Part 1

• Vietnamese accent in the West: (de)constructing the stigma Julien Le Hoangan Bourgogne-Franche-Comté University

  In the recent documentary of Emily Tran “Je ne suis pas Chinetoque” (2024) addressing the phenomenon of Asian racism, Frédéric Chau, a prominent French-Vietnamese comedian, candidly revealed his initial internalization of racist perceptions associated with the Vietnamese accent. This admission underscores the complex interplay of cultural identity and linguistic stereotypes. Despite Chau’s personal growth and rejection of such biases, a spectrum of responses exists among individuals of Asian descent, ranging from confrontation to utilization of their accents for various purposes.

• Transcultural language practices of a Thai immigrant entrepreneur in Germany Stefan Karl Serwe Osnabrück University

  In many countries around the world the percentage of self-employed business owners is significantly higher among migrants than among the indigenous population. Research has attributed these high rates of self-employment among immigrants to two general factors. One view holds that immigrants are pulled into self?employment due to their community’s socio-cultural practices and settlement characteristics (so-called ethnic resources) that render business ownership more attractive than salaried work (Light & Rosenstein 1995, Light & Gold 2000). A contending perspective puts the onus on the economic, political and legal restrictions imposed on immigrants by host countries which ultimately leave little economic alternatives besides self-employment (Aldrich & Waldinger 1990; Kloostermann & Rath 2001). Yet, both perspectives confirm that the long-term success of immigrant businesses lies in their ability to break out of an ethnically homogenous economy and to establish themselves in a market with an ethnically diverse network of suppliers and customers. Such a move requires immigrant business owners to acquire and use multiple cultural and linguistic resources in their daily workplace practice (Basu 2010; Pütz 2004). Among South and Southeast Asian migrants in Germany, Thais choose self-employment in greater numbers as statistics suggest. Thai immigrants may mainly do business in sectors such as Health & Wellness, Food Service and Food Retail, but Thai owned and run businesses can be found all over Germany whether in urban centres or rural areas.

• Language Folklore and Language Ideology in Exile: The Moluccan Migrant Community in the Netherlands Aone van Engelenhoven Leiden University

  After the acceptance, albeit reluctantly, of the Independence of Indonesia, the Dutch government disbanded its colonial army in 1951. However, since international law prohibits dismissal abroad, the Moluccan soldiers who refused to join the TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia ‘National Indonesian Army’) – the former enemy – or to resign and return home with a fee were ordered to come over to the Netherlands where they were fired and lodged in available locations throughout the country.

• Gina Russo University of Naples L'Orientale

Part 2

• Translanguaging Practices among Malaysians abroad: Malaysian Identity Zurina Khairuddin Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin

  Malaysia is a multi-ethnic and multilingual country with Malaysians mostly being multilinguals allowing for the Malaysian students to negotiate different identities, including national identity, and ethnic identity. Globalisation provides more opportunities for Malaysians to migrate, either to work or to study. With the migration, Malaysians have built their families abroad and consequently, they have extended their family to a few generations. They mostly used their native or heritage language at home while using the dominant language in formal settings. However, the younger generations of Malaysians are observed to mainly prefer to use the dominant language in formal and informal settings. Hence, the objectives of the study are to explore how Malaysians abroad translanguage between different languages employing the linguistic repertoire they possess and how they construct and negotiate their identities as they tranlanguage within their communities of practice (social gatherings). Employing qualitative approach and linguistic ethnography, the participants were Malaysians who have moved and lived abroad (the UK) for more than five years and have at least one younger generation. The data were collected by observing the Malaysians, both older and younger generations, for six months during social gatherings and were analysed thematically. The findings found that the older generations mostly used their heritage language when speaking to other Malaysians while translanguaging between their heritage language and English language when speaking to their younger children or other non-Malaysians. The findings also revealed that the younger generations used only the English language, while understanding the heritage language, when speaking to their parents, each other and to the others (Malaysians and non-Malaysians) during the social gathering. The others at the gatherings responded either in the heritage language or English language. The findings suggest that Malaysians living abroad are flexible in their language use with the younger generation at social gatherings where there seems to be no expectation for the children to use their heritage language, suggesting that they construct and negotiate multiple identities such as the national identity even when they do not use the heritage language with each other. The findings of this study contribute to the literature of Malaysians living abroad, particularly how they translanguage and construct, and negotiate their identities within social gatherings. The study also recommends for more flexible perspectives on the usage of tranalanguaging among Malaysians living abroad to allow their younger generations to construct and negotiate the identities they’re most comfortable with.

• Linguistic repertoire and maintenance level of Filipinos’ HLs in Italy Francesca Moro Gina Russo University of Naples L'Orientale

  In Italy, approximately 156,000 people of Filipino origin reside (ISTAT 2022): a sizable and inherently multilingual community that remains inadequately studied. This community has been mainly investigated from an economical perspective, by focusing on their remittance flows (Basa, De Guzman & Marchetti 2012). Other studies focused on the issues related to integration, such as religious pluralism (Molli & Ambrosini 2021), domestic conditions of Filipino women (Marchetti 2022), and competence in Italian (Milano 2020). Little is known about the linguistic profile of this community, especially regarding the number of languages that members of the community speak, and the status of their heritage languages. In facts, in the Philippines many regional languages are spoken alongside Tagalog. In this paper, we describe the sociolinguistic profile of the Filipino immigrant community, by investigating issues such as number of heritage languages spoken, self-reported competence in these languages, and contexts of use. We also compare our results to other ethnic groups in Italy. Some studies conducted in Italy have identified language maintenance scales upon which different ethnic groups are positioned. In Chini (2004: 320), the group labeled Chinese/Asian, which includes Filipino speakers, ranks at a high level of language maintenance, second only to the Moroccan/North African group. In Biazzi (2018: 141), the Far East and Southeast Asia group is at the highest level of language maintenance on the scale. However, studies on the Filipino community in Canada and Australia (Umbal 2016; Lising 2022) indicate a significant loss of Filipinos’ HLs.

• Heritage Filipino in Italy: an investigation on word order and voice Elsie Marie Or University of Naples L'Orientale Francesca Moro Gina Russo

  The present research deals with possible contact-effect in the language of Filipino heritage speakers in Italy. The Filipino heritage speakers in our study are second generation individuals, who speak Italian, Filipino, English (and in some cases also a regional Philippine language, see Moro & Russo 2024). In this paper, we conduct a pilot investigation on two target domains: word-order and voice, as these domains display different degrees of vulnerability to contact in other heritage Filipino varieties, and in heritage languages in general (Tanaka et al. 2019; Benmamoun et al. 2013).

Abstract