27.2604, Review: Socioling; Translation: Phipps, Kay (2015)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2604. Tue Jun 14 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2604, Review: Socioling; Translation: Phipps, Kay (2015)

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Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:31:57
From: Josh DeLaRosa-Prada [j.delarosa-prada at ttu.edu]
Subject: Languages in Migratory Settings

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-2987.html

EDITOR: Alison  Phipps
EDITOR: Rebecca  Kay
TITLE: Languages in Migratory Settings
SUBTITLE: Place, Politics, and Aesthetics
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Josh L DeLaRosa-Prada, Texas Tech University

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY 

Globalization is, perhaps, one the most defining phenomena of our times, and
migration its most powerful draft horse. An increase in transnational mobility
has redefined the nature of Western society as superdiverse and linguistically
heterogeneous, unfolding the already multidimensional nature of social
structures. Embracing this reality, “Languages in Migratory Settings – Place,
politics, and aesthetics”, is a collection of articles surveying different
aspects of intercultural communication, as it applies to a variety of
contexts, all related to migration and transnational movements. Having first
appeared as a special issue in the journal ‘Language and Intercultural
Communication’ (Taylor & Fancis) in 2014, ‘Languages in Migratory Settings’,
brings together contributors from an array of perspectives, ranging from
applied linguistics to cultural studies. Editors Alison Phipps and Rebecca
Key, drawing on their own experience as co-conveners of Glasgow Refugee,
Asylum and Migration Network, present a series of place-specific projects,
showing an array of methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of
international communication. Each of the 9 articles, presented as separate
chapter-like entries, contributes a valuable, different perspective to this
fine read.

The introduction, authored by the editors themselves, contextualizes the
entire volume, its rationale, and its goals. In so doing, it presents elements
that, in one way or another, cut across the rest of the chapters binding them
thematically, and creating a notional antecedent for the reader; these
elements are aesthetic resonance (i.e., the recursivity of elements and
patterns in constructing beauty) , the North and South dichotomy (i.e.,
traditional views of the powerful, balanced and successful North, against a
struggling, less developed South), the use of the prefix ‘inter-’ (i.e.,
signaling a halfway, soft-assembled position) , Glasgow’s ‘Red Road’ (which
housed asylum seekers during the second half of the last century, until being
demolished in 2015), and aesthetic unsettling (i.e., the disruption of
principles underlying ideologies connected to beauty).  

The second article by Mariangela Palladino, entitled ‘Divorce and dialogue:
intertextuality in Amara Lakhous’ ‘Divorzio all’islamica a viale Marconi’,
focuses on literary texts. It aims at beginning an intercultural dialogue
‘among preexistent and emerging cultures’ in relations between Italy and its
‘others’--those born elsewhere. In the process, this work delves into the use
of irony and multivocal narrative in Amara Louhous’ novel to operationalize
intercultural negotiation. Moreover, the author performs an analysis of the
cultural, linguistic, historical, and social movements as they relate to the
emergence of familiarity and estrangement. Palladino concludes that
post-colonial Italian literature represents an important tool of mediation and
dialogue, using ‘Divorzio all’islamica a viale Marconi’ as an example to
illustrate innovative verbal strategies. 

The third article included in this volume, co-authored by Evelyn Arizpe,
Caroline Bagelman, Alison M. Devlin, Maureen Farrell and Julie E. McAdam stems
from a pedagogical incline. From this standpoint, the authors argue for an
image-based approach to the so-called ‘diverse classrooms’. Their paper
‘Visualizing intercultural literacy: engaging critically with diversity and
migration in the classroom through an image-based approach’ investigates the
possibilities of including this type of approach as part of a critical
pedagogy.  At the core of this approach lies the notion of ‘generative theme’,
that is, a political or cultural topic of concern to participants used to
funnel critical engagement in conversation. By this means, the authors
highlight the value of placing ‘new arrivals’ at the center of the classroom,
therefore, directing the focus of the classroom to their experiences, and so
allowing for a variety of ‘points of entry’. 

The fourth article, ‘The social and symbolic aspects of languages in the
narratives of young (prospective) migrants’, by Giovanna Fassetta evolves
around the social and symbolic dimensions of language in Ghanaian youths
immigrating to Italy. With this in mind, the author explores the hierarchies
of power ascribed to each language, expectations for language learning, and
the use of new languages by the younger generations as a means to challenge
the adults. The population under study speaks, to varying degrees, English,
Italian, and the Ghanaian vernacular spoken at home. This study explores the
changes in importance of each of these languages, from before the family
immigrates to Italy, to after their arrival in Europe, as well as the
challenges the youths anticipate before immigrating.  

Article five is entitled ‘Learning across borders – Chinese migrant literature
and intercultural Chinese language education’, and written by Yongyang Wang.
This paper focuses on migrant literature and how it can be redirected toward
an interculturally-oriented pedagogical end; the author expands on existing
stereotypes, and core values that are significant in intercultural
communication. In doing so, Wang links these to the study of Chinese
literature and intercultural communication of Chinese at university level. To
conclude, the author argues for the potential, strengths and possibilities of
using migrant literature in intercultural learning.

The sixth article included in this volume, ‘Constructing the ‘rural other’ in
post-soviet Bishkek: ‘host’ and ‘migrant’ perspectives’, by Moya Flynn and
Natalya Kosmarskaya explores ethnolinguistic attitudes in post-Soviet Bishkek
(Kyrgyzstan). After the arrival in Bishkek of a Kyrgyz migrant population, the
authors report on the perceptions of and reactions to this new community, as
expressed by long-term residents in their narratives. The data show an
anti-migration discourse, with the Kyrgyz community identified as culturally,
linguistically, and behaviorally different, and not part of the host
community’s conceptualization of their past, their present, or future.
Complementing the host community’s viewpoint, the article also investigates
how the migrants perceive themselves in the new urban context, revealing the
emergence of new social and linguistic positioning, as they work their way
into this new setting.

The seventh article of this collection, entitled ‘The migrant patient, the
doctor and the (im)possibility of intercultural communication: silences,
silencing and non-dialogue in an ethnographic context’, is co-authored by Elsa
Lechner and Olga Solovova. In it, the authors delve into the (im)possibilities
of intercultural communication in institutional medical encounters. The study
draws from an ethnographic case study among migrant patients in Portugal and
is squarely centered on how interactions come about between patients and a
clinician. In light of the data, the authors argue that silence must be
construed as a form of communication highlighting the condition of the
patient; in like manner they maintain that the institutional framework of the
clinical setting, discursive roles of the participants, and other social
elements at play are also paramount in understanding silence in patients. 

The eighth and last entry is ‘Interpretation, translation and intercultural
communication in refugee status determination procedures in the UK and
France’, co-authored by Robert Gibb and Anthony Good.  This article studies
the coaction between language and intercultural communication as articulated
in the procedures for refugee status denomination in both the UK and France.
The data were compiled by combining participant observation, semi-structured
interviews and documentary analysis in both countries, from 2007 to 2009. The
authors investigate the role of the interpreter as intercultural communication
facilitator, between asylum applicants and the administrative and legal actors
in charge of assessing their cases. The article presents the main contexts
within which the interpreters operate, and contrasts interpreting services,
codes of conduct and institutional expectations. Furthermore, it investigates
some difficulties in the practice of interpretation in this particular
context, as they emerge in refugee status determination procedures in the UK
and France. 

EVALUATION

The main focus of migration research has been on the sociopolitical mechanisms
that articulate realities such as asylum and exile, as well as the
geographical and geopolitical directions of these movements (Warnes &
Williams, 2006). This work, however, provides the reader with an innovative
perspective, squarely centered on the creative practices of speakers who find
themselves in migration contexts. Framed within migration as a dynamic
phenomenon, the articles contained in this collection describe the interplay
between languages and their speakers, as articulated through translation,
interpretation, literature, education and intercultural negotiations. 

Following recent arguments for the integration of aesthetic and affective
factors into intercultural communications research (Kramsch, 2006, 2009), the
editors successfully highlight the transdisciplinary nature of intercultural
communications as a field of inquiry by illustrating it through a compilation
of seemingly diverging works. Because of this, this volume will appeal to
those graduate students and researchers willing to gain a wide perspective of
the multidisciplinary field of intercultural communications, its interests,
and applicabilities.

Given its solid focus on migrancy, besides its clearly intercultural
communications incline, this book would make a great resource for seminars in
socio-politics or socio-linguistics for graduate students, or researchers
wanting to expand or redirect their focus. Similarly, instructors within the
fields of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics will find this a valuable
asset to redirect linguistic topics to the realities of transnational
mobility, diaspora, and language policy. Conveniently, each ‘chapter’ serves
as a self-contained read, with a clear focus, and a sound methodology. In
fact, the array of methodologies employed in this volume provides a rich
resource for ideas - within and beyond - ethnolinguistic research, from
cross-textual analysis to discourse analysis, and critical pedagogies.  In
this aspect, this volume is eclectic and diverse in the most informative way.
However, the potential reader should bear in mind that the focus of this
collection of articles is rather narrow; as such, it might not serve the
purpose of some instructors looking for an introductory course-book, or an
intercultural communications textbook. Similarly, those specifically
interested in contexts other than Europe will not find this volume
particularly useful.

All in all, I would certainly recommend this book to anyone with an interest
in the role(s) of language in situations of migrancy and transnationalism
under circumstances of asylum and exile, as well as to those looking for an
easy, yet rigorous and informative read binding the topics of language and
migration. 

REFERENCES

Kramsch, C. (2006). From communicative competence to symbolic competence.
Modern Language Journal, 9, 249- 252.

Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Warnes, A. M., & Williams, A. (2006). Older migrants in Europe: a new focus
for migration studies. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32(8),
1257-1281.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Josh De La Rosa-Prada is a researcher at the Bilingualism and Second Language
Acquisition Lab and an instructor at Texas Tech University, where he is
pursuing a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics. He holds degrees from the University
of Granada (Spain), and Birkbeck, University of London (UK). His interests
fall within the broad field of bilingualism, including heritage language
education, language maintenance and socio-affective factors in situations of
ethnolinguistic minority.





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