 15 Jandt, F. 28 Janek accent 97–104, 185 attitudes to English 175–6 attitudes to Poland/Polish Heritage 81–8, 105–6, 140–7, 158 contact hours 34 cultural models 117 family life and schooling 46–7 hours of audio recording 51 identity 72 literacy socialization 108–12 outsider/insider categorizations 81–8, 105–6, 184, 185–7 parental influence 46, 99–100, 158, 175, 185–6 peer socialization 79–88 resisting culture 140–7 after the study 196 summary of socialization 185–8

Index 

weekend schools 30–1, 43–4, 186 worldviews 105–6 Jones, B.M. 116 Karrebæk, M. 5 Kasia accent 88–92, 189 attitudes to English 176–7, 178, 184, 188–90 belonging/social identity 59–64 contact hours 34 family life and schooling 38–40 hours of audio recording 51 interpreting for parents 123–5 ‘legitimate speaker’ status 106 monolingual educational context 29 parental influence 38–9, 88–9, 93–4, 163–4, 168–71, 172–3, 189–90 after the study 196 summary of socialization 188–90 visits back to Poland 119, 120, 135 Kasztalska, A. 180 Kearney, E. 118 Keniston, K. 19 Kiesling, S.F. 36, 50, 53, 54, 55 Kim, U. 147 King, K.A. 25, 26 Kinoulty Research 15 Kirwan, D. 3 knowledge see also epistemic stance cultural knowledge 10, 58, 76, 115 implicit knowledge 58 lack of social knowledge 140 micro practices of morality 148 power/knowledge (pouvoir/savoir) 9 sociocultural knowledge 115 socio-historical context 188 transmission from expert to novice 116 Kockelman, P. 25 Kohlberg, L. 20 Konopka, G. 19 Kramsch, C. 9, 27, 28, 57, 115, 117, 118, 119, 183, 184, 186, 196 Kropiwiec, K. 14, 15, 16, 135 Kubisiak, Andrzej 1 Kulick, D. 148, 190 Kuninski, M. 154, 155 Kyratzis, A. 7, 105

219

L1 see also Polish language educator attitudes to 2 emotions 108 home language provision 3 and identity 56 multilingual socialization 24 proficiency 3 seen as barrier to learning 2 services and information in 16 L2 see also English language acquisition theory 104 emotions 108, 186 and identity 56 literacy socialization 108–14 symbolic power of language 104 Labov, W. 53 Lamb, M.E. 20 Lambert, W. 173, 181 Langman, J. 22 language acquisition 23–4 language contact settings 24 language maintenance 2, 4, 105, 145, 156, 159, 163–4 language policies 25 language shift/attrition 173, 190, 192 language socialization and adolescence 21–2 conclusions on 183–96 cross-disciplinary nature of 23 and education 26–7 expansion of field 27 and identity 57, 58 key concepts 22–5 and moral codes 148 parental influence 156–82 second language socialization 22–5 as a sociocultural process 115 and socio-historical context 115, 117–20 and stance-taking 53 theory 4, 5–7, 10 Lantolf, J.P. 88, 115, 146 Lanza, E. 25 Lapeyronnie, D. 147 Larsen-Freeman, D. 49 Lave, J. 24, 27 learning difficulties, second language learning confused for 3 Leech, G. 53

220 Index

‘legitimate speaker’ status 106 Leitner, H. 180 Leung, J.Y.C. 118 Li, H. 28 liberal values 152–5 libraries 16, 46, 158 lifelong processes 24 linguistic anthropology 23, 31 linguistic capital 104, 105, 106, 185, 191 linguistic habitus 105 linguistic markets 105, 106, 189 linguistic repertoires 2, 5 Lippi-Green, R. 88, 105 literacy socialization 23, 43, 108–14, 190, 191–2, 193–4 Little, D. 16 longitudinal study 12 ‘looking good’ principle 38 Lynch, K. 3 Lyon, E.S. 173 Lyons, Z. 16 Mahmood, S. 148, 154 mainstream culture 117 mainstream education 30, 45 Maranhão, T. 51 Marcia, J.E. 21, 113 Marcin accent 94–6 attitudes to English 176, 184, 188–92 attitudes to Polish language/heritage 42, 125–6, 136–40, 172 being an ‘insider’ 65–8 contact hours 34 family life and schooling 40–3 greetings 125–9 hours of audio recording 51 ‘legitimate speaker’ status 106 monolingual educational context 30 parental influence 41–2, 69, 163–5, 173, 174 siblings 69–72, 191 after the study 196 summary of socialization 188–92 use of English 165–6, 191 visits back to Poland 119, 125–6, 135 marginalization 147 master myths 117 May, S. 2, 4

