Two Languages at Work: Bilingual Life on the Production Floor [Reprint 2011 ed.] 9783110815221, 9783110150582

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Two Languages at Work

W DE G

Contributions to the Sociology of Language 74

Editor

Joshua A. Fishman

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Two Languages at Work Bilingual Life on the Production Floor

by Tara Goldstein

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1997

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Goldstein, Tara, 1957— Two languages at work : bilingual life on the production floor / by Tara Goldstein. p. cm. - (Contributions to the sociology of language; 74) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-015058-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Diversity in the workplace - Ontario. 2. Multiculturalism - Ontario. 3. Communication in management Ontario. 4. Language and languages - Economic aspects - Ontario. 5. Alien labor, Portuguese - Ontario. I. Title. II. Series. HF5549.5.M5G648 1996 331.5-dc20 96-36176 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Goldstein, Tara: Two languages at work : bilingual life on the production floor / by Tara Goldstein. - Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1997 (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 74) ISBN 3-11-015058-1 NE: GT

© Copyright 1996 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Camera-ready copy: Readymade, Berlin. — Printing: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Berlin. — Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer GmbH, Berlin. - Printed in Germany.

To the people who work at Stone

Specialities

Acknowledgements This critical ethnography of bilingual life and language choice in a Canadian manufacturing factory was undertaken with the strong support of an important network of people.I owe them all a great deal of thanks. First, I would like to thank and acknowledge three scholars from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto: Monica Heller whose penetrating questions made it possible for me to see and understand the world in which I worked with different eyes; Roger Simon who had a powerful influence on the way I have come to understand myself as a teacher; and Barbara Burnaby whose expertise in the field of ESL helped me understand my own place and practice as an ESL practitioner. I am indebted to all three of them. Other important teachers were the people of Stone Specialities who opened up their lives to me and allowed me to learn from them. I want to thank the many people who not only answered my countless questions, but who shared their talk with me. I want to particularly thank "Philip", the Personnel Manager at Stone Specialities, for having helped me obtain the permission I needed to set up the study at the company and "Bill", the Manager of Production, who gave me permission to spend as much time as I needed talking and listening to people working on the production floor. I must acknowledge the significant contribution made by Dora Matos, my research assistant, whose warmth and ability to relate to the Portuguese workers at Stone was invaluable to the data collection stage of project. Dora also engaged in continual dialogue with me on the interpretation of the data and her insights helped shaped the content of the final analysis. Janet Gilbertson also contributed to this research by spending long hours helping me transcribe some of the data. Her cheerfulness during this painstaking task and her interest in the project was most appreciated. Towards the end of the project, Don Randall's computer assistance was also much appreciated. I would also like to acknowledge York University for its financial support and express my appreciation for making research funding available for part-time faculty. The reviewers' and editor Joshua Fishman's suggestions on earlier drafts of this book were most helpful and I would like to thank them for the time they took to read and comment on my work. Their feedback helped me sharpen my analysis and clarify the points I wanted to make. Much thanks and gratitude also go to Nancy Fortin for her assistance in formatting the final manuscript, and Margot Huycke for her expert editing.

viii

Acknowledgements

Finally, I received extensive personal support and guidance from friends, colleagues and family. My friends and colleagues, Jill Bell, Olive Chapman, David Cooke, Susan Eisenkraft, Leslie Elver, Antoinette Gagne, David Graham, Annette Henry, Judy Hunter, Cindy Lam, Jessie Lees, Valerie McDonald, Scott McGeorge, Kevin Moloney, Brian Morgan, and Tim Tomlinson all offered fine advice and encouragement. My mother, Audrey Lowitz Esbin, was the one who inspired me to pursue doctoral studies by her involvement in higher education, and love of reading. My father, Edgar Goldstein, and my brothers and sisters-in-law, Richard, Cindy, Carl and Susan Goldstein, also provided me with support. At the end of these acknowledgements, my thoughts turn to my great Aunt Lea Roback, Quebec unionist, political activist, and feminist, who turned 92 last November. She and many others of the Roback family have inspired the generations that have followed them with their committment to the ideals and practice of social justice. Their inspiration lives within this work.

Toronto, Ontario September 1996

Contents

Acknowledgements

vii

Introduction: Teaching and researching in the multicultural/multilingual workplace

1

Social goals and workplace English language training

2

Language choice and economic gain

5

Research questions and research methodology

5

Outline of book

9

Chapter 1 Survival, participation, and access in a multicultural/multilingual setting

11

1.1.

Workplace language training in Canada and Ontario

11

1.2.

Ethnic relations in Canada

12

1.2.1. 1.2.2.

Access to higher education Access to high-paying occupations and income

13 16

1.3.

Ethnic relations and immigration policy in Canada

22

Ethnic stratification and official language training

25

Ethnic stratification and English language training in the Ontario workplace

28

1.4.

1.5.

χ

Contents

1.5.1. 1.5.2. 1.6.

The Multiculturalism Srategy and Μ W P Employment equity and M W P

29 32

Assumptions about workplace language use, English language training and access to economic resources in Ontario

34

Chapter 2 Language choice, social identity, and authority in the multicultural/multilingual workplace

39

2.1.

Understanding language choice

39

2.2.

Language choice, social identity and social relationships

2.3.

41

Language choice as situational and metaphorical code switching

43

2.4.

Language choice and social network ties

48

2.5.

Language choice, social goals and social boundaries

49

2.6.

Language choice, social identity and ethnography

51

2.7.

Language choice and social acceptance

55

2.8.

Language choice, economic power and linguistic authority

58

2.9.

Language choice as symbolic practice of sociopolitical and gender position

62

Contents xi

Chapter 3 Ethnography in the multicultural/multilingual workplace

69

3.1.

Stage 1: September 1988 - December 1988

69

3.2.

Stage 2: January 1989 - April 1989

71

3.3.

Stage 3: September 1989 - March 1990

74

3.3.1 3.3.2.

Collecting talk for Ihe project Preparing interview questions

77 82

Chapter 4 The Portuguese community of Toronto

87

4.1.

Portugal

87

4.2.

Economic conditions in Portugal and emigration

88

4.3.

Social life in rural Portugal

91

4.4. 4.5.

95

4.5.1. 4.5.2.

Chain migration from Portugal to Canada Family and community ties in Toronto: resources for economic survival and prosperity Finding a job Buying and owning a house

98 98 101

4.6.

Ties with the Portuguese church in Toronto

104

Chapter 5 Working at Stone Specialities

109

xii

Contents

5.1.

The company as family

114

5.1.1. 5.1.2.

Recruitment practices at Stone Specialities The Portuguese "family" on the manufacturing floor

115 117

5.2.

Working on the manufacturing floor

120

5.2.1. 5.2.2

Working in production Working in textiles

120 125

5.3.

Stories from the company's history

126

5.3.1 5.3.2. 5.3.3. 5.3.4. 5.3.5. 5.3.6.

The strike of 1971 at the downtown plant Being married and going inside The strike of 1981 at the suburban plant The birth of the personnel department Decertification of the union The big loss, lay-offs, and work sharing

127 131 135 136 138 139

Chapter 6 Bilingual life and language choice on the production floor

143

6.1.

English and Portuguese: symbols of authority and solidarity on the production floor

144

Making friends and getting assistance on the line: Portuguese as a symbol of solidarity

145

Communicating with non-speakers of Portuguese

148

6.2.1. 6.2.2.

Playing the role of language broker Accommodating non-speakers of Portuguese

151 155

6.3.

Communicating with speakers of Portuguese

156

6.1.1.

6.2.

Contents

xiii

6.3.1. 6.3.2. 6.3.3.

"Talking bad" to speakers of Portuguese Using English to manage social relationships Using English to manage social roles

156 166 169

6.4.

Language choice on the production floor: A summary

175

Chapter 7 Ways of communicating and experience at work 7.1

7.1.1. 7.1.2. 7.1.3. 7.1.4. 7.1.5. 7.1.6. 7.1.7.

7.2. 7.2.1. 7.2.2.

English for outsiders and Portuguese for insiders: the line workers' and working supervisors' experience at work Speaking "my language" Changing jobs at Stone Leaving Stone Specialities Working at Stone Specialities and working in Canada Not seeing anything better Wanting to try another job Not knowing what's going to happen in production

177

178 178 181 183 185 187 190 192

English and Portuguese for insiders: The off-line workers' experience at work

194

Going for something good Keeping quiet

194 197

Chapter 8 Language choice, linguistic authority and social difference on the production floor

201

8.1.

203

Access to English-speaking network ties

xiv

Contents

8.2.

Gender and access to English-speaking ties in Portugal

205

Playing with cars and talking to American soldiers

206

Gender and access to English-speaking ties in Toronto and at work

207

Getting a start, working away and just talking with people Coming to work, starting a new life

207 209

Age and access to English-speaking ties in Toronto and at work

211

8.4.1. 8.4.2.

Being asked to be a supervisor Competing for a job as QC inspector

212 214

8.5.

Access to English-speaking network ties: A summary

215

Workplace English language training and access to linguistic and economic resources

216

8.2.1.

8.3. 8.3.1. 8.3.2. 8.4.

8.6.

Chapter 9 Opportunity and empowerment in the multicultural/multilingual workplace 9.1.

9.2.

9.3.

219

English classes and economic opportunities at work

219

English classes, lay-offs, economic survival and empowerment at work

222

English classes and empowerment in the community

224

Contents xv

9.3.1.

Putting English up in front

?25

9.4.

From ESL training to a critical pedagogy of ESL

231

9.5.

Addressing the problems of resistance and hegemonic practice

235

Understanding resistance to English

235

9.5.1.

Chapter 10 Language, consent and relations of power 10.!.

243

Language choice, gender and the political economy

243

10.2.

Language choice and relations with co-ethnics

244

10.3.

Language, consent, and relations of power

246

Notes References

251 255

Appendix A: List of major occupational groups in 1986 census

267

Appendix B: Interview questions for managers, assistant managers and forepersons

270

Appendix C: Interview questions for the chairman of Stone Specialities

271

Appendix D: Language choice conventions

272

Appendix E: Language choice profile

273

Appendix F:

274

Index

Interview questions for workers

277

Tables and figures

Table 1.1 Education of aboriginal people and nine different ethnic groups in Canada

14

Table 1.2 Occupations of aboriginal people and nine different ethnic groups in Canada

17

Table 1.3 Income of aboriginal people and nine different ethnic groups in Canada

i

18

Table 1.4 Managerial, administrative and professional occupations of aboriginal people and nine ethnic groups in Canada

20

Table 4.1 Portuguese immigration to Canada

88

Figure 5.1 Hierarchy of power at Stone Specialities

111

Figure 5.2 Floor plan of Stone Specialities

111

Table 6.1 Production line workers and social network ties

150

Table 8.1 Jobs in the production department

204

Introduction Teaching and researching in the multicultural/multilingual workplace

The walls of the classroom begin to shake as the tow-motor speeds by on the old wooden floor. The truck is transporting raw materials needed by some of the assembly line workers down to the production floor. The assemblers themselves, however, are not on the lines. It is lunchtime and they are sitting in the English classroom waiting for the noise to pass and for the teacher to begin speaking again. The line workers are all women and most of them are first-generation immigrants from Portugal. The noise dies down, and the teacher continues his lesson on polite ways of asking your coworker for tools while working on the line. The women smile in amusement, look at each other, begin to laugh quietly and start talking to each other in Portuguese. The teacher is puzzled and waits for someone to tell him what is funny about talking politely on the lines. Fernanda' looks at the teacher, smiles and tells him that on the lines, no one has to be polite. They are all "sisters" and sisters don't have to be polite when asking each other to pass over tools. What Fernanda does not tell the teacher, and what he does not know, is that on the lines, not only do workers not ha1 e to be polite with one another, they also do not speak English to each other. The majority of the women working on the lines, like the majori y of the women in the English class, are Portuguese. The language used to communicate and do production work on the lines is Portuguese. The communicative tasks that make up the curriculum the teacher is using in his workplace English language class, tasks such as asking a co-worker for tools, are not undertaken in English. They are undertaken in Portuguese. This is a study about workplace English language training in the Canadian province of Ontario. More specifically, it is a study that questions assumptions that workplace programmers - from government funders to English language instructors - often make about the ways immigrant workers need to communicate in the Ontario multicultural/

2

Teaching and researching in the multicultural/multilingual

workplace

multilingual workplace. As the incident reported above reveals, not all immigrant workers working in Ontario need to speak English to carry out and fulfill their responsibilities at work. In challenging the assumption that it is necessary to speak English to perform everyday work tasks and get ahead in the Ontario workplace, this study also questions our present role and practice as English language trainers in the workplace. As is also revealed above, current English language curriculum for immigrant workers is often centred around the notion of job-specific language training. It is believed that relevant language activities for immigrant workers are often those which are related to the tasks they perform at work. Thus, relevant language activities for immigrant workers on a production line are activities which allow them to practice language associated with production line work, for example, activities that allow them to practice how to ask each other for tools needed to complete a task on the line. However, if immigrant workers working on production lines do not use English when passing each others tools, a curriculum based on job-specific language training is not relevant. It is the question of what kind of curriculum might be useful and relevant to immigrants working in languages other than English, and the question of whether workplace English language training is at all useful, that are at the heart of this study. Language learning that is not perceived to be necessary and useful to the way people live out their lives is language learning that is resisted. In many workplaces, English language classes have not been as successful as their organizers and teachers have hoped they would be. Not all workers who could benefit from English language training take advantage of onsite classes, people drop out of English classes even though they may be paid for the time they are in class and English is not often used on the factory floor, even after people have had an opportunity to learn and practice the language in class. To envision a workplace English language curriculum that is useful and relevant to learners, it is necessary to inquire into why workers may not learn and use English at work. Such inquiry is extremely important in light of economic gains associated with the use of English in Ontario and the social goals underlying government funding of workplace English language training.

1.1. Social goals and workplace English language training While Canada is officially bilingual and multicultural, the linguistic reality in high immigrant receiving areas, such as Toronto, Vancouver and

Social goals and workplace English language training

3

Montreal lingual. Government and school board funding of official language training seeks to aid in the settlement and integration of newcomers who do not speak one of Canada's two official languages (English and French). This funding is considered a state-supported means of facilitating economic survival and access to Canadian social institutions and resources. Program administrators in institutions charged with the delivery of English as a Second Language (ESL) training have considered the workplace to be a particularly important site for reaching potential English language students. Many immigrant workers lack the opportunity to systematically learn and practice one of the official languages when they arrive in Canada. Getting a job is a primary objective for many immigrants and having obtained that job, the opportunity for language study becomes remote. Long hours, shift work, family responsibilities and fatigue make conventional daytime and evening second language classes difficult to attend. For many women, the situation is accentuated by the double responsibilities of holding down a full-time paying job outside the home and assuming all household, homemaking tasks inside the home. Furthermore, cultural practices in some families make it impossible for women to attend English language classes. Kathleen Rockhill (1987) powerfully describes how access to "the public" and access to schooling is restricted for some Hispanic immigrant women in the United States. Men own the public: women do not go out of the house without their approval, and if they do go out, there is no public place for them to congregate, unless it is at work - or at school - and this is part of the threat that school poses to the gendered traditions of the people - for it is a public place where women can potentially meet other people...Over the years, I have been struck by a multiplicity of anecdotes about women whose husbands would not allow them to go to school (1987:162,163). Similar stories are heard from immigrant women living in Toronto. In response to the problem of access to English language training, government funded boards of education, unions, and individual workplaces themselves, have organized on-site official language classes in the workplace. In providing immigrant workers with an accessible setting in which to formally learn English cr French, those involved in establishing language classes in the workplace hope to provide working

4

Teaching and researching in the multicultural/multilingual

workplace

people with the language skills they need for economic survival in Canada and access to Canadian institutions and resources. In Ontario, workplace English language training has also been linked to the provincial government's goals of "equality, access and participation" (Ministry of Citizenship 1989). These social goals have evolved from the acknowledgment that Canada is a stratified multicultural society in which different ethnic groups occupy unequal economic, political and social positions. Workplace English language training is considered a means of addressing some of the inequities of ethnic stratification in Ontario by facilitating access to social opportunities associated with the use of English which is the language of economic and legal power in the province. The multiple goals behind workplace English language training goals of survival, participation and upward mobility - make curriculum planning a challenging task. While English for economic survival entails the development of a curriculum tailored to workers' current - often lowpayihg - jobs, English for upward mobility requires a curriculum that centres around language for increased responsibility. Yet, in spite of our bold, creative attempts to design "tailor-made" job-specific curricula for immigrant workers so that programming is as relevant and empowering as possible, workplace language classes in Ontario do not always produce the kinds of changes we hope to see in our students' language skills and do not lead to as many opportunities for advancement as we had hoped. As mentioned earlier, not all potential students wish to participate in English language classes and outside of the language class, English is not always used on the factory floor. Furthermore, even after successful attempts at learning English, our students do not often get promoted into betterpaying positions. Nor do they frequently leave their present jobs to find better-paying work elsewhere. To discover why this is so, this study explores the question of what may be influencing our best efforts to provide English language training and facilitate opportunities for immigrant workers. It locates this particular question within the broader question of why immigrant workers who have come to Canada to improve their economic circumstances may not learn and use English at work when it is often assumed that, as the language of economic power in Ontario, English is associated with economic gain.

Social goals and workplace English language training

5

1.2. L a n g u a g e choice and economic gain Statistics show that many immigrants living in Canada do not speak either of the country's official languages at all and even fewer use them at home. For example, statistics on the Portuguese community in Canada show that 15% of all those who identify themselves as having a single Portuguese origin (that is, as having two parents of Portuguese origin) do not speak English or French at all while 64% only use Portuguese at home (Statistics Canada, 1989). These figures are actually low estimates since they are based on selfreporting data. Importantly, when looking at the differences between men and women in this group, statistics show that while 12.0% of all single origin Portuguese men do not speak either French or English, 18.2% almost 1 in 5 - single origin Portuguese women do not speak one of the official languages (Statistics Canada, 1989). While some of these women may simply not have access to formal English or French language training or informal opportunities for language learning, others do, but choose not to take advantage of these opportunities or choose not to use the English or French they may have learned. In order to understand these choices, we need to re-examine assumptions that have been made about the use of English and access to opportunities associated with economic gain. For some immigrant workers, English may not be associated with economic advancement despite assumptions to the contrary. Some immigrant workers who come to Canada to improve their economic possibilities in life find they can only do so by accessing networks within their own ethnic communities and by using their native language. As well, not all immigrant workers who come to work in Canada intend to stay. This study examines language choice and the use of languages other than English in terms of the economic arrangements and possibilities that govern people's lives. It links language choice to the political economy in which immigrant workers live out their lives and looks at workplace English language curricula in light of the relationship that can be traced between people's language nractices and their positions of class and gender within the political economy.

1.3. Research questions and research methodology To explore the question of workers' resistance to English in the multicultural/multilingual workplace then, it is necessary to examine

6

Teaching and researching

in the multicultural/multilingual

workplace

understandings and assumptions of what it means to learn and use English in multicultural/multilingual Ontario. This study challenges the assumption that English is the only language used to communicate in the workplace in Ontario and challenges the related belief that the use of English is necessarily linked to economic survival and the possibility of economic gain here. In challenging assumptions that are made about language use in the workplace, the study asks the following research questions: 1.

What kinds of language practices characterize the multicultural/ multilingual workplace?

2.

What meanings do particular language practices carry for immigrant workers in the multicultural/multilingual workplace?

The incident above describing the well-intentioned English teacher who had limited understanding of his students' linguistic reality at work suggests that assumptions about workplace language practices must be put to empirical test. By asking what kinds of language practices characterize the multicultural/multilingual workplace instead of assuming that all immigrant workers must speak English, the first research question empirically investigates the question of language choice as a first step in understanding the use of languages other than English at work. Once it is known how workers choose to communicate with each other on the factory floor, it is possible to ask why they choose to communicate the way they do by invesligating the various meanings particular language practices carry for different workers. These first two research questions, then, have been formulated to shed light on the questions of why immigrant workers may not learn and use English at work and what may be influencing our efforts to provide English language training in the workplace. In order to answer' the questions of whether or not, and perhaps how, our practice can be conceptualized so that it is relevant to immigrant workers, however, it is necessary to ask two more questions: 3.

How do language practices in the multicultural/multilingual workplace relate to immigrant workers' experience at work and outside work?

Outline of book

4.

7

How does a new understanding of immigiant experience inform the practice of English language training in the multicultural/ multilingual workplace?

The language(s) people choose to use at work carry consequences that influence both their experience at work and their lives outside work. Portuguese immigrant workers who do not speak English may be vulnerable to unemployment during times of economic hardship when ethnic networks fail to help them find work. They may also find themselves in situations where not being able to speak English leads to feelings of embarrassment, humiliation, and powerlessness. Knowing this provides the grounded, contextual information needed to argue in what ways workplace English language training can be useful to immigrants working in languages other than English. It also provides the information needed for conceptualizing relevant, empowering ESL curricula for such workers. In focusing on questions that concern the languages people choose to use at work, the meanings particular linguistic choices hold for them, and the consequences certain language practices have for people's experience and lives, the study combines a critical research perspective with the methodology of ethnography. Originally developed in anthropology to describe the "ways of living" of a social group (Heath, 1982), ethnography is the study of people's behaviour in natuially occurring, ongoing settings, with a focus on the cultural interpretation of behaviour (Watson-Gegeo, 1988). The goal of ethnography is to provide a description and an interpretive-explanatory account of what people do in a particular setting (such as work), the outcome of their interactions in that setting, and the way they understand what they are doing, that is, the meaning interactions have for them. To accomplish this goal, the ethnographer carries out systematic, intensive, detailed observation of that behaviour - examining how behaviour and interaction are socially organized - and the social rules, interactional expectations, and cultural values that underlie that behaviour (WatsonGegeo, 1988). The research goals and methodology of ethnography are generally wellsuited to the study's first two research questions which have been formulated to explore the type of language behaviour people display at work and the meanings their practices carry for them. However, traditional ethnography is limited in its power as a research perspective to explain the meanings people's language behaviour may have for them and the conse-

8

Teaching and researching

in the multicultural/multilingual

workplace

quences language practices may nave for their experience at work. As mentioned earlier, understanding language choice involves asking questions about the economic arrangements and possibilities that govern people's lives. Portuguese immigrant workers who do not have access to English-speaking networks and/or ESL classes upon their arrival in Ontario are able to find and keep jobs by relying on Portuguese network ties to which they do have access and by using Portuguese which is a language they are able to speak. The language choices people make - on the basis of the linguistic resources to which they have access and the economic possibilities th.at are open to them - can be linked to their positions of class and gender within the political economy. Most of the workers who only use Portuguese at work are Azorean working-class women who have financial responsibilities to their families. These women from the Azores have only had access to the most basic education and have been allowed to immigrate to Canada to fill the country's need for unskilled or minimally skilled labour. While most men and those women who immigrate under the age of 16 have some access to English-speaking network ties either prior to finding work in Canada or at the Canadian workplace itself, women who immigrated over the age of 16 with family financial responsibilities do not. They live out both their working and personal lives in Canada in Portuguese. To understand the meanings language practices hold for people living in an ethnically stratified society then, it is necessary to adopt a research perspective that is sensitive to the notions of social class, gender and relations of power in our post-industrial, capitalist society. While this kind of sensitivity is lacdng in a traditional ethnographic research perspective, it is apparent in a critical perspective. This ethnographic research project is a case study of one Canadian workplace located in the city of Toronto. The task of explaining language behaviour in interaction within its social context is time-consuming; consequently, data collection of data must be restricted to a limited set of people. Since this work is a case study, its conclusions must be applied to other multicultural/multilingual settings with caution. However, the sociopolitical nature of the factory chosen as the research site - its location within an immigrant community, its English-Canadian ownership, and its population of both immigrant and non-immigrant employees - provides a rich setting for a study that is concerned with the maintenance of minority languages in a multicultural/multilingual workplace where the official language of English is assumed to be associated with economic power.

Outline of book

9

1.4. Outline of book As a project rooted in the goals and practices of workplace language training in a multicultural/multilingual setting, the book begins with a discussion of the social and educational concerns that have instigated the creation of official language classes in the workplace and have instigated the study's inquiry into ways people communicate and their experience at work. Following this is a chapter that grounds the study's research questions theoretically in the fields of sociolinguistics and educational ethnography. Chapter 2 also suggests the theoretical contribution the study might make to on-going theoretical discussion in the field of sociolinguistics. The next chapter is a description of the methods used to conduct the study and a discussion of the challenge of undertaking ethnography in a multicultural/multilingual setting where the linguistic and cultural practices of the researcher and the research participants differ. Chapters 4 and 5 are ethnographies that detail aspects of the Portuguese emigration experience, various views of social life in the Portuguese community in Toronto and different understandings of work life at Stone Specialities, the workplace in which this study was undertaken. The question that drives this study - the meaning of language choice - can only be understood in terms of the assumptions and expectations that people bring to their interactions. To interpret what particular language practices may mean for particular speakers, it is crucial to know what the speakers believe is going on, how they think they should act given what they believe their roles are, and how they think they should act given what they believe they are trying to accomplish in a particular interaction. These first two chapters of the analysis provide information about what this background knowledge is likely to be. They provide the reader and the researcher with the contextual understandings needed to analyze the findings that are presented in the following three chapters. The results of the research study are presented in chapters 6, 7, and 8. Chapters 6 and 7 attempt to document people's language behaviour at work; interpret what this behaviour might mean in light of people's background knowledge - knowledge which is grounded in their community and work lives - and examine some of the consequences people's language behaviour has for their experience at work and opportunities in life. The findings discussed in these chapters are taken up again in chapter nine, in order to examine how new understandings of immigrant experience at work can help English language trainers

10

Teaching and researching in the multicultural/multilingual

workplace

appraise our roles and practice in the workplace. The analysis in chapter 8 moves beyond the analysis of language choice on the factory floor and examines what social differences distinguish individuals who demonstrate different language practices at work. These findings are also taken up again in chapter 9 in an attempt to evaluate the appropriateness of workplace official language training as an intervention to address the problem of unequal access to valued economic resources in Ontario. Finally, chapter 10, takes up the relevance of the study to theory-building in the field of sociolinguistics.

Chapter 1 Survival, participation, and access in a multicultural/ multilingual setting

This first chapter begins by examining the social concerns that have instigated the creation and funding of official language classes in Canadian workplaces. It also discusses the particular educational concerns that have motivated this inquiry into ways Canadian immigrants communicate and experience their work. While Canada is an officially bilingual and multicultural nation which values the ideals of diversity and equality, it is also an ethnically stratified society in which members of different ethnic groups hold different positions of power and privilege. One of the ways that the Canadian state has attempted to address the problem of ethnic inequality has been through the provision of official language training. The discussion in this first chapter looks at the social problem of ethnic stratification in Canada, describes the rationale behind official language training in the workplace and examines assumptions that are made about language use in the workplace, official language training and access to power and privilege in our society.

1.1. Workplace language training in Canada and Ontario Workplace language classes held at or related to various work sites in Canada have been organized to meet official language communication needs of immigrants working outside the home. As mentioned in the introduction, official language training in the workplace is funded, in part, by individual companies, unions, and school boards to aid in the settlement and integration of newcomers to Canada w h o do not speak either one of the country's two official languages (English or French). It is also funded by the Canadian federal and provincial governments, who, in providing such aid, consider official language training a statesupported means of facilitating economic survival and access to Canadian social institutions and resources. In Ontario during the period in which the study was taken, English language training in the workplace is funded by the Ministry of "Citizen-

12

Survival, participation, and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

ship through a program known as Multicultural Workplace Programs (MWP) 2 . M W P provided funding not only for the promotion and development of English language training, but also for intercultural communication training in the multicultural/multilingual workplace. At the time, the program was linked to provincial goals of equality, access and participation set out in the Ontario Government's Multiculturalism Strategy (1987). This is because official language training and intercultural communication training was perceived by the state to be an initiative that would lead to a more "equitable workplace" (Ministry of Citizenship, 1989:2). The Ontario government's understanding and support of workplace official language training as an initiative that would work towards goals of equality, participation, and access provides some insight into Canada's social ideals and social reality as a stratified multicultural/multilingual nation of immigrants. Canada has developed from a colonized, elitist society that was patterned after one of its colonizers, Britain, into a liberal democracy that holds ideals of diversity, equality, change, and achievement (Blishen 1986). Yet, despite these values, Canada is an ethnically stratified society, a "vertical mosaic" (Porter 1965), in which different ethnic groups are ranked along a hierarchy of power and privilege. Social inequalities that exist among different ethnic groups in Canada have evolved out of its social history. In examining the development of ethnic relationships in Canadian society more closely, it is possible to locate this study's particular research interest in workplace language training within the larger social problem of ethnic inequality: a social problem that official language training is, in part, meant to address.

1.2. Ethnic relations in Canada Raymond Breton (1985) identifies three types of ethnic relationships that relate to social inequalities in Canadian society: the relationship between Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people, the relationship between the English and French, and the relationship between the English and French colonizing (or "charter" [Porter 1965]) groups and other immigrants and their descendants. Of particular interest here, of course, is the relationship between other ethnolinguistic groups, in particular the Portuguese, and the English-speaking community in Canada.

Ethnic relations in Canada

13

Breton believes that relations among ethnic groups must be understood in terms of the access to and control of a society's resources and of the functioning of rules and practices that may benefit or disadvantage particular groups. The unequal relationship between the English and French colonizing groups and other immigrants and their descendants can be traced to the early settlement of the country (Porter, 1965). As mentioned earlier, when the British and French first settled in Canada, there was a tendency to recreate a stratified society similar to that of the homeland. After the British defeated the French, they took control in the areas of commerce, trade and administration and through such control retained their dominant position. With the onset of industrialization, the entrenched English-Canadian upper class became the industrial leaders not only in English Canada, but also in Quebec where the shift away from an agricultural economy weakened the power of the largely agrarian French community. The addition of other ethnic groups to the society through immigration contributed to greater complexity in ethnic stratification patterns. Members of some ethnic groups have had and continue to have different access to valued social resources in Canada in relation to others. To illustrate, the following tables compare the relative access Aboriginal people and the members of Ontario's nine largest ethnic groups have to the resources of higher education and high-paying occupations and income. In the discussion that follows, each of the indicators of socioeconomic status (education, occupation and income) is considered in turn. Having isolated and described several interesting patterns of ethnic stratification from these indicators of socioeconomic status, the discussion moves to an analysis of some of these patterns. The particular access that the Portuguese have to the resources of higher education and high-paying occupations and income is highlighted since it is mainly the experience of the Portuguese that is taken up in the study that follows. The particular case of Portuguese women is also highlighted as the majority of the Portuguese workers at Stone Specialities are women.

1.2.1. Access to higher

education

The first of the following three tables indicates secondary and postsecondary education levels of the Aboriginal people and nine different ethnic groups in Canada. As mentioned above, the nine ethnic groups profiled in the tables are the nine most populous ethnic groups in Ontario.

14

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

As Table 1.1 illustrates, 29.5% of all those who consider themselves of "single"1 Jewish origin have completed university while only 2.1% of those of single Portuguese origin have completed university degrees. Only the members of one other group have less university education than the Portuguese. Statistics show that only 1.1% of Canada's Aboriginal people have a completed university education. Statistics also show that single origin Portuguese women have less education than single origin Portuguese men: While 2.3% of all single origin Portuguese men have university degrees, only 1.9% of all single origin Portuguese women have a completed university education. Conversely, while 45.4 % of single origin Pcituguese (42.5 % of single origin Portuguese men and 48.4% of single origin Portuguese women) have not completed grade 9, only 10.7% of those of Jewish origin do not have at least a grade 9 education. While a high percentage of those of Italian (36.9%) and Aboriginal (37.8%) origin have also not completed grade nine, the Portuguese have the least education of all the groups profiled.

Table J.I Education of aboriginal people and nine different ethnic groups in Canada Jewish

South Asian

Chinese

British

Dutch

Education

29.5

21.9

18.3

7.9

7.7

Less than grade nine

10.7

13.2

20.9

14.4

16.5

German

French

Italian

Portuguese

Aboriginal

Education

7.4

7.2

6.5

2.1

1.1

Less than grade nine

20.5

24.3

36.9

45.4

37.8

Completed University

Completed University

Source: Statistics Canada. 1989. Profile of ethnic groups: dimensions - census of Canada 1986. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.

Ethnic relations in Canada

15

It could be argued that those of Jewish origin have greater access to the resource of higher education than those of Italian and Portuguese origin because they immigrated to Canada earlier than did the Portuguese and Italians. The high percentage of Jewish individuals with a completed university education could be explained by the fact that second and third generation Jewish-Canadians born in Canada have more access to higher education than do first-generation Portuguese and Italians. If this were the case, differential access to the resource of higher education could be related to generation, not ethnicity. Indeed, while the majority of Jews immigrated to Canada from 19461965, the majority of Portuguese immigrants arrived between 1966 and 1976 (Statistics Canada, 1989). However, an explanation of generation does not explain why Canada's aboriginal people - who have always lived in Canada - have such limited access to higher education. Nor does it explain why Italian immigrants, the majority of whom, like the Jews, immigrated to Canada between 1946 and 1965, have had less access to a university education than the Jews. Furthermore, while the majority of Portuguese immigrants arrived later than Jewish immigrants, the majority of South Asian and Chinese immigrants arrived at the same time as the Portuguese between 1966 and 1976. As can be seen in Table 1.1, many more of those of South Asian and Chinese origin have access to higher education than do the Portuguese. While only 2.1% of those of Portuguese origin have a completed university education, 21.9% of those of South Asian origin and 18.3% of those of Chinese origin have university degrees. Clearly, differential access to higher education can not be explained by generation alone. Access to the resource of higher education can be linked to access to high-paying occupations and income. In an industrial society like Canada, where a high level of specialized training and job expertise is often demanded in the workplace, education is often the key to higher paying Thus, it is not surprising to see that different types of occupations and income are accessible to those with different types of educational backgrounds.

16

Survival, participation, and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

1.2.2. Access to high-paying occupations and income The statistics in Table 1.2, obtained f r o m 1986 census data, demonstrate that while most people of Jewish origin work in managerial, administrative and professional occupations 5 , most people of Portuguese and Italian origin work in the service and product fabricating, assembling and repairing occupations. Especially high numbers of single origin Portuguese women work in the service industry and factories: 1 out of 5 (20.2%) of all Portuguese women who work outside the home work in factories fabricating, assembling and repairing consumer goods while 1 out of 4 (25.4%) work in the service industry, usually doing janitorial and housekeeping work (Statistics Canada 1989). There are about five times as many Portuguese workers employed in factories (16.3%) and the service industry (19.0%) as there are workers of Jewish origin. Only 3.0% of those of Jewish origin work in factories while only 3.9% work in the service industry. A high number of Italians also work in service (13.1%) and product fabricating, assembling and repairing occupations (13.1%) and 17.1% of those of Aboriginal origin can be found working in the service industry as well. Unlike the Portuguese and Aboriginal people, however, a fair number of Italians (17.5%) work in clerical occupations. This pattern is similar to a pattern displayed by most of the other ethnic groups. Many workers of South Asian, French, British, German, and Dutch origin also work in clerical positions. Where the Italians differ from those of other ethnic origins, however, is in their representation in professional occupations. While 13.7% - 29.1% of almost all the groups profiled here are represented in professional occupations, only 9.4% of those of Italian origin are professionals. The only ethnic group with less representation in professional occupations than the Italians are the Portuguese. Only 4.7 of those of Portuguese origin work in professional occupations. This percentage rises when women of Portuguese origin are considered separately: 6.1% of Portuguese women compared to can be found in professional occupations (Statistics Canada 1989).

Ethnic relations

Table 1.2 Occupations

in Canada

17

of aboriginal people and nine different ethnic groups in Canada

Jewish

South Asian

Chinese

British

Dutch

Administrative

22.4

9.5

10.2

11.0

10.4

Professional

29.1

17.1

18.1

14.8

14.9

Clerical

17.2

18.6

17.9

18.5

14.4

Sales

18.2

7.5

7.6

9.5

Service

3.9

11.2

22.7

12.3

9.9

Primary

0.3

3.8

0.9

6.1

12.5

Processing

1.1

9.7

4.9

5.4

5.1

bling and repairing

3.0

11.6

11.0

6.6

7.3

Construction

1.2

1.7

1.4

5.9

8.1

Other

3.0

8.9

4.8

9.5

Managerial,

Fabricating, assem-

German

French

Italian

Portuguese

Aboriginal

Managerial, Administrative

10.6

9.9

8.5

4.1

6.3

Professional

13.7

16.6

9.4

4.7

14.0

Clerical

15.7

18.0

17.5

12.6

12.6

8.6

8.5

9.6

5.4

4.0

Service

10.8

12.5

13.1

19.0

17.1

Primary

11.5

4.6

1.6

3.9

11.1

Sales

18

Survival, participation,

anil access in a multicultural/multilingual

Processing

setting

5.7

6.9

7.5

10.8

5.5

bling and repairing

7.4

8.0

13.1

16.3

4.6

Construction

7.8

6.1

11.2

5.2

12.2

Other

7.9

8.3

8.0

8.5

12.2

Fabricating, assem-

The statistics on the incomes of the different groups in Table 1.3 complement the statistics on occupation and education6. While 26.8% of all Jewish workers, about 1 in 4, make over $35,000 a year, only 6.8% of all Portuguese workers do. Most of these Portuguese workers are male as only 1.1% of Portuguese women working in Canada make over $35,000 a year (Statistics Canada 1989). Twenty-four percent of all Portuguese women, almost 1 in 4, make between $10,000 and $14,999 a year, that is between $5.00 and $7.00 an hour of a 40-hour work week or between $200 and $280 a week. Minimum wage in Ontario is currently $5.00 a hour. The only group that has a lower average income than the Portuguese are the Aboriginal people. While most Portuguese workers make between $7,000 and $24,999 a year (54.8%), most Aboriginal workers make between $1,000 and $9,000 a year (54%).

Table 1.3 Income of aboriginal people and nine different ethnic groups in Canada

Jewish

South Asian

Chinese

British

Dutch

Under $ 1,000

3.6

5.8

5.9

4.4

4.6

$ 1,000-$ 2,999

5.1

8.1

8.6

6.7

7.1

$ 3,000-$ 4,999

4.9

7.3

7.1

6.8

6.6

$ 5,000-$ 6,999

6.1

6.7

7.0

7.4

7.4

$ 7,000-$ 9,999

10.3

10.1

12.3

13.1

11.5

Ethnic relations in Canada

19

$10,000-$ 14,999

11.7

13.7

14.8

14.2

13.9

$15,000-$ 19,999

9.9

11.4

11.8

11.1

10.8

$20,000-$24,999

8.4

9.4

9.4

9.1

9.6

$25,000-$29,999

6.8

7.3

6.1

7.3

7.9

$30,000-$34,000

5.9

6.1

5.2

6.0

6.6

$35,000 & over

26.8

13.6

11.2

13.5

13.5

German

French

Italian

Portuguese

Aboriginal

Under $ 1,000

4.3

4.5

4.2

4.3

8.0

$ 1,000-$ 2,999

6.1

6.8

7.0

6.7

15.2

$ 3,000-$ 4,999

6.1

7.1

6.5

5.9

11.9

$ 5,000-$ 6,999

7.2

8.9

7.3

6.4

10.8

$ 7,000-$ 9,999

13.0

13.6

11.2

11.2

16.1

$10,000-$ 14,999

14.0

13.9

14.0

16.9

13.3

$15,000-$ 19,999

11.2

11.5

12.0

14.8

8.1

$20,000-$24,999

9.5

8.9

10.2

11.9

5.9

$25,000-$29,999

7.7

7.5

8.8

8.2

3.9

$30,000-$34,999

6.2

5.8

6.8

6.1

2.7

$35,000 & over

14.1

10.3

11.3

6.8

3.5

To summarize the previous discussion of ethnic stratification patterns in Canada, it has been demonstrated that those of Jewish origin have more education, are more highly represented in managerial, administrative and professional occupations and have higher incomes than those members of other ethnic groups. It has also been shown that the Portuguese have the least education of all the ethnic groups, and that almost half of all single

20

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

origin Portuguese women living in Canada (48.4%) have less than a grade nine education. In terms of occupation, only 6.1% of all Portuguese women in Canada are in professional positions and only 4.7% of all Portuguese workers can be found in professional occupations. The incomes of those in the Portuguese community complement their lack of education and highpaying occupations. The only group that has a lower average income than the Portuguese, who make an average of $16,307 a year, are the Aboriginal people who make an average of $10,694. Those of Jewish origin, with their higher education and high-paying occupations, make an average of $30,229. In attempting to make sense of the ethnic stratification patterns described above, we can begin by discussing the surprising ranking of those of British origin. While historically the British have been the dominant group in Canada, according to statistics cited in the 1986 Census, those of British origin only ranked fifth in education, fourth in income, and as shown in Table 1.4 below, only fifth in holding managerial, administrative and professional occupations.

Table 1.4

Percentage of managerial, administrative and professional aboriginal people and nine ethnic groups in Canada

occupations

held by

Jewish

Chinese

South Asian

French

British

51.5

28.1

26.6

26.5

25.8

Dutch

German

Aboriginal

Italian

Portugues e

25.3

24.3

20.3

17.9

8.8

While these figures seem to suggest that the British no longer enjoy the dominant position they once had, they need to be interpreted with caution. Commenting on similar figures arising from the 1971 Census, Canadian sociologists Agocs and Teevan (1989) explain that the British figures are an average of two quite different groups. The first group consists of British people with very low socioeconomic status who live in such rural and peripheral regions as the Maritimes and Saskatchewan. The second group consists of British people with high socioeconomic status living in Canada's

Ethnic relations in Canada

21

largest cities. The groups which rank ahead of the British are more heavily concentrated in urban regions.This means that their average figures are not as lowered as much by the inclusion of people living in rural areas. In other words, urban British people probably rank nearer the top of the occupational scale than their overall average suggests. As well, Agocs and Teevan (1989) argue that statistics like those cited in Table 1.3 do not tell us anything about the ethnic composition of the most powerful group in the Canadian stratification system, the economic elite, which Clement (1975) identifies as those individuals who occupy the uppermost positions in the country's largest corporations. As mentioned earlier, historically, the British have always been dominant in Canada's economy. Information from 1885 and 1910 indicates that more than 90% of Canada's industrial leaders were of Anglo-Saxon background (Acheson 1973; cited in Clement 1975:73). While French Canadians made up 29% of the population, only 6 to 7 percent were part of the elite. Other groups were virtually excluded. Porter's data from 1951 shows almost no change from these figures (Porter 1965). More recent research, however, suggests some minor erosion of Anglo dominance in the elite. Clement reports that by 1972 the French had increased their representation in the elite to 8.4% from 6.1% in 1951 (Clement 1975:234; Niosi 1981). In the same period, "other" groups, especially Jews, increased about 1% to 5.4%. Nevertheless, Anglos still formed 86% of the economic elite, almost double their proportion of the population. Thus, it seems that while an Anglo-Saxon background remains a decided advantage in Canada's stratification system, in that those of British origin still dominate the economic elite, outside this upper stratum, Anglo origins appear to have less impact on socioeconomic status. Turning now to a discussion of some of the other stratification patterns described above, it is important to note that Canadian statistical figures are a result of power relations and must be discussed in terms of social class. In Marxian lexicon, a social class is an aggregate of persons similarly situated in the relations of production. The crucial element in this situation is not education or specialized training, occupation or income. It is, rather, how these people stand with regard to ownership of the means of production. Where there is private ownership of the means of production, those who partake of ownership are by that fact members of the dominant class, the bourgeoisie. The remainder belong to one or another subordinate class, either the petty bourgeoisie of independent commodity producers, small business people and self-employed, fee-for-service professionals or the proletariat/working class who do not participate in the ownership or control

22

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

of the means of production, but sell their capacity to work in exchange for a salary or wage (Hunter 1986). Different waves of immigration bring in people from different social classes. Federal government policy determines which ethnic groups are admitted into Canada, and a change in qualifications for admittance can significantly affect the nature of ethnic and class representation in Canada. It is the Canadian government, then, that determines which ethnic groups -and which members of which ethnic groups - will be admitted to Canada. Immigration policy also determines what work they are likely to do. It is beyond the scope of this first chapter to provide a full analysis of how Canadian immigration policy may be related to all the complicated patterns of ethnic stratification detailed above. What is attempted in the following discussion, however, is a brief consideration the history, politics and economics of Portuguese immigration to Canada and an explanation of how the conditions under which working-class Portuguese immigrants were permitted entry into Canada may relate to their current position in the Canadian political economy. The Portuguese immigrant experience is then compared to the Asian immigrant experience to demonstrate, at least in part, the role Canadian immigration policy plays in producing unequal ethnic relations in Canada. The Asian immigrant experience has been selected for comparison as a large number of South Asian and Chinese immigrants arrived in Canada at the same time as the Portuguese - between 1966 and 1976.

1.3. Ethnic relations and immigration policy in Canada The story of Canadian immigration is not one of orderly population growth; it has been (and remains) both a catalyst to Canadian economic development and a mirror of Canadian attitudes and values. As such, it has been described as "economically self-serving and ethnically or racially biased" (Troper 1985). In the period immediately following Confederation in 1867, the Canadian economy could not sufficiently support its population. The country had a relatively low death rate, a high birthrate, a small but continual inflow of immigration largely from the British Isles, but no large industrial base. Thousands of new immigrants and Anglo-Canadians were drawn to the United States, with its supply of free fertile land. French Canadians were attracted to jobs in the factories of New England. In the late nineteenth century, however, Canada's future western Prairie

Ethnic relations and immigration policy in Canada

23

provinces were opened to settlement. When a market developed for the prairie agricultural output, serious settlement began. Immigration policy involved an aggressive peopling of the country with immigrants from the British Isles and the United States. Working from a colonial perspective, the government defined immigrants who did not originate from the British Isles as foreign, but excluded white, English-speaking immigrants from the United States from this category. The ideal immigrants, then, were British or American independent farmers who would settle in the West. Reflecting public opinion at the time, Canadian immigration policy was racist. Pressed to increase immigration by business and railway interests with visions of world demand for Canadian resources, immigration authorities tried to balance their ethnic anxieties against a search for settlers. They listed ideal settlers in a descending order of preference. British and American agriculturalists were followed by French, Belgians, Dutch, Scandinavians, Swiss, Finns, Russians, Austro-Hungarians, Germans, Ukrainians and Poles. Close to the bottom of the list came those who were, in both the public and the government's minds, less assimilable and less desirable: Italians, South Slavs, Greeks and Syrians. At the very bottom came Jews, Asians, Gypsies and Blacks. In the years following the Second World War, the Canadian government gradually removed many of the racial or ethnic barriers in immigration policy. Since then, immigration has been characterized as an economic policy that is heavily influenced by the country's industrial labour needs (Hawkins 1988, Troper 1985). The early postwar period saw an economic boom which generated a demand for labour and the beginning of an influx of Southern Europeans who would have previously been labelled undesirable. This wave of immigration, mainly from the poor, rural parts of Italy and Portugal, was not entirely spontaneous; it derived to a considerable extent from the deliberate recruitment of unskilled labourers by both the Canadian government and private enterprise. This is illustrated by the following extract from an official report on Portuguese immigration in the fifties: Immigration movements from Portugal for the next few years (from 1953 onwards) must be studied in the light of the then current shortage of heavy manual labour in Canada, and the persistent pressure from railway construction companies and agricultural groups for immigrant workers, coupled with the decline in immigration from our traditional source countries in

24

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

1955 and 1956. For the 1954 programme, at the request of the Portuguese Government, the Portuguese movement comprised 200 railway track workers for the R.F. Welsh Company [1000 Italian track workers had been recruited in 1953], 700 agricultural workers for mixed farms, and up to 50 tradesmen with all selection to be conducted in the Azores. In 1955 the approved movement consisted of 900 farm labourers and 50 tradesmen to be selected from the Portuguese Mainland. In 1956 a similar programme was approved but with selection from the Azores. For the 1957 immigration programme, in line with a general expansion of activities, the programme included 2000 farm labourers (1000 from the Azores and 1000 from the Mainland) as well as 50 tradesmen. Subsequently a movement of 1000 track workers from the Azores for the R.F. Welsh Company was also authorized in 1957... (Dept. of Citizenship and Immigration, Departmental Report, 1963). As will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 4, Portugal was chosen for the recruitment of railway and agricultural workers in the 1950s because of the dire economic conditions that existed in the country. At the same time that Canada was looking for workers, Portugal was interested in finding suitable destinations for its unemployed, poverty-stricken population. The influx of workers from Portugal was soon accompanied by an influx of family members and relatives whom the workers sponsored into Canada. As discussed further below, at the time, Canadian immigration legislation encouraged the immigrant sponsorship of family members. Like their sponsors, these immigrants to Canada filled the demand for "unskilled labour" or "very minimally skilled" labour since they were not highly skilled for the Canadian labour market and not highly educated. Education in Portugal at the time was only compulsory between the ages of 7 and 11 and most people living in the Azores could not afford to send their children to school any longer than that. In deliberately recruiting labourers with limited skills and education from southern Europe in the 1950s and '60s, Canadian immigration policy created an Italian and Portuguese working-class and contributed to the production of unequal ethnic relations in Canada. However, it is not only the relatively low socioeconomic rank of Italian and Portuguese immigrants that may be related to Canadian immigration policy. The relatively high socioeconomic rank of the South Asians and Chinese in Canada may be also considered a result of immigration rules and

Ethnic relations and immigration policy in Canada

25

regulations. Prior to the 1960s, entry by Asian peoples was greatly restricted. For example, the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 prohibited all persons of Chinese ethnic origin, except merchants who had $2,500 or more invested in the export-import trade between China and Canada, from admission to Canada. While the act was repealed in 1947, Asian immigrants were still greatly restricted from entering Canada until new regulations in 1962 removed the emphasis on the country of origin as a major criterion for the admission into the country (Hawkins 1988). However, at the same time that these new regulations came into effect, the government's views on immigration began to shift. As will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 4, the enormity of the post-war movement of sponsored immigration to Canada began to worry those responsible for immigration policy and management. Immigration was perceived as being unselected and extremely difficult to control. Consequently, in 1967, Canadian immigration regulations were changed once again, this time to limit the great influx of sponsored immigrants from the underdeveloped rural parts of southern Europe. A new approach to sponsorship based on the separation of "dependent" and "non-dependent" relatives was adopted. After 1967, only five years after restrictions against Asian immigrants were removed, immigrants who were not sponsored dependents had to pass through a selection system based on specific criteria for which points were awarded. Criteria included education, personal assessment, occupational demand, occupational skill, and age. Thus, ever since 1967, the general government policy has been to only admit those people with particular, recognized skills and training (Hawkins 1988). Consequently, it was mainly highly educated middle and upper stratum Asians who have come to Canada since 1967, producing high rankings on socioeconomic indicators for those of South Asian and Chinese origins (Agocs and Teevan 1989). Few of the Portuguese who came to Canada after 1967 could qualify for immigration under the point system adopted by the Department of Manpower and Immigration. Those that immigrated to Canada from Portugal after 1967 continued to come through as sponsored dependents or visitors.

