2.1 Conceptualising Constraints

There is a whole body of studies that focuses on how migrants interact in a new sociolinguistic environment and, in recent years, increasing attention has been devoted to the resourcefulness of migrants in using their repertoire to make meaning.Footnote ¹ In fact, the study of language and migration has shown (1) multilingual language practices that denote the resourcefulness of migrants, and (2) structural inequalities that prevent migrants from using their resources freely.

The first group of studies often takes an ethnographic approach and tends to highlight aspects such as fluidity and transcendence of boundaries. This is the case of a city market in England where, when customers and sellers do not have much in common in terms of linguistic history, different ways to make meaning, including gesturing, are employed in commercial transactions (Blackledge & Creese Reference Blackledge and Creese2017). In other settings, practices other than standard norms are brought to the fore; for example, explaining that in non-Western multilingual societies communication and negotiation rather than monolingual-like competence are key (Canagarajah & Wurr Reference Canagarajah and Wurr2011). In summative accounts of the literature, these types of language use are described as ‘locally-occasioned language that is liable in certain circumstances to attract censure informed by dominant monolingual or regulated bilingual (keep-languages-separate) ideologies’ (Baynham & Lee Reference Baynham and Lee2019, p. 30). They are described as grassroots practices where boundary transcendence is related to creativity (Santello Reference Santello2022).

The second strand of research has highlighted aspects like injustice (Piller Reference Piller2016), structural inequalities (Tupas Reference Tupas2015, Reference Tupas2024), discrimination (Dovchin Reference Dovchin2022), and immobility (De Fina & Mazzaferro Reference De Fina and Mazzaferro2022). Taking an approach that draws heavily on social sciences at large, these have noted that migrants are subject to processes they can only partly control. For example, Gal (Reference Gal, Mar-Molinero and Stevenson2006) discusses how German speakers in Hungary and Hungarian speakers in Austria can face ridicule when crossing borders, and Lippi-Green (Reference Lippi-Green2012) has stressed the negative impact that accent evaluation can have on speakers. Studies have focused on specific settings such as the workplace, where there might be a ‘covert expectation to assimilate linguistically in order to be seen as legitimate professionals’ (Harrison Reference Harrison2013, p. 198), or politics, where potential candidates may suffer from large unconscious bias against L2 speakers, therefore limiting their likelihood to run for office (Bonotti & Willoughby Reference Bonotti and Willoughby2023).

To be sure, both of these discursive poles have been subject to a good degree of scrutiny and problematisation. Scholars such as Prinsloo (Reference Prinsloo2024) question attributing superior intrinsic value to fluid language practices alone, pointing to both fluid and fixed language practices in society. Drawing on Silverstein (Reference Silverstein2017), he highlights that, for instance, using a standard language variety can be linked to linguistic creativity, implying therefore that the fixity that characterises certain language practices can also be used in creative ways. May (Reference May and MacSwan2022), providing a more general critique of deconstructivism in sociolinguistics, also warns against an excessive focus on individualism and the hybridisation of linguistic practices, arguing that it is important not to underplay the reality that access to standardised varieties plays a role for many language users. By contrast, agency has been identified in how migrants handle top-heavy societal problems that make them victims of injustice. For example, Bucholtz, Casillas, & Lee (Reference Bucholtz, Casillas, Lee, Avineri, Graham, Johnson, Riner and Rosa2019) have described how young people in California can challenge conditions of injustice linked to their languages of heritage through activism by advocating for the use of Spanish in a commencement speech, thus showing that multilinguals themselves can be involved in change.

In spite of these problematisations, there is a tendency in the field to establish a dichotomy whereby language is creative at the micro-level and constrained at a higher level (Blommaert Reference Blommaert2005, p. 125). Rather, Gramling (Reference Gramling2021) has questioned the tendency to insist on either powerful macro-social forces that affect languages or unbridled language use at the grassroots level. He wishes for greater interdisciplinary insights and a rethinking of multilingualism as a praxis under pressure. Dovchin (Reference Dovchin2025a) has contended that playfulness and precarity do not have to be seen as opposite ends in translingualism research, and other scholars have talked about the need to complement approaches that focus on macro-social workings, that is, larger social processes, with less large-scale elements that can also function as constraints (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2022, Reference Canagarajah2023), for example, in daily mundane interactions. In other words, there is room for research looking at constraints from a variety of perspectives, also conceding that developing linguistically does not necessarily mean breaking free from the undesired. One could question, for instance, if behaving multilingually is primarily about going against rigid language practices that speakers do not want to resort to. In this sense, scholars are starting to assess more systematically the possibility that there could also be value in multilingual practices that operate within constraints rather than going beyond them (Santello Reference Santello2022). This could revisit the assumption around transcendence of boundaries as the touchstone of multilingualism, giving an enhanced consideration of what it means to operate linguistically – and possibly creatively – within something given, in line with Deumert’s (Reference Deumert2018) view that expressivity in everyday life does not have to be thought of as automatically implying disruption.

To understand the role of constraints in everyday life, I find it useful to look at the work of Michel de Certeau (Reference Certeau1990), whose writings illuminate key societal processes. In looking at them, de Certeau emphasises the relevance of production and consumption. He shows that the activities that are valued in society are usually those that have a function that can be ascertained and classified, and that contribute to some form of production. Similarly, he shows that individuals and groups are meant to be consumers of products, and their actions are often inscribed in exchanges. To put it in another way, according to him, society is affected by functionalism, which means that often what counts is what serves a specific identifiable purpose. In this context, de Certeau stresses the centrality of what he calls ‘strategies’. These are ways of doing that establish a dynamic whereby an individual or a group exerts control. Strategies have the role of controlling activities so that they are manageable and can serve their function well; to do so, people that use strategies must have an overview of what occurs and can put in place plans that can encompass and manage what is seen. Control of a place, for instance, can be exerted by strategies such as mapping that describe it in detail so that parts that are not used can be identified and dealt with.

However, de Certeau finds it unacceptable to consider people who do not engage in strategies as passive consumers incapable of doing anything beyond what is imposed on them. Some activities, while based on elements that are not fully chosen, actively re-use what is given. Think of cooking, for example: an individual does not cook in a vacuum or completely evade what surrounds him or her. There are recipes, there is a specific place where cooking happens, and there are ingredients that may or may not be available, but what the person who cooks does is to take part in a form of poiesis (a Greek word meaning formation/making) that happens contextually. These are not simply activities carried out by someone who wants to go against some kind of mainstream, but are everyday practices that are at the same time shared, that is, not necessarily individual, and particular, that is, happening in a specific context.

To explain these kinds of everyday practice, de Certeau employs the notion of ‘tactic’. A tactic is fundamentally different from a strategy. It is a way of doing that does not try to exert control, nor is it connected to planning and overseeing knowledge. He describes it as the art of the weak, who use gaps in the system to act unexpectedly. When someone acts tactically, they take advantage of the circumstances they are in; they can engage in activities such as cooking and walking that are in fact micro-activities where they can be creative. Indeed, for a scholar like Michel de Certeau who ‘proposed as a primary postulate the creative activity of those in the practice of the ordinary’ (Giard Reference Giard1998 p. XXXV), these tactics are key for the understanding of action in society.

