Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T07:01:46.880Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transnationalism, Multilingualism, and Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2015

Patricia A. Duff
Patricia A. Duff*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbiapatricia.duff@ubc.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Applied linguistics is a field concerned with issues pertaining to language(s) and literacies in the real world and with the people who learn, speak, write, process, translate, test, teach, use, and lose them in myriad ways. It is also fundamentally concerned with transnationalism, mobility, and multilingualism—the movement across cultural, linguistic, and (often) geopolitical or regional borders and boundaries. The field is, furthermore, increasingly concerned with identity construction and expression through particular language and literacy practices across the life span, at home, in diaspora settings, in short-term and long-term sojourns abroad for study or work, and in other contexts and circumstances. In this article, I discuss some recent areas in which applied linguists have investigated the intersections of language (multilingualism), identity, and transnationalism. I then present illustrative studies and some recurring themes and issues.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics , Volume 35 , March 2015 , pp. 57 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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.)

References

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

This influential book provides a theoretically rich, European sociolinguistic perspective on trends associated with human mobility and multilingualism with examples from African diaspora communities in Europe and other contexts of transnational linguistic and semiotic influence and practice (e.g., in Africa and Asia).

Lam, W. S. E., & Warriner, D. S. (2012). Transnationalism and literacy: Investigating the mobility of people, languages, texts, and practices in contexts of migration. A review of research. Reading Research Quarterly, 47 (2), 191–215.

This comprehensive, well-researched literature review and synthesis provides an excellent overview of theoretical frameworks and current research, particularly in relation to multilingual literacies involving transnational immigrants living in the United States, with a focus on multilingual, digital, and online literacy practices as well. Drawing on their own and others’ extensive research in this area, the authors documented current directions in scholarship and case studies of particular relevance to educational researchers (e.g., in language and literacy).

Vertovec, S. (2009). Transnationalism. New York, NY: Routledge.

Written by anthropologist Steven Vertovec, who coined the term super-diversity, which is now commonly used in urban sociolinguistics, this book provides a concise and very helpful interdisciplinary theoretical introduction to migration and transnational studies. Vertovec illustrated the kinds of transnational practices—and transformations—that many migrants participate in.

