Introduction: You have already seen how English was initially spread across the globe through colonisation. In this unit, you examine the relationship between more recent movements of peoples and language, with a particular focus on English. On the one hand, the unit looks at the impact that migration has had, and continues to have, on the geographical distribution of the English language; and, on the other, it looks at the role that English, like other languages, can play in influencing migration patterns. The unit concludes by exploring the impact that migrants can have on receiving countries through the analysis of ‘linguistic landscapes’ – the languages used in public signs in predominantly urban areas, While many migration issues are common to all languages, English warrants special interest because of its role as a global language.

Main learning points include: The role of language, and especially English, in migration The function of language in citizenship tests Migrant identities and language practices The influence of migrants on the language of public signs within urban landscapes The ways in which English is used, valued and regulated by various groups around the world can only be understood in the context of historical and contemporary migration – the movements of people or groups from one country or area to settle in another. The English language is bound up with patterns of migration in two main ways. On the one hand, migration has shaped the structure and usage of English language varieties. Possibly the most significant migration that facilitated the spread and diversion

Possibly the most significant migration that facilitated the spread and diversification of English was the expansion of the British Empire. People from ex-British colonies have brought new varieties of English back to the UK, or to other Anglophone countries, and they have taken these English varieties with them to parts of the world where English has no official status. On the other hand, access to English increasingly determines who migrates, why and where. English can facilitate migration and it may encourage migration – people may actively choose to migrate to Anglophone countries because they already speak English. Thus, English is instrumental not only in the bringing together of people through migration, but also in the negotiation of relationships often characterized cultural difference, power inequality and conflicts of interests.

On an individual level, the way in which language and migration interact may seem straightforward, but the reality of adapting to a new culture and way of life is far from simple. People do not shed or replace identities as they move; rather their sense of who they are becomes more complex, flexible and shifting as they interact with new people, cultures and languages. Rather than replacing one language with another migrants may crave out new multilingual and multicultural identities which reflect complex backgrounds. In this chapter, I begin by looking at language as a factor behind decisions to migrate. I then focus away from policy and its impact on global trends to look at how migrants adapt, culturally and linguistically. What is migration? Migration can occur across boundaries within a country, but this chapter is mainly concerned with transnational migration-that which involves movement between nations.

Definitions based on length of stay are more problematic. We might suggest that migration implies a degree of permanence (Kerswill, 2006, p. 8)- the United nations (UN), for example, defines migration as a stay of one year or longer. We can talk of short-term or long-term migration – short-term migrants may include students and seasonal workers; long-term migrants include, the many Europeans who went to America around the turn of the twentieth century to start a new life. It is also important to recognize that ‘migrants’ do not form one homogeneous group, but can be young, old ; they may migrate alone or with extended families and communities and they may do so for a variety of reasons. It is possible to identify broad trends in migration patterns between the languages spoken by migrants and their destination countries. English, French and Spanish, also play an important role in influencing global patterns of migration. English, like other ex- colonial languages, shapes migration patterns simply through its presence as an official language in so many countries.

However, English is now used within contexts characterized by migration in ways that reflect its role as global lingua franca. The desire to learn English is itself a motivating factor in decisions to migrate. The increased value attached to English language proficiency results in large flows of students from countries across the non-English speaking world to the UK, USA, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, to attend English language courses or to learn English by immersing themselves in English-speaking countries. The drive for English which stimulates this migration is associated with status, prestige and improved employment prospects, and it demonstrates how migration may be directly influenced by people’s perception of the importance of English and their desire that future generations of children acquire an identity as English speakers.

However, there are numerous reasons – environmental, economic and political – for which people may migrate, and language is not the only issue. These reasons include ‘pull factors’ (attractive factors which encourage people to move to a country) or ‘push factors’ (reasons to move away from somewhere).With regard to environmental factors, for example, people might choose to move to regions having a better climate (pull factors) – of course they may need to migrate to areas with a better climate if they have experienced long periods of drought and soil erosion that have resulted in animal stocks dying and poor quality crop (push factors). Economic reasons involve migrations from rural to urban areas as people are attracted by employment opportunities, higher incomes and a better quality of life. Finally, sometimes people are forced to seek refuge abroad because of political factors such as ethnic, linguistic or religious discrimination and persecution which may be either tacitly or overtly supported by the state concerned.

As the above suggests, one important way of categorizing people’s motivations is to distinguish ‘forced’ from ‘voluntary’ migration. For people who migrate voluntarily and with some ability to choose where to migrate to, there are many factors which they may consider. They are likely to feel that their ability to gain work and integrate into society depends on whether they can speak and are literate in the dominant language of the new country. Sharing a common language, therefore, is an important factor in making choices about the country of migration. However, for refugees, the country to which they migrate is likely to be decided by international politics as well as by linguistic considerations. Communities and Languages: It is usual to make a distinction between the minority or community languages of migrants (which may or may not be the languages spoken in the home) and the dominant language of the receiving society.

The term heritage language tends to be used more specifically in relation to second- or third-generation migrants who have shifted towards use of the dominant local language for most purposes but who may wish to acquire a deeper knowledge of their family’s minority language. Language fluency has become a major criterion for gaining residency and qualifying for citizenship. Citizenship tests have been used for many years. The official aim of citizenship tests is to help migrants integrate into a receiving country by developing a common view and approach to life in society, and therefore to support social cohesion. Other political factors are put forward by the governments of receiving countries, including the need to screen out people who might be deemed to pose a threat to society. The English language requirement in general can be seen as fulfilling two purposes: first, to enable migrants to communicate with other citizens from outside their communities and therefore to integrate and become part of the broader community; and, second, facilitate access to the labor market.

As is evident from the test above (activity 2.2), the USA does not require particularly high levels of language competence, while countries such as the UK, Australia and Denmark are steadily increasing the proficiency that migrants must demonstrate. As well as criticisms of ways in which some citizenship tests are designed, many linguists question the use of such tests in the first place. McNamara and Shohamy (2008, p. 93) highlight three main objections: First, people have the right to use a language of their choice and this right is violated when governments impose a language on them. Second, prior to migration, many migrants have no access to language classes or opportunities to learn. Third, migrants are capable of acquiring the language of the receiving society as and when the need arises, and of using other languages to fulfill social duties such as voting or working.

However, despite the benefits for migrants in learning the dominant language of a receiving society, the extent to which linguistic proficiency should be evaluated and enforced prior to entry is open to debate. One alternative is the better provision of language classes for migrants once they have arrived in their new country of settlement. This solution recognizes the realities of language use in migrant communities; that migrants pick up the language skills they need in complex ways which directly relate to their own lives. This practice challenges the principle of monolingualism which underlies citizenship tests – the idea that the population of one nation should, ideally, speak one language. Multilingual resources in a global labor market: The previous chapter introduced the concept of linguistic capital – the idea that a person’s language resources can translate into social opportunity and thus economic capital.

What often happens when somebody migrates is that their linguistic abilities lose or gain in linguistic capital. Again, being fluent English language speakers facilitated their absorption into the labor market as well as their settlement within American and Canadian society. As this shows, such discrepancies can be an issue both when people are speaking different languages and when they are ‘speaking the same language’. Migrant experiences are determined chiefly by one’s national identity, and the social, cultural, economic and linguistic resources this bestows. Languages and multilingual identities in migrant communities: Migration almost always impacts on a person’s of who they are, and this often involves some realignment between language and identity.

One example of such realignment is that, in their countries of settlement, migrants have been seen to identify with a language variety that has a higher status in their country of origin rather than with their home or community language variety. Migration generally presents migrants with some tension between, on the one hand, maintaining heritage languages in order to safeguard cultural identity while, on the other hand, needing to become fluent and literate in the dominant local language as soon as possible in order to obtain jobs and become integrated members of the receiving country. For many migrants integrating into a new society, language maintenance is an active process, engaged in with the intension of holding on to a sense of where they come from. However, the maintenance of cultural identity is often associated with a parallel tendency towards segregation. Various factors may encourage migrants to segregate themselves from mainstream communities.

One issue is that migrants often settle in areas where there are established communities speaking the same language. ‘Chain migration’ describes the process of people migrating (sometimes from the same town or region) to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there. A variety of reasons can be cited for this practice, including the opportunity that it gives migrants to tap into existing community networks and the access they have to familiar cultural ways of doing and ways of living. Learning the language of the receiving country is seen by many migrants as representing a threat to their ability to maintain community languages. At the same time, migrants may not fully integrate into mainstream society, not only because they live in ethno-linguistic clusters or ‘ethnic enclaves’, but because of their working conditions.

Moreover, across different communities, women in particular may not attend English language classes to the lack of appropriate childcare, cultural factors and lack of access to transport. There is inevitably some shift between generations, whereby the migrating generation may gain only limited fluency in the dominant local language while, for second- or third- generation migrants, the dominant language becomes their main means of communication. This is not to say that all second- and third-generation migrants drift inevitably from their heritage languages and cultures. A study I carried out in London highlights the value that children of migrants can place on their linguistic heritage. What was also evident in their responses was that heritage languages were not only being used in an attempt to cling to past lives. Instead, some children expressed the wish to learn other minority ethnic languages so that they could communicate better with friends.

Thus, for most migrants, migration does not lead to a straight choice between two languages (and two ways of life), but to a more flexible and dynamic adoption of new, bilingual identities. That is, the everyday negotiation between different aspects of identity leads to the development of hybrid identities - complex, multilingual, multicultural identities – which involves adopting English while at the same time maintaining important cultural aspects of their lives in previous countries. In everyday practices, this hybrid identity is realized not only in the ability to switch between languages in different contexts, but also in creative displays of code-mixing. As such practices show code switching – the use of more than one language within a conversation – is an important resource to these particular individuals in their sense of themselves, and how they make sense of the world and people around them. In summary, research has shown that migrants can develop complex language repertoires and become flexible, multilingual language users.

This flexibility enables them to fracture the idea of fixed ‘homelands’ and ‘belonging’ and to redefine their place within their everyday environment. Within this process, migrant groups define their own language needs and aspirations to establish their place in the receiving society. Multilingual space and linguistic landscapes: To what extent is it possible to know anything of the ethnic and linguistic backgrounds of the communities who live in each neighborhood? One clue lies in people’s impact on the public spaces in which they live – that is, the signs, posters, shop fronts and graffiti around them. The study of public signage in global contexts - the linguistic landscape- is now seen by linguists as important in understanding the role of language in global societies, particularly in urban environments. Unsurprisingly, there is growing evidence that English occurs in signage around the world.

During the period of British colonialism new linguistic landscapes were created, including road signs and the naming of towns and buildings, which reflected the power of conquest. Figure 2.4 shows a plaque erected to mark the British conquest of Newfoundland, Canada. The commemorative plaque, marking conquest, makes particularly clear that the construction of cultural and linguistic landscapes is linked to power and status. It is also evident that signs have symbolic as well as instrumental value. English alongside other languages in the visual landscape is not just a matter of colonial influence, but is also evident in countries where English as a global language may play a role, such as that of lingua franca between migrants and the majority community.

Furthermore, this linguistic landscape challenges the assumption made elsewhere that English in global contexts is always or necessarily used as a lingua franca for instrumental purposes. In the particular signs explored by Hult, English is used instead in a metaphorical or symbolic sense; that is, rather than being used for communicative purposes, it is used in this case to index economic and cultural values associated with globalization. Other writers call this use of the language display English (Curtin, 2009), where the effect of the sign comes not so much from what is said but the fact that appears in English. These brief snapshots of varied linguistic landscaped show that English is used in signage around the world various reasons: as a vestige of its colonial dominance; as a lingua franca, particularly in tourist areas; and by business enterprises trying to index certain values. As such, we can see that signs tell us much about how English is produced, consumed, valued and regulated in these global contexts.

In the process of adapting to their new lives, migrant groups recreate aspects of their homelands and their cultures in their new environments in order to generate a sense of home and belonging. This includes maintaining cultural traditions customs and beliefs through the clothes that they wear, places of worship, shops selling familiar foods and clothing, community centers and festivities such as annual street carnivals, as is the case with the celebration of the Chinese New Year in Chinese migrant communities across the world. They create new cultural markers such as temples, mosques and churches built in styles of architecture found in their home countries, and written signs within the new communities in which they come to live.

Conclusion: The focus of this chapter has been on English in contexts shaped by migration, and the importance of the language both for migrants moving to Anglophone countries and for those relying on English as a lingua franca in encounters with people speaking various languages. However, it is also necessary to highlight the importance of multilingual practices in situations of migration. For example, when moving to a new country, migrants may maintain their heritage languages for a variety of reasons, while adopting the dominant language of the receiving population.

Conclusion: In everyday practices, many migrants not only move flexibly between the languages available to them depending on where they are and who they are talking to, but they also draw on creative codeshifting, and these practices define them as cosmopolitan, bilingual individuals.

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