Language is to be looked at in the context of the range of actions that individuals and groups perform. For de Certeau, focusing on language means looking at concrete ordinary practices which are in effect the locutory acts that one sees when examining everyday language. These are embedded in dynamics that involve hierarchies among groups and ways of using language, but show inventiveness and the ability to adapt (Certeau Reference Certeau2007, pp. 119–120). In L’invention du quotidien, drawing upon the work of J.L. Austin, de Certeau sheds light on the relevance of everyday language by emphasising its richness, logical complexity and its many connections accumulated over time. Not only is everyday language worth studying, but it is also less simple than one might think. When looking at idioms, for example, he sees ‘a way to treat the language that has been received’ (Certeau Reference Certeau1990, p. 43 my translation). In this sense, the kind of use de Certeau is interested in is not a production in itself (Pennycook Reference Pennycook2010) but more re-use, again a way to ‘treat’ language. He also explains this concept by looking at proverbs: in proverbs, one can identify a form of representation handled by users. Telling proverbs implies a creative involvement on the side of the speaker in their being able to re-use them – rather than creating them from scratch – in a particular moment and in front of a specific interlocutor (Certeau Reference Certeau1990, pp. 36–40).

It is evident that de Certeau points us towards two kinds of action. One that has an overseeing character that is able to exert control. The other that is not based on full control but that can be creative thanks to forms of re-use. In the realm of language use, think of the writing of a novel, where the author, albeit using pre-existing linguistic/cultural forms, oversees the entire work; and think instead of the aforementioned telling of proverbs, where the ways in which things are said do not depend on an overseeing grasp on the part of the language user. The distinction between strategies and tactics, therefore, is one that relates to control over circumstances and doing, rather than power over others or lack thereof. The tactical nature of everyday practices is related to the eventuality of not necessarily having an overseeing knowledge of contextual elements, and yet being able to be creative. As Habermas (Reference Habermas1986) would phrase it, it means to be able to engage in communicative action within the limits of the speakers’ lifeworld. Another way to put it is that language use in the everyday can be described as an artistic tactic which involves adaptation to changes (Certeau Reference Certeau2007, p. 219). Speaking can be tactical in this sense; language is not simply given but includes the active involvement of the user, who does something while using language. Tactics are practices that involve moves that resemble those of a battle, while also being poetic and jubilatory: ‘[…]polymorphous manoeuvres and mobilities, jubilatory, poetic and military interventions’ (Certeau et al. Reference Certeau, Jameson and Lovitt1980, p. 8).

The re-use that for de Certeau is the basis of everyday language use can also be described as inhabiting (Certeau Reference Certeau1990, p. 51) and, in turn, inhabiting as a tactic (p. XLVIII). As for activities that have to do specifically with dwelling, one can consider the situation of a new migrant who finds a house in a new city. In this situation, the choice of where to live can be restricted as a consequence of the limited contractual power that migrants often have, at least at the beginning of their settlement in a new place. But the migrant can still do something creative. The limitations on a place to live in can be turned into something creative by superimposing one’s own ways of inhabiting onto what is there. The migrants might not be able to leave, but they can use what is given in creative ways. The locale becomes a small-scale ‘space of action, differentiation, experimentation and innovation’ (Certeau Reference Certeau2007, p. 187, my translation).

Neither does using language imply a choice at all times. Something given, such as a language, can be inhabited; ways of using that do not fully belong to that language can be superimposed onto what is given. In this way, a language (or a place) can allow the speaker to introduce creativity into something that was not chosen, while remaining in it. These are ways of using, or rather re-using (Certeau Reference Certeau1990, p. 52), which multiply as ways to identify through a place become problematised by people’s movement; and because of their lack of full control, in a way one can see speakers as renters rather than owners of their art (Certeau Reference Certeau1990, p. 111). Speakers would then be seen as those who do not have a wholesale control over their ‘art’, as de Certeau puts it, and yet are able to use it.

As de Certeau stressed on more than one occasion, these kinds of tactical moves have been growing in contemporary societies, in line with their detachment from traditional communities, also as a result of migration. Different things are gathered and used creatively in people’s ordinary lives also when it comes to language. This use is consistent with multilingual language use, which, albeit not explicitly acknowledged in de Certeau’s work, is clearly alluded to when he talks about language use precisely as related to processes of detachment from traditional communities. He was not assuming the exclusive presence of French when speaking about language in society, particularly if we think about the chunks of society he was looking at (often those at the margins), as well as his mentioning of migrants and movements in his metaphors and examples. In de Certeau’s conception of everyday language use, then, there is a space of action – un espace de jeu (Certeau Reference Certeau1990, p. 51) – where the speakers can superimpose their ways onto what they have within the place where they find themselves. This does not mean transcending the place itself, but inhabiting it. It is more than dealing with restraints on grammatical and acceptability grounds (Gumperz Reference Gumperz1964); it is about how meaning-making relates to concrete everyday circumstances, including those circumstances that are not chosen. As a result, the tactics that are linked to using language in everyday life are kinds of action where the actors seize the occasions that come up in order to be able to do something creative.

It is in the everyday that one can see the superimposition de Certeau is referring to and how it is involved in the use of limits to do something inventive. It is something beyond repetitiveness and yet strictly linked to re-use. These are ‘unpredictable manipulations’ (Certeau et al. Reference Certeau, Jameson and Lovitt1980, p. 9) that are based on the ability to be creative within a given system. Something other than planned strategic action is connected to the ways in which orality comes into being and, in turn, ‘the oral has a founding role in relation to the other’ (Certeau & Giard Reference Giard1998, p. 251). It is indeed important to reiterate that, while this kind of creativity can be realised by an individual’s language use, it is something that happens because of an encounter with difference, meaning with someone else who is, therefore, an ‘other’. To a sociolinguist, this brings to mind that ‘language usage – i.e. what is said on a particular occasion, how it is phrased, and how it is coordinated with non-verbal signs – cannot simply be a matter of free individual choice’ (Gumperz & Hymes Reference Gumperz, Hymes, Gumperz, Hymes, Gumperz and Hymes1972 p. VI). Drawing on scholars such as Sacks and Schegloff, de Certeau sees that there is a shared element that involves both what is used to communicate (the repertoire, we would say in contemporary linguistic terms) and how it is communicated, in that it implies the presence of another, an interlocutor who is part of the exchange.

Therefore, following de Certeau, we can focus on a speakers’ space of action and their coming to terms with what they did not choose (Certeau Reference Certeau1990 pp. L–LI). It is within this space of action that creativity emerges, and its being able to introduce difference is predicated upon the acknowledgement that such a space of action is not boundless. As discussed earlier, instead of talking about mobility as if it were something available to everyone, de Certeau acknowledges that people do find themselves in places they did not choose and from where they cannot easily depart. This is evidently similar with a language. It is in this interplay between individuals finding themselves somewhere they did not necessarily choose (e.g. a language and a place) and their ability to inhabit it that de Certeau finds a way to describe what he finds remarkable. Speakers might be in a condition of having full control over circumstances and doing, but they can nonetheless be creative by using fragments of what they have at their disposal in the process of inhabiting.

In multilingualism research, there is much discussion around boundaries and ‘whether and how poststructuralist interpretations of language adequately capture the ways in which multilinguals manage and navigate linguistic boundaries’ (Jenks & Lee Reference Jenks and Lee2020, p. 221). De Certeau has repeatedly emphasised that language use in everyday life is immersed in a social setting where individuals experience limits and have to navigate them; we see practices that do not acquire any big role in society, but are disseminated. In fact, one can say that multilingual language use in everyday life becomes creative as it is bound by limits and, at the same time, can relate to these limits by adding elements that do not appear to fit within them. Boundaries themselves do not constitute a barrier to creativity. As one of the scholars who studied de Certeau’s work extensively says, for him creative development grows at the margins (Di Cori Reference Di Cori2001, p. 315). It follows that for de Certeau being creative is somehow different from counter-normative behaviour, in that it encompasses the very inhabiting of what is given. The existence of constraints emerges at the very root of de Certeau’s view of how language use can be creative in everyday life. These constraints have to do with dealing with both linguistic and social elements that are not entirely chosen. It is in this tactical way of doing that one can find creativity, which for him is not incompatible with either re-use or the existence of a space of action which is not unlimited. This also includes linguistic practices that do not allow a speaker to gain any kind of strength or immediate social advancement, but that stem from a condition that actually allows for the active contribution of the speaker to get things done. Following this line of thought, one can see that as a speaker, one often makes meaning without trying to walk away from a condition that others may consider undesirable, while skilfully navigating one’s linguistic circumstances with the intent of communicating something, making do with what one has. In this vein, I see the importance of seriously considering the material constraints migrants ‘tackle in their daily dealings with circumstances’ (Silva & Borba Reference Silva and Borba2024, p. 788).