1.4. Ethnic stratification and official language training The preceding discussion, admittedly limited as it does not take the immigration history of refugees or the story of how immigration and settlement policies have impacted on Canada's Aboriginal people into con-

26

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

sideration, has attempted to demonstrate that government immigration policy can be related to the creation of unequal ethnic relations in Canada. As argued at the beginning of this chapter, today, the reality of ethnic stratification in Canada is at odds with our liberal democratic ideals of diversity, equality, change, and achievement. Unequal access to social resources by Canada's aboriginal people and various ethnic groups is considered a social issue that needs to be addressed. As also mentioned earlier, one attempt to deal with the problem of ethnic stratification in Ontario has been the funding of language training initiatives for those immigrants who do not speak English upon their arrival. Underlying such initiatives is the assumption that the maintenance of stratification in multicultural/ multilingual Ontario may be, in part, attributed to immigrants not being able to speak the province's official language. The origins of such an assumption can be understood through a brief discussion of Canada's national policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework. Proclaimed by the federal government in 1971, Canada's multiculturalism policy is "to recognize all Canadians as full and equal participants in Canada". The policy was drafted and adopted in response to two particular political factors as well as to increasing awareness on the part of the government that, as a result of post-war immigration and refugee policies, Canada's population had become much more ethnically diverse (Hawkins 1988). The first political factor had to do with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism which had been appointed in 1963. The Royal Commission was established in response to growing unrest among French-Canadians in Quebec who called for protection of their language and culture and the opportunity to participate fully in political and economic decision making. A major part of the Royal Commission's task was to examine existing bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and recommend ways of ensuring wider recognition of the basic cultural dualism of Canada. Under the guiding principle of "equal partnership", the Royal Commission enquired into three main areas: (1) the extent of bilingualism in federal administration; (2) the role of public/private organizations in promoting better cultural relations; and (3) opportunities for Canadians to become bilingual in English and French. In addition to examining existing bilingualism and biculturalism, the Royal Commission was requested to report on the cultural contributions of other ethnic groups and means of preserving their contributions. The Royal Commission's full task, then, was to recommend "what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of equal

Ethnic stratification and official language training

27

partnership between the founding [English and French] races while taking into account the contribution made by other ethnic groups" (in Hawkins 1988:389). The Royal Commission's recommendation was that much higher priority, attention and support be given to ethnic groups, provided that this was done in the context of Canada's two charter groups and two official languages. The 1971 policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework is a direct response to this recommendation. At the same time, the potential electoral strength of those new or relatively new immigrant elements in Canada was of great interest to the Liberal party who formed the federal government. Quebec, the party's traditional and consistent source of support, was in a remarkable period of change, development and modernization. It also had a vigorous, independent-minded party - the Parti Quebecois - working hard to assume power. The Liberals could not be certain that Quebec's steady support of the federal Liberal party would hold and it was safer to have ethnic communities in the Liberal camp if possible. Thus, the second political factor underlying the drafting and adoption of the Multiculturalism Policy had to do with the Liberal political goal of amassing support from the country's ethnic communities. As announced in a speech by Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in October 1971, the Multiculturalism Policy had four major objectives. They were described as "preserving human rights, developing Canadian identity, strengthening citizenship participation, reinforcing Canadian unity and encouraging cultural diversity within a bilingual framework" (emphasis is mine) (in Hawkins 1988:390). While the national policy of multiculturalism implies that people are encouraged to participate in Canadian society by maintaining their own ethnic cultures, it can be argued that the fostering of certain aspects of culture (e.g., ethnic folkdances, cuisine and other arts) should not be confused with the preservation of a complete culture which is perpetuated through a school system, media supports and state regulations controlling the economic and cultural environment. A policy of "Two Nations, Many Cultures" - multiculturalism within a bilingual framework - means that access to economic and political power in Canada and much of the access to Canadian social institutions and resources can only be gained through the use of English or French - languages whose dominance is protected by the state through the Official Languages Act passed in 1969. Anthropologist R.D. Grillo (1989) has asserted that, in multilingual societies, languages and their speakers are usually of unequal status, power and authority and there is commonly a hierarchical ordering of languages,

28

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

dialects and ways of speaking. Languages that are associated with authority are "dominant" languages. Following Weber (1958), Grillo understands authority as "legitimated domination" or the exercise of power without force. Thus, dominant languages are associated with authority or the legitimate exercise of power. As discussed above, the dominant languages in Canada are those of the colonizers. While historically, English was the dominant language in both Quebec and the rest of Canada, today, it is no longer dominant in Quebec. "Subordinate" languages, on the other hand, are languages that are not associated with authority and are restricted to use in domains from which authority is absent. Grillo argues that in a situation where mass labour migration brings speakers of languages other than the official language(s) of the "receiving" or "host" society, immigrant language speakers often occupy subordinate social, cultural, economic and political statuses in that receiving society. In an attempt to address this problem of subordinate statuses, the provision of official language training has been funded by the Canadian state, in the hope that the ability to speak one of the country's dominant languages will provide immigrant speakers of subordinate languages with survival language skills and access to dominant statuses in Canada 7 . At the time this study was undertaken, the Ontario government had explicitly linked English language training initiatives to social goals of equality, participation and access, these goals still underlie workplace programming undertaken today. The discussion that follows examines the nature of this link more closely.

1.5. E t h n i c stratification a n d E n g l i s h Ontario workplace

l a n g u a g e t r a i n i n g in

the

Workplace language training was linked to two particular initiatives created to address the issue of unequal access of resources in the province of Ontario: the Multiculturalism Strategy (1987) and the Employment Equity Program (1987).

Ethnic stratification and English language training in the Ontario workplace

1.5.1. The Multiculturalism

29

Strategy and MWP

The Multiculturalism Strategy, announced in June 1987 by the Ontario Liberal Government, was a state response of action to the goals set out by the Ontario Policy on Multiculturalism (1977). Broadly, the goal of the policy is "to ensure that individuals of all cultural heritages have equal opportunity to participate fully in Ontario society" (Ministry of Citizenship 1987:1). The Ontario Policy on Multiculturalism was drafted in response to the federal government policy which was proclaimed several years earlier in 1971. As a response of action to the provincial policy, the Multiculturalism Strategy had the broad goals of making government ministries' and the clients they served culturally sensitive and responsible to Ontario's culturally diverse population. Specifically, it aimed to decrease structural and interpersonal barriers to equality, access and participation; increase culturally sensitive and responsive policies, programs and services; increase knowledge and skills of all staff to manage diversity; increase expression of new skills, ideas and initiatives; and reflect the value of diversity in recruitment, hiring, orientation, training and development practices. The Multiculturalism Strategy also aimed to make the public aware of its objectives and encourage other levels of government and non-government organizations to act in accordance with the spirit and intent behind its goals (Elver 1989, Ministry of Citizenship and Culture 1987). While the aims of the Multiculturalism Strategy were undoubtedly important in calling attention to the multicultural diversity within Canadian society and giving that diversity political recognition, it can be argued that the impact of action restricted to government services was somewhat limited. The Multiculturalism Strategy provided funding for the various government ministries to accomplish their objectives. It looked at the ministries' plans and proposals once a year. The government's Multicultural Workplace Program (MWP) was a program that had been funded by the Strategy fund. Such funding exemplified the authority the provincial state had been given to intervene in the management of its linguistically and culturally diverse citizenship. At the time this study was undertaken, fourteen M W P co-ordinators, located at fourteen different educational institutions across Ontario (at boards of education, community colleges, and one university), were marketing and delivering M W P to multicultural/ multilingual workplaces in their communities. Originally developed from a model developed by the National Centre for Industrial Language Training (NCILT) in England, MWP began as job-

30

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

specific training in English. In fact, before receiving funding from the Multiculturalism Strategy in 1987, the Ministry's workplace communication training programs were known as English in the Workplace (EWP), not Multicultural Workplace Programs or MWP. The program's name change in 1987 was deliberate. It was meant to reflect the broader range of communication skills training that the Ministry considered necessary to meet social goals of equality, access and participation. As will be discussed below, unlike EWP, MWP included not only job-specific language training, but intercultural and race relations training as well. The National Centre for Industrial Language Training was set up by the British government to assist in the development of English language training courses for "overseas workers" (e.g., workers from the Indian subcontinent) who had settled in Britain. The program ran from 1970-1989. In the 1970's, the main aim of NCILT was to help ethnic minorities exercise more control over their work environment through improved communications skills in English (Yates, Christmas and Wilson, 1982). The Centre's language and communication training projects included courses to provide basic English for communication in the workplace at an elementary level; more advanced courses to provide adequate English for "flexibility and increased responsibility", and seminars for British-born supervisors about the background and communication problems of workers from overseas. Organizers of these training projects understood the training they provided as training for equal opportunities. Underlying this understanding was the belief that equal opportunity in the British workplace could be linked to speaking English which is the dominant language in Britain. If [ethnic minorities] are to be treated equally with others, they need to have effective communicative relationships with the people who have power in the workplace, in particular with their immediate supervisor, shop floor representatives and people with personnel and training functions... (Yates, Christmas and Wilson, 1982:1) The power structure in the workplace... is often such that it will be to the advantage of an ethnic minority person to communicate better [in English] (Yates, Christmas and Wilson, 1982:2).

Ethnic stratification and English language training in the Ontario workplace

31

The British experience in promoting English language training in the workplace was considered extremely relevant to language educators in Ontario who also believed that access to equal opportunities and valued resources depended on minority language speakers learning the dominant language of English. In the late '70s and early '80s, the Ministry of Citizenship invited educators from the British programs to set up workshops and symposia on the subject of workplace English language classes and jobspecific language training. As the British workplace language training program developed, so did the program in Ontario. In Britain, trainers realized that if workers were to have effective communicative relationships with people who had power in the workplace, there had to be a willingness on the part of those with power to build an effective communicative relationship. It was felt that Englishspeaking supervisors in the workplace - who had a vested interest in the status quo - might not wish to communicate in English with workers who spoke other languages since such communication was to the workers' advantage. In choosing not to communicate with their workers, the trainers felt that English-speaking supervisors were acting as "gatekeepers" to opportunities for promotion and training. To help ethnic minority workers access such opportunities, trainers maintained that communication training in the workplace needed to target supervisors as well as workers. As a result, in addition to the English language training they already offered to overseas workers, NCILT began to offer intercultural communication training to those individuals in positions of power who worked with people from different ethnic and cultural groups. Underlying the provision of intercultural communication training for supervisors was the assumption that the lack of communication or ineffective communication between supervisors and workers from different cultural and linguistic groups could lead to incidents of misinterpretation. In turn, cumulative misinterpretation could lead to hardened attitudes, stereotypes and discrimination which biased supervisors against workers trying to access opportunities for promotion and training. In their recent book about the work carried out by the Industrial Language Training Service during the 1970s and 1980s, Roberts, Davies, and Jupp (1992) explain the shift from language training to intercultural communication and race relations training as a changing of focus from trying to improve individual relationships and communication skills to recognizing and addressing wider issues of power and access. In the 1980s, "changes in the systems of communication, information an,d progression with the whole organization became of increasing concern" (1992:181).

32

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

In 1985, a group of NCILT trainers was invited to Toronto to discuss their experience with workplace intercultural communication training. Soon after, the Ontario program began to offer similar training in the workplace. In both Britain and Ontario, workplace programs that originally attempted to provide workers with more control over their work environment through improved English language skills had evolved into programs with an additional goal. This additional goal involved helping immigrant or overseas workers gain access to equal opportunities by working towards improving race relations in the workplace. It is the addition of intercultural communication training to the original E W P program that had allowed the M W P program to access funding from the government's Multicultural Strategy. As mentioned above, the program's name was changed from EWP to M W P in 1987 when it first received Strategy funding. The aim of M W P was to enable workers from different linguistic and cultural/racial backgrounds to communicate more effectively with coworkers and managers, thus increasing their participation in the workplace and their promotional opportunities (Benick 1989). English language training was still considered to play an important role in achieving this aim. M W P posited that language and culture could serve as barriers that impeded the job effectiveness and mobility of minority workers. The provision of language training for English as a Second Language (ESL) speakers in the multicultural/multilingual workplace was considered one part of the MWP's "integrated approach" to communication training in the workplace. However, as Benick (1989) suggested, language training directed exclusively at ESL speakers was insufficient to prevent misunderstanding and miscommunication in multicultural employment settings. Thus, the second half of MWP's "integrated approach" consisted of intercultural communication seminars for those working in supervisory and management positions in diverse workforces. Such seminars were designed to increase participants' awareness of culture and its impact on communication.

1.5.2. Employment equity and MWP A second state initiative undertaken to address the problem of unequal access to social resources was the Ontario government's Employment Equity Program. The goal of Ontario's Employment Equity Program, which was also announced in June 1987, was to increase equal employment

Ethnic stratification ancl English language training in the Ontario workplace

33

opportunities for women and minorities in the Ontario Public Service. The program included the setting of targets and goals to ensure that five initial target groups (women francophones, Aboriginals, racial minorities and disabled persons) were fairly represented in the Public Service and in the senior ranks of the public service. While M W P and the Employment Equity Program were not explicitly linked by the government, M W P practitioners began looking for connections between the two programs in order to more successfully market M W P to private sector employers interested in employment equity issues. For example, Gail Benick (1989), one of the fourteen M W P co-ordinators in Ontario, suggested that since both M W P and the Employment Equity Program shared the goal of eliminating systemic discriminatory barriers to equal employment opportunities, M W P programs could be used by employers as part of their Employment Equity programs, "What M W P has to offer Employment Equity practitioners is a way to handle prejudice and racism in the non-threatening context of language, culture and communication (1989:4). 8 " Benick's understanding of English language training and intercultural communication training as a non-threatening way of handling prejudice and racism in the multicultural/multilingual workplace can be traced back to the understandings underlying the British training upon which M W P was modelled. In describing the assumptions behind their training model, British organizers assert that "Approaching the subject of race relations through language and culture as it affects communication is very useful in that it is less threatening to the trainees than, for example, legislation, and it is something they can easily relate to (Yates, Christmas and Wilson, 1982:2)". In spite of our current vision of workplace language training as one means of facilitating survival, participation and access, workplace English language classes in Ontario do not always produce the kinds of changes language trainers hope to see in their students' language skills; nor do they lead to as many opportunities for advancement as has been envisioned. Why? What is influencing our best educational efforts to provide language training and facilitate participation and access in the multicultural/ multilingual workplace? This is the educational and social question that frames this project. It is an important question for a pluralistic society committed to values and goals of equality of access and participation in

34

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

society and the belief that these goals can be pursued, in part, through official language training.

1.6. Assumptions about workplace language use, English language training and access to economic resources in Ontario In considering the question of what may be influencing the effectiveness and success of the English language training programs planned for immigrant workers, a preliminary step involves deciding where to locate the problem. Is the problem centred within the way English language training is currently being delivered to various workplaces in Ontario? Is the problem related to the previous educational and literacy backgrounds workers bring to the language classroom as Klassen (1987) suggests? Or is the problem linked to some of the basic assumptions and ideology underlying our vision of workplace language training? Questions concerning program delivery and the types of schooling backgrounds workers bring to the classroom are certainly important to the study of workplace language training. However, the data collected during this study indicates that there is also a need to locate questions about workplace language training within the realm of ideological understandings and assumptions underlying MWP policy and the notion of job-specific language training. These understandings include the assumption that English is the only language that is used in the Ontario workplace, that learning English necessarily provides access to economic and social resources in Ontario, and that English is necessarily considered to be a linguistic resource that is valued by immigrant language speakers because it is necessarily associated with economic survival and economic and social resources in Ontario. The following discussion examines and challenges these assumptions which underlie much of the workplace language training that is undertaken in Ontario. As was illustrated in the vignette that opened the book, workplace language training in Ontario typically aims to improve immigrant workers' job-related language skills. As mentioned earlier, it is believed that if minority language speakers are to gain access to equal opportunities and valued resources in the Ontario workplace where English is the dominant language, then they need to develop effective communicative relationships with the English-speaking people who have power in the workplace. Job-specific English language training begins with an assessment of the learner's English language and communication needs at work. Depending

Workplace language use, English language training and economic resources

35

on who is sponsoring the program, these needs may be defined by such diverse groups as the workplace Personnel Department or the union in the workplace. In most workplace language programs, needs are also defined by the prospective learners themselves and the personnel who work with them. In order to define learner needs, program planners attempt to gather information on the structure and operation of the workplace or union, the learners' relationships and job responsibilities within that structure, and the English language and communication requirements of the learners. Such an approach allows program planners to pinpoint what kinds of communicative relationships the learners need to develop in order to perform their jobs effectively and gain access to promotional and training opportunities. The rationale for doing a needs assessment before planning English language classes for immigrant workers has to do with the belief that what students learn inside the classroom should enable them to use English outside the classroom in real-life everyday work situations. As argued above, speaking English in everyday work situations is associated with goals of survival, participation and access. In their book Industrial English, British NCILT trainers Tom Jupp and Susan Hodlin (1975) illustrate this belief and the importance of conducting a needs assessment before developing curriculum for workplace language learners when they write: [the teacher] has a group of learners in front of him [sic] who have, or will have, particular communication needs in particular situations. This, therefore, is the second major principle involved in teaching a foreign language: the centrality of the learner's needs...the case of Asian immigrants at work in Britain shows the principle in a very clear and precise way. A man or woman at work has a particular set of communicative needs both social and work-specific. He [sic] is also part of a network of specified relationships and a network which would be modified if he could communicate more effectively. The teacher has to penetrate and analyze this set of needs and relationships, and then select, modify, and rewrite more broadly based materials (1975:7-8).

36

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

There is a problem, however, with the way the British needs assessment process has been adopted for use in multicultural/multilingual workplaces in Ontario. Working from the British model, it is not uncommon for program planners to assume from the outset, before a needs assessment is even undertaken, that the language skills that workers need in every day work situations are necessarily English language skills. While students are asked questions about whom they talk to everyday and what they talk about in order to "penetrate" their "sets of needs and relationships", they are not always asked what language they use in everyday workplace interactions. It is often assumed that it is English. The following statement of purpose for organizing on-site E S L workplace classes in London, Ontario, illustrates this clearly: It was clear to us, and verified by meeting with students that many have never attended ESL classes and that their level of proficiency in English does not meet basic survival needs although they have been in Canada for several years... Inability to converse in English is often compounded by illiteracy. There are thousands of immigrant workers who are hampered in their work, community participation and personal lives because of this deficiency... The daily frustration of working with inadequate communication skills must be tremendous (Richer, 982:73) The assumption that English is the only language used to communicate - not only within, but outside of - an employment situation is illustrated by the assumptions that not being able to communicate in English is a "deficiency"; immigrant workers who don't speak English are "hampered" in their work, community and personal lives; and that not working in English means not possessing "adequate" communications skills. However, before accepting such assumptions as valid, it is important to ask how workers who have been in Canada for "several years", but do not speak enough English to "meet basic survival needs" have actually managed to survive without English thus far. As individual speech communities, certain workplaces and neighbourhoods in Ontario may in fact, only use one or both of the official languages to communicate. However, Ontario being a multicultural/multilingual society, it is likely that many workplaces that employ immigrant workers and many communities in which immigrant workers live are characterized by the use of a language other than English. Immigrant workers who do not speak "survival English" do find and keep

Workplace language use, English language training and economic resources

Til

jobs in Ontario. In the factory in which this study is set, the language used on the production lines is Portuguese, not English. Such evidence points to the need to empirically test the assumptions we have about language use in Ontario workplaces and reframe our interest from wanting to know what kinds of English our students need to use at work to wanting to know to what extent English is actually part of a particular workplace's communication system, what kinds of communication skills people actually need to survive and participate in various workplace activities and what kinds of consequences are associated with different ways of communicating both at and outside work. For example, minority language maintenance that leads to the establishment of language ghettos in the workplace may lead to the exploitation of immigrant workers. Testing assumptions and beliefs that may be held about language use in the multicultural/multilingual workplace also means testing the related assumptions that economic survival and access to valued resources are always possible when people have considerable competence in English or French. When immigrants who have immigrated to Canada to improve their economic circumstances choose not to learn and use English and when immigrants who do learn to speak the dominant language do not experience economic and occupational mobility, it is necessary to question assumptions that learning and using English unproblematically provides access to economic power in Ontario. Despite assumptions that immigrant workers who learn to speak the dominant language in Ontario will be able to change their subordinate economic status, such a change may, in fact, be problematic. To understand why workers may not learn and use English at work and to understand why those workers who do speak the language do not necessarily experience economic or occupational mobility, it is necessary to explore what kinds of social, economic and political processes may be associated with problematic access to dominant statuses. In undertaking this kind of exploration, this study not only inquires into the particular educational problem of English language training in multicultural/multilingual workplaces, but also inquires into the broader social problem of how language use may play a role in the maintenance and change of social inequalities among different groups in Canada; a social problem that, as was mentioned earlier, workplace English language training is intended to address. In doing so, this study is similar to the ethnographic surveys conducted by NCILT in the 1970s and 1980s

38

Survival, participation,

and access in a multicultural/multilingual

setting

which "have always been undertaken with training in mind" and which have been committed to "equal opportunities and challenging racism and discrimination" (1992:181) The broader social significance of the study, then, is closely related to its particular educational significance; understanding what may be influencing our efforts to provide language training in the multicultural/multilingual workplace is essential if we are to facilitate social and economic opportunities for our students through official language training. W e need to better understand the experience of immigrant speakers at work in order to discover if workplace English language training is indeed an effective means of pursuing social goals of equality, participation and access in a multicultural/multilingual setting and how our roles and our work as language trainers in the workplace may need to change in order to pursue these goals.

Chapter 2 Language choice, social identity and authority in the multicultural/ multilingual workplace

Having constructed and implemented various language training practices around a set of assumptions that may or may not hold true for all immigrant workers and having discovered that it is necessary to question such assumptions, investigation into the experience of the immigrant at work must begin with a theoretical approach that encourages an understanding of behaviour from the immigrant worker's point of view. An interpretive approach to research allows us to make sense of human choice and human meaning in the multicultural/multilingual workplace and enables us to critically scrutinize past assumptions that have been made about what it means to teach and learn English at work. Thus, this study is grounded in an interpretive approach to educational research. This chapter discusses the study's theoretical roots in the fields of interactionist sociolinguistics and educational ethnography.

2.1. Understanding language choice In challenging the assumption that all communication in the multicultural/ multilingual workplace takes place in English, in taking up the research tasks of discovering what kinds of language use characterize the multicultural/ multilingual workplace, what particular language choices mean to those who make them and how these choices relate to people's experience at work, it is helpful to look at how different theorists and researchers have tried to explain language choice. The study of language choice, that is, the investigation of what makes people in a multilingual society choose to use one language or language variety rather than another in a particular instance, has been undertaken by sociolinguists, sociologists, social psychologists and anthropologists. Some sociologists and sociolinguists have approached the problem of language choice by looking at the relationship between language use and social structure. Such studies look for a social structure, conduct a survey of a sample of the target population that relates to the proposed social structure, and provide a statistical analysis of the results.

40

Language choice in the multicultural/multilingual

workplace

Fishman (1964, 1965, 1968), for example, has proposed that there are certain social structures, called domains, in which the use of one language variety is more likely to be appropriate than another. Domains are taken to be constellations of factors such as location, topic and participants. A typical domain, for example, would be the family domain. If a speaker is at home using a particular language or language variety to talk to another member of the family about an everyday topic, that speaker is said to be using that language or variety in the family domain. While Fishman has tried to explain language choice by functional distributions of particular languages, other theorists have taken broader social processes into account and have considered type of contact setting, economic development and industrialization, and degree of political participation (e.g., Weinreich 1974; Stewart 1968; Lewis 1978; Deutsch 1966). Research linking social variables to linguistic variables, known in the field of sociolinguistics as variationist sociolinguistic research, has been criticized for being limited in its power to explain the phenomenon of language choice. As Heller (1984) points out, research studies that simply correlate linguistic variation to pre-defined sociological variables can not tell us what it is about those social variables that links them to linguistic variables, or vice versa. More recently, interactionist sociolinguists, making use of anthropological research perspectives and traditions, have focused on what it is that links macrosociological factors to people's individual language choice decisions. Their interest is in knowing how such large-scale developments relate to actual language choice and in understanding how language choice informs and is informed by social processes. Interactionist research studies, which aim to uncover the relationship between social processes and language choice in different social contexts, have been undertaken to shed light on problems of ethnic stratification, ethnic equality, pluralism, assimilation, multilingualism, and second language learning (cf., e.g., Gal 1979—Heller 1988a, 1988b~Woolard 1989). Concerned as it is with the relationship between language use and social processes, an interactionist sociolinguistic research perspective has much to offer this study which is rooted in the practical questions of ethnic stratification, multilingualism and second language learning. A more detailed discussion of how an interactionist perspective on language choice informs the specific questions in this study unfolds below. The remainder of this discussion on language choice reviews some of the theoretical tenets of the interactionist approach to language variation

Understanding language choice

41

and examines several language choice studies undertaken from an interactionist perspective.

2.2. L a n g u a g e choice, social identity and social relationships Unlike the variationist sociolinguists described above, interactionist sociolinguists working within an anthropological perspective (e.g., Gal 1979—Gumperz 1982a, 1982b--Heller 1988b, 1988c-Le Page 1 9 6 8 Woolard 1989) take the individual, not social structure, as the basis of their descriptions of language variation. In analyzing associations between aspects of social structure and how individuals talk, interactionists see members of society as active agents who construct their social action and reality on the basis of the meanings and interpretations they give to their environment. Individuals are understood as agents who create and maintain gender, ethnicity or class structures by their interaction, and interactionists look for processes by which individuals create and maintain social identity and reality in interaction. One way people create and maintain a particular social identity and reality in interaction is through the language or language variety they choose to use with others. An interactionist perspective on language choice argues that people associate particular languages or language varieties with membership in particular social groups and with the cultural values and practices associated with being a member of those social groups. Put a little differently, interactionists believe that particular languages or language varieties symbolize particular social identities. Underlying interactionist descriptions of individual language choice is a belief that stresses the fluidity of individual behaviour and the range of choice open to people in their use of language as a means of symbolizing various identities. Le Page, for example, has explained that "The individual creates his [sic] system of verbal behaviour so as to resemble those common to the group or groups with which he [sic] wishes from time to time to be identified (1968:192)." Individuals then, may make different selections among the values and identities available to them at different times. These changes in values and identities are symbolized by changes in language choice within interaction. The expression of social identity through the use of one language over another acknowledges particular rights, obligations, and expectations people attach to different social roles and relationships they assume in everyday interaction. Unexpected language choices send out metaphorical

42

Language choice in the multicultural/multilingual

workplace

message about social roles and relationships. They may reflect a change within a social relationship or an attempt to change an existing relationship. For example, in a study about Canadian French and English speakers from Quebec, Heller (1988b) shows that while most speakers in the wider community choose to speak only French or English in accordance with their identity as francophone Canadians or anglophone Canadians, anglophones working for a company whose language of work is French codeswitch among themselves, that is, change from the expected use of English to the unexpected use of French. Heller explains this behaviour in terms of "authority" which has been defined by sociologist Max Weber (1958) as "legitimate domination" or power exercised through means other than the means of force. Heller argues that since it is the use of French that legitimizes one's role of authority in the company, anglophones codeswitch because "it allows them to assert their voice to claim new roles, new rights, and new obligations" (1988b:93), roles, rights and obligations that are associated with the use of French. Codeswitching routines are useful to the anglophones in the company because they symbolize the anglophones' right to assume all the privileges and obligations associated with French roles without making them responsible for actually being francophones. Following those interactionist sociolinguists who take individuals in everyday interaction as the basis of their description of language choice, it is possible to assume that immigrant workers in the study use Portuguese and English as a way of presenting themselves to others and associating themselves with particular cultural values, activities and identities that are linked to the use of Portuguese and English. Such a theoretical assumption is indeed appropriate for a study interested in explaining language choice from the immigrant speaker's point of view. In adopting an interpretive, anthropological perspective to investigate language choice in the multicultural/multilingual workplace, the first research question - What kinds of language practices characterize the multicultural/ multilingual workplace? - can be answered by documenting the particular ways in which individual speakers use Portuguese and English in interaction and interpreting what particular values, activities and identities may be symbolized by the use of each language. Having assumed that language choice can be explained by looking at language use as a means of symbolizing different cultural values and social identities, it is possible to move on and consider what is already known about the ways individuals choose to present themselves through language.

Language choice, social identity and social relationships

43

One of the first studies to investigate the relationship between language choice and social identity was the Hemnesberget study undertaken by Blom and Gumperz in 1972. Blom and Gumperz's now classic work on language choice in the Norwegian village of Hemnesberget introduced a model that distinguished two types of codeswitching, situational codeswitching and metaphorical codeswitching. The discussion below examines these notions in some detail and considers their usefulness to this study.

2.3. L a n g u a g e choice as situational and metaphorical codeswitching As mentioned above, Blom and Gumperz's model of situational and metaphorical codeswitching grew out of their work in the Norwegian village of Hemnesberget. In Hemnesberget, people recognized two linguistic varieties of language. Ranamal, the local ("low-status") variety of Norwegian, was used for everyday conversation while Bokmal was a standard ("high-status) Norwegian variety. Most of the people who lived in Hemnesberget were native speakers of Ranamal. Formal education, however, was always carried on in the standard variety, Bokmal, which was the language of official transactions, religion, and the mass media. Since education was universal, all speakers of Ranamal also controlled the standard. Both Ranamal and Bokmal, then, formed part of the community's "linguistic repertoire" which Gumperz (1964) defined as the complete set of linguistic resources speakers possess and may use in social interaction. In everyday interaction, people from Hemnesberget selected between Bokmal and Ranamal as the situation demanded. The two varieties were never mixed. A person spoke either one or the other. The two varieties remained separate and were used in different ways by different people because of the cultural identities they communicated and the social values that were associated with their use. Ranamal had social value as a symbol of distinctness and of a speaker's identification with others of local descent. It was associated with closeness between all "Hemnes residents" who claimed local descent; it expressed values of self-identity and pride, and it was used by Hemnes residents in informal conversation about local and personal concerns. Ranamal contrasted with the meanings locals assigned to the standard which was used by people outside the Hemnes community. Bokmal was associated with education and power on the national scene

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Language choice in the multicultural/multilingual

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and was considered the language of nonlocal activities. Bokmal carried connotations of differences in rank which were unacceptable in informal relations between locals. When used casually among Hemnes residents, it communicated dissociation from the "local team". Ranamal, then, was considered part of the specifically, "local", Hemnesberget community - as opposed to the Norwegian scene as a whole - and was used by locals in informal conversation to symbolize local group membership. In contrast, Bokmal was considered rather formal and relatively remote from local and personal concerns and was not used in informal conversation about such concerns. Blom and Gumperz called this language choice behaviour, using Ranamal in certain instances and Bokmal in others, "situational codeswitching" and gave the following illustration: when, on the one hand, we speak of someone giving a classroom lecture or performing a Lutheran church service or talking to a tourist, we can safely assume that he is using [Bokmal] grammatical forms. On the other hand, two locals having a heart-heart talk will presumably speak [Ranamal]. If instead they are found speaking in [Bokmal] we conclude either they do not identify with the values of the local team or that they are not having a heart-to-heart talk (1972: 424-25). Situational codeswitching, then, is rooted in a social separation of activities (and associated role relationships), each of which is conventionally linked to the use of one of the languages or varieties in the community linguistic repertoire (Heller 1988a). Use of each variety in unconventional contexts, however, has the effect of calling into play all the meanings associated with the variety in situations where normally other frames of reference are operative. Blom and Gumperz referred to this as "metaphorical switching" because the unexpected variety became a metaphor for the social meanings the variety had come to symbolize. To illustrate, Blom and Gumperz pointed to the way people in Hemnesberget conducted official business with government officials. Official community affairs in Hemnesberget were considered nonlocal and demanded the use of Bokmal. But many of the individuals who had government jobs were friends with many of the citizens who had to deal with them in their official capacities. This created something of a conflict: Which language should be used? A common solution was for

Language choice as situational and metaphorical codeswitching

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residents to approach a clerk's desk and extend greetings and ask about family affairs using Ranamal forms, but to increase their use of Bokmal forms when conducting the official business. In this way, Ranamal symbolized or served as a metaphor for the friendship relationship or role that existed between two members of the same community and Bokmal for the citizen-government official relationship or role. The distinction between the two kinds of switching - situational switching and metaphorical switching - was particularly important in situations that are purely local, where no other status besides membership in the Hemnesberget community was relevant. In a series of anthropological experiments designed to observe this kind of situation, Blom and Gumperz tape recorded interactions at several small social gatherings. One group of participants in the gatherings consisted of young men and women who had grown up in Hemnesberget, but had been away at universities in other Norwegian cities. Although they were proud of their home town and their local dialect, they had nevertheless absorbed pan-Norwegian identities and values to some extent while they were away. Two of the gatherings did not have any returned university students in them. Accordingly, in these gatherings, there were no instances of metaphorical switching or any use of Bokmal at all, except when someone was quoting what someone else said in Bokmal or in speech directed to Blom or Gumperz themselves. In a social gathering of locals, there were no relationships or roles to enact except local ones, and so, only Ranamal was appropriate. This was true no matter what the topic under discussion was; even government affairs were discussed in Ranamal. However, this was not true in the social gathering which included the returned students. When a topic arose in which a speaker would benefit f r o m an appeal to her status as an intellectual, for example, Bokmal forms were used, even in this gathering of friends who had all grown up in Hemnesberget. What this meant was that for the students, being a member of both the Hemnesberget community and the larger Norwegian community was relevant, even in a situation that was purely local for other participants. Blom and Gumperz's understanding of individual language choice as situational switching and metaphorical switching could be extremely relevant to this study. It may be possible to explain language choice in the multicultural/multilingual workplace by analyzing the different types of codeswitching individuals demonstrate and the roles and rolerelationships individuals enact in interaction. However, before adopting the notions of situational and metaphorical codeswitching to analyze language choice at Stone Specialities, it is important to note that several

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problems have been linked to the concepts. Criticizing the distinction that Blom and Gumperz make between the notions of metaphorical and situational codeswitching, Auer (1984) asserts that "one would either have to conclude that [in the situational case] codeswitching is without social meaning because it is a necessary consequence of certain situational parameters, or that [in the metaphorical case] it is dependent on an (almost) one-to-one relationship between language choice and situational parameters which can be purposefully violated (Auer 1984:4)." Returning to the example of conducting business with government officials in Hemnesberget to help explain this critique, Auer would argue that situational codeswitching can not carry social meaning since the use of Ranamal is a necessary outcome of assuming a relationship of friendship while Bokmal is the outcome of assuming a formal, official relationship. Furthermore, any social meaning deriving from the unexpected use of Bokmal between friends who conventionally use Ranamal when they speak to each other is dependent on people associating Ranamal with friendship and Bokmal with a formal, official relationship. This, Auer argues, is a view that can only account for a very limited number of codeswitching incidents. Auer believes that, as a rule, language choice is not determined by situational parameters; rather, as mentioned earlier, the choice of one language over the other is part of "the complicated business of defining the situation". This "business of defining the situation" is what gives codeswitching social meaning. Turning to the notion of metaphorical codeswitching, Auer suggests that this second type of switching is not dependent on a one-to-one relationship between language choice and situational parameters. He believes metaphorical switching is deeply interwoven with its context. When participants switch languages to joke, to quote or to give eipphasis to what they are saying, they (re)negotiate situational parameters. Heller (1988a) provides a good illustration of how a language may be used to redefine situational parameters when she discusses the case of French-English bilingual students and teachers in a French-language school located in Toronto. While students know that their teachers are bilingual (how else could they survive in the predominantly Englishspeaking city of Toronto if they were not?), the teachers nevertheless insist on the students speaking French at school and never speak English while on school grounds. However, students have heard one teacher speak English at softball practice, because her English-speaking father-in-law joins her in coaching the team. During the school day one student comes

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up to her to ask for a favour in English. The teacher refuses to speak to the student in English and will not even consider granting the favour unless he speaks French. The student gives up and walks away, even though he could have asked her in French. Heller explains that the boy felt he only had a chance at getting what he wanted if he appealed to the teacher in her "nonFrench guise", that is outside her role as teacher. When she insisted on French, which he associates with her teacher status, the student no longer saw the point of even attempting to plead his case. Here, the student tried, but failed to redefine the situation (the teacher's status) by using English in an unconventional, unexpected context. Put a little differently, he tried, but failed to create new meaning by suspending the meanings normally operative and indexed through the conventional use of French. Scotton (1988) refers to conventional use of a language or variety as unmarked and the unexpected use of a language or variety as marked. As these notions allow for (re)definition or (re)negotiation of social situations, roles and relationships, they may be more useful as analytic concepts than the classic notions of situational and metaphorical codeswitching. However, while the discovery of what constitutes marked and unmarked language usage at Stone Specialities may begin to answer the question of what linguistic practices characterize the multicultural/ multilingual workplace, it can not completely explain why they are in place or how they are maintained. In referring to Blom and Gumperz's work, Fasold (1984) has suggested that people who see themselves exclusively as members of a separate group do not consider themselves part of the same speech community as the dominant group and do not feel any particular need to learn the dominant group's language. While such a suggestion may explain the fact that particular individuals only speak Portuguese in the Portuguese-English workplace, it does not explain why such individuals feel they are members of a separate community nor why they do not feel any need to learn and use the dominant language, English. This is an extremely important question to address considering the reality that certain economic gains are associated with dominant ways of communicating. While the hourly-rated jobs on the production-lines in the factory do not require any command of the English language, all jobs off the lines, which are better-paying jobs, demand a good to excellent command of English. In Heller's (1988b) study of Canadian French and English speakers at work, anglophone managers codeswitch and use French routines among themselves to gain access to some of the rights and obligations of economic power symbolized by the use of French. Why would some immigrant workers who have come to Canada to improve

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their economic circumstances choose to speak Portuguese over English at work when English would provide them with access to better-paying jobs? Conversely, why and how do other immigrant workers, who choose to learn and use English at work, see themselves as included within the more powerful community, as possessing what Fasold (1984) calls "dual membership?" These questions are at the heart of this study and will be taken up shortly.

2.4. Language choice and social network ties Another way researchers have tried to explain people's individual language decisions has been to look at their social network ties, that is, the links in their social network which bind them to others. Blom and Gumperz (1972) use the notion of "closed" and "open" personal networks to explain the way in which speakers in Hemnesberget use the varieties of language available to them. Users of Ranamal, the local descendants, are members of closed networks, i.e., networks in which a given individual's contacts nearly all know each other so interaction takes place within a defined territory. The university students who demonstrate metaphorical switching and use Bokmal among themselves in Blcm and Gumperz's experiments have open networks, networks of relationships with reference points outside the local community. They move outside territorial boundaries so that a given individual's contacts each have their own contacts none of whom necessarily know each other. Building on the work of Blom and Gumperz, Milroy (1980) has adopted the notions of "density", "cluster" and "uniplex and multiplex" ties from the work of social anthropologist Boissevain (1974). The concepts of density and cluster refer to the structural characteristics of a network. Like Blom and Gumperz's "closed" network, a dense network is one in which a large number of persons to whom an individual is linked are also linked to each other. Clusters are parts or compartments of networks which have relatively high density. Interactional or content characteristics of networks are described through the concepts of multiplexity and uniplexity. A person who is connected to an individual in a single capacity has a uniplex relationship or network tie to that individual. However, if a person is connected to an individual in several capacities, such as an employee, neighbour, and kin member, then that person has a multiplex relationship to that individual.

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Milroy demonstrates that a dense, multiplex (i.e., "closed") network has the capacity to impose a set of non-standard communicative practices upon its members that are different from those which govern the behaviour of people not linked to such a network; that is, people who have dense, multiplex ("closed") ties with each other usually choose to use a non-standard, subordinate variety of language which is different from the choices made by people who don't have such ties. Milroy's argument is supported by Gumperz's (1982b) later work in the Gail Valley area of Karten, Austria, in which he asserts that individuals who interact mostly within closed networks share a number of non-standard communicative preferences. It is also supported by Gal's (1979) study on language shift in Oberwart, Austria, which finds that a long-established network of the traditional type is associated with a non-standard repertoire. Examining people's social network ties in the workplace is another place to begin to try to come to terms with why some workers choose to use only Portuguese at work while others will use both English and Portuguese. If the ties of those people who only speak Portuguese are dense and multiplex, then it is possible to suggest that such ties may be imposing the choice of the subordinate language at work. Conversely, if the ties of those people who use both Portuguese and English are not dense and multiplex, then it is possible to suggest that their more open network allows for the use of both Portuguese and English. While the notion of social network is a powerful analytic tool to use in exploring individual language patterns, it does not explain how closed network ties are able to impose a set of communicative practices upon individual speakers nor why some people have closed networks while others have more open networks.

2.5. L a n g u a g e choice, social goals and social boundaries While language choice behaviours have been seen to be related to different social network ties, they have also been seen as strategies for levelling or maintaining boundaries. Heller (1988b), for example, in her study of Canadian French and English speakers at work in the late 1970s, states that generally, in Quebec, people chose to speak only French or English as a symbol of ethnic identity and maintained barriers between French and English speakers. Those individuals who codeswitched in particular situations, that is, changed from the use of one of the languages to the other, did so because they found themselves in situations where they wanted to break down barriers.

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What becomes interesting in Heller's work are the questions of when and why it is important to maintain or overcome boundaries. Heller shows that answers are found within the analysis of people's social goals, that is, the consequences of people's short-term conversational or interactional goals which can be related to long-term social consequences. To illustrate, Heller (1988b) demonstrates how a newly promoted francophone manager codeswitches at what is supposed to be a French department meeting in order to take care of the order of business, maintain good relationships with anglophones and also maintain the legitimacy of his status as a francophone manager. At the meeting, which is supposed to occur entirely in French since French is the company's official language of work, the newly promoted francophone manager finds himself in the difficult situation of presiding over a meeting where there are older anglophones (who were originally in line for promotion but were blocked because they do not speak French), older francophones who are used to working in English, and other young francophones. If the francophones only speak French they will seem hostile to the anglophones, since they will have deliberately built up a language barrier which will prevent anglophones from participating in the meeting. That conducting the meeting entirely in French will be interpreted as hostile is quite likely as everyone at the meeting knows that the francophones are able to speak English. Furthermore, the francophones like these anglophones and need to tap their expertise and experience at the meeting. However, if the meeting is conducted entirely in English, the legitimacy of the young francophone managers is undermined. Their rapid promotion was not only based on their technical ability, but on the principle of francophone control of private enterprise as well. When the manager chooses to codeswitch at the meeting, he manages to avoid seeming hostile, succeeds in tapping the expertise of the anglophones, and maintains the legitimacy of his position all at the same time. People's goals in interaction are related to the social roles they play in interaction and their social network ties. People who codeswitch, who break down barriers are those who have access to and play out multiple roles and role-relationships in interaction. The francophone manager who codeswitches in the department meeting needs to play out the role of manager which is legitimized by the use of French; however, at the same time, he also needs to play out the role of friend to the monolingual anglophones at the meeting who are people that he not only likes, but who

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can also provide him with the benefit of their expertise. This rolerelationship requires him to use English. It is important to note that not all francophones in that meeting need to codeswitch the way the manager does. Heller notes that a young francophone at the meeting, who had no personal ties to any of the anglophones in the group and who had a position at work which did not require him to use English, never spoke English during the meeting. He did not have access to multiple role-relationships and therefore did not need to codeswitch. At this point in the discussion the notions of social goals, multiple rolerelationships and network ties can be brought together; people in dense, multiplex social networks, people who only have personal ties to others in their own community, do not have access to multiple role-relationships in interaction and do not use language to break down barriers at work.

2.6. L a n g u a g e choice, social identity and ethnography However, it is still necessary to ask "but why?" Why do some individuals have interactional goals that require them to break down barriers while others do not? Why do some people find themselves in situations where they have access to multiple role-relationships while others do not? And once again, why do some people have closed network ties, while others do not? Heller believes that to answer these questions, it is necessary to relate people's individual language choices to the "speech economy" of their community, that is, to the way linguistic resources are distributed in their community, to the access individuals have to different linguistic resources, and to the social and economic resources with which different linguistic resources are associated (Heller 1988c). In other words, it is necessary to find out how languages and language varieties are used in the community, whether people have access to situations that permit them to interact with those who use another language and what benefits and costs are associated with the use of a particular language or language variety. For example, the young francophone who did not use English at the meeting was an individual who not only did not have any personal ties with any of the anglophones in the group, but who also occupied a position in which the use of English was largely unnecessary. He did not have access to any situations that would permit him interact with anglophones nor did he perceive there to be any benefits, for example,

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access to friendship or professional expertise, associated with the use of the language. The young francophone's distance from the French/English boundary gave him no reason to use English. In looking at individual language choice in the workplace then, it will be necessary to know how Portuguese and English are distributed both inside and outside the factory and what kinds of costs and benefits are associated with the use of the two languages. By examining the ways linguistic resources are distributed both at Stone Specialities and in the wider community, and by examining what kinds of social and economic resources are associated with the different linguistic resources that are available, it is possible to explore why some individuals may have access to multiple roles and role-relationships (multiple identities) while others do not and why some individuals need to break down barriers in interaction while others do not. However, there is still one last issue that remains to be addressed. It has to do with people's location relative to the language boundary and their access to multiple role-relationships. While we know, for example, that Heller's young francophone did not use English at the meeting because of his location to the French/English boundary, we do not know why he is located so far from the boundary. To understand why, we need to look at the social, economic, political and historical processes that operate within his particular community and look at how these processes may affect his location to the French/English boundary. Heller (1988b) explains the young francophone's location to boundaries in terms of the changes that characterized Quebec at the time her study was being undertaken. As briefly mentioned earlier, the company Heller studied used to be an English business with anglophone management and francophone labour. At the time of the study many of the anglophone managers had been transferred to branches in other Canadian provinces or had retired and were replaced by young francophones. As well, at the time of study, the new language law in Quebec had decreed that the language of work be French. The detailing of such social and political changes in a community provides for an understanding of why the young francophone is located where he is in terms of social boundaries and why he may wish to maintain them. The young francophone, who speaks the official language of power at work, has no reason to speak English. The use of English will not give him access to a position of greater economic and social status at work. As well, as mentioned earlier, because he does not work with any anglophones, the young francophone does not need to use English to gain

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access to the social resources of friendship or professional expertise from colleagues. Having emphasized the necessity of understanding how social processes affect people's location with respect to language boundaries and how social processes may facilitate or constrain opportunities to profit from breaking down language barriers, it is necessary to also emphasize the importance of individual action and local creativity in negotiating language boundaries. The language(s) or variety(ies) individuals choose to use are not necessarily determined by the "speech economy" of their community. Individuals do find ways of accessing and exploiting linguistic resources that are not easily available to them. However, at the same time, as has been argued above, understanding why people are located in particular ways to particular language boundaries is crucial to understanding their access to multiple identities and their possibilities of breaking down language barriers. The importance of relating what goes on in everyday face-to-face interaction to social processes that are part of the wider community in which everyday interaction takes place is a position that has recently been put forward by several other interactionist sociolinguists and ethnographers (e.g., Erickson 1986; Gal 1979; Gilmore and Smith 1982; Heath 1982; Mehan, Hertweck and Meihls 1986; Ogbu 1981; Woolard 1989). As mentioned earlier, these researchers are concerned with linking individual language behaviour to social, political, and economic processes that originate outside everyday interactions. This concern is rooted in the desire to understand how the course of interaction in local social organizational forms is influenced by "distal and proximal circumstances" (Mehan, 1987). Distal circumstances originate outside specific organizational forms. They interact with "proximal circumstances" that originate within them to influence the course of interaction, the work of organizations and people's resulting experiences in those organizations. Such an understanding is important to research that is concerned with the relationship between what goes on in face-to-face interaction and people's access or lack of access to valued resources in different organizations. As a project which sets out to uncover those conditions that constrain the learning and use of English in the workplace and to understand how language choice relates to social and economic opportunities at work, this study is also concerned with proximal and distal circumstances. Thus, it must combine sociolinguistic research techniques used to look at everyday interaction with ethnographic research techniques used to look at the social context in which everyday interaction is embedded. In doing so, it

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can relate individual language choice decisions to processes that are or have been part of the workplace and wider community to explain what impacts on people's location with respect to the Portuguese/English boundary. To summarize, drawing upon the previous work interactionist sociolinguists have done on language choice, we see that an investigation of people's language decisions at work can begin by identifying different patterns of language use in place in the workplace by looking for unmarked (conventional) and marked (unexpected) uses of language. These patterns can then be analyzed in terms of people's social values, network ties, multiple role-relationships, and goals in interaction. Social values, ties, roles and goals need to be understood in terms of the ways linguistic resources are distributed in the community as a whole and in terms of the consequences that are associated with different linguistic practices. They also need to be understood in terms of the broader social, economic and political processes that are related to the distribution of linguistic resources and the consequences of language choice. Such an analysis begins to answer the second question the study asks, What meanings do particular language practices carry for immigrant workers in the multicultural/multilingual workplace? The analytic framework outlined above has the power to describe people's individual language choice decisions in terms of their social values, relationships and goals and explain these in terms of access to different linguistic resources and the consequences of language practices. The analysis of the consequences of language choice may be particularly important to the questions that are central to this study. At Stone Specialities, many immigrant workers have had access to English classes for the past four years. Most have also had access to other workers and supervisors who do not speak Portuguese for many more than four years. Yet, in spite of this access to English-speaking network ties, most of these people still choose to speak Portuguese over English at work even though the use of English would provide them with access to easier working conditions and better-paying jobs. To discover why these workers choose to speak Portuguese over English at work and why a small group of immigrant workers at Stone chose to learn and use English at work even before English classes were accessible, it is necessary to go beyond the sociolinguistic, ethnographic framework outlined this far. In a recent study on language use in the bilingual community of Barcelona, Woolard (1989) combines a social-psychological research approach with ethnographic observation of behaviour and sociolinguistic

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attention to discourse. She demonstrates that people's attitudes are crucial in informing the way they talk. The following discussion looks at Woolard's social-psychological evidence and examines the relevance it has for questions posed by this study.

2.7. L a n g u a g e choice and social acceptance Woolard's (1989) study of the use of Catalan and Castilian in Barcelona is a particularly interesting study of language use since Catalan has remained a vital language in Barcelona despite repression under the Franco regime. As Woolard explains, in 1980, at the time of her study, Spain was in political transition from its nearly 40 years under the Franco regime. While the preliminary steps of restoring a constitutional, parliamentary democracy had been taken, the linguistic, cultural, and educational policies still in place were largely those that had been inherited from the Franco years. In the bilingual region of Catalonia, as in all of Spain, the Castilian language continued to enjoy almost exclusive institutional domination. The regional, vernacular language, Catalan, had only marginal representation in school instruction, the mass media and public administration. The social-psychological component to Woolard's (1989) study on language use in Barcelona is based on the theoretical assumption that shared social values or evaluations are key to understanding patterns of language choice and codeswitching in interaction. Social values may be explicitly shared and found in conscious ideological debates on issues of language use. For example, in Barcelona some Catalan nationalists feel the government is moving too slowly in establishing Catalan as sole official language of Catalonia. They have taken affirmative action to ensure the survival of their language. Woolard describes a university professor who refuses to offer his class in Castilian as well as Catalan and a Catalan parliament member who absents himself in protest regularly whenever a fellow legislator speaks in Castilian. Such behaviour reveals Catalan nationalist values and an explicit attitude towards the use of Catalan in public spheres. Some attitudes or evaluations that have effects on language use are outside the direct awareness of the speakers who hold them. These unconscious evaluations of language choice lead people to believe that they are not judging the language being used, but the person who is speaking it.

