Call For Papers: Multilingual identities: new global perspectives

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Forwarded from code-switching at yahoogroups.com


Title:
Multilingual identities: new global perspectives on immigrant discourse

Inke Du Bois, Fremdsprachenzentrum der Hochschulen im Land Bremen,
Germany
Eleni Michalopoulou, Lancaster University, UK

Invitation for proposals

A proposal for an individual paper (20 mins + 10 mins discussion) consists
of these parts: Title (up to 100 characters) The name, affiliation, and
email address of the presenter(s) A proposal (up to 2500 characters) A
summary (up to 500 characters)  for inclusion in the panel to contribute
related topics until

February 27, 2007 for a symposium(panel) English and German abstracts are
accepted AILA conference, August 24-29, 2008 Essen, Germany


In immigration contexts, national cultural identities are embedded within
multiple cultural-communicative spaces. Individuals immigrating to new
countries are involved in a second-language (L2) acquisition process, and
very often, L2 acquisition in the L2 culture context influences the
surface structure of the first language L1. There is then a need to employ
L2 language features within the L1, as new cultural aspects are learned
and the mental lexicon is expanded with new cultural experiences. In the
use of two or more languages, code-switching occurs in the speech of
immigrants having various levels of L2 language acquisition. On the other
hand, depending on the ethnolinguistic vitality of the community, L1 may
no longer be used in everyday life and thus lexical and structural
features are increasingly difficult to retrieve by speakers (Ng, 2007). L2
acquisition and L1 attrition, the loss of the first language, are linked
phenomena. Investigations on language attrition and code-switching
typically have not been combined in investigations on bilingualism, but
both phenomena very often accompany the L2 learning process in an L2
cultural context. This means that additive (L2) and subtractive (L1)
bilingualism occur at the same time in immigration, while only few models
have attempted to incorporate both (Walters, 2004). For code-switching,
there are alternational models in the tradition of conversation analysis
(Auer, 1999) focusing on multilingual sequential turn-taking. On the other
hand, insertional models (Myers Scotton, 1995, 2006; Poplack, 1982)
attempt to identify structural rules that speakers follow when switching
between languages. Ultimately", code-switching is an identity-related
factor and the social functions and effects have been captured by
linguists as well (Auer, Gumperz, Li Wei, Myers Scotton, 1995, Poplack).
Gumperz, for example identified L1 as minority language as `we-code,'
associated with informal and in-group activities, and L2 as `they-code,'
associated with formal, out-group activities. These categories were used
by researchers whose analyses "rest on naïve social theory which presents
concepts such as agency, action, identity and social role as
non-problematic" (Sebba and Wootton, 1998: 262). Gumperz had not intended
this static identification and was misunderstood in that he conceptualized
this linguistic group identity as symbolic, and not as a prediction of
usage of either in- or out-group language. Researchers in the field of
bilingualism indicated that using one language does not necessarily mean
that that language's cultural identity is taken (Kramsch, 2006). Speaking
German does not automatically entail German identity, and speaking Turkish
does not automatically mean identification as a Turk. Instead, it can hint
towards that direction, but that is ultimately due to other discourse
identities that are more subtle and complicated issues. Sometimes,
alternative identities are displayed and not only L1 or L2, but a third
language or variety is used. It has been found that in racial and ethnic
identity construction of minority speakers (Buchholz and Hall, 2005), for
example, Asian Americans adopt African American vernacular (Chun, 2001),
Italians in Germany use the variety of the strongest minority - aspects of
or Turkish German - to identify as non-majority members (Kallmeyer & Keim,
2002) and therefore create innovative linguistic cultural identities in
social interaction.  When such alignments are false or problematic,
denaturalization occurs, thus a real aspect of identity is knowingly
hidden or masked. In a study on ethnic identity (Bailey, 2000), for
example, two Dominician American high-school boys play a prank on a
classmate and pretend to be African American, only to speak Spanish to
each other later in the same conversation. Albanian immigrants to Greece
who speak English and Americans living in Europe pretend to be of other
nationalities. This display of hybridity, and testing if one could pass as
a member of another group is another issue in multilingual identity
construction.


Literature selection:
Auer, Peter (1999a). "Introduction. Bilingual Conversation Revisited"
in Auer, P. (ed.) Code-Switching in Conversation. London/New York:
Routledge.
Buchholz, Mary and Kira Hall (2005) "Identity and interaction: a
sociocultural approach." In Discourse Studies 585-612.
Gumperz, John and Jenny Cook-Gumperz. "Introduction: language and the
communication of social identity." Language and Social Identity. Ed.
John Gumperz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, 1-21.
Myers Scotton, Carol. "Code-Switching and Types of Multilingual
Communities." Language Spread and Language Policy. Ed. Peter
Lowenberg. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 1988. 61-82.
Myers-Scotton, Carol. Social Motivations for Codeswitching. Oxford:
Claredon Press, 1995a.
Myers-Scotton. Duelling Languages. Oxford. Claredon Press, 1995b.
Myers-Scotton (2006). Multiple Voices. An introduction to
bilingualism. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers
Pavlenko, Aneta. 2004. "L2 influence and L1 attrition in adult
bilingualism" in Schmid, Monika et al. (eds) First language attrition.
Interdisciplinary perspectives on methodological issues. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.
Sebba, Mark and Tony Wootton. (1998). "'We, they and Identity'
Sequential versus identity related explanation in code-switching"
Code-Switching in Conversation. Language, Interaction and Identity.
Ed. P. Auer. London: Blackwell,

We are planning a publication.

A proposal for an individual paper (20 mins + 10 mins discussion)
consists of these parts:
Title (up to 100 characters)
The name, affiliation, and email address of the presenter(s)
A proposal (up to 2500 characters)
A summary (up to 500 characters)
for inclusion in the panel to contribute related topics until February
26, 2007 for a symposium

AILA conference,
August 24-29, 2008
Essen, Germany




------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
See what's inside the new Yahoo! Groups email.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/0It09A/bOaOAA/yQLSAA/GP4qlB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To Post a message: code-switching @ yahoogroups.com
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
code-switching-unsubscribe @ yahoogroups.com
Web page: http//groups.yahoo.com/group/code-switching
Yahoo! Groups - Join or create groups, clubs, forums & communities. Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/code-switching/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/code-switching/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:code-switching-digest at yahoogroups.com
    mailto:code-switching-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    code-switching-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups - Join or create groups, clubs, forums & communities. is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/