As Erickson (Reference Erickson2004, p. 143) remarks when commenting on de Certeau’s work ‘[…] we must consider the situated character of talk; the social action as a site of affordance as well as constraint upon local social action’. This reflection can help us visualise these practices while keeping the magnitude of what they do under the spotlight. Through de Certeau, we focus on practice not as a return to the individual (Pennycook Reference Pennycook2010, p. 28), but as a sociolinguistic matter, taking an additional step ‘away from the linguistic bias originally carried along in the discipline, and towards a sociolinguistics that attempts to understand society, not just language’ (Blommaert Reference Blommaert2013, p. 621). Gaining an enhanced awareness of constraints is not meant to limit or downplay the relevance of the creative endeavour that comes with multilingualism as an everyday practice, but to appreciate it for its own value. In this sense, it could be linked to asking whether and how a space of action contributes to the type of everyday creativity that research is interested in. In other words, casting light on these practices includes asking questions about their potentially lacking influence on a larger social scale (cf. Prinsloo & Krause Reference Prinsloo and Krause2019, for a similar point in educational settings). De Certeau did not arrive at the conclusion that individuals could use language disruptively to change their position in society, but showed that, in spite of the tremendous social constraints that individuals have to grapple with, a space of action is possible. The way in which de Certeau teaches us to look at these kinds of language practices is one that shows how the speakers can inhabit the weakness that is in their not being in full control of circumstances and doing. What de Certeau proposes is therefore different from a ‘deliberate challenge’ (Deumert Reference Deumert2018, p. 16), precisely because ‘everyday creativity and expressivity does not need to imply disruption or transgression’ (Deumert Reference Deumert2018, p. 16). He points to a tactical way of going about everyday life through language, which involves precisely the inhabiting of what is given.

Looking at multilingual language practices as creative in de Certeau’s terms means first acknowledging that they can be seen as tactical, that is, practices that do not necessarily exert full control. De Certeau underlines what goes beyond that which is planned, repetitive and stable, in practices that take advantage of circumstances to be creative, but are not connected to a planning or overseeing knowledge. It also means acknowledging that these are dependent on a space of action. Inhabiting what is given for a multilingual can mean being in a position to do something unexpected, but it does not automatically imply engaging in an oppositional way with the unchosen. If we think about multilingual creativity as related to working through what is given to do something else, in some way, the whole realisation of the lack of full control on the part of a speaker can imply an ability to behave linguistically in a proactive way. This in no way should be mistaken for a way to couch multilingualism as a deficit. It is a way of emphasising the existence of alternative practices that potentially underscore the value of multilingualism in itself, in relation to the social dynamics in which it is involved.

2.2 Operationalising Constraints

Cognisant of these multiple voices and in a bid to go beyond the growing attention on repertoires as unfettered instruments for expression (Otheguy et al. Reference Otheguy, Garcia and Reid2015), the research presented in this Element explores language and migration by looking empirically at constraints among Gambians in Italy. Starting from a view of language practices within a space of action, as discussed earlier, I operationalise Michel de Certeau’s notion of constraints as a lack of control over circumstances and doing (Santello Reference Santello2022) concerning migrants’ experiences by focusing on how these emerge as interviewer and interviewee build rapport (Goebel Reference Goebel and Goebel2021b). Taking a step further from Dovchin’s (Reference Dovchin2022) argument that forms of discrimination persist regardless of the celebration of playfulness of translingual practices, in this research, I pay attention to constraints as experienced by migrants. In other words, if ‘it is apparent that transnational migrants are playfully involved with different types of trans-practices, but it is not at all clear to what extent, how, and why particular local constraints either limit or expand one’s translingual practices’ (Dovchin Reference Dovchin2022, p. 8), I open space for more experiences in a hitherto unexplored context, so that we can glean additional details on constraints among migrants. I am also mindful of what the author of the most extensive study of languaging and literacy in Gambia stated, in particular when highlighting the fact that ‘[…] speakers are always constrained by a variety of limitations […]’ (Juffermans Reference Juffermans2015, p. 103). My focus here expands on de Certeau’s (Reference Certeau1990) view whereby creativity in everyday life often entails working within a space of action, thanks to tactics which involve having to make do with what is given. The notion of tactic again aligns with Michel de Certeau’s view in the sense that, while strategies are actions that tend to have an overarching control over circumstances and doing, tactics operate within a space of action without full control. It is the case of many migrants who do not have full control over many aspects of their lives, including where they live or the languages they can use to do things, and yet find creative ways to get things done. This type of view, rather than hinging on the notion of agency, which is traditionally seen in opposition to power and structure, focuses on what happens within a space of action. To put it differently, ‘the distinction between strategies and tactics […] is one that relates to control over circumstances and doing, rather than power over others or lack thereof’ (Santello Reference Santello2022, p. 686). I pay attention to constraints intended as lack of control over circumstances and doing ‘as experienced by migrants, conceiving the possibility that they might function as something more than impediments to unbridled use’ (Santello Reference Santello2025b, p. 4). Although previous scholarship has not considered them as such, constraints can indeed be generative of possibilities (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2024). The focus here is therefore not on structures of power or how state politics influence certain processes such as learning Italian (Del Percio Reference Del Percio2018), but zooms into the interactional level to understand how the experience of not being in full control of circumstances and doing is articulated between interviewer and interviewee with reference to language.

This research took place in a shelter for migrants in Padua, Italy. In the region, there have been instances of anti-immigration behaviour intertwined with language at different levels (Perrino Reference Perrino2015, Reference Perrino2018), but there are also several initiatives aimed at helping migrants in various ways, including linguistically (Helm & Dabre Reference Helm and Dabre2018). Padua has been nominated European capital of volunteering and, due also to the presence of a large university, hosts a substantial student population who actively contribute to activities to enhance social cohesion. It is important to note that, at a more general level, immigration has been a politically fraught issue in the country for years, where there have been oscillations between strong anti-immigration positions and various appeals to welcome migrants, particularly those who cross the Mediterranean (Jacquemet Reference Jacquemet, Fina and Mazzaferro2022).

I was introduced to this group of migrants by the people who work for an NGO I have been volunteering for. My positionality is partly one of an insider, in that I have given my time to the teaching of Italian to newcomers, including refugees from various parts of the world, within the NGO. I have known them since the end of 2021, and I do what they ask according to what is needed and depending on the time I have and where I am physically located. I have done one-to-one tutoring, small-group classes and helped train volunteers. When I taught classes, I did so mostly with young men who had just arrived in Italy, and I have met a few times with a Gambian who had asked for one-to-one support. I had never been to the shelter before this research project, and I had not met any of the participants, although they might have seen me at a New Year’s party the NGO organised and that I attended some months before starting the research. When I started the project, the NGO workers recommended this specific shelter, explaining that some of these migrants were struggling with Italian and probably had a lot to say, as they had been in Italy for a while. Many of these were Gambians with whom I could speak English and Italian.