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...we make surprisingly definite judgments about people's intellectual and moral qualities on the basis of the way they "sound" (Allport and Cantril 1934). These associative judgments are part of what Bourdieu (1977) calls our "habitus", in the sense that they are incorporated or literally embodied in our aural perceptions. Though these evaluations derive from the social distribution of language varieties, they become physicalized, naturalized reactions. As such, they can be very powerful determinants of the choices speakers make about acquiring or using particular language varieties. In her study, Woolard looks at the judgments people make about others on the basis of the language they choose to use. She uses a socialpsychological measure of language attitudes known as the "matchedguise" test. In the test, Catalan and Castilian respondents were asked to listen to a tape recording of ten female voices reading the same passage in Catalan and Castilian and to rate the speakers on fifteen personal traits on an accompanying questionnaire. Respondents were unaware that only five speakers were heard, each reading the text once in Catalan and once in Castilian. By holding context, text and speaker constant and varying only the language used, the test allowed Woolard to capture the effect of language choice on the impression a speaker makes. Woolard found that people assign the highest "Solidarity" ratings to speakers who are co-members of their own language group and who use the group language. The theoretical concepts of "solidarity" and "status" have been used by sociolinguists to refer to two different sets of social values attaching themselves to (i.e., reflected in and enacted by) language choice and social relations. Language choice patterns that symbolize "solidarity" symbolize the desire or need to be accepted by a particular social group. Those that symbolize "status" symbolize the desire to advance socially, economically or politically. In Woolard's study people's assignment of the highest "Solidarity" ratings to co-members of their own language groups means that people assigned such personal qualities as "likeability", "trustworthiness", "humour", and "openness" - qualities that have been seen to be stressed in relations of social bonding or solidarity - in higher numbers to members of their own language group who used the group language than to comembers who used the other language. While insiders are rewarded with increased solidarity for their loyalty to the group language and sanctioned

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with lower "Solidarity" ratings for their betrayal, outsiders who attempt to use the group language are not rewarded for venturing to use the other language when it can be detected that they are outsiders and not a member of the group. Woolard uses this data to conclude that speakers who use the language of the outgroup receive no immediate payoff. They do not gain increased social acceptance in return for learning the language of the outgroup while they risk a loss of support from members of their own linguistic group of origin (1989:123). She asserts that this could be a critical factor in determining people's patterns of language learning and use in multilingual communities. The immediate benefits of changing one's language orientation do not outweigh immediate risks. Indeed, other ethnographic evidence in Woolard's study shows that an individual's change of language choice can subject him/her to ridicule. The cost of learning and using another language may be just too high for many individuals; there may not be enough social acceptance from the target group to compensate for the penalty imposed by the original group. Woolard's work on language attitudes in Barcelona which looks at people's language choice in terms of what it may cost them to cross language boundaries is very relevant to this study. The use of languages other than English on the factory floor at Stone Specialities may be related to the perceived risk of losing social acceptance among Portuguese coworkers. Such a finding would support previous work that examines the symbolic value of language choice. Such work links the use of minority languages to the value of solidarity, that is, the desire to be socially accepted by an ingroup while it links the use of dominant, official languages to the value of power, status, or the desire to get ahead (Fishman 1964, cf. Weinreich 1974, Ryan 1979). However, it is important to challenge the assumptions of previous sociolinguistic research and ask why social acceptance from Portuguese co-workers is so important to Portuguese immigrant workers. If we do not ask why, we assume that immigrant workers who use Portuguese at work intrinsically value social acceptance over economic power in the multicultural/ multilingual workplace. Such an assumption makes little sense in light of the fact that immigrant workers who choose to use the minority language of Portuguese at work have deliberately chosen to come to Canada to improve their economic circumstances. In thinking about the question of why social acceptance from Portuguese co-workers may be so important to speakers of Portuguese on the factory floor, it is necessary to question the assumption that the use of a minority language

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must necessarily be solely linked to values and resources associated with solidarity. At Stone Specialities, the use Portuguese on the factory floor may not only be linked to social resources associated with solidarity, it may also be linked to economic resources associated with mobility. The possibility of a minority language providing access to both social and economic resources has been uncovered by Woolard (1989) in her work on language use in Barcelona. The link she makes between the use of the minority language of Catalan and the possession of economic power in Barcelona is extremely useful in thinking about why immigrant workers may not use English at work. To fully understand the persistent use of Portuguese on the factory floor, it is necessary to examine the symbolic values, roles and goals immigrant workers attach to English and Portuguese in terms of access to economic as well as social resources.

2.8. L a n g u a g e choice, economic power and linguistic authority In her exploration of the reasons for the unexpected maintenance and vitality of Catalan in Barcelona, Woolard uncovers zygotic evidence that negates the assumption that dominant languages carrying institutional power are necessarily the only languages associated with power in bilingual communities. Using the social-psychological data from her matched-guise test, Woolard argues that in spite of the institutional dominance of Castilian, it is Catalan, not Castilian which is endowed with "linguistic authority" by the people of Barcelona. Both Catalan and Castilian speakers assign higher "Status" ratings to the marginalized language of Catalan than they do to the official state language of Castilian. This means that people judge the speakers of Catalan as sounding more "intelligent", "cultured", "leaderlike", "self-confident", and "hardworking" and thus as having more "status", authority or power than speakers using Castilian. Woolard accounts for these unexpected findings by examining the political economy in which attitudes towards language choice in Barcelona are embedded and questioning the way previous sociolinguistic studies have understood the relationship between language choice and authority or power. As mentioned earlier, previous sociolinguistic studies looking at the symbolic value of language choice link the use of minority languages to the value of solidarity, that is, the desire to be socially accepted by an ingroup while it links the use of dominant, official languages to the value of authority, status, or the desire to get ahead. As minority languages are not

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official, dominant languages, it has been assumed that they can not symbolize authority or power. Woolard challenges this assumption and refers to sociologist Max Weber's (1921/1968, 1958) work on social relations to explain what gives Catalan its authority in Barcelona. Max Weber (1921/1968) analyses the sense or meaning of human or social action at three basic levels: Social groups may be formed on the basis of (1) material interest, (2) feelings of affinity or shared beliefs in what is honourable and (3) social relationships based on hierarchic organization or shared beliefs in a legitimate order and exercise of authority. Having analyzed social action at these three levels, Weber (1958) also distinguishes three kinds of order through which power may be allocated: the economic order (relations concerned with material interest), the social order (relations concerned with honour) and the legal order (relations concerned with legitimized domination or authority). The legal order exercises authority by the virtue of people's belief in clearly stated rules and norms that specify who holds power in relation to whom and under what circumstances. The structure of every legal order directly influences the distribution of power within its respective community. Weber understands power as the chance for people to realize their own will even against the resistance of others. Power is not only allocated through the legal order, however, it may be "economically conditioned" and allocated through the economic order or the way goods and services are distributed and used in society. Power may also be conditioned by the social "honour" it entails and allocated through the social order. "Economically conditioned" power is not identical with legal power. "On the contrary, the emergence of economic power may be the consequence of power existing on other grounds" (Weber 1958:180). However, people do not strive for power only to enrich themselves economically. Power, including economic power, may be valued "for its own sake". While power is often conditioned by social honour, not all power entails social honour. For example, Weber argues that the "typical American Boss" and the "typical big speculator", "deliberately relinquish" social honour. Generally, Weber believes that "mere economic power" is not a recognized basis of social honour. Nor is power the only basis of social honour. In fact, social honour may even be the basis of political or economic power and economic or political power may be forsaken for social honour. Importantly, in terms of the following discussion concerning economic power and language choice, Weber argues that "Power, as well as honour, may be guaranteed by the legal order, but, at least normally, it

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is not their primary source. The legal order is rather an additional factor that enhances the chance to hold power; but it can not always secure them (1958:181)." Using Weber's analytic distinction of three kinds of order to explain her findings, Woolard argues that if power or social honour can not be directly assumed from either economic or legal power, then linguistic authority can not be assumed to derive solely from the official, legal order of schools, the media and government. Catalan has only marginal representation in the legal order of Catalonia. Its authority derives from the economic status of its speakers. While the Francoist government stymied the regional economic dominance of the Catalan bourgeoisie, it did not obliterate it. Catalans continue to dominate the internal economic structure of Catalonia through their ownership and management of the private sector. It is this economic base, Woolard argues, that gives Catalan its authority in the ears of the populace. Since Catalan speakers hold prestigious economic and occupational positions in the Catalonian community, the language itself becomes prestigious, both necessary for social advance and aurally endowed with authority. This is true even though Catalan is not an official language in the legal order and not commonly used in the superordinate domains of work, government, administration, education, or the mass media. To understand why Castilian has so little authority in Catalonia even though it is associated with the legal order of schools and the government, it is important to remember that the use of Catalan is not only associated with economic power, but with social honour, nationalist values and ethnic mobilization as well. The Catalan people, who live with the contradiction of having their economic power controlled by Castilian legal power, are trying to gain control of their own economic resources by fighting to make Catalan the sole official language of Catalonia. As mentioned earlier, Woolard's argument challenges previous sociolinguistic work on bilingual and multilingual situations which understands linguistic authority or power as deriving principally from use in the legal order, particularly in the domains of education and mass media (e.g., Bourhis 1982). Woolard points out that in most situations, there is a high degree of association between economic and legal power, and most researchers have not considered their relations to language use separately. This may be quite appropriate where access to institutions controlled by the legal order (e.g., schools) is the prime determinant of economic power. However, it may not be appropriate in situations where

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access to legal institutions is not primarily responsible for economic power, as in Barcelona. Woolard's argument that access to legal institutions is not always primarily responsible for economic power is extremely important to this study. Many immigrant workers who do not have access to English language classes when they arrive in Canada find work and earn a paycheck in a language other than English. For them, economic survival and economic gain is not associated with the use of English, but with the use of the language of their native countries. This association of a minority language with economic survival and economic gain may explain the use of languages other than English on the factory floor. Woolard shows that in Barcelona, one reason the minority language of Catalan is endowed with linguistic authority is because the models of economic success in the public consciousness are predominantly Catalan-speaking. Another reason is because of its association with the social power of nationalism. Thus, even though within the legal or political sphere it is Castilian that holds more power, Catalan is valued because it is associated with forms of economic and social power. It is possible that for some workers on the multicultural/multilingual factory floor at Stone Specialities, the use of Portuguese is endowed with authority and valued over the use of English because it is associated with the economic and social activities of finding a job, bringing home a paycheck and socializing at work. Woolard's evidence on language use in Barcelona demonstrates the need to not only inquire into the ways linguistic resources are distributed in the community, but into the ways economic and social resources are distributed as well. The idea of Portuguese being endowed with authority in the ears of its speakers because it is associated with economic survival and gain can be related to Woolard's (1989) evidence that there are costs associated with learning the language of the outgroup. Woolard demonstrates that people have strong attitudes about language choice. For workers who depend on the support from Portuguese workers to perform the jobs that provide them with a paycheck, there may be costs rather than benefits to using English. When the use of English is too costly, its use is resisted. In such a situation, access to English language training is not necessarily considered access to a valued resource as workplace English language trainers have assumed. It is important to remember, however, that Ontario is not Catalonia. While in Catalonia, the minority language of Catalan is associated with economic dominance, in Ontario, many minority languages such as

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Portuguese are associated with economic subordination. How can a language that is associated with economic subordination be aurally endowed with authority? Why do immigrant workers not learn and use the language of economic dominance at work? In Ontario, it is likely that linguistically and economically subordinate groups develop their own symbolic "marketplace" (Bourdieu 1977) which enables them to survive despite a position of disadvantage. In a recent study comparing several different case studies of codeswitching in various European communities, Gal (1988) argues that there is a need to examine language choice patterns within regional contexts of economic and political power relations. She asserts that as members of different ethnic groups, people have specifiable structural positions of power or subordination in their regional economy and that this larger context is crucial in shaping their individual language choices - choices they make when speaking among themselves as well as choices they make when speaking with others. In other words, differences in language practices can be linked to the ways in which communities are differently situated within a regional political and economic system. Recently, other sociolinguistic work (cf., e.g., Gal 1989, Hill 1987) has also pointed to the importance of gender in shaping people's language choices. The idea that language choice may be seen as a symbolic practice of sociopolitical and gender position is key to thinking through the answer to the question of why immigrant workers may not learn and use the language of economic dominance at work. The discussion below reviews the evidence Gal provides to support her argument that language choice may be explained by looking at regional contexts of economic and political power. It also looks at recent sociolinguistic work that argues that language choice may related to gender position in the political economy. The discussion uses both kinds of evidence to suggest that language choice patterns on the factory floor may be related to the class and gender positions Portuguese immigrant workers hold within the Canadian political economy.

2.9. L a n g u a g e choice as symbolic practice of sociopolitical and gender position To support her position that language choice is related to the structural position people hold within their regional political economy, Gal (1988)

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compares the use of two minority languages in the regional economic and political system of Europe: German in Transylvania, Romania (McClure and McClure 1988; Verdery, 1983, 1985) and Hungarian in Oberwart, Austria (Gal, 1979). While Romanian is the official language used in Transylvania, it is generally not used between Germans living there. The Germans of Transylvania were, until the post-World War II period, an economically dominant and legally privileged merchant and farmer group. While the Germans had lost their economic and legal privileges in what was, at the time of the study, socialist Romania, their former sense of moral and economic superiority still survived as did their identification with what they saw as a "free" West Germany. Legal privileges allowing a small amount of emigration from Romania to West Germany reinforced this sense of themselves. Although there has been considerable interaction between the Romanians and Germans, it is rare that Romanian is used among German bilinguals and when it is, it is used in speech events that are not notably high in public status, events such as bawdy songs, jokes and drunken brawls. As Gal puts it, the two languages either stand apart or Romanian is seeping into German conversations "from the bottom" (1988:253). The Hungarians in Austria, who occupy a different structural position than the Germans in Transylvania, demonstrate contrary language practices. As a tiny, impoverished group with little leadership, the Hungarians have had no independent influence in politics or economic matters. During the post World War II boom, industrial expansion drew Hungarian workers away from agriculture into economically more attractive jobs in service and heavy industry. During the increasing prosperity of the 1960s and 1970s, they became well aware that their economic opportunities as western Europeans far exceeded possibilities in Hungary. Thus, for the middle and younger generation of Hungarian speakers, Hungarian is deprecated as the local peasant language while German is considered the code of economic power and upward mobility. Gal argues that such evidence demonstrates that ethnic groups can have various relations to the political economic system and concludes that differences in the language practices of the Germans in Transylvania and the Hungarians in Oberwart are due to historically different class positions and links with co-ethnics in other states. By examining the relations Portugues immigrants have to the Canadian political economic system, it is possible to discover how circumstances related to such structural positions as class may influence language choice in the multicultural/

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multilingual workplace. By assuming that language choice is a symbolic practice of sociopolitical position, it is possible to look for an answer to the question of why people do not learn and use the language of economic dominance as related to the position they hold within the Canadian political economy. As mentioned above, other recent sociolinguistic work has demonstrated that language choice can also be related to gender position. Jane Hill's (1987) study of language use in the Mexican region of the Malinche Volcano is a good example of such work. In this study, Hill looks at the different ways men and women use Mexicano, which is an indigenous language of Mexico, and Spanish. While most men and women living in the rural communities of the Malinche Volcano are bilingual, people generally believe that women are "less Spanish" than the men. Hill has found that while this is so for some aspects of usage, for others, women are "more Spanish" (or "less Mexicano") than men. Hill has also found that women express more negative attitudes about the Mexicano language than men do. Significantly more women than men do not want Mexicano taught in the schools, do not want their children to learn the language, and are not sad that it is disappearing. Furthermore, those women who are considered by linguistic standards to be the most "Mexicano" of all speakers, are those that also have the highest proportion of negative attitudes. In explaining why women are sometimes "less Spanish" and sometimes "more Spanish" than men, and why women have more negative attitudes about the Mexicano language than men, Hill turns to an argument that links language use to the women's position in the local political economy. For example, Hill argues that negative attitudes in regard to Mexicano can be linked to the fact that many women feel hampered by their inadequacies in Spanish in the local economic market. "As wearers of traditional dress, as illiterates, and as poor Spanishspeakers, they are easily identified as low-status "Indians" and feel that they are unable to "defend themselves" when commercial activity brings them in contact with Spanish-speakers (1987:154)." As well, as the lowest-status adults in their home communities, women have little of the economic or political capital that is essential collateral for participation in community systems of reciprocity. Since these systems of reciprocity, which are considered an important local source of economic assistance and support, are accessed by the use of Mexicano and since women are limited in their access of these support

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mechanisms by their lack of economic or political capital, the use of Mexicano is not associated with access to economic assistance and support. Hill, then, suggests that the women's negative attitudes towards Mexicano may be related to their knowledge that the use of Mexicano does not empower them in either the local Spanish or Mexicano economic market. Hill's argument that it is possible to link language choice to existing gender relations in a particular political economy is also extremely relevant to this study. Most of the immigrant workers who do not use English on the factory floor at Stone Specialities are women. Thus, not only is it important to examine how language choice may be a symbolic practice of sociopolitical position, it is also important to analyze how language choice may be related to gender. In her article on the political economy of language choice, Gal (1988) calls for a comparative analysis within the field of sociolinguistics that would shed light on how sociolinguistic patterns are placed in a context of economic and political power. This kind of analysis would work towards building up a theory of the social use of language. As a study that looks at how individual language choices among Portuguese immigrant speakers are linked to the particular economic and sociopolitical context within which the Portuguese community in Toronto is situated, this study contributes to such a comparative analysis. In addition to exploring language attitudes of Catalan and Castilian speakers in her study of language use in Barcelona, Woolard (1989) also examines the question of why some Castilian immigrants learn Catalan (the language of economic dominance in Barcelona) while many do not. Because the situation of Portuguese immigrants in Canada is different f r o m the situation of Castilian immigrants in Catalonia, this study provides an interesting comparison to Woolard's study. In her study, Woolard demonstrates that despite strong solidarity forces against the linguistic assimilation of Castilian, some Castilian speakers learn Catalan anyway. She also demonstrates that these people are not simply individuals who are able to defer gratification or people who are motivated by long-term rewards in spite of short-term losses. She shows that there are social differences between immigrants who learn Catalan and immigrants who do not. More first-generation immigrants are learners of Catalan than second-generation native-born individuals. Woolard explains these differences in terms of the different ways firstand second-generation speakers define their social identity and network of social relations. She suggests that because first-generation immigrants have severed basic ties in leaving the homeland, they have less at risk in

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exploring different possibilities of group membership and the different identities symbolized by language use in Barcelona? First-generation immigrants do not have to betray their identity or their social network in making efforts to assimilate to the Catalan language; they have left the basis of that identity and that network behind... they are not full members of any social group when they come to Catalonia. Thus they can take the radical step of refusing to speak Castilian outside their homes... (1989:135). For second-generation immigrants, the risks carry a very different weight...though they may choose to cross over to networks and a linguistic group they were not reared in, they have much more at stake in such a move. They risk the support of th? relationships they have developed since birth (1989:136,137). While Woolard's analysis is interesting and provoking, it does not address the question of why Catalan-oriented parents might visit negative sanctions on their own children. As well, while Woolard's analysis of the social differences between immigrant learners and non-learners of Catalan may hold true for immigrants in Barcelona, it may not hold true for immigrant language learners in other multicultural/multilingual settings. As Gal (1988) has suggested, language practices can be linked to the ways in which communities are differently situated within a regional political and economic system. In Toronto, for example, not all first-generation immigrants are "freer and more likely than the native-born to pursue highstatus [language] models" (1989:137). As discussed earlier, first-generation Portuguese immigrant women working on production lines in a factory in Toronto choose to use Portuguese, not English to communicate at work. As will be explained in further detail in chapters 6, 7, and 8, this linguistic choice can be related to costs associated with crossing the language boundary that is in place on the factory production floor and with the risk of losing the support of relationships needed for keeping a job on the production line. In exploring the specific situational differences between first-generation immigrants in Toronto and Barcelona, this study responds to Gal's (1988) call for comparative analysis and contributes to the theoretical task of building up a theory of the social use of language. In conclusion, this chapter has traced out a theoretical framework

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through which sociolinguistic questions of language practices may be explored. While the following study documenting bilingual life and language choice in the multicultural/ multilingual workplace is rooted in the practice of official language education in Canada, it is also firmly secured in the theoretical perspectives of interactionist sociolinguistics and educational ethnography. It seeks not only to inform the practice of official language educators working in multicultural/multilingual settings, but also those sociolinguists seeking to better understand the relationship between language and power in modern capitalist society. Before closing this chapter on language choice, social identity, and authority in the multicultural/multilingual workplace, it is helpful to take a look at and situate this study within the growing literature on language at work. In the last decade, there has been a growing number of papers, collections of papers and books on the subject of language use in work contexts. For example, in 1984 and 1985, Hywel Coleman edited a twovolume collection of papers called "Language and Work" for the International Journal of the Sociology of Language (Coleman 1984, 1985). This first collection was followed by a second volume of papers called Working with Language that was published as part of Mouton de Gruyter's Contributions to the Sociology of Language series (Coleman 1989). These initial collections have been followed up by such volumes as Language and Discrimination: A Study of Communication in Multi-Ethnic Workplaces (Roberts, Davies, and Jupp 1992 [referred to in the last chapter]); Talk at Work (Drew and Heritage 1992); Talking from 9 to 5 (Tannen 1994); and Cross-Cultural Communication in the Professions (Pauwels 1994). Commenting, at the end of the 1980s, on the condition of research into language at work, Coleman (1989) argues that much of the research is largely concerned with language use in professional contexts such as medical care, legal context, and education. In comparison to the work done in these areas, investigations of language use in non-professional contexts are "scarce" (1989:7)9. Coleman sees this imbalance as undesirable for two reasons. First, by concentrating on the language work of professionals, "researchers are attending to the behaviour of a very small (albeit influential) group of people" (1989:7). Secondly, the concept of "profession" is itself an "artificial" or, at least, a "limited" concept (1989:7). By adopting society's own classification system and then

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restricting research to the most prestigious - though numerically smallest - group within that system, Coleman argues that researchers of language and work create a picture that is "seriously incomplete" (1989:7). This is a problem that he tries to address in his second volume of papers (Coleman 1989) by including work that discusses a wide range of occupations - both professional and non-professional. The following study contributes to the growing literature on language at work - which continues, in the 1990s, to focus primarily on "professional" work contexts (see, for example, Drew and Heritage 1992; Pauwels 1994; Tannen 1994) - by examining the ways working-class (non-professional) women communicate at work. Another way in which this study contributes to the literature on language at work is through its focus on the use and maintenance of a community language other than English. In their book on language use in multilingual and multi-ethnic workplaces, Roberts, Davies and Jupp (1992) develop their analysis from the perspective of teaching English language and developing awareness of inter-ethnic communication in English. They clearly state that while the use of languages other than English is "a very important contextual factor", their book is not about the use, maintenance, and development of those languages in the workplace (1992:2). They do assert, however, that such issues - which fall outside the scope of their own study - are issues which deserve research and analysis in their own right (1992:3). This book takes up some of these issues. While this study contributes to research on language and work, it is also informed by the literature in a number of ways. The work of other researchers has helped me work through methodological concerns, sharpen my interpretations and conclusions, and think about the implications of my work for educational practice. Their various contributions to my thinking and to the study are detailed throughout the book.

Chapter 3 Ethnography in the multicultural/multilingual workplace

While the previous chapter grounds this study theoretically, this chapter grounds the project methodologically. As was discussed in the introduction, the study combines a critical research perspective with the methodology of ethnography. The goal of ethnography is to provide a description and an interpretive-explanatory account of what people do in a particular setting and what meaning their interactions have for them. To accomplish this goal, the ethnographer carries out systematic, detailed observation in the research setting and analyses the social organization of people's behaviour. The two-year research study, which took place between January 1988 and March 1990, went through three major research stages that progressively "zoomed in" (Mehan, Hertweck and Meihls 1986) on the research setting. The discussion in this chapter describes these three stages in detail and discusses the challenge of carrying out ethnographic work in a multicultural/multilingual setting where the linguistic and cultural practices of the researcher differed from those of the research participants. Over the entire period of fieldwork, 39 ethnographic interviews were undertaken; 30 hours (in total) were spent observing everyday work activities in each of the five plant departments (Production, Textiles, Raw Materials, Specialities, and Shipping and Receiving); 29 hours (in total) were spent observing language practices in the Production department, the Textiles department, the cafeteria, and the two English language classrooms; and 24 hours were spent recording workers' interactions on the production lines.

3.1. Stage 1: September 1988 - D e c e m b e r 1988 This company has always taken an interest in their employees foremost even though sometimes it doesn't always feel that way. But sometimes it kinda works in wonderful and mysterious ways. (Ron, department manager, Interview, October 31, 1988). The study began with an attempt to gain a wide-angle view of the research setting. The major goal for stage 1 was to explore what life at Stone Specialities was like for those who worked there. I interviewed

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employees in the executive suites and employees on the factory floor. As Ron's comment above indicates, an early theme that began to emerge from these initial interviews concerned the contradictions people lived out at work. At the same time that people would talk about the personal, "touching" interest the company took in its employees, they would also talk about workers not being adequately protected in terms of job security and benefits. While the company would indeed do "wonderful" things for individual employees who found themselves in financial crisis due to an unexpected, usually tragic, event in their lives, generally, employees had no job security and were not protected by a company health plan. Observation and interviewing activities at this stage were undertaken in the most comprehensive fashion possible. Information about life at Stone Specialities was gathered through interviews with the Personnel Manager, the Personnel Director, Roger Stone who is one of the company owners and Chairman of Stone Specialities, the Maintenance manager who "came with the building" and the managers, assistant managers and forepersons of each of the company's five plant departments. People were asked about the important events in the company's history, the way the company was structured, the ways they understood the company's philosophy, the ways they ran and worked in their departments and the different ways people were recruited to work in their departments. Interviews were followed up by observations of daily working life in each of the departments, and social activity during lunch and breaks was also observed. I also attended the company's annual Christmas party during the time I was teaching and researching there. While an interview schedule of ten questions was prepared for the interviewees (see Appendices Β and C) and each of the interviews eventually addressed each of these ten questions, the interviews themselves were kept as open-ended as possible so that participants felt free to elaborate on those aspects of working for the company that were most salient to them. Having gained a broad understanding of what working life at Stone Specialities was like for different people employed there, it was possible to move into the second stage of the research project and gather data on people's language practices at work.

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1988 - December

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3.2 Stage 2: January 1989 - April 1989 They talk Portugese among themselves so they don't learn English. (Charles, materials handler, Fieldnotes, January 24, 1989). Research activities in stage two were undertaken to generate hypotheses about language choice conventions in two of the six plant departments, the Production and Textile Departments. These departments were selected because they were the only two departments in the company which were bilingual, that is, in which both Portuguese and English were used at work. In all the other departments, English was the only language used to conduct daily activities. Workers in both the Production and Textiles Departments were observed interacting with each other on production lines, at the t-shirt printing machines, in the warehouse where orders for t-shirts are filled, in the department offices, in their language classes, at breaks and at lunch. The one place where I did not observe people's language practices was the employees' locker/changing room as my presence there would have been obtrusive. Observations of interactions were recorded on a worksheet labelled "Language Choice Conventions" (see Appendix D) and copied onto a second worksheet labelled "Language Choice Profile" (see Appendix E). On the first sheet, "Language Choice Conventions", I recorded people's language choices by noting who was speaking to whom in what language and in front of whom. For example, part of one of these worksheets looked like this: DATE:

Jan 25

WHERE:

Production, Yvette's doll line

TIME: 3:00-4:00

WHO

CODE

TO WHOM

AUDIENCE

Idalina

English

Yvette, John

Yvette's crew

Idalina

Portuguese

John

Yvette's crew

John

English

Doug

Yvette's crew

Idalina

Portuguese

Fernanda

Yvette's crew

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The information from this worksheet was copied onto Idalina and John's individual "Language Choice Profile" worksheets giving me a compilation of the different language choices each worker made with different interlocutors in different settings. For example, part of Idalina's "Language Choice Profile" looked like this: NAME:

Idalina

AGE:

41

YEARS W/CO:

21

EDUCATION:

N o English education. Grade 4 Portuguese education, 3 months training to be a Nursing Assistant in Portugal.

CODE

TO WHOM

Jan 25

English

Jan 25

Portuguese

Jan 25 Jan 31 Jan 31

DATE

AUDIENCE

SETTING

Yvette, John

Yvette's crew

doll line

John

Yvette's crew

doll line

Portuguese

Fernanda

Yvette's crew

doll line

English

Carl (teacher)

Carl's class

C's class

Portuguese

Fernanda

Carl's class

C's class

Working from the "Language Choice Profile" of each worker, it was possible to get a general idea of how different workers were using the two different codes to communicate at work. As can be seen above, Idalina, for example, speaks Portuguese to John and Fernanda who are both speakers of Portuguese whether she is on the lines or in the language classroom. She speaks English to Carl, the English teacher, and to Yvette, her supervisor, who are not speakers of Portuguese. When speaking to both John and Yvette, Idalina uses English to accommodate Yvette who does not speak Portuguese. At the same time as I was recording people's language choices on the first "Language Choice Conventions" worksheet, I would keep track of the comments different people made about language choice at work. Standing, as I was, beside the production lines and t-shirt printers with a clipboard and pencil in hand, people were understandably interested in knowing what it was that I was writing down while I was watching them work. When I showed them my worksheets, people started to talk about the way they communicated at work. These comments added power to the set of hypotheses I generated at this stage. Charles' comment above is an example of the type of comments people made. The perception that Portuguese speakers in the Production Department only speak Portuguese

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to other Portuguese speakers ("among themselves") was a perception shared by many non-Portuguese speakers. It was also a perception that supported a pattern I had picked out from my observational data. While the information I was able to get at this stage allowed me to make several broad hypotheses about language choice rules on the manufacturing floor, I found that I could not fully explain all the differences there were between the ways different workers communicated. Part of the problem, of course, was the fact that I did not understand or speak any Portuguese. While I could tell who was using what language to speak to whom, I had no idea what people were talking about. In order to understand the more subtle differences between the ways different speakers were using the two languages, I needed to know what people were saying. Furthermore, the information I had gathered in stage 2 could not explain why particular language practices were in place. My next steps were to record, transcribe and translate samples of natural speech on the manufacturing floor to find out what people were saying to each when they were using Portuguese and English. Originally I had intended to record natural speech in both the Textiles and the Production Department. However, employees in the Textiles Department were not comfortable having their conversations recorded, so I limited my data collection of natural speech to talk going on in the Production Department. I believe the main reason why workers in Textiles were uncomfortable with having their talk recorded had to do with the fact that they did not know me as well as the workers in Production did. While all of the Production supervisors and most of the workers knew me personally from my work as one of the English teachers in the factory, some of the workers in Textiles did not. Furthermore, the foreperson who runs the department for the manager in Production was one of my students. Having worked with me for several years, she trusted I would be discreet about sharing what I saw and heard on the production floor. Conversely, the foreperson in Textiles had never worked with me and had no reason to believe that I would handle confidential information honourably. Since almost all of the students in the lunchtime English language classes are from the Production Department and since the language classroom at Stone Specialities was the site where the research problem was generated in the first place, limiting the recording of conversations to the Production Department was not seen as a problem. It is important to emphasize, however, that the Production workers' involvement with the workplace language program and their subsequent familiarity with me as one of the teachers in the program played a significant role in the access I had to

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people as a researcher. The history and trust that a group of research participants builds up with a researcher prior to the commencement of a research study, then, can be linked to gaining access to ethnographic data. This history and trust is why practising teachers or instructors should be encouraged to become researchers or why educational sociolinguists and ethnographers should closely collaborate with teachers and instructors when undertaking a research project. At the same time as I recorded natural speech in the Production Department, I interviewed the Portuguese employees working in the department to see if I could find out why particular language practices were in place. These activities took place in stage 3 and are described in greater detail below.

3.3. Stage 3: September 1989 - March 1990 Olha a projecto! 'Watch out for the project!' (Elsa, line worker, Transcription, Set 18 F). The conversations I recorded in this last stage of the research study were recorded both on tape and by hand. While I preferred using a tape recorder to record talk on the production floor because I felt the transcriptions produced from a tape recording were bound to be more accurate than those produced by hand, it was not always possible to mechanically record speech on the production lines. Some lines were very noisy and tape recordings of talk on those lines produced nothing but the sounds of drills and hammers. As well, at the beginning of this stage of the research project, the presence of a tape recorder inhibited talk between workers and it was more productive to record conversations by hand. During this part of the project, I worked with a fluently bilingual Portuguese/English research assistant who did all the handwritten recording and who, because she was also contracted to transcribe and translate the tape recorded conversations in Portuguese, was present for much of tape recording. Dora Matos was born and university educated in mainland Portugal. In Toronto, she taught English as a Second Language (ESL) and Portuguese literacy classes for immigrant men and women from Portugal and the Azores, but she was not one of the teachers working in the workplace ESL program at Stone Specialities. While Matos herself speaks the standard Portuguese used by Portuguese university graduates,

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she understands and was able to transcribe and translate the Azorean variety as a result of her work with her students from the Azorqs. Matos had also spent a year working in the Azores as an engineer while she was still living in Portugal. Importantly, Matos not only played the role of linguistic interpreter, she also played the role of cultural interpreter: she was able to provide me with many useful insights concerning the appropriateness and clarity of my interview questions as a result of her work with students from the Azores and the time she had spent living in the Azores. To illustrate, Matos alerted me to the problem of asking the women on the lines for their opinions on particular language practices in place on the factory floor. After the first two interviews, she explained that the women we were interviewing were not accustomed to being asked to think about or comment on such matters and did not know how to answer such a question. She told me that when I asked the women what they thought when another Portuguese speaker spoke English to them, they "got a strange look in their faces". Matos' discovery and insight into the problem allowed me to improve the question by making the question more concrete. Instead of asking the women what they thought when another Portuguese speaker spoke English to them, I would say something like this: "If you were working on the line beside Idalina, and if Idalina started speaking English to you, what would you say? What would you (gently banging my fist on my heart) feel?" This approach was more successful. Each recording session in stage 3 was accompanied by a set of fieldnotes which contained a diagram of who was standing or sitting next to whom at the time of the recording and a description of the work activities being performed. A typical set of fieldnotes looked like this: (SET 2) November 28,1989: Fieldnoted, not taped Luisa's line: Engine Racers: The line has been set up to test toy racing cars (called "Engine Racers") which have been returned to the company. The workers are to see which cars do not work and need to be repaired and which ones do work and can be cleaned up to be sold again. PatriciaX Armanda X

XLuisa

FatimaX Dulce X

XAugusta XAmelia XFernanda

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Patricia and Armanda test the racing cars that have been returned to see if they work. They put the ones that do work on the conveyor belt to be cleaned up by a group of women sitting further down on the line. They put the ones that don't work in a huge carton behind them. A group of five women - Fatima, Dulce, Augusta, Amelia and Fernanda - are sitting further down the line at a table placed to the right of the line. They are cleaning the cars with some kind of cleaning solvent and small brushes. When they have cleaned enough cars to place in a packing carton, Fernanda will leave the cleaning table to pack the cars into cartons. Merchandise that has been returned to the company is called "garbage" and cleaning "garbage" is a job that the women particularly don't like. Luisa, the supervisor, sits at a table between Armanda and the five women cleaning. Once a recording a session had begun, Matos followed the conversations and took notes on any non-verbal messages that were salient to particular interactions. On the few occasions that Matos could not come to the factory during a scheduled recording session, I would set up the recording sessions, write up the fieldnotes describing where people were standing or sitting and what they were doing, and leave the setting. Since I could not follow the conversations in Portuguese, there was no point in my watching the interactions: my notes on non-verbal messages could not be accurately matched to particular tape recorded interactions later on. I used both my and Matos' absence from a recording session to see if talk was substantially different when the participants knew they were not being observed. I hypothesized that our presence at the recording session served as a constant reminder that the workers' talk was being recorded and that our absence would result in people forgetting that they were being recorded. Upon translating these sessions from which Matos and I were absent, however, we discovered that talk recorded in our absence from the recording session did not differ from talk recorded in our presence. Of course, the presence of tape recorder on the lines may have been more important in inhibiting talk than our human presence.

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3.3.1. Collecting talk for the project Workers had a range of reactions to being tape recorded. At the beginning, a few people would sing into the microphones, holding them like an entertainer would, and encourage others to sing into them as well. The microphones (which had to be quite large in order to record a conversation between two or three people standing beside each other on an assembly line) were never hidden and workers always knew when they were being tape recorded. While some people encouraged each other to talk into the microphones, others felt that "people talk too much" and would remain silent when they knew the microphones were on. The problem of whether to talk or not to talk while the microphone was on was an issue for many of the workers. While most workers were comfortable with me observing their language practices in stage 2 when I worked without a bilingual Portuguese/English assistant and had no idea what it was that people were saying, many were uncomfortable with having their talk tape recorded and translated for me by Matos in stage 3. As will be seen in chapter 6, one of the things people do in Portuguese is "talk bad" about other people. This kind of talk is incriminating talk and people were understandably reluctant to have it tape recorded. However, this reluctance did not ultimately prevent this and other talk from being recorded. After several days of being recorded, most workers either forgot or became more comfortable with the idea that their talk was being tape recorded. They talked to each other as if the microphones were not there until someone would hear an incriminating piece of talk and warn the others to watch what they were saying. At this point, Matos and I would reassure the workers that their talk was confidential and would not be revealed to anyone else who worked for the company. Having a relationship of trust between ourselves and the workers at this stage was crucial to obtaining the data we needed to understand language practices on the production floor. Without this trust, our access to workers' talk would have been seriously limited. The exchange that follows reveals some of the issues the workers, Dora Matos and I had to work through at this stage of the study. In this exchange, which takes place on the last day of tape recording, Virginia, Elsa, and Christina are repairing toy jeeps that have been returned. When I begin to move the microphones closer to the spot where they are working, the women begin to talk to Dora and Manuela, the Quality Control Inspector, about the research project. Thus, as can be seen in exchange A below, even at the end of the tape recording sessions some of the workers

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still have questions about the project and what it is I am going to do with their talk. Exchange A" Virginia:

Quando e que ela acaba de fazer este project? 'When is she going to finish doing this project?' [tape recording us?]

Dora:

Hoje. 'Today.'

Christina/ Elsa:

Hoje. Hoje. 'Today. Today.'

Virginia:

Este projecto. Este projecto (in a long suffering tone). 'This project. This project' (in a long suffering tone). [We've been tape recorded for a long time].

Dora at same time:

Hoje e ό ultimo dia, finalmente. 'Today is the last day, finally.'

Virginia:

Eu näo sei como ela vai perceber a gente. Ί don't know how she's going to understand us.' Se ela vai perceber a gente? 'If she's going to understand you?'

Dora:

Elsa:

Lä vem aquilo para ο ρέ da gente. 'Here it comes to us.'

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[Here comes the microphone.] Virginia:

Näo sei como ela vai perceber a gente. Ί don't know how she is going to understand us.'

Dora:

Porque? 'Why?'

Virginia:

Ε porque e... (is interrupted by Elsa) 'It's because'...(is interrupted by Elsa)

Elsa:

Ela tem interprete. 'She has an interpreter.'

Virginia:

Mas ha, hd trabalhos que ο mochinho näo apanha as palavras da gente. 'But there are, there are, words that the machine doesn't get'. ["Mochinho" is Portuguese pronunciation of the English word "machine". The actual Portuguese word for machine is "maquina"].

Dora:

Exacto. 'Exactly.'

Virginia:

Näo e? 'Isn't it?'

Dora:

Por isso e que ela tem que por os micro/ones onde — nos näo pusemos ala porque ouvia- se muito aquele barulho daquelas mdquinas e entäo temos que por os micro/ones nos sitios onde estd mais sossegado para poder apanhar α conversaqäo. 'That's why she has to put the microphones where- we didn't put them over there because - we could hear a lot of noise from those machines and so we had to put the

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microphone where it is more quiet to catch the conversation.' Virginia:

Tara, she's [Dora's] gonna help you with the project?

Tara:

Yeah, she already has helped me a lot. 'Cause she helps me translate? [Do you understand why I would need such help?] Um, I talk, like you talk to me in English, but some people can't say everything in English and she helps me translate.

As Tara is saying this to Virginia, Christina is talking to Manuela, the Quality Control Inspector, about the project. Manuela to Christina: Say it in English. [Ask what you want to know in English].

Christina:

Why you want that in English? [Why do you want what we say in Portuguese translated into English?]

Elsa:

Elafala bem ingles, näo ve que ela...(can't hear) 'She [Dora] speaks English well, don't you see that...' (can't hear)

Christina at same time: Why you want that in English? Tara doesn't hear Christina and so she doesn't answer. The exchange begins with Virginia asking Dora when I will be finished tape recording the workers' talk on the lines. Her utterances "This project", "This project" spoken in long suffering tone indicate that it is a burden to work and talk when there is a tape recorder on the line. Dora sympathizes with Virginia and her feeling that being tape recorded is a burden when she responds "This is the last day, finally". The reason that being tape recorded

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is such a burden is because people feel they need to watch what they say when they are working close enough to the microphone to be recorded. As mentioned above, talk on the line is often incriminating talk which people are reluctant to have on tape. Elsa indicates that workers standing close to microphone need to watch what they say when she warns, "Here it comes" ([Here comes the microphone]). Elsa knows that Dora is working as my translator and will translate their Portuguese talk into English for me. Since none of the workers can be certain who will read this study and be privy to their talk, being tape recorded is threatening. Virginia confirms that Dora will translate the workers' talk for me when she asks if Dora is going to help me with the project. As I confirm that their talk will indeed be translated into English, Christina asks why I want to know what it is they are saying, indicating a concern with who will have access to her talk. At the same time as Matos and I started recording conversations to find out what goes on the production floor, we also began interviewing Portuguese employees in the department to try to find out why it goes on. We were able to able to interview 24 of the 34 Portuguese people who were working in the department during stage 2 of the study. We were not able to complete the last ten interviews for several reasons. Six people chose not to talk to us, three people were off on maternity or sick leave and finally, one person had left the company. My work with a bilingual English-Portuguese research assistant in this stage of the project requires some discussion. It can be argued that I should have become as fluent as possible in Portuguese before undertaking this research project. Such fluency would have allowed me to interview the workers on the line myself and acquire a first-, rather than second-hand, understanding of what it was people were saying when they spoke Portuguese on the lines. Fluency in Portuguese would not have made me dependent on Matos' interpretation of what participants were saying at their interviews, nor on her interpretation of how Portuguese was being spoken on the lines. Generally speaking, ethnographers are expected to engage in participant observation over an extended period of time within the community they are studying. Through active participation in the community, the ethnographer not only gains information specifically related to research questions, but she also learns the language and social conventions of the community. As an ethnographer who spent two years in the community under the study but did not engage in this kind of language learning and cultural learning by

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myself, I need to ask questions about the strengths and limitations of my ethnographic analysis. Working with a linguistic and cultural interpreter has meant working with two layers of interpretation, a characteristic of my work which may be seen as a limitation by some readers. However, working with an interpreter has also provided me with the sociocultural, sociolinguistic background knowledge necessary for understanding talk by Azorean workers. This knowledge, the importance - and complexity - of which has been discussed by sociolinguists interested in intercultural interview situations (see for example, Belfiore and Heller 1992 and Gumperz 1992), was not accessible to me without a linguistic and cultural interpreter. It is knowledge that strengthens my analysis.

3.3.2. Preparing interview

questions

While the stage one interview questions I constructed for fluent Englishspeakers in managerial positions were fairly easy to prepare, the interview questions for Portuguese workers, many of whom spoke halting, little or no English, were more difficult. In a work which examines the research interview as a culturallyconstructed communicative event, Briggs (1986) argues that while some speakers may perceive the interview as an accepted speech event for finding out information about people and their experiiences and opinions, we can not take for granted that all speakers perceive the interview in the same way. Briggs asserts that it is important to understand the interactional and communicative norms that underlie the interview as a speech event as well as the norms the interviewees have for talking about themselves and talking about their experiences. In other words, it is important to ask questions about how the people you are interviewing report, describe, interpret, and evaluate communicative acts in situations other than interviews in order to understand how they will make sense of the interview situation. Different groups of people have differing kinds of restrictions on who may ask what questions of whom on what circumstances. Questions may not mean the same thing to a member of another speech community, even if translated accurately. To make sure that interviewer and interviewee share the same understanding of the meanings of the questions they are asking and answering, Briggs argues that the interviewer must carefully (1) examine the compatibility of native communicative patterns and the norms presupposed

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by the interview and (2) examine interviews for hidden misunderstandings. Since interviews themselves can suppress native communicative routines, the interviewer needs to conduct a limited amount of sociolinguistic fieldwork on the native communicative routines prior to interviewing research participants. The success of the research interview with speakers of other languages depends on the researcher's capacity for allowing native communicative routines to work their way into the interview situation. To "learn how to ask" (Briggs 1986) meaningful questions during the interviews I was going to undertake with Portuguese workers, I needed to first discover how people talked about themselves and how they described their experiences at Stone Specialities. To do so, I turned to the tape recordings I had made of Carl's lunch-time English class. The classroom recordings were chosen because talk between Carl and his students included examples of Portuguese workers talking about themselves in English. I could have also examined Portuguese interactions among Portuguese coworkers. In listening to the tapes of Carl's class to find out how people talked about themselves and their experiences to someone who was not Portuguese, I found out some important information that I kept in mind while designing and conducting the interviews. The following excerpt from my fieldnotes traces my attempt to analyze how the Portuguese workers in Carl's class talked about themselves and their experiences. The excerpt refers to Carl's presentation and discussion of the English proverb "When it rains, it pours." In trying to get the students to give examples of the meaning of the proverb "when it rains it pours", Carl gives a hypothetical example about himself: "Let's say, for example, myself. Let's say I spent, um, one month looking for a job...All of a sudden in one day, I get two jobs. So I can say, 'When it rains, it pours'...Now when one bad thing happens, many bad things happen,. Or when one good thing happens, more good things happen." This personal example from his own life (I'm not sure how aware the students are that it is hypothetical [the only clue being "let's say"]) provokes Idalina to connect the proverb to her life and say: "Yeah, some days are like that. First thing in the morning, starts bad and all day it's gonna be, bad things gonna happen." Carl

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pushes her to continue to connect the proverb to real life events (not necessarily her own): "Yes, and can you give, can you give some more examples of that?" At this point, Gracinda - having understood that Carl wants them to talk about bad events in their own lives - says to someone else in the class in Portuguese: "That's not a subject to talk about with a man". Dora's comment on this was this: "it is an event to talk to a male, especially an English male. Many Azorean women may find it difficult to talk to a male because they are shy [as opposed to others who are outgoing], Gracinda will give her opinion on a subject, but not to anybody." There are two important things to learn from these exchanges: (1) when Carl gives an example from his own life, it provokes Idalina to give an example from her life: if you want people to give you an example of their experience of something, you may want to give them an example from your own life first and (2) there are some things that are not acceptable to talk about with a man. Is there anything that might not be acceptable to talk about with a Canadian-born, English-speaking single woman? If you are a man? If you are a woman? To make sure that I would not inadvertently ask interviewees questions that they felt they could not or should not answer, I piloted my interview with two fluently bilingual interviewees, one male and one female. After each of the interviews, I asked the interviewees whether any of the questions were inappropriate and, thus, should not be asked and whether they would change the wording of any of the questions. As well, during the interviews, I watched for non-verbal responses which might indicate non-understanding of a question. Finally, both interviewees and I discussed where the interviews should be held in the factory, that is, where most of the workers would be most comfortable talking to me. One set of questions that gave one of the pilot interviewees difficulty was the set that asked about language comfort and language preference.

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The interviewee was one of my own English language students and my role as her English teacher made it embarrassing for her to say that she was more comfortable with Portuguese, that she preferred Portuguese and that Portuguese sounded better to her than English. Joanne's discomfort made me feel uncomfortable so I didn't ask the questions "Do some things that sound better in English? Like what? Give an example." The discomfort both Joanne and I felt reminded me that my social role of English teacher at the factory would impact on the interview process, especially with those workers who were also my students. It was fortunate that I had decided that my research assistant should be someone who was not involved in the ESL program at Stone Specialities. Each worker that was interviewed chose what language in which he or she wanted to conduct the interview. Dora Matos, the research assistant, was available to translate whenever necessary. After we conducted the first two interviews - which the participants chose to conduct in Portuguese Matos and I analyzed the interview responses and made some additional changes to the interview schedule. It is interesting to note that one or two questions that were not considered problematic for the bilingual supervisors who worked off the line and who piloted the interview questions were problematic for the women working on the line. For example, the questions discussed earlier asking the women for their opinions on particular language practices (e.g., "What do you think when another person who speaks Portuguese speaks English to you?") were not a problem for the bilingual supervisors, but were a problem for some of the line workers. As the interviews got underway, the women discussed the types of questions I was asking them while they were working on the lines. As time went on, more and more women seemed prepared for the questions I asked and were less puzzled by them. On our end, Matos and I kept analyzing the responses we received to the questions we asked throughout the interview process. We kept trying to make the interviews more comfortable for the women and more informative for me. Some of the changes we made were minor, for example, changing individual words like "relatives" to "family". More important changes included making abstract questions more concrete by referring to people's everyday experiences (cf., the example discussed earlier on in this chapter) and adding answers other people gave to particular questions. To illustrate, over time the question "Do you ever want to do another job in the company?" became "Some people say that they would like to do a lighter job or work as a supervisor. Would you like to do another job in the company?" Another important change to the inter-

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view schedule over time was the addition of several questions to those already grouped under the heading "Working at Stone". These new questions focused on what it was like working alone in comparison to working in a "crew", what it was like working in different crews for different supervisors, and which jobs on the lines people preferred. The stories people told about working on different lines with different supervisors and different workers provided me with rich data about language and cultural practices on the production lines. This was data that I did not access with questions such as "If I got a job on your line tomorrow, what advice would you give me so I could do a good job?" and "What can I do to be a friend on the line?" In general, asking questions that generated stories about people's experiences at work yielded far more interesting information than hypothetical questions about me trying to access the workers' experience. The final set of questions that were designed for the workers in the Production Department are included in Appendix F. As with the interviews conducted in stage one, the interviews were kept as openended as possible so that participants felt free to elaborate on what was most salient to them. In addition to all the other questions that each of the workers was asked, those workers who had special information to contribute to the study, for example, information on the particular events associated with the company's history, were asked particular questions about those events. With the conclusion of the Production workers' interviews, the third and last stage of the data collection process came to a close and the task of final analysis began. The results of that final analysis are discussed in the following five chapters. The first two of these five chapters are ethnographies of the Portuguese working-class community in Toronto and of life at Stone Specialities. They are presented first to provide us with the background knowledge and understandings that Portuguese workers at Stone Specialities bring with them to their interactions on the production floor. The second three chapters of the analysis examine these interactions closely, documenting different workers' language practices at work, interpreting what social meaning these practices may have for them, and exploring the consequences different practices entail for the workers at Stone Specialities.

