Book Review: Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Forwarded from LINGUIST List 15.1720
Sun Jun 6 2004

From: Marian Sloboda <maslo at zoznam.sk>


EDITOR: Pavlenko, Aneta; Blackledge, Adrian
TITLE: Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts
SERIES: Bilingual Education & Bilingualism
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2004


INTRODUCTION

The book under review is a collection of contributions unified by one
theoretical approach. The approach, which the editors expose in the
Introduction, is broad but coherent. It is rooted in contributors' shared
interest in interconnections between identity, languages, power, and
social justice. Contributions to the volume elaborate, in one or the other
way, on the fact that different languages, discourses and identities are
not socially equal and equally empowering. The approach chosen is applied
to a number of different multilingual settings, in which, however, English
figures most often as one of the languages.

The volume contains 11 chapters plus Introduction, written by 12
experienced scholars and younger researchers. All of them come from
English-speaking countries, but they are not always of Anglo-American
origin. It is interesting and certainly welcomed that 10 of them are woman
and only two men, which is a reverted proportion in comparison to what has
been usual so far. The contributors are specialists in bilingualism often
with connection to education/pedagogy (cf. the book's publication in the
Bilingual Education and Bilingualism series). Nevertheless, not all
chapters show connection to education, as we will see in the contents
description, which follows.

CONTENTS DESCRIPTION

In Introduction, ''New theoretical approaches to the study of negotiation
of identities in multilingual contexts,'' ANETA PAVLENKO and ADRIAN
BLACKLEDGE review briefly two approaches: sociopsychological and
interactional sociolinguistic, and continue with a more extensive
exposition of poststructuralist approaches, one of which the contributors
advocate in the present volume (drawing, e.g., on Bourdieu 1991). They
view identities as ''social, discursive, and narrative options offered by
a particular society in a specific time and place to which individuals and
groups appeal in an attempt to self-name, to self- characterize, and to
claim social spaces and social prerogatives'' (p. 19). The authors add the
concept of positioning, which has been originally designed for a
conversational phenomenon (Davies - Harre 1990), but the authors extend it
to all discursive practice. Bakhtinian metaphorical concept of 'voice'
(Bakhtin 1981) has been extended as well and, as one of the contributors
(Jennifer Miller) mentions, it has also acquired more literal, though
still symbolic, meaning. Its audability and one's right to speak and be
heard determine possibilities of her/his (self-)identification and
identity negotiation (p. 293).  NEGOTIATION OF IDENTITIES is understood
here as ''an interplay between reflective positioning, i.e. self-
representation, and interactive positioning, whereby others attempt to
position particular individuals or groups'' (p.  20). Negotiation ''may
also take place 'within' individuals [i.e. between Bakhtinian voices],
resulting in changes in self-representation'' (p. 21). The authors
distinguish three types of identities: imposed (non-negotiable in
particular time and place), assumed (accepted but not negotiated), and
negotiable (which may be contested by groups and individuals). The
contributors to this volume focus on the identities contested by
individuals and groups in resistance to others or existing discourses.
They adopt a larger sociohistorical perspective on identities.

In Chapter 1, '''The making of an American': Negotiation of identities at
the turn of the twentieth century,'' ANETA PAVLENKO shows and explains
differences between 12 memoirs of European immigrants to U.S.A. at the
turn of the 20th century and present-time immigrants. The former used
rhetorical means that succeeded in making the American identity negotiable
for new arrivals to the US and they did not foreground linguistic
identities; the latter, on the contrary, express experiences of language
discrimination and difficulties with identity negotiation, which stems
from tensions between other- and self-identification.

In Chapter 2, ''Constructions of identity in political discourse in
multilingual Britain,'' ADRIAN BLACKLEDGE examines an intertextual 'chain
of discourses' (Fairclough 1995), that is, 'dialogical network' (Nekvapil
- Leudar 2002) - but he does not work with the latter concept - in which
network actors (British state officials) contribute to a change in the
official language ideology. The chain starts with news on 'race riots' in
northern England, and ends in issuing the Nationality, Immigration and
Asylum Act in 2002, which states that, inter alia, also spouses of British
citizens are obliged to prove sufficient knowledge of English (or Welsh or
Gaelic) in order to acquire British citizenship. Drawing on Irvine and Gal
(2000), Blackledge shows how language was indexed to the nature of its
speakers, understanding English indexed to good race relations, and
Britain 'reimagined' as a monolingual state.

In Chapter 3, ''Negotiating between 'bourge' and 'racaille': Verlan as a
youth identity practice in suburban Paris,'' MEREDITH DORAN deals with
Verlan, a variety widely known and spoken by French urban youth, which
originated among North-African immigrants in France. Based on participant
observation in Les Salieres (an ethnically heterogeneous town near Paris),
interviews and records of natural speech, the chapter discusses Verlan as
both means and product of construction and negotiation of identities of
local youth groups.

In Chapter 4, ''Black Deaf or Deaf Black? Being black and deaf in
Britain,'' MELISSA JAMES and BENCIE WOLL follow the life history lines of
21 deaf respondents and their identity development which under their
specific living conditions (in their family, school and employment)
resulted in acceptation of the identity of Black and Deaf (''to be deaf is
to have a hearing loss; to be Deaf is to belong to a community with its
own language and culture,'' p. 125). The authors describe the respondents'
identity choices based on personal experiences of interactions with black,
deaf and other people, and then dwell on the respondents' perceptions of
being Black, Deaf, Black Deaf or Deaf Black.

In Chapter 5, ''Mothers and mother tongue: Perspectives on
self-construction by mothers of Pakistani heritage,'' JEAN MILLS presents
results of her analysis of semi-structured interviews which she carried
out with 10 mothers of Pakistani origin who live in Britain. Although the
title of her contribution highlights the category 'mother tongue,' Mills
discusses this emic concept in a wider net of linkages between the
respondents' selves and meanings they have constructed in the interviews
for all their languages.  The respondents put language issues to close
connection with the issues of mothering - esp. the question of being a
'good mother' in the eyes of their relatives and their own.

In Chapter 6, ''The politics of identity, representation, and the
discourses of self-identification: Negotiating the periphery and the
center,'' FRANCES GIAMPAPA first explains what the 'center' (prototype) of
Canadian Italian identity is. Then she focuses on self-positioning and
identity negotiation of three young respondents of Italian origin who
diverge from the 'center' in some way and, therefore, find themselves on
the 'periphery'. The important role of respondents' languages in
situationally variable self- positioning is examined in the workplace and
peer-group settings. Interview and questionnaire data served as the
material for analysis.

In Chapter 7, ''Alice doesn't live here anymore: Foreign language learning
and identity reconstruction,'' CELESTE KINGINGER reconstructs the dramatic
language learning trajectory of a young American working-class woman. The
respondent's story, as retold by Kinginger on the basis of interview and
written data, shows the reader how a language identity, in this case the
identity of French as constructed by the respondent, evolved during her
life in the United States, stay in France, and life again in the US. The
chapter also manifests the cohesion of language learning processes with
biographical, psychological, and social facts.

In Chapter 8, ''Intersections of literacy and construction of social
identities,'' BENEDICTA EGBO discusses findings of her research of two
rural communities in Nigeria. On the basis of participant observation,
focus-group discussion, and interviews with 36 female members of the
communities, she presents differences between the self-perceptions of
literate vs. non-literate respondents. She concentrates on bonds between
literacy in general, being literate woman in the researched communities in
particular, gender, and power in the community as well as home. Egbo
concludes that literacy, if assisted by other factors, empowers
marginalized Nigerian women.

In Chapter 9, ''Multilingual writers and the struggle for voice in
academic discourse,'' SURESH CANAGARAJAH, having analyzed texts of six
multilingual students and experienced academicians, shows how they
construct their voice (''a manifestation of one's agency in discourse
through the means of language,'' p. 267) in coping with dominant
discourses. The author describes several strategies of relating one's self
to the discourses: avoidance (of negotiation with them), transposition (of
features of one discourse to another and vice versa), accommodation (to a
dominant discourse), opposition (to a dominant discourse), and
appropriation (of a dominant discourse to one's own agenda). Finally, the
author assesses the strategies in a comparative, relational way.

In Chapter 10, ''Identity and language use: The politics of speaking ESL
in Schools,'' JENNIFER MILLER shifts the reader's attention to the social
conditions of negotiation of identities. She examines the situation of
several Chinese and Bosnian students at an Australian high school who use
English as their second language (ESL). Miller shows that the environment
does not open to them the same possibilities to speak and be heard in this
language in comparison to each other and their native-English-speaking
classmates. Their audability (as well as visibility) is a key factor in
their (self-)positioning.

In Chapter 11, ''Sending mixed messages: Language minority education at a
Japanese public elementary school,'' YASUKO KANNO, following esp. Cummins
(2000), criticizes 'coercive relations of power' between the teacher and
pupil, in which the teacher imposes values on the pupil, irrespective of
the background and personality of the latter. Kanno advocates
'collaborative relations of power,' in which the teacher respects her/his
pupil. In the school analyzed both these relations occur mixed: teachers
show respect for minority children's cultural background and L1 but they
do not support it in contrast to Japanese, knowledge of which is a primary
goal of instruction. As a result, the children undergo L1 attrition and
assimilation.

EVALUATION

I would like to elaborate here on three topics, namely, negotiation,
discourse, and discursivity, and the extent, to which they are represented
in this volume, which remains excellent in spite of any criticism that may
be raised against some of its aspects.

The definition of 'negotiation of identities' in the Introduction sets up
some expectations as regards what the subsequent chapters might be about.
In reading them, the reader may arrive at the impression that some of the
chapters are rather about something else than negotiation. They are still
excellent and very interesting in themselves indeed, but might fit better
elsewhere. For instance, Egbo's chapter (Ch. 8) is a stimulating,
noteworthy and important text, but I have failed to see where is
negotiation in it (except on p. 262). Blackledge's chapter (Ch. 2), to
give another example, does not foreground identity negotiation as such.
There is intertextuality operating with identities there, but negotiation
presupposes two voices 'speaking' discordantly (cf.  definition above and
on p. 20) and the voices of the different texts analyzed are not in
disagreement (although there is some _within_ one text, see below).
Chapter 7 by Kinginger, which differs from the other chapters in more
respects, is virtually a happy-ending story of a young working-class
American woman who dreams of learning French.  The chapter is reminiscent
of the work on linguistic (auto)biographies (e.g. Franceschini 2003 and
forthcoming, Nekvapil 2003), but it has not its academic focus and is
rather a paraphrase of the respondent's story with the analytic component
suppressed. (Nevertheless, an asset one can see in this chapter is that it
provides valuable material for comparison in the form of a convincing and
impressive story of intertwining of language learning with the learner's
biography, personal social-life experience and social stereotypes.) Thus,
on the one hand, there is this sort of non-prototypical analysis of
identity negotiation in the present volume; on the other hand, there are
also analyses that can be considered really prototypical in this respect.
In my opinion, Giampapa's, Canagarajah's, Pavlenko's, and James' and
Woll's contributions (Ch. 6, 9, 1 and 4) represent the latter case.
Miller's chapter (Ch. 10), although it does not have its primary focus on
identity negotiation, is remarkable for that it focuses on conditions of
negotiation.

It seems that there is variable emphasis on various aspects of the
phenomenon of identity negotiation in the present volume. Three aspects
might be discerned here: CONSTRUCTION (emphasis on identity creation),
MODIFICATION (emphasis on identity reconstruction), and NEGOTIATION as
such (emphasis on joint creation/modification/ascription by at least two
more or less discordant voices, intertextually or intratextually). In
Doran's chapter (Ch. 3), for example, there is a switch in the place
between excerpts from interview narratives, which are presented with the
emphasis on the 'construction aspect,' and two excerpts of short
conversational exchanges, in which prototypical negotiation between two
speakers takes place. Blackledge's chapter (Ch.  2) is an analogical case
but with within-one-speaker negotiation. The chapters differ in the degree
and proportion of emphasis on these aspects.

I will turn now to the issue of discourse and discursivity.  Whereas
Holstein and Gubrium (2000) have tried to integrate and harmonize, at
least in theory, the institutional 'macro' discourse-in-practice with
'micro' discursive practice of self construction, the present volume
slightly 'sides with' the grand-discourse concept, although the editors do
acknowledge the importance of the 'micro' discursivity (p. 14). The
authors managed to incorporate the conception of grand discourse to
analysis when dealing with the negotiation of identities in the lives of
individuals or small communities, i.e., at the 'micro' level.
Nevertheless, they do not seem to have attended to the micro-discursive
nature of identity negotiation. In my opinion, the authors do not usually
show the sense of identities and their negotiation as really
interactionally constructed, localized, occasioned, and dependent on
narrative structures _within_ the data analyzed. Many authors used
interview techniques in order to generate their data but do not show,
explicitly or implicitly, the awareness that respondents negotiated their
identities also and primarily with the researcher. It is important what
questions researchers give, how they introduce themselves, how respondents
perceive them, etc. In Chapter 3, for example, 'negotiation' does not
appear as a situated action (respondent--researcher) but as
self-positioning of respondents only with respect to majority discourse
(respondent--majority discourse), and in addition, rather as a
construction of identity than true negotiation (majority discourse is not
shown to receive and respond to the respondents' claims). Robert Miller
(2000) distinguishes three approaches to life stories: neo- positivist
(viewing interviewee as affected by social structure and narratives as
mirroring objective reality in a certain way), realist (building a
data-grounded model of objective reality), and narrative (viewing reality
as structured in interplay between interviewee and interviewer). Those
contributors, who used interviews and narratives as data, approached them
usually from realist or neo-positivist positions.

There are, however, exceptions. Mills (Ch. 5) adopted more narrative
approach than some other contributors as she has ''attempted to show that
issues binding together identity and language were very prominent in
_these data_ [i.e. in her interviews with respondents]'' (p. 186,
underlining added). A strong focus on narrative aspect of the negotiation
of self is present in Canagarajah's contribution (Ch. 9). The author
explicitly deals with strategies of self negotiation _within and between_
academic writings and discourses.

Concerning the approach to identity negotiation and particularly the
interactive nature of this process, the editors explicitly state in the
Introduction that the authors do not take up the approach of interactional
sociolinguistics (i.e. Auer 1998 and the like), because it deals with
negotiation of identities by way of code- switching and language choice
(p. 10). However, it is not only the work on code-switching and language
choice that is devoted to interactional identity construction and
negotiation, but also ethnomethodologically informed work such as Antaki -
Widdicombe (1998), or Hester - Housley (2002). The editors state, however,
that relying _exclusively_ on interactive analysis cannot adequately
explore all the complexity of negotiation of identities (p.  25). I would
agree, but like to add that the book under review have moved very far from
interactive analysis and, as a result, might miss much of the phenomenon.
In a reader on discourse theory and practice, Wetherell (2001: 382)
identified ''six nodes of research activity which seem most relevant to
social scientist'': (1) conversation analysis, (2) discursive psychology,
(3) Foucauldian research, (4) critical discourse analysis and critical
linguistics, (5) interactional linguistics and the ethnography of
speaking, and (6) Bakhtinian research. The authors of this volume adhere
mostly to critical discourse analysis, Bakhtinian and Foucauldian
research, and ethnography of speaking.

What is probably more relevant than all that has been mentioned above is
the question if the choice of approach, data and methods was effective as
regards the purpose of the authors' texts - to lay bare or address
instances of social injustice. It can be concluded that it has.  The
volume is undoubtedly of high academic quality; it is informative and
truly stimulating. The book is powerful in that it has one wide but
synthetic and coherent theoretical perspective, within which all the
authors managed to position their chapters. It is a well-written
up-to-date achievement of a poststructuralist, socially engaged and
critical branch of qualitative sociolinguistics with transdisciplinary
overlaps, emphasis shifted from methods to findings, and analytical
interest oriented to the links between the 'macro' and 'micro' of
multilingual social life.

REFERENCES

Antaki, Charles & Widdicombe, Sue (eds.) (1998). Identities in
Talk. London: Sage.

Auer, Peter (ed.) (1998). Code-Switching in Conversation: Language,
Interaction and Identity. London: Routledge.

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin:
University of Texas Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1991). Language and Symbolic Power.  Cambridge:
Polity Press.

Cummins, Jim (2000). Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children
in the Crossfire. Clevendon: Multilingual Matters.

Davies, Bronwyn & Harre, Rom (1990). Positioning: the discursive
production of selves. Journal of the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20,
pp. 43-65.

Fairclough, Norman (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical
Study of Language. London - New York: Longman.

Franceschini, Rita (2003). Unfocussed language acquisition?  The
presentation of linguistic situations in biographical narration. Forum
Qualitative Sozialforschung, 4, available at:
http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-03/3-03franceschini-e.htm
[accessed June 5, 2004].

Franceschini, Rita (ed.) (forthcoming). Leben mit mehreren Sprachen:
Sprachbiographien im mitteleuropaeischen Kontext.  Tuebingen:
Stauffenburg.

Hester, Stephen & Housley, William (eds.) (2002) Language, Interaction
and National Identity: Studies in the Social Organisation of National
Identity in Talk-in-Interaction.  Aldershot: Ashgate.

Holstein, James A. & Gubrium, Jaber F. (2000). The Self We Live By:
Narrative Identity in a Postmodern World. New York - Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Irvine, Judith T. & Gal, Susan (2000). Language ideology and
linguistic differentiation. In: P. V. Kroskrity (ed.).  Regimes of
Language: Ideologies, Polities and Identities.  Santa Fe - Oxford:
School of American Research Press, pp.  35-84.

Miller, Robert L. (2000). Researching Life Stories and Family
Histories. London - Thousand Oaks - New Delhi: Sage.

Nekvapil, Jiri (2003). Language biographies and the analysis of
language situations: On the life of the German community in the Czech
Republic. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 162,
pp. 63-83.

Nekvapil, Jiri & Leudar, Ivan (2002). On dialogical networks:
Arguments about the migration law in Czech mass media in 1993. In:
Hester & Housley (2002), pp. 60-101.

Wetherell, Margaret (2001). Debates in discourse research.  In:
Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader. Eds. M.  Wetherell, S. Taylor
& S. J. Yates. London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi: Sage, pp. 380-399.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Marian Sloboda is a Ph.D. student of Linguistics at Charles University,
Prague, Czech Republic. His main study interests lie in sociolinguistics,
bilingualism research, language management, conversation analysis, and
Slavic linguistics. His dissertation will be devoted to Belarusan and
Russian language management, bilingual discourse, language ideologies and
identities in Belarus.

Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-456.html
Marian Sloboda, Charles University, Prague