Language socialisation and muda: The case of two transnational migrants in Emmaus Barcelona
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Maria Rosa Garrido
Abstract
This article investigates the relationship between socialisation and the concept of linguistic muda in a community of practice that belongs to a social movement called Emmaus. Based on a long-term ethnography (2008–2017), the article focuses on two transnational migrants who undergo a linguistic muda into functionally bilingual Catalan through participation in communal activities at Emmaus Barcelona. The analysis firstly traces the tensions arising in linguistic negotiation during a migrant novice’s initial participation in assemblies as a “socialising routine”. Although established participants of all origins projected a preferred bilingual stance and routinely code-switched, newly-arrived migrants were initially addressed in Spanish, in line with the commonsensical sociolinguistic behaviour routinely adopted with migrants in Catalonia. Analysis of the two migrants’ socialisation trajectories in Emmaus illuminates the changing sociolinguistic norms in Catalonia that legitimise transnational migrants’ linguistic mudes in this community. In conclusion, acceptance as a legitimate speaker of Catalan at Emmaus Barcelona can be viewed as a means to an end: that of becoming a legitimate member, capable of participating in joint (inter)actions such as assemblies.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the two Special Issue editors and an anonymous reviewer for their useful comments on earlier versions of this article. I am grateful to my anonymous informants for sharing their everyday experiences in Emmaus with me. I am especially indebted to Eva Codó for her encouragement, supervision and conversations about this research. This work was supported by the pre-doctoral research grants 2008UAB 2015 (UAB) and ESTPIF 2010-23 (UAB), and the research projects HUM 2010-26964 (MCINN), 2009 SGR 1340 (AGAUR) and SGR 2014 1508 (AGAUR) awarded to the CIEN research team. Research leading to this article has also benefitted from ongoing discussions on the “new speaker” theme as part of the EU COST Action IS1306 network entitled “New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges”.
Appendix: Transcription conventions
The spoken data extracts have been transcribed following a slightly adapted version of LIDES (Language Interaction Data Exchange System) which was proposed by Codó (2008: xi–xiii).
Transcription conventions used
- +ˆ
quick uptake or latching
- + …
trailing off
- xxx
unintelligible material
- #
pause
- #0_1
length of pause in seconds (minimum 1 sec)
- [=! text]
paralinguistics, prosodics
- [>]
overlap follows
- [<]
overlap precedes
- <>
scope symbols
- :
lengthened vowel
- ::
longer lengthening of vowel
- -
abrupt cutoff
- Dependent tiers
- %act:
relevant actions during the exchange
- %com:
researcher’s comments about the main tier
- %tra:
free English translation of the main tier
- %tim:
timing in audio recording
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© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Language and speakerhood in migratory contexts
- Language surveillance: Pressure to follow local models of speakerhood among Latinx students in Madrid
- Biographizing migrant experience
- Unvoicing practices in classroom interaction in Galicia (Spain): The (de)legitimization of linguistic mudes through scaling
- When language mixing is the norm: documenting post-muda language choice in a state school in Barcelona
- Language socialisation and muda: The case of two transnational migrants in Emmaus Barcelona
- Linguistic mudes: An exploration over the linguistic constitution of subjects
- Book Review
- Monica Heller Bonnie McElhinny: Language, capitalism, colonialism: Toward a critical history
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Language and speakerhood in migratory contexts
- Language surveillance: Pressure to follow local models of speakerhood among Latinx students in Madrid
- Biographizing migrant experience
- Unvoicing practices in classroom interaction in Galicia (Spain): The (de)legitimization of linguistic mudes through scaling
- When language mixing is the norm: documenting post-muda language choice in a state school in Barcelona
- Language socialisation and muda: The case of two transnational migrants in Emmaus Barcelona
- Linguistic mudes: An exploration over the linguistic constitution of subjects
- Book Review
- Monica Heller Bonnie McElhinny: Language, capitalism, colonialism: Toward a critical history
