Volume 16, Issue 3

Based on an 18 month long ethnographic fieldwork in self-organised English language lessons in a radical café and a squat in two neighbourhoods of Athens, this article deals with (im)mobility infrastructure and the production of the linguistic precariat in Greece. To do this, I investigate how waiting as a bordering technology shapes language learning practices of refugees whilst they plan their journeys to northern Europe via human smugglers. I explore how language and communication intersect with (im)mobility infrastructure, how it is rationalised and what it does in the context of forced migration. More specifically, I investigate how language learning and communication practices of refugees are shaped by this apparatus and turn them into the linguistic precariat. The notion of linguistic precariat refers to uncertainties, anxieties, vulnerabilities, insecurities experienced by individuals who make temporary investments in their language learning choices. I discuss how my participants, including refugees and anti-authoritarians, mobilise vulnerability, lack of language(s), through self organised teaching and learning, to reduce condition of precarity.

Doctoral writing for publication has evolved into a strategic activity in Ph.D. education, extending beyond a mere social practice. This paper presents a collective case study that examines the publishing experiences of four Chinese doctoral candidates in Linguistics. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, with narrative inquiry of how they prepared themselves to publish for the academic job market, how they imagined their future academic communities, and how they negotiated their academic identities in terms of publishing within imagined communities. The qualitative analysis incorporates Norton’s conceptualization of imagined community and identity, as well as investment and capitals, highlighting the positive influence of imagined academic identity on scholarly publishing as well as the dynamic nature of academic identity construction in the divergence between imagination and reality. The findings offer pedagogical insights into the negotiation of identities in doctoral publishing, with particular relevance to Chinese international students in the social sciences.

Cultural exchange is increasingly becoming an essential activity of higher education as the world continues to experience widespread ethnocentrism because of war, migration, political provocation, and nationalism. Research in areas related to cultural exchange have also increased with the rise of teacher and student mobility, leading to an exciting body of scholarship. Several aspects of intercultural communication, however, remain under-researched in the study of cultural exchange. One such example is intercultural responsibility. The current study adds to this body of work by investigating how Muslim students that were part of a cultural exchange program in Thailand used notions of intercultural responsibility to make sense of their encounters and identities. The findings show that national and religious identities are both barriers to, and resources for, intercultural communication in general, and the social practices of Muslim students in particular. Intercultural responsibility is important to scholars and educators, as it can empower students to become agentive in their participation in intercultural communication, allowing them to reflect on and utilize their linguistic, cultural, and historical repertoire when interacting with individuals and communities that do not share their same cultural traditions and practices.

North Koreans in South Korea often try to adopt South Korean accents to avoid discrimination, with varying degrees of success. Language attitudes studies have tended to investigate reactions to distinct varieties rather than speakers’ attempts to approximate new varieties for their own benefit, and while a few have considered the effects of listeners’ categorization of speakers on evaluations of them, they have generally focused solely on macro-categories such as place of origin, especially in languages other than English. This study investigates South Koreans’ attitudes toward North and South Koreans’ native and adopted accents and how these attitudes may relate to listeners’ categorization of the speakers. Eighty-two South Korean listeners rated recordings of three Korean speakers, two from different cities in North Korea and one from Busan, South Korea, who each read the same text in two versions: their native variety and their adopted Seoul variety. Listeners only consistently identified the Pyongyang variety as North Korean, but rated all three speakers more positively in Seoul guises than in their native guises. Additionally, when North Korean speakers were identified as being from outside South Korea, ratings were less positive. However, the Pyongyang speaker was rated more highly than the South Korean speaker on positive qualities, and qualitative data suggests that other types of speaker categorization may be relevant to attitudes, such as ‘professional’ for the Pyongyang speaker in both guises and ‘youth’ for the South Korean speaker in her Seoul guise. Thus, attitudes studies may benefit from qualitative data on speaker identification beyond the usual macro-categories, addressing the multiple categories indexed by a speech sample.

Accumulating studies on teachers’ instructional immediacy consistently show a strong positive correlation with teaching effectiveness. To expand the research in a bilingual and cross-cultural context, the current study investigates the construction of instructional immediacy in a natural classroom setting by theoretically anchoring on translanguaging, which refers to the idea of promoting the integration of all linguistic and nonlinguistic resources to achieve effective pedagogy with multilingual speakers. We quantified the nonverbal facial expressions to compare the teacher’s endeavours in different language modes when constructing instructional immediacy, and we used Multimodal Conversation Analysis (MCA) to examine his endeavours. The results revealed language-specific facial expressions which are attributed to varied teaching purposes. We conclude that translanguaging can serve as an effective tool for fostering instructional immediacy in multilingual classrooms.

This paper examines Polish in the public space of the Borough of Ealing, London. The area has been known for a high concentration of the Polish diaspora since the end of World War II, with the highest proportion of Polish speakers at 7 % according to the most recent statistics. In this study, the focus is on the presence of Polish, its relative prestige, power of conveying a meaning, as well as its relevance in a text. It also considers the status and dominance of English above Polish and answers the question how languages are combined in bi-/multilingual signage. A methodological framework encompassing the aspects of semiotic and linguistic analysis, such as: contexts, domains, language dominance, genre and function, has been adopted to analyse a corpus of 368 signs. It has been argued that Polish indexes and constructs public spaces in different areas of Ealing as places of identity and belonging, since Poles have been very active in their efforts to construct their own space where they could function in their mother tongue and organise social life.

This study explores identity (re)construction of three South Korean early-study abroad (ESA) university students who returned to their homeland after studying in the US and acquiring a high level of proficiency in English. Inasmuch as educational migration is frequently viewed as an effective strategy for securing pathways to socioeconomic mobility, less is known about the specific conditions and practices that influence ESA students’ identity and socialization in a university setting, especially upon their return to their homeland. This study contributes to the discussion of ESA by demonstrating how they (re)constructed their transnational identities in their reintegration process and the role of their bilingual competence in this process. The findings of this study demonstrate the complex identity negotiation of elite transnational students in Korea, where Korean is both the national language and the dominant language, and where multiple ideologies on language and educational mobility exist. The findings also show the precarities experienced by elite bilingual returnees, illustrating how educational mobility and precarity are mutually constitutive in significant ways.

Previous studies have repeatedly confirmed the robust alignment effect of the continuation task and its great potential to expedite second language writing and learning. The bulk of research in this respect, however, has mainly centred on the narrative genre, leaving the applicability of the task to other genres largely unexplored. This study endeavours to address this issue by comparing the alignment effect and writing performances of the task between the narrative and the expository genre. To this end, a cohort of 40 students from a Chinese university were recruited. They were required to complete two narrative and two expository continuation tasks over eight weeks. Participants’ continuation writings were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively for the purpose of capturing alignment effects. The results reveal that the expository continuation task elicited greater overall alignment, manifested in the greater amount of phrasal alignment, albeit smaller amount of sentential alignment. Irrespective of source text genre, students tacitly converged to the source text at various rhetoric and stylistic dimensions, exhibiting alignment in nuanced and multifaceted manner. Participants’ writing performances were found to be better on the expository task, indexed by greater accuracy and syntactic complexity. The findings suggest that the continuation task can be expanded to expository writing to effectively promote the teaching/learning of non-narrative writing. The implications for both L2 writing theory and pedagogy are discussed.

Informed by Complex Dynamic Systems Theory, this study examines the nature of homestay as a situated language learning site, with an eye toward the development of American student guests and Chinese host families’ homestay experiences within the larger context of the study abroad (SA) program and local community. Drawing on data collected from host families and student guests, this study discovers benefits, conflicts, and co-adaptations in homestay; the evolution of host families’ dispositions toward homestay; student guests’ proficiency gains and interactions with hosts and locals; and contextual factors that influence the proficiency gains and interactions. The findings reveal that homestay is a dynamic, self-evolving subsystem, which constantly interacts with other dynamic subsystems, such as the SA program and local community, within the complex social ecosystem of the entire SA environment. This study also provides suggestions for the design and management of the homestay component in the SA program and future research.

This study examines the ways in which non-nationals in the Republic of Cyprus perceive the phenomenon of acculturation, and looks at the factors that affect their integration. Our methodology comprised questionnaires and interviews to collect data, which we then interpreted through discourse analysis. Our findings include some expected results; namely, that immigrants’ perception of their status in Cyprus society is largely affected, and mainly negatively, by their degree of fluency in the local language (Greek), as this strongly impacts their social networks and thus opportunities for integration. However, there are other influential factors, such as socioeconomic status, mother tongue (L1) and ethnicity, and a willingness to integrate. Interestingly, the feeling of being integrated is also related to formal procedures, such as having the national citizenship and holding a Cyprus passport.

The multicultural Cypriot society is called upon to face its increasing diversity and manage the relations between its inhabitants (locals and immigrants) for peaceful coexistence. The present study compared acculturation processes of Ιmmigrant students to those of local primary school students aged 11–12 years regarding social adjustment, ethnic identity and self-esteem. Results showed a stronger orientation toward their Country of Origin for both Cypriot and Ιmmigrant students regardless of the nationality of immigrants’. Furthermore, Cypriots and Ιmmigrant students had more group contact with their compatriots than children from other countries. Lastly, the strategies of acculturation and the stages of forming ethnic identity were correlated to Ιmmigrants’ self-esteem levels. The findings highlight the need for new directions in educational policies in the country. The educational system must become flexible and effectively adaptable to the recent changes to form the foundation of cultural coexistence of all the island’s inhabitants, ensuring social cohesion.