Chapter 4 The Portuguese community of Toronto

This chapter is the first of two chapters that provide ethnographic information about some of the historical, social, cultural, economic, and political circumstances that shape the lives of the Portuguese immigrant workers in this study. In order to understand the meaning of language choice for Portuguese immigrant workers in the multicultural/multilingual workplace, in order to understand social interaction in the everyday work life of the factory, it is necessary to understand what kind of background knowledge, i.e., what kind of values, assumptions and expectations Portuguese workers bring to their interactions at work. The building of such understanding begins in this chapter with a brief exploration of aspects of social life in the Portuguese community both before and after its establishment in Canada. It continues in the next chapter, which describes work life at Stone Specialities, the manufacturing factory in which this study is set.

4.1. Portugal Portugal, located along the European Atlantic coast, is a diverse country composed of the south-western sixth of the Iberian peninsula, the Azorean archipelago of nine islands lying 1223 km west of Lisbon in the Atlantic, and the Madeiran archipelago located 1086 km to the south of Lisbon off the Moroccan coast. Although the mainland, which the Portuguese refer to as the "continent", and the islands are linked by a common history dating back to the Middle Ages, they have different climates, economic conditions and popular cultures. Each region has had a favourite destination for its emigrants, preferences which become stronger over time because of individual and family ties. Continentals most often go to other parts of Europe, Madeirans leave mainly for South Africa, Venezuela, and Brazil while Azoreans immigrate across the north Atlantic to the United States and Canada (Higgs, 1982). The primary reasons for mass Azorean emigration to North America have to do with economic conditions in the Azores, Canada, and the United States during the 1950s, '60s and '70s. The following discussion detailing Azorean emigration to North America focuses on

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immigration to Canada, which began in the early 1950s. The largest contingent of Azoreans in Canada is originally from the island of Säo Miguel. The second largest is from Terceira. After their arrival, the majority of the Azorean immigrants eventually filtered into Ontario where they settled permanently. The Portuguese community in Toronto is predominately Azorean and dates itself back to June 1953 (Anderson 1974). According to the 1986 census, there are 237,180 people of Portuguese origin living in Canada. Of these, 112,930 (47.6%) live in the city of Toronto (Statistics Canada, 1989). The total Portuguese immigrant population in Canada in 1986 was 156,640. As table 4.1 shows, most first-generation immigrants arrived from Portugal between 1956 and 1977 (Statistics Canada, 1989). The growth of the Portuguese community during this period can be explained by contemporary social, economic and political conditions in both Portugal and Canada as well as by the nomination and sponsorship features of Canadian immigration policy in the '50s, '60s and early to mid-'70s.

Table 4.1 Portuguese

Before 1946

immigration to Canada

420

1946- 1955

2,430

1 9 5 6 - 1966

41,465

1967- 1977

91,340

1 9 7 8 - 1982

14,960

1983- 1986

6,035

Total

156,640

Source: Statistics Canada, 1989. Profile of Ethnic Groups: Dimensions

- Census of Canada

1986. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.

4 . 2 . E c o n o m i c c o n d i t i o n s in Portugal a n d e m i g r a t i o n When large-scale migration to Canada began in the 1950s, Portugal was largely an agricultural country. The economy of the volcanic islands of the Azores was based on farming, fishing and the dairy industry. On Sao Miguel, farms were largely owned and controlled by four or five families and worked by the farm population who lived in the island's coastal

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villages. On the other islands and in northern Portugal, property was more equitably distributed and individual families possessed small land holdings. Nevertheless, Hamilton (1970) reports that an average farm in the north covered two acres and was too small to permit efficient mechanization or other improvements in farming methods. Reporting on how little life in the rural areas had changed over the centuries, Bradford (1973) provides a picture of what farming life was like for the rural Portuguese population. In the north the peasant [sic] farmer cultivates his [sic] minute plot, to which he is fanatically attached, with the same methods as his forefather, ploughing behind oxen and making his own few pipes of wine. Every peasant has his pig which provides sustenance for the family for months; the annual pig-killing, the "matansa dos porcos", is a ceremony of some importance, when even sons and daughters who have migrated to the city return to help prepare the sausages, the cured and salted meat and the pig fat, which will keep the family in the difficult months... Many villages are without electricity, let alone mains water or drainage; streets are unpaved mud tracks, medical and educational facilities inadequate, and amenities non-existent (1973:135-136). Commerce in the Azores and Madeira was conducted on a small scale and there was little industry on either archipelago (Higgs 1982, Nunes 1986). Like the islands, the mainland had also not undergone the kind of urbanisation that is usually considered the hall-mark of a modern economy. The capital of the mainland, Lisbon, and its surrounding suburbs contained a disproportionate percentage of the national population, more than 20%, and had a population of over a million in the 1970s. While the city of Oporto in northern Portugal had a population of about 600,000 in the '70s, most Portuguese people lived in small villages and towns of less than 300,000 peop e. The number of industries employing large numbers of workers on the mainland was extremely small. Even in 1980, almost thirty years after mass emigration had begun, less than 1.5 per cent of all Portuguese enterprises employed more than 500 workers;, the majority of industries were family-owened and employed 50 worke«-: or less. Inpart, slow industrial development in Portugal in the '60s and '70s can be related to country's position as a colonial power. Although the pace of development quickened all over Portugal in the 1960s, when the authoritarian government headed by Antonio Salazar admitted increasing amounts

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of foreign capital into the country, the expenses of military efforts to halt independence movements in the African colonies limited progress in communications, education and the development of the economic infrastructure. The adjacent islands and north-eastern Portugal, from which two-thirds of the immigrants to Canada were drawn, were barely touched by efforts at modernisation (Higgs 1982). Because Portugal remained less developed and had a lower standard of living than its western European neighbours, there was an acute sense of limited opportunities for economic self-improvement and a general pessimism about the future, particularly among the rural population who had been neglected by the government for decades (Higgs 1982, Nunes, 1886). The wide economic gulf between the rich and the poor in Portugal contributed greatly to the poverty of the country and to the desire of many to emigrate. Migration within the country was not perceived as a way of overcoming conditions of poverty as there was also a lack of economic opportunities in the urban centres. Long-standing aspirations for a higher standard of living became more intense as they were heightened by success stories told by returned emigrants and the spectacle of the affluent tourists who began to flood into Portugal in the 1960s. Although Portugal became a political democracy after the revolution in 1974, the economic disruptions caused by the independence of former colonies, the return of large numbers of settlers from Africa, and an economic recession within newly nationalised industries meant that emigration was still envisaged as the road to a better life by many (Higgs, 1982). Aside from the economic conditions described above, compulsory military service during the 13 years of colonial warfare in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea (from 1967-1974) also motivated many young people and families to leave Portugal (Marques and Medeiros 1980). In her 1969 study of immigrant success and how it is achieved, Anderson (1971, 1974) interviewed 201 working-class men in Toronto's Portuguese community and asked them about their motivation for migration. Reasons given for making the move to Canada were coded in terms of either "push" or "pull" factors. Of the men who replied in terms of the "push" factors from Portugal rather than the "pull" of conditions of circumstances in Canada, the most frequent response concerned lack of work in Portugal (1974:20). Importantly, however, the most popular "pull" factor was the presence of relatives or friends in Canada. According to Anderson (1974:23), many of the men sought out a location where they had contacts

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when they considered emigration. When the men came here independently from Portugal, they often applied at the same time as friends, or eventually moved to a part of the country where friends from the home town or village were located, or joined relatives. If they were among the early arrivals in the post-war wave of immigration, they often invited relatives to join them once they became established themselves. Unlike the migration patterns of some other immigrant groups, Portuguese immigration to Canada is characterized by this type of "chain migration". As an immigration pattern that is strongly influenced by people's social relationships with one another, chain migration in turn has strongly influenced the creation, development, and nature of the Portuguese immigrant community in Toronto by transplanting traditional kinship and friendship ties and their reciprocal commitments from Portugal to Toronto. As such ties and commitments have much to do with people's language choices and experience at work, it is worthwhile examining the phenomenon of Portuguese chain migration more closely. To do so, it is helpful to begin by exploring the roots of chain migration which can be found in the social life of the rural communities in Portugal.

4.3. Social life in rural Portugal During the period of heaviest migration to Canada rural life in Portugal was still characterized as a "traditional peasant society" with a highly local and family-oriented economy (Higgs 1982). Dependence on the family as the basic unit of economic and emotional security in Portugal has been understood as a legacy of the country's feudal heritage and historic impoverishment: "The centuries of government neglect, exploitation by unscrupulous or uncaring segments of their society and the hazards and demands of the mideaval [sic] peasant [sic] lifestyle have created this dependence on the family unit as the only trustworthy social institution for the majority of Portuguese." (Nunes 1986: 14). In describing the importance of the family in Portuguese life, Bradford (1973) reports that it is officially enshrined in the country's constitution as the basic unit of society. Familial bonds are not only formed within the immediate family, they are also formed outside the immediate family through godparentage arrangements. When children are baptized in the Catholic church, godparents (compadre [godfather] and comadre [godmother]) are appointed for the child. They can be relatives or good friends of the family. The appointment of a godparent relates the families

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of the godchild and the godparents and "they become like family" (Anderson 1974). Similarly, when a couple marries, they adopt the two family legions - the husband will speak of his wife's uncle as "my uncle", of her cousins as his, and vice versa. Members of a family seek "unity, mutual aid and support and constant interaction" (Nunes 1986:14). Family events such as birthdays, anniversaries, and first communion take precedence over all other social activities. Children are expected to remain close to their parents, at home, until they marry. Even after marriage a young couple will visit their respective parents frequently (Bradford, 1973). Traditional family rights, responsibilities and obligations have been transplanted from rural Portugal to Canada. Anderson (1974) reports that among first-generation Portuguese immigrants in Canada, the family as a unit is considered more important than the individual. In a 1970 report on accessibility of government social services to the Portuguese community in Toronto, Pinto (1970) reports that the family is the basic unit of the society and members of the Portuguese community seldom look outside their own family and friends for help. In the event of a crisis, Pinto states that a large number of people would turn to the priest of the Portuguese Catholic church who is considered a leader of the community. The role of the Portuguese priest in the community is important to understanding the Portuguese immigrant experience at work and will be discussed further below. Beyond the society of family, people develop a network of personal relationships that Bradford (1973) calls the system of "cunhas". A cunha is an individual who holds a position of power in society. People depend on a cunha to help circumvent bureaucracy, obtain favours, or avert disasters for themselves and their families. As explained by Bradford, the word cunha literally means "wedge" in Portuguese. Thus, a cunha is an individual who is able to act as a leverage for the family and exert "his" influence to assist the family. To illustrate how the system of cunhas works, Joyce Riegelhaupt's (1967) study of community reliance on networks of conhecimentos ("contacts") is very helpful. In her study of a Portuguese village located in a region known as "saloio"1' on the outskirts of Lisbon, Riegelhaupt (1967) examines the economic and political roles women play in their community and discusses the community's reliance on networks of conhecimentos to solve problems

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occurring outside the home. She argues that saloioas women play a far greater role in decision-making than would be inferred from either an examination of their legal rights in Portugal or the commonly held values people have regarding the role of women. At the time of Riegelhaupt's study, Portuguese women were officially (by law of the Civil Code) restricted in their economic activities. As well, household economic decisions rested with husbands, and the sexual double standard was legalized. A man could be granted a separation if his wife had committed adultery. However, adultery by the husband, as grounds for a separation suit brought by the wife, was an acceptable charge only if the husband's adultery resulted in either a public scandal, the complete abandonment of the wife, or if the husband used and kept his "concubine" in the married couple's home. Voting requirements of electors effectively disenfranchised most women. However, despite legal barriers to economic and political decisionmaking power in their homes, community and society, Riegelhaupt found that saloioas women held key positions in local life. She explains this unexpected finding by looking at how things get done in the village and how the roles women play in their community give them decision-making power in the political process. Riegelhaupt explains that there are three areas of local life which bring the saloios community and the individual into the formal political and administrative arena: the manner in which government officials in the parish junta ("committee") maintain village facilities; the process of instituting new public works and various other improvements; and the acts of registering, avoiding, or evading licenses, fines or other administrative requirements. With the exception of the priest, there is no one in the village who has a position which, structurally, gives them access to power in the formal political sphere. "Even the holders of the few positions of importance in the villages - the three "elected" members of the junta and the regidor ("justice of the peace") - have gained their positions through appointments from above and consequently have little leverage in making demands on those who appointed them." (1967:118). While the priest is the most effective agent for change within the community, access to him is severely limited: "Religiosity is his goal and few in the village meet his standards" (1967:123). In gaining access to the priest, Riegelhaupt reports it is often the religious practices of a man's wife which are a factor in gaining the priest's support. Thus, one way in which saloioas women play an important role in political decision-making has to do with their access to the power of the parish priest.

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Since access to the priest is so limited, however, efforts to engage in any of the political activities described above require a villager (or the community) to use "connections", i.e., people who have access to important officials. Improvements in the village, for example, are not secured through formal political channels. One must "know" someone in order to get something done. The most important way in which things get done is through the use of conhecimentos (contacts) and it is through their access to conhecimentos or "patrons" that women also play significant roles in village life. While saloios men are exclusively engaged in agriculture, saloioas women divide their time between household chores, child rearing, intermittent agricultural work, marketing, and during the teenage years, frequent domestic service in the city and its suburbs. It is the contacts that young teenage women establish through their activities of marketing and domestic service that give them access to someone who "knows" someone who can get something done. Domestic service is customary for most saloioas girls in their early teens... The people for whom they have worked become important links for the saloios in their interaction with the larger society...these are often the people who will provide the all important "conhecimentos" (contacts) that the saloios, faced with the various demands of modern society, - ranging from getting a driver's license to finding a medical specialist, - must depend upon (1967:118). The key person in this route of conhecimentos is often a woman, who because of her dealings has been able to establish a number of conhecimentos (i.e. contacts or relationships) and it is usually the conhecimentos (i.e. the upward connections) of just such a conhecimento, to whom one sells bread or in whose house one was a maid, that the saloios depends upon for the accomplishment of his political goals (1967:124). Riegelhaupt's study, which examines the communication networks that enable saloioas women to access powerful decision-makers outside their village, provides a good example of how the system of cunhas (or conhecimentos) works in rural communities in Portugal and why having a network of cunhas is important to community life.

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Higgs (1982) observes that in Canada, the help given by a cunha continues to be important to members of Portuguese working-class communities: "To be without nearby cunhas is to be without support in the face of adversity." He reports that the need for cunhas among the first immigrants to Canada established a "chain of fellowship" that led back to Portugal. Ties with Portugal, maintained by letters to relatives at home, were important since the reply from a home village might give the new address of an old friend or a relative. Moreover, coming from an authoritarian political system, where the national bureaucracy was portrayed as paternalist and solicitous, the first immigrants turned to the Portuguese consular officials in Canada when they had problems. Many Portuguese spoke no English or French and few had any strong command of "formal" language. Tax forms and telephone bills, letters from City Hall or immigration officers were mysterious, if not alarming manifestations of incomprehensible authority. According to Higgs (1982) the Portuguese consuls in St. John's, Montreal and Toronto were deluged with requests from people who often did not grasp the limitations on Portuguese bureaucrats in a Canadian jurisdiction. These officials were seen as intercessionary figures, an official "cunha", and when they were unable to resolve problems, the emigrants felt bitter and betrayed. Similarly, travel agencies in the major urban centres were also seen as "cunhas" and played a considerable role in assisting the recently arrived. Initially, they acted as translation bureaus and made the necessary arrangements to bring relatives from Portugal to Canada. They also filled out forms, especially government documents such as income tax returns. Interestingly, these agencies were later resented by the community for charging fees for services that people discovered were offered freely by government and community social service agencies.

4.4. Chain migration f r o m Portugal to Canada Born into a traditional society based on an economic and emotional dependence on family network ties, raised to expect particular favours from and to assume particular obligations towards relatives, "cunhas" and "conhecimentos", it is not surprising that those who emigrated from Portugal to Canada in the 1950s were responsible for bringing over many others from their native communities. As mentioned in chapter 1, large-scale immigration was initially a result of government initiatives. In the early 1950s Canada was actively

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seeking agricultural workers and manual labourers to work on the land, in the forests and on railway gangs. At the same time that Canada was looking for a solution to its shortage of agricultural and railway workers, Portugal was interested in finding suitable destinations for the unemployed, povertystricken population of the adjacent islands. Documenting the story of Portuguese immigration to Canada, Marques and Medeiros (1980) state that Portuguese political leaders, first under the regime of Salazar and even after the revolution of 1974, have used emigration as an "escape valve to relieve social tension and unemployment" (1980:18). Thus, when Canada turned to Portugal to recruit manual labour, it received support from the Portuguese state. Discussions with the Portuguese government led to the recruitment of men from the Azores, Madeiras, and the Continent and the first immigrant group of 20 Portuguese men arrived in Canada in 1952. A year later, in May and June 1953, 110 men arrived. These men were mostly married men, sent with the expectation that, once established in Canada, they would be joined by their families (Anderson and Higgs 1976). Emigration of Azorean family members to Canada was key in reducing the excess population of the islands. Government initiatives remained important in starting new flows of migration after the eruption of the Capelinhos volcano on the island of Fayal in the Azores in July, 1959. Canada was asked to accept immigrant families from the devastated areas and in 1959 and 1960, 100 families from Fayal and 50 from the neighbouring island of Pico moved to Canada. This was the second major influx of immigrants to come to Canada without family attachments and it laid the basis for a chain of sponsored immigration from Fayal and Pico that complemented that from Terceira and Säo Miguel (Anderson and Higgs 1976). Ever since the early '60s, Portuguese immigration into Canada has mostly been a product of extensive family and community links. Sponsored immigrants, i.e., individuals who are eligible to come to Canada because they have "close" relatives in the country who are willing to help them financially include those who were "called over here" by their relatives, those who wrote relatives requesting sponsorship and those who married by proxy and joined a wife or husband waiting for them in Canada (Anderson 1974). Applications to Canada by Portuguese individuals without prior contacts in the country constituted less than 5 percent of the total of new arrivals during the 1960s (Higgs, 1982). Interestingly, from 1962-1967, only half of all sponsored immigrants from southern Europe (Italy and Greece as well as Portugal) were actually "close" relatives. More distant

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relatives made up 42.4% of the movement and only 7.3 of those could have been unsponsored immigrants (Hawkins 1988). Higgs (1982) reports that one man from the Madeiras brought as many as 200 relatives and neighbours to Canada over a 25 year period - an extraordinary case that nevertheless demonstrates the sense of family and neighbourhood loyalties that extend from Portugal into Canada. Thus, the sponsorship and nomination features of Canadian immigration policy in the formative years of the establishment of the Portuguese in Canada has favoured the growth of many large family groupings of close and distant relatives. In the immediate post-war period, it was believed that the sponsorship system was "an excellent type of immigration which smoothed over the problems of adjustment to North American society and produced good Canadian citizens" (Hawkins 1988). However, as the years went on, this view was substantially modified, not in relation to the immigration of close family members, but to the sponsorship and automatic admission of a wide-range of distant relatives. The enormity of the post-war movement of sponsored immigration to Canada became a source of great anxiety among those responsible for immigration policy and management. It was perceived by government officials as being "unselected, autonomous, exceedingly difficult to control or adjust to changing economic requirements and not integrated within the total immigration program" (Hawkins 1988). Thus, in 1967, Canadian immigration regulations were changed to limit the great influx of sponsored immigrants from the underdeveloped rural parts of southern Europe. After 1967, a new approach to sponsorship based on the separation of "dependent" from "nondependent" relatives was adopted. "Nominated" relatives, i.e., nondependent relatives could no longer come in automatically as "sponsored" dependents could. They had to pass through a selection system based on specific criteria for which points are awarded. Criteria included education, personal assessment, occupational demand, occupational skill, and age. Few of the Portuguese who came to Canada after 1967 could qualify for immigration under the point system adopted by the Department of Manpower and Immigration, yet statistics show that over 90,000 immigrants from Portugal were admitted to Canada between 1967 and 1977 (Statistics Canada 1989). Thus, even after immigration regulations changed in 1967, the nomination and sponsorship features of Canadian immigration policy were still responsible for the establishment of the Portuguese in Canada.

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The Portuguese community of Toronto

4.5. F a m i l y and c o m m u n i t y ties in T o r o n t o : resources f o r e c o n o m i c survival and prosperity The strong family and community ties of rural and small-town Portugal that bring people to join friends and neighbours are renewed within the Portuguese communities in Canada. As in Portugal, such ties - and the commitments they entail - are basic resources for economic survival and prosperity. As will be seen in the interview data that follows in chapter 8, for the women participating in this study such commitments are represented in their decisions not to go to school to learn English upon their arrival in Canada, but to find work to "help friends" and "start a new life".

4.5.1. Finding a job In her study on occupational success in the Portuguese community, Anderson (1971, 1974) not only demonstrates that Portuguese immigrants come to Toronto through the specific influence of other Portuguese immigrants with whom they already have some relationship, but also shows that they find jobs largely through these same individuals, or at least rely on them heavily for information about job opportunities. Information about jobs and control of access to them are properties of particular "networks of contact" rather than properties of single individuals or of the entire ethnic group. While personal contacts are the dominant manner in which Portuguese immigrants in Toronto obtain employment, some of the Portuguese churches, social service agencies and social service clubs operate as semi-formal employment agencies. Newcomers may be taken to these centres by relatives, friends or acquaintances so that they may be assisted in the job hunt. As was seen in chapter 1, for the most part, the immigrants in the Portuguese community are blue-collar workers. Despite the initial assumption of the immigration department, most Portuguese did not remain as agricultural, forest and railway workers. The workers recruited by the government were mostly married men without personal contacts in Canada. Their intentions upon arriving in Canada were precise. They wanted to earn sufficient money to bring over their wives and children and to discharge financial obligations they contracted in paying for their passage to Canada. Finding that the positions arranged for them by the Department of Labour involve long hours of work for low pay, the Portuguese recruits

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began looking for better economic opportunities after they received their first salaries. Quite quickly they began to concentrate in the big cities. Although they came from a rural environment, many of the men who came to Canada to work in agriculture had never actually worked the land in Portugal. After growing up on farms, they had left to try to find jobs in service industries in towns. In Canada, the workers again turned to more urban forms of employment. Many were drawn to the expanding construction industry in urban centres. Within three years of the initial immigration wave, small communities of Portuguese began to emerge in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. By 1960, seven years after the start of massive immigration, the majority of people lived in large Canadian cities. At the time, 40% of all Portuguese in Canada lived in Toronto. The number of people of Azorean background in Toronto was larger than the number of Azoreans living in any town in the Azores (Marques and Medeiros 1980). As enclaves emerged, other newcomers sought employment nearby to offset the sense of isolation and unfamiliarity associated with emigration. Even when they went to work in remote northern sites on railway gangs or in seasonal work in the forests where the wages were high, workers returned as quickly as possible to the cities where Portuguese settlement was growing. As the wives and children of the workers began to arrive and settle in urban centres, more and more Portuguese began to look for year-round work which would not take them away from their wives and children in the cities (Higgs 1982). The immigrant workers' limited command of English and French and their inability to match their work and educational experience in Portugal with many of the economic opportunities available in the cities forced new specializations to emerge (Higgs, 1982). The men are predominantly employed in the construction industry, in various service industries (especially in cleaning and janitorial positions), in hotels, restaurants or bakeries, or else in small stores serving mainly the Portuguese community. The women are often employed in light industry (such as the manufacturing factory in the study), the garment industry, the building services trades (e.g., cleaning), or may do cleaning in private homes (Anderson 1974, Anderson and Higgs 1976, Higgs 1982). Agocs and Teevan (1989) have noted that occupational specialization and exploitation are outcomes of discrimination or limited opportunity in the local economy. Portuguese specialization in the construction and service industries can be understood in this way. Azoreans, especially women, have

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turned massively to janitorial work, where their level of formal education is immaterial. Construction sites offer employment, as does work in hotels and restaurants, particularly as housekeepers and kitchen help. In dealing with the tension between previous work and educational experience and the demands of a new environment, members of the Portuguese community use their network ties as a resource for finding employment. Anderson (1971, 1974) offers some very interesting insights into both the process by which occupational specialization occurs and the economic consequences in which it results. As mentioned above, she demonstrates that information about jobs and control of access to them can be related to the particular network into which an immigrant enters upon arrival. She also argues that entry to particular networks significantly affects the immigrant's long-run economic prospects in Canada: although it is not obvious from their intrinsic character, some jobs are "traps" and others are "steppingstones" to mobility. The kind of job controlled by an immigrant's network then, also affects his/her long-term economic possibilities. Anderson classifies jobs as "traps" and "stepping-stones" according to the probability that they will or will not lead to a more highly remunerated job in the future. Such probability hinges on two factors: (1) the opportunity to gain experience on the job which will be valuable training to be used in the future for another type of job within the same "situs", i.e., family of jobs and (2) the nature of the jobs immediately above those of the job in question. Examples of jobs that are "traps" are janitor jobs and jobs as a medical orderly in a hospital. Anderson argues that an individual employed as a medical orderly in a hospital cannot advance to be a registered nurse or a doctor, without an entirely different level of formal training. In the case of a janitor, experience with modern equipment may enable an individual to work in a prestigious office building - and learning English may enable that individual to switch from the night shift to the day shift - but it will not get him or her a job at a much higher level of skill and hence higher remuneration. In contrast, in the construction industry, unskilled workers may be able to watch others on the job at a higher level of skill while working at their own jobs and have an opportunity to unofficially trade jobs with others in a job requiring greater skill. Anderson classifies jobs in the demolition and construction industries as "steps" since they frequently lead to other jobs at a higher skill level that are better-paid. The "gatekeepers" who open the way to initial employment may only have access to jobs which turn out to be traps or they may have access to

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those jobs which are stepping stones. Initial gatekeepers, then, may be "up" gatekeepers whose network connections lead to stepping stones or "down" gatekeepers whose connections lead to traps. Anderson reports that the jobs the gatekeepers hold themselves are a crucial factor in the type of job into which the immigrant is channelled. While the use of friends and relatives is the most widely employed method of finding a jobs, it is also the least successful in terms of income attainment. Anderson's argument is significant here because it minimizes the role people believe individual characteristics of immigrants play in determining economic success; whom you know does seem to be more important than what you know. Moreover, immigrants themselves don't necessarily see the process working this way; they are inclined to express success or failure as a consequence of individual effort plus luck. Of particular interest to this study, of course, is Anderson's argument that learning English will not necessarily get an individual a higher-paying job. Anderson's work will be taken up again in a later discussion of the role language and language training play in facilitating social opportunities for immigrant workers. For the moment, however, it is included for its power to provide evidence for the relationship between social network ties and the provision of economic opportunities within the Portuguese community in Toronto. Another example of the role family and community ties play in the economic life of the Portuguese community in Toronto concerns home ownership.

4.5.2. Buying and owning a house Saving enough money for a down payment and owning a home is a major preoccupation of the Portuguese community in Toronto (Anderson and Higgs 1976, Hamilton 1970). Ferguson (1964) reports that owning a home gives many people security, roots and most importantly, status in the community. Without a home, "they are nobodies" (Ferguson 1964:35). Despite the high cost of owning a home, many members of the workingclass Portuguese community have been able to attain their objective. In 1969, 54% of a sample of Portuguese blue collar workers in Toronto owned their own homes 12 . New arrivals, both single and in families,

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usually find accommodation within the Portuguese community. The rent they pay for their rooms often makes it possible for others to meet their mortgage payments. It is a wide-spread characteristic of the Portuguese, as it has been for many other ethnic communities, that the first arrivals to obtain houses provided lodging to those who followed. Anderson and Higgs (1976) report one man they interviewed as saying that when he first came to Canada he lived in a house with 73 other Portuguese persons. They also report that in the early days, people would rent a bed in a rooming house for eight hours so that the same bed might be used three times in twenty-four hours. After a few months of hard saving, small groups of men were able to pool their resources and make a small down payment (often $500) on a house. Frequently relatives lent money towards the down payment and, in turn, were promised an inexpensive bed in the new home. With the steadily rising cost of housing and soaring interest rates, however, it has become increasingly difficult for Portuguese families in Toronto to pay off mortgages. Individuals try to meet the challenge of home ownership in various ways. Women may work outside the home for the first time in their lives, men may supplement their income by volunteering for as much overtime work as possible, or by taking a second full-time job or part-time job, and teen-age children - particularly teen-age daughters - may be encouraged to leave school to help the household earn money. Like adults, children are considered part of the family working unit and are expected to contribute to the family's income. Portuguese families that encourage their children to leave school and hand over their pay cheques to help the family meet mortgage payments have been heavily criticized by some educators. In a paper on the conflicts and adjustments of Portuguese youth, educator Ana Maria Coelho reports that there are many requests for work permits for children between the ages of 14 and 16 at the high school in which she works. She argues that "Many (of the children) are university material but their whole future is risked because of family selfishness, not necessarily financial need. The father would much rather have a large figure in his bankbook and materialistic wealth, than scholarly children" (1973:12). Coelho's assumption that the future prospects of Portuguese teenagers are necessarily compromised if they leave school before completing their education needs to be explored further. Is their "whole future" at risk? If so, how? As will be discussed in the next chapter, there are a number of women working in the factory who left school to help their parents financially. An examination of their experience at work in chapters 7 and

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8 takes up the issue Coelho raises here. Meanwhile it must be noted that her criticisms of "family selfishness" and materialistic greed do not explore the practice of taking children out of school in context of Portuguese immigrant's past experience of extreme poverty and cultural understanding of family rights and obligations. They also do not reflect what homeownership and material success may mean in the life of an immigrant. Okay, if I came from my country to a different country, it was for a reason and the reason was money. Everything that money buys and that gives comfort. Therefore, I feel obligated to be successful. If I was, to say just for the sake of the argument, making $5.00 a hour here and I was making $5.00 in Portugal, I would feel comfortable spending those $5.00 an hour in Portugal, but I don't feel comfortable spending $5.00 here. I have to save because I came here for a reason. And after a while lots of people say the same thing and the topics on the [assembly] lines are houses sell for such and such, I'm fixing mine and spend so much money, I have everything paid for, ? and that's what's on people's minds. In Portugal, at least among the people I know, my family, relatives and friends, we only talk about our kids, we talk about education, university. Here, we talk more about jobs and making them [their kids] comfortable and giving them a car and giving them an apartment. And say I'm going to be good father if when my son gets married I could afford to have him live in my place because my house is big and I have an apartment for him. In Portugal I would be more inclined to help him out in school...That would be the way to help a son back... Here the way to help my son is not exactly that... (Antonio, assembly line supervisor) Antonio's reflections take on additional meaning when understood in terms of the social relationships and class differences between those with education and those without education in Portugal. Although Portugal had the lowest per capita income of western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, the upper levels of society lived very comfortably and had access to a university education. In Portugal, views of the university-educated middle-class

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were listened to respectfully and Portuguese university graduates were addressed as "Senhor Doutor" (Higgs, 1982). Interestingly, Higgs reports that in Canada, those who have achieved economic success are generally unwilling to defer to those who formerly were their social "betters". While adult immigrants with little previous education and financial responsibilities to their families may not be able to change their social status by obtaining a university education, they can, however, change it through economic mobility. Material success, most conspicuously symbolized by home ownership, is the means by which people can achieve social status. And in the pursuit of social status, the cultural practice of enlisting the assistance of family members has been directly transplanted from Portugal. While family and community ties and the commitments they entail may be the most important resources for economic and emotional survival within the Portuguese community in Toronto, the priest of the Portuguese church in Toronto is an important resource as well. As mentioned earlier, a large number of people report that in the event of a crisis they would be apt to turn to the Portuguese priest in the community if consultation with family and friends could not resolve a particular problem (Pinto 1970). This is another practice that has been transplanted from Portugal (Pereira 1971). The following discussion examines the role of the church in the lives of people from rural Azorean communities in Toronto.

4.6. Ties with the Portuguese church in Toronto Roman Catholicism is an integral component of Portuguese popular traditions because of a long national history in which no other religion had a large number of followers. Religious beliefs, ceremonials, confraternities and devotions were interwoven with many aspects of social life of rural Portugal and the same has been said to remain true in Canada (Anderson 1974). Community picnics, fairs, dances and opportunities to socialize with friends and neighbours have been frequently associated with religious festivals. Secular clubs organize processions and convivial meetings to coincide with the observation of religious feast days, particularly those of the Santos Populäres, the popular or favorite saints: St. Anthony, St. Peter and St. John. Anderson (1974) sees these, activities as important affirmations of the place of religion in community life. "The large festas and religious processions in Canadian cities have often passed relatively unnoticed in the media showing that the organizers saw them more as vital to their community identity than as public amusements, by contrast

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with the way in which some other ethnic groups present their cultural, religious and folkloric activities." (1974:144). The largest Portuguese Catholic religious ceremony in North America is the procession to mark the appearance of the Christ of the Miracles. The original Christ of the Miracles statue is housed in a chapel of Ponta Delagada, the largest town in Säo Miguel. In 1963, a Toronto priest arranged for a copy of the statue to be sent to the Portuguese church in the city. Later, he arranged for a second copy to be brought to Montreal. In both cities the statues and their altars have become the focus of local devotion. The procession is held on the fifth Sunday after Easter and the statue is carried through the streets of the Portuguese community close to the parish church by men wearing red capes, preceded by a procession of children in costume, bands and contingents from various community organizations. In 1974, ninety thousand people attended the procession and subsequent celebrations in Toronto, coming from small American centres in New England and outlying parts of Ontario (Anderson 1974). Like the religious festas and processions described above, the institution of the parish church has also been interwoven into community life. According to Anderson (1974), most Portuguese religious institutions established in Canada predated secular associations and the clergy has played an important part in organizing social and recreational services. As mentioned earlier, priests have often become community leaders and have been asked for advice on a wide variety of problems. In the 1970s, the parish church which is in the heart of the workingclass Portuguese community of Toronto was also the headquarters of a Portuguese social service centre. The centre employed a staff of four that provided help with housing, employment, welfare and vocational guidance. It also had an interpreter, a referral service providing assistance for dealing with government, and a legal section which helped immigrants deal with legal matters. There were training courses for newcomers varying from industrial sewing for women to machine operation for men and guidance programs for Portuguese youth. The centre also arranged social events such as picnics. The centre was run by the priest of the church who also served as the President of the centre. In his report on the availability of social services for the Portuguese community, Pinto (1970) remarked that most people who had used the centre had been satisfied with it and felt that it was doing a very efficient job, especially in the area of finding work for immigrants (Pinto 1970:5). In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Portuguese church that housed the Portuguese centre was considered "an institution of greatest influence

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and importance" among the Portuguese in the community (Marques and Medeiros 1980). Attendance in 1970 was about 6,000 on Sundays (Pinto 1970). The priest and his assistants in charge of pastoral care were not only involved in the religious life of the community, but in economic and social life of the community as well. For example, not only did they run the social service centre, they also organized the formation of a cooperative in the community to raise money for a new Portuguese social centre. This new centre was to house a church hall, medical clinic, legal office, and travel agency. About $5,000 had been collected for the new Portuguese centre when the Bishop of Toronto heard what was going on. To curtail the powerful influence and importance the priest and his assistants had amassed in the community, the Bishop put a stop to the fund-raising drive and brought in new priests to replace them. While the Portuguese churches were "perhaps the strongest and most powerful unifiers in the Portuguese community" in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Pereira 1971), and while most of the first generation Portuguese women working at Stone Specialities report that they still attend church services every Sunday, the influence of the church in the -Portuguese community has diminished somewhat in the last fifteen to twenty years. One of the reasons for this decline in influence has do with the rejection of "the old ways of Portugal" by second generation Portuguese children who, having come into contact with Canadian values in the school system, are not willing to accept the traditional morals and standards the church preaches (Pereira 1971). The power and influence of the Portuguese parish priest in the late 1960s and early 1970s is important to understanding the Portuguese immigrant experience at work. As will be discussed in the next chapter, the Portuguese priest in the community played an influential role in shaping people's work lives at Stone Specialities when he was asked to intervene during an attempt to unionize the factory. This intervention was one of several social forces that have had an impact on the working lives of the Portuguese production line workers at Stone Specialities. Another important social force are the strong family and community ties described in this chapter as having been transplanted from the traditional rural communities of Portugal to the "urban village" 11 of Toronto. The same kinship ties and reciprocal commitments which allowed people to cope with their positions of economic subordination

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and poverty in their rural villages of Portugal are also basic resources for coping with positions of economic subordination in Toronto. Immigrants from Portugal depend on Portuguese network ties for assistance in finding a job and owning home. As resources for economic survival and prosperity, family and community ties not only have an impact on the working lives of Portuguese line workers at Stone Specialities, but on their language practices as well. This will be discussed in detail in chapter 6. By linking ethnographic data to theoretical understandings in social theory, it is possible to view the roles and practices that support and sustain the mutual rights and obligations Portuguese family and community members have towards each other and towards the parish church and priest as common-sense cultural practices. The notion of common-sense has been used by political thinker Antonio Gramsci (1971) to describe the uncritical, ideological, and largely unconscious ways in which people perceive the world. It is an important notion that has been used to help explain unequal relations of power in our society. The study of unequal power relations is important to this work as the project looks at language choice as a symbolic practice of sociopolitical and gender position. If language choice on the production floor at Stone Specialities has to do with the subordinate class and gender positions the company's Portuguese workers hold in Canadian society, then it is important to discover why and in what ways class position and gender are salient. Social theorists have suggested that unequal relations of power that result in unequal class and gender positions are supported and reproduced by ideologies, or systems of ideas, passed on to members in society by institutions such as the family, education, religion, the law, the state and the media and the arts. Thus, it is possible to hypothesize that language practices on the factory floor are somehow related to ideological practices that support existing relations of production and gendered relations of power. Both the social role of cunha assigned to the Portuguese parish priest and the cultural activity of family members working together as a economic unit can be seen as ideological practices that are linked to circumstances of economic subordination. An important question to ask at this point of the argument is why are ideological practices within the organization of the family and community so important to what goes on in the workplace? One would expect common-sense practices within the organization of work to be more important to the question of the use of languages other than English at work than practices within the family and community.

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At Stone Specialities, work relationships and conditions at Stone Specialities are lived and represented as family and community relationships and conditions. To understand ideological practices at work, it is necessary to understand the ideological practices supported and reproduced within the organization of the Portuguese family and community. The ethnographic work undertaken in this chapter, then, is an important first step in understanding why people communicate the way they do on the production lines in the factory and how their language practices may be related to common-sense practices that support existing relations of power. A second step involves looking at the organization of the factory itself to see what cultural ideological practices in place there may be influencing people's ways of communicating at work. The next chapter, chapter 5, does just that by moving the ethnographic focus from the Portuguese working-class community in Toronto to Stone Specialities, the manufacturing factory in which the workers in this study live out their working lives. To briefly summarize the most important points discussed in this chapter, it has been suggested that ties to family, community and church and the commitments these ties entail - are important economic and social resources for members of the Portuguese working-class community in Toronto. Kinship ties and reciprocal commitments allow working-class Portuguese immigrants to cope with their positions of economic subordination in Toronto. In the next chapter, it will be argued that kinship ties and reciprocal commitments are not only important outside work, but are also important on the production lines at Stone Specialities.

Chapter 5 Working at Stone Specialities

Stone Specialities, the workplace in which this study was undertaken, is located in the older, industrial area of Toronto. The factory's close proximity to the downtown working-class Portuguese community is one of the reasons why there is such a large Portuguese population working there. While the heart of Toronto's business district is characterized by expensive shops, restaurants and mirrored skyscrapers that house marbled lobbies and the head offices of Canada's major banking and insurance institutions, the older industrial area is characterized by parking lots, gas stations, small bank branches housed in three-story red brick buildings, garment factories with billboards announcing openings for machine operators in both English and Chinese, cheap, small hotels with peeling grey paint that advertise weekly rooms for rent, and huge, old red and brown brick warehouses with broken windows that are in the process of being torn down to make room for newer industrial space. Tucked away behind a furniture company which, like many of the businesses in the area, is housed in an old brown brick building, Stone Specialities, located on a corner lot, spans a whole city block on one side of the lot and half a block on the other. The L-shaped building complex is multi-storied; the heart of the complex, where the executive and administrative offices are situated, is five stories high and sits right on the corner of the lot. Attached to the main building, on the longer side, are three other buildings: the first is four stories, the second, three, and the third, at the end of the lot is two stories. On the other side, the main building is attached to a two-story building which is flanked by a water tower built back in the days when the building used to house a paper mill. The brown brick two-story building at the end of the lot is old. It has small square window panes that are protected by old-fashioned black grates. People report that it was built in the 1890s. The newer buildings, which were added on as needed, are said to have been built in the 1920s and '30s. The elevator in the main building shudders as it slowly climbs from one floor to another and the wooden floor in the Production Department is beginning to rot in certain places. Visitors to Production are not permitted on the floor unless they are wearing "safe" low-heeled shoes with a closed toe. Stone Specialities is a family-owned business and is presently run by

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the founder's two sons, Roger and Kyle Stone, who have assumed the positions of company president and chairman. Like many successful familyrun companies, the company went public in 1969 so it could amass enough funds to expand the business and, at the same time, avoid succession-related tax problems. However, the Stone family did not give up control and in 1990 retained 51% of the company. Stone Specialities manufactures children's toys, souvenir textile products (e.g., t-shirts and baseball hats) and distributes other leisure products such as gas barbues, outdoor furniture and baseball and hockey equipment. Distribution of leisure products, however, is mostly centred at the company's suburban plant located outside Toronto. The company is divided into four major divisions: the Leisure Division, the Sporting Goods Division, the Specialities Division, and the Toy Division. Until recently, the Leisure and Sporting Goods divisions were located at the company's suburban plant, while the Specialities and Toy Divisions were housed downtown. About a year ago, however, the executive and administrative departments of the suburban divisions were moved downtown, leaving only a small production department and warehouse operating out of the suburban plant. This move was undertaken to cut operating costs. The space vacated by the executive and administrative departments in the suburban plant is now being rented out. The Portuguese assembly line workers who are the focus of this study work for the Production Department in the company's Toy Division. Thus, most of the following discussion on the structure of the company focuses on the Toy Division and the Production Department in that division. Each of the four divisions is run by a vice-president, except for the Toy Division which has four vice-presidents since it is the company's largest division. As can be seen in figure 5.1 below, one of the four vicepresidents in the Toy Division is the Executive Vice-President, who, along with Roger and Kyle Stone, make up a triumvirate of administrative power at the company. Two of the three other Toy vice-presidents are Stone grandsons. Reporting to the Stone grandsons are the product managers and salespersons. Two of the product managers are also Stone grandsons and one of the salespersons is a Stone granddaughter. Reporting to the Toy Vice-President of Manufacturing are the managers of the company's five plant departments.

The company as family

Roger Stone, Chairman

111

Kyle Stone, President

V-P

V-P

Executive V-P

V-P

Leisure

Sporting

Toys

Specialities

Goods Toys V-P Product

Toys V-P Sales

Managment Product Managers

Toys V-P Manufacturing

Salespersons

Figure 5. / Hierarchy of power at Stone

Plant Managers

Specialities

As can be seen in Figure 5.2, all the Toy vice-presidents have their offices on the top, that is, the fifth floor of the main building, except for the Vice-President of Manufacturing, whose office is on the second floor along with the Production Department. Also on the fifth floor are the executive offices belonging to Roger and Kyle Stone, the public relations and advertising offices, the finance department and the offices of the product managers. Until recently, the salespersons were located at the suburban plant. They are now located on the third floor of the downtown plant. One floor below the Toy executive offices are the accounting, data processing and order desk departments. Also located on the fourth floor is the executive and administrative departments of the Specialities Division. 5th Floor

Executive offices Public Relations office

Finance Department Product Managers' offices

Advertising offices 4th Floor

Accounting Department

Specialities Division

Data Processing Department Order Desk

3rd Floor

Leisure Division offices

Raw Materials

Sports Division offices

Building Maintenance

Sales offices

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Specialities

2nd Floor

V-P Manufacturing office

Production Department

Purchasing Department

Quality Control Department

Textiles Department 1 st Floor

Personnel offices

Shipping and Receiving

Customer Service

Figure 5.2 Floor plan of Stone

Customs and Traffic

Specialities

While the fifth and fourth floors only house the company's executive and administrative departments, the third, second, and first floors, which are collectively known as the "plant", are home to those departments that are more directly related to the production of toys and speciality items such as t-shirts and baseball hats. Two exceptions are the executive and administrative offices on the third floor belonging to the Leisure and Sports Divisions and the Toy Division sales offices that were recently moved downtown from the suburban plant. In the plant, the Building Maintenance and the Raw Materials Departments are on the third floor. The Production Department, which produces the toys, and the Textiles Department, which produces the t-shirts and hats, are on the second along with the Quality Control Department, the Purchasing Department and the offices of the Manufacturing Vice-President and his staff. The location of the Production, Textiles and Quality Control Departments have been highlighted in the floor plan since they are the departments most involved in this study. Customer Service, Customs and Traffic, Shipping and Receiving are on the first floor. The Personnel offices and the Security desk are also on the first floor close to the plant employees' entrance. Plant employees punch in and out at the security desk and have their handbags checked before leaving at the end of the day. Executive and administrative staff use the main entrance that is located around the corner from the plant entrance. Stone Specialities hires both immigrant and non-immigrant labour to work in executive, administrative, and manufacturing positions. As might be expected from the previous discussion concerning differential access to occupations among ethnic groups in Ontario, immigrant labour is overrepresented in the low-paying hourly-rated manufacturing positions and

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under-represented in the high-paying, salaried executive positions. In a survey of 208 employees working at Stone Specialities in the summer of 1988, 9 out of 12 people in executive positions (75%) were born in Canada. The other 25% were immigrants, but immigrants from India, the U.S. and Wales who reported that their first language was English. Conversely, 73 out of 104 hourly-rated plant workers in manufacturing positions (70%) were immigrants whose first language was not English. An additional 12 plant workers were immigrants from Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados and England who reported that their first language was English. Thus, all together, 84 out of 104 or 81% of all plant workers working in manufacturing positions are immigrants while 75% of all executives are Canadian-born. Administrative positions are held by equal numbers of immigrant and Canadian-born personnel. Forty-six out of 92 administrative positions (50%) are held by Canadian-born employees while the other 46 (50%) are held by immigrants. However, 19 of the 46 positions held by immigrants are held by employees born in the U.S., Scotland, England, Wales, India, Guyana, Jamaica, and Barbados and who reported that English was their first language. Therefore, 65 out of 92 employees in administrative positions (70%) are either Canadian-born or immigrants whose first language is English while only 30% of all administrative positions are held by immigrants whose first language is not English. To summarize, this survey data shows that employees with immigrant backgrounds are under-represented in high-paying executive positions and that immigrant employees whose first language is not English are additionally under-represented in administrative positions and overrepresented in hourly-rated, low-paying manufacturing positions. This data reflects Grillo's (1989) finding that immigrants who do not speak the dominant languages of French and English hold subordinate economic statuses in France and England. When the case of immigrant women is considered, survey data shows that only two out of 12 executives (16.6%) are women and that both of them are Canadian-born. Out of 92 administrative positions, half, 46 positions, are filled by women. Twelve of these 46 positions (26%) are filled by immigrant women whose first language is not English. Of the 46 positions filled by men, 16 positions (35.5%) are filled by men whose first language is not English. Thus, there are somewhat fewer immigrant women whose first language is not English in administrative positions

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than there are men. However, while both immigrant men and women whose first language is not English are under-represented in administrative positions, immigrant women whose first language is not English are highly over-represented in low-paying manufacturing positions workers, 76 (73%) are women. Sixty-two of these 76 women are immigrants whose first language is not English. Thus, 59.6% - almost two-thirds - of all plant workers at Stone Specialities are immigrant women whose first language is not English. Only 11 of the 104 plant workers (10.5%) are immigrant men whose first language is not English. The immigrant worker population in the plant includes Portuguese, West Indian, Italian, Greek, East Asian, Brazilian, and most recently, Somali immigrants. The Portuguese employees make up the largest ethnic group represented in the manufacturing departments: Of the 52 day shift assemblers working on the lines in the Production Department in the fall of 1988, 33 (63%) were Portuguese. In addition to the Portuguese line workers, the maintenance man, one of the materials handlers, 3 out 6 line supervisors and 2 out of 4 Quality Control (QC) inspectors are also Portuguese. Since the fall of 1988 two more Portuguese materials handlers, one more Portuguese supervisor, and one more Portuguese QC inspector have joined the Production Department. In addition to making up the largest ethnic group on the manufacturing floor, the Portuguese have also, with the exception of one Italian employee, been at the company the longest. The majority of the Portuguese line workers on the production floor have been with the company for 16-22 years. Having worked together and, in most cases, having lived together in the same community for so many years, the Portuguese workers think of themselves as a family - a family working for a family.

5.1. T h e c o m p a n y as family ...we start out as a family business and there are a large number of families working for the business. At one time there was a family called McGeorge and I think there were more McGeorges working for the company than there were Stones which is a pretty astounding number. But there are lots of other families - mother and daughter, father, son, there's quite a bit of that. We encourage it. (Roger Stone, owner) "I think of this place like a second home." (Rosa, line worker)

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115

"Stone is my family." (Cecilia, line worker) As Roger Stone reports above, Stone Specialities is a family business which encourages the hiring of family members, friends and relatives. This influences the way things are run in the company and the interactions and events that make up company's particular social history. There are several family groups at Stone Specialities that are of interest to this study. The first group, the Stone family, are authentic kin related by blood ties. The second group is the company "family" which is made up of all the company employees. While some of the company's employees are authentic kin (like the McGeorges mentioned above), most are not related by blood ties. The third group, the Portuguese "family" on the manufacturing floor, is also comprised of both authentic and fictive kin. There are several groups of Portuguese kin who work together on the factory floor, especially in the summer when the company hires the workers' teenage children (who are out of school for the summer months) to replace those workers on vacation. As will be discussed in further detail below, the Portuguese "family" on the manufacturing floor is also made up of fictive kin, people who are not actually related to each other by blood ties, but who consider each other family anyway. It is the relationship between members of the Stone family, who own the company, and members of the Portuguese "family", who work for them, that is of particular interest to this study and the focus of this chapter. Each of the two family groups holds mutual rights and obligations towards the other which influence the workers' experience at work. These rights and obligations are discussed below through an examination of various ideological or common-sense practices that can be found in the institutions of the company and Portuguese "families". These practices are illuminated through a description of everyday working practices at Stone Specialities and a discussion of particular events in the company's social history. The relations between the Portuguese and the other many ethnic groups represented in the plant are also of interest. They too will be taken up below.

5.1.1. Recruitment practices at Stone

Specialities

Stone Specialities' identity as a family business, in which authentic kin members of the Stone family are given jobs in the company, is reflected

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in its recruitment and hiring practices of employees who are not members of the Stone family. As reported above, the company encourages family hiring. When students are needed for part-time work after school and in the summer, the company gives preference to the relatives of its employees and continued work for the company "grows from there". Quite a few Portuguese employees started off working for the company as high school students and "didn't bother going back to school" after the age of 16 or returned to the company to work full-time after their education was completed. Most of these employees continue to work on the manufacturing floor in the Production and Textiles departments in work roles off the lines the English language skills gained in school giving them access to such jobs - and one or two are working in secretarial positions on the fourth and fifth floors. Family hiring is not only restricted to part-time and summer work for students, however. In recruiting the full-time "hourly-rated forces", that is, the work forces that are paid by the hour for work most directly related to production, the company has been most successful in "getting friends of friends" to come and work for them. When the company needs people, management "spreads the word" on the manufacturing floor and people, who have friends or relatives looking for work let them know. The practice of recruiting "friends of friends" is as successful as it is because most of the workers on the floor are Portuguese and recruitment through word-of-mouth feeds into the Portuguese community's cultural practice of networking when looking for jobs. Out of 27 Portuguese workers surveyed in the Production Department, 24 (88.8%) found a job at the company from a "friend", that is, a friend of a relative or a relative of a friend or relative. Another reason why hiring is so successful among the Portuguese community has to do with Stone's close proximity to the community; it is not as difficult, expensive, or time-consuming to come to work at Stone as it would be to work somewhere else. The advantage of time saved in getting to and from work is particularly important to the women at the company who need to get home as soon as possible to feed their families and keep up with household maintenance tasks after work. Recruitment by spreading the word on the factory floor, however, is not the only way the company recruits workers from the Portuguese community. In the group of 35 referred to above, 4 workers found a job at the company by responding to an ad placed in a Portuguese church paper or by following up information given to them by someone working in a Portuguese church. Interestingly, of the four who were recruited from contact with a Portuguese church, three were Brazilian, individuals who had access to the Portuguese

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church because they spoke Portuguese, but did not have access to a network of friends and relatives in the Portuguese community. The other 13 workers who did not find their jobs through social ties or the Portuguese media and church discovered there were available positions at the company when they visited the personnel office to apply for a job and from postings located at one the several federal employment centres in Toronto. The company's use of Portuguese networks, churches and media to recruit new employees for work on the manufacturing floor can be related to the labour shortages it periodically experiences. In Toronto, there is competition for "cheap labour" and Stone Specialities is in competition with McDonald's and all the hotels for that labour. Portuguese immigrants who do not speak English will work for low wages on an assembly line because it is not possible to get a better-paying job off the lines without English language skills and additional job training or education. Stone Specialities can hire Portuguese workers who do not speak English because they have bilingual English-Portuguese supervisors on staff who can convey information in Portuguese to those workers who can not speak English.

5.1.2. The Portuguese

"family" on the manufacturing

floor

The Stone family's practice of hiring family and friends to work at the company, which has interacted with the Portuguese community's practice of finding work through community networks, has lead to the creation of a Portuguese "family" in the Production and Textiles Departments on the manufacturing floor. As reported above, some members of this Portuguese family are actually authentic kin related by blood ties. However, there are also Portuguese employees working on the manufacturing floor who are not related, but who think of each other as family. People call each other "sister", "brother", "daughters" and "marida" which is an invented feminine derivation of the Portuguese word for husband, "marido". A problem involving a worker who is unhappy in Textiles and who has gone back to her old boss in Production is referred to as a "family problem". Thus, for most Portuguese workers on the manufacturing floor, work relationships and conditions at Stone Specialities are lived and represented as family and community relationships and conditions. This ideological representation of work relationships and conditions as family relationships and conditions is important to understanding the

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rights and responsibilities Portuguese workers on the factory floor hold towards the Stone family and one another. In turn, an understanding of these rights and responsibilities is important to an understanding of language practices on the factory floor. Further discussion of these rights and responsibilities as they relate to the relationship between the Stone family and the Portuguese "family" of workers appears below. An examination of the rights and responsibilities members of the Portuguese "family" have towards each other is taken up in chapter 6. Reflecting the social relationship that exists between the Portuguese community and the larger community of Toronto, the Portuguese manufacturing community/"family" is separate from the larger Stone community/"family"; for example, members of the Portuguese manufacturing community do not participate in most of the social activities, such as baseball games and curling tournaments that are planned by the Stone's social committee. The reason for this has to with the family responsibilities most Portuguese employees have at home. An exception to this lack of participation in most company social activities, is some, but not extensive, participation in a colouring contest held for the employees' children at Easter and attendance at the annual Christmas party. The Portuguese manufacturing community also has social activities of its own. Baby showers are held for women going on maternity leave, flowers and cards are sent to those who are sick or in the hospital, and money is raised for co-workers who are in financial and personal difficulty. Interestingly, not all members of the Portuguese manufacturing community are actually from Portugal, but all members can speak Portuguese, even if it is their second or third language. For example, Francesca, a Chilean woman on the manufacturing floor, worked on the lines with the Portuguese women for many years, spoke Portuguese and was considered part of the "family". When the community found out she was dying of cancer and was trying to make arrangements for the care of her 13-year old daughter, it raised $4,000 to bring her sisters still living in Chile to Canada. Individuals took $100 and $200 out of their credit union savings to help Francesca. Importantly, it was not only the Portuguese "family" that contributed to the easing of Francesca's financial burden. Upon finding out about Francesca's difficulties from the Production Manager, Roger Stone committed the company to a contribution as well. Matching part of the Portuguese "family's" contribution, the Stone family's contribution paid for the sisters' airfare, allowing the money the "family" raised to be used for funeral expenses. This kind of financial assistance offered by the Stone family is typical and contributes to what the company's Personnel Manager

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refers to as a "family feeling" in the company. This "family feeling" can be understood as the knowledge and expectation that the Stone family will look after its employees -who are members of the company "family" - in times of crisis. There are numerous examples of Roger Stone helping an employee in need. For example, when the husband of one of Stone's long-time employees had a stroke and was left without adequate funds to cover his medical insurance payments, Roger Stone decided the company would cover the expenses for the family. The reason why the Stone family assists its employees in this manner has to do with the ideology behind the way they run their business. Perceiving their employees as members of a company family, they treat their employees as members of an extended family individuals who can expect aid in times of crisis. In extending aid to employees in crisis, Roger Stone fulfils his "family" obligations and can expect his employees to fulfil similar obligations to him. It can be argued that the knowledge and expectation that the Stone family will help its employees in times of crisis, places the owners of the company in the role of cunha in minds of some of their employees. It will be recalled from chapter 4 that a cunha is an individual who holds a position of power and is able to act and exert his or her influence to assist the family in times of need. Such an argument is supported by other practices that occur at Stone. For example, although there is a definite chain of command in place in the company, the Personnel Manager reports that most people prefer to report directly to Roger Stone. Furthermore, employees who are having a problem at work and are not happy with the way that problem is being resolved by their immediate superior, do not hesitate to present their problem to Roger himself. As the Personnel Manager reports, "everyone knows if you're not happy with how things were resolved, you can go and talk to Roger". To illustrate, when Julio, the maintenance man in the Production Department, felt that the production line supervisors were asking him to take on too many tasks at one time, he went directly to Roger to complain, not to the foreperson or Production Manager who were his immediate superiors. On another occasion, Julio went to speak to Roger on behalf of one of the line workers who had a grievance against her supervisor. The consequence of having the Stone family or a cunha help you or your family deal with a problem is that you owe the family/cunha your loyalty. Referring back to a time of personal crisis, one employee expresses his gratitude for Roger Stone's help and his loyalty to the company in the following way: "A couple years of ago that man really helped me and I owe him for what he did for me."

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Specialities

To summarize the discussion so far, members of the Portuguese "family" at Stone Specialities can expect assistance in times of need from both the Stone family and other members of the Portuguese "family" on the manufacturing floor. For those who are not part of the "family", however, because they choose not to speak Portuguese at work, working on the manufacturing floor of Stone Specialities can be a frustrating, difficult and lonely experience. Juanita, a t-shirt printer in the Textiles department from Peru, speaks Spanish, French and English, but not Portuguese. Juanita believes that "English is important - everybody speaks English" and chooses to speak English at work, even when working close to someone who speaks Spanish, her native language. Juanita is not considered part of the Portuguese manufacturing community and has complained to the Personnel Department that she has trouble getting assistance from the other women she works with. She is also isolated from most of the news that concerns people on the manufacturing floor. She reports that "If you don't speak Portuguese, you don't know anything - not about school [the ESL classes offered at the factory], who died, nothing." As a community that is separate from the rest of the Stone community, as a community that has a language and social life of its own, the Portuguese manufacturing community has also developed particular work values and work practices of its own. These work values and practices are important to understanding individual workers' language choice on the factory floor and will be discussed in detail in the next chapter. However, since these particular values and practices are related to everyday work life on the manufacturing floor, a brief description of what kind of work people do in Production and Textiles appears below.

5.2. W o r k i n g on the m a n u f a c t u r i n g f l o o r

5.2.1. Working in production At 7:55 every morning, four loud buzzes echo throughout the factory signalling the plant workers have only five more minutes to get to their work stations. By that time, some of the assembly workers in the Production Department are already sitting on or leaning against the conveyor belts on the lines which they worked the day before. Others are in the locker room changing into work clothes. In the office of the

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Production Department, the supervisors who are responsible for supervising production work on the assembly lines are setting up their work day. Supervisors who have just finished or are almost finished a production "run" of a particular toy or game, that is, finished producing the number of those toys or games the company needs to fill its orders, ask the foreperson what new run she wants them to start up. The foreperson, who is responsible for the smooth operation of the Production Department, knows which toys need to be assembled first because there are customers waiting for them and which don't need to be assembled immediately. Supervisors starting up new lines talk to the foreperson about how many "pieces", that is, single assembled items, they need to produce before the run is finished and check the bill of materials in the filing cabinet to find out how many workers are needed to work on the line, how the line is actually run, that is, what particular assembly task each worker on the line actually does, and how many pieces they are expected to produce each day in order to meet efficiency standards. They then begin negotiating among themselves to settle which "girls" will work for which supervisor on which line. Since each of the supervisors has to meet efficiency standards, it is in the best interests of each supervisor to get the "best girls", that is the most experienced and the fastest workers, on their lines. Most of the supervisors have their own "crew", that is, a core group of workers who usually work with them, no matter what line the supervisor is responsible for. However, usually, the amount of workers needed for a particular line doesn't correspond to the number of workers on a supervisor's crew and supervisors find themselves either looking for more workers to complete their lines or finding other work for workers they don't need on a particular line. Not all the supervisors actually supervise production work on the lines. One of the supervisors, Jim, is responsible for setting up the lines, that is, for getting the lines ready for the line supervisors. To set up a line, Jim first gets out the bill of materials which provides him with the sequence of operations involved in working the line and the steps to follow in setting it up. For example, the bill of materials for the "Dashing Dog" job, which is a "box and pack job" that involves assembling display boxes, placing the Dashing Dog stuffed toy into its display box and packing the boxes into large cartons for shipping, tells Jim that he needs three "operators" to pick up and make up the inserts at station one. Jim needs to check the front of the line where the "Dashing Dog" job will run to see how many tables there are there. He needs two tables at station one for the three operators. The two tables will accommodate the two workers who will make up the display

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Specialities

boxes (that is, take them from their flat two dimensional state and make them three dimensional) and the third worker who will fit the bottom insert into the display box and place it on the conveyor belt. When a line is ready to begin, Jim will run a sample from the line and send it to the Quality Control (QC) Department. The supervisor of the line is supposed to wait until one of the QC employees inspects the sample before telling the workers on the line to begin, but sometimes she starts the line before getting the inspector's approval to make sure she meets her standards. Inspecting samples is just one of the responsibilities QC inspectors have at Stone Specialities. Another is making the rounds of the lines each day. When Lidia makes the rounds, she walks along the Production floor with a silver wire shopping cart, stops off at each of the lines, takes several samples off each line and takes the samples back into her own department to check that the products meet safety and quality control standards. Sometimes, the QC inspector making rounds simply stands by the line itself and takes products off the line as they go by. At 8:00, a single buzzer goes off and the work day begins. The supervisors leave the office to get their lines started and Gloria, the foreperson, begins the paper work she does everyday. Her first task is to check the "job tickets" the supervisors handed in to her the day before for errors. Job ticket forms, which summarize the daily work activities of each of the line workers and how many pieces the line produced, are filled out at the end of each day by each one of the line supervisors. The Production office is a busy place. The telephone rings frequently. Workers from other departments walk in and out of the office all day. Often, the caller or visitor is one of the line suppliers from the Raw Materials Department on the third floor wanting to know if any of the supervisors need any materials that day. Line suppliers supply the production lines with the materials they need for each of their runs. Gloria usually sends up a written request when she wants materials for a new line Jim is setting up and Wilfred, the foreman of the Raw Materials Department, will give the request to whichever line supplier has the least number of lines to work on. Using the bill of materials, the line suppliers identify the different materials needed for each run, locate the materials where they are stored in bulk on the third or fourth floors, and then take them down to the production floor. Each line supplier has a certain number of lines to look after. Once a line supplier has been assigned a line, he (line suppliers at Stone Specialities are all men) is responsible for it. It is up to him to get the line downstairs supplied so the line workers are not waiting around for more materials. It is important that a super-

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visor's line have an adequate supply of all the materials it needs to run. If a line has to stop because one of the workers has run out of a part, precious production time is lost and the supervisors' daily efficiency report will be negatively affected. The efficiency report summarizes the daily production of a particular job. It records the quantity of pieces a line has produced that day, the number of worker hours it took to produce that amount, the number of standard hours the industrial engineer has concluded the job should take and the percentage of efficiency that the line has demonstrated that day. The standard (that is, the amount of hours it takes to produce 1000 pieces) is set by the company's industrial engineer who comes to a particular figure by calculating the average amount of time it takes workers to produce one piece. It is, of course, important to demonstrate as close to a 100% efficiency as possible; in fact, it is important for a line to produce an even higher percentage of efficiency to balance out another line's lower percentage and keep up the department's daily percentage of efficiency at

100%. While Gloria begins her paper work in the office, out on the floor the supervisors start their lines. There are different kinds of runs: "box and pack jobs", "repack jobs" and "assembly jobs". One repack job has workers working with a board game that has been packed without instructions. The first worker on that line breaks the pieces, that is, takes the plastic wrap off the games and opens them up; the second, folds and puts the instructions inside the games; a third worker - a machine operator - rewraps the games with plastic wrap (a machine unrolls and cuts the right size of plastic wrap for her to use) and puts the games on a roller belt that sends it through the "shrink wrap machine". The fourth worker - the packer - takes the games that have come through the shrink wrap machine and places them into large cartons which she has already taped together and stamped with a number. When the carton has been filled with 12 games, it is taped shut by the packer and placed on another roller belt which leads to the Shipping elevator. A micro-switch on one roller of the belt calls the elevator up and moves the carton off the roller onto the elevator which then goes down into the Shipping Department. The packer on each of the lines does not always send filled cartons to the Shipping Department herself; sometimes, she puts them on the wooden skid that has been placed close the line and waits for the material handler to move the skid with a "truck", an electric jack used to lift heavy cartons and skids, and send the cartons down to the Shipping Department. The shippers keep count of the cartons received from different lines through-

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out the day and send up a finished goods control tag with the total amount of cartons received from each line at the end of the day. The number of cartons on this tag is balanced with the supervisor's job ticket figures by Gloria the next day. Assembly jobs are more complicated than box and pack jobs. The most complicated assembly job the line workers take on at the factory is the toy jeep job. Fourteen workers are needed on the jeep line and each worker has between 3 and 10 different jobs to perform on each jeep as it moves down the assembly line. For example, the first worker on the line has to pick up the rear body of the jeep from a huge carton on the wooden skid and place it on a table at the front of the line. She then picks up the front and rear shocks and fits them into the body. She gets a siderail from the worker beside her who is working on the front body of the jeep and whose job includes picking up two siderails from the bin next to the line. The first worker then places the siderail against the body of the jeep and secures it to the jeep. With the second worker, the first worker assembles the bumper of the jeep, fits the left hand side front axle to the jeep, gets the rear axle, and fits the left hand side rear axle to the body of the jeep. The first worker then gets the motor and fits the motor to the rear axle. Finally, with the help of the second worker, the first worker moves the jeep body from the table onto the conveyor belt on the line. Further down the line, after most of the jeep has been assembled, the tenth worker fits the jeep's key to the dashboard, makes up a package of literature containing information on the jeep, loads the information package onto the jeep's tailgate, gets the seat from the bin beside the line, cleans the seat with a cloth, gets the hood, cleans the hood with a cloth and fits the hood to the jeep. While the women on the line usually pack the toys they assemble themselves, the jeeps are so heavy that the job of packing is given to three male material handlers who close the box the jeep is packed in and lift it onto the skid. When a run is finished, the line needs to be "packed up". Leftover materials need to be placed into cartons which in turn are placed on skids. The material handlers will eventually move the skids with a truck, take the skids to the back elevator and send them back to the Raw Materials Department on the third floor to be stored away until they are needed again. Materials coming down from the Raw Materials Department to supply production lines come down on the front elevator.

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5.2.2. Working in textiles While line workers assemble, box, pack or repack toys in the Production Department, in the other department on the manufacturing floor, the Textiles workers produce t-shirts for the summer souvenir trade. Many of the workers in Textiles are t-shirt printers and spend the work day printing different logos such as "Niagara Falls" and "Fait au Quebec" onto different coloured t-shirts; others are responsible for folding printed tshirts once they are dry and still others for filling individual customer orders. In its busiest time, from March to July when orders for souvenir tshirts are at a peak, the Textiles Department employs about seven or eight printers. During slow times, the number of workers printing t-shirts drops to about two. Some of the printers are laid-off temporarily while others go to the Production Department to work on the lines until the department gets busy again. There is only one printing supervisor in Textiles. She assumes responsibility for mixing the "paint", that is the ink, for the printers and will do some printing herself when time permits. The workers in both the Textiles and Production Departments on the manufacturing floor consider themselves members of the Portuguese manufacturing community/"family". When planning a baby shower for a worker who is leaving on maternity leave, workers in both departments contribute money to buy gifts and get together at break time in one of the two departments to present the gifts to the mother-to-be. As mentioned earlier, this brief description of working life on the manufacturing floor at Stone Specialities has been presented to provide a context for understanding the work values and practices maintained by the Portuguese "family" on the manufacturing floor. But before leaving this ethnographic account of plant life and moving on to an analysis of "family" values and practices, the discussion turns to an exploration of the relationship that exists between the Stone family and the Portuguese "family" at the company. An examination of this relationship is of theoretical interest as it provides insight into how the notions of language, ideology and power may be related. In that several events in the company's history are particularly useful in illuminating the relationship between the two families at Stone Specialities, the rest of this chapter looks at stories from the company's history.

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5.3. Stories f r o m the company's history Stone Specialities was founded in 1926 by the grandfather of the Stone family in the living room of his home in Toronto. The business was primarily a wholesaling and family concern. A.C. Stone began selling specialty items out of the store front behind which his family lived and gradually took over adjacent store fronts. He used people's garages to store merchandise and brought goods up and down the streets on wagons. According to Roger Stone, the current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company, the biggest single change the company has undergone over the years took place when a decision was made to manufacture toys in the early '50s after he and his brother Kyle joined the company. In 1958, the company began acting as the Canadian sales agent for certain American toy manufacturers. Out of these arrangements, four Canadian companies evolved. These companies were owned jointly by Stone Specialities and the American companies and were formed to manufacture products developed by the Americans in Canada. In addition, Stone Specialities also had arrangements with other American toy manufacturers to make their toys in Canada on a royalty basis. Nine years later, in 1967, the Stone family business grew big enough to move from a smaller factory near the city's waterfront into one of its two present locations, a plant located just several subway stops south of A.C. Stone's first store front quarters. As mentioned above, this factory, which is referred to here as the "downtown plant", is the research site of this study. In analyzing those events in the company history that could shed light on the ideological relationship between the Stone family and the Portuguese "family" on the manufacturing floor, historical conflicts between labour and capital become salient. This is to be expected considering, as this study does, that questions of language choice are related to class position and unequal relations of power. In chapter 2, it was argued that language choice practices on the production floor could be linked to workers' subordinate class position in Canadian society. In chapter 4, it was suggested that unequal relations of power which result in unequal class positions exist through the assistance of ideological practices and relationships that support and maintain the capitalist status quo. Thus, in attempting to illuminate the relationship between the two families at Stone Specialities in order to better understand the theoretical relationship between language, ideology and relations of power, it makes

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sense to look at historical incidents of conflict between the family that owns the company and the "family" that works for the family that owns the company. A non-unionized plant, Stone Specialities' is a company that has seen conflict. The first major conflict between the Stone family and its hourlyrated workers occurred in 1971 when some of the employees in the Production Department went out on strike.

5.3.1. The strike of 1971 at the downtown

plant

According to Cecilia, one of the Portuguese line workers who was working in the Production Department at the time, the three-month strike at the downtown plant in 1971 ran from the first week in August until the last week in October. The strike, initiated by union organizers, was an illegal one, an attempt to pressure the Stones into unionizing the factory. At the time, many of the workers at Stone Specialities felt they needed the protection of a union. Some workers, particularly the "young people", that is, those women workers who were both young, teenagers of 16, 17 and 18, and new to the company, were making very low wages - 90 cents $1.10 an hour - while other women who had been there a little longer were making $1.50 - $1.75 an hour and the men, $2.25 - $2.35. Minimum wage in Ontario from April 1, 1971 to December 1, 1971 was $1.65 for "general workers", $1.40 for "learners", and $1.15 for students under 18. While the "young people" working on the lines were under 18, they were not students. Even as "learners", they were making up to $0.50 less an hour than mandated by minimum wage. But money was not the only reason workers felt they needed a union at the company. There were also problems related to the working relationship that existed between management and workers. As Cecilia explains it, the workers wanted to establish an open relationship with management, a relationship where the workers would be able to say, "This is hard work. We need more time or we need this, we need that" and management would be able to say, "Okay, but I need this from you." According to Cecilia, "We didn't have this relationship." While union organizers were able to get many of the female Portuguese workers at the company to attend meetings and sign union membership cards, they were unsuccessful in getting most of them to go on strike to pressure the Stones into unionizing the company. Most of the plant workers who went out on strike were "Canadians" (workers who were Canadian-bom) or "members of other nationalities, like the blacks".

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There are several reasons why most Portuguese workers chose not to go out on strike even though they agreed to sign union cards. First, there was distrust of the union organizers. Since they didn't work for the company, the workers didn't know them. When they took the information the organizers gave them and asked the people whom they did know - their Portuguese supervisors - for confirmation of what they had been told by the organizers, they were given different information and believed that the organizers had "fooled" them. Luisa, who is now a Production supervisor with the company, tells how confusing the attempt to unionize the factory was for her: Tara:

What happened? Why did people want to go on strike? Was it for the money?

Luisa:

I didn't know. I know I have two strange guys on my door, and I didn't understand nothing about it. And they say we have to join that [the union]. We give a dollar and they give us a card. I said I don't know. I don't understand. I want one of them, I want Portuguese. And they say you don't want to give a dollar? No? Maybe you're gonna get laid off after... Two years in Canada, and I really need money. So I gave them the dollar and they gave me the card and I signed my name. And that time I didn't know what union was. They fooled me because [they said], "if you don't give this dollar, you don't sign, you're gonna lose your job later."

When Luisa asked her Portuguese supervisor, "If we don't give a dollar, what's gonna happen? They gonna lay us off?", the supervisor said no. At the same time that the workers were getting different and confusing information from the union workers and supervisors, the company brought in the Portuguese parish priest to talk to the workers who had signed union cards. According to one of the workers still at the company, the priest told the workers that they shouldn't attend union meetings or go on strike because if the union got in, they were going to lose their jobs and their houses. For the priest, whose power and livelihood was dependent upon the size, strength and committment of his parish, the possibility of workers losing their homes and moving out of the neighbourhood was threatening. Furthermore, workers without paychecks and their own homes

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could not sponsor others who wished to emigrate from Portugal and join the Toronto Portuguese community/parish. The success of using the Portuguese parish priest to persuade workers not to unionize can be best understood by recalling the power and influence the priest wielded in the community in the early 1970s. As reported in chapter 4, the priest of the Portuguese parish was considered a leader - a cunha - in the community, someone to whom people would turn to in the event of a crisis. Attendance at the Portuguese Church in 1970 was about 6,000 on Sundays and was considered "an institution of greatest influence and importance" among the Portuguese in the community (Marques and Medeiros 1980). The priest was not only involved in the religious life of the community, but in the economic and social life of the community as well. Thus, his involvement with the issues of unionization in a factory where the majority of workers were Portuguese was considered entirely appropriate by the Portuguese supervisors and workers and extremely beneficial to the Stone family who opposed unionization. After the company held a meeting to "explain the whole thing" to the plant workers, the workers were divided into two groups: those w h o decided to be "outside", that is to go on strike, and those who decided to be "inside", not go on strike. As Luisa puts it, "When the girls went outside, they knew what they want. And we stay inside, we know what we want". As mentioned earlier, most of the Portuguese workers decided to stay "inside". Those Portuguese workers who decided to go "outside" were "young people" who were new to the company and not making as much money as the "old people". When asked what it was she wanted when she decided to stay "inside", Luisa says, "I want to work. They [the owners] don't treat me bad. Because after, I don't trust those guys [the union organizers] any more. Because they said if I don't give a dollar, I lose my job". Luisa's belief here that the owners were not treating her badly can be related to the ideological "family feeling" that existed for some of the workers in the company - the ideological belief that the Stone family takes adequate care of its family of workers. Not only did the workers who stayed "inside" need their jobs and not trust the union organizers, owner Roger Stone offered those who didn't go on strike a 12-14% raise. This act confirmed the belief that the Stone family takes care of the workers who were loyal employees and several of the Portuguese workers who went "outside" came back "inside" three weeks into the strike. When the strike was finally called off at the end of October, only five or six people were still picketing outside the factory. At the end of the strike, which was unsuccessful in bringing

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in a union, those who went on strike and had not found jobs elsewhere were not invited back to work at the company. Applying Gramsci's (1971) notion of hegemony to the relation between the Stone family and its workers during the strike of 1971, it can be argued that the Stone family was successful in keeping the union out of the factory by gaining the consent of the members of the Portuguese "family" that were working for them. This consent was gained through the creation and maintenance of an alliance between the Portuguese "family" and the Stone family. The creation and maintainance of this alliance can be explained in terms of ideology and the economic arrangements people make for everyday living. Gramsci (1971) uses the concept of hegemony to refer to the relation between those individuals who are in power and those who are not. He believes there are two ways a particular group of people is able to gain power and maintain that power once it has been achieved. One way is through "domination" or force. The other is through "hegemony" or leadership and direction. While domination is a relation established by means of force, hegemony is a relation of consent rather than coercion. Hegemony is gained through the creation and maintenance of an alliance established by political and ideological struggle of "sharing" a common ideology . It is important to point out, however, that ideological practices, embedded as they are in particular sets of power relations, serve the interests of some groups better than others. At Stone Specialities, during the time of the strike, the ideology that both families shared involved the belief that the Stone family, in its role as cunha or "patron", was taking adequate care of the workers in the company family. This ideology - an ideology that was also supported by the powerful social force of the Portuguese church bound the two families together during the strike. It acted as cement and welded together into one "collective will" (Gramsci 1971) the potentially conflicting aims of the family who owned the company and the "family" who was working for them. Joanne, who joined the company as a line worker one month into the strike, remembers the time of the strike as a social time and a time of solidarity for those who were "inside". She recalls there being yellow buses which picked the employees up at the Portuguese church and drove them into the company through the Shipping and Receiving entrance. The bus would return the employees to the church, often dropping individual people off at the corner of the streets where they lived along the way. On the way home, people on the bus would sing . The Vice-President of Manufacturing and the owner himself, "Mr. Roger", would also pick up people and bring them to and from work.

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An important question to pursue here is the question of how an ideological alliance between the two families was created and maintained. Earlier it was reported that three weeks into the strike several workers who had originally decided to go "outside" decided to come back "inside". The story of how Cecilia, one of the Portuguese line workers, brought these workers back "inside" allows us to take up a discussion of how relations of power between the Stone family and their non-unionized hourly-rated workers were sustained during a time of ideological and political struggle.

5.3.2. Being married and going inside As was mentioned above, during the strike, the Portuguese manufacturing "family" at the factory - which was [and still is] mostly made up women was split into two groups: a large group of mostly "old people" who stayed "inside" and a much smaller group of "young people" who went "outside" during the strike. Cecilia, who is still with the company today, was one of those workers who remained "inside". As one of the "old people", who had been with the company for a few years, Cecilia was getting $1.67 an hour which she says was "not too bad for then". Furthermore, Cecilia, like all the other workers who stayed "inside", needed the money to pay her bills. Three weeks into the strike, Cecilia, a recognized leader among the Portuguese women on the lines, was asked by management to talk to the Portuguese workers "outside" to see if she could bring some of them back "inside". By using her Portuguese network contacts and by appealing to the authority of cultural values and practices, Cecilia was successful in bringing back three of the workers, two of whom are still with the company today. When asked what she said to the three people to get them to come back "inside", Cecilia explains, There was no problem because one was my husband's niece, the other was a friend of mine who is still working in the factory she lived very close to me - and while the other was only an acquaintance of mine, she was very friendly with the other two. That was the reason there was no problem. I called my husband's niece who is Graciete, do you know her? She is ... Graciete. I called her [Graciete] to my house and made her see a lot of things. She had just recently married, she was only married for two or three months, and I made her see that she

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should understand that she was already [now] married and the company was going to do the best it could [to acknowledge the workers' concerns] and it was very good for her to be inside. She should leave the picket because it was shameful to behave the way, the way the strikers were behaving [calling each other bad names and getting into fights with sticks]. She agreed. Then I called the other woman who was living on Sharon. I was living on Allen [in the same neighbourhood as Sharon Street], and she said that she was embarrassed to come back. I told her not to be embarrassed and then I called the Portuguese boss [supervisor], Joseph, and Joseph said, "I'm going to pick you up" because he had a car, "and you'll go with me to their homes." We got to the company earlier, at 6:30 in the morning, so the strikers wouldn't see us enter. Cecilia was successful in bringing three women back to the lines during the strike because she appealed to cultural values and practices held by the Portuguese workers as members of the Portuguese community and used culturally appropriate ways of persuading them to come back. Cecilia chose to talk to those women with whom she had social ties; pointed out her niece's new responsibility as a wife to work to pay new bills associated with being married; criticized her niece's social behaviour on the picket lines and offered an invitation for all three to come back. Explaining why she came back "inside" after spending three weeks on the picket line, Graciete never refers to her conversation with her aunt Cecilia, but talks about the struggle she faced having rejected her social identity while she was "outside". When asked why she went on strike, Graciete says it was because she felt "pushed" by those who went "outside", but after realizing that she didn't feel "good with that people outside", she came "inside again". How I go there? Because the others push and push and push. "Come on. Come on. Don't go over there [inside]. We not making enough money. They're taking [treating] the people like a horse." But after I understand myself. I'm not right. I don't should listen to these people. I have to do my own position. I'm not feeling good with that people outside... I feel uncomfortable. I feel I'm not making my right decision. I don't go there because I would like to, because somebody pushed.

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And the way I think so much about, so much about it. And I said to myself, "No, I very wrong about that. I have to go inside, because we have to leave what the people say to us. And we have to make [do] what we like [want] to." [emphasis is mine] The stories Cecilia and Graciete tell about their activities and feelings during the 1971 strike permit us to address the question of how an alliance between the Stone family and the Portuguese "family" was created and maintained during the strike. In looking at the question of how ideology supports and reproduces unequal relations of power, and, importantly, what particular role language plays in the process, it is helpful to turn, once again, to Gramsci (1971) and an explanation of how he understands the nature of ideology. Gramsci (1971) insists on the "materiality of ideology", that is, on the material existence of ideology in the social practice of individuals. He believes that ideologies are embodied in collective and communal modes of living and acting; in other words, people's ideas are related to their practical activities. Ideology provides people with rules of practical conduct and ideology is lived and adhered to in the everyday experience of abiding by communal rules of practical conduct. Cecilia was successful in bringing Graciete back to the lines during the strike because she reminded her of the responsibility she had as a wife to her husband. As part of her husband's family's working unit, she was expected to help pay the family's bills. Cecilia also criticized Graciete's behaviour on the picket lines which she saw as inappropriate behaviour for a woman of the community. Upon being reprimanded for having broken communal rules of conduct, Graciete no longer felt that she had made the "right decision" by going "outside" and returned to the lines inside. Even though she had once agreed with those workers who felt that they were not making enough money and were being treated like "horses", after her talk with Cecilia, Graciete no longer felt "good with that people outside". It is Cecilia's common-sense understanding that the Stone family takes care of its workers that results in her telling Graciete, "the company was going to do the best it could [to acknowledge the workers' concerns] and it was very good for her to be inside". However, this ideological understanding is buttressed by a responsibility to assume the wifely duty of contributing to the family income. It is relevant to recall here that the parish priest told the workers that they would lose their jobs and houses if they were to go out on strike. This was a risk that the workers could not

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take if they were to assume their material responsibilities as Portuguese wives. It is this same responsibility to contribute to her family's income that results in Graciete telling herself, "I have to go inside" despite the fact that she had believed that she and the other workers were not being paid enough money and were being treated like work horses. The process of living ideology by abiding by gendered rules of conduct creates an alliance between Cecilia and Graciete. This alliance with Cecilia - and all the other Portuguese workers who stayed "inside" - also allies Graciete with the Stone family despite the fact that originally she perceived herself in conflict with them. To deal with the original feelings that put her in conflict with the Stone family, Graciete rationalizes that she never really felt that she wasn't being paid enough money or that she was being treated like a "horse". She says that she misjudged the Stones because she was influenced by other workers who "pushed" her into believing that she was overworked and underpaid. Thus, the question of how relations of power were sustained during the struggle of the 1971 strike, then, may be answered by looking at the ideological practices embedded within traditional, gendered modes of living found within the institution of the Portuguese family/"family". As argued in the last chapter, these traditional ways of living can be seen as a means of coping with conditions of poverty and economic subordination. Graciete's alliance with Stone family, created by the need to abide by community rules associated with economic arrangements for everyday living, demonstrates how practices within the Portuguese "family" and practices within the Stone family mesh ideologically even though the potential for conflict between the two groups as labour and capital is great and even though these practices serve the economic interests of the Stone family better than the economic interests of the Portuguese "family". The Stone family's practice of protecting workers by helping individual employees in times of financial crisis or need meshes with both the Portuguese "family's" practices of appealing to a cunha or "patron" in time of need and of working as a family unit to face the challenge of economic survival and mobility in Toronto. Furthermore, the Stones' recruitment practice of family hiring is appealing and advantageous for workers who need to secure privileged access to jobs for relatives and friends. The alliance that was formed between the two families as a result of this ideological meshing allowed them to forge a collective will that possessed the single aim of keeping the union out of the factory. This collective will resulted in Cecilia, Graciete and the other Portuguese workers in the factory consenting to the existing relations of power

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between themselves and the Stone family. Language plays an important role in supporting and maintaining unequal relations of power through its articulation of ideological values, roles and practices that provide people with a way of managing conditions of economic subordination. Further discussion of the relationship between language, ideology and relations of power is taken up in chapter 10. Returning to the history of Stone Specialities, the company's first successful attempt in averting unionization lasted ten years. In 1981, however, the Stone family faced a second conflict when its employees went out on strike again, this time at its suburban plant.

5.3.3. The strike of 1981 at the suburban plant The seeds of the 1981 strike were sown a year earlier in the fall of 1980 when the company began barbecue production at its suburban plant. Barbecue production was a way of providing year-round employment for all plant workers whose jobs were in jeopardy after Christmas toy production peaked. It was expected that as soon as the "toy people" at the downtown plant finished making toys, they would make start making barbecues at the suburban plant and that as soon as they had finished making barbecues, they would start making toys again. However, when the poor forecast for toys that fall season improved more than anyone expected and other toy manufacturers got caught without inventory or workers in place to start production, retailers were desperate to get Stone Specialities toys; instead of being available to assemble barbecues in November, the toy people were making toys right until after Christmas. Meanwhile the production of barbecues started at the suburban plant in the fall of 1980 with temporary people. Among the people hired for temporary work was a union organizer who soon had all the temporary people "tied up with union cards". The main problems the company had at the suburban plant at the time were that people felt that they were not being paid enough (at the time the company had a policy of paying workers at the entry level minimum wage) and that they didn't have equal access to good jobs in the company because of nepotism on the part of the managers. This perception of nepotism on the part of the workers at the suburban plant is interesting as it has something to say about the social and ideological differences between the suburban and downtown plants. As might be expected from the discussion so far, there are fewer Portuguese workers at the suburban plant than there are at the downtown plant. As a result, people's understandings of work practices in

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the two plants are different. While work practices that have grown out of an ideology of the company as "family" are perceived and celebrated as privileged access to jobs by the Portuguese workers, they were understood as "nepotism" by the temporary workers who were not Portuguese. These different understandings of work practices help explain the events of the 1981 strike at the suburban plant. By the end of 1980, there was a hue and cry for certification and the Ontario Labour Relation Board granted the certification vote in January. However, there were two distinct groups with two distinct positions voting on union certification; the temporary workers brought in to work on the barbecue production voted for certification and the "long-term" employees in the warehouse who had been with the company for a longer period of time voted against it. The union got its certification by one vote. When subsequent contract negotiations were unsuccessful, the strike started June 17, 1981. It didn't end until almost 7 months later when a contract was finally signed on January 5, 1982. The strike, which included a boycott of all Stone toys during the Christmas season of 1981, was another bitter one filled with violent picket lines and knives. Yet despite "terrible hardships", similar to those faced by the workers at the downtown plant ten years before, most long-term employees who considered themselves part of the Stone "family" came into work everyday. Almost all of the workers who were out on the lines were the temps. Unfortunately, interviews with those working at the suburban plant in 1981 and 1982 were not accessible. Thus, it is not possible to analyze why the "long-term" employees chose not to go on strike in 1981. It is also not possible to compare stories from the 1981 strike with the stories Cecilia and Graciete tell about their decision to stay "inside" in the 1971 strike.

5.3.4. The birth of the personnel

department

Five months into the strike, in November 1981, Roger Stone hired Shirley Wilson to become the company's first Director of Personnel Development. Before Shirley's appointment, Stone Specialities didn't have a personnel department; however, with the suburban plant on strike, employee relations was an issue that could no longer be ignored and Shirley was hired to establish a human resources system that, in her own words, "would ensure that fairness would prevail". When she began with the company, Shirley decided that she would

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not "go near" the suburban plant until the strike was over, but would concentrate on developing and implementing new personnel programs for the employees working in the downtown plant. The objective behind the new programming was to change the conditions within the company that caused the problems at the suburban plant since they existed at the downtown location as well. However, many of the employees working at the downtown plant did not perceive the Stones' "family" working practices to be problematic. Like today, a large number of the downtown plant workers in 1980 were Portuguese. Since access to "good" jobs off production lines was already constrained for Portuguese workers by barriers of language and formal education, work practices or "nepotism" that limited people's mobility in the company were not considered an issue. The first progressive program Shirley implemented was the Job Posting program. It began in January 1982 just after the strike ended. The purpose of the program is to provide employees of Stone Specialities with career advancement opportunities by publicly "posting" or displaying all full-time permanent job openings on a bulletin board just outside the office of each of the plant departments. A second program, which involved annual employee performance evaluations and a set of salary administration policies and procedures, followed. The purpose of this program was to assess the relative demands of all salaried and hourly-rated positions and provide a basis on which employees would be fairly paid. The program was also designed to assist in establishing criteria for advancement and promotion; indicating possible career paths for individual employees; establishing training needs and clarifying the duties of individual job holders. Both the job posting and the performance evaluation programs complemented the educational assistance program that had been in place before Shirley's arrival. The educational assistance program paid the tuition fees for whatever educational or training course an employee wished to pursue on his or her own time after work. Company coverage of tuition fees depended on successful completion of the course. Except for a few workers whose first language is English, most plant workers with immigrant backgrounds do not participate in the educational assistance program. Generally, immigrant workers have too many family responsibilities after work to attend night classes or do not see attending night school as a way of improving their economic situation. Interestingly, the company's current lunch time English classes were arranged in response to low immigrant worker participation in the educational assistance program. When it became "apparent" to people working in the Personnel office that workers whom they assumed could benefit from English

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language training did not go to English classes after work because they had to make dinner and take care of their families, an effort was made to bring English classes to the workers. However, as will be discussed in greater detail in chapters 7 and 8, the reasons behind the plant people's lack of interest in upgrading their language and educational skills not only has to do with family responsibilities, but with a belief that upgrading their skills will not change their economic circumstances to any great degree.

5.3.5. Decertification

of the union

In November 1982, at the 10-month mark of the year-long union contract, the longer-term employees organized a petition requesting the government to decertify the union. Thus, in January 1983, while the union was trying to bargain its second agreement, some of the company's employees were petitioning for its decertification. While Shirley maintains that the company had to be very careful not to support or interfere with petition activities, the company was castigated by the Ontario Labour Relations Board for "sustained" behaviour aimed at persuading employees to vote the union out. At the decertification vote, which was ordered by the Board upon hearing the employees' application for the termination of the bargaining rights held by the union, the Labour Board was presented with evidence that during the bargaining/petitioning period, management had transferred about 100 employees from the non-unionized plant downtown to the suburban plant on a temporary basis. Non-unionized workers performed the same jobs as the unionized workers in the suburban plant, but were paid as much as $2.00 an hour more than their unionized counterparts. According to the Board, the tactic put the union in the worst possible position to survive the decertification vote which eliminated the union at Stone Specialities in April 1983. It felt that such behaviour was tantamount to a statement from Stone Specialities that employees would be financially rewarded if they voted to reject the union. For nonunionized workers, such a practice was, once again, evidence that the Stone family takes care of its family of loyal workers. Whether or not there was indeed intentional interference by Stone Specialities in trying to influence the workers' choice for unionization or decertification, by the time decertification activities were completed, Shirley's programs were all in place and ready to go and her department quickly got the suburban plant people involved in them. The birth of the Personnel Department and the development of its

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new programming at Stone is considered to be a significant event by some of the people who work there. Both managers and English-speaking employees believe that there has been greater access to new positions ever since Shirley became the Director of Personnel. According to one Englishspeaking employee, before Shirley came to the company, if you were not a "favourite", then you just didn't hear about a job opening or you were discouraged from trying for it. Some bosses didn't encourage moving on and didn't tell their employees about an opening because it was difficult to train new staff. Now everyone knows about an opening whether someone passes on the information or not. Despite the feeling that Shirley's personnel development programming has changed previous working conditions in the company, not all employees of the company equally participate in the programming. Some managers don't make time for employee performance interviews. As well, the program itself still allows room for grooming so that old ways of getting ahead interact with the new ways. To explain, the job posting program explicitly states that a job opening does not have to posted at all if the opening requires "a specific person, who, while performing the duties of a related job, has acquired the specialized training [for that job]". Thus, a person who is being groomed to take over a particular job will get that j o b without having to compete for it because he or she has already acquired the specialized training needed for that job. Finally, as mentioned above, although Shirley Wilson's progressive programming has provided several English-speaking plant employees with opportunities to move ahead in the company, it has had little impact on the working lives of most of the Portuguese immigrants on the production floor.

5.3.6. The big loss, lay-offs, and work sharing "When things get slow, everybody gets nervous - everyone knows that if things get too slow, their jobs may be at risk. For workers that may mean lay-off. For supervisors that may mean going back to the lines." (Antonio, Production supervisor). In 1980, the company's latest effort to diversify involved a jump into the video-game business - an effort which doubled its volume and tripled its earnings in three years. However, the rush of growth in the video-game industry attracted too many players and led to overproduction, priceslashing, bulging inventories and a huge loss of earnings for Stone Specialities in 1985. It was the first loss the company had ever had and it

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took them four years to regain the volume they lost. "The big loss" is another significant event in the company's history. It has been one of several events that provoked a company decision to design and market its own, not somebody else's toys - a decision that heralded the biggest change in the company since its decision to manufacture toys in the '50s. The big loss is also an event that has affected the people who work for the Stone family. In an attempt to initiate a "major turn around", the company reduced its staff by 30% which resulted in a major lay-off in October 1985. Lay-offs were determined by seniority and involved workers with up to six years' seniority. For the office people, the reduction of staff in 1985 resulted in a dramatic increase in workload for those workers who were not laid off, reduced impact of the progressive programming implemented only three years before, and a high turnover of staff who could not cope with the postlay-off working conditions. However, despite the adverse effects of the layoff, Stone Specialities was indeed successful in completing a major turnaround by the time of its annual stockholder's meeting in June 1986, only eight months after the lay-off. For the plant people in the Production Department, lay-offs were determined by general seniority at the company and by "job seniority": Bill, the Production Manager, wanted to protect those workers who could operate machines and thus those who were more skilled as well as those who had been there the longest. The department's use of seniority as a means of determining who is be laid-off in a work world where "unskilled" and "semi-skilled" workers are vulnerable to lay-offs and unemployment is a practice that feeds into the ideology that the Stone family takes care of its workers - at least its "old" workers, the ones that have been there the longest. It also feeds into the belief that loyalty to the Stone family pays off. In recent years, the company has tried to find an alternative to the temporary lay-offs it imposes on its plant workers and has tried to keep its work force working all year round. In 1986, the "work sharing program" was used as an alternative to lay-offs for the first time. The program, which involved the hourly-rated plant workers, was undertaken with permission from Canada's Unemployment Insurance Commission (UIC). Workers worked four days a week and were off the fifth. The UIC paid the employees who were off work 60% of their wages for that day. In 1986, the work sharing program lasted about 4 months. Since then it has been implemented for 10 weeks in 1989 and for about four months in 1990. For the Portuguese women on the lines, work sharing days are wel-

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corned. The difference in salary between work sharing days and a regular work week is not large enough to bring about economic hardship and having Fridays off gives the women an extra day for their chores at home and thus a free day on the weekends to relax which they don't usually have when they work five days a week. Luisa, one of the supervisors in Production, reports that work sharing is not only "better for the ones that just started (those without seniority)", it is also "better for us [the supervisors] not to lose good girls". Thus, work sharing protects the company as well as its workers. According to Philip, the Personnel Manager, if the company lays-off people, it "will never find them again". As reported above, today, there is competition for "cheap labour" and when the company experiences a labour shortage, it often has no choice but to hire "temps", that is temporary labour. The hiring of temporary labour has been problematic for Stone Specialities. Temporary labour often expects more money per hour than the company pays its permanent work force and when they don't receive the wages they expect, "temps" at Stone Specialities have been known to instigate a strike or not show up for work after someone has invested a lot of time and energy training them. When asked why work sharing was not implemented in 1985 when 30% of the staff was reduced, Philip talks about "a foreseeable future". In 1985, the big lay-off took place because there were no commitments for orders and no foreseeable future. In 1986, while the company did not have any written commitments and did not want to fill any orders that had not been confirmed in writing, it did have verbal commitments and the expectation that written confirmation for toy orders would be coming shortly. Philip, who was responsible for the implementation of the work sharing program, said he was able to use that expectation to find an alternative to lay-offs which were to take place three weeks before Christmas. This brief sketch of selected events in Stone Specialities' history completes this chapter's ethnographic presentation of work life at the factory. In summary, Stone Specialities is a family business whose extensive hiring of Portuguese immigrants has encouraged the growth of a Portuguese "family" on the manufacturing floor. The relationship between members of the Stone family and members of the Portuguese "family" who work for them is characterized by particular ideological rights and obligations. The Stone family is expected to take adequate care of the Portuguese workers in its company family and Portuguese workers are expected to provide the Stone family with their loyalty. An examination of these rights and obligations provides us with insight into the study's theoretical interest

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in the relationship between language, ideology and relations of power. During the struggle of the 1971 strike, ideology was able to sustain relations of power through traditional, gendered ways of living. The process of living ideology by abiding by gendered community rules of conduct creates an alliance between the Stone family and the Portuguese "family" even though the potential for conflict between the two groups as labour and capital is great. As in the preceding chapter, the ethnographic information presented in this chapter provides us with a sense of some of the ideological background knowledge and expectations Portuguese workers at Stone Specialities bring to their interactions on the production floor. The ethnographic descriptions also provide us with some understanding of the social, economic and political circumstances that have shaped their lives as emigrants from Portugal and immigrant workers in Toronto. In the following two chapters, both these sets of understandings will be used to analyze workers' language practices at work and interpret what social meaning these language practices may have for them. An attempt will be made to link the ways people communicate at work to their rights and obligations as "family'Vcommunity members, i.e., their ideological or common-sense practices, and the social circumstances under which these practices are lived out. Ethnographic understandings will also be used to discuss the economic and social consequences associated with particular language practices at work. However, before an interpretive social analysis of language practices at Stone Specialities can be undertaken, it is necessary to know what these practices are. Chapter 6 begins by documenting people's language behaviour in the Production Department at Stone Specialities and examining the ways different workers use Portuguese and English to communicate at work.

Chapter 6 Bilingual life and language choice on the production floor

In this chapter, the analysis "zooms in" (Mehan, Hertweck and Meihls 1986) on the research setting to document what language practices characterize the manufacturing floor at Stone Specialities and to explore what meanings particular language practices carry for immigrant workers working there. While many of the employees working at Stone Specialities are multilingual and speak languages other than English outside of work, English is the only language used at the company in all but two plant departments, the Production Department and the Textiles Department. In these departments, both English and Portuguese are spoken throughout the work day. While the Production and Textile Departments are not necessarily less linguistically heterogenous than the other departments, the number of Portuguese workers and supervisors in the manufacturing departments recruited into positions their network contacts hold - is far greater than the number of employees of any other single linguistic group. As mentioned in the last chapter, of the 52 day shift assemblers working on the lines in the Production Department in the fall of 1988, 33 (63%) were Portuguese. In addition to the Portuguese line workers, the maintenance man, 75% of the materials handlers, 75% of the Quality Control (QC) inspectors and half of the line supervisors are also Portuguese. Thus, while there are speakers of other languages in Production and Textiles, it is English and Portuguese that are used to communicate at work and it is Portuguese that people learn as second and third languages rather than Italian, Greek, Spanish, Chinese, Somali or one of the several East Indian languages spoken by workers on the production floor. Other languages are occasionally used when several workers speaking the same language happen to be placed next to each other on a line or at one of the machines, but this does not occur on a regular basis. Interestingly, there are quite a few line workers who speak better Portuguese than English as their second language. This particular characteristic of language use on the manufacturing floor is discussed further later on in this chapter. As mentioned in chapter 3, the sociolinguistic analysis that follows is based on data collected in the Production Department as workers in the Textiles Department did not wish to have their interactions tape recorded.

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As also mentioned earlier, limiting the recording of conversations to the Production Department does not seriously limit the power of this ethnography to answer the production floor study's research questions. Broadly speaking, the ethnography seeks to discover what implications existing linguistic and cultural practices on the manufacturing floor have for language training efforts in the workplace classroom. Since almost all of the students in the lunchtime English language classes are from the Production Department, an analysis of linguistic and cultural practices in that particular department should provide us with the information we are looking for.