REFERENCES

Abdi, K. (2011). “She really only speaks English”: Positioning, language ideology, and heritage language learners. Canadian Modern Language Review, 67 (2), 161–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abdi, K. (2014). Temporary return migration as a strategy for bilingual language socialization among Chinese-Canadian families. Paper presented at the World Congress of Applied Linguistics, Brisbane, Australia, August 2014.Google Scholar
Alim, H. S., Ibrahim, A., & Pennycook, A. (eds.). (2009). Global linguistic flows: Hip hop cultures, youth identities, and the politics of language. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Basch, L. G., Glick Schiller, N., & Blanc-Szanton, C. (1994). Nations unbound: Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments, and deterritorialized nation-states. London, UK: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Baynham, M., & De Fina, A. (eds.). (2005). Dislocations/relocations: Narratives of displacement. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome.Google Scholar
Blackledge, A., & Creese, A. (2010). Multilingualism: A critical perspective. London, UK: Continuum.Google Scholar
Block, D. (2007). Second language identities. London, UK: Continuum.Google Scholar
Block, D. (2010). Globalization and language teaching. In Coupland, N. (ed.), The handbook of language and globalization (pp. 287–304). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1977). The economics of linguistic exchanges. Social Science Information, 16 (6), 645–668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power (Raymond, G. & Adamson, M., trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brinkerhoff, J.M. (2009). Digital diasporas: Identity and transnational engagement. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (ed.). (2013). Family language policy: Sociopolitical reality versus linguistic continuity [Special issue]. Language Policy, 12 (1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L., & Hancock, A. (eds.). (2014). Learning Chinese in diasporic communities: Many pathways to becoming Chinese. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. & Weninger, C. (eds.). (in press). Language, ideologies and education: The politics of textbooks in language education. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Fina, A., & Perrino, S. (eds.). (2013). Transnational identities [Special issue]. Applied Linguistics, 34 (5).Google Scholar
Doerr, N., & Lee, K. (2013). Constructing the heritage language learner: Knowledge, power, and new subjectivities. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Duff, P. (2012). Identity, agency, and SLA. In Mackey, A. & Gass, S. (eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 410–426). London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Duff, P. (2014). Case study research on language learning and use. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 34, 233–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duff, P. & Doherty, L. (2015). Examining agency in (second) language socialization research. In Deters, P., Gao, X., Miller, E., & Vitanova, G. (eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to theorizing and analyzing agency and second language learning (pp. 54–72). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Duff, P., & Talmy, S. (2011). Second language socialization: Beyond language acquisition in SLA. In Atkinson, D. (ed.), Alternative approaches to SLA (pp. 95–116). London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Duran, C. S. (2012). A study of multilingual repertoires and accumulated literacies: Three Karenni families living in Arizona (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University.Google Scholar
Ek, L. D. (2009). “Allá en Guatemala”: Transnationalism, language, and identity of a Pentecostal Guatemalan-American young woman. High School Journal, 92 (4), 67–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farr, M. (2006). Rancheros in Chicagoacán: Language and identity in a transnational community. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Fogle, L. (2012). Second language socialization and learner agency: Adoptive family talk. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fong, V. L. (2011). Paradise redefined: Transnational Chinese students and the quest for flexible citizenship in the developed world. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forey, G., & Lockwood, J. (2010). Globalization, communication and the workplace: Talking across the world. London, UK: ContinuumGoogle Scholar
Friginal, E. (2009). The language of outsourced call centers. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, education, and bilingualism. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goulbourne, H., Reynolds, T., Solomos, J., & Zontini, S. (2010). Transnational families: Ethnicities, identities and social capital. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, H. (2011). Social inclusion through multilingual ideologies, policies and practices: A case study of a minority church. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14 (4), 383–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, D. (1990). The condition of postmodernity: An enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
He, A. W. (2013). The wor(l)d is a collage: Multi-performance by Chinese heritage speakers. Modern Language Journal, 97 (2), 304–317.Google Scholar
Hornberger, N. H. (2007). Biliteracy, transnationalism, multimodality, and identity: Trajectories across time and space. Linguistics and Education, 8 (3–4), 325–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanno, Y. (2003). Negotiating bilingual and bicultural identities. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kattan, S. (2010). Language socialization and linguistic ideologies among Israeli emissaries in the United States (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Kim, J. & Duff, P. (2012). The language socialization and identity negotiations of Generation 1.5 Korean-Canadian university students. TESL Canada Journal, 29 (6), 82–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, K. (ed.). (2009). Global connections: Language policies and international call centers [Special issue]. Language Policy, 8 (1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, K. (2013). A tale of three sisters: Language ideologies, identities, and negotiations in a bilingual, transnational family. International Multilingual Research Journal, 7, 49–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramsch, C., & Vinall, K. (in press). The cultural politics of language textbooks in the era of globalization. In Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. & Weninger, C. (eds.), Language, ideologies and education: The politics of textbooks in language education. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C., & Whiteside, A. (2008). Language ecology in multilingual settings. Towards a theory of symbolic competence. Applied Linguistics, 29 (4), 645–671.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kubota, R. (2011). Learning a foreign language as leisure and consumption: Enjoyment, desire, and the business of eikaiwa. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14, 473–488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lam, W. S. E. (2008). Language socialization in online communities. In Duff, P. & Hornberger, N. H. (eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education: Vol. 8. Language socialization (pp. 301–311). New York, NY: Springer.Google Scholar
