Volume 34, Issue 5 -

This study focuses on the relationships between host family success, social integration, length of stay and acquisition of adolescent language by students on extended international homestay programmes. Degree of adolescent language acquisition and integration is measured by use of two hallmarks of adolescent language: markers of approximation (e.g. “and stuff”) and intensification (e.g. “like”). Participants are 26 German teenagers on either a 5- or a 10-month exchange to Australia. Their use of approximation and intensification markers is measured quantitatively before arriving in Australia and then after 5 months of living in the host country. Host family relations and levels of social integration are measured qualitatively by analysis of interview content and responses to a Language Contact Profile. Results indicate that there is a direct link between host family relations, social integration and acquisition of markers of adolescent language. Additionally, exchange students on a 5-month exchange use fewer of those approximation and intensification markers most associated with Australian adolescent language than students on a 10-month programme. This can be explained by lower investment and integration in the Australian adolescent community.

This article posits that “passing” is a manipulation of ambiguously embodied characteristics, linguistic practice, and ratification by other speakers. I explore discourses and practices of “passing” by post-migrant generation, diasporically-resident Moroccans who seek to be unmarked by migration when bargaining in Moroccan markets. Their attempts have many possibilities for failure, including any way that their diasporic provenance might be made relevant in interaction through their embodied and linguistic practices. This connection between embodiment and linguistic practices becomes more evident in a unique case of bargaining “success”, which depends on using silence. Framed by all the possible ways to fail, the main interactional example is exceptional because of its success-by-not-failing: the diasporically-resident participant was not conversationally, explicitly marked as “diasporic”.

This article examines the socially constructed nature of significant linguistic insecurity with regard to the English language in Korean society as informed by neoliberalism. It specifically explores how linguistic insecurity leads to the pursuit of linguistic perfectionism under the popular discourse of neoliberal personhood. Participants are English-Korean translators and interpreters who spent extended periods of their youth abroad in English immersion contexts. Informants’ narratives trace their linguistic journeys from linguistic adjustment overseas to readjustment and career decisions back home. This study examines their experiences at school and work, with a particular focus on their relationships with non-returnees. The findings reveal that in contrast to the commonly-held beliefs that returnees are competent and confident speakers of English, they suffer from anxieties related to unrealistically high “native-like” expectations of their English back home. Their career choice can be traced to a strong belief in the ideals of neoliberal personhood, through which they hope to transform themselves for social recognition. This, however, remains elusive due to heightened competition over English against an ever-rising bar. The article concludes that the current state represents a “no-win” situation, in which linguistic insecurity and perfectionism continue to be reinforced in neoliberal discourses of individual accountability.