This article examines acculturation among Russian speakers in Canada focusing on immigration goals achievement, integration, feeling at home in Canada, and self-identity vis-à-vis the participants’ socio-demographic characteristics and language use. The study draws on data from a survey which was completed by 100 native speakers of Russian. The survey included Likert-scale responses and short answers analyzed quantitatively using Pearson correlations and chi-squares. The results indicate that most participants feel well-adjusted in Canada, they view immigration as the right decision and believe they have reached their immigration goals. However, about half of the respondents report experiencing discrimination, and only 20 % consider Canada their true home. In their self-identity expressions, their country of origin is prioritized. Correlations have been observed between the adaptation parameters and self-identity on the one hand, and the length of stay in Canada, participants’ age and age upon immigration, gender, and language use, on the other hand. These findings are crucial for immigrant help centers, ESL teachers, local governments and immigrants themselves (facilitating comparisons with peers’ immigration experiences). The results are interpreted in the light of Acculturation and Linguistic Equilibrium theories.

In the context of globalization and migration, individuals may experience language loss or first language (L1) attrition. While migrant language loss is well documented and researched, its impact on bilingual autobiographical memory remains underexplored. Existing research indicates that bilingual speakers encode memories in either their L1 or second language (L2), depending on the language context of the event. Language’s pivotal role in autobiographical memory has also been confirmed by bilingual psychotherapy research. This paper investigates whether L1 attrition can impair memories encoded in that language. Focusing on Russian-English speakers with various degrees of L1 attrition, this study examines the phenomenological characteristics of memories (vividness, emotional valence, accessibility, significance, and confidence in the event). Results from partial correlation and linear regression analyses demonstrated that language loss significantly compromises vividness and confidence, underscoring language’s integral function in maintaining bilingual autobiographical memory.

Researchers note that the complex process of language attrition is influenced by a plethora of multifaceted factors, among which attitudes and identity play significant roles. The aim of this paper is to analyse the way in which language attitudes and identity are related to Lithuanian L1 attrition in Lithuanian emigrant communities residing in various countries worldwide. This is achieved by studying the extralinguistic factors, such as convictions about the importance of the heritage Lithuanian language in life, feelings associated with the Lithuanian language, identification with the culture and history of the native and/or host country and the country itself. The quantitative data comes from large-scale Lithuanian diaspora surveys and is used to analyse the link between self-perceived L1 attrition, language attitudes, and identity. The analysis is illustrated by citations from the in-depth interviews that constitute the qualitative part of the data. The study’s results show that there is a correlation between the perceived Lithuanian L1 attrition and both language attitudes and identity. The language attitudes of those emigrants who perceive their L1 attrition are less positive towards the L1, and they identify less with Lithuanian culture and Lithuania when compared to those who do not perceive attrition.

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies introduce the hidden curriculum of marginalized youth into the classroom, ensuring the presence and sustainability of the languages and cultures of these communities. Within this theoretical and pedagogical framework, both translanguaging and Hip-Hop Pedagogies challenge the traditional institutional norms that have historically viewed linguistically and culturally diverse students as deficient. Instead, they promote the utilization of students’ linguistic and cultural capital in the classroom. To this end, we designed and implemented a workshop for a linguistically and culturally diverse public school in Vitoria-Gasteiz in the Basque Autonomous Community. The workshop’s design was based on prior interventions that analyzed students’ multilingual identities through Hip-Hop Pedagogies. Specifically, our aim was to examine whether incorporating home languages by using translanguaging as a teaching approach, along with integrating content of interest to them, would enhance their self-conception. Results reveal that introducing a culturally sustaining approach in the classroom led to increased student engagement, manifested through more active participation in class discussions. The content introduced enabled them, moreover, to reconsider their multilingual identities and focus on topics of personal interest.

Linguistic rights as a cornerstone for inclusive education, have often been linked to language education. However, in the context of an applied approach in education, there is a lack of clarity concerning the conceptualisation gf linguistic rights as well as their visibility in official policy texts and discourse among policymakers internationally. A body of scientists have taken a critical approach to (linguistic) human rights to question the need for a reconceptualization of linguistic (human) rights. In this context, our paper attempts to capture and discuss the different conceptualizations of linguistic rights focusing on children’s (language) education in the Greek context. Drawing from transdisciplinary ethnography based mainly on sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, law studies, and political science, combined with principles of decolonizing human rights we carried out a (critical) discourse analysis of interviews with policymakers from different institutions as well as of educational policy texts. The findings demonstrate different ¨paradoxes¨ of conceptualizing linguistic rights, resulting in the need to encourage a situated, non-Western, ¨non-childish¨ and distributed with legal guarantees approach to linguistic rights in education as a basis for establishing multilingual decolonized language policies for more just education.