Identity in the London Indian diaspora

Towards the quantification of qualitative data

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2293802
AutoresMarianne Hundt (0000-0001-6045-2314, English Department University of Zurich Zurich Switzerland, autor de correspondencia), Adina Staicov (0000-0001-8951-4208, English Department University of Zurich Zurich Switzerland)
Año2018
Volumen37
Número2
Páginas166-184
Fecha de publicación2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaWorld Englishes (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0883-2919 • E-ISSN: 1467-971X
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/weng.12311
OpenAlexW2802741747
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas19

For second-generation members of a diaspora community, ethnic and cultural affiliation are less straightforward than for the first generation. We compare information on identity construction in London's Indian Diaspora with the participants' linguistic integration into the host community. Our study is novel and exploratory in that it combines quantitative, variationist methodology with a qualitative approach. We employ two standard sociolinguistic instruments to model subjects' ethnic identity: a questionnaire and sociolinguistic interviews with a focus on discursive identity construction. In a second step we investigate possible connections between morphosyntactic variation and ethnic identity in language use data from three different communicative contexts. The results show that, while interview data on ethnic identity are amenable to quantification, clear correlations between the resulting identity scores and vernacular morphosyntactic features are difficult to find. In particular, patterns of style-shifting between the different communicative contexts are not as expected

Aesthetics · Cultural identity · Diaspora · Ethnic group · Focus (optics · Geography · Identity (music · Linguistics · Negotiation · Social science · Sociology · Style (visual arts · Variation (astronomy · Vernacular · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy