Week 4

Immigration: Migrants and their

Language
 Outline

• Introduction
• Some philosophical issues
• Parameters
• Birth of new dialects
• Migrants and life modes
• Social correlates
• Summary and Conclusion
 Introduction
• Move to the second theme of this semester

• Language and immigration

• Focus will be on the linguistic features of migrants’ language

• Their rights, needs, problems and so on

• Both cross-border and intra-border migrants

 Activity 1
• Have a look at the following
adverts (a video + print
adverts)

• All of them targeted mainly at a

specific population

• What are the similarities and

differences between them?
Activity 1
Activity 1
Activity 1
 Migration
• Brings with it a host of philosophical and identity-related issues

• Which country do you belong to?

• How much loyalty do you owe to your host community?

• What are the responsibilities of the host community?

• Should the host community have an equal duty of care towards

its native and migrant inhabitants?
 Migration
• Let me move the questions to more personal territory

• Mauritius employs a lot of migrant workers

• How do you feel towards them?

• What about people from the locality/ area where those immigrants live?

• How should they react to the immigrants?

• How would you react if after living for a couple of years in Mauritius, the person
still has not picked up any Creole?
 Philosophical issues
• Unfortunately, the answer is not a simple one...

• Can tact and diplomacy be paired with honesty?

• Is it they duty of every peaceful and economically

successful country to provide a safe haven for less
fortunate people?

• Would you?
 Philosophical issues
• Results in very stringent immigration laws worldwide (and even more
stringent laws in order to acquire the citizenship of another country!)

• Despite regulations- flow of human traffic remains quite steady!

• One of the main issues of a host community (apart from the maintenance
of basic human rights)

• Ensuring that linguistic rights are also respected

• E.g. Through the injection of funds in Teaching English as a Foreign

Language/ Second Language programmes
 A few issues...
• Coulmas (2010)

• Does the right to move imply language rights?

• When people move, they carry a lot of luggage with them

• Culture, creed and language

• Such baggage is not always welcome!

• Esp. In the post World War I and post French revolution era

• Both resulted in enhanced feelings of nationalism

 Consequences of nationalism
• World War I saw the demise of the last truly multilingual empires

• The Habsburg and the Ottoman

• Habsburg – Comprising of the states of Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic,

France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland,
Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine

• From the 16th to the 19th centuries

• Ottoman – Lasted for over 600 years (from the 13th to the 20th centuries)

• Countries: Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Algeria,

Tunisia, Yemen and many more!
 Consequences of nationalism
• Their demise gave rise to the birth of individual states

• Motto of one language, one nation

• Coextension of language and power became an accepted ideal

• Linguistic minorities were, at best, ignored

• Or at worse, repressed

• Idea of minority protection, through, grew after World War II

 Consequences of nationalism
• Their demise gave rise to the birth of individual states

• Motto of one language, one nation

• Coextension of language and power became an accepted ideal

• Linguistic minorities were, at best, ignored

• Or at worse, repressed

• Idea of minority protection, through, grew after World War II

 Minority protection
• So, what raised the alarm?

• Ironically – language death!

• Demise of Celtic languages in Britain and France, Slavic languages and Yiddish in
Germany, Basque, Catalan and Galician in Spain and Native American languages in
the US

• Also, nationalism began to have unintended consequences

• Mushrooming of revitalization movements

• Logic - if French is so important for the French population, by the same logic,
Breton is of utmost importance to those from Bretagne!
 Minority protection
• Language, thus, became recognised as an attribute of protection
against discrimination

• On the same line with sex, race and religion

• Finally incorporated into the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights:
“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race,
colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national
or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
 Activity 2
• So far, so good...

• Let me ask you a quick question

• Do you think including language

in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights is going to have a
significant impact?

• Will it be enough to prevent

language marginalization and
death?
 Impact
• Mainly provided a lot of food for thought!

• Let’s guide you through the thinking process

• Colonisation- Associated with Europeans

• Mainly in previously inhabited areas

• Did they have to fight for any right even though they were, essentially, migrants?

• So, why are they (or their descendants) unhappy when immigrants shuffle into
their countries and ask for their rights to be respected? (Coulmas, 2010)
 Impact
• No question that Algeria would be administered in French, India
in English and the East Indies in Dutch

• However the recognition of Arabic, Hindi, Bengali and Malay etc

in France, England and the Netherlands became political issues

• Why?

• Most countries would be happier if their linguistic status quo

could be left unchanged

• Argue for full (and that includes linguistic) assimilation!

 Assimilation
• Four arguments in support of this position
discussed by Kloss (1971) in an article for the
International Migration Review

1. Contract
2. National cohesion
3. Cost
4. Ghetto prevention
 Contract
• Immigration implies a contractual relationship

• Between the destination state and the immigrants

• Accept and accommodate to the conditions in the host

country.

• Immigrants know before they arrive that the institutions of

their new country operate in a particular language.

• They must learn that language in order to assimilate.

 National Cohesion
• A single national language - a vital condition for a modern
state to function

• Instills in its citizens a sense of identification

• Must not be put at risk by making concessions to immigrant

languages

• Argument - an offshoot of the 19th century nation-language

merger which to date has lost nothing of its (often
destructive) potency.
 Cost
• Bestowing official status to immigrant languages involves costs for the
government

• National minorities can expect such costs to be covered through a

redistribution system

• Since they had no choice to opt out of the national language regime

• Immigrants typically benefit economically from moving to a new country

• Morally - must not incur costs on their hosts.

 Ghetto Prevention
• Tolerating or promoting immigrant languages

• May encourage segregation

• And the formation of ghettos

• Bearing the risk of political fragmentation and community

unrest

• E.g. think of such immigrant-only ‘ghettos’ in the UK or even

France…
 Activity 3
• Imagine you work as a language
planner for the Ministry of National
integration

• Would the above arguments sway

you?

• What would be your reaction?

• Let’s start the thinking process by

having a look at the following two
clips

• Note: First clip is in French...

 Some recommendations...
1. Grace period:
• Immigrants cannot be expected to quickly gain fluency

• In the national language of their new country

• Should not be cut off from information and services

• At least for a grace period that allows them to learn the language

• White-collar immigrants in executive positions are routinely granted such

a grace period (sometimes indefinitely)
 Some recommendations...
2. Right to Non-Discrimination
• Immigrants should have the right to use their language
amongst themselves

• And to transmit it to their children

• Implies recognition of community languages

• One of the principal social functions of language is to

establish rapport with others, in the family and beyond
 Some recommendations...
3. Promotion of International Understanding
• Bilingual immigrants act as ambassadors for the
country

• Beneficial to the state

• Boost international image and goodwill

 Some recommendations...
3. Responsibility and Human Rights
• Upon admission, the state accepts responsibility for the well-being of
immigrants

• This includes unimpeded use of their language

• Right to freedom of expression

• The right to non-discrimination

• The right of linguistic minorities to use their language with each other
 Parameters
• A lot of research in the field of migration and language carried out by
Kerswill

• Focus on his criteria

• Suggests the importance of migration in human affairs by underlining

once more that:

“[V]ariation in migration levels between places [tends] to be much

greater than differences in births and deaths”

• Language of immigrants (whether intra or inter- country ones)

dependent on a series of key factors
 Parameters
• Kerswill (2006):

1. Space
2. Time
3. Motivation
4. Socio-cultural factors
 Space
• In versus out-migrants

• Move across boundaries results in

shifting linguistic allegiances

• E.g. Llamas (2000) – Younger people

in Middlesbrough in NE England

• Ceased to identify themselves as

being ‘from Yorkshire’, the county to
which it had belonged until
boundaries changed in 1968

• Local accent has increasingly

borrowed features from Newcastle

• Central to the definition of a

Middlesbrough identity
 Space
• Omoniyi (1999, 2004) – Idiroko (Nigeria) and Igolo (Benin)

• Two villages on either side of the border between Nigeria and Benin

• One ethnolinguistic group –the yoruba

• But attitudes to education differ

• Resulting in migration of the Igolo to Idiroko for English medium instruction

• By extension more knowledge about the Yoruba culture

• Led to a subfield known as ‘sociolinguistics of borderlands’ (cf. Omoniyi, 2004)

 Space
• Focus on borderlands where inhabitants get to choose between
the policies of two contiguous states

• Emergence of a speech community that accommodates

multilevel social and political relationships

• Multilayered identities and loyalties

• A lot of emphasis today on the study of languages at the

frontiers of many countries

• Cf. dialect continuum

 Space and distance
• The more the social and emotional distance, the greater the
degree of linguistic assimilation

• Weekly face to face contacts serve to maintain the home

language better than ‘home visits’

• Reinforce the emotional bonds towards the language

• Negate any influence (linguistic or otherwise) of the home

community

• Stoke preservation efforts and may also lead to ghettoisation

 Activity 4
• Think about the impact of
social media and technology

• Obviously, they are important

in maintaining emotional ties

• Can they also be responsible

for the maintenance of home
languages in the host country?

• How beneficial is that?