McDaid, R. 2 McGillicuddy, D. 2, 3 McKay, S.L. 148 Mead, M. 18, 22 Meier, G. 2, 4 Merton, R.K. 22 metalinguistic awareness 79, 123–4 migration and acculturation 116, 145–6 alternative discourses of 196 becoming more common 195 invisible immigrants 11, 193 to Ireland 1, 14–17 Polish migration to Ireland 1, 14–17 researcher’s background 10–12 and schools generally 2 and sociocultural complexity 136 temporary migration 14, 194 Miller, J. 56–7, 105 Miller, P.J. 25 minority language recognition 2 miscommunications 134–5 mobile phones 86–7, 88 modal verbs 53, 109, 123, 128 Molina, P. 118 Monaghan, G. 15 monoculturalism 3, 28 monolingualism 2, 3–4, 6, 186 moral stances critical moral stances 152, 170, 187, 188 micro practices of morality 148 negative moral stances 151, 152 rooted in tradition 37 socialization of morality 12, 27, 113, 136–55 Wiktoria 37, 76, 133–4, 147–55, 187 Morita, N. 185 Mother Tongues 3 motivations for learning a language 173–4 multiculturalism 3, 27–9, 146, 196 multilingualism conflicts 181 deficit-based approaches 2–3, 193 different languages and different emotions 107–8 ecology of language model 181 in education systems 187

Index 

Ireland 1 and language ideologies 156 and monolingual norms 186 multilingual learning communities in education 26 multilingual socialization 4, 6, 24 parental attitudes to 156 in schools 193–4 and symbolic competence 190 symbolic power of language 104, 118 transnational multilingual practices 5 multiliteracy 3, 194 narratives 7–9, 35–8, 50–1 National Economic and Social Council of Ireland (NESC) 16 National Polish School standards 43 native speaker teachers 43 naturalistic settings for learning language 38, 41, 186 Nazimova, K. 4, 5, 184, 195 negative attitudes to Polish heritage 69 negotiation access to peer groups 58 Discourses 8 of family roles 26 of identity 24, 52, 56–9, 88, 154 Ní Laoire, C. 17 Nichols, J. 53 Norton, B. 58, 104 novice, positioning as 6, 22–4, 26, 59, 77–9, 116, 128–9, 140, 152, 187, 191 observational data 31–3 Ochs, E. 10, 23, 24, 27, 36, 37, 38, 50, 53, 55, 107, 115, 147, 153, 154, 156, 189, 191 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) 16 official language status 180, 187 onomatopoeic sounds 102 ORPEG Ośrodek Rozwoju Edukacji Polskiej za Granicą 43 Ortega, L. 2, 193 ‘other’ 64, 72–7, 104, 106, 184–90, 193 outsider/insider categorizations 57, 65– 8, 72–7, 88, 163, 184–5, 190–2

221

parental influence attitudes to heritage language 194 Janek’s mother 46, 99–100, 158, 175, 185–6 Kasia’s mother 38–9, 88–9, 93–4, 163–4, 168–71, 172–3, 189–90 and language ideologies 156–82 Marcin’s mother 41–2, 69, 163–5, 166–7, 173, 174, 191–2 and ‘Polishness’ 158–73 socialization of parents 25–6 socializing agents 19–20, 107, 123 Wiktoria’s father 130, 134, 150, 154, 188 Wiktoria’s mother 150, 151, 159–62, 179, 180 Parsons, T. 22 participant observations 31, 32, 51 particles 53 Passeron, J.-C. 10 Patiño-Santos, A. 5 Pavlenko, A. 88, 104, 108, 146, 189 peer socialization 6, 19, 20, 58, 72–7, 105, 187–92 Pelowski, W. 15 Pennycook, A. 9, 52 performative power of language 148 Petty, R. 157 Phinney, J.S. 21, 116 phonology 53 see also accent Piaget, J. 19 Piers de Oliveira, R. 115 plurilingualism 3 polarity markers 82, 144 Polish (Catholic) chaplaincy 16–17 Polish associations/institutions/cultural centres 16, 44, 46, 149, 158, 159, 162–3, 172, 190 Polish clubs 47 Polish Eurydice Unit 43 Polish holidays 137–40, 149–52, 191 Polish House 16 Polish Information and Culture Centre 16 Polish language address terms 120–3, 126, 129 adolescents not using 62–4 adolescents’ partial command of 169–70, 171–2

222 Index

books 42, 46, 158 as home language - Janek 46, 113 as home language - Kasia 39, 172, 190 as home language - Marcin 41, 164 as home language - Wiktoria 44–5 inner speech 108 native speaker teachers 43 not mutually comprehensible with Russian 61 Polish as a second language courses 17 politeness 119, 120–3, 129, 135, 172 pronunciation changes 94 religion 44–5 on school curriculum 97 schools do not provide formal support for 18 signage 17 social media 168–9 TV and media 17, 39, 41, 46, 47, 95, 163, 172, 177, 192 using in shops 62–4 Polish Mass 149–52, 163 Polish shops, pubs and restaurants 17, 62–3 Polish Social and Cultural Association 16 Polish youth club 47, 72, 186 Polish-Irish Society 16 Polish-medium schools 17 ‘Polishness’ 158–73 politeness 119, 120, 129–35, 172 positioning according to place of origin 61 of friends 81 and identity work 107 as insider 91 Janek 82 Kasia 62 and losing face 102–3 methodology 51–5 as a ‘novice’ 79 outsider/insider categorizations 97, 184 reflective positioning 54, 55 in symbolic spaces 119 theories of 4, 6, 10, 50, 54–5 post-communist societies 148, 153, 185

Potter, J. 31 power address terms 123 of belonging 56–114 everyday negotiations of 154 and identity 52 and immigration 12 language, power and identity 4 and language socialization 25, 146, 183–4 micro practices of morality 148 and moral discourse 154 power/knowledge (pouvoir/savoir) 9 researcher presence, effects of 125 socio-historical context 5, 195 symbolic power of language 104–7, 118–19, 189 tacitly exercised 146 practical consciousness 58 practice theory 58–9 prestige languages 173 presuppositions 52, 67, 81, 92, 102, 112, 121, 125, 134, 151 primary discourses 117, 186, 188, 189, 191, 193 private lessons 186 pronouns affective stance 53, 76, 150, 171, 189 affiliations 84 epistemic stance 64, 82 first-person plural showing allegiances 84 and identity 84 indicating ‘us’ and ‘them’ 150 otherness 84, 86 outsider/insider categorizations 152 politeness 120–3 symbolic deixis 84 pronunciation 94, 101–2 see also accent prosody see also intonation; tone of voice affective stance 67, 82, 102, 128, 162 counter-factual statements 143 and identity 64 indicating epistemic stance 99 indicating surprise 86 surprise 139 psycholinguistics 23 psychological development 20–1

Index 

psychology 19 pub, going to the 65–8 ‘purity,’ language 156 qualitative research 49 quantifiers 145 racism 20 Rainbow Children’s Day 47 Rakowski, P. 15 Rampton, B. 52 reflective positioning 54, 55 register 124 religion 16–17, 44–5, 136, 147, 149–52, 153, 154, 155, 162–3 repetition 110–11, 133, 141, 143, 151, 165 research methods 4, 31–8 researcher as expert 102 researcher presence, effects of 40, 45–6, 68, 102 researcher’s background 10–12, 68 resistance, as agency 26, 145, 184, 185, 189, 191 resisting culture 140–7 retrospective narrative 7, 35, 51, 76, 110, 123, 133 Roberts, C. 29 Rogers, C.R. 18, 19 Rogoff, B. 9, 23 Ronowicz, E. 135 routine 58–9 Ruhs, M. 15 rural areas 15, 45, 65 Russian language 61 Rymes, B. 23 Said, F. 4, 183 Sapir, E. 10 Saville-Troike, M. 31 scaffolding 116, 169 Scally, D. 14 Schieffelin, B. 10, 23, 24, 27, 38, 53, 55, 59, 107, 115, 148, 156, 190, 194 Schiffrin, D. 84 Schömann, I. 14 schools cultural continuities home-school 20–1

223

curriculum 43, 97, 193, 195 education policies 2, 193 educational theory 23, 26–7 enriched educational models 30, 43–4 habitus 29 home language provision 3, 17, 193 intercultural competence 28 lack of acknowledgement of heritage languages 193–4 mainstream education 30, 45 moving children back a year 72–3 and multilingualism 193 Polish-medium schools 17 secondary socialization 27 shaping social attitudes 20 and socialization 17 submersion models of education 30 two persons in one 112–14 Schwartz, S.J. 116 second language socialization 22–5 secondary discourses 117 secondary socialization 27 self-concept formation 19–20 self-representation 61 self-transformation 88 semi-modals 53 semiotic signs 53 sentence particles 53 shame/humiliation 63, 76 shared basic assumptions 117 ‘Sheet’ [SHIT] 100–4 siblings 41, 69–72, 165, 191 signage 17 signed languages 3 silence 29 Singleton, D. 5, 11, 17, 193 situated interactions 58–9, 104, 147 situated meaning 9 Skilton-Sylvester, E. 179 Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove 180–1 small stories 7–9, 31, 35–8, 50–1, 97, 123, 133, 140 Smith-Hefner, N. 6, 136 social acts 102, 189 social class 5, 22, 181 social competence 20, 106 social constructivism 33, 59 social disadvantage 16

224 Index

social identity formation 22, 56–9, 88, 104, 117, 148 social media 75–6, 87, 88, 168–9, 180 social networks 8, 16, 22, 57, 58, 64, 191 social welfare benefits 15 socialization of morality 12, 27, 113, 136–55 sociocultural contexts 26, 29, 59, 78, 104, 106, 136, 154, 191 sociocultural knowledge 115 sociocultural mediation 25 sociocultural theory (SCT) 115–16 socio-historical context 52, 57, 104, 115–55, 183–5, 188, 194 sociology 23 speech acts 54, 72, 91, 123, 133, 170 speech habits and norms 134 Spolsky, B. 25 St Patrick’s Day 87, 140–5, 185 Stake, R.E. 49 stance-taking see also affective stance; epistemic stance; moral stances compositional stances 54 data analysis 50 ethnic identity 69–72 ethnography 36 familiarity between interlocutors 37 methodology 51–5 small stories 35 theories of 4 stereotyping 134, 135 Sterponi, L. 29, 147 Stivers, T. 54 storytelling 52 Strauss, A. 34 Stroińska, M. 27, 134, 135 style 124 submersion models of education 30 superlatives 103 swearing 100–4, 186 symbolic capital 106 symbolic competence 28, 117–19, 183, 184, 186, 190, 194, 196 symbolic deixis 84 symbolic power of language 104–7, 118–19, 189 symbolic violence 3, 10 Szkolny Punkt Konsultacyjne 43, 45 Szumowski, Tadeusz 14

Talmy, S. 23 taxonomy of bilingual education 30 teacher training 16 teachers, socialization via 19–20 technology 84–7, 92, 168, 175–6, 180 see also social media tellability of narratives 36–7 temporary migration 14, 194 theory of becoming 148 Thompson, J.B. 23, 29, 104, 105, 106, 191 Thornborrow, J. 31 time-on-task argument 2 Todorov, T. 108 tone of voice and identity 57 indicating affective stance 67, 76, 79, 104, 128, 162, 163, 170–1 indicating alignment 151 indicating epistemic stance 90, 94 tradition 136, 155 transcription of data 34, 35, 48, 50–2 translation 55 trauma 11 triangulation of data 34, 36, 47–9, 51, 90–1 Trinity College Dublin 12, 18 TV and media 17, 39, 41, 46, 47, 90, 92–3, 95, 163, 172, 177, 192 see also social media van Lier, L. 32 Van Mensel, L. 4, 183 varieties, language 3, 91, 98–9, 157 verbs indicating affective stance 53, 76, 123, 128, 144, 165 indicating epistemic stance 53, 144 modal verbs 53, 109, 123, 128 Verhoeven, L. 27 visits back to Poland 44, 125, 159–62, 172, 190 vowel length and accent 100–4 Vygotsky, L. 115–16 Wagner, W. 188 Waniek-Klimczak, E. 180 Waterstone, B. 29 Watson-Gegeo, K.A. 115

Index 

ways of feeling 107 Weber, J.J. 2 weekend schools government support of 43 in Ireland 17, 18 Janek 30–1, 43–4, 186 peer interactions 77 Wiktoria 30–1, 43–4, 45, 72, 129–30, 162 Wei, L. 6, 23, 59, 107, 108, 118 Wenger, E. 24, 27 Wentworth, W.M. 22–3 Whiteside, A. 118 Wierzbicka, A. 107–8, 186 Wigglesworth, G. 156, 164 Wiktoria accent 96–7 attitudes to English 177, 178–9, 187–8 attitudes to Poland 72–9, 158 contact hours 34 cultural models 117 family life and schooling 44–6 hours of audio recording 51 identity 72

225

and moral codes 147–55 outsider/insider categorizations 72–9, 105–6, 152, 184, 187–8 politeness 129–35 after the study 196 summary of socialization 185–8 weekend schools 30–1, 43–4, 45, 72, 129–30, 162 worldviews 105–6 Wong, S.C. 148 World Migration Report 195 worldviews 105–6 Wortham, S. 57 Wright-Fogle, L. 6, 25 writing 108–12 see also literacy socialization Young, R.F. 9 Zentella, A.C. 9 Zhu, H. 4, 183 Zhussipbek, G. 153, 155 Zigler, E.F. 20, 21 zone of proximal development 115–16 Zuengler, J. 25