Language and literacy in migration context
Erasmus Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), 2023-2024
International school, Masaryk University, Brno, 3-7 June 2024
Multilingualism, literacy and migration
Egle Mocciaro
Workshop on migrations, 2016
Scuola di Lingua italiana per Stranieri (ItaStra)
University of Palermo
https://www.unipa.it/strutture/scuolaitalianastranieri/
© ItaStra
Which migrations?
Words: «migrating», «migration», «migrant»
§ «An umbrella term, not defined under international law, reflecting the common lay
understanding of a person who moves away from his or her place of usual residence, whether
within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a
variety of reasons» (IOM 2019: 132)
§ «[A]ny person who lives temporarily or permanently in a country where he or she was not
born, and has acquired some significant social ties to this country» (UN/DESA 1998: 9)
§ «Migrants are fundamentally different from refugees and, thus, are treated very differently
under international law. Migrants, especially economic migrants, choose to move in order to
improve their lives. Refugees are forced to flee to save their lives or preserve their freedom»
(UNHCR 2013)
Words: «migrating», «migration», «migrant»
§ «In this narrow sense, “migrant” indicates one of the subcategories of which the set of people
on the move is composed. Specifically, it designates the residual (but quantitatively
predominant) category that emerges after the subjects for whom there are forms of
administrative and/or legal protection (“unaccompanied foreign minors”, “victims of trafficking”,
“asylum seekers”, etc.) have been listed. This set of labels is often used in studies aimed at
investigating the social, psychological, linguistic and educational aspects of men, women and
children who arrive by sea or land, crossing state borders without having the required visa.»
(D’Agostino & Mocciaro 2021b: 34)
What’s new in «new migrations»?
New migration paths and profiles
§ Individual, young (male) mobility
§ Transience, fragmentary paths
§ No migration networks in Europe
§ Low planning, weak networks
D’Agostino (2021: 93); D’Agostino & Mocciaro (2021a, 2021b).
What’s new in «new migrations»?
Key notions (D’Agostino 2021)
§ «trajectory»
§ «connection»
§ «immobility»
What’s new in «new migrations»?
Key notions (D’Agostino 2021)
§ «migration trajectories»
«open spatio-temporal processes
with a strong transformative
dimension. They may consist of
multiple journeys going in different
directions»
(Schapendonk et al. 2020: 212)
What’s new in «new migrations»?
Key notions (D’Agostino 2021)
§ «connection»
§ digital media for planning and
information exchange, before,
during and after departure
§ «connected migrants»
(Diminescu 2008)
What’s new in «new migrations»?
Key notions (D’Agostino 2021)
§ «immobility»
§ «mobility is regulated, mediated and
intrinsically connected to forms of
immobility and unequal power relations»
(D'Agostino & Mocciaro 2021b: 32)
§ «mobility regime», «bounded mobility»
(Glick Schiller & Salazar 2013; Hackl et al.
2016)
«New migrations» and linguistic repertoires
§ Linguistic specificities and needs
§ Multilingualism
§ Low exposure to local languages
§ Frequent lack of literacy skills
D’Agostino (2021: 93); D’Agostino & Mocciaro (2021a, 2021b).
«New migrations» and linguistic repertoires
§ Linguistic specificities and needs
§ Multilingualism
§ Low exposure to local languages
§ Frequent lack of literacy skills
D’Agostino (2021: 93); D’Agostino & Mocciaro (2021a, 2021b).
What definition of «multilingualism»?
§ «Repertoire» (Gumperz 1964)
§ Set of linguistic resources available to a language community or a speaker
§ Languages, dialects, varieties, etc.
§ Societal multilingualism and individual plurilingualism (Council of Europe 2009)
Points of departure
§ Internal mobility (traditional practices,
education, work)
§ Societal multilingualism and
individual plurilingualism
§ Cross-border languages (e.g., Wolof,
Mandinka, Pulaar)
§ Patrimonial languages
§ Colonial heritage languages (English, French)
§ Contact languages (pidgins)
Mitchigan State University.
See also Adegbija (1994); Turchetta 2007; Wolff et al 2019.
Plurilingual repertoires
§ «In many African situations, languages are added to individuals’ repertoires
throughout their lives and occupy positions of varying centrality in them
depending on a variety of factors. Adults continue to be socialized in languages
they have “acquired” before, and in new ones, when they move house, migrate,
marry, divorce, retire, and foster children.» (Lüpke 2015: 308)
Plurilingual repertoires
§ Narrative of a Senegalese plurilingual speaker (D’Agostino 2021: 121)
«I learnt Creole with my friends, my schoolmates, and it’s a language that I haven’t used since
I’ve been in Italy. They were the friends I played football with. We in Senegal have a border in
Guinea, a border in Mali, I played football in Guinea and came back, in Mali and came back.
I played football in a team in Senegal under 16, then in a team in Ivory Coast, even there I
learnt a language, there they speak Bambara. I speak it well and I learnt to speak it like
this, I am good at speaking languages. […] When I started to have friends who come to us on
holiday, we do something, I don’t know how it’s called, a game: players from Gambia come, they
come to the sport centre where we play football and they come here, they stay three or four
days, then they go back. Also people from Guinea ((i.e., Guinea Bissau)), they come to us, they
stay two days, one week, so. I started speaking their languages and some of them also
started speaking my language. They started speaking Pulaar, they started speaking
Mandinka. […] But before they didn’t understand, they couldn’t speak Pulaar or Mandinka. They
only speak Creole, those from Guinea, they speak Creole, they only study Portuguese.»
Plurilingual repertoires
§ Set of mobile resources (vs sum of linguistic competences)
§ Truncated repertoires (Blommaert 2010: 106)
«truncated complexes of resources often derived from a variety of languages, and with considerable
differences in the level of development of particular resources. Parts of these multilingual
repertoires will be fairly well developed, while others exist only at a very basic level.»