 Space and Direction
• Generally from rural to urban areas

• Reason for cities to be considered as ‘melting pots’

• Started in Britain in the late 18th century due to the Industrial revolution

• 20th century – suburbanisation + commuting facilities (trains and so on)

• Lead to a very mixed and koineised variety to emerge (more on

koineisation in a few minutes)

• E.g. Accra, the capital of Ghana

 Space and Direction
• Seen extreme in-migration

• Has led to the indigenous ethnic group, the Ga, to become the minority one

• Akan/Twi are now the main lingua francas

• Hausa among northern migrants

• Transfer of verbal customs as well – e.g. Ga

• Visitors exchange news and information via a spokesman

• A phenomenon that is diffusing to other linguistic groups

 Mass Exodus
• Change in language policy
due to war or other
political issues

• E.g. Spanish occupation of

Antwerp in 1585

• Large portions of the

population fled to
neighbouring boroughs in
the Netherlands

• Change in dialect
composition
 Time
• Migration implies a degree of permanence in the move

• Migrant groups tend to be “committed to the project of

living in other people’s countries”,

• Despite in many cases retaining “diasporic yearnings” for a

return to the homeland

• Explains their needs to maintain the home language at all

costs
 Motivation
• Will depend on whether you want to
stay in a country long-term

• Wish to assimilate and learn the

dominant language will be stronger

• Maehlum (1992) – example of the

Norwegian Arctic Territory of
Svalbard (Spitsbergen)

• A population consisting mainly of

Norwegians, Russians and Ukrainians

• Does not exceed 5000 inhabitants

 Svalbard
• However – no actual language has emerged out of Svalbard

• Instead- a conglomerate of almost pidginised dialects

• Why? No motivation to identify with Svalbard

• By law, residents must remain registered as being domiciled on the mainland

• No one allowed to stay on Svalbard after retirement!

• Average duration of stay – 10 years

• Holidays normally spent on the mainland

 Socio-cultural factors
• Communities resistant to influence from the linguistic framework of the
host community

• Result: 33% of the primary school children of London do not have English
as a first or second language

• 10 languages have more than 40, 000 speakers

• 40 languages have more than 1000 speakers

• Obviously – the pull of home languages is very strong

• Similar issue in the case of refugees and asylum seekers

 Birth of new languages/ dialects
• Immigration need not always lead to language death

• Different types of language contact phenomena e.g.

Code Switching, Creolisation and Koineisation

• You have already been exposed to Code Switching

and Creolisation before

• Today – Emphasis will be only on Koineisation

Creolisation vs. Koineisation (Chow, 2013)
 Birth of new languages/ dialects
• For the purposes of this lecture

• Focus on intra-country migration and koineisation

• Stages of koineisation:
1. Mixing
2. Levelling
3. Interdialect development
4. Reallocation (can be subdivided into a) Reallocation and b)
Focusing)
Koineisation: A Summary (Chow, 2013)
 Mixing
• Refers to the coexistence of features with origins in the different input
dialects within the new community

• usually because speakers have different dialect origins

• Trudgill (1986: 129) notes features in modern Newfoundland English

• Directly ascribable to its southwest English and Irish origins, respectively;

• Siegel (1997: 115) lists grammatical and lexical forms in Fiji Hindi which
have origins in different Hindi dialects
 Levelling
• Selection of norms found in the contact matrix

• Creating new rules and stereotypes

• According to theory- more salient features survive

• According to you, what’s salient?

• Such features eventually maintain their flavour, esp. in the

levelling process
 Interdialect development
• Interdialect forms can be defined as those which were not
actually present in any of the dialects

• Contributing to the mixture but which arise out of

interaction between them

• E.g. Mauritian and South African Bhojpuri + Fiji Hindi

• For instance, definite future suffixes in Fiji Hindi

• Mixing of Braj with awadhi

Interdialect development
 Reallocation and Focusing
• Reallocation may occur, such that variants
originally from different regional dialects

• May, in the emerging new dialect become social-

class variants, stylistic variants, or, in the case of
phonology, allophonic variants
 Reallocation and Focusing
• Focusing is the sociolinguistic process

• By means of which the new variety acquires norms and stability

• Features are once more socially evaluated

• Become professionals, farmers and so on

• Creation of dialect islands

• So, how long does it take for these changes to occur?

Stages
 Activity 5
• One example of a language that has
undergone focusing

• South African Bhojpuri

• Have a look at the following segment

• Art form titled ‘Chutney songs’

• Song is performed by a South African

Kawali group specialising in Chutney
Songs
 Activity 5
• Similar Chutney songs
performed in other countries

• Part of the diaspora of

indentured labourers

• Next song from Guyana

• Note the specificities of what is

essentially a ‘new’ language
 Activity 5
• One final clip

• Chutney Bacchanal from

Trinidad and Tobago

• Another example of a ‘focused’

tongue

• A more carnival-like feel to it...

 Summary and Conclusion
• Multiple factors describing and impacting upon the language used by migrants

• Have not focused on numerical data

• A qualitative perspective to linguistic manipulation and the creation of new

dialects

• Koineisation faces problems, though

• Not always a fast process

• Might also be eventually rejected by the more conservative users at the bottom
of the hierarchy
Questions/ Comments?
Thank You