Three participants, here identified with pseudonyms, feature in this Element. The first is Lamin, who has been in Italy for over six years and, after various stints in the south and the centre of Italy, arrived in Padua a few months before I met him. He was doing the dishes when I introduced myself to the group in the shelter’s kitchen. It became clear that he was interested in expressing his voice, particularly because he could do so in English. He was on a fixed-term residence permit and had been living at the shelter for six months with others, the large majority from West Africa. He was working on and off for a factory in a nearby town and, in the meantime, was taking some Italian classes from volunteers in the shelter itself. He speaks English, Mandinka, Wolof, Italian and some Swedish, a repertoire that has emerged progressively in interaction with me (Santello Reference Santello2025b). The second is Mario, a young man also originally from Gambia, at the time of the interviews, had been in Padua, Italy, for about four months. He speaks English, Mandinka, Wolof, Fula, German and some Italian. His migration route encompasses three main stages: (1) his arrival in the south of Italy, where he stayed in migrant camps in Sicily and then moved autonomously to Apulia; (2) his relocation to Germany and settling there; and (3) his return to Italy after three years in Germany. His stay in Germany constantly emerges during our meetings, often with a clear sense that his return to Italy was not a happy move. The third is Omar, who comes from an ethnically mixed family and had been in Padua only a few months when I interviewed him, after spending some time in Italy and in another unidentified European country, before returning to Italy. Besides English, Italian, Mandinka and Wolof, he also speaks Fula and some French. He is relatively highly educated, having attended English-medium private schools in Gambia when he was younger.

One aspect that needs to be spelt out has to do with my personal investment of time and energy for migrants, who matter to me personally, which is the same drive that prompts me to conduct this type of research. A second related aspect concerns the way in which the participants might perceive me and my role. Our common knowledge of English and their being aware that I dedicate my free time to migrants and that I have been a migrant myself have created ground for our exchanges. The fact that we have both been exposed to different cultural settings may also be thought of as something that we have in common. Yet we are different in many important respects, including race, citizen rights, and education. In addition, while as a volunteer I have very limited decision-making, unequal positioning persists. As previously explained, I do not work for the NGO, but as a volunteer, I may be viewed partly as an insider; thus, the participants might not feel in a position to say everything they wish to say about their current situation. These aspects are bound to impact our exchanges, for instance, in discussing certain topics and to what extent. In the analysis, I try to account for such moments, with the understanding that differences remain and that my positionality affects the ways in which things are approached and presented. Nevertheless, I have tried to create rapport with them, intended not as something that pre-exists the fieldwork but as a processual phenomenon (Perrino Reference Perrino and Goebel2021) and as ‘rapport-in-talk’ (Goebel Reference Goebel and Goebel2021a, p. 37). In keeping with an ethnographic method that nurtures the participation of the researcher for the emergence of data about language and migration (De Fina & Tseng Reference De Fina, Tseng and Canagarajah2017) and, conceding that ‘the meaning of other lives may remain opaque to the researcher’ (Blackledge & Creese Reference Blackledge and Creese2023, p. 23), I endeavoured to create rapport with them that grew through the interactions. For example, there have been moments where Lamin raised his epistemic authority – intended as the position of authority in terms of knowledge expressed in interaction – in a way that problematises pre-conceived asymmetries between me and him. There are also instances where both of our experiences as migrants are brought to light, thus making it possible for us to talk about difficult circumstances, or where we show alignment. I analysed the interactional data considering elements such as hesitations, repair, code-switching, and paralinguistic elements, drawing on sociolinguistic stance (Jaffe Reference Jaffe and Jaffe2009; Lempert Reference Lempert2008). Stance-taking is conceived in interactional terms, in that a specific way of seeing a stance object emerges as speakers build on each other’s turns. In particular, I give consideration to epistemic stance, meaning ‘the linguistic expression of the state of the speaker’s knowledge’ (Kiesling Reference Kiesling2022, p. 416). I also include the affordances of material ecologies in language exchanges (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2021), where space has ‘considerable significance in meaning construction’ (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2018, p. 50). Instead of thinking about it as agentive in itself, however, here I consider it in relation to what speakers do. This is also a way to account for the context of the production of these retellings (De Fina & Tseng Reference De Fina, Tseng and Canagarajah2017). The transcription conventions, in line with the Jefferson’s transcription system, are provided in the Appendix; English is in normal font, Italian is in italics, and German is in small caps.

3.1 Lack of Support

The first constraint that can be identified is the lack of support from institutions, as it emerges interactionally between Lamin and me. This is inhabited through two key tactics here, namely support from volunteers and personal efforts. When I interviewed him for the first time, he showed up with a notebook filled with Italian language exercises, which he had planned to show me during the interview. He does so in this first excerpt.

In this excerpt, it is notable that improving Italian is characterised as an activity linked to taking Italian classes. Lamin specifically mentions a non-Italian volunteer who goes to the shelter for classes every Thursday. I, in turn, try to establish a link by suggesting who this volunteer might be, thus placing myself more explicitly as an insider among the volunteers of the NGO. He suddenly remembers the name, making me ponder whether I know her. He may know that, as part of my volunteering, I teach Italian to newly arrived migrants and thus wants to reinforce with me that he finds classes useful. These classes are mentioned through code-switching, matching their content (Italian language) and evoking the word classe in context (they are possibly being called classe when the classes are on).

The fragment is also important because it allows Lamin to show his notebook, which he had brought along when the interview started. The use of this object is significant; it shows that “a lot” (line 21) of work is being done. Not only can he flex verbs and name infinitives, but he also knows grammatical terms in Italian like irregulare, a morphologically Italian adjective that here keeps the sound /jʊ/, which comes from the English equivalent ‘irregular’. His attempts to work on his Italian are significant and the results are visible. This is in line with the fact that he is aware of his good competence in written Italian, which he had mentioned to me in previous exchanges when he said that he was fine reading Italian in comparison to other migrants whose oral/aural skills do not match their proficiency in written Italian. This ability is displayed here thanks to his notebook, which is ‘capable of communicating meaning’ (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2021, p. 3) because of its use by Lamin.

However, his commitment to language learning is confronted with the constraints he experiences, which he reports in the following turns. The lack of available space for the local Italian language courses that prepare for the A1 exams is detrimental to his development as a speaker. He is unsure whether spaces are available; he tried calling them, but nobody replied. Lamin clearly understands the progression that is meant to happen (in line 28, he self-repairs from A2 to A1) and shows a willingness to do so (line 37). He is highly educated, having finished high school and continued studying afterwards, so he knows the value of education, and learning for him is also explicitly linked to class instruction. But he says that at the moment he does not have the opportunity to make progress through structured education outside the shelter. Lack of availability in language schools for migrants in Italy has been shown to happen elsewhere (Del Percio Reference Del Percio2023). Here, one can touch the experience of constraints from a personal perspective: Lamin does not see any alternative other than relying exclusively on a one-hour-a-week class run by a volunteer for his language instruction. He also knows I am an educator and value language learning, so he assumes I will be struck by the educational deprivation he recounts. He is right; I indignantly elevate my pitch when asking for clarification (line 27), a specific interactional stance which is evaluative and emotional at the same time (Jaffe Reference Jaffe and Jaffe2009).

In this excerpt, therefore, he makes apparent how the help from a volunteer and his commitment to studying Italian are visible. Nonetheless, there is a constraint, a lack of control over circumstances, that he experiences: people from the local school where Italian is taught and exams are sat have not responded to his phone calls. His situation of being a migrant who, after over six years in Italy, has problems conversing in Italian is linked to concrete constraints. The help from the NGO is appreciated (his self-repair from A2 to A1 also denotes awareness that he is not at a zero-level) and is a way to inhabit the constraints, but for now the lack of responsiveness from the local school is a problem for him. In other words, the constraint is inhabited within the space of action rather than erased altogether, while he remains hopeful that in the future he will be able to sit in one of those classes he has been trying to attend.

In the following excerpt, I ask Mario to elaborate on his life in Germany, where he moved after a first period in the south of Italy, as explained in the previous section. I doubted it was all rosy when he arrived there, particularly with the language. He starts speaking not only about his difficulties with German but also about the lack of instruction he experienced.