6.1. English and Portuguese: symbols of authority and solidarity on the production floor. As reported in the last chapter, the Portuguese manufacturing community exists as a separate entity within the wider Stone community and its separate social identity is symbolized by the use of Portuguese. Portuguese, then, has social value as a symbol of distinctness and as a symbol of a speaker's identification with others in the Portuguese manufacturing "family"/ community. As mentioned earlier, membership in the "family" does not depend on whether or not a speaker is actually an emigrant from Portugal. Production and Textiles workers who are emigrants from Italy and Chile for example, but who speak Portuguese to Portuguese speakers on the line are considered members of the "family". As the majority of "family" members in the Production Department are assembly line workers and machine operators, Portuguese is associated with talk between people whose work roles are directly related to assembly-line work, that is, between people whose everyday work consists of assembling different products to meet specific efficiency and quality control standards. Portuguese-speaking line workers and supervisors use Portuguese when they are preparing to get the line started, talking about tools on the line, positioning tools on the line, talking about how to make a job easier, complaining about a job, leaving the line, preparing to stop the line, giving orders and instructions and when they are socializing on the line, that is, discussing their families, neighbours, the lunchtime English classes, and each other. The use of Portuguese contrasts with the meanings that people assign to the use of English at Stone Specialities. English is used by people outside the Portuguese manufacturing "family'Vcommunity and is associated with

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talk, paper work and work roles that are not part of line work and the assembly of different products. For example, English is the language associated with Production supervisory and management roles and meetings in the Production office. Since work off the lines is generally more highly paid and prestigious than work on the line, "getting a better job" is associated with using English at work. In a meeting with Bill, the Production Manager, Jorge, a 17-year old materials handler in Production, was told that he should go to school and learn English because a higherpaying, more prestigious job as a shipper came up recently and he could have moved into it if he had spoken English. English is also associated with ownership of the company and the authority of management. All meetings and conversations that take place between people working at the managerial level occur in English. In contrast, as a symbol of solidarity and group membership in the manufacturing "family'Vcommunity, Portuguese is associated with the rights, obligations, and expectations members of that community have of each other. Members of the "family" not only expect financial assistance and emotional support when they find themselves in a personal crisis, they also expect to give and receive assistance in fulfilling their everyday work responsibilities on the production line.

6.1.1. Making friends and getting assistance on the line: Portuguese as a symbol of solidarity Oh, linha! Andas täo depressa, linha! O h , line! You go so fast, line.'(Elsa, line worker) Members of the "family'Vcommunity, people who are "sisters" and "friends" on the line, are expected to help each other "keep the line up". If one person on the line is ahead because her particular task is easier and takes less time to complete, she is expected to help someone else whose work is piling up. Similarly, if a person on the line needs to leave the line, someone else is expected to pitch in and help do that person's work while she is gone. Making friends on the line and ensuring access to assistance in case

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your work piles up or you need to leave the line is related to knowing how to talk to people on the line14: Tara:

If I am on the line with you and I want to be your friend, what should I do to be your friend on line?

Angela:

So all you have to do is talk with us. And if we see you can't do the job properly, then we will help you. ***

Odile:

We will help show you what you have to do. And you need to talk to the others, so we can know about yourself.

Tara:

What kind of things are important to know about me? What should I tell you about myself?

Odile:

We would like to know where you worked before. If you like to work with us. We will help you to get your hands on the work so you won't feel nervous on the line. ***

Tara:

What kind of things do people talk about on the lines?

Angela:

Mostly family problems or they talk about their sons and daughters. Family matters. ***

Augusta:

Sometimes they talk about cook[ing], movies. ***

John:

If you're married. If you're single. If you're dating. They all want to know that kind of stuff. Or why aren't you married? ***

Lidia:

You talk about your recipes or ask about a person who everyone is talking about. People talk about who's sick, events in people's lives. ***

Raquel:

Some talk everyday about the cook[ing]. Some girls they talk about their husbands. Everyday about the kids. Shopping. Everything. Everything.

Symbols of authority and solidarity on the production

Tara:

This is mostly in Portuguese.

Raquel:

Yeah.

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As Raquel confirms (as well as data tape recorded off the lines), talk that provides access to friendship on the lines and thus to assistance on the lines is talk that is spoken in Portuguese. Women on the lines - including women whose first language is not Portuguese, but Spanish or Italian use Portuguese on the lines to gain access to friendship and assistance when they need it. This phenomenon of women making friends by talking to each other has been documented by other sociolinguists studying the relationship between language and gender (e.g., Coates 1989; Jones 1980). On the production floor, the value of such friendship and assistance is not to be underestimated. When asked what advice she would give me if I were new to the company and wanted to make friends on the lines, Raquel replies, "If you have a good job already, don't come here. Because this is a change and you have to make other friends." Friendships at work are valuable - valuable enough not to leave a job and risk not finding them elsewhere. Without friends on the line, without access to assistance, assembly workers run the risk of losing their jobs for not being able to meet line standards. Since there is a relationship between using Portuguese on the lines and being able to meet the social goal of making friends in order to access assistance on the lines, the fact that some line workers whose first language is Italian or Spanish speak better Portuguese than English is not that surprising. Nor is the fact that very little English is learned and/or used by some Portuguese speakers working on the lines. Contrary to common belief, workers who have been on the lines for 16-22 years and who still don't speak English at work are not unmotivated or unable to learn English. For some workers there are benefits associated with the learning and use of Portuguese on the lines that are simply not associated with the learning and use of English. The content of Portuguese talk that is used to gain access to friendship and assistance is also interesting. As Lidia reports above, on the lines people talk about each other and the events going on in each others' lives. This data supports Deborah Jones' claim that talk or gossip between women has to do with "personal experience" (1980:195). It also fits Deborah Coates' finding that discussions in all-women groups typically involve "people and feelings" (1989:97). On the lines, talk or gossip provides individuals with information that is needed for "talking

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bad" about other individuals. "Talking bad" is an important sociolinguistic act on the lines, and it is described in detail later on in this chapter.

6.2. Communicating with non-speakers of Portuguese Since Portuguese is the language associated with talk and work on the line and since Portuguese is the language that Portuguese- speaking line workers use "among themselves", there are very few situations in which the line workers need to cross the language boundary and use English at work. In general, very little codeswitching from Portuguese to English or from English to Portuguese is overheard on the lines. So seldom is English heard on the lines, that many people working on the Production floor assume that the line workers do not understand or speak English at all. Even after spending close to two years listening to people talk on the Production floor, I, too, was surprised to hear how much English the women on the lines were actually able to understand and use during our interviews and how much less they depended on the translator working with me than I expected. One situation where English is used by people on the lines occurs when a line worker needs or wants to accommodate a non-speaker of Portuguese. Such speakers may include an English speaking supervisor who is responsible for the line the worker is working on, the Englishspeaking manager of the department, the English teacher who holds language classes at the factory or a non-speaker of Portuguese who is also working on the line. In Exchange A, Cecilia and Rosa, who are working at the front of the line, are discussing how many pieces need to be produced before the run they are working on ("the monkeys" run) is finished and how work for the woman at the end of the line would be made easier if the supervisor put another woman in her position to help share the work. When Jim, an English speaking supervisor, passes by the line, Cecilia switches from Portuguese to English to ask him exactly how many pieces they are expected to complete. Exchange A Cecilia:

Havia de ser vinte mil, agora cinquenta mil. Cinquenta mil para a gente descansar daqui para fora. Se ela deitar duas mulheres no fim da linha

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e e mais comodo. 'Should be twenty thousand, now fifty thousand. Fifty thousand until we can rest. If she puts two women at the end of the line it is more comfortable.' Rosa:

Ah?

Cecilia:

Se ela deitar duas mulheres no fim da linha... 'If she puts two women at the end of the line...'

Rosa:

(interrupting) Ja esta. (interrupting) 'There already are.'

Cecilia:

Acho que e so uma mulher. Ί think there is only one woman.'

Rosa:

Tava duas. 'There were two.'

Cecilia:

Ε duas? 'Is it two?' (Pause)

Cecilia:

Hey, Jim. How many thousands the monkeys? How many thousands?

However, situations where speakers of Portuguese need to accommodate non-speakers of Portuguese and when language switch is triggered by an interlocutor's linguistic proficiency do not occur very often: only two of the five supervisors who usually supervise the lines are non-speakers of Portuguese"; individual, formal meetings with the manager only take place once a year; one-hour English classes are only held twice a week and there is generally only one - if there are any - nonspeakers of Portuguese working on the lines. Thus there aren't many

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occasions when a Portuguese line worker finds herself in a situation where she needs or wants to use English. As table 6.1 illustrates, 5 out of 24 (21.%) Portuguese line workers have only Portuguese-speaking ties at work; 3 out of 24 (12.5%) speak Portuguese to more than 90% of their social ties and 9 out of 24 (37.5%) speak Portuguese to more than 80% of their social ties. This means that 17 out of 24 line workers (over 70%) speak Portuguese to more than 80% of their social ties at work. Table 6.1 Production

line workers and social network

% of Portuguese social ties at work

ties

Number of line workers

100%

5

90-99%

3

80-89%

9

70-79%

4

60-69%

2

50-59%

1

40-49%

0

30-39%

0

20-29%

0

10-19%

0

0-9%

0

Total:

24

Working as they do on assembly lines run by mostly Portuguese coworkers and supervisors, people's ties with speakers of Portuguese are ties that can be described as "dense" and "multiplex". Each line worker is part of a dense network in which all or almost all of the individuals to whom she is linked at work are also linked to each other. As well, most of the line workers are connected to each other in several different ways. The women working on the lines are not only co-workers or "sisters", they are also neighbours, fellow parishioners, and kin. The high percentage of dense, multiplex network ties with speakers of Portuguese "imposes" the use of Portuguese on the production lines. As will be discussed in the next chapter, line workers who do not have access to English-speaking network ties do not have access to multiple role-relationships in interactions at work and do not have access to situations where they can learn and use English.

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6.2.1. Playing the role of language broker On the occasions when a Portuguese line worker with a limited understanding and command of English finds herself working with an English speaking supervisor, it is often not difficult for her to understand what she is expected to do on the line since the supervisor will demonstrate the job. When asked if she needed a translator to explain what the English speaking supervisor was saying to her when she first came to the company and didn't speak a word of English, Fernanda says, "No. You understand... You tell by the hands." Rosa reports that on the lines the jobs are mostly the same so that she knows enough English to talk to an English speaking supervisor. When communication between an English-speaking supervisor and a Portuguese-speaking line worker is impeded, one of the other Portuguese line workers will intercede and assume the role of language broker, translating messages for both interlocutors. This practice of translating messages is understood as "helping people" and since the use of English is associated with assistance, it is a sanctioned way of crossing the language border between the Portuguese manufacturing "family'Vcommunity and English-speaking supervisory management. However, although it is sanctioned, the role of language broker is not always a conflict-free role for a line worker to assume. Alice, who has been working for an English-speaking supervisor for close to 18 of the 23 years she's been with the factory reports that she doesn't like to have to tell the Portuguese line workers to "speed up", but has to when her supervisor asks her to and is standing right behind her. A conflict-free situation where a co-worker may assume the role of a language broker is in English class when a question posed by the teacher in English is not understood. In Exchange B, which takes place in Anabela's English class, Sofia uses English to answer a question that Anabela has asked her in English and that she has understood. In Exchange C, which also takes place in Anabela's English class, Sofia uses a broker, co-worker and co-student Dulce, to find out what her teacher has said to her in English. Exchange Β Anabela: (to Sofia)What's the soup today? Sofia: I don't know.

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Exchange C Anabela: (to the class) Anabela: (to Sofia)

We're going to listen to another poem Ready?

Sofia:

Eu näo comprendo. Ί don't understand.'

Dulce: (to Sofia)

Ela disse, "Estas pronta "? 'She said, "Are you ready?"'

Sofia: (to Anabela)

Sim, Eu estou pronta. 'Yes, I'm ready.'

As exemplified above, generally, people only use brokers if they don't understand what is being said to them in English or if they need assistance to clearly transmit a message of their own to a non-speaker of Portuguese. Bill, the Production Manager, reports, "If a lady has something that she feels is very critical, she'll make sure she'll get someone to explain it to me also." But people only use a translator when they feel their command of English is not strong enough to transmit their own message. As Ines explains, "Sometimes I have a translator and sometimes I can manage by myself." Bill usually has a language broker, either a Portuguese speaker with a strong command of English, that is, one of his supervisors, or an English speaker with a good command of Portuguese such as Gloria, the foreperson, attend meetings about work performance and raises because he "doesn't want someone to go away thinking I've said one thing when I mean another." The following exchange which was fieldnoted, not tape recorded, is an example of a worker being assisted by a broker when something important is at stake for the worker. Interestingly, the worker, Elsa, did not originally intend to use a broker to ask Bill, the Production Manager, if she could take seven weeks' vacation. She had been coached by her Englishspeaking supervisor to say "I would like seven weeks' vacation" and had intended to speak to Bill herself. However, halfway through the exchange, when Elsa does not understand something Bill is saying, John, one of Portuguese QC inspectors, who happens to be in the office, jumps into the exchange to translate Bill's message for her.

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Exchange D Returning to the lines, Yvette approaches Elsa and asks her,"Are you ready to talk to your boss now?" Elsa nods and they both walk to the Production office so Elsa can ask Bill if she can take seven weeks' vacation. Outside the office, Yvette helps Elsa practice one last time by having her repeat "I would like seven weeks' vacation." Inside the office, in front of Bill's desk, Elsa manages to say, "Portugal, seven weeks." Bill, who has been told by Yvette that Elsa wants to go back to Portugal for seven weeks, answers, "No problem." He then asks Elsa when she wants to go. Elsa understands and is able to answer the question about dates. However, when Bill tells her that he wants her to come back with the exact dates on the plane ticket, Elsa gets confused and John ends up translating Bill's message for her. Yvette interrupts John and tells him that he's not helping. She says he's supposed to help Elsa speak English. John answers that he is helping, that he is helping Elsa understand Bill. The rest of the information Bill wants to give Elsa is translated into Portuguese for Elsa by John. In Exchange D, John jumps into the exchange between Elsa and Bill because he believes that by assuming the role of language broker he can help Elsa complete the exchange successfully and get her the seven-week vacation she desires. The use of English for translating messages between the line workers and management then, is also a sanctioned use of English within the "family'Vcommunity since such translation is considered a way of helping people. However, as mentioned above, the broker role is not always an easy role to assume. Sometimes it is a role that is associated with conflict and tension. Production supervisor Antonio - Tony - reports that most of the times he has been asked to translate for the manager or the Personnel Department have been "when people are in trouble and the company wants to make sure that the person understands what she has done wrong and what is expected of her". In such situations Tony reports that It's kind of hard for me to just translate and keep independent from the conversations. You're aggravated, you're having a fight with the line leader [supervisor], you're aggravated with

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management, with Bill, Bill is aggravated with you, you tell me that you did this because of ... and I tell Bill, "she's saying that she did ..." "Oh, no!", he's saying, "Oh, can't you see..." I can see, but jeez, give me a break 'kay? It's really hard not to get involved because they're talking to you as well. Sometimes, once in while, I got my opinion, and I'm not allowed, I realize it shouldn't be, but once in a while I got a little trouble for that. I always have the tendency to stick for the weaker. That's my problem, [emphasis is mine] As a speaker of Portuguese and part of the Portuguese manufacturing "family" which strives to provide assistance to its members when necessary, it is not surprising that Tony feels obligated to "stick for the weaker [that is, the Portuguese worker]" in conflict situations, and not "keep independent from the conversations". Assisting other members of the "family" not only involves helping people whose work has piled up or making it possible for people to leave the line; it also involves providing support for those individuals who find themselves in conflict with those in authority. For Tony, who is both a member of the Portuguese manufacturing "family" and a company supervisor, however, providing this kind of assistance is a "problem" since in order to meet the obligations associated with his work role of supervisor, Tony is expected to support the authority of the manager when translating his English message. Thus, the role of language broker, which is most commonly assumed by those who have multiple social roles at work - the role of "friend" or "brother" associated with Portuguese and the role of supervisor associated with English - is a role that can be characterized by conflict. The association of conflict or tension with the use of English in the role of broker can act as a deterrent to people's desire to learn and use English at work in order to get a better paying job in the company. The possibility of experiencing the kind of conflict that Tony describes above may be too costly for many line workers and thus may act as a disincentive to the learning and use of English and subsequent promotion on the factory floor. As Tony pointed out in the last chapter, if things get too slow at work, supervisors may be asked to return to the lines. As explained above, survival on the lines depend on friendships that provide assistance when work piles up. Putting such friendships in jeopardy may be too risky. Thus, not only are there benefits to using Portuguese on the lines, there are risks to using English.

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The fact that the language brokers at Stone Specialities are people who are expected to support the authority of English-speaking management also has implications for those workers who need to use brokers when something important is at stake. In Exchange D, John was indeed able to help Elsa get the seven-week vacation she desired since Bill had already decided that her being away from work for that long a period was "no problem". However, if Bill had decided that he could not permit Elsa to be away from work for seven weeks, John may not have been able to help Elsa get the vacation time she wanted. He may have felt it was not his place to insist that Elsa be given seven weeks' vacation, even if she had asked him to translate that insistence. Thus, for workers who have something important at stake, the use of brokers may be problematic. This issue will be taken up again in chapter nine when the discussion moves to a consideration of the implications this study has for English language training in the workplace.

6.2.2. Accommodating

non-speakers of Portuguese

While line workers who use Portuguese among themselves most often use English or avail themselves of a language broker when they need to accommodate particular people - a non-Portuguese speaking supervisor, the Production Manager or the English teacher - they also occasionally use English to accommodate a non-speaker of Portuguese who happens to be present on the line. As mentioned earlier, there is generally only one - if any - non-Portuguese-speaking workers on most lines, so examples of codeswitching to accommodate a non-speaker of Portuguese are rare. In Exchange E, however, my own presence as a non-speaker of Portuguese on the line provides such an example. In Exchange E, Olga and Irene are talking about Augusta who has a cold when Olga suddenly turns towards the spot where I am standing, observing the interaction. Upon catching my eyes on her, Olga switches to English to include me in the conversation. Exchange Ε Olga:

Uma pessoa quando estci constipada nem cheiro no nariz tern, (catching Tara's eyes on her) can smell nothing, when people have a cold can't smell anything.

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'When a person has a cold she can't even smell in her nose', (catching Tara's eyes on her) can smell nothing, when people have a cold can't smell anything.

6.3. Communicating with speakers of Portuguese "Talking is how we understand each other."(Olga, line worker).

6.3.1. "Talking bad" to speakers of Portuguese Earlier in this chapter, it was argued that talk in Portuguese provides production line workers with access to friendship and assistance on the lines. If you are new on the line, the workers will "show you what you have to do" but "you need to talk to [them], so [they] can know about [you]." This kind of talk, which provides individuals with information about important events going on in each others' lives, allows for emotional and financial support in times of crisis. However, it also provides individuals with information that can be used for "talking bad" about each other. To understand the linguistic practice of "talking bad" ("fala mau"), a brief discussion of the ways people understand their work on the production floor is needed. I will begin this discussion with a description of the different ways the supervisors in the Production Department understand and do their work. While all the supervisors in the Production Department share the same job description and are expected to do the same job, the supervisory behaviour some of the Portuguese supervisors display on the floor is different from the supervisory behaviour the English-speaking supervisors display. The two Portuguese female supervisors are referred to as "working supervisors" and spend a good part of their day working on the lines, helping their crew complete their job tasks so they can meet the day's standards. Such assistance can take the form of serving their "girls" materials, helping a particular "girl" whose work is piling up, replacing a "girl" who has to leave the line, cleaning the immediate area surrounding the line of garbage and dust and even taking on an assembly job themselves. The English-speaking (also female) supervisors very rarely, if ever, clean up or do assembly work. To understand why the supervisors take up their work in different ways, it is helpful to examine what those in

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the Portuguese manufacturing community understand "work" to be. Working on the lines, assembling products and cleaning up at the end of the day is "work" while watching others assembling products on the lines and cleaning up isn't. People who watch others working on the line are not working because they are not producing. Their work can not be seen. If an individual can point to the work, for example, to the number of pieces, she has produced that day, then that individual has worked. Work values are strongly held in the Portuguese manufacturing "family"/community. When asked what might be changed at the factory, one of the Portuguese supervisors says: I think that everybody should be working... I'd eliminate full departments, or almost eliminate them. Like QC [Quality Control], We need QC, but we only need a manager in there and all the others [the inspectors] I'd put them to work. I just can't see them paying people... to sit with a clipboard and watch people work. That goes for Quality Control and most of our supervisors, [emphasis is mine] Work values that embrace assembly work as real work and all other work as "watching people work" are vigorously maintained through the communication act of "talking bad" about those who do not do line work. The day one of the Portuguese QC inspectors - who had started at the company as a line worker - picked up her clipboard after being trained by another QC inspector, "people said, 'here's another one to "mamar" [to suck]'" (further discussion of Portuguese workers who, like this QC inspector, have adopted different values and language practices is taken up in chapter 7). To maintain their membership within the Portuguese "family", and to avoid being "talked bad" about, it is necessary for Portuguese supervisors to demonstrate their adherence to Portuguese work values. Thus, they assume the role of "working supervisors" and help the workers complete tiring, manual production line tasks. The practice of "talking bad" is not limited to interactions involving people like the QC inspectors who work off the lines, that is, outside the Portuguese manufacturing "family"/community. It is also displayed in interactions between Portuguese line workers and "working supervisors", that is, within the Portuguese manufacturing "family". Here, "talking bad" can be seen as a linguistic means of upholding and maintaining a particular set of goals that provide people with a way of managing the everyday activities of doing production line work. Between co-workers

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and "working supervisors", "talking bad" can be understood as a means of asserting social control in order to manage conditions of subordination. One of the values and goals held by workers on the line is that of distributing work tasks as fairly as possible so that some workers are not always taking on heavier and more tiring work tasks than others. After 1622 years on the lines, the workers know which jobs are more difficult than others and how job tasks can be distributed more fairly. To illustrate, in an exchange with Rosa, Cecilia talks about how many pieces need to be produced before the run they are working on is finished and how work for the woman at the end of the line would be more comfortable and more fairly distributed if the supervisor had another worker share her job task: Havia de ser vinte mil, agora cinquenta mil. Cinquenta mil para a gente descansar daqui para fora. Se ela deitar duas mulheres no fim da linha e e mais comodo. 'Should be twenty thousand, now fifty thousand. Fifty thousand until we can rest. If she puts two women at the end of the line it is more comfortable.' Trying to ensure that work tasks are as comfortable as possible is one way workers deal with the physical demands of working on an assembly line. Ensuring that all line workers get their fair share of difficult tasks is another. If one worker looks down the line and discovers that someone else on the line does not have as difficult a task as she does, that worker may engage in "talking bad" about the worker who isn't working as hard. In Exchange F, Cecilia is at the front of the line. The assembly job consists of filling different coloured plastic containers with a number of small plastic animals. One of the tasks on the line consists of putting a cover on each container that comes down the line. It is considered an easy task and Lucia is the worker who has that task. Exchange F Cecilia (to line):

A Lucia e que esta fechando? 'Is it Lucia who is closing [the containers]?'

Raquel:

Yes! Säo muito bons de fechar. Yes! 'They are very good [easy] to close.'

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Säo bons, por isso e que elafoi para la! 'They are good [easy], that's why she went there.'

Lucia:

Tambem podes vir para aqui se quiseres. 'You can also come here if you want.'

Cecilia:

Ai, Lucia! Ningitem estä falando mal. Olha que tu tambem! 'Ai, Lucia! Nobody is talking bad. See that you too [You are always waiting for people to talk bad about you/See that you on't either]'.

In the exchange above, Lucia, who has overheard Cecilia and Raquel talking about her, responds with "You can also come here if you want." This is interpreted by Cecilia as a defensive remark to being "talked bad" about. Having publicly pointed out to those within hearing distance on the line that Lucia has the easiest job on the line - making it difficult for Lucia to have the easiest job the next time around - Cecilia distances herself from her remarks (she, too, needs to keep up friendships on the lines) by denying that she was "talking bad" and insisting - "Olha que tu tambem" that Lucia is always waiting for people to "talk bad" about her or that Lucia shouldn't "talk bad" about others (See that you don't either) by accusing them of "talking bad" about her when they were not (The meaning of "Olha que tu tambem'TSee that you too" in this exchange was interpreted differently by two different translators. One thought it meant "You are always waiting for people to talk bad about you" while the other thought it meant "See that you don't [talk bad] either"). In initiating the exchange described above, Cecilia receives support from Raquel that enables her to "talk bad" about Lucia. When Cecilia asks the entire line, "A Lucia e que estä fechando?"/'Is it Lucia who is closing [the containers]?'", it is Raquel who responds: "Yes! Säo muito bons de fechar"/Yes! 'They are very good [easy] to close.'" This response provides Cecilia with the opportunity to say, "Säo bons, por isso e que ela foi para MM'They are good [easy], that's why she went there.'" The alliance that Cecilia and Raquel form on the lines through their friendship and talk seems similar to the alliances Tannen (1994) talks about in her most recent book From 9 to 5. Tannen observes that alliances with others serve women well on the job. In the professional realm, "having social contacts with many people means that when you need them, the channels

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of communication to them are open. If you see them at lunch, you can ask for information or present your view of a situation in an informal way. If you have had lunch with them in the past, and your relationship is friendly, you call them directly (knowing they will take your call) and ask for what you need or what you want to know" (1994:211-213). As the exchange of "talking bad" discussed above demonstrates, like the professional women in Tannen's book, women on the production lines also need to make friends to create alliances at work. "Talking bad" is powerful means of effecting social control among members of the "family". In Exchange G, Olga, who had just seen Luisa, the "working supervisor" of the line, pass by, noticed that her eyes were red. Aloud, she wondered why. Fatimä suggested it might be because someone had "talked bad" to Luisa and that her eyes were red because she had been crying. When Olga disagrees, Fatimä restates her opinion that being "talked bad" about can make someone cry. Exchange G Fatimä:

Eu digo-te uma coisa se me disserem uma simples palavra que näo me caia bem eu sou capaz de estar ο dia inteiro a chorar, sinto-me tanto, tanto, tanto de uma me palavra que me deem. 'I'm telling you something if someone tells me a simple word that doesn't feel good I'm able to cry all day I feel so much, much, much one bad word that is said to me.'

Olga:

Tu sentes-te muito, mas se tu tiveres uma pessoa intima doente, muito doente, tu näo choras com mais dor que se ja qualquer coisa que te digam aqui. 'You feel it a lot, but if you have a close person who is ill, very ill, don't you cry with more pain than about something that they say to you here?'

Language behaviour that is powerful enough to make an individual "cry all day" and that has the power to inflict pain that can be compared to the pain of having a close friend or family member fall very ill is language behaviour that also has the power to assert social control on the

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lines: control that is used to manage local, everyday work activities that must be completed in order to bring home a pay check. It is interesting to note here that all instances of "talking bad" in the data can be attributed to women. It is possible, then, that "talking bad" is a gendered linguistic practice that is performed solely by women. Unfortunately, interactional data of men's linguistic practices on the production floor, which is needed to support such an hypothesis, was not collected. This is because all interactional data between Portuguese workers was tape recorded off the production lines and no men were assigned to the lines during the period of tape recording. The male production workers were busy transporting raw materials and finished goods to and from the lines. If data on male interactional practices had been collected and if that data had demonstrated that "talking bad" was indeed a gendered linguistic pratice, then the strategy of "talking bad" to manage activities and relations of everyday life on the production lines would have provided support for Gal's (1989) argument that women's "special verbal skills" can be seen as strategic responses to positions of powerlessness. The idea that "talking bad" may be a gendered linguistic practice performed solely by women is also supported by the intuitive sense that "talking bad" is different from male linguistic practices described in other workplace ethnographies. For example, in his ethnographic study Learning to Labour, Paul Willis (1977/1988) reports that many of the verbal exchanges between British working-class men on the shopfloor are not serious or about work activities at all. They are jokes or "kiddings". Linguistic skill on the shopfloor consists of being able to identify the points on which you are being "kidded" and to have appropriate responses ready in order to avoid further baiting. While these acts of joking or kidding by the men in Willis' study do indeed sound different from the "talking bad" done by the Portuguese women on the lines, it is interesting to note that one form of "kiddings" between British working-class men involves pretending to "talk bad" about someone. One of the foundry workers in Willis' study reports the following when he is asked about joking on the shopfloor: "Oh, there's all sorts, millions of them [jokes], 'Want to hear what he said about you', and he never said a thing, you know. Course you know the language, at work like. 'What you been saying about me?' Ί said nothing.' Oh, you're a bloody liar', and all this." (1977/1988:55). While pretending to "talk bad" is understood as a joke by the foundry worker above, it can also be seen as "talking bad" at a distance. By

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pretending that someone else is "talking bad" about a co-worker, the person who is kidding is able to "talk bad" about that worker, but not assume responsibility for his words. Thus, it is not at all clear that the men's "kiddings" on the shopfloor are truly different from the women's "talking bad" on the production lines. The question of whether "talking bad" is a gendered linguistic practice remains an empirical question that can not be addressed in this study. Had my data been able to demonstrate that the act of "talking bad" was indeed related to the management of activities and relations associated with women's subordinate position of production line worker, it would have been possible to provide support for Gal's (1989) argument that women's "special verbal skills" can be seen as strategic responses to positions of powerlessness. Returning to the analysis of "talking bad" begun above, it has been argued that Portuguese line workers "talk bad" to manage local, everyday work activities that must be completed in order to bring home a pay cheque. "Talking bad" is also used by the two female Portuguese "working supervisors" to manage their own everyday work tasks. To illustrate, in Exchanges Η and I below, one of the Portuguese "working supervisors" "talks bad" to worker 2 in order to put an end to the complaints the workers on her line have about the job they are doing. In Exchanges Η and I, the "working supervisor's" crew is working with toy cars that have been returned to the company. The women at the front of the line are testing the cars to see which ones don't work and need to be repaired and which ones do work and can be cleaned up to be sold again. The cars that function are sent down the line to be cleaned up with cleaning solvent and small brushes. The women featured in Exchanges Η and I are responsible for cleaning the cars. Cleaning up merchandise that has been returned is a job that the women on the lines don't like. As stated earlier, merchandise that has been returned to the company is commonly referred to as "garbage" and repairing and cleaning "garbage" does not hold the same satisfaction that producing new merchandise holds.

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Exchange Η Worker 1:

A escola nestes dias de limpezci devia demorar dois horas. 'School in these days of cleaning should take two hours.' [The one hour lunch time ESL classes should last two hours while we're cleaning the toy cars.]

Worker 2:

Isso e que era bom! 'That would be good!' (Silence for several seconds)

Worker 2:

Se tivessemos um spray com sabäo era bom. 'If we had a spray with soap it would be good.'

Worker 1:

Porque näo uma banheira? 'Why not a bathtub?'

Worker 2:

Ja agora ficava tudo limpo duma vez! Näo achas Supervisor? 'That way everything would be clean at once. Don't you think Supervisor?'

Supervisor:

(sarcastically) Eu ja sentia a falta de te ouvirfalar. (sarcastically) 'I've felt the absence of listening to you talk.' [I've missed the sound of your voice.]

Exchange I Worker 2:

Quando estou cansada de limpar a minha casa deixo para a semana seguinte. 'When I'm tired of cleaning my house I leave it for the next week.'

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Supervisor:

Entao amanha näo vens! Ja estas cansada de limpar carros? 'So tomorrow you're not coming! Are you already tired of cleaning cars?'

Worker 2:

Näo. Ainda sao so dois dias! 'No. It's only two days!' [No. We've only been cleaning cars for two days!]

By "talking bad" to Worker 2 in front of the others on the line, the "working supervisor" effectively puts an end to the complaining on her line. Evidence that the utterances "I've already felt the absence of listening to you talk" and "So tomorrow you're not coming! Are you already tired of cleaning cars?" are indeed understood by worker 2 as reprimands is confirmed in her last response to the supervisor "No. It's only two days!". It is also confirmed several minutes later when the "working supervisor" leaves the line to take care of some other business and one of the Portuguese materials handlers passes by and stops to talk to worker 2. Having overhead the previous exchange, the materials handler asks worker 2 if she was given "shit" (if she was reprimanded). When worker 2 answers, "Näo quero saber", I don't care, the materials handler replies, "Ja levaste shit outra ved", 'You did take shit again'! (you were reprimanded again!) and they both laugh. By acknowledging through her laughter that she "did take shit" from the "working supervisor", worker 2 acknowledges the supervisor's utterances as reprimands, assertions of authority carried in the form of "talking bad". To summarize, when analyzed in all three contexts in which it is used, "talking bad" is a symbolic means of upholding and maintaining a particular set of work values and goals that provide people with a way of managing the conditions of subordination associated with the everyday activities of doing production line work at Stone Specialities. "Talking bad" about people, like the QC inspectors, who spend their time observing the lines is a means of upholding the value that real work is work that people do on the lines; "talking bad" about peers who have an easy job on the line is a means of ensuring the goal of fair distribution of work among line workers; and when used by "working supervisors" who must, in spite of their roles as "friends" and "sisters", at times assert authority in their supervisory work roles, "talking bad" is used to ensure the supervisory goal that jobs that are disliked by the line workers get done efficiently.

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In analysing the act of "talking bad" as an act of claiming power in a position of subordination, the preceding discussion challenges the notion that all-female interaction can always be characterized as "tentative", "powerless" or - in a more positive vein - "co-operative" (see Coates 1989:95 for a review of work on this topic). Unlike talk that takes place within the private domain, in informal conversations between middle-class women friends (Coates 1989), talk between women line workers in the public domain of the production floor is not necessarily co-operative (i.e., characterized by collaborative topic development, minimal responses that signal active listenership and support for the speaker, epistemic modal forms that respect the face of speakers and simultaneous speech which gives the floor to more than one speaker at a time); it can be hurtful and can be used to assert control. When tested against the parameters of ethnicity, class and public (as opposed to private) domain, the notion that women's language is always co-operative does not hold up. The data presented above suggests that any analysis of women's language needs to be located in a larger analysis that examines relations of power. Or as Coates puts it, "in a framework which acknowledges dominance and oppression as relevant categories" (1989:120). Continuing this exploration of the use of Portuguese on the production floor in terms of "dominance" and "oppression", it is helpful to turn to work that stresses the importance of seeing language practices within a politicaleconomic framework. Grillo (1980) points out that where massive labour migration has brought linguistically diverse populations together, the official languages of the receiving or host society have often greater authority than the languages of the immigrants. Speakers of languages other than those of the receiving or host society usually occupy subordinate social, cultural, economic and political statuses. Languages of solidarity are often used by speakers of subordinate, powerless groups as part of a survival strategy. On the lines at Stone Specialities, asserting social control by "talking bad" in Portuguese is a linguistic practice that can be seen as part of such a strategy. The linguistic practice of "talking bad", then, can be understood as a symbol of collusion and acceptance of dominant ideology and authority. And when used by the "working supervisors" to ensure that tasks which are disliked by the workers are nevertheless completed, "talking bad" colludes with institutionalized authority. When line workers "talk bad" about each other, they do so to ensure that difficult, tiring work tasks are distributed as fairly as possible. Thus, while Woolard (1985) argues that subordinate languages can be used as a symbolic means of resisting

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unequal relations of power, the use of Portuguese on the production floor at Stone Specialities does not seem to function in this way. Instead, the use of Portuguese and the particular practice of "talking bad" seems to be used as a means of coping with conditions of subordination associated with the everyday activities of doing production line work at Stone Specialities. As an act of accomodation, then, "talking bad" plays an important role in maintaining and legitimating existing relations of power at Stone Specialities. Since it is Portuguese, rather than English, that is conventionally associated with talk and work on the lines, the use of English is not culturally expected and is heard as marked. This means that speakers of Portuguese can use English to strengthen the force of a message they are sending to another speaker of Portuguese or use English to highlight part of a message that is being sent in Portuguese. Having English as a resource for strengthening or highlighting a message allows Portuguese speakers to use the language to manage social roles and relationships on the line.

6.3.2. Using English to manage social

relationships

"When you talk the time pass more fast. When we have some problems between us that's no good." (Olga, line worker). As reported earlier, members of the Portuguese manufacturing "family" depend on each other for assistance when work piles up or when it is necessary to leave the line. Assisting other members of the "family" also involves helping them avoid conflict with those in authority or, as discussed earlier, supporting them in situations of conflict, as Tony is sometimes called upon to do in the role of language broker, if such situations have not been avoided. Thus, when Lucia is "talking bad" about one of the supervisors in Portuguese within recording distance of the microphones I set up, Raquel uses English to strengthen a reminder or warning that their conversation is being tape recorded. As mentioned in chapter 3, Raquel and the other workers are not sure who might have access to their tape recorded talk. Raquel's warning - strengthened by its English form - is an attempt to help Lucia avoid conflict with someone in authority who might listen to her recorded talk and reprimand her for her remarks:

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Raquel: Hey, Lucy, don't forget the, the coiso. Hey, Lucy, don't forget the, the 'thing' [microphone], Raquel's use of English here can also be understood as more than just a question of emphasis. In many ways, the tape recorder speaks English. Its presence is associated with English-speaking management support for an English school project being undertaken by one of the company's English teachers. As such, its presence is subject to the linguistic practices people use with non-speakers of Portuguese. While members of the Portuguese manufacturing "family" depend on each other for assistance when work piles up or when it is necessary to leave the line, conflict between individual members of the community is unavoidable. Living in a community and society where an individual's worth is measured by what she owns and by how much money she makes, jealousy over the possession of leather coats, department store dresses and machine operator jobs which pay a few cents more per hour than assembly line jobs sometimes leads to conflict between two members of the community - conflict which can escalate to the point where the two individuals are no longer on speaking terms. As Olga asserts in the quote above, not being on speaking terms is problematic - not only for the line workers themselves, but for the supervisors who work with them as well. Yvette, one of the Englishspeaking Production supervisors, reports that when two women aren't talking to each other, there is less co-operation on the line: "One will leave the line to go to the bathroom without telling the other, so there is no one to pitch in and help do that person's work while she is gone". If no one pitches in to help, work piles up, standards are not met, and both the supervisor and the workers are held responsible for not doing their jobs efficiently. So important is co-operation on the line that Yvette makes a determined effort to get people who are not on speaking terms, talking again. She purposely puts the two workers who are not talking side by side on the lines. If that doesn't work, she puts them on the next sub-assembly job that comes up. Sub-assembly jobs usually only involve a small number of workers and when two workers are isolated from others on the lines for long hours at a time, they usually resume talking again. Since tension between two individual workers is in direct conflict with the "family" goal of assisting each other, avoiding tension and conflict is a necessary part of managing social relationships at work. Once again, because the use of English is not culturally expected and is heard

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as marked, it is available as a resource for managing social roles and relationships on the line. In the following exchange, Raquel uses English to indicate that a referentially derogatory comment is not to be taken seriously. In doing so, she avoids creating conflict and tension between herself and Lucia. In Exchange J, Lucia is one of several workers who is sitting down and not working while some of the other workers are busy setting up the line. Raquel notices this, comments on the fact that Lucia is sitting down, but uses English to indicate that her comments need not necessarily be interpreted as "talking bad", but as friendly teasing. When asked why she called "Lucia", "Lucy" in this exchange, Raquel tells me that she called "Lucia", "Lucy" as a "joke". Exchange J Raquel:

So! Α Lucy quer se sentar. So! 'Lucy wants to sit down.'

Lucia:

So meia hora. 'Only half an hour.'

Raquel:

Ah! meia hora 'Ah! Half an hour.'

Rosa:

Ai, (teasing) meia hora. 'Ai, (teasing) half an hour.'

Lucia:

Oh, mulher estou a fazer um esforco mesmo por conta de ser meia hora. Oh, woman I'm making an effort so it will only be half an hour.'

Raquel:

Are you crazy, Lucy?

Lucia:

Ε so meia hora. 'It's only half an hour.'

Raquel's use of the English words "so" and "Lucy" at the beginning of the exchange, allows her to distance herself from her remarks. Since referentially, Raquel's words "So! Lucy wants to sit down" could be

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interpreted as "talking bad", it is important to Raquel, who does not want to create conflict, to indicate that her remarks could be interpreted as a joke. By violating expected linguistic conventions, Raquel's English use of "Are you crazy, Lucy?" also allows her words to be interpreted as a joke instead of the insult they might be taken as if they were to be taken referentially. That Lucia does, indeed, interpret Raquel's words as teasing rather than as "talking bad" is indicated by her continuing the exchange in a teasing way ("It's only half an hour") after Raquel asks her if she is crazy.

6.3.3. Using English to manage social roles The association of English with institutionalized authority makes the use of English a valuable linguistic resource for those members of the Portuguese manufacturing "family" who hold jobs and assume work roles off the lines. Generally, the Portuguese supervisors and QC inspectors use Portuguese to speak to the line workers on the lines. Like "working supervisor" behaviour, this use of Portuguese symbolizes their membership within the Portuguese manufacturing "family". Yet, in their off line work roles, Portuguese supervisors and QC inspectors, many of whom have been promoted into their present positions from positions on the line, also need to define themselves differently from the line workers with whom they share "family"/community membership in order to claim their new work roles, rights and obligations. To do so, Portuguese supervisors and QC inspectors use English among themselves to talk about work; that is, they codeswitch not only to accommodate non-speakers of Portuguese, but around the topic of work as well. For example, while QC inspector Lidia uses Portuguese to talk to supervisor Joanne about collecting money for another inspector's baby shower, she uses English to talk to fellow inspector John, about a product they are testing. Interestingly, two of the seven Portuguese speakers who have work roles off the lines did not speak English when they assumed their new roles for the first time. Both Joanne and Luisa, the "working supervisors", learned English only after they found themselves in a position where they had to assume multiple roles at work - the role of "family'Vcommunity member ("sister"/"friend") and the role of supervisor. To successfully assume and manage these multiple social roles, it became necessary for Joanne and Luisa to learn and use English. By codeswitching from Portuguese to English, Joanne and Luisa are able to assume the role,

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rights, and obligations of supervisors when they use English to speak to the Portuguese speakers on the line without losing their identity as members of the Portuguese manufacturing "family"/ community. For Joanne and Luisa, using English is a benefit at work since it allows them to assume work roles off the lines that pay them more money, but at the same time allows them to maintain the boundaries necessary for retaining their "family'Vcommunity membership and rights to assistance that this membership entails. Below, are examples of how Joanne and Luisa use English to assume their work roles as supervisors when "starting up" a new line and "taking down" a line whose run is completed. In the first example, Joanne, who has already told the women at the front of the line to start production, now wants to know if there have been any problems in starting up the new line. She walks up to the front of the line and addresses the workers who have started the line: "Okay, Ladies?". The use of the English word "ladies" is different from the way Joanne addresses the workers in Portuguese once production on the line is under way: Joanne:

Okay, filhas näo tem mats nada a servir, voces que pegam. Okay, 'daughters, I don't have anything else to serve you. You have to ask.'

Joanne's use of the kinship term filhas ('daughters') in Portuguese allows her to redefine her role from the role of supervisor responsible for starting up the new line to the role of "working supervisor" which has her assisting the women on her crew by serving them materials. In the second example, Luisa's line has just finished a run. Luisa, starting from the end of line, walks quickly along the line to the front shouting in a loud voice, "Everything back on the skids. Everything back on the skids. Everything back on the skids", directing the workers on her line to put all the materials that they have been working with back into the cartons they come from and to put these cartons on the skids so they can be moved back to Raw Materials Department and stored there. In the examples above, both Luisa and Joanne use English to transmit entire utterances: "Okay, Ladies?" and "Everything back on the skids". This type of codeswitching is known as inter-utterance codeswitching. As mentioned above, it allows Luisa and Joanne to both assume supervisory roles and retain their identity as members of the "family" by allowing them to maintain the language boundaries that exist between the "family"

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and the rest of the company. As discussed earlier, Joanne and Luisa work hard to maintain their membership within the Portuguese "family". They demonstrate their adherence to Portuguese work values and practices by assuming the role of "working supervisors" and helping their "crew" complete tiring, manual production line tasks. Their linguistic strategy of inter-utterance codeswitching to give commands to members of the "family" complements their other "working supervisor" practices. An interesting example of how English is used to manage both social relationships and social roles appears in the next exchange which demonstrates how English is used to avoid conflict and tension that can occur between two line workers when one worker is asked to convey an order to the other. In Exchange K, Rosa, who is going to assume a position near the beginning of the line, is helping someone else set up further down the line. When Joanne, who is standing beside Rosa, is unsuccessful in getting Lucia's attention, she tells Rosa to go to the front of the line and tell Lucia to start the line. Rosa does so, but still can't get Lucia's attention. Raquel, who is standing much closer to Lucia than Rosa is, also assumes responsibility for passing on the message to start the line to Lucia. Exchange Κ Rosa:

(to Joanne) Okay, no problem.

Rosa:

(calling out in a loud voice to Lucia) Lucy...

Raquel:

(in a softer voice because she's closer to Lucia) Lucy.

Rosa:

(still in a loud voice) Lucy...

Raquel:

(still a softer voice) You can start the line.

Rosa:

(still in a loud voice) Start the line.

Lucia:

(smiling at Rosa) Thanks Rosa.

Rosa:

(still in a loud voice) Start now.

Lucia:

(still smiling) Okay, no problem.

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From the moment she is asked to assume responsibility for telling Lucia to start the line, Rosa begins to use English. Here, Rosa codeswitches from Portuguese to English to assume the right and obligation of a supervisor to tell a worker that she should start the line. However, since Rosa is not a supervisor, but a line worker like Lucia, she risks offending Lucia if she uses English in the exactly same way a supervisor would. In order not to offend Lucia by assuming a role of authority to which she is not entitled, Rosa passes on her English message in a volume that is markedly loud. In doing so, she indicates to Lucia that she is using English to humourous effect and that her command is not intended to be taken seriously. Not only does the volume of Rosa's utterances indicate that she is parodying rather than giving an command, so does the pitch of the first word of all her utterances which is much higher than it would be if she were not joking. Indeed, Lucia understands Rosa's use of humour in the exchange as she smiles and also uses a similar form of English to answer Rosa's command. By giving Lucia the message to "Start the line" in a loud, high pitched form of English, Rosa distances herself from having the message interpreted as a command. In contrast to the language behaviour displayed by "working supervisors" Luisa and Joanne, Manuela, one of the Portuguese QC inspectors, demonstrates intra-utterance codeswitching when she speaks to the workers on the lines. Unlike inter-utterance codeswitching which maintains language boundaries, intra-utterance codeswitching, codeswitching that occurs within an utterance, levels boundaries between the "family" (symbolized by the use of Portuguese) and the company (symbolized by the use of English). This linguistic strategy jeopardizes Manuela's membership in the "family" as her use of English within a Portuguese utterance is associated with the institutionalized authority of management. Unfortunately, the evidence of intra-utterance codeswitching presented here is limited. In fact, only one good example could be retrieved from all the interactional data collected. This is because intrautterance codeswitching behaviour on the production floor is limited to a very small group of three people who occupy the specific work positions of QC inspectors in the factory. During the period of data collection, two of these three inspectors were frequently assigned to lines at the company's suburban plant. As a result, only one instance of intra-utterance codeswitching, by Manuela, was captured on tape. It is presented below. Since such slim data does not allow for a full exploration of intra-

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utterance codeswitching on the production floor, the following comments must be considered more of an hypothesis than an analysis. In Exchange L, Manuela is observing the crew that is working on toy jeeps that have been returned to the company. The crew is responsible for discovering what is wrong with the returned jeeps, repairing them, cleaning them up, and repacking them to be resold as second hand toys. Two workers, Elsa and Christina, are cleaning returned windshields and placing a windshield on top of each jeep that is being repacked. Some of the windshields that have been returned are very dirty and should not be repacked before they are cleaned. Some are so dirty and scratched that they can't be used again at all. It is Elsa and Christina's job to clean those windshields that can be used again before repacking them and to throw out those that cannot be used again. Overhearing Elsa and Christina talking about the windshields they are working on, Manuela, whose job as Quality Control inspector requires her to ensure that merchandise produced on the line meets certain quality standards, walks over to their work area to see exactly what the women are throwing out and what they are repacking. She looks at the windshield that Christina is going to pack and feels that it is too dirty and scratched to be repacked. She feels that even those jeeps that are being resold cheaper as second hand toys should be undamaged and cleaned properly before they are packed and resold.

Exchange L Manuela:

Isto e para ir assim? 'Is this going like that?'

Elsa:

Ah?

Christina:

Ah?

Manuela:

Isto e para ir assim? Vais botar isso assim sujo? Eh mulher, please give me a break, not even second hand! 'Is this going like that? Are you going to put it in so dirty? Hey woman, 'please give me a break, not even second hand!

Christina:

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(There is a pause while Christina throws away the windshield she was about to pack and replaces it with another one that is not dirty.) Christina:

?

Manuela:

Much better.

Christina:

Ah?

Manuela:

Much better. Ai! Isso näo pode ir assim. Not even second hand can go like that. That's garbage! Much better. 'Hey! That can't go like that.' Not even second hand can go like that. That's garbage!

In the previous exchange, Manuela, unlike Luisa and Joanne, codeswitches from Portuguese to English within a single utterance: "Eh mulher, please give me a break, not even second hand!" This utterance is interpreted as an assertion of authority by Christina who obeys Manuela's directive to throw away the windshield that she was about to repack and replace it with another one. Manuela's use of English to assert authority in this exchange is also evident when she acknowledges Christina's response to her directive with the English utterance "Much better". With her utterance "Eh mulher, please give me a break, not even second hand!" Manuela asserts her authority through intra-utterance code-switching which, as mentioned above, levels boundaries. This, in turn, has consequences for Manuela's experience at work. Further discussion of why there are differences in the ways that Manuela, Luisa, and Joanne communicate at work and what these differences mean are taken up in chapter 8. However, to summarize this discussion on the ways English is used to manage social roles at work, it is important to note that English is used by the "working supervisors" to define themselves differently from the line workers with whom they share "family'Vcommunity membership. By codeswitching from Portuguese to English, Joanne and Luisa are able to assume the role, rights, and obligations of supervisors without losing their identity as members of the Portuguese manufacturing "family"/ community. For Joanne and Luisa, codeswitching from Portuguese to English is a valuable linguistic strategy. It allows them to assume work

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roles off the lines which pay them more money without losing the rights to assistance associated with being part of the "family".

6.4. Language choice on the production floor: A summary The preceding ethnographic, sociolinguistic discussion has attempted to document people's language behaviour in the Production Department at Stone Specialities and examine the ways different workers use Portuguese and English to communicate at work. The language boundary that is created by the symbolic uses of English and Portuguese in the Production Department is a boundary that splits members of the Portuguese manufacturing "family" into two groups. The first group consists of those "family" members who maintain the boundary between membership in their own community (symbolized by the use of Portuguese) and membership in the wider Stone community (symbolized by the use of English) by reserving English identity for relationships with outsiders. The use of Portuguese on the lines at Stone Specialities, can be seen as part of a strategy for managing conditions of economic subordination. First, line workers assume a Portuguese identity in relationships with other line workers in order to access friendship and assistance on the lines. Secondly, the linguistic practice of "talking bad" in Portuguese upholds and maintains values and goals that help members of the "family" to cope with the everyday activities of doing production line work at Stone Specialities. Thus, once again, language plays an important role in articulating ideological values, roles and practices that provide people with a way of dealing with conditions of subordination. The second group in the "family" consists of those members in the Portuguese manufacturing community who level the boundary between their own community and wider Stone community and use English when speaking among themselves as well as outsiders. For these members of the "family", the use of Portuguese is reserved for socializing and gossiping with Portuguese workers who do not use English with other Portuguese speakers. For those Portuguese off-line workers who level the boundary, English identity co-exists with Portuguese identity. As mentioned above, the questions of which workers are members of which group and why there are differences in the language practices of Portuguese workers are important ones and will be addressed in chapter 8. In addressing these questions, the

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analysis returns to the task of exploring how language choice may be related to workers' positions of class and gender. However, before going on to a sociological discussion of why particular workers demonstrate particular language practices, the study moves to an exploration of the relationship between the ways Portuguese workers choose to communicate and their experience at work. The language boundary described above is created by particular linguistic strategies in place on the production floor. These strategies have particular consequences for the workers' experience at work. There are individual consequences for particular workers with particular hopes and goals for the future and collective consequences for the workers as a group. The following chapter examines the consequences of language choice, focusing not only on the impact particular language practices have on people's experience at work, but on the impact they have on people's opportunities in life as well.

