Language Maintenance and Shift Within New Linguistic Minorities in Italy: A Translanguaging Perspective

Abstract

Taking the so-called ‘translanguaging turn’ in multilingualism studies as its point of departure, this paper aims to investigate processes of language maintenance and shift within new linguistic minorities in Turin (Italy), by focusing on young Filipinos’ strategies of (re)negotiation of identities and ideologies, through everyday translanguaging practices in either family or peer in-group interactional contexts. The findings demonstrate that Filipino youth respond to a situation of language shift in progress dynamically, by engaging in communicative modes, which favour speakers’ agency, or their ability to reflexively reconsider their affiliation to Filipino languages, cultures and identities, beyond the view of heritage languages as static and language maintenance as a unidirectional, or an ‘all or nothing’ process, as well as speakers’ identities as fixed or given a priori. What seems to emerge from our study is that the (re)negotiation of young Filipinos’ identities is the result of mutual, dialogical activity, that is, elder members of the community positively respond to youth’s identity (re)positioning, by allowing their multiple voices in daily interactional activities. On the other hand, Filipino youth reply by reconstructing heritage languages through complex, hybrid language practices.