The stance Mario takes towards his first experiences with German vacillates between satisfaction with achieving good competence (“I feel happy about it”) and his perception of falling short (“I’m not good”). What has occurred is brought to memory and presented as a stance object thanks to reported inner speech (Tannen Reference Tannen2007, p. 115), and presented as a current experience even though he is no longer in Germany (lines 2–5). He takes a negative stance towards his boredom and lack of help during his first year in lockdown (“my first year in Germany was boring”). He did study German but could improve only up to a certain point without external help: he used resources online to teach himself, but there was no possibility of someone spending time with him, which he exemplifies here as a one or two-hour class. We see the relevance of material ecologies (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2021), here characterised as insufficient to fill the absence of teachers. In other words, online tools were helpful but insufficient. To such a stance, I react with clear uptakes which I keep using throughout the excerpt, and with my “of course” (line 9) I align even more strongly with him (Du Bois Reference Du Bois and Englebretson2007). In this excerpt, therefore, we find the articulation of the lack of support that he experienced during his first year in Germany, which is connected to slow progress in that very period. Therefore, while the constraint was inhabited concretely through tactics including self-learning, there is a clear indication that support was needed and not provided. Learning by himself is depicted as something difficult, precisely because he felt the need to have someone to help him, which he did not have at the beginning of his stay in Germany.

As the two excerpts above show, although some constraints have to do with structural problems, such as the dearth of available spaces in state-funded language schools, others also have to do with isolation more generally. This is further developed in the next section, which focuses on limited interaction in the ‘local’ language, where I use inverted commas to signal that ‘local’ is taken as an umbrella term instead of ‘national language’, which would exclude certain contexts where the most common language spoken by locals is not the national language. It is to be intended as used for convenience’s sake. Particularly, it should not be interpreted as a term that excludes other languages, that is, languages migrants speak, by characterising them as non-local.

3.2 Limited Interaction in the ‘Local’ Language

In this section, I start with one of the first excerpts from my interviews with Lamin. We were sitting on the common room couch where the television was active. Before starting the interview, we switched the television off, but soon after, another guest switched it on again, and it was on until the end of the interview. I asked him to recount his migration experiences and how language came into play. He told me where he was from and what he did in Gambia before migrating. He then went on to talk about the difficult first years in Naples and then in Tuscany before arriving in Padua. After sharing my struggles with him, like having problems in taking a bus when travelling around Taiwan because of my not knowing Mandarin, I asked him about his experiences in Italy without speaking Italian. He had mentioned before that, when living around Naples, he did not have to use Italian because the fruit-picking jobs he had were so basic that they did not require much interaction in Italian. Here I ask him to tell me about more experiences.

At the beginning of the exchange, Lamin conveys that, when he was living in Naples, he did not use Italian much for public transport because his travelling was mostly commuting from where he was staying (the cooperative) to his work site. He speaks about going out (line 6), meaning engaging in activities outside home or work, and when uttering the words “very often” he pauses and lowers the tone of his voice. I perceive a hint of sadness in this retelling. Here, the constraint is the type of life he was living, which required little interaction with strangers and, consequently, little opportunity to speak Italian.

However, his tone changes when he recalls episodes where he went grocery shopping near Naples Central Station. He mentions African food, thus bringing in Africa as a whole (rather than Gambia), concerning the food he can get. In answer to this, I reinforce this link with Africans by saying “fellow Africans” and asking him to confirm whether he spoke with them in English, leaving some room for other possibilities with my “or whatever” (line 10). He elaborates on this connection with Africa, telling me about his conversations and friendships with people from Senegal. He mentions that it is easy to communicate with them because they are “borders” (line 16), referring to the geographical vicinity of his country and Senegal. Interactionally, this is prompted by his mentioning Africa as a place of origin (Schegloff Reference Schegloff1997, p. 97) embedded in this telling and my re-launch in asking for more details.

In the following turns, he displays a level of meta-linguistic awareness that allows him to take an epistemic stance towards me (Kiesling Reference Kiesling2022), that is, telling me about the linguistic differences between Gambia and Senegal. He first distinguishes them based on English versus French-speaking countries, using the words “anglophone” and “francophone” (line 18). He then casts these language-based distinctions in opposition with local languages that function as common languages in the interactions he is talking about, namely Wolof and partly Mandinka (cf. Omoniyi Reference Omoniyi, Kachru, Kachru and Nelson2006). He gives importance particularly to Wolof for communication with Senegalese: because of the specific migrant communities in Italy (lines 44–52), what facilitates communication here is Wolof, which he speaks “hundred percent” (line 36). But he had forgotten to mention Wolof when I asked about the languages he knew at the beginning of our interview, which resonates with an earlier example where the repertoire of newly arrived Gambians in Sicily turned out to be richer than what he had initially reported (D’Agostino Reference D’Agostino, Fina and Mazzaferro2022). In Lamin’s case, Wolof surfaces in this exchange and reveals its significance for this specific migration experience after my asking about constraints and him mentioning instances where he went out, thus partially breaking his isolation. Wolof was not salient at the beginning of the exchange, but it is now, in light of a discussion about its specific affordances, namely the possibility of grocery shopping in African stores around Naples central station and making Senegalese friends. His living situation, where he does not need to speak Italian, is also populated by instances of interactions with other Africans thanks to his competence in languages other than Italian.

Once again, the constraint is being in a situation that involves little interaction, which is something that other studies have characterised precisely as a constraint among migrants with particular reference to jobs that provide limited exposure to and use of the local language (Holm Reference Holm, Simpson and Pöyhönen2025). Here it is followed by Lamin talking about other languages, expressing epistemic authority, when explaining that in Senegal people speak Wolof, which indexes a change in interactional relations, that is, greater authority for him. I, in turn, raise my own epistemic authority by telling him that I knew that already, but that he had forgotten to mention that he speaks Wolof. I also show a positive stance by using a stance marker (line 37) and then following up with clarifications, thus achieving stance interactionally (cf. also Du Bois Reference Du Bois and Englebretson2007). He explains that Mandinka is the language of his tribe, stating the importance of Mandinka for him and his people, while Wolof is the “main native” “local language” of Senegalese (lines 24–25). For him, these labels together are good descriptors in trying to convey the status of Wolof in Senegal. This labelling is discursively introduced by Lamin, who uses specific terms such as “local” and “native”, attributing meaning to them in and for this exchange, with a non-local non-native like me. As I explain below, this dichotomy gives way to alignment towards the end of the excerpt, showing the development of rapport-in-talk.

In the following turn, he again raises his epistemic authority, this time on Senegalese migration to Italy, to the extent that he can mention cities where these communities have settled, using the Italian word Firenze instead of the English equivalent Florence. He talks specifically about the size of the community and their long-term settlement in the country. The surfacing of Wolof is to be connected to its use with the Senegalese, who are brought up here in relation to their presence as a migrant community in Italy. The repertoire, therefore, surfaces here beyond the speakerhood he introduced at the beginning of the interview. We notice an increase in the visibility of parts of the repertoire in this migration context, as recalled by Lamin. While he has difficulties remembering any experiences with Italian because of his scarce use of the language when in Naples, he refers to the multilingualism of West Africa as enabling him to do things and make friends. It is linguistically interwoven with code-switching that marks Lamin and I as people who have gotten to know these cities with their own Italian toponyms. This move helps to re-establish alignment in contrast to the local/non-local division in earlier turns, thus advancing the building of rapport in interaction (Goebel Reference Goebel and Goebel2021a).

The description of the constraint of living a daily routine that does not lend itself to much interaction with strangers is intertwined with the surfacing of other interactions in African languages, as we show epistemic authority and build rapport-in-talk. This part of his repertoire surfaces when he calls to mind his “going out” outside his work commitments and is articulated with awareness of multilingual repertoires and shared knowledge of Italian places between me and him.

This is developed in the following excerpt, where I ask him to expand on how he communicates with different people:

Here Lamin makes apparent that the situation in Italy when it comes to English is different from other countries, specifically Sweden and Finland, as migrant-receiving countries where one can count on locals’ ability to speak English. He is not only cognisant of different European countries where migrants can settle, but also of their different proficiency in English. He focuses on Finland and more so on Sweden, one of the European countries that have hosted the largest number of refugees in recent years. He connects migrants having less difficulty in communication with the locals ability to interact with migrants in English rather than in Swedish (cf. Salö Reference Salö, Hultgren, Gegersen and Thøgersen2014 for an overview of English in Sweden), thereby attributing to the sociolinguistic environment the power to make things smoother for migrants like him. In establishing this comparison, he intends to convey his difficulties in Italy, contrasting different levels of competence in English in Europe. In this discursive move, he therefore marks his competence in English as valuable elsewhere but not in Italy. Here, English is less valuable because of its local spread and ensuing usefulness (cf. Kubota & McKay Reference Kubota and McKay2009).

In the following turns, he reinforces another facet of his awareness of linguistic repertoires across countries, developing what emerged in the previous excerpt around Wolof. In lines 19–20, he enumerates a range of countries that allow for communication in Mandinka, once again explaining to me the use of languages in West Africa, in this case, precisely the language of his tribe, mentioned through a code-switched English-Italian sentence. Mandinka is a language that is spoken in a number of countries, and this allows for communicating between his tribe and others in West Africa. Considering specifically the Italian context, he distinguishes between speaking with other Africans, which he terms “blacks” and speaking with Italians (lines 15, 17), thus creating a dichotomy which is meta-discursively apparent (Gal Reference Gal2018). I, in turn, expand the possibility beyond the dichotomy by using the ‘general extender’ (Kiesling Reference Kiesling and Jaffe2009, p. 188) “anybody”. Yet, he keeps speaking about his experience with Africans and acknowledges that this easiness is not all-encompassing, particularly when communicating with housemates whose background repertoire does not match his, thus recognising that Italian is also used among Africans. In this case, he describes his tactic as two-fold. On one side, he communicates in Italian or broken Italian, as he appears to say in line 27; on the other, when this does not work, he uses help from others whose Italian is better, showing once more that ‘the ability to communicate is not purely an individual accomplishment. It is a collaborative accomplishment in situations of local practice’ (Canagarajah & Wurr Reference Canagarajah and Wurr2011, p. 10). Notably, he does not bemoan that he has to speak Italian with other migrants but even welcomes it as an opportunity for improvement, otherwise lacking in daily life. Interacting with other Africans who do not have Mandinka, Wolof, or English in their repertoire is thus a real constraint for him in that he has no control over it, but it functions as a prompt for him to practise Italian, which he deems essential to his migration success.

This excerpt adds an important layer of signification to what emerged in the previous one. The speaking of English and other African languages is linked to affordances, but having to communicate with other people at the shelter is handled with Italian and help from others if a background language is not an option. The constraint of having to choose Italian for interactions with another person at the shelter is welcomed as a tactic to inhabit another constraint, that of linguistic and social distance from Italians, which impacts his fluency in the language. Migrants struggle to find ‘interactional opportunities’ (Piller et al. Reference Piller, Butorac and Farrell2024, p. 122), and here we see how this is inhabited, having to make do with what one is given, using resources without full control over circumstances and doing. What is noteworthy here is that multilingualism itself is constrained by the limited overlap between the two interlocutors’ repertoires (Lamin and his housemate, who speaks neither English, Mandinka, nor Wolof), but this makes multilingualism work in a direction that Lamin welcomes. In other words, here constrained multilingualism is an opportunity for linguistic development, which is a goal of Lamin’s that he cannot entirely reach with other means, for example, by attending regular classes, as explained in the previous section. Constraints are implicated in the multilingualism Lamin engages with and possibly aspires to, one that includes Italian rather than excludes it because of the other constraints he faces, which are evident in excerpts 1 and 3.

3.3 Immigration Status in Conjunction with Life Events

In Mario’s case, we see the relevance of his immigration status, which is a problem for him in Germany, in conjunction with his father’s death in Gambia. As we read these excerpts, it is crucial to state that Italy is often the first port of entry for many migrants to Europe, including those who do not wish to migrate to Italy. According to a 26 June 2013 regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council, the so-called Dublin Regulation, if these migrants apply for international protection in Italy, they usually cannot move to another country but have to stay in Italy, sometimes for years, before being able to reach another destination in Europe (Regulation 604/2023). I did not ask Mario if this was his case, but he did arrive in Italy, stayed for some time, then moved to Germany, where he was happier, and then reluctantly moved back to Italy. Next is how he tells me about his move to Germany.

This extended excerpt starts with his migration to Germany, which is a specific event in time, recalled to the exact date (line 3). This is most likely because the arrival date was brought up for a visa application in Germany and/or in Italy and is here recalled thanks to memory and its mobility, using de Certeau’s (Reference Certeau1990) terms, and used interactionally. Personal relevance is evident in the stance taken towards his first year in lockdown. It was a slow, boring period where not much happened, conveyed through a self-initiated self-repair, as opposed to what happened after; the start of language school in Germany, explained to me through code-switching into Italian, referring to the local certifications which he is currently considering and that he assumes I am familiar with (line 7). His stance towards the first period in Germany takes a clear shape when he says “no school no nothing”, where negativity emerges clearly as well as sadness through the lowering of his tone (line 6). This was a concrete constraint which he experienced as a privation.

In the following turns (from line 9) there is a chronological leap forward where two years of schooling are glossed over, and his move back to Italy is brought to the fore as a stance object. He speaks about his move back to Italy as a way to renew his “permesso di soggiorno” (residence permit) and then fly home, by which he means Gambia. Therefore, his move is a tactic connected to a future affordance: the possibility of flying home, which right now is possible only at the risk of losing his rights as a migrant in Europe. This is a prominent issue for him, and in this excerpt, he reinforces his condition of having to leave Germany, which interrupted his hopes of achieving his dream. His stance towards this event is conveyed through expressions such as “they gonna send you out” and “it was difficult”; the unforeseen (Certeau Reference Certeau1990) is marked clearly as unwanted, which is a response to my request to elaborate, which I utter through direct reporting (Tannen Reference Tannen2007), thus placing his voice at the centre (line 25). Mario’s future is projected as broken because he does not fall into the categories of people who can stay in Germany: the categories that would allow him to remain in Germany are, as he explains, being sick (lines 28–29) or being in an emergency that one would not be able to handle in Italy (lines 27–28). He contrasts his stay in Italy and Germany starkly, taking two different stances towards the two periods and, in particular, describing his time in Italy as boring. This somehow resonates with experiences of waiting connected to ‘boredom and frustration’ described by Phipps (Reference Phipps2019, p. 50) among people who are going through the immigration system in the UK, but is here explicitly brought up in contrast to another period, the one in Germany, which is characterised by education and growth.

Mario has probably shared these reflections with social workers and other people, and is here bringing to memory and articulating anew his stance towards his return to Italy, by saying “you can say Italy’s boring I don’t have a good life in it” (lines 30–31). There was a lack of control over circumstances, as de Certeau would say, which ultimately led to him having to move back to Italy where he did not have “a good life” (line 31). Here, he makes apparent that his time in Germany was devoted to building a better future, but he encountered toughness, again compared to Italy’s unchallenging environment. In other words, his past experience in Italy of little personal and social advancement is told here as a condition he had to return to, thus interrupting his personal growth. His stance towards this return is conveyed through expressions such as “I’m not lucky”. The constraints he experienced, uttered at a faster pace in lines 32–33, are connected with the unforeseen and are brought to memory in relation to thwarted future projections. The prospect of deportation is evidently something that is on his mind and that bothered him when he was in Germany, and that he inhabited by considering the steps and behaviour that were going to be more conducive to remaining in Germany. This did not suffice, however, as he had to return to Italy, which meant that he stopped the positive circle of learning and growing that he had managed to create in Germany, including learning and using German.

