Hostname: page-component-8678677fb7-dg9rd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-10-16T13:01:28.551Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Problems portraying migrants in Applied Linguistics research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2009

David Block
David Block*
Affiliation:
Institute of Education, University of London, UKd.block@ioe.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper is a very personal attempt to explore the problematics of portraying migrants in Applied Linguistics research. I begin with a discussion of identity, in particular what we might mean when we use the term, and from there I go on to explore its fundamental imprecision through an analysis of a census question about ethnicity. I then consider migration and the problematics of naming migrants in research, first examining an example of my own research and then expanding the discussion to wider issues. I conclude the paper with a brief consideration of the epistemological status of portrayals in research.

Information

Type
Plenary Speeches
Information
Language Teaching , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 480 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ali, S. (2004). Mixed-race, post-race: Gender, new ethnicities and cultural practices. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism (2nd edn.). London: Verso.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (1998). Long-distance nationalism. In Anderson, B. (ed.), The spectre of comparisons: Nationalism, southeast Asia, and the world. London & New York: Verso, 58–77.Google Scholar
Andrew, P. (in preparation). The social construction of age in second language learners. Ph.D. thesis, Institute of Education, University of London.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z. (1991). Modernity and ambivalance. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z. (2001a). The individualized society. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z. (2001b). Identity. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z. (2007). Consuming life. Oxford: Polity.Google Scholar
Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Block, D. (2002). Destabilized identities across language and cultural borders: Japanese and Taiwanese experiences. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 7.2, 1–19.Google Scholar
Block, D. (2006). Multilingual identities in a global city: London stories. London: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, D. (2007). Second language identities. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Block, D. (2008). Spanish-speaking Latinos in London: Community and language practices. Journal of Language, Identity and Education 7.1, 5–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, D. (forthcoming). Unpicking agency in sociolinguistic research with migrants. In Martin-Jones, M. & Gardner, S. (eds.), Multilingualism, discourse and ethnography. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian meditations. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Caldas-Coulthard, C. R. & Iedema, R. (eds.) (2008). Identity trouble. London: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, D. & Kulic, D. (2003). Language and sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castles, S. & Miller, M. (2009). The age of migration (4th edn.). Guildford: Guildford Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, R. (1997). Migration and its enemies: Global capital, migrant labour and the nation-state. London: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Conradson, D. & Latham, A. (2005). Transnational urbanism: Attending to everyday practices and mobilities. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31.2, 227–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, B. & Harré, R. (1999). Positioning and personhood. In Harré, R. & van Langenhove, L. (eds.), Positioning theory. London: Sage, 32–52.Google Scholar
Fouron, G. E. & Schiller, N. Glick (2001). The generation of identity: Redefining the second generation within a transnational social field. In Cordero-Guzmán, H. R., Smith, R. C. & Grosfoguel, R. (eds.), Migration, transnationalization, and race in a changing New York. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 58–86.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Gilroy, P. (2000). Between camps: Nations, culture and the allure of race. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs ‘identity’? In Hall, S. & du Gay, P. (eds.), Questions of cultural identity. London: Sage, 1–17.Google Scholar
Hannerz, U. (1996). Transnational connections. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. (1990). Nations and nationalism since 1780: Programme, myth, reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, J. & Meyerhoff, M. (eds.) (2003). The handbook of language and gender. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joseph, J. (2004). Language and identity. London: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karner, C. (2007). Ethnicity and everyday life. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kristeva, J. (1994). Strangers to ourselves. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Leung, C., Harris, R. & Rampton, B. (1997). The idealised native speaker, reified ethnicities and classroom realities. TESOL Quarterly 31.3, 543–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, A. (ed.) (2008). Problematizing identity. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
MacMaster, N. (2001). Racism in Europe. London: PalgraveGoogle Scholar
Marfleet, P. (1998). Migration and the refugee experience. In Kiely, R. & Marfleet, P. (eds.), Globalisation and the Third World. London: Routledge, 67–90.Google Scholar
Modood, T. (2005). Multicultural politics: Racism, ethnicity and Muslims in Britain. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2001). 2001 census. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001.Google Scholar
Papastergiadis, N. (2000). The turbulence of migration. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Puri, J. (2004). Encountering nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raj, D. (2003). Where are you from? Middle-class migrants in the modern world. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reich, R. (1991). The work of nations. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Riley, P. (2007) Language, society and identity. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Simmel, G. (1950). The stranger. In Wolff, K. (ed.), The sociology of Georg Simmel. New York: Free Press, 401–408.Google Scholar
Vertovec, S. (2009). Transnationalism. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, C. (2008). Literacy and identity: A view from the bridge in two multicultural London schools. Journal of Language, Identity and Education 7.1, 61–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weedon, C. (2004). Identity and culture: Narratives of difference and belonging. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2007). A step too far: Discursive psychology, linguistic ethnography and questions of identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11.5, 661–681.CrossRefGoogle Scholar