Challenging the discursive positioning of young British Muslims through the multilingual performance of devotional song and poetry

Abstract

This article presents data which challenge current hegemonic discourses in public and media spaces which reductively position young British Muslims as linguistically problematic. Framing these data are public space statements which argue for an overly simple linguistic basis to so-called extremist behaviour based on the presence or absence of the English language. Through an analysis of a questionnaire and interviews carried out with young performers, singers and reciters of devotional song and poetry in a range of language varieties, this article shows how such performance practices lead to the deployment of complex and mobile language resources which help negotiate and fashion rich linguistic repertoires and fluid identities for these young British Muslims. The article argues that these are (a) more representative of the wider British-Muslim youth community, (b) unmarked, and thus generally invisible within public discourses and (c) a far cry from the prevailing discursive attempts to frame young Muslims as posing a linguistic problem.