A Sociolinguistic Insight into an Italian Community in the UK

Workplace Language as an Identity Marker
1
ISBN: 978-1-4438-6674-3
Verlag: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 145 Seiten

The Italian diaspora throughout the world navigate and negotiate various complex and multidirectional language dynamics. In order to account for the sociolinguistic processes that have taken place, this book provides a detailed observation of these linguistic dynamics from the point of view of the Italian diaspora in Bedford, in the UK.

This study on the language behaviour of three generations of Italian residents in Bedford provides empirical data on, and highlights the importance of, the sociolinguistic examination of English in service encounters. What comes to light in most of the cases analysed, is that audience design has a proven influence on the choice of language and repertoire within the speech of the Bedford Italian community. There are not only switches from one language to another, but also style shifts in the linguistic repertoire. Throughout this study, it becomes clear that speakers freely use the two languages available to their speech community, and, thanks to their active and passive repertoire, they apply a range of linguistic resources from both Italian and English.

The volume also uncovers some especially interesting traits in 3rd generation speech, involving in particular a rather widespread use of mixed pronunciation. Upon moving past the initial assumption that the adoption of this mixed pronunciation is used to show the younger generation’s sense of belonging to the BI community, a quite different reason emerges. Closer analysis reveals that, due to an increasing feeling of “non-Britishness”, this linguistic choice may be linked to a deliberate and conscious attempt on their part not to accommodate to British culture, and in so doing to distance themselves further from it.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Guzzo, Siria

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Soziolinguistik
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Mehrsprachigkeit

Über Autor(innen)

Guzzo, Siria
Siria Guzzo is a Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Salerno, Italy. She obtained her PhD in English for Special Purposes from the University of Naples ‘Federico II’, an MA in Sociolinguistics from the University of Essex, UK, and a BA (Hons) in Modern Languages and Literature from the University of Naples ‘Suor Orsola Benincasa’, Italy. She has conducted research and published in the fields of sociolinguistics and language variation and change. Her research has concentrated on migration and its effects on identity, new dialect/ethnolect formation, language contact and its outcomes, and first and second language acquisition. Her publications include wide-ranging investigations on the Anglo-Italian community in the UK, and a forthcoming volume on the newly-emerging Cook Island variety of English.

Siria Guzzo is a Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Salerno, Italy. She obtained her PhD in English for Special Purposes from the University of Naples ‘Federico II’, an MA in Sociolinguistics from the University of Essex, UK, and a BA (Hons) in Modern Languages and Literature from the University of Naples ‘Suor Orsola Benincasa’, Italy. She has conducted research and published in the fields of sociolinguistics and language variation and change. Her research has concentrated on migration and its effects on identity, new dialect/ethnolect formation, language contact and its outcomes, and first and second language acquisition. Her publications include wide-ranging investigations on the Anglo-Italian community in the UK, and a forthcoming volume on the newly-emerging Cook Island variety of English.