This article explores the crucial role language plays in the lives of migrants, examining its significance as a basic skill, economic capital, and social and cultural identifier. It delves into the challenges migrants face when navigating new linguistic landscapes and highlights the importance of preserving both native and destination languages.
Last year, I had a series of columns on language and migration and, of course, the emerging field of migration linguistics. I am now writing a book on migration linguistics, and I wish to write some of my thoughts once in a while in this column, perhaps as a preview of what the book will talk about. As I write the book, in asserting that language is indeed important in migratory contexts, it has been necessary to be able to identify what exactly the roles language plays in migration.
And while the task, at first, seems simply listing these roles, further discussing them also necessitates arguing why language indeed performs those roles. The first of these roles is language as a basic skill. Needless to say, language is necessary for surviving life, not only in migratory contexts but also in nonmigratory ones. In migratory contexts, though, there is a need to live life in another language, sometimes in an entirely new one. It becomes too apparent that language is another layer to be dealt with in life in the new country because it is an entirely new language. That is also why the situation becomes difficult for many migrants. One can only imagine how difficult it might be to live your entire life in a language you do not know. It can feel disappointing, isolating and depressing at times, and nonmigrants would not completely understand. The second role that language plays in migratory contexts is as economic capital. Language is a valuable skill in migration. It is not only a requirement for employment; better proficiency could also mean better income. Being able to speak in other languages can also be an asset. Some migrants take advantage of their ability to speak their own languages because, in the borderless world we live in now, there will always be a need to speak another language. That is why it is necessary to retain these languages through all generations of migrants. The third and last role is language as a social and cultural object. Language is important in making friends with locals and in connecting with people from the same origin country. A migrant uses the destination language when connecting with locals and his or her native language when connecting with his or her co-ethnics. Language might also be used not only for its utilitarian purpose but also for their symbolic purpose — migrants may use languages to affirm their connection to their country of origin. Often, speaking the origin language can be a badge of their identity and can signal that they are from that particular country where that language is spoken. Yet, at the same time, for migrants, using the language of the destination country is also a way to affirm their belongingness to the new society they are in. As I talk about the roles of language in migratory contexts, it is important to keep in mind what Jan Blommaert wrote on the sociolinguistics of globalization: 'The fundamental image of language now shifts from a static, totalized and immobile one to a dynamic, fragmented and mobile one, emphasizing the focus on mobile resources rather than on immobile languages.' Ariane Macalinga Borlongan is one of the leading scholars on English in the Philippines and is also doing pioneering work on language in the context of migration. He is the youngest to earn a doctorate in linguistics, at age 23, from De La Salle University. He has had several teaching and research positions in Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland and Singapore. He serves as a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary. He is presently an associate professor of sociolinguistics at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in Japan
LANGUAGE MIGRATION ECONOMIC CAPITAL SOCIAL IDENTITY CULTURAL CONNECTION
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