Chapter 7 Ways of communicating and experience at work

In the last chapter, the use of English on the production floor was shown to function as a symbol of the authority of management and company ownership while Portuguese was shown to function as a symbol of solidarity and a means of coping with conditions of subordination. It was argued that the language boundary created by the symbolic uses of English and Portuguese on the production floor is a boundary that splits members of the Portuguese manufacturing "family" into two groups. The first group consists of those "family" members who maintain the boundary between membership in their own community and the wider Stone community while the second group consists of those members in the Portuguese manufacturing "family" who level the boundary between the two communities. It was also pointed out in the last chapter that the linguistic strategies underlying this boundary are informed by people's social roles, relationships and goals at work. The different linguistic practices adopted on the production floor have economic and social consequences for the workers in the Production Department. This chapter will explore some of the consequences of language choice at Stone Specialities by relating the different ways workers choose to communicate at work to the different stories they tell of their experiences both on and off the production floor. In doing so, the discussion in this chapter addresses the third research question this study asks, How do language practices in the multicultural/multilingual workplace relate to immigrant workers' experience at work and outside work?. It also provides the necessary groundwork for addressing the study's last research question, How does a new understanding of immigrant experience at work inform the practice of English language training in the multicultural/ multilingual workplace?, which will be taken up in chapter 9. While there are recurring themes and patterns that run through all the stories collected in this study, to a certain extent, the story each one of the workers in the Portuguese manufacturing "family'Vcommunity tells about his or her language choices and experience at work is different. To closely, deeply understand the complex nature of the relationship between ways of communicating and experience at work in the multicultural/ multilingual workplace, each of these stories might be studied separately to discover the ways individual human agency interacts with people's

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social roles, relationships, and goals. It is, of course, beyond the scope of this work to provide this kind of in-depth analysis. What is attempted instead are several sketches of the ways different individuals communicate on the production floor and the relationship their language choices have with their experience at work. The selection of the case-study sketches included below has been deliberate. As discussed above, the language boundary in place on the production floor splits the community into two different groups: (1) line workers and "working supervisors" who reserve English identity for relationships with outsiders and Portuguese identity for relationships with insiders and (2) off-line workers who use English with each other as well as outsiders. To demonstrate how particular patterns of language use described in the last chapter hold particular consequences for different people's experience at work, the somewhat representative story of at least one member of each group has been included. In addition to stories that have been chosen for their power to represent typical work experiences associated with different ways of communicating at work, stories of individuals that are not representative of most of the people on the production floor have also been included to demonstrate the range of interests, strategies and experiences that are possible in the multicultural/multilingual workplace, and the range of consequences particular ways of communicating hold for people.

7.1. English for outsiders and Portuguese f o r insiders: T h e line workers' and working supervisors' experience at work 7.1.1 Speaking "my language" Idalina left the Azores to come to Toronto in 1969. She was twenty-one years old and came alone, without her family, to visit her sister's mother and father-in-law who had kept in touch with her sister in the Azores through frequent letter writing. When asked why she decided to come to Canada, Idalina says that she had heard a lot about Canada and the United States and that she wanted to visit places she had not seen before. Back home we never go anywhere. We stay in our place all the time. So when I reached 21 I was talking to my parents and I

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like to travel to see some places. I was working at that time back home. So I asked my supervisors there if I can take a vacation for a month or a month and a half. And they said, "Yeah. You go see if you like it, and you can stay. If you don't like to stay in Canada you can come back and you can have your job back." Idalina told her sister to write her in-laws that were living in Canada that she was going to visit them in Toronto someday. They wrote back telling her she could come any time she wanted. Even though she arrived as a tourist, Idalina began working at Stone Specialities two days after she arrived in Toronto. She found a job at the company when her sister's mother-in-law called a nephew to ask him which factories hired Portuguese visitors. The nephew accompanied Idalina to the factory where she made out an application. Since they needed people immediately, Idalina started that day. When asked if she had any difficulty filling out the English job application form, Idalina reports that there were a lot of bilingual Portuguese-English people working at the factory at that time (some employees report that there were as many as 250 Portuguese workers on the production floor in the late '60s and early '70s) and they helped her fill out the form. Idalina has never taken any formal English language classes and acquired the English she speaks "by listening" at work. The majority of the line workers on the production floor have a background that is similar to Idalina's. Although they may have been younger when they came to Toronto and may have come with their families as sponsored immigrants rather than alone as visitors, most of the women on the lines come from the Azores, have been working at Stone Specialities for 16 to 22 years, found a job at Stone Specialities very shortly after their arrival through friends or relatives, and have had no or very little formal English language training besides the ESL classes begun at the factory four years ago. The younger workers on the production floor have been with the company for only two to three years. Most of these workers are young married women from rural centres in Portugal who came to Canada with their husbands. One of the women came to Toronto to join her husband who had already settled in the city. Like the women who have been with the company for over 15 years, most of these women have had no or very little formal English language training and began working for Stone Specialities shortly after their arrival. Like most of the workers who speak Portuguese among themselves,

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Idalina feels more comfortable speaking "my language" - Portuguese and prefers speaking Portuguese over English at work. Yet, she also reports that if she is speaking to a friend who doesn't speak Portuguese, she has to speak in English and likes speaking in English too. It doesn't bother Idalina if another Portuguese speaker speaks English to her and she says, "If I can answer back, I will." Being able to answer back - or at least being able to understand - when a Portuguese worker speaks English to you is critical for not being bothered by the speaker's use of English. As Lucia reports, in the beginning, when she had just joined the company and had not acquired the English she has now, the use of English by a Portuguese speaker made her angry: "Before I'm mad because I don't speak English. I don't understand the people who talk English. It make me crazy because maybe they talk about me... Now, I don't care. Before I don't understand...Now, I don't speak very, very good, but I understand." Line workers who don't understand what a Portuguese speaker is saying to them in English report they feel "like it's an insult" when a Portuguese speaker speaks to them in English - since the speaker knows how to speak Portuguese - and they will tell the speaker to "talk in Portuguese". Accommodating this preference of Portuguese on the line is important to members of the Portuguese "family" who are fluently bilingual. Even though Joanne, a "working supervisor", thinks that it is "great" when a Portuguese worker speaks English to her, she herself always uses Portuguese when speaking to the line workers because "they understand it better." Using English with the women on the lines is risky since, if they don't understand exactly what you are saying, they may assume you are talking about them in front of them and feel insulted. Thus, even though, "Some girls ask me to speak English (with them) so they could learn," Joanne believes, "they wouldn't understand so I think it's better to speak Portuguese with them." Consequently, Idalina and her co-workers' preference for Portuguese at work is maintained by very limited access to multiple roles on the lines. Since there are very few friends who don't speak Portuguese on the lines, and bilingual Portuguese-English friends and supervisors think it's better to speak Portuguese on the lines, Idalina and her co-workers have very few English-speaking network ties even though they "like speaking English too." What are the consequences of communicating in Portuguese on the lines? Since it is English that is associated with better-paying jobs both inside and outside the factory, choosing to communicate in Portuguese at work can be considered a practice which limits access to better-paying jobs off the lines. Several workers themselves acknowledge this. When

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asked if she would ever like to work as a supervisor at the company Alice says, "No, because I think my English not perfect for supervisor." And when asked if she could change anything she wanted at the company, what would she change, Raquel answers, "I think sometimes I speak very good English I want to try another job." While management at Stone Specialities encourages promotion from within the company, Shirley Wilson's job posting program described in chapter 5 has very little impact on most of the working lives of the Portuguese immigrants in the Production Department. Jobs are only posted in English and while some people may be able to read the postings or have someone translate the information on the postings for them, most Portuguese line workers do not have a strong enough command of English to compete for these jobs nor, as will be discussed below, enough formal schooling to participate in the program. Despite what Alice and Raquel say, however, for many of the individuals working on the lines, the consequences of not speaking English, that is, spending their working lives in low-paying jobs on the lines at Stone Specialities, is not perceived as a negative experience; in fact, it is changing jobs within the company or leaving the company that is viewed negatively.

7.1.2. Changing jobs at Stone6 Tara:

Do you think ever that you would like to do a different job in the factory? Would you like to be a supervisor? A QC inspector? Or work in the office?

Silvia:

I prefer to be on the lines. Because the others ones have to take all the responsibility, and I don't like that. ***

Tara:

You have worked at the company for a long time now. Why do you think you have stayed such a long time at the company?

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Olga:

I like to work for Stone Specialities. I enjoy to work for Stone Specialities. Some days more hard. Some days it isn't so bad. I like. I have no complaints about that.

Tara:

Did you ever think you would like to do another job besides a job on the line? QC? Supervisor?

Olga:

Every year I have a meeting and he asked me if I want to change the job. If I want to work for another place? I say no, because everything is okay. I work on the lines. I have experience. Maybe later I want to change, I'll talk to them. But for now I feel okay.

Tara:

What do you think about the job as a supervisor? Is that an easy job? Or a difficult job?

Olga:

I think it's an easy job. You have responsibility because you have to make the count and everything. But I don't think it's a hard job. Make the tickets.

Tara:

Would you like to do that job?

Olga:

No.

Tara:

How come?

Olga:

I work and I go home and I have to think I have to make the count. When I work on the line I have responsibility about my job. ***

Tara:

Would you like to do any other job in the company? Maybe QC?

Fernanda:

I like to work on the line. If I was on the line, I go home I feel relaxed. I don't think about I make mistakes. I don't make mistakes. ***

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Tara:

Did you ever think that maybe you would like to be a supervisor? Or maybe do another job in the factory like be a QC inspector?

Idalina:

No.

Tara:

No? Can I ask why?

Idalina:

I don't think I feel good with a high position.

7.1.3. Leaving Stone Specialities Tara:

So you have been here for 20 years. Why do you stay for so long? Many people change jobs and try to make more money somewhere else. Why do you think you stayed so long?

Idalina:

Because when I come here this my first job and I don't feel comfortable if I go to another place. ***

Tara:

Why have you stayed with the company such a long time?

Angela:

I know my work. I know the company.

Tara:

You don't like to change.

Angela:

No. Because I work here 16 years, I have 4 weeks of holidays. ***

Tara:

Would you ever think of working somewhere else?"

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Raquel:

I don't want to try another job because I don't want to get other friends and to get used to a new job.

Rosa:

I think of this place like a second home. I like the people so I never thought of getting another job.

Dulce:

No, Stone's close to where I live.

Guiomar:

No good to change too much.

Virginia:

Sometimes. But ? I'm sick now. I catch the sickness here, so they have to suffer me now.

Tara:

What sickness was that?

Virginia:

Asthma from downstairs [working downstairs on the damp first floor].

Tara:

You want to stay here...because why?

Virginia:

Well, I'm sick now. I have seniority. If I go to another place, I don't have seniority.

Tara:

You need seniority to stay home?

Virginia:

No. But if I got sick, I want to stay home. You get sick benefits [here] four months.

While changing jobs within the company is viewed negatively because of the responsibility that is associated with jobs off the lines, leaving the company is viewed negatively because of the sick and holiday benefits associated with seniority at the company, the close proximity of the company to home, and the difficulty of making friends and feeling "comfortable" in a new workplace. In contrast, working on the lines on the production floor is seen positively since there are no risks involved in choosing to work on the lines and people feel competent and secure in their positions as line workers. Furthermore, the salary these positions pay people allows individuals to do what they came to Canada to do - buy a house, buy a car, and prosper economically.

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7.1.4. Working at Stone Specialities and working in Canada Tara:

Would you ever think of working somewhere else?

Joanne:

I don't need to look for another job. I get good money. I like it here...It's a good company. It's helped me a lot. Everything I have, I got it from Stone Specialities plus [as did] my husband.

Tara:

Yeah?

Joanne:

Of course.

Tara:

How did that work?

Joanne:

Well, we work, we get the money to get our things, right? Like if you ask Cecilia [one of the line workers], she because she paid her house, her kids got married and she got money for everything they wanted from Stone Specialities. ***

Tara:

You like Canada better? Why?

Jorge:

I like their money, because in Portugal... People work here it's $5.00 [an hour], I wouldn't get paid $5.00. $2.00 or $3.00 [an hour].

Tara:

Some people say that they would prefer to change companies because they would make more money somewhere else. Here you make $5.00, some places you maybe make $7.00 or $8.00. Do you ever think you would like to change to make more money?

Jorge:

It's okay now.

Tara:

Do you think that you will stay here for a long time?

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Jorge:

I don't know. I think so.

Tara:

Why?

Jorge:

Because I like the people here.

Tara:

What do you like best about the factory?

Jorge:

I like my work and I like the people that I work with.

Tara:

So right now you live at home with your family [Jorge is only 17 years old and has been at the company for two years]. So you don't have to pay for a house or food or anything like that.

Jorge:

No.

Tara:

So what do you do with the money you make?

Jorge:

I put it in the bank.

Tara:

So you don't have to pay for food or clothes or rent?

Jorge:

Clothes.

Tara:

But not food?

Jorge:

No.

Tara:

What do you want to buy in the end?

Jorge:

A house. A car. That's it.

In trying to understand why most assembly workers - the majority of whom are married women - express satisfaction with jobs that pay them so little, it is important to ask questions about the social arrangements people make to ensure economic survival and prosperity. As was discussed earlier in chapters 4 and 5, during the period of heaviest migration to Canada, rural life in Portugal was characterized as a traditional society with a highly local and family-oriented economy.

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People depended on the family as basic unit of economic security and traditional obligations to the family were transplanted from rural Portugal to Canada. Married Portuguese women working on the lines are expected to contribute to their families' income as well as raise a family and maintain a home. It can be argued that the views these women hold of work are tied to the gendered dynamics of their families. For example, women who are expected to raise a family, maintain a home, and contribute to the families' income may not value a better-paying job off the line if such a job entails additional responsibility. Similarly, women who work both inside and outside the home - and whose income is supplemented by the income of other members of the family - may value the close proximity of the workplace to their home over the extra money they can make at a factory that requires them to travel long distances. While most individuals working on the lines view their jobs positively, a few workers hint at having negative feelings about line work, but don't see any other way of working at Stone Specialities besides working on the lines.

7.1.5. Not seeing anything better Virginia is a line-worker who has been with the company for 20 years. Unlike most of the other workers who have had no formal English language training, Virginia had six months of full-time formal English language training when she first arrived in Toronto at the age of 13 and about a year and a half of high school education in Toronto, before she quit school to work at Stone at age 16. Tara:

Right now is there another job in the factory that you think you would like to do?

Virginia:

They asked in the interview that. "Would you like another job? Would you like to change jobs?" I don't see nothing better.

Tara:

QC wouldn't be better?

Virginia:

I don't have enough school for QC.

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Tara:

You need school for QC?

Virginia:

I have to know how to read and write good.

Interestingly, Virginia is one of the few workers who does not attend the lunchtime ESL classes given at the factory. Her understanding of the relationship between formal schooling and getting a better job off the line is key to her non-participation. Virginia does not believe that English language training in lunchtime ESL classes will provide her with the skills and training she needs to gain access to a job as a QC inspector since she does not have enough schooling to apply for the job to begin with. Virginia's doubts about the value of lunchtime ESL classes raises the question of why other line workers participate in the ESL classes. For many of the workers, the lunchtime English classes are a social activity, a chance for people to spend an extra half-hour socializing off the lines. There are two classes offered to employees working on the lines and many people attend one of the two classes on the basis of individual friendships rather than on the basis of their actual proficiency in English as the organizers of the program originally intended. Workers whose English is strong enough to participate in the more advanced class choose to attend the beginner's class because they have friends participating in that class. Spending time socializing with one's friends is more important than what one learns in class. For Virginia, who does not have many friends at work, going to ESL classes simply to socialize is not appealing. However, attending a class that would actually help her develop her English language skills is risky. Because her command of spoken English is strong and because she needs to develop her English literacy skills, Virginia would only benefit from the ESL classes if she were to attend the same class as her supervisors - an advanced class that focuses on workplace writing tasks (e.g., writing accident reports) in which she would be the only line worker attending. Virginia refuses to even try one of these classes because she is afraid that the supervisors would laugh at her. She does not care to risk such humiliation for an activity that she does not believe will provide her with the skills and training she needs to compete for a better-paying job off the lines. Interestingly, going to night school outside the factory to learn English does not interest Virginia either. She associates going to night school with learning "nothing" and successful language learning with watching television, talking to her kids, and talking to her English-

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speaking supervisor at work - events in which she has an authentic need to understand and use English. Virginia's non-participation in the company's lunchtime ESL classes, which can be related, in part, to her belief that learning English will not enable her to compete for a job off the lines, is important in helping to explain why most of the line workers interviewed for this study seem uninterested in job mobility. As will be discussed in more detail in chapter 8, women on the lines who do not have "enough school" to be able to compete for a better-paying job off the lines know which jobs are accessible to them and which are not. They may "prefer to be on the lines" because they simply "don't see nothing better". Dulce is a line worker who has been with the company for 19 years. Like Virginia, she also doesn't see anything better than her present job, even though she doesn't articulate it in this way. When asked if she would like to do a different job at the factory, Dulce, assumes that she is being asked whether she would like to change departments and work in Textiles as a t-shirt printer, a job which pays about the same rate as an assembly job and that is not considered a "better" job in the same way as the job of supervisor or QC inspector job is. She literally doesn't see anything better or different than working on the lines even though working on the lines can be difficult because "we fight a lot here". Tara:

Do you think that maybe you would like to do a different job here at the factory?

Dulce:

No.

Tara:

Why not?

Dulce:

I like this place. ? Textiles.

Tara:

You didn't like it?

Dulce:

No. If I go there I don't like.

Tara:

Why don't you like it?

Dulce:

I don't like the colour of the paint [ink]. I can't stand any of it. We fight a lot here, but we like to work on the line.

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Dulce's comment here that the women on the production lines "fight a lot" is interesting since it is a contradiction to the portrait of "family" and interdependence that has been painted throughout this study. One way of making sense of this contradiction is to see "fighting a lot" as an unavoidable consequence of "talking bad", an act which was described in the last chapter as a "family" means of coping with conditions of subordination. Evidence for such an interpretation is given by Fernanda in a discussion about "crew" preferences. When asked which crew she prefers to work with, Fernanda reports that she "hates" working with one particular crew "[be]cause the people talk too much and talk bad about everybody. I like to work and talk about myself. And that's it. So many fights." Fernanda's linking of "talking bad" to the occurrence of fights suggests that "fighting a lot" is an outcome of "talking bad" on the lines.

7.1.6. Wanting to try another job While most of the line workers don't see working on the lines as a negative experience and/or don't see any other possibilities for themselves other than working on the lines, there are several workers on the production floor who would like to "try another job" or "go for a better job" in the company. Two of these workers, who are in their early twenties, are much younger than the rest of the other women and the third, who is the same age as the others, is one of the few women to receive more than four years of schooling in Portugal. Interestingly, while the two younger workers still prefer to use Portuguese on the lines because they have only been with the company for about two years and have not yet acquired much English, the third, whose name is Augusta, says that she prefers to use both English or Portuguese on the lines even though the data collected on her speech patterns indicates that she only uses Portuguese. Augusta has been working for the company for 18 years. She came to Toronto with her family when she was 16 years old and started working two or three days after she arrived. Augusta wanted to go to night school to learn English, but only managed to attend for one or two weeks before her father decided that neither Augusta or her two sisters could go to night school because of the presence of "so many boys" in the class. Like most of the other line workers at the company, Augusta acquired the English she now speaks at work. Since her mother had nine children and she was one of the oldest, Augusta also acquired English by speaking to some of her younger brothers and sisters who were going to school full-time

The line workers' and working supervisors' experience at work

191

during the day. When asked what language she prefers to use with her friends on the lines, Augusta answers, "I like to speak Portuguese. I like to speak English too. Because I speak very well English I think I find another job." When asked how she feels when a Portuguese speaker uses English when speaking to her she says, "I feel frustrated because that person speaks better than me." While she's not interested in a supervisor's job because "supervisors have lots of trouble", she is interested in a QC inspector's job when "I write English". The stories sketched above demonstrate that the ways Portuguese line workers or "working supervisors" choose to communicate on the line can be related to the economic consequence of having to spend their working lives in low-paying jobs on the production lines. For most workers, spending their working lives on the line is not perceived as disempowering; while many of the women would prefer to stay home and take care of their kids if they could afford to, they enjoy the friendships they make at work and the salary they make is enough, through shrewd saving and economic living arrangements, to enable them to prosper economically and live more comfortable lives than the lives they left behind them in Portugal. To buy a house and car on the salaries they receive from working on the lines at Stone Specialities, people live together in extended families, sometimes in very small living spaces. Lidia, one of the QC inspectors, explains that until recently, she, her husband, and her baby lived in one room in her parents' home in order to save money for a house. They only paid $150 every month for room and board and $25 every two weeks for child care. It was this arrangement that allowed her and her husband to save enough money for a down payment on their own home, which they moved into several months ago. Living with her parents in order to save for her own house was part of a reciprocal economic arrangement Lidia had struck with her parents years before. Ten years ago, at the age of 16, Lidia left high school at the end of grade nine to help her parents assume their financial obligations. Shrewd economic arrangements to ensure economic survival and prosperity in Toronto cost Lidia, who came to Canada as a child of 12, her English high school education and all the social opportunities associated with a completed Canadian high school education. When asked about leaving school after grade 9, Lidia first says that she left school because she "didn't like it". However, towards the end of the interview, Lidia's reasons for leaving school are explained a little differently. She says, "I didn't like school because I knew my parents needed help." She also reports that she was upset with her younger sister

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Ways of communicating and experience at work

who was given the opportunity to stay in school but didn't take it. While for most line workers and "working supervisors" work on the lines is not perceived as a negative experience, for women like Augusta, who would like to change jobs, not being able to speak English as well as she would like to is perceived as "frustrating". Ways of communicating at work limit Augusta's access to opportunities to refine the English skills she needs to leave the lines in the factory. Thus, for some individuals, ways of communicating on the line have serious consequences. But whether or not particular individuals perceive consequences of language choice as individually disempowering or not, there are collective economic consequences related to using Portuguese on the production floor.

7.7.7. Not knowing what's going to happen in production While most of the women on the lines report that they are not interested in pursuing better-paying jobs off the production lines, Manuela, one of the QC inspectors who began as an assembly line worker at Stone, reports that moving up and off the production floor is important to her. Every year when her manager asks her if she would like to change positions and move off the production floor, she always says she will "go anywhere". Noting that such a response is different from what most of the line workers and working supervisors say during their own interviews, Manuela, referring to the company's history of lay-offs in the Production Department, says, "...you never know what's going to happen in Production". Manuela's insight into the relationship between working for the Production Department and being vulnerable to both temporary and permanent lay-offs is unusual on the production floor. As mentioned in chapter 5, while the problem of lay-offs is acknowledged and talked about by the workers on the floor, most of the women working on the lines feel protected by their seniority at the company. When asked what she would change at the company, Angela reports that she is concerned about the "young people" who get laid off. "The old people have been here a long time." Yet, even the "old people" have cause to be concerned. While at this moment in the company's history, lay-offs have been avoided by the installation of the worksharing program, if the company falls onto hard economic times, and there is no "foreseeable future" on the horizon, all line workers - both "young" and "old people" - may find themselves permanently laid off.

The line workers' and working supervisors'

experience at work

193

In a recent article entitled "'Boom days over,' job-seekers find"18, Brenda Wall from the Metro Labour Council's education centre is quoted as saying that competition for jobs intensified over the three year period from 1987-1990 because of lay-offs of at least 15,000 factory workers. According to Wall, the laid off workers, the majority of whom speak English as a second language, have turned to low-skilled, low-paying jobs to get by. "They're working in fast food, the retail sector, often working two or three jobs to make ends meet." In the same article, David Kidd of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty says the increased competition "is forcing the people with the lowest skills on to welfare". While the women on the lines at Stone have been able to survive and prosper economically in Toronto in times of relative economic prosperity, they could lose their present capacity to pay their bills should the company find itself in times of economic hardship and lay them off permanently. Thus, one of the economic consequences of spending your working life as an assembler on a production line is being vulnerable to temporary and permanent lay-offs. While such a consequence is not unique to production workers who do not use English at work, and while speaking English will not necessarily ensure that workers who are laid off will be able to find another job in an economic recession, those immigrant workers whose command of English is stronger than others' may have more access to alternative employment opportunities if they are laid off than those whose command of English is weaker. In case of lay-off in times of economic hardship, speaking English might help workers retain their ability to survive and prosper economically while not speaking English might jeopardize it. Understanding the different consequences that may be attached to the ways Portuguese line workers communicate on the production floor provides us with a place to begin thinking about what kind of English language learning activities might benefit immigrant workers at workplaces such as Stone Specialities. A discussion of the role that English language training might play at these workplaces is undertaken in chapter 9.

194

Ways of communicating and experience at work

7.2. English and Portuguese for insiders: The off-line workers' experience at work 7.2.1. Going for something good Manuela, who in the last chapter was described as the Portuguese QC inspector who used English to assert authority among Portuguese speakers on the lines, came to Canada with her family when she was 15 years old. Although her parents wanted her to attend the same school as her younger sister, Manuela's Portuguese educational background was considered advanced enough for her to go straight into high school. While her sister lost one or two school years in the move from Portugal to Canada, Manuela didn't lose any. But Manuela had been a strong student in Portugal: "Back home I was really good in school. Number one in everything". Manuela was placed in a high school with a special ESL program for immigrant students. She spent part of the day in a special class with other immigrant students learning English and part of the day in regular math and science high school classes. At school, "you weren't allowed to talk Portuguese in class, only English", but "when you're on lunch, you talk your own language". While Manuela wanted to go to school very badly, and while her father wanted her to continue going to school, her mother felt that since she was the oldest sibling, she had to quit school at 16 to help out the family financially. Although Manuela only managed to get six months of high school she continued learning English by going to night school four nights a week for four years. She learned to read and write in English at night school. Unlike most of the other workers on the production floor, Manuela prefers to use English over Portuguese at work "because the more I talk, the more I'm learning". Unlike the Portuguese line workers and "working supervisors" who spend their lunch and break periods together and speak Portuguese, Manuela takes lunch and breaks with other QC inspectors some of whom are nonspeakers of Portuguese and speaks English. She also reports that she is able to learn a lot of English on the job and since "this is my country... the more you know, the better." While Manuela considers Canada her country, she has not lost her sense of being Portuguese. She possesses both a Portuguese and English identity:

English and Portuguese for insiders: the off-line workers' experience at work

195

Tara:

So you consider this to be your country now. That's very different from other people who tell me, "I prefer Portuguese because it's my language".

Manuela:

"It's my language", I understand. One thing is right, that I don't wanna lose Portuguese at all. Because any time I want to go back home, any time I want to talk to anybody, I know how to talk to them. But I don't want to lose my English at all.

Also unlike most of the other workers on the production floor, Stone Specialities was not where Manuela found her first job. After leaving school at 16, she spent six years in a factory in the garment district which had a Portuguese working community that was similar to the "family" at Stone Specialities. However, because she entered the factory already speaking some English, she was made supervisor shortly after she arrived and had to communicate with the factory owners in English. Manuela's second job was at a company located near the waterfront where lots of people were English Canadian and she mostly spoke English. Manuela joined Stone ten years ago, when her first child turned three. Manuela reports that at first her husband didn't want her to go back to work because he had always preferred that she "stay home". However, one day, after being a home for three years, Manuela told her husband, "I can't stay home anymore [and] I'm going to fill out an application [for work]." Joanne, one of the "working supervisors", had told her about an available job at Stone and Manuela began at the company as a line worker. She quickly gained the reputation as being a first rate worker and was moved from the downtown plant to the suburban plant and back again whenever a difficult assembly job had to be done. Manuela started the process of moving off the lines when she applied for the QC inspector position that was posted in the Production Department. While Production supervisors Tony, Joanne, and Luisa were all promoted from the lines to supervisors when the Production Manager asked them if they were willing to take on the job, Lidia, Manuela, and John, the QC inspectors, all had to apply for their positions through the job posting program. At the time that Tony, Joanne and Luisa were promoted, there was no Personnel Department at Stone Specialities and promotions were left up to individual department managers. By the time Lidia, Manuela and John decided they wanted to work as QC inspectors, Shirley Wilson had joined the company and had begun to implement the job posting program.

196

Ways of communicating and experience at work

In talking about the application process, Manuela recalls being asked to apply for the position of QC inspector several times before she actually did so: "I never wanted to go. You know why? I was scared, because either I do it [a job] good, or I don't do it at all. That's how I am. I can't help myself." But two years ago, after eight years on the lines, despite being afraid of not being able to do a good job, Manuela did apply for the job when it came up again. She attributes her new-found courage to the support she got from the Portuguese line workers at the suburban plant. Importantly, this support was generated because Manuela was having difficulty working on the lines, not because the promotion was valued in itself. And then they say, "Manuela, go, go, go!" And I went because of that... Because they want me to go for something good... They knew the way I was... I used to have the problems with this leg, because my blood doesn't circulate here. And my leg was always swollen, swollen from standing up all day. So they were feeling sorry for me. And they wanted to help. And that's why I take the application. And I did the application and I never thought I would get it. Because they want grade twelve. And I only had grade nine. One of the reasons that Manuela did get the job despite the fact that she didn't complete a grade 12 high school education was because she was coached before the job interview: But one thing is the truth, Oscar, he was a nice person to me, because he teach me everything. Everything. So before I went to the interview, he called me to his office, he explain me everything for me not to get confused when Rob [the QC manager] interview [me]... Oscar called me in the office and he showed me everything. And he told me open your eyes Manuela, I wanna help you. Don't ever tell nobody that I'm doing this to you. I'm only doing this to you to help you, to make sure that you get the job. Several factors played a role in Manuela's successful move from an hourly-rated job on the lines to a salaried job off the lines. First, she had a strong command of spoken English and a preference for speaking English at work that she had accessed through the English-speaking network

English and Portuguese for insiders: the off-line workers' experience at work

197

contacts she had made prior to joining Stone. Second, she had the ability to read and write in English, skills that she had accessed by taking night school ESL classes prior to joining the company - classes which her family did not prohibit her from attending. Lastly, Manuela also had the support of the Portuguese manufacturing community in the suburban plant - support from friends which gave her the courage to apply for the job in the first place and support from a mentor that helped her perform well in the job interview. Manuela's ways of communicating on the production floor, ways that are different from those of most other workers on the floor, ways that were acquired through prior English-speaking contact ties and interactions, yet, ways of communicating that have not alienated her from the support of the Portuguese manufacturing "family" in the suburban plant, have provided her with a different experience at work than that of most other workers on the floor, an experience that has allowed her to move off the lines, from an hourly-rated position into a salaried one. The importance of some prior formal English language training or some prior access to English-speaking network ties and interactions is key to understanding why certain workers have access to better-paying hourlyrated and salaried off-line jobs in the factory while others do not. This issue will be taken up again and discussed further in the next chapter. Before moving on, however, Manuela's experience at work may be examined for the insight it gives into the personal transformation and social consequences entailed in learning and using English at work.

7.2.2. Keeping

quiet

"Let them be as they are, let me be as I am." (Manuela, QC inspector). When she applied for the position of QC inspector, Manuela was not required to distance or separate herself from the Portuguese manufacturing "family". The community at the suburban plant was able to fully support her quest for a new position since such support was considered a way of "helping" her cope with the problem of having to work on the lines with painful swollen legs. Once she actually got the job at the downtown plant, however, in order to perform her work duties efficiently, Manuela has had to reject the values and communicative practices held by the Portuguese manufacturing "family" and adopt alternative values and communicative practices of her own.

198

Ways of communicating and experience at work

One of the practices that Manuela has had to reject is the practice of "talking bad". Travelling from line to line as the QC inspector to check the quality of the products the workers on different lines are assembling, Manuela overhears workers on one line "talking bad" about workers on other lines. This has meant she has had to learn to be "very quiet" and not get "involved with too many people" in order to avoid "big problems". Manuela:

... when somebody is talking and babbling and I'm doing whatever I'm doing, I can hear. I can understand every single word. Here I am, this one is talking about that one. And then I go to other line, the other one is talking about this one. If I wanna make trouble, I make lots of trouble.

Tara:

Because you know what everyone is saying.

Manuela:

Yeah. What's the use? I don't like this. That's why I listen and keep myself quiet and I don't answer nothing to nobody.

Rejecting the values and practices of the "family" is a painful process. Because she distances herself from the community as QC inspector, members of the "family" "talk bad" about Manuela and she has to find a way of coping with the hurt that is associated with being "talked bad" about. Manuela reports that women in the community tell her that she is "very picky", criticize how she dresses and criticize her for "not talking to nobody". In response to the criticism of "being picky" she says, "Okay, I understand, I'm very picky - that's my duty. I have to do my job. Because if something goes wrong my manager first comes to me, then from me to you." In response to the personal criticisms about her dress and social behaviour, she says, "That's the way I am." Sometimes she doesn't respond to people "talking bad" about her at all: "Sometimes I ignore it - it's not worth it." But going through the process of personal transformation and expressing an alternative identity is costly. Manuela reports that she has ulcers and that her English-speaking colleagues at work need to keep telling her "don't worry about what anybody else tells you."

English and Portuguese for insiders: the off-line workers' experience at work

199

Even my manager, he keeps telling me, "Listen Manuela, you have to answer back to those people. Don't keep yourself too quiet like that because it's not good for your health". That's why I always have ulcers. He said, "Talk back to them because if you keep your mouth quiet, then they gonna jump on you. So talk back to them". While Manuela is willing to assume the social costs and consequences of distancing herself from the community to keep a job that she likes, not all Portuguese workers are willing to do the same. For example, Fernanda, one of the line workers who was promoted off the lines to the position of supervisor, "quit" to go back to work on the lines after being in the position for six months. When asked why she didn't like being a supervisor Fernanda reports that it was because she felt she had to work harder on the lines than the line workers in order to deal with the conflict she experienced in changing work roles: Fernanda:

I have that job [the job of supervisor] before too. And after I quit because I don't like.

Tara:

Tell me why you didn't like it.

Fernanda:

Because I worked too hard. I'm stupid.

Tara:

Why did you feel that you had to work more than the other people?

Fernanda:

I don't know. Because you don't feel good to send the people to work. "Go do that. Go do that." I don't feel comfortable.

Not comfortable with supervisory practice of "sending the people to work", that is, finding it too costly to take on the alternative values and communicative practices associated with performing the job of supervisor, Fernanda ended up working harder than the other line workers on the line in order to accomplish what needed to be done on the lines. Finding that such hard work was too tiring, she chose to return to the lines as an assembly worker. The question of why Manuela is able to take on new values and practices while Fernanda was not has to do with the common-sense understandings each woman has of the world. In turn, these understandings

200

Ways of communicating and experience at work

can be related to the age each immigrated to Canada, the educational background each has and the access to English-speaking ties in Canada each has had. A detailed analysis of the social differences between workers like Manuela and Fernanda is undertaken in the next chapter. To conclude, the discussion in this chapter has attempted to explore how people's language practices may be related to their experiences both inside and outside the workplace. It has been argued that there are social consequences attached to the practice of using English at work and economic consequences attached to the practice of only using Portuguese. While these economic consequences are not perceived as disempowering by most individual line workers, not being able to speak English may jeopardize people's ability to economically survive and prosper in times of economic hardship. As mentioned earlier, understanding the economic and social consequences that may be attached to different linguistic practices in the workplace provides us with a place to begin thinking about what kind of ESL curriculum might benefit immigrant workers at workplaces such as Stone Specialities. Further discussion of the role that English language training might play at these workplaces is undertaken in chapter 9. Before moving on to a consideration of pedagogy, however, the study takes up an examination of what social differences distinguish individuals who demonstrate different language practices at work. In the last chapter, language choice was analyzed in terms of individual immigrant speakers' social relationships and goals at work. In the next chapter, the analysis links these relationships and goals to the particular social characteristics that these speakers share.

Chapter 8 Language choice, linguistic authority and social difference on the production floor

The analysis presented thus far has looked at language choice on the production floor in terms of how it is related to immigrant speakers' social relationships and goals at work. It has also explored the costs, incentives, and personal transformation associated with different language choices and examined some of the observable consequences of language choice for immigrant workers on the production floor. The analysis in chapters 6 and 7 argues that English is not always the only language used in the multicultural/multilingual workplace and that it is not always imperative to speak English in order to survive economically in multicultural/multilingual settings. As a language of solidarity, Portuguese is associated with the activity of finding a job as a line worker in the factory and with the immediate, local everyday activities of doing production line work in order to bring home a pay cheque. Thus, for immigrant workers on the lines, speaking Portuguese is associated with economic survival, that is, being able to find a job and access to economic gain, being able to keep a job to save for or pay off a house. For many Portuguese immigrant workers there are economic risks in giving up the support of the "family'Vcommunity. Relating such findings to the theoretical notion of linguistic authority, it is argued that the association of Portuguese with economic survival and access to economic gain allows it to be perceived as a source of linguistic authority by those members of the Portuguese manufacturing community who work on the lines. This argument supports Woolard's (1989) assertion that linguistic authority or "prestige" associated with social advance does not derive solely from legal power associated with speaking the dominant, official language of the schools, government and the media. It can also derive from access to economic resources associated with the use of an unofficial, minority language. On the lines, social advancement, seen in terms of being able to save for a house or a car, is not associated with the use of English, but with Portuguese. As a symbol of economic survival and gain, it is Portuguese, not English that is aurally endowed with authority. It is important to emphasize, however, that the city of Toronto is not the city of Barcelona. While in Barcelona the minority language of

202 Language choice, linguistic authority and social difference on the production floor

Catalan is associated with economic dominance, in Toronto the minority language of Portuguese is associated low-paying assembly line work and economic subordination. How can a language that is associated with economic subordination be aurally endowed with authority? Why do people not learn and use the language of economic dominance? Why is the use of English endowed with authority for some members of the Portuguese manufacturing community while the use of Portuguese is endowed with authority for others? Why have some line workers like Manuela learned English and used it to move into jobs off the lines while the others have not? If we are to meet our collective social goal of ensuring equal access to valued resources in multicultural/multilingual Ontario, it is important to understand why some workers learn and use English to access better-paying jobs off the lines while others do not. This chapter works towards gaining such understanding by examining what social differences distinguish individuals who work off the lines from those who work on the lines. It looks at the question of language choice on the production floor in terms of people's access to opportunities to learn and use English in the communities in which they live and work. The analysis that follows demonstrates that the possession of prior English-speaking network ties plays a role in determining who works on the lines and who does not. It also demonstrates that the possession of such ties can be related to the workers' gender and age. Generally, men and those women who immigrated to Canada under the age of 16 bring prior English-speaking network ties with them to Stone Specialities and have access to jobs off the lines. Women who immigrated to Canada over the age of 16 do not bring such ties with them and generally do not have access to such jobs. After analyzing how social differences between those who work off the lines and those who work on the lines are related to the way linguistic resources are socially distributed within the Portuguese manufacturing community, the analysis moves on to examine the social processes that create this distribution of linguistic resources. In other words, it examines why some immigrant workers have prior English-speaking ties while others do not. The analysis in this chapter also looks at the phenomenon of developing new English-speaking ties at work. While most individuals who work off the lines bring some English language skills with them to Stone Specialities, two workers, Luisa and Joanne, have moved from positions on the lines to positions off the lines before gaining a command of English. Once off the lines, they found themselves in positions where

Access to English-speaking network ties

203

they had no choice but to gain access to English-speaking ties in order to keep their positions off the line. Once again the differences of age and gender play a role in determining which workers without a prior command of English find themselves in jobs that provide access to new Englishspeaking network ties. Luisa and Joanne were both young women on the lines when they were asked by their managers and supervisors to assume roles off the lines. The analysis that follows, then, looks at workers' access to new English-speaking ties at work as well as their access to prior Englishspeaking ties. It links these ties to social categories of gender and age, the notion of linguistic authority and economic opportunities at work. By relating language choice to social difference, the analysis takes up Gal's (1988) challenge to examine language choice as a "symbol of sociopolitical position"; that is, to see language choice as necessarily related to people's position within the Portuguese-Canadian community and within the broader Canadian political economy.

8.1. Access to English-speaking network ties The analysis presented in chapter 6 demonstrates that immigrant workers who work on the production lines at Stone Specialities choose to use Portuguese among themselves at work. They are members of dense, closed social networks with limited access to English-speaking network ties and multiple role-relationships that could provide them with opportunities to learn and use English. For most line workers, using Portuguese at work means spending their working lives "trapped" (Anderson 1991, 1974) in low-paying jobs on the production line. The two workers who did not find themselves trapped in this way are the "working supervisors" Luisa and Joanne. They were promoted into jobs off the lines without previously possessing a good command of English. Luisa and Joanne's stories will be taken up shortly, but for the moment, it is important to note that Joanne was promoted 17 years ago while Luisa was promoted 10 yearj ago. At that time, there were many more production lines operating on the production floor and a greater need for "line leaders", as supervisors were called 10 years ago, to supervise these lines. As Manuela's story shows, most Portuguese workers who have moved into higher-paying jobs off the lines or who secure jobs off the lines to begin with are individuals who have had access to English-speaking

204

Language

choice, linguistic authority and social difference

on the production

floor

contacts and, in some cases, English literacy skills prior to joining the company. Importantly, the differences between those who bring prior English language skills with them to Stone Specialities and those who do not are not arbitrary. The social differences of gender and age that distinguish the members of the two groups can be related to the way linguistic resources are distributed in Portugal and within the Portuguese community in Toronto. A survey of 36 members of the Portuguese community in the Production Department in the spring of 1989 revealed that 26 of the workers had lower-paying jobs on the lines as assemblers and/or machine operators; 2 had jobs off the lines as material handlers, but were paid the same kind of wages for their work as the assemblers and operators; 1 had a higher-paying job off the lines as the maintenance man for the Production Department; 4 were supervisors and 3 were QC inspectors. Like the maintenance man, the supervisors and QC inspectors are better paid than the line workers. As can be seen in table 8.1, all 26 of the line workers are women. Both material handlers are men. Thus, out of 28 workers in lower-paying jobs either on the lines or handling material for the lines, 26 (92.8%) are women. However, out of 8 workers in higher-paying jobs off the lines, only 4 (50%) are women. This means that 26 out of 30 women (86.6%) have lower-paying jobs on the lines while 4 out of 6 men (66.6%) have higher-paying jobs off the lines. Table 8.1 Jobs in the production

department

Lower-paying jobs

Higher-paying jobs

Line

Material

Maintenance

Supervisor

Worker

Handler

Man

Women

26

0

0

2

Men

0

2

1

2

Total

26

2

1

4

QC

Total

Inspektor

2

30

1

3

6

36

The high number of women in lower-paying jobs in the Production Department is representative of the high number of women in lower-

Access to English-speaking

network ties

205

paying jobs within the company as a whole. For example, in the general survey undertaken in 1988, 10 men, but only 2 women reported that they were working in high-paying executive positions. Conversely, 33 women, but only 14 men reported that they were working in lower-paying administrative, clerical positions. As mentioned above, there is a relationship between possessing a higher-paying job off the line and having prior English network ties before joining Stones Specialities. Of the 28 workers in lower-paying jobs, only one had prior English network ties gained through her attendance in Canadian, English high school classes before joining Stone Specialities. The rest (96.4%) came with no English language skills at all "nothing". Of the 8 workers in higher-paying jobs, however, 6 (75%) had prior English network ties. While one of the two male material handlers had no prior ties before a getting job at the company, all 4 of the men working as the maintenance man, supervisors, and a QC inspector did. This means that 5 out of 6 men (83.3%) came into factory with Englishspeaking ties, while only 3 out of the 30 women (10%) did. To summarize, while 5 out of 6 (83.3%) men came to Stone Specialities with prior English-speaking ties and 4 out of 6 (66.6%) men have higherpaying jobs off the lines, only 3 (10%) of the women had some command of English when they began to work at the factory and only 4 out of 30 (13.3%) have better-paying jobs off the lines. Two of the 4 women in these betterpaying jobs had some command of English when they joined the company. Why do Portuguese men have so much more access to English-speaking network ties and better-paying jobs off the lines than women do? How are the women who came to the factory with English-speaking contacts different from the majority who did not? The stories workers tell of how they learned English or, conversely, of how they came to Stone Specialities speaking no English at all, provide insight into the ways linguistic resources and access to these resources are socially distributed in Portugal and within the Portuguese community in Toronto.

8.2. Gender and access to English-speaking ties in Portugal Julio, the maintenance man in Production, came to Canada speaking enough English "to communicate with people". He learned his English while studying in high school and from a private tutor in Portugal. He also learned English from talking to American soldiers stationed at the army base at Lajes on the island of Terceira where he lived. Conscripted into

206 Language choice, linguistic authority and social difference on the production floor

the army at the age of 21, Julio also spoke English when he was stationed in Mozambique, which at the time was still a Portuguese colony. Julio never worked in a lower-paying job on the lines or as a materials handler who serves the lines. When he applied for a job at Stone Specialities, he was given a temporary job as a shipper for two weeks, but was promised a job as maintenance man for the Production Department after that twoweek period. Julio's access to his job as maintenance man is related to his male social status in two ways. As a man in Portugal, he had (1) access to knowledge about the operation of machines and (2) access to Englishspeaking network ties.

8.2.1. Playing with cars and talking to American

soldiers

The job as maintenance man at Stone Specialities is only offered to individuals who know how machines operate and how to repair them when they break down. Julio brought such knowledge and experience with him from Portugal. In the army he "played with cars and this and that" and in high school he took "an industrial course". Julio explains that in high school, there were two types of courses available to students: "You have an industrial course and you have another course for secretaries and things like that." As a male high school student, Julio had access to the industrial course that gave him access to knowledge about how machines and motors operate. As a soldier in the army, a social position only available to men in Portugal, he had access to opportunities to transfer that knowledge into experience when he "played with cars". Julio's knowledge and skills that provided him with access to the job of maintenance man, then, can be related to his gender-based experiences in high school and the army. The job of the maintenance man in the factory not only requires knowledge of machinery, it also requires a good command of English. The maintenance man must communicate with English-speaking repairmen who are called into the company when a problem with a machine cannot be solved, English-speaking supervisors whose machines break down, and the English-speaking Production manager and owner of the company. Thus, Julio needed some prior command of English to successfully assume the job. His possession of such skills as an immigrant from Portugal is also related to his male status. The Portuguese immigrant women on the lines did not learn English during the four years of schooling they received nor did they socialize with American soldiers or travel to countries where they had access to English-speaking network ties.

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8.3. G e n d e r and access to E n g l i s h - s p e a k i n g ties in T o r o n t o a n d at work Unlike Julio, not all the men working in higher-paying jobs in Production have had access to English-speaking ties in Portugal. Tony, one of the Production supervisors, did not. Tony did, however, have access to English-speaking ties in Toronto before finding a j o b at Stone Specialities. He attended English language classes held at a local community college all day, five days a week for six months. So did Peter, the other male Production supervisor. Peter, though, like Julio, also studied English in Portugal - twice a week for 14 years. Both Tony and Peter feel that their formal English language training gave them a "start". Yet, they also believe that most of the English they have learned has been by "just talking with people" at work. Tony and Peter have had the opportunity to "just talk with people" at work because of the nature of the jobs they have held at the company. Welding and supervisory jobs off the line provide access to English-speaking ties that jobs on the line do not.

8.3.1. Getting a start, working away and just talking with people Talking about his first years at Stone Specialities, Peter explains that while there were always people who could use Portuguese at work, especially in the Production area at the downtown plant, he had to speak English because he was hired as a welder at the suburban plant and most of his co-workers were "Canadians". Peter:

Most of the other welders were not Portuguese. One or two of them were. And when I was welding, we worked in an area by ourselves, so that also forced me to communicate without having to ask for translation. It was a separate area away from the Production area. You know what I mean.

Tara:

In the Production area, it's much easier to find someone to translate for you.

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Peter:

floor

Yes. That's what I think. But sometimes when you're, not really by yourself, but, you know, working away, I think you really are forced to learn how to communicate in English.

"Working away", that is, working with non-speakers of Portuguese in an area located away from the production lines where the majority of workers speak Portuguese, provided Peter with English-speaking network ties and opportunities to practice using the English he already acquired in Portugal and at community college. Unlike Peter, Tony, who worked at the downtown plant, did not originally "work away" from the Portuguese community. He started at Stone Specialities as a materials handler on the night-shift while he was studying English at the community college. When he finished the course, Tony was promoted to a worker on the day-shift and began working on the lines. However, unlike most of the women working on the lines, within a year he was able to use the English skills he had obtained at the community college to gain access to his present higher-paying position as Production supervisor. When asked about how he became a supervisor, Tony says that he must have "impressed" his boss. As was mentioned earlier in the case of Luisa and Joanne, at the time of Tony's promotion there were many production lines being operated by Portuguese workers and a need for "line leaders" to supervise these lines. Tony's command of both Portuguese and English, that is his ability to communicate with both workers and management, made him an impressive candidate for such a supervisory position. Importantly, Julio, Peter and Tony's ties with English-speakers are not limited to work situations. All three men choose to spend their lunch hour and coffee breaks with other men who work in the plant, men like the line suppliers from Raw Materials, "the guys on the third floor", who do not speak Portuguese. This gives them even greater access to situations in which they can speak English. Ties that the men have access to at lunch and coffee breaks have been gained through interaction associated with the men's work positions off the lines. When asked if he works closely with the "guys on the third floor", Peter explains, "Not really. What got me involved with them is they are the ones that supply the materials for us. That means we have something in common." In contrast, Portuguese women who do not work off the lines do not have access to English-speaking ties as a result of the jobs they perform at Stone Specialities. They do not "have something in common" with male

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English-speaking plant workers they work with and they do not have English-speaking ties that they have access to at iunch and coffee breaks. At lunch and breaks the Portuguese women who work on the lines and their female "working supervisors" sit together either in the cafeteria, the locker room, or by the lines themselves, on the cardboard cartons of raw materials that are placed right beside the lines. Like Julio's access to the maintenance job, access to welding and supervisory jobs which have Tony and Peter "working away" from the production lines is related to having some prior command of English before joining the company. The formal English language training which gave Tony and Peter a "start" also gave them access to their jobs as welder and supervisor. However, the opportunity for formal English language training in Toronto, like the opportunity to develop English-speaking ties in Portugal, is gender-based. Women do not have the same access to language training that men do. The opportunity for formal English language training in Toronto that gave Peter and Tony that important "start" and access to jobs off the lines are not accessible to the women working on the lines. While both Tony and Peter undertook 6 months of formal English language training at a community college, only 1 of the 26 women on the lines has ever accessed any kind of ESL training either before or after joining Stone Specialities. One obstacle to accessing formal ESL training was discussed earlier in the presentation of Augusta's story. Some women living in their parents' home are not permitted to attend language classes because of the presence of men - "so many boys" - in the classroom. Other obstacles are revealed in the conversations below.

8.3.2. Coming to work, starting a new life

Tara:

Some people go to school when they come from another country. Did you have a chance to go to school when you first came?

