Moment Analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain

Wei, Li

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.07.035

Cited by 1,222 publications

(638 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Li Wei 1994;Schecter and Bayley1997;Shin 2005;Lanza 2007;Zhu Hua 2008). The common recurrent pattern is that the first generation migrants find learning the languages of the new resident country is the most important and often challenging task, whilst their local-born children face the challenge of maintaining the home/heritage language.…”

Section: From Language Maintenance and Language Shift To Transnationamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is part of a larger, continuous family ethnography project of the Chinese community in Britain that began in the mid 1980s (Li Wei 1994). The research questions we set out to explore included how the families dealt with issues such as family language policy, children's language socialization, linguistic ideologies, symbolic competence and changing linguistic hierarchies amongst the languages they lived with, and struggles and aspirations in maintaining contacts with both the former and new home countries.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Transnational experience, aspiration and family language policy

Hua

Wei

2016

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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155

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Transnational and multilingual families have become commonplace in the 21 st century. Yet relatively few attempts have been made from applied and socio-linguistics perspectives to understand what is going on within such families; how their transnational and multilingual experiences impact on the family dynamics and their everyday life; how they cope with the new and ever-changing environment, and how they construct their identities and build social relations. In this article we start from the premise that bilingualism and multilingualism mean different things to different generations and individuals within the same family. Additive Bilingualism, which is often celebrated for the positive benefits of adding a second language and culture without replacing or displacing the first, cannot be taken for granted as a common experience of the individuals in transnational families. Using data gathered from a sociolinguistic ethnography of three multilingual and transnational families from China in Britain, we discuss the experiences of different generations and individuals in dealing with bilingualism and multilingualism and how their experiences affect the way individual family members perceive social relations and social structures and construct and present their own identities. The key argument we wish to put forward is that more attention needs to be paid to the diverse experiences of the individuals and to the `strategies they use to deal with the challenges of multilingualism, rather than the overall patterns of language maintenance and language shift.Keywords: transnational family, Chinese, Britain, generation, family ethnography Transnational and multilingual families are becoming more common in the UK as statistics suggest. The most recent census of England and Wales in 2011 recorded that 31% of children born in the UK had either one or both parents from another country (Hall, 2013). The census also showed that 4.2 million people (7.7% of the national population) spoke languages other than English as the main language (Office of National Statistics, 2013). Whilst there is considerable public interest in how transnational and multilingual families integrate into the broader British society (e.g. Brown 2013; Phillips 2013), especially how the children from transnational and multilingual backgrounds succeed or otherwise in the school system (e.g. Davies 2012; Doughty 2012; Royal Economic Society 2013), there are few attempts to understand what is going on within such families; how their transnational and multilingual experiences impact on the family dynamics and their everyday life; how they cope with the new and ever-changing environment, and how they construct their identities and build social relations.

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Section: From Language Maintenance and Language Shift To Transnationamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Transnational experience, aspiration and family language policy

Hua

Wei

2016

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Self Cite

155

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“…Such valorisation of languages as symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) may well be the roots of linguistic, cultural and social empowerment that can engage with prevailing ideologies. For example, it can challenge prevailing notions of additive and subtractive bilingualism, which have developed as a result of power relations producing differential societal conceptions of language status, and which are based on languages as essentialist, separate entities rather than as socially constructed phenomena or resources to be employed in creative and critical ways (Li Wei, 2011).…”

Section: Contextualising Multilingualism In Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Benefits for the plurilingual individual include: linguistic benefits, not only in relation to being able to access information and communicate with others in a range of languages (Odoyo Okal, 2014), but also from enhanced competence and sensitivity in using all of their linguistic repertoire appropriately (e.g. Baker, 2000;Datta, 2000;Li Wei, 2011;Tse, 2001); enhanced cognitive skills, such as cognitive flexibility, concept formation, openness to diverse ways of expressing ideas, increased attentional control and working memory (Adesope et al, 2010;Bialystok, 2001;Bialystok et al, 2004;Pavlenko, 2005;Peal & Lambert, 1962); intercultural awareness, including critical awareness of their own cultural assumptions and acceptance of different perspectives (e.g. Curtain & Dahlberg, 2004); health benefits, such as delaying age-related dementia (e.g.…”

Section: From a Monolingual To A Plurilingual Habitusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a plurilingual habitus: engendering interlinguality in urban spaces

Lamb

2015

International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning

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This chapter focuses on the potential of the multilingual city to create spaces in which monolingual hegemonies may be challenged, inclusive, intercultural values may be nurtured, and plurilingualism may be valorized. Following a contextualisation of linguistic diversity in theories of globalisation and superdiversity, the chapter addresses discourses of deficit and power, arguing that the problematisation of multilingualism and pathologisation of plurilingualism reflect a monolingual habitus. Bringing about a shift towards a plurilingual habitus requires a Deep Approach, as it involves a critical revaluing of deep-seated dispositions. It suggests that the city offers spaces, which can engender interlinguality, a construct that includes interculturality, criticality and a commitment to creative and flexible use of other languages in shared, pluralistic spaces. It then proposes critical, participatory and ethnographic research in three multidimensional spaces: the urban school and a potential interlingual curriculum; networks, lobbying for inclusive policy and organising celebratory events in public spaces; and grassroots-level local spaces, some created by linguistic communities to exercise agency and maintain their languages and cultures, and some emerging as linguistically hybrid spaces for convivial encounter.

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“…The poststructuralist turn in contemporary understandings of language in society has been widely acknowledged in the literature of recent years (see, for example, Rampton 2006, Kramsch and Vork Steffenson 2008, Blommaert 2010, Pennycook 2010, Li Wei 2011, McNamara 2012, Kramsch 2012, Busch 2012, Phipps 2012, Garcia and Li Wei 2014). This paradigmatic turn has resulted in and from what has for many been seen as a welcome challenge to segregationalist (Mühlhäusler 1996, Pennycook 2004, Makoni and Pennycook 2007, "genetic" (Mufwene 2004) and deficit discourses (Jaffe 2007, Jacquemet 2005 and paradigms in relation to multilingualism, both in terms of academic analyses of language and generalized ideologies in society about language.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspectives on Language Sustainability in a Performance Era: Discourses, Policies, and Practices in a Digital and Social Media Campaign to Revitalise Irish

Kelly‐Holmes

Atkinson

2017

Open Linguistics

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Abstract:The poststructuralist turn has been widely acknowledged in contemporary applied and sociolinguistics (Rampton 2006, Blommaert 2010. While for many this paradigmatic shift has been a welcome challenge to segregationalist approaches (Mühlhäusler 1996, Makoni andPennycook 2007) and deficit discourses in relation to multilingualism (Jacquemet 2005, Jaffe 2007), it is not an unproblematic concept for minority language media and language sustainability. For those committed to activism and engagement with policy makers, the current paradigmatic shift, which has been described in terms of a performance era for minority language media (Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes 2011), presents particular challenges which have the potential to undermine gains made in previous eras in relation to media rights for minority language speakers. Using the example of a recent multi-media campaign to revitalise Irish, the Bród Club, this paper explores the opportunities and problems presented by the contemporary performance era for minority language media.

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Moment Analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain

Cited by 1,222 publications

References 12 publications

Transnational experience, aspiration and family language policy

Transnational experience, aspiration and family language policy

Towards a plurilingual habitus: engendering interlinguality in urban spaces

Perspectives on Language Sustainability in a Performance Era: Discourses, Policies, and Practices in a Digital and Social Media Campaign to Revitalise Irish

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