In the following excerpt, we see even more clearly how having an unresolved immigration status caused him distress, also considering a significant life event, which resulted in him taking the decision to go back to Italy. As I will discuss in the concluding section of the Element, moving back to Italy has repercussions on his experience of migration, which should stimulate a deeper reflection on the policies that engender such experiences.

In the first turn (lines 1–3), he adopts a positive stance towards his experience in the language school where he improved his German. He brings up again that he had decided to concentrate on his studies, but, in this case, he also mentions a hindrance, namely, the letters he started to receive. From what he is saying, these are likely to be letters from institutions ordering that he leave the country (“letter you send somebody letter leave country within one week” in lines 2–3). His experience with these letters is troublesome; the stance taken towards their receipt is negative, in that it is placed in opposition to concentrating on learning through the adversative conjunction “but” in “I was concentrate to learn but” in line 1. His attempt to ignore the letters was unsuccessful, and these letters bothered him to the extent that he lost the concentration he wanted to retain for his studies. He again brings my attention to his visa problem, framing it in chronological terms. His appeal did not go through in time, and in any case, his wait made his situation more complicated. In his saying “they need something in time not out of time” he means that his not applying early was decisive in his inability to fix his immigration status: the immigration department would have interpreted his lateness in applying as a lack of respect. Here he brings to memory the specific constraint of having an unresolved visa status and the unsuccessful tactic (a possible appeal) related to it.

What comes after is a pivotal moment, the recent death of his father. My understanding is that he could not fly home because his visa status would have made it difficult to return to Europe, and thus, he could not be with his family at such a difficult moment. This most likely made him realise that he could no longer be in an immigration limbo, because it would have meant that flying back home would have been out of the question in the future too. Here, two circumstances converge, namely the death of a parent and unresolved immigration status. His past traumatic experience, intertwined with time-sensitive issues, impacts his actions when considering future occurrences. In these, we can see clearly how the interaction between me and him is important for what is being said, particularly when he uses repetitions (Tannen Reference Tannen2007), thus showing that he aligns with my rewording and clarifications (lines 13 and 20), and when I display emotion in interaction (Du Bois & Kärkkäinen Reference Bois, John and Kärkkäinen2012) in line 15.

The relevance of uncontrolled life events for language has been shown to play a largely underestimated role in applied linguistics (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2022), and such relevance is evident here in the way Mario tells his moves between Italy and Germany over the years. It is embedded in the lived experiences of migration as these experiences are shaped by intersecting structural hurdles and emotional life events. What we can see here is how the immigration status in Germany is complicated by the upsetting arrival of letters that ordered him to leave the country, the absence of an appeal and the bereavement he suffered in the meantime. In other words, rather than being exclusively macro-structural power dynamics from above, here constraints are, on one side, blatantly linked to an immigration system that does not allow migrants to choose their destination country and, on the other, connected to the very personal experience of losing one’s father and not being able to fly back to mourn him. Mario talks about planning (lines 16–17), relating it to the circumstance of not being able to stay in Germany and his consequent decision to return to Italy. Here, he takes a stance towards his learning in Germany as something he concretely achieved but had to leave behind. His resignation (“it’s ok”) is linked to a more general impersonal “you” that places his situation beyond his individual case, as part of what people “sometimes” must accept as part of life. Clearly, this has an impact on his daily communication, in that his move back to Italy means that he has had to go back to learning Italian, even though he has spent years away from the country investing in his German. Therefore, once again we see that his experience of constraints is influenced by concrete circumstances that are both personal and structural – his father’s death and his immigration status – and are inhabited through his decision to return to Italy. He does not exercise full control over these circumstances and doing in that he had to let some parts go in spite of having learnt a lot in Germany (notice the modality used in line 17 when saying precisely “you have to let some parts go”). He, however, is open to the possibility of going elsewhere in the future, as evidenced elsewhere (Santello Reference Santello2025a), evidently only when his immigration issues are solved.

3.4 Others’ Behaviour

Mario brings to memory also the way in which people told him to speak German rather than English in Germany, something I have also witnessed myself in my life in Italy when speaking English with a refugee, when we were told “You’re in Italy, speak Italian”.

Here he mentions English smiling, which gives me the impression that he finds the answer to the question rather obvious, thereby achieving its perlucutory outcome (Lempert Reference Lempert2008). English was the language he used when his German was falling short. He brings up the fact that people told him to speak German when they heard him speaking English, to whom he replied that he had not been in Germany long enough to be able to speak German, thus taking a negative stance towards this remark. With constructed dialogue (Tannen Reference Tannen2007), he describes English as a patch to fill the temporary gap he had at the beginning, and we laugh at his ability to banter by telling people they have no grounds to rebuke him. This brings up an underlying tactic he had not brought up well until this point: speaking English at the beginning of his stay in Germany, which allowed him to inhabit what was given. His stance towards English is here one that acknowledges the usefulness of the language while positioning it chronologically as preliminary.

The negative stance he takes towards people’s remarks that he should speak German in Germany is noteworthy. It is connected to the unfair expectation that he should speak German soon after his arrival in Germany, when his language competence was at the initial stages of development, and speaking English was an understandable tactic. He not only takes a negative stance towards this rebuke in this interaction with me, but also there and then by speaking back rather than keeping silent. He did so by explaining the circumstances that led him to speak English rather than German. In other words, to defend himself, he had to justify his language choice.

In the following excerpt, it is noticeable how learning words for Omar worked differently according to the different languages in his repertoire, particularly English and Italian.

This excerpt is interactionally complex. I start by asking him whether he still struggles to communicate, and opened the possibility to other languages simply because I did not want to restrict his answers. He replies by talking about his English, which surprises me. He says that sometimes people speak “big words” (line 9), and their vocabulary is higher than yours. I sense that he might be speaking about me, which makes me uncomfortable. I did not feel he had problems understanding my words during the interview, but he might have interpreted my “whatever” with an implicit questioning of his abilities in English. It is a case of rapport-in-talk beyond achieving smooth and unproblematic exchanges (Goebel Reference Goebel and Goebel2021b).

This miscommunication allows for something worth noting, meaning the different dispositions between English and Italian when his lexicon appears lacking. For Italian, he would be happy to ask for the meaning of a word on the spot, which is an efficient way for him to learn, while for English, he would not do that. His speakerhood is influenced by the English-medium education he has received, which required financial effort from those who supported him as a child (lines 22–26). He gives me an example of a tactic he would adopt for English: remembering the word and looking it up, using dialogue as inner speech (Tannen Reference Tannen2007, p. 145) to convey the thinking process while looking up the word. In Italian, instead, he is ok admitting openly that he does not know a word and does not mind consulting the interlocutor for an explanation. Interestingly, he concludes his stance-taking downplaying his competence in English. He most likely hardly communicates in Italy with someone about complicated topics in English; thus, this conversation is salient for him in this regard. However, while politely not challenging me, he alludes to vocabulary. The silence that breaks this exchange is also indicative of my embarrassment. Nevertheless, it is a moment that made something emerge which otherwise would have remained hidden, showing again the productivity of rapport as interactionally achieved.

Here, therefore, we can see the two tactics of asking for the meaning of words and looking them up, which are used for two different languages, that is, Italian and English, respectively. Omar responds differently to others’ linguistic behaviour, according to the languages involved; it is a way in which he enriches the lexical knowledge in both Italian and English. He concludes by taking an ambivalent stance towards his competence by saying “not that good” but also “I can communicate”, thus indicating that in this exchange, he adopts a positive stance towards his communication skills but not so much towards his competence in the language overall.

In the following excerpt, I built on something he mentioned, that is, migrants in Italy have a particular way of speaking. I ask him if he uses this way of speaking, too. This leads to a recounting of an episode where he went to a CAF (an office where one receives administrative assistance for procedures with institutions) and was told to get help:

Here Omar recounts through constructed dialogue (Tannen Reference Tannen2007) a recent episode where he refused to be told that he was incompetent in Italian when he simply did not know about the specific administrative procedure he had to undertake. He told the lady that instead of sending him away to look for help, he was demanding help from her. He mentions specifically that he did not want to ask for help from someone, also because he would feel embarrassed about it. We, therefore, see two different stances. On one side is the insistence on being assisted as a patron who needs advice on which procedure to follow, which is supposed to be articulated as a positive stance, but in this case is not because of the clerk’s behaviour. On the other, he expressed a negative stance towards asking someone else, particularly an Italian, to accompany him to the office to get the paperwork sorted. With reference to the former, he specifically mentions that he was offended (lines 4–5) and ended up refusing the suggestion, and my impression is that he has not yet opened partita IVA (a type of VAT number). It is also worthwhile noting that he connects this to his way of speaking Italian to the lady (lines 1–2). Remember that this recount follows one where he was telling me that migrants speak differently among each other and that sometimes he speaks in the same way with Italians, too. It is possible that he regrets using a non-standard way of speaking, as it might have triggered the patronising and dismissive behaviour of the clerk he is recounting. In this case, we see that he inhabits the constraint by accepting assistance as a patron for the administrative task on the spot, while not accepting the ‘suggestion’ to go away to seek linguistic help and return to the office.

From an interactional perspective, it is striking that I keep silent during his recount, while I had shown uptake through nodding and other markers throughout the interview. I felt indignant at what happened to him and was simultaneously connecting it to my personal experience of vulnerability. I start telling him how I was treated at a bank when I had just moved to England and how unpleasant that was. He is listening carefully and showing uptake (lines 15 and 18). I usually tell my experience so that it helps build rapport-in-talk that allows for the experiences of migrants to surface, but here I told someone, perhaps for the first time, about that humiliating episode and how offended I felt at that time. The tables are turning. My experience of discrimination gets listened to, as shown by his ‘collaborative completion’, that is, when one speaker finishes a prior speaker’s utterance (Gardner Reference Gardner2001, p. 2), and he is there to listen to it.

This episode at the office brings to mind what Baynham and Lee (Reference Baynham and Lee2019, pp. 77–96) report when talking about migrants in Leeds, UK, having to access discourses when trying to do more technical tasks. Here, it is evident that what made Omar jump was that he could do everything in Italian but simply did not have the technical information for what he needed. This could have happened to an Italian the same way, but no Italian would have been told to go away and bring someone who could speak the language. It is, therefore, a form of language-based discrimination similar to those that Dovchin (Reference Dovchin2022) described. In this case, assumed language incompetence was used to dismiss a migrant’s rightful request; trying to overcome the constraint here did not work even when cooperation was specifically requested (lines 5–8). Sometimes, “instead of making extra efforts to bridge language barriers, those who are linguistically privileged often prefer to close their ears – and hearts – to those they find difficult to understand” (Piller Reference Piller2025, p. 77).

3.5 More than Language-Related Constraints: Other Concerns and Suffering

While waiting for his rice to be cooked on the stove, Lamin and I sat in the shelter corridor when I asked him whether he had thought about learning Italian when he migrated. He replied as follows:

Here, Lamin brings my attention to the concerns that mattered most to him when he migrated. He clearly speaks in the plural “for us” and “our main concern” marking this journey as a collective one (line 1 and lines 3–4). This characterisation of collectiveness is a discursive device that reports something concrete: the migration route is undertaken by groups of migrants rather than an individual. The enumeration of countries resonates with the previous ones that had to do with the spread of Mandinka (the concrete list from excerpt 4), but, significantly, he self-repairs to trace the migration trajectory that brought him to cross several countries and then the Mediterranean. What could initially be a list of countries connected via language becomes the succession of countries that he had to cross in order to make his journey to Italy. The point of this list is to represent a long journey, developed country by country, which is also charged with greater emotional value. He stresses the dangerousness of that road, saying that arriving safely in Italy is the number one priority, and the rest comes after. This is not surprising, as arriving safely has been shown to be something that migrants crossing the Mediterranean communicate first (Jacquemet Reference Jacquemet2020, p. 137), but this is his own personal story of survival, not only a collective one. In other words, Lamin’s view casts the experience of migrating as collective, but he also positions himself as a member of a community of migrants.

Lamin shifts my attention from language to the risky journey he had to embark on, making me move away from my focus on language to what he wants to communicate. It is an emotional topic. He chuckles and performs self-repetitions (Tannen Reference Tannen2007); he is someone who could have perished instead of having this exchange with me. I am glad that he mentioned it because it brings attention to something I had not asked about explicitly (his arrival by boat) but assumed had happened. This shift, possible thanks to our rapport, allows this to be conveyed, something which suddenly focuses his recount onto what is salient to him first, and now also for me. Interactionally, here I am taking up the role of the receiver, aligning fully by acknowledging what he is saying and agreeing with it; I receive whatever he is giving me in this very moment, trying to show respect for something that I can only take in, facing the irreducibility of experience that Rampton, Maybin, & Roberts (Reference Rampton, Maybin, Roberts, Snell, Shaw and Copland2015) refer to.

A similar shift in focus also happens in excerpt (6), where, after telling him that I am happy that he is sharing his experiences with me and that I hope to make sense of them, he says the following:

Here, he wants to convey explicitly that immigrants are suffering. The suffering he is evoking has to do with not having a place to sleep (lines 4–5), a situation he had experienced in Tuscany, where he had to sleep rough more than once, as he had told me in another instance: intertextuality is at play again. He knows he is better off now because of the NGO and wants me to know that he and his housemates are in a fortunate situation that other immigrants do not experience. They are in that “serious situation” (line 11) that he can avoid thanks to the help of the NGO, which we both explicitly commend at the end of the exchange. Once again, he uses the plural, indicating an experience shared by many (the use of “lot of” in lines 1 and 13) and by some (line 4); the suffering is framed as a shared experience of “immigrants” (after the Italian immigrati), and so is the help from the NGO, although to a different extent. My own participation in this exchange is noteworthy here: we are both involved with the NGO at different levels, and our affirmation stems from our experiences with the NGO and most likely the anticipation of each other’s stance towards its work. It is an active act of alignment from my side that both acknowledges the problems faced by migrants in Italy and the help offered by the NGO. We can see in this excerpt, more than in any other, the strengthening of mutual alignment and rapport; I not only listen but also contribute to and reinforce what Lamin is saying, and he, in turn, repeats three times “yeah” raising his voice (cf. Goebel Reference Goebel and Goebel2021a). The concrete constraint of being homeless is here evoked as connected to the past and, at the same time, to the present situation of others. Suffering thus becomes a relevant aspect that emerges in the interaction between me and Lamin; it emerges through language but is not about language, and yet it is something that he cares to convey and as such finds its place here. As I will discuss in the next and concluding section, studying constrained multilingualism also aims at an expansion of our understanding of migration. By including here this specific aspect of suffering I mean to do justice to what Lamin wanted to convey beyond language-related constraints. He wished to communicate the situation in which he and other migrants are, qualifying it as suffering. There is something that goes beyond language-related constraints that belongs fully to this and other migration experiences; suffering is upscaled so that it can be seen as a collective experience. The result is that it shifts our attention away from a focus on language, encompassing other sides of life that he wants to voice.