Olga:

Yes. When I came [to Canada], my husband come with me to the employment insurance [Canada Employment Centre] and for make a card for a social insurance number. And the girl [asked me if] I am so young why I don't go to the school? I had 19 years old when I came. I say no I came for work. I make a life. I think I make big mistake, but I never go.

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Tara:

Did you ever think that you would like to go to night school? Or it was too hard working and coming home?

Olga:

I think it's hard, because after 4 years here I have my son. And for working the day and then the night go to the school...I have to pay to the baby sitter, and the night maybe again. It's very hard for my son, and very hard for me. ***

Tara:

Did you think about going to school when you first came here?

Luisa:

I was scared to walk on the streets at night. Because I came in August and in September the school starts. And I was scared because I hear so many strange things.

Tara:

So you never wanted to go to night school.

Luisa:

I want to go, but I was scared.

Tara:

And day school?

Luisa:

I had to help my friends because we had to start a new life. ***

Tara:

When there's two Portuguese speakers speaking English and you are there, what do you think?

Angela:

I would like to know English to talk to them. I have a Spanish lady telling me that I could go for six months and learn English and get paid by the government. But I didn't want to at the time... I was not feeling optimistic, so didn't want to go to school.

Tara:

You didn't at that time think about going to school? ***

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Fernanda:

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No at that time I don't think to go school, because I don't have a father. Me and my mother had to work alone. My [younger] brothers went to school.

Although there are several different kinds of language training available to immigrant women - full-time regular high school classes at adult learning centres, full-time six-month ESL programs, part-time ESL classes offered during the day, and part-time ESL classes at night, access to language training is problematic. As explained above, immigrant women may want to attend ESL classes, but do not attend for various reasons. Some must financially support other family members. Others feel that they have come to Canada to work, not go to school. Women who work outside the home all day cannot financially, emotionally, or physically afford the time away from their families at night. And finally, immigrant women who have just left family and friends in their native country to start a new life in a new country, who are often accompanied by babies and young children, are simply too overwhelmed to consider attending ESL classes. They do not always feel optimistic about their decision to leave their native country and are frightened by sights and sounds that are unfamiliar to them.

8.4 A g e and access to English-speaking ties in Toronto and at w o r k While most of the women in the Portuguese "family" at Stone Specialities spend their working lives on the production lines, four women in Production have managed to move off the lines into jobs of "working supervisors" and QC inspectors. What makes these women different from the others? There are distinct similarities between the individual stories of the "working supervisors" and the individual stories of the QC inspectors. There are also distinct differences between the pair of supervisors' stories and the pair of inspectors' stories. However, in spite of these differences, all four stories of moving off the production lines share a common fact. The women who moved off the lines into higher-paying positions are all younger than those who still work on the lines and their younger age plays a role in their stories of their moves off the line. For women then, there is a relationship between the age of emigration from Portugal and access to English-speaking ties in Toronto and at work.

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8.4.1. Being asked to be a supervisor As mentioned earlier, Luisa and Joanne were promoted from the lines into supervisory positions before they had acquired any command of English. They joined the company in the late '60s and early '70s, at the ages of 16 and 17. As teenagers over the age of 16, they were not obliged by Ontario law to attend Canadian high school classes, and upon their arrival in Canada, went out to work to help their family and friends "start a new life". Luisa and Joanne became line workers at Stone Specialities when there were many more Portuguese workers on the production floor and many more production lines in operation than there are today. There was a demand for experienced Portuguese line workers who could supervise these lines in the role of "line leader". There was also no formal promotion policy or program in place at the time. Managers who wanted particular line workers to supervise particular production lines simply asked the workers to do so and expected they would acquire whatever English language skills they needed to carry out their new duties on the job. Luisa:

I used to work in the paint shop. I was a painter. And then that time they need somebody to supervise and Tony came to me and said," Why don't you go?" I said, "I'm scared because I don't know ? and I don't know the English." He said, "It's easy, somebody else did that job before. You know how to paint. You understand how to mix the paint with the thinner. "I was scared because after Bill came and said, "You try. If you're not able to do it, you go back as a painter. No problem. If you try, I give you a raise like the other supervisors." So I try.

Tara:

Who helped you with the job?

Luisa:

Tony

Joanne:

I was working for this supervisor, Richard, and we were doing toy ovens. I think I was a good worker and I learned the job fast and I knew all, most of, the [assembly] jobs of the toy oven line. And at that time we used to make lots of them. We had two lines: one side, one kind; the other side another kind. One day, Phil

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Evans [the Vice-President of Manufacturing at the time] called me and asked me if I could look after one of the toy oven lines. And the supervisor talked to me and said I should because I was young and I did. He helped me. In the stories above, Luisa and Joanne depended upon the male Portuguese supervisors to help them acquire the English they needed to do their jobs. Here, both gender and age play a role in gaining access to English-speaking ties. As young female members of the "family", Joanne and Luisa were targeted by older "brothers" as needing assistance to get ahead in the company. What the men got in return for their assistance may have been respect for their male authority. Evidence for such an interpretation is available in a discussion Tony has with me on the subject of his friendships at work. Tara:

Which people at Stone Specialities would you call your friends?

Tony:

... The ones that I try to call friends are the ones that need me. You come to the line, and I'm going to teach you a job. You're not arrogant, you're a simple person, you are shy, you are scared. I'll try to show that I'm you're friend and you are talking to an older brother somewhat. Those are the people that I call friends. Now after the fact you are comfortable with your job [and] you don't need me any more, if you try to be cute, then I am not as much a friendly person as I used to be to you.

In this discussion about friendships at work, Tony reveals that he likes line workers - who are almost always women - that are "shy" and "scared" and to whom he may play the role of "older brother". He doesn't like workers who are "arrogant" and "cute" or who, in other words, don't respect his authority. When asked why he feels this way, Tony talks about his background as a child and young man in Portugal which instilled a strong respect for male authority within him. Tony:

... When I was very young, 8 years old, I went to a college with priests and all that. Therefore I've been disciplined during all my life. I love discipline. Which does not happen very much in here [Canada], Even in my

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place it's very difficult. My kids, they look at me as if I were Hitler. There is some frictions in that area maybe because of the discipline that I was brought up and then followed by the army and all that. Maybe that's why I admire people that can really take orders and obey. Attracted, perhaps, to the young, female Portuguese "family" members who could "take orders and obey", the older male supervisors assisted Luisa and Joanne with the English they needed to perform supervisory j o b tasks. Without Richard and Tony's initial encouragement in the first place and without their support, Luisa and Joanne would not have been able to successfully assume their positions as "working supervisors" off the lines.

8.4.2. Competing for a job as QC inspector When Manuela and Lidia joined the company as line workers in the early '80s, also at the ages of 16 and 17, working conditions and work practices on the production floor had changed. There were not as many production lines in operation as there were in the '70s and there were fewer opportunities to move off the lines into supervisory positions. By 1982, Shirley Wilson's job posting program was in place and all available positions off the lines were open to competition. Candidates for available positions were now evaluated upon their performance in several interviews and a language test. The reason that Manuela and Lidia could compete for a job off the line was because they acquired English skills before beginning work at Stone Specialities. Both Manuela and Lidia came to Canada as teenagers under the age of 16. Lidia was 12 years old and Manuela was 15. As teenagers under the age of 16, Lidia and Manuela were required by law to attend Canadian high school classes. While both left school to help out their families financially as soon as they were legally able to at the age of 16, Lidia was able to acquire enough English skills during her time in high school to successfully compete for a job as a QC inspector and Manuela continued to develop the English literacy skills she needed at night school. While Luisa and Joanne have had different language learning experiences from Manuela and Lidia, the access all four have had to English-speaking network ties can be related to their age. Having immigrated to Canada as teenagers under the age of 16, Lidia and

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Manuela had access to some formal English language education which provided them with a strong enough command of both written and spoken English to access a job off the lines. While Luisa and Joanne immigrated to Canada after the age of 16 and did not have access to any formal English language training, their young age played a role in their being selected for and supported in a job off the lines by management.

8.5. Access to English-speaking network ties: A summary The preceding discussion has looked at language choice behaviour on the production floor in terms of workers' access to English-speaking network ties both in Portugal and within the communities in which they now live and work. It has been argued that access to such ties are related to the workers' gender and age. Having access to English-speaking ties and jobs off the lines can be related to questions of linguistic authority. A language is endowed with authority when workers must use it to perform work roles. This is because when a language is associated with the performance of a work role, it is also associated with keeping a job, getting a pay cheque and economic gain. As was explained in chapter 6, Portuguese is the language associated with work roles on the production lines. It is suggested that the use of Portuguese on the lines may be endowed with authority because it is the only linguistic means to economic gain that is accessible to line workers. For women on the lines who have no access to English-speaking ties, economic survival and gain in Toronto depend solely on their use of Portuguese on the lines. This dependency allows the language to be endowed with authority. Conversely, people who work off the lines use both English and Portuguese at work to meet their job responsibilities. For them, economic gain is related to keeping jobs as supervisors and QC inspectors. Such jobs are not solely associated with the use of Portuguese, but with both English and Portuguese. Since the sole use of Portuguese does not symbolize economic gain for those who work off the lines, it does not possess the same authority it does for those who work on the lines. Portuguese is not necessarily perceived as a source of linguistic authority. For Manuela, the QC inspector who asserts her authority in English, Portuguese is not endowed with authority at all. For the "working supervisors" who do assert supervisory authority in Portuguese but also use English among each to talk about work, both Portuguese and English are endowed with authority. The reliance that line workers have on Portuguese for economic

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survival and economic gain can be related to the structure and dynamics of the Portuguese family and the position workers hold within the Portuguese-Canadian community and the broader Canadian political economy. Most of the workers who choose to use only Portuguese at work and spend their working lives on factory production lines are Azorean working-class women with family responsibilities. Most immigrants f r o m the Azores have only had access to the most basic education and have been allowed to immigrate to Canada to fill the country's need for unskilled or minimally skilled labour. While most men and women under 16 have some access to English-speaking network ties either prior to finding work in Canada or at the Canadian workplace itself, women over 16 with family responsibilities do not and live out their Canadian lives in Portuguese. These findings support Gal's (1978, 1988, 1989) assertion that sociopolitical and gender position is crucial in shaping language choices in multilingual communities. The preceding discussion has linked economic opportunity, in the particular material form of securing a better-paying job off the lines, to access to English-speaking ties and the act of endowing English, the dominant language in Ontario, with authority. Conversely, it has linked economic subordination to the lack of access to English-speaking ties and the act of endowing Portuguese, a minority language in Ontario, with authority. It is now possible to use this information to address the study's concern with equal access to valued linguistic and economic resources in multicultural/multilingual Ontario.

8.6. W o r k p l a c e E n g l i s h l a n g u a g e training and a c c e s s to linguistic and economic resources The findings on language choice and social difference discussed in this chapter indicate that workplace English language training is, indeed, an appropriate means of addressing the problem of unequal access to opportunities to learn and use English. For most of the Portuguese immigrant women working at Stone Specialities, the provision of language training during the work day is the only means by which they can access English-speaking ties that are so important to securing betterpaying jobs off the lines. However, while workplace English language training may address the problem of unequal access to English-speaking ties, the question of whether or not it can address the problem of unequal access to better paying jobs off the lines remains to be examined.

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It has been assumed that English language training can - at least to some extent - address the social problem of unequal access to economic resources in our society by providing immigrant workers with the linguistic skills they need to obtain better paying jobs associated with speaking English. And indeed, having access to some formal English language training and/or informal English-speaking ties did provide the Portuguese supervisors and QC inspectors with opportunities to acquire better-paying jobs off the lines. However, it is questionable whether many - if any - women working on the lines would be able to access jobs off the line even if they were to learn English and choose to use it at work. As mentioned earlier, changing working conditions at the factory make the possibility of moving off the lines into a "working supervisor" position remote. As well, as Virginia explains in chapter 7, the women on the lines do not have "enough school" to be able to compete for a j o b as Q C inspector. It will be recalled that in her study on male Portuguese workers, Anderson (1971, 1974) found certain jobs are "traps" rather than "stepping-stones" to economic mobility. Jobs that are "traps" are jobs which require those who perform them to obtain a great deal of training before being able to move into another, higher-paying, job. In order to move into the job of QC inspector, the women on the line would have to obtain a grade 12 Canadian education or, at the very least, English language skills equivalent to those of a Canadian grade 12 graduate. This kind of training is beyond the means of possibility for most - if not all women who have only four years of schooling in Portugal, do not have access to evening ESL classes, and perceive the two hours of E S L they do have access to at work primarily as a social activity. Understanding production line work as a "trap" provides us with a heightened understanding of the use of languages other than English at work. Workers who "see nothing better" see line work as the "trap" it is. They know which jobs are accessible to them and which are not. They also know how to keep those jobs that are accessible to them. They k n o w that speaking English on the lines means risking the loss of solidarity with co-workers. They also know that losing the solidarity of co-workers means losing the support needed to perform one's j o b on the line. Workers on the lines can not afford to jeopardize the only j o b that may be accessible to them. At this point in the analysis, it is possible to ask the following question: In light of the economic gain and social power associated with Portuguese and in light of the fact that it is questionable whether many if any - women working on the lines would be able to access jobs off the

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line at Stone even if they were to learn English and choose to use it at work, what kind of role is there for English language training in the multicultural/multilingual workplace? As was explained in chapter 1, English language training in the workplace has been funded by various government and non-government agencies to facilitate the economic survival and settlement of immigrant workers. This study has shown that knowing how to speak English is not always necessary for economic survival and settlement in Canada. In the late 1980s and early 1990s English language training in the workplace was given special funding by the Ontario government as part of a larger program known as Multicultural Workplace Programs - MWP. The goals of MWP initiatives were linked to goals of equality, access and participation for all citizen of Ontario, including those who do not use English as their first language. Such goals are extremely broad, but if the particular goals of equality and access can be narrowed down and interpreted in part as access to greater economic opportunity in the multicultural workplace, this study has also shown that, on its own, workplace English language training cannot always be associated with such a goal either; for production line workers at Stone Specialities, English language skills are only part of what is needed to gain access to higher-paying jobs off the lines. These findings bring up several interesting questions. If workplace English language training is not necessarily linked to economic survival or greater economic opportunity, how appropriate an intervention is it in our pursuit of a "more equitable" workplace? Whose interests does it serve? Furthermore, if workplace English language classes are targeting workers who do not endow English with authority and do not use it at work, is there any reason to continue providing English instruction at work? These questions will be taken up in the next chapter which discusses the implications this study has for workplace English language training in Ontario.

Chapter 9 Opportunity and empowerment in the multicultural/ multilingual workplace

In the last three chapters, language choice at Stone Specialities was linked to the different ways workers use Portuguese and English to gain access to economic and social resources. In illuminating the different costs, benefits, and consequences associated with the use of English and Portuguese at work, the ethnographic, sociolinguistic evidence in this study allows us to explore the ways workplace English language training may or may not be able to address social goals of equality, access and participation. In this chapter, then, understandings of the linguistic and social reality some immigrants experience at work are used to answer the study's final research question: How does a new understanding of immigrant experience at work inform the practice of English language training in the multicultural/multilingual workplace?

9.1. English classes and economic opportunities at work At the end of the last chapter it was argued that English classes for line workers at Stone Specialities are not associated with economic survival or access to greater economic opportunities at work. Workers on the lines secure their jobs through Portuguese-speaking network ties and use Portuguese to complete everyday work tasks and fulfil their job responsibilities. Line workers who have moved off production lines have been able to do so because they had the opportunity to develop English language skills before starting work in the factory or because they were promoted without them. As Stone Specialities continues to move through the 1990s, there will be few opportunities for line workers to be promoted off the lines as Manuela, Lidia, Luisa, and Joanne were in the 1970s and '80s. The company is simply not running as many production lines as it used to and there is less of a demand for new supervisors and QC inspectors. Generally, other jobs off the lines, jobs that require employees to complete paperwork, are associated with "good" to "excellent" English language skills and the possession of at least a Canadian grade 12 education. These are skills and qualifications that are not accessible to

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line workers whose access to educational opportunities are limited to biweekly one-hour workplace language classes. If English language classes at Stone Specialities are not associated with economic survival or greater economic opportunities for workers on the lines, then whose interests are being served when these classes are set up in the workplace? While English language classes may not serve the economic interests of the line workers at the company, it can be argued that they do - to some extent - serve the interests of the supervisors, QC inspectors, and forewoman in lower-management positions who need English language skills to perform everyday work tasks. However, while the opportunity to develop more proficient English skills may enhance the work performance of workers in lower-management positions - and therefore serve the interests of upper management - such enhanced performance does not necessarily lead to greater economic opportunities. For example, while developing greater skill in writing accident reports is valuable to both the Production supervisors and to the Production Manager because clear reports do not have to be rewritten, such skills do not necessarily provide Production supervisors with access to higherpaying, managerial positions in the Production Department. Nevertheless, even though English language training has not created economic opportunities for most factory workers at Stone Specialities, this does not mean that it does not have the potential to create economic opportunities for workers in other kinds of workplaces. The reason why language training does not create economic opportunities for Portuguese line workers has to do with the educational background they bring to the Canadian workplace and the amount and kind of training they need in order to access better-paying positions off the production line. At Stone Specialities, the type of education and training women on the lines need in order to obtain a j o b off the line is simply not accessible to them. For immigrant workers whose background knowledge, training and qualifications in their native countries already provide them with access to positions that are associated with greater economic opportunity, the ability to demonstrate that knowledge and training in English may indeed allow them to secure such positions. This, in fact, was the assumption behind a series of six-month full-time English language courses which were run in Australia between 1979 and 1982 for adult migrants with foreign engineering and medical qualifications. As described by Jill Burton (1989), the co-ordinator for the course given in Adelaide, what made the Australian English language program particularly relevant and innovative was the fact that the learners were

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taken out of the classroom to learn English in authentic workplaces rather than - as is traditionally done - asked to learn English from the workplace in the classroom. This feature of the program was particularly important to three of the fourteen engineers in the course as they found permanent professional employment with the organizations that had offered them work placements during the course. Three more engineers took up fulltime professional employment during the third (and last) module of the course; another took up full-time professional employment immediately after the course, and one took up part-time employment with his work placement organization. As Burton asserts, that eight of fourteen engineers found professional employment is a significant achievement of the course. But what is interesting about this achievement, significant as it is, is Burton's comment that although language improvement was marked, it was not as great as the teachers has anticipated would be required for participants to find appropriate employment. The fact that several of the learners did find employment was thought to be due, in part, to employer recognition of the engineers' professional expertise rather than their concern with their English language skills. Unfortunately, the learners in the medical group did not experience the same success in obtaining employment as their engineering colleagues. The only doctor who began paid work at the end of the course did so as a taxi driver. For the doctors, the success of the course was in facilitating entry into a work environment. After the course, most of them were allowed to continue work placements informally. As reported by Burton, they felt that this was valuable as it provided an effective way of preparing for the professional examinations they had to take before they could get a license to practice medicine or dentistry in Australia. Burton concludes that learner success in terms of gaining employment after participating in the English language program depended on market forces: engineers were in short supply, doctors and dentists were not. English language proficiency was, therefore, almost totally disregarded in the case of the engineers, yet, in the case of the doctors and dentist, was considered highly important. While employers recognized that engineers need English language writing and meeting skills, they were prepared to hire the engineers they needed without them. What this tells us is that unless there is a need for their expertise and knowledge within the host country, English language training does not necessarily create economic opportunities for professional immigrant workers either. In that the educational backgrounds immigrants bring with them to Canada are related to their social class and gender position in their native

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countries, it can be argued that workplace English language training associated with goals that derive from Multiculturalism and Employment Equity initiatives falls short in its consideration of class, ethnicity and the way class and ethnic relations are related to gender relations. Both male and female immigrant workers from rural, working-class backgrounds in Portugal provide the country with their manual labour. The educational backgrounds they bring with them cannot provide them with access to the kind of training they need to move from low-paying manual jobs into higher-paying, more skilled positions. Immigrant women from rural working-class backgrounds in Portugal seem to have had even less access than the men to those kind of educational or training experiences which could be used to access good-paying jobs in Canada. However, while workplace English as a Second Language (ESL) classes may not facilitate economic survival or create economic opportunities for immigrant workers at Stone Specialities, this does not mean that such classes have no role to play in the social pursuit of equality, access and participation. As argued in chapter 8, the presence of ESL classes in the workplace is extremely important since the provision of ESL instruction during the work day is the only way the majority of the women immigrant workers there can access the English language. However, before the workplace ESL class can be linked to social goals of equality, access and participation and can be considered valuable to immigrant workers in plants like Stone Specialities, it is necessary to explore why and in what ways English language instruction may be important to immigrant workers. As argued above, the benefits of ESL classes cannot be assumed or taken for granted.

9.2. English classes, lay-offs, economic survival and e m p o w e r m e n t at work In thinking about the benefits of English language instruction for immigrant workers who may not associate the use of English with access to valuable economic and social resources, it is helpful to return to the discussion in chapter 7 which describes the consequences associated with not being able to speak English at Stone Specialities. In times of economic hardship, all factory workers are vulnerable to lay-offs. Those workers who do not speak English are particularly vulnerable to unemployment after being laid off. Thus, it can be argued that while learning to speak English will not necessarily provide immigrant workers with access to

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better-paying jobs, it may provide them with some degree of economic protection against unemployment in the case of lay-off. Workers who get jobs in recessionary times are those who have a variety of skills they can draw upon. The possession of English-language skills may enhance workers' chances of finding new employment19. Another consequence associated with not being able to speak English at Stone Specialities is being dependent on a language broker to translate messages to and from non-speakers of Portuguese. As mentioned in chapter 6, people usually use a language broker only when they feel their English is not strong enough to transmit their own messages and generally make an effort to "manage" by themselves whenever possible. Workers who are dependent on a language broker to convey their concerns or desires to English-speaking management risk having the meaning of their messages misrepresented or having the force of their messages diluted. This is because the people who assume the role of language brokers are often in supervisory or management positions. As Tony explained in chapter 5, Production supervisors who assume the role of language broker are expected to support the authority of management when translating messages between Portuguese workers and English-speaking managers and supervisors. Thus, another reason why being able to speak English may be beneficial to immigrant workers has do to with being able to control the way their messages to English-speaking supervisors and managers are transmitted. Such a benefit is described by Burnaby, Harper, and Peirce (1990) in their evaluation report of the workplace English classes being conducted at the Levi Strauss plants. In summarizing the workers' assessment of the English language classes held at the plant in Brantford, Ontario, they report Overall, workers indicated a strong desire to improve their English in order to communicate more effectively on the job and to be more independent in Canadian society generally. One worker in the class said she felt like an "invalid" because of her lack of proficiency in English. She had to rely heavily on family, friends, co-workers and the ESL teacher. According to workers, particularly difficult and frustrating experiences with the language occurred on the job when disagreements arose with supervisors and co-workers over the quality and

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quantity of work and specifically over the sorting of bundles (emphasis is mine) (1990:31). In the Levi Strauss plant in Brantford, then, workers learning English at work wanted and needed to use English to stand up for themselves in situations of conflict over production.

9.3. E n g l i s h classes and e m p o w e r m e n t in the c o m m u n i t y Moving from the realm of personal power at work to the realm of personal power at home and in the community, it can also be argued that most immigrant workers who do not speak English, at one time or another, find themselves in situations where not being able to speak English leads to feelings of embarrassment, humiliation and powerlessness. Virginia, for example, tells the story of relying on a Portuguese dental assistant to translate for her during an operation for gum surgery being performed by an English-speaking dentist. After the assistant explained the surgical procedure to her, Virginia agreed to undergo the operation, but told the assistant that she wanted to go to the bathroom before the dentist started the procedure. When the assistant translated for Virginia, she told the dentist that Virginia was going to the bathroom because she was frightened of the operation and wanted to run away. Virginia, having spent some time in an English high school, understood everything the assistant said. She was so angry at the assistant's attempt to humiliate her that she decided to use English and speak to the dentist herself. Similarly, Portuguese parents who do not speak English and need to access the services of English-speaking doctors and lawyers will sometimes ask their children to act as language brokers for them. Anderson and Higgs (1976) report that Portuguese children who translate for their parents at the doctor's and lawyer's office are privy to all kinds of secrets from which they may have normally been excluded. They also report that parents find it "much more difficult" to discipline children who act as language brokers since they are dependent on them for translation services and discretion outside the family. Other situations in which immigrant workers who do not speak English may feel disempowered or diminished include the times when their children bring home Englishspeaking friends and they don't understand what the children are saying to each other and the times when they want to talk to their children's teachers at school, but cannot. All of these situations could be used as a basis

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for a workplace ESL curriculum that empowers immigrant workers outside the classroom. A particularly important, but controversial, situation that may involve the need to speak English concerns asserting parental authority at home. While first generation immigrants may associate their native language with authority, their children, second generation immigrants who go through the Canadian school system, may not. The relationship between language choice and parental authority is clearly brought out in the following discussion in which Luisa talks about how she uses Portuguese and English at home with her children. The conversation began when I asked Luisa about how she learned English without having access to any formal language training.

9.3.1 Putting English up in front Tara:

So how did you learn English? You didn't go to school here...

Luisa:

Just here [at work],

Tara:

Just by listening...

Luisa:

Yeah. At home. When we watch TV.

Tara:

So you were speaking English at home?

Luisa:

Not really. Now with the kids sometimes. They speak Portuguese, but when we want to give them an example, when something is wrong with them, if we try to make them understand they are wrong in Portuguese, some words they don't understand. They don't know what that means. W e have to try [to speak in English], My husband, he knows [how to speak English] better than me. Always we have to speak with them in English when something is wrong in school or they complain that "the teacher don't like me" or they are wrong. This and that. W e have to make them understand they have to respect the people. This has to be in English.

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Tara:

Just because they don't have the words in Portuguese?

Luisa:

Yeah. S o m e words they don't know what that means. T h e same when w e go to church. I go to English mass, because if I go to Portuguese [mass], they don't understand and they just play around. They go to English [mass], they respect.

Tara:

S o if there's something very important you want to tell them you will use English.

Luisa:

Even if I don't know, I ask my husband for help, because they know the meaning of the words and they agree. If I try to say the same thing Portuguese they don't care very much.

Tara:

S o you found a good w a y of using it. S o from the time they were little you were using both English and Portuguese?

Luisa:

When they little w e used to speak Portuguese, but with school everything is different. If anybody speak to them in Portuguese,

they

understand,

but

when

it's

something

serious it's better if you explain to them in English. Tara:

Between you and your husband you speak

Portuguese

mostly. Luisa: Tara:

Yeah. S o having kids has made a difference in what you do at home.

Luisa:

W e like to speak with them in Portuguese because we want them to learn. But when it's something to do with them [English] it's the one in front.

Luisa and her husband use English when they want their children to "respect" the authority of what they are saying to them, for instance when they are giving their children "an example" or telling them "they are wrong". T h e y use English to emphasize the importance of respecting the

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authority of an English-speaking teacher and go to English mass so that their children will respect the authority of the church. One reason Luisa and her husband use English in these situations is because their children do not understand certain words in Portuguese. However, another reason is because when something is said in Portuguese, her children "don't care very much". Portuguese is not associated with authority in the children's ears. This was not always the case. When her children were small, before they went to school, Luisa and her husband used to speak only Portuguese to their children. But now that the children are in school, where the use of English is associated with authority, "everything is different" and Luisa feels that she must use English when explaining something that is "serious". That is, she feels she must use English to assert parental authority over her children. Luisa's story of putting English up "in front" may demonstrate a relationship between language choice, linguistic authority and formal schooling. It is suggested that before her children were old enough to be in school, Luisa - who was working on the lines at the time - chose to use Portuguese to assert parental authority over her children since she herself endowed Portuguese with linguistic authority. In response to Luisa's assertion of parental authority in Portuguese, her children endowed Portuguese with authority. Once her children began to attend school where English was used by the principal, the support staff, teachers and other children to assert authority, they too began to endow English with authority. After her children started school, Luisa found that she needed to use English if she wanted her children to listen, understand, and respect what she was saying. This was something Luisa was able to do since she assumed her new role of working supervisor at about the same time as her children entered school. Both Luisa's children and Luisa herself found themselves beginning to endow English with authority at about the same time in their lives. Luisa feels she is able to assert parental authority over her children because she endows English as well as Portuguese as a language of authority. Taking Luisa's understanding of the relationship between language use and authority as a starting point for thinking about the benefits of English language instruction, it is possible to suggest that parents who do not use English in their everyday lives may find they are not able to assert parental authority over their children who do. It is also possible to suggest that parents of English-speaking children who can not speak English themselves may find their authority eroded. As a result,

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these parents may feel deprived of power and control over their personal and family relations. However, at the same time, it is also possible to question the belief that it is necessary to accept the dominance of English in order to maintain power and control over personal and family relations. Choosing to endow English with authority is only one way of resolving issues of language, power and control within personal and family relations. Finding ways of maintaining the authority of Portuguese within the family is another. The right to assert parental authority may not be the only right or privilege at stake in the first and second generation immigrant family. The privilege of intimacy may also be at risk. In a moving autobiographical work that details the history of his schooling as a second generation American of Mexican descent, Richard Rodriguez (1982), writes about the changes brought about in his family once he and his brother and sister started school. ... as we children learned more and more English, we shared fewer and fewer words with our parents. Sentences needed to be spoken slowly when a child addressed his mother or father. (Often the parent wouldn't understand). The child would need to repeat himself. (Still the parent misunderstood.) The young voice, frustrated, would end up saying, "Never mind" - the subject was closed. Dinners would be noisy with the clinking of knives and forks against dishes. My mother would smile softly between her remarks; my father at the other end of the table would chew at his food, while he stared over the heads of his children (1982:23). My mother and father, for their part, responded differently, as their children spoke to them less. She grew restless, seemed troubled and anxious at the scarcity of words exchanged in the house... By contrast, my father seemed reconciled to the new quiet. Though his English improved somewhat, he retired into silence. At dinner he spoke very little. One night his children and even his wife helplessly giggled at his garbled English pronunciation of the Catholic Grace before meals. Thereafter he made his wife recite the prayer at the start of each meal, even on formal occasions, when there were guests in the house. Hers became the public voice of the family (1982:24)

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If ESL classes at work can provide parents with access to the language that their children "respect", help them share more words with their children, and provide them with an alternative to "reconciled" silence, then it could be argued that English language instruction is indeed valuable to immigrant workers. ESL classes may not only have the potential to provide workers with economic protection and more control over conditions and relationships outside the home. They may also be able to give workers access to more control over conditions and family relationships at home. Yet, once again, it is important for us not to make assumptions about why English instruction may be important to immigrant workers. For example, older workers who have decided to stop working if they are laid off may not need the economic "protection" we associate with English. Similarly, some parents may have children who endow both Portuguese and English with authority, permitting them to assert parental authority in Portuguese. And even though their children may only endow one language English - with authority, some immigrant parents may not wish to "share more words with their children" in English. They may choose silence over the use of English as an alternative or, as suggested above, attempt to maintain the authority of Portuguese in their home. In thinking through the benefits of workplace English language training, we must always be tentative about why English instruction may be important to individual immigrant workers. The analysis in this chapter works from grounded evidence that supports a vision of English language training for economic protection and control over everyday living conditions and relationships. However, at the same time, it is recognized that this "grounded" vision is a political vision that links empowerment with participation in English-speaking networks. Such a vision is at odds with a vision that links empowerment with efforts to redefine and change existing unequal linguistic relations of power. It is also recognized that a vision of English language training for economic protection and control over everyday living conditions and relationships may demand that individual learners cross language boundaries they wish to maintain. In turn, such a demand may be costly and provoke resistance to the use of English. A vision of language training for economic protection and control over everyday living conditions and relationships, then, presents two pedagogical problems. One problem has to do with resistance to the use of English in particular social situations. In light of the costs that may be associated with the use of English, it is argued that we must look for a

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way of envisioning workplace English language training so that our classes acknowledge and respect the language boundaries that are part of people's working and personal lives. The second problem has to do with the political nature of engaging in ESL training in Ontario. It can be argued that in teaching English to immigrant workers, ESL instructors become part of a hegemonic process that does nothing to change existing power relations and the existing social order. The evidence in this study has demonstrated that teaching English in the workplace does not generally make a difference in the workers' economic lives because of the way economic possibilities for workers are limited by capitalist society and Canadian immigration laws that explicitly and implicitly serve capitalism. Thus, it is possible to argue that English language training that protects workers who are vulnerable to lay-offs and unemployment only protects them to the extent that such instruction may help them to find another low-paying job as a factory production line worker. Similarly, it can be argued that English language training aimed at providing workers with more control over their working and living conditions does not change those working and living conditions in a radical way. Furthermore, English language training aimed at encouraging participation in English-speaking networks only reinforces the hegemony of English. As pointed out above, a vision that links empowerment with participation in dominant language networks is at odds with a vision that links empowerment with efforts to redefine and change existing unequal linguistic relations of power. Does teaching English to immigrant workers necessarily mean being part of a hegemonic process that does nothing to change the status quo? Or is there a way for us to engage in teaching English in the workplace so that we challenge the class, gender and linguistic oppression facing the Portuguese immigrant women working on the lines? To address the problems associated with the provision of English language training in the workplace, we need a theoretical framework which provides us with a way of working through the conflicts, tensions, and dilemmas both students and teachers face when they engage in the activity of language learning at work. Such a framework needs to provide teachers with a way of seeing ourselves as not only part of a hegemonic process, but as part of an empowering process as well.

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9.4. F r o m E S L training to a critical p e d a g o g y of E S L English language instruction for economic protection and control over everyday living conditions and relationships must be understood differently f r o m the way current workplace language training is often understood. To differentiate between the two types of practices, the term "a critical pedagogy of ESL" is used to contrast with the terms j o b specific language training, E S L training, ESL instruction, E S L teaching, English language training, English language instruction and English language teaching, all of which are presently used in the field of workplace ESL. Following Simon and Dippo (1986), the word "critical" in the term "a critical pedagogy of ESL" refers to a understanding of E S L practice as transformative. Like job-specific language training, much of which is based on the teaching of English for everyday use in workplace situations, a critical pedagogy of ESL takes as its starting point the reality that we teach ESL to immigrant workers in an ethnically stratified society where members of different ethnic groups have differential access to valued social resources and social power. However, unlike the ideology or discourse 20 of much job-related language training, the discourse of a critical pedagogy of E S L does not see job-specific official language training as a powerful means of addressing social inequality. As discussed above, official language training cannot generally invoke change in the lives of many working-class immigrant workers because of structural processes and constraints that limit possibilities for workers in capitalist society. Instead, a critical pedagogy of ESL attempts to challenge inequality in Canada by providing language students with a means of thinking about their position in their communities and society and ways of increasing their access to economic, social and personal power. As will be discussed below, such thinking can be encouraged by giving E S L students opportunities to both talk about their work and life experiences and reflect on the way they talk about them. The word "pedagogy" - as opposed to the words training, instruction and teaching - in the term a "critical pedagogy of ESL" refers to the distinction Simon (1988) makes between teaching and pedagogy in his work on "the pedagogy of possibility". As conceptualized by Simon, "teaching" refers to the specific strategies and techniques educators use in order to meet predefined, given objectives. Simon, however, considers

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such strategies and techniques insufficient for constituting a practice that strives to increase students' access to power or, in his words, "a practice whose aim is the enhancement of human possibility". "What is required is a discourse about practice that references not only what we as educators might actually do, but as well, the social visions such practices would support...Pedagogy is simultaneously about the details of what students and others might do together and the cultural politics such practices support" (1988:2). A critical pedagogy of ESL is close in vision and spirit to Bronwyn Peirce's (1989) "pedagogy of possibility in the teaching of English internationally". Peirce challenges what she calls "the hegemony of communicative competence" as an adequate set of principles on which to base the teaching of English internationally. Conceptualized by sociolinguist Dell Hymes, the notion of "communicative competence" refers to the intuitive mastery native speakers have to use and interpret language appropriately in the process of interaction and in relation to social context. In Hymes' words, communicative competence is knowing "when to speak, when not, and ... what to talk about with whom, when, where, [and] in what manner" (Hymes 1972:227). The concept of communicative competence has been widely accepted in language teaching circles in recent years and has led to a strong interest in teaching learners appropriate language use in addition to correct grammatical or phonological use. Peirce, however, raises questions of the central role given to the concept of communicative competence in language teaching and argues that the teaching of English can open up possibilities for students by helping them explore what might be desirable as well as "appropriate" uses of English. In developing her argument, Peirce begins by suggesting that the phenomenonal spread of the English language throughout the world has led to the perception that it is the world's first truly global language. However, despite this perception of English as an international language, Peirce points out that English is also a subject of controversy. While some writers have argued that communicative competence in English provides linguistic power (e.g., Kachru 1986), others have characterized the language as a "cultural intrusion" that is "the property of elites" and which expresses "the interests of the dominant classes" (e.g., Cooke 1988:58-59). In an attempt to work through the role teachers of English play in producing and perpetuating inequalities in the communities in which they teach, Peirce draws on Simon's theoretical work on the pedagogy of possibility (Giroux and Simon 1984; Simon 1987, 1988). She reconceptualizes the teaching of English as a pedagogy that opens up

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possibilities for students not only in terms of material advancement, but in terms of the way they perceive themselves, their role in society and the potential for change in their society. Like Peirce's pedagogy of possibility in the teaching of English internationally, a critical pedagogy of ESL seeks to provide opportunities for immigrant English language students to question their perceptions of themselves, the roles they play in society and the potential for change in their society. A critical pedagogy of ESL is also close in vision and spirit to the "problem-posing" approach associated with the work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (e.g., 1970, 1971, 1973, 1985). In the late 1950s, Freire initiated a highly successful literacy program for people living in the slums of Brazil. Concerned with his students' fatalistic outlook, he started "culture circles" that used pictures to challenge students to think critically about their lives and to begin to control their own destinies. Culture circles evolved into literacy classes with carefully chosen words that represented the emotionally and socially problematic issues in participants' lives. The dialogue about each "generative" word stimulated their understanding of the social root causes of problems and initiated discussion on how change could be effected. Described in Education for Critical Consciousness (Freire 1973), such programs strived to empower students with the reading and writing skills necessary to gain the vote and participate in the political process. Freire's central premise is that education is not neutral and the interaction of teacher and student does not take place in a vacuum. People bring with them their cultural expectations, their experiences of social discrimination and life pressures, and their strengths in surviving. Education starts from the experiences of people, and either reinforces or challenges the existing forces that keeps them passive. For Freire, the purpose of education should be human liberation, which "takes place to the extent that people reflect upon...the relationship to the world in which they live... [In] conscientizing themselves, they insert themselves in history as a subject" (Freire 1971:61-62). This goal of education is reflected in Freire's view of the learner and of knowledge. Freire believes that the learner should not be perceived as an empty vessel to be filled by the teacher nor as an object of education. "Studying is a form of reinventing, recreating, rewriting, and this is a subject's not an object's task" (Freire 1985:2). Learners enter into process of learning not by acquiring facts, but by constructing their reality in social exchange with others. To achieve this education, Freire proposes a dialogical approach in which everyone - teacher/student, administrator/teacher - participates as

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co-learners. The goal of dialogue is critical thinking (or "conscientization" from the Portuguese) and action. Critical thinking starts from perceiving the root causes of people's place in society - the socioeconomic, political, cultural and historical context of their personal lives. But critical thinking continues beyond perception towards the actions and decisions people make to shape and gain control over their lives. Knowledge evolves from the interaction of reflection and action (or praxis) and takes place "when human beings participate in a transforming act" (Freire 1985:106). Freire's ideas and vision of "education for transformation" have been the catalyst for work undertaken by progressive North American ESL educators who believe that problem-posing is particularly relevant to immigrant and refugee ESL students who may not have as much control over their lives as they would like to have (e.g., Auerbach and Wallerstein 1987; Barndt, Cristal, and marino 1982; Bell and Burnaby 1984; Crawford-Lange 1981; Duncombe et al. 1983; Moriarty and Wallerstein 1979; Pratt 1982; Unda 1980; Wallerstein 1985). Like the line workers in this study, many ESL students come from working-class backgrounds with restricted access to education in their home countries. In Canada and the United States, they work primarily in low-paying, unskilled or lowskilled jobs. They also often experience social or emotional barriers to learning English, cultural conflicts, lack of self-esteem, and a feeling of vulnerability in their new or host society (Auerbach and Wallerstein 1987). Progressive ESL educators believe that curriculum centred on talk about the shared nature of these conflicts and problematic interactions (similar to Freire's "generative words"), enables students to envision different working and living conditions and to generate an individual or community response to problems (Auerbach and Wallerstein 1987). As will be discussed below, such an approach to ESL education has much to offer a critical pedagogy of ESL which strives to help students gain more control over their everyday living conditions and relationships. Also valuable is the considerable amount of Canadian literature which has advocated for ESL instruction that serves to assist people in becoming "active participants" in society (e.g., Elson 1989; Hernandez 1989; Mohamid 1989; Peirce, Harper and Burnaby 1992; Sauve 1989). This work also points to the need to take into account the lived realities of the learners' worlds. Finally, there have been Canadian ESL workplace programs which have been aware of the issues raised in this chapter for a long time (e.g., the Centre for Labour Studies Program at Humber College described in Belfiore and Burnaby 1984; the Levi Strauss program in Edmonton, Alberta and Toronto, Ontario described in Belfiore and

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Burnaby 1984; Bell 1982; Sauve 1982; and the Metro Labour Education Centre program in Toronto [e.g., 1991, 1992]). Their pioneering work also has much to offer a critical pedagogy of ESL.

9.5. Addressing the problems of resistance and hegemonic practice As mentioned earlier, envisioning a methodology for a critical pedagogy of ESL in the multicultural/multilingual workplace requires conceptual tools which can provide teachers with a way of addressing two problems: worker resistance to using English and our own participation in an educational process that is hegemonic. In addressing the first problem of resistance to learning and using English at work, it is helpful to review the way resistance has been understood and explained in this study.

9.5.1. Understanding resistance to English It has been argued that on the production floor, Portuguese is the language used to perform and negotiate everyday working activities on the lines. It is the language that is associated with bringing home a pay cheque and the language used to access friendship and assistance on the lines. Even women whose first language is not Portuguese, but Spanish or Italian, use Portuguese on the lines. Speaking English means risking the loss of solidarity with co-workers and the support needed to perform one's job on the line. As most line workers come from backgrounds that have provided them with access to only the most basic education and little, if any, access to English-speaking ties, access to jobs other than the one they have is limited. Workers on the lines cannot afford to jeopardize the support of their co-workers as the job they presently hold may be the only job that is accessible to them. Unlike the line workers on the production floor who do not learn and use English, Luisa has found empowering ways of integrating its use into her life. At work, she uses English to claim the role, rights and obligations of production supervisor and at home she uses English to assert parental authority over her children. Luisa is capable of asserting parental authority in English because she has access to English-speaking ties at work and endows English with authority. Endowing English with authority is related to Luisa's perception that the language is associated

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with access to economic resources. This perception is related to her work role as production line supervisor, a role that is associated with the use of both English and Portuguese. In contrast to Luisa, the women on the line do not use English and do not endow the language with authority. They associate access to social and economic resources with the use of Portuguese since their friendships and roles at work are associated with the use of Portuguese, not English. Such an analysis leaves us with a clear understanding of our pedagogical problem. Unlike Luisa, who has found a strategy of linguistic assimilation empowering, the line workers either do not associate the use of English with empowerment or feel that the empowerment it may represent carries too many risks. One of the consequences of abandoning Portuguese for the use of English is that people's basic cultural values and practices are undermined. As Manuela's story of "Going for Something Good" demonstrates in chapter 7, people who choose to participate in Englishspeaking networks experience a great deal of pain and conflict when they reject community values and practices. Because she distances herself from the community as QC inspector, members of the "family" "talk bad" about Manuela. Coping with being "talked bad" about creates such stress for Manuela that she reports having developed ulcers. In his work Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez (1982) also speaks about the costs and losses attached to the experience of assimilation and the abandonment of his cultural and linguistic identity. One Saturday morning I entered the kitchen where my parents were talking Spanish. I did not realize that they were talking in Spanish however until, at the moment they saw me, I heard their voices change to speak English. Those gringo sounds they uttered startled me. Pushed me away. In that moment of trivial misunderstanding and profound insight, I felt my throat twisted by unsounded grief. I turned quickly and left the room. But I had no place to escape to with Spanish (The spell was broken.) My brother and sisters were speaking English in another part of the house. Again and again in the days following, increasingly angry, I was obliged to hear my mother and father: 'Speak to usen ingles.' (Speak.) Only then did I determine to learn classroom English...At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had

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been technically true since my birth: I was an American citizen. But that special feeling of closeness was diminished by then. Gone was the desperate, urgent, intense feeling of being at home; rare was the experience of feeling myself individualized by family intimates. W e remained a loving family, but one greatly changed (1982:21-22). Considering the costs and loss that assimilation may entail for workers whom we wish to empower, it is possible to question the benefits of any kind of English language instruction, even English language instruction that has been envisioned as education for economic protection and control over everyday living conditions and relationships. Before completely refuting a potential role for ESL instruction in the personal empowerment of immigrant workers, however, it is worthwhile returning to the sociolinguistic notion of language boundaries. In our attempt to empower immigrant workers through English language training, it is argued that it is important to acknowledge and respect the language boundaries that construct and are constructed by interactions in people's working and personal lives. As mentioned earlier, for Portuguese line workers at Stone Specialities, using English with nonspeakers of Portuguese is not associated with the same costs that using English with another Portuguese speaker is. An E S L curriculum shaped around interactions with non-speakers of Portuguese not only acknowledges and respects the costs involved with crossing a language boundary, it also has the potential to empower Portuguese immigrant workers if particular interactions with particular non-speakers of Portuguese give them more control over their current working and living conditions. To illustrate, ESL education that encourages workers to use English for purposes of talking to their English-speaking bosses, landlords, dentists, lawyers, and bureaucrats provides immigrant workers with the linguistic resources needed for making positive changes in their working and living environments (for examples of these kinds of E S L learning activities see Goldstein 1994, 1995). In arguing for a critical pedagogy of ESL that both acknowledges and respects the language boundaries that are part of people's working and personal lives, it is important to point out that some adult ESL learners may be prepared to assume the risks and costs associated with a strategy of linguistic assimilation in order to gain access to the power associated with speaking English in Ontario. For example, while Richard Rodriguez

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(1982) writes poignantly of the losses associated with his childhood experience of assimilation, he also celebrates the social and political power he has achieved as a result of having assimilated into middle-class White America. Today I hear bilingual educators say that children lose a degree of 'individuality' by becoming assimilated into public society... But the bilingualists simplistically scorn the value and necessity of assimilation. They do not seem to realize that there are two ways a person is individualized. So they do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality. The bilingualists insist that a student should be reminded of his difference from others in mass society, his heritage. But they equate mere separateness with individuality. The fact is that only in private - with intimates - is separateness from the crowd a prerequisite for individuality... In public by contrast, full individuality is achieved, paradoxically, by those who are able to consider themselves members of the crowd. Thus it happened for me: Only when I was able to think of myself as an American, no longer an alien in gringo society, could I seek the rights and opportunities necessary for full public individuality. The social and political advantages I enjoy as a man result from the day that I came to believe that my name, indeed, is Richheard Road-ree-guess. For Richard Rodriguez, the strategy of linguistic assimilation is a legitimate one: its costs and losses are justified by the social and political advantages it brings. Such a political view does not consider it necessary to respect the language boundaries present in tfte working and personal lives of immigrant speakers and opposes a vision of ESL education that does. While a critical pedagogy of ESL t at acknowledges and respects people's individual language boundaries may have the potential to empower immigrant workers by helping them gain more control over their working and living conditions, as suggested earlier, it can be argued that the provision of ESL instruction does not change inequitable working and social conditions in a radical way. It can also be argued that English language training - which is aimed at encouraging participation in

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English-speaking networks - only reinforces the hegemony of English. In the final analysis, must even a critical pedagogy of ESL be considered a political activity that does nothing to change the existing social order? Is there any way for workplace ESL instructors to engage in the activity of teaching ESL in the workplace so that class, gender and linguistic oppression facing immigrant women on the lines is challenged? In answering this last, yet most fundamental question of all, it is helpful to turn to the notions of common sense knowledge and the meaning of experience. In arguing that even a critical vision of ESL is necessarily part of a hegemonic process that does nothing to change the existing social order, we assume the hegemony of a particular set of power relations secured by common sense knowledge and the meaning of experience is fixed and unchangeable. However, theoretical thinking on common sense argues that common sense knowledge is not a monolithic, fixed body of knowledge. It is often contradictory and subject to change (Weedon 1987). The way individuals understand different events in their lives depends on the ideologies or discourses available to them at a particular moment of time. For example, it has been argued that the way the women on the lines experienced and responded to the 1971 attempt to unionize Stone factory workers can be linked to the discourse that was available to them. Luisa and Cecilia "knew" that they wanted to stay "inside" and continue working rather than go "outside" and strike in support of unionization. This knowledge was tied to their discursive understanding of what it meant to be a respected Portuguese woman in Canada. As women responsible for the material survival, maintenance and advancement of their families, Luisa and Cecilia believed that the owners did not treat them badly, that they were doing the best that they could to provide them with decent wages and working conditions and that it was "good" for them to be inside. The plurality of experience ensures that interest groups put a great deal of energy into promoting certain views of the world. When a different discourse became available to women working on the lines in the discursive understandings and language of the union organizers ("They're taking [treating] the people like a horse"), the owners of Stone Specialities brought in the Portuguese priest from the parish church to discredit this newly available way of giving meaning to experience. The discourse of the union had the power to redefine hegemonic relations between the workers and owners of the company. Such discourse had to be discredited in order for the Stone family to maintain its power over wages and working conditions. The meaning of experience then, is not something that is fixed or settled. It is a crucial site of political struggleover common sense knowledge. Since

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Opportunity and empowerment in the multicultural/multilingual

workplace

the meaning of experience and common sense knowledge is tied to the availability of particular discourses articulated through language, the workplace language classroom - which has the potential to make different discourses available to immigrant workers through language instruction also becomes a site of political struggle. This understanding of the language classroom as a site for political struggle allows a critical pedagogy of ESL to be understood as something other than a political activity that is simply hegemonic. A critical pedagogy of E S L is committed to providing ESL students with opportunities to critically think and talk about their lives and experiences in Canadian society. Although part of a hegemonic process, a critical pedagogy of ESL may nevertheless disrupt the process at moments to become part of an empowering process. Discourse is articulated in language; in the study of a second language hegemonic discourse can be challenged. As mentioned earlier, problem-posing in the ESL classroom is one means of enabling students to envision different working and living conditions and generate an individual or community response to problems of oppression. T o illustrate, perceiving a shared problem of asserting authority in Portuguese at home may move ESL students who are parents to lobby for Portuguese language classes at their local schools. Moving beyond talk about shared feelings and experiences of powerlessness, is the possibility of providing students with opportunities to reflect upon the way they talk about their experiences. For example, in the story that opened this thesis, Fernanda, one of the line workers, told Carl, the English teacher, that the women on the lines didn't have to speak politely to each because they were all "sisters". By encouraging students to discuss what it means to be a "sister" on the lines, what it means to be "married now", that is, what it means to be a woman in the Portuguese "family", ESL teachers can provide students with opportunities to explore the way they perceive themselves and their role in society. In doing so, they open up possibilities for potential for change in t