28. Transnational migration and language practices: the impact on Spanish-speaking migrants

Abstract

In this chapter we explore how transnational migration influences attitudes to and impacts on language use. We investigate the linguistic capital that transnational migrants bring with them and how it affects them in, for example, job opportunities, the workplace, or at school. The case studies and data we use to illustrate our discussion are taken from research on returnee Mexican migrants from the US, and Latino migrants in London. We argue that in the current era of globalization, migrants operate in environments that are complex, transnational and superdiverse. Many migrants cross more than one national and linguistic border in their migrant trajectory, and others return making this trajectory cyclical. This constant, intense and complex movement of peoples has destabilised many of the conventional labels, including language, that in the past have been considered permanent. Identities and networks shift and adapt to their surroundings, recognising power structures, ideologies and the value of varied cultural and social capital of the context they find themselves in. In these situations patterns of mixing, translanguaging, and complex multilingualism occur.