§ Language mixing
§ «Polylingualism» (Jørgensen 2008; Jørgensen et al. 2011)
§ «Multilingualism at the level of discourse» (D’Agostino 2021)
§ alignment to communicative needs (Canagarajah & Wurr 2011)
§ acquisition strategies of additional languages during mobility (limited input)
On the move
Plurilingualism from (im)mobility
(D’Agostino 2021: 106)
§ Addition of new languages
§ Addition of new varieties of a language
§ Reactivation of existing skills
§ Literacy processes
§ Refunctionalisation
Plurilingual repertoires
§ Narrative of a plurilingual Burkinabe learner (Mocciaro 2020: 85-86)
MLG: Here I don’t use Bissa because I haven’t met anyone speaking Bissa.
INT: But you speak French.
MLG: I always use French and also Italian. […]
MLG: Where I work, here in Palermo, they speak Italian, more than French.
INT: Yes, sure, but do you speak French with the other guys who speak French?
MLG: Yes, even if I didn’t speak well in French. In my country, I used to speak Bissa and Mòoré.
Because in my village I didn’t study at the French school. But when I arrived here in Italy, I didn’t
find anyone who spoke my language. I had to use French, that’s why I now understand a bit
more French than before. I started to understand French here in Italy. […]
MLG: I can say that I also learnt the Italian language. I can say that I know the name of many
things in Italian, more than in French.»
«New migrations» and linguistic repertoires
§ Linguistic specificities and needs
§ Multilingualism
§ Low exposure to local languages
§ Frequent lack of literacy skills
D’Agostino (2021: 93); D’Agostino & Mocciaro (2021a, 2021b); Mocciaro (2020).
Plurilingual repertoires
§ Burkinabe speaker, two years later (D’Agostino & Mocciaro 2022: 39)
MLG: no:: I don’t understand Sicilian /: […] something: little mmh: I can say no (…)
INT: but do you happen to have someone speaking to you in Sicilian?
MLG: no MLG: because they mix /: they say “ciao compa’ [hi fellow] xxx’ /: they mix a bit /: (…)
INT: the people you worked with, aren’t they Sicilian?
MLG: no:: they are:: they speak Sicilian they are Sicilian
INT: and yet when they spoke to you:: they only spoke Italian?
MLG: Italian /: but they also speak Sicilian among themselves (…)
INT: […] were there Sicilians who played ((football)) at the Foro italico?
MLG: yes yes, there are
INT: and did they speak Sicilian among themselves?
MLG: yes, they speak Sicilian too (…) but they don’t speak Sicilian with us: /: because we don’t:
understand Sicilian (…) that’s why when they speak with us they speak Italian (…) but they use
bad Sicilian words but I don’t remember (…) they want to speak badly of us
Plurilingual repertoires
§ Burkinabe speaker, two years later (D’Agostino & Mocciaro 2022: 39)
MLG: no:: I don’t understand Sicilian /: […] something: little mmh: I can say no (…)
INT: but do you happen to have someone speaking to you in Sicilian?
MLG: no MLG: because they mix /: they say “ciao compa’ [hi fellow] xxx’ /: they mix a bit /: (…)
INT: the people you worked with, aren’t they Sicilian?
MLG: no:: they are:: they speak Sicilian they are Sicilian
INT: and yet when they spoke to you:: they only spoke Italian?
MLG: Italian /: but they also speak Sicilian among themselves (…)
INT: […] were there Sicilians who played ((football)) at the Foro italico?
MLG: yes yes, there are
INT: and did they speak Sicilian among themselves?
MLG: yes, they speak Sicilian too (…) but they don’t speak Sicilian with us: /: because we don’t:
understand Sicilian (…) that’s why when they speak with us they speak Italian (…) but they use
bad Sicilian words but I don’t remember (…) they want to speak badly of us
«New migrations» and linguistic repertoires
§ Linguistic specificities and needs
§ Multilingualism
§ Low exposure to local languages
§ Frequent lack of literacy skills
D’Agostino (2021: 93); D’Agostino & Mocciaro (2021a, 2021b).
Literacy rate Worldwide
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
What is literacy?
§ The scope of literacy
«At the core of literacy lies a competence with a script (an external, permanent symbolic
representation of a language) and the skills to access and use the wealth of currently available
documentary resources. […] [L]iteracy is not restricted to the sole domains of reading and writing.
As long as a domain makes use of a script and rests on the accumulation of documents and
strategies to handle them, that domain needs to be considered a specialization of the literate
mind. This is why we often hear about all sorts of literacy (e.g. health literacy, financial literacy,
digital literacy, etc).» (Alves 2019: 520)
«[L]iteracy has both dimensions of reading the world and reading the word.» (Nicholas 2012: 268)
What is literacy?
§ Types and levels of literacy (in mother tongue)
§ Preliterates. Individuals who live in an oral culture and whose language lacks a
written form or only acquired it recently.
§ Non-literates. Individuals who do not write or read in any language but live in a
literate society.
§ Semi-literates. Individuals who have some writing and reading skills but can’t use
them properly (functionally not literates).
§ Non-Roman alphabet users. E.g., Russian, Chinese, Pubjabi etc.
(Canadian Language Benchmark 2000)
What is literacy?
§ Literacy and schooling do not always coincide
§ Inadequate models of schooling (e.g., drop out)
§ Different models of schooling (e.g., traditional religious school)
Qur’anic school model:
§ Suras are written with chalk on a wooden tablet and copied by the students, without any prior
training in reading and writing.
§ The Arabic text, a foreign language in Africa, is memorised in both oral and written form as a
single string and without any process of segmentation of the text into smaller elements with
meaning.
(D’Agