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Language Socialization and Immigration in Europe

Language Socialization

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Language and Education ((ELE))

Abstract

Language socialization-inspired linguistic ethnography, by focusing on the complex relationship between multilingual practices and larger sociocultural dynamics to illuminate the experience of immigrant communities in Europe, has enriched current understandings of new sociopolitical European realities – characterized by mobility, multilingualism, and diversity. This review emphasizes children’s and youth’s everyday and institutionalized language practices, as they intersect with hegemonic language ideologies, and cultural politics of recognition and belonging that immigrants must negotiate on a daily basis. This chapter first traces early developments by describing how language socialization theory was used to explore the complex dialectic among language use, identity development, and group belonging in the socialization trajectories of immigrant children and youth. The main section concentrates on the most productive analytic foci in this body of literature, more specifically immigrant children’s and youth’s linguistic and interactional practices as they negotiate identities in relation to difference and belonging; school interactions as key sites for the socialization of newcomers amid crisscrossing tensions and debates about integration, education, and inclusion; and intergenerational dynamics and religious socialization in the development of heritage identities. The final section outlines several lines of inquiry for future language socialization studies in European immigrant communities, namely, paying closer attention to how structural inequalities and power relationships shape processes of language socialization in contexts of sociopolitical marginalization, attending to adult language socialization processes as they impact professional and bureaucratic trajectories, and investigating the kinds of socialization trajectories of multilingual development that are encouraged in European transnational spaces and institutions.

For the purposes of this chapter, Europe refers to the historical, cultural, and geographical area that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia, not to the more recent political unit known as the European Union.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For an exhaustive historical examination of how notions of belonging to European national collectivities became tied to ideas of ethnolinguistic purity, see Bauman and Briggs’ (2003) Voices of Modernity, particularly Chaps. 5 and 6.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Temple University, 1115 Polett Walk. Gladfelter Hall, 2nd Floor (Room 241), Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA

    Inmaculada García-Sánchez & Kristina Nazimova

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  1. Inmaculada García-Sánchez
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  2. Kristina Nazimova
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Correspondence to Inmaculada García-Sánchez .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Patricia A. Duff

  2. Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, School of Critic, Auckland, New Zealand

    Stephen May

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García-Sánchez, I., Nazimova, K. (2017). Language Socialization and Immigration in Europe. In: Duff, P., May, S. (eds) Language Socialization. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02327-4_30-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02327-4_30-2

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-02327-4

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  1. Latest

    Language Socialization and Immigration in Europe
    Published:
    03 May 2017

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02327-4_30-2

  2. Original

    Language Socialization and Immigration in Europe
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    13 December 2016

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02327-4_30-1

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