Volume 42, Issue 2

Discursive input functions as the core decisive element in answering the legal dilemma of whether someone is eligible for international protection. This pleads in favour of strengthening the narrative-discursive component in migration studies by offering a micro-sociolinguistic analysis of interactional data from diverse legal encounters with applicants for international protection. This article adopts a case study approach, bringing together two different data sets collected in a Belgian context. In focusing on asylum claims based on reasons of sexual orientation and gender identity, the article foregrounds discursive tensions emblematic for the treatment of disclosure in and around the asylum procedure. The first part of our article draws on data from the guidance and counselling side of the asylum procedure in examining legal consultations which took place in the lawyer’s office. The second part of our article turns to the communication that takes place during asylum interviews between applicants and asylum officers. Juxtaposing both analyses, reveals how disclosure is complicated by the different stakeholders that mediate the situated interaction as well as by the legal-administrative categories that govern the asylum procedure. The way in which institutional actors and assumptions are deeply implicated in the creation of asylum narratives, is not only at odds with the government’s evaluation premises about how stories come into being in isolation, it also entails a certain level of vulnerability as mediation holds the potential to obscure the indexical load of the asylum seeker’s testimony.

The aim of this study is to demonstrate how the presence of an emerging written record may affect the content of an asylum narrative, based on which a decision concerning the asylum claimant’s right to receive protection eventually is taken. The lion’s share of studies on interpreter-mediated asylum interviews to date focus on risks involved with assigning non-professionals to perform the interpreting. This study draws specifically on a 3.5 min-long sequence taken from an asylum interview involving a professional interpreter, working between Russian and Swedish, and the corresponding paragraph of the Swedish-language written minutes, produced in parallel by the caseworker at a Migration Agency office. The study demonstrates something that hasn’t been highlighted much in the literature on asylum interviews, namely the mutual impact of the interpreter-mediated communicative format—the specific turn taking order and the restricted linguistic transparency—and the parallel record keeping; the intricate passage from two spoken languages to an asylum narrative in the form of a text written in one of these languages.

English has been for centuries seen as the native language of speakers in the English-speaking inner circle countries, as the second language of speakers in the former British-colony outer circle countries and as an international business lingua franca among speakers in the techno-economically powerful extended circle countries. Little is known how speakers in the Expanding Circle countries where English is learned as an additional foreign language make use of the language in everyday life, for communication, and for business purposes. This article fills the gap by examining how and why English and English structures have been used in shop naming in the Expanding Circle. Surveying and observing shop names, products on sale, and neighborhood’s socio-economic conditions, the study identifies possible connection between the nature of the language used, the types of products being sold and the socioeconomic nature of the neighborhood. Distributing questionnaires and interviewing shop owners, staff and buyers in the central business districts on Lombok Island, Indonesia, the study establishes linguistic ideology and socio-economic and cultural expectation behind the name selection. Three clusters of CBDs were observed: urban, suburban and tourism areas. With Chi-square analyses, the study establishes a strong relationship between the choice of language for shop names and the types of products on sale irrespective of the socio-economic conditions of the shop neighborhood. With linguistic analyses, the study shows that the choice of names in English or in English-like structures is affected by the ideology of English as the language of science, technology and modern lifestyle. English is strongly associated with modern lifestyle and the majority of lifestyle, entertainment and fashion shops are named in the English language. English-like structures are connected to English as the language of technology and shops dealing with electricity and machinery technologies are named in English-like structures. The use of these linguistic ideologies is expected to boost the image of the shops and the sale of the products and this expectation was statistically verified.

At a press conference in Japan, an L2-Japanese reporter questioned an L1-Japanese politician. Although the press conference was conducted in Japanese, the politician code-switched to English during their exchange. The reporter challenged the politician’s code-switching; a confrontational exchange ensued. The reporter’s reaction depicts the code-switching as linguistic microaggression. Linguistic microaggressions are verbal comments focused on language use itself which intentionally or unintentionally discriminate. I analyze two data sets: the press conference data and an interview with the reporter, and a survey conducted with over 300 L2-Japanese speakers in Japan. Microanalysis of the press conference reveals linguistic microaggression and a struggle for speaker legitimacy. Qualitative thematic analysis of survey data examines L2-Japanese speakers’ reactions to unwanted code-switching. Together, analysis of these data sets shows how 1) linguistic microaggression can be resisted while asserting one’s own speaker legitimacy, and 2) L2-Japanese speakers can react strongly to unwanted code-switching. Few studies examine unwanted code-switching. I argue that the code-switching examined here was linguistic microaggression and was perceived as a threat to L2 speaker legitimacy. Findings contribute to research that critically examines L2 speakers’ struggles in Japan and have implications for understanding L2 speaker legitimacy.

This narrative case study examines the identity development of two mixed-heritage (Korean/White and Korean/Japanese) university students in relation to Korean as a heritage language (HL) in New Zealand. The narratives of the two participants (Mia and Hannah) revealed that they grew up with different levels of exposure to the HL, which impacted their HL proficiency, and experienced different struggles with identity construction. While Mia’s White appearance helped her explore multiple ethnic/cultural identities, Hannah was deemed completely non-White by White New Zealanders, assigned a minority “Asian” identity, and subjected to racial discrimination. The dominant group’s confusion about intra-race mixedness and perceptions of Hannah as non-mixed complicated her situation. Hannah had little access to a majority heritage (New Zealander) identity, but also found her specific heritage identities occluded by an imposed single (“Asian”) identity. Nonetheless, on entering university both participants showed a strong desire to embrace their Koreanness through HL education or socialization with coethnic peers. HL learning played a crucial role in their construction of mixed-heritage identity; for Mia, the HL was valuable social capital, while for Hannah, the HL was a means of claiming her ethnic identity. This study highlights the complexity and plurality of mixed-heritage identities and offers implications for educators.

Language teachers, curriculum writers and sociolinguists have engaged thoroughly in investigating the diverse factors that influence language teaching and learning. The authors of Liberating Language Education add to this area of research through a collection of empirical studies that bring into focus the lived experiences and conclusions achieved via a variety of language teaching practices. This review provides an overview of the distinct approach taken in this book, the diverse topics covered and the perspectives offered.