Lam, W. S. E. (2009a). Literacy and learning across transnational online spaces. E-learning and Digital Media, 6 (4), 303–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lam, W. S. E. (2009b). Multiliteracies on instant messaging in negotiating local, translocal, and transnational affiliations: A case of an adolescent immigrant. Reading Research Quarterly, 44 (4), 377–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lam, W. S. E. (2013). Multilingual practices in transnational digital contexts. TESOL Quarterly 47 (4), 820–825.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lam, W. S. E. (2014). Literacy and capital in immigrant youths’ online networks across countries. Learning, Media and Technology, 39 (4), 488–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lam, W. S. E., & Warriner, D. S. (2012). Transnationalism and literacy: Investigating the mobility of people, languages, texts, and practices in contexts of migration. A review of research. Reading Research Quarterly, 47 (2), 191–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leander, K., & de Haan, M. (eds.). (2014). Media and migration: Learning in a globalized world [Special issue]. Learning, Media and Technology, 39 (4).Google Scholar
Lemke, J. (2000). Across the scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and meanings in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7 (4), 273–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitt, P., & Glick Schiller, N. (2004). Conceptualizing simultaneity: A transnational social field perspective on society. International Migration Review, 38 (145), 1002–1039.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, D., & Duff, P. (2014). Chinese language learning by adolescents and young adults in the Chinese diaspora: Motivation, ethnicity, and identity. In Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. & Hancock, A. (eds.), Learning Chinese in diasporic communities: Many pathways to being Chinese (pp. 219–238). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, W. (ed.). (2012). Language policy and practice in transnational, multilingual families and beyond [Special issue]. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33 (1).Google Scholar
Li, W., & Zhu, H. (2013). Translanguaging identities and ideologies: Creating transnational space through flexible multilingual practices amongst Chinese university students in the UK. Applied Linguistics, 34 (5), 516–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noguerón-Liu, S. (2013). Access to technology in transnational social fields: Simultaneity and digital literacy socialization of adult immigrants. International Multilingual Research Journal, 7, 33–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning (2nd ed.). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ong, A. (1998). Flexible citizenship among Chinese cosmopolitans. In Cheah, P. & Robbins, B. (eds.), Cosmopolitics: Thinking and feeling beyond the nation (pp. 134–162). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Ong, A. (1999). Flexible citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Pal, M., & Buzzanell, P. (2008). The Indian call center experience: A case study in changing discourses of identity, identification, and career in a global context. Journal of Business Communication, 45 (1), 31–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumbaut, R. (2002). Severed or sustained attachments? Language, identity, and imagined communities in the post-immigrant generation. In Levitt, P. & Waters, M. (eds.), The changing face of home: The transnational lives of the second generation (pp. 43–95). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Sánchez, P. (2007). Cultural authenticity and transnational Latina youth: Constructing a meta-narrative across borders. Linguistics and Education, 18, 258–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sassen, S. (1992). Global cities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, B. (2014). Salsa, language and transnationalism. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shin, H. (2012). From FOB to cool: Transnational migrant students in Toronto and the styling of global linguistic capital. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 16 (2), 184–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Song, J. (2010). Language ideology and identity in transnational space: Globalization, migration, and bilingualism among Korean families in the USA. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13 (1), 23–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vertovec, S. (2004). Migrant transnationalism and modes of transformation. International Migration Review, 38 (3), 970–1001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vertovec, S. (2006). The emergence of super-diversity in Britain. (Working Paper No. 25). Centre on Migration, Policy and Society. Oxford, UK: University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Vertovec, S. (2009). Transnationalism. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warriner, D. (2007a). “It's just the nature of the beast”: Re-imagining the literacies of schooling in adult ESL education. Linguistics and Education, 18, 305–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warriner, D. (ed.). (2007b). Transnational literacies: Immigration, language learning, and identity [Special issue]. Linguistics and Education, 18, 201–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warriner, D. (2013). “It's better life here than there”: Elasticity and ambivalence in narratives of personal experience. International Multilingual Research Journal, 7, 15–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warriner, D. S., & Wyman, L. (2013). Experiences of simultaneity in complex contemporary linguistic ecologies: Implications for theory, method and practice [Special issue]. International Multilingual Research Journal, 7 (1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiley, T. (2013). Constructing and deconstructing “illegal” children. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 12 (3), 167–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yi, Y. (2009). Adolescent literacy and identity construction among 1.5 generation students from a transnational perspective. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 19 (1), 100–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zappa-Hollman, S., & Duff, P. (2014). Academic English socialization through individual networks of practice. TESOL Quarterly (online prepublication). doi: 10.1002/tesq.188CrossRefGoogle Scholar