{"title":"Multilingualism, language choice, and identity construction: Diasporic Ukrainians in Shanghai","authors":"Yuanyuan Liu, Fengwei Liu, Zichen Wang, Ying Mei","doi":"10.1111/josl.12652","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article reports on a study of multilingualism, language choice, and identity construction for six Ukrainians in Shanghai, China. Thematic analysis of data collected from netnographic observation, semi-structured interviews, and narrative frame writing revealed that diasporic Ukrainians’ language choice is both instrumentally strategic and sociopolitically charged; in the public domain, they construct light “citizen of the world” and “nice foreigner” identities; in the private domain, they construct “Ukrainian who speaks Ukrainian language” identity. To understand the seemingly binary or even conflicted situation, we turn to the concept of “social anchoring” and propose a conceptualization of “diasporic people's language choice and identity selection.” This study shows that the construction of diasporic identity is, first of all, an individualistic process, articulating the affective aspect in their seeking psychological stability; it is also a social practice indicating diasporic people's strategies in seeking social stability.</p>","PeriodicalId":51486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sociolinguistics","volume":"28 2","pages":"42-60"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Sociolinguistics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josl.12652","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article reports on a study of multilingualism, language choice, and identity construction for six Ukrainians in Shanghai, China. Thematic analysis of data collected from netnographic observation, semi-structured interviews, and narrative frame writing revealed that diasporic Ukrainians’ language choice is both instrumentally strategic and sociopolitically charged; in the public domain, they construct light “citizen of the world” and “nice foreigner” identities; in the private domain, they construct “Ukrainian who speaks Ukrainian language” identity. To understand the seemingly binary or even conflicted situation, we turn to the concept of “social anchoring” and propose a conceptualization of “diasporic people's language choice and identity selection.” This study shows that the construction of diasporic identity is, first of all, an individualistic process, articulating the affective aspect in their seeking psychological stability; it is also a social practice indicating diasporic people's strategies in seeking social stability.
期刊介绍：
Journal of Sociolinguistics promotes sociolinguistics as a thoroughly linguistic and thoroughly social-scientific endeavour. The journal is concerned with language in all its dimensions, macro and micro, as formal features or abstract discourses, as situated talk or written text. Data in published articles represent a wide range of languages, regions and situations - from Alune to Xhosa, from Cameroun to Canada, from bulletin boards to dating ads.
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