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This book examines transnational identities, integration and linguistic practices on Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. Within the context of major historical events and migratory flows, the author considers the significance of the multicultural small island space, ideologies regarding long-standing as well as emergent identification practices and language use, and conceptualizations of belonging, focusing in particular on the Madeiran Portuguese diaspora. The juxtaposition of historical and contemporary migratory flows opens up a compelling discussion concerning the maintenance and use of heritage languages in a multilingual environment, allowing a rare comparison of the symbolic role as ethnic identifiers of Jersey French, Standard French, English, and more contemporary migrant languages such as Portuguese. The author analyses the role of language in social integration and the potential for consequent shifts in group allegiances, as well as receptor community ideological and legislative responses, concluding with a hypothesised look at the future of migration to Jersey. This book advances research on migration, transnational lives and language use in an era of globalization, and will be of particular interest to students and scholars in the fields of sociolinguistics, multilingualism, migration studies, and intercultural communication.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Part I: Jersey Through the Ages: An Island of Migration.- Chapter 2: Jersey: Island, Sea, People.- Chapter 3: Historical Migrations: Jersey as a Multicultural Space.- Part II: Jersey in the Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries: Ideologies, Identities, Integration and Language.- Chapter 4: Contemporary Migrations: Global Movement and Transnationalism.- Chapter 5: Problematising the Local: Islanded Identities and Sociolinguistic Realities.- Chapter 6: Contemporary Migrations: the Madeiran Portuguese.- Chapter 7: Concluding Remarks.
About the author
Jaine Beswick is Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of Southampton, UK. She has previously published Regional Nationalism in Spain: Language Use and Ethnic Identity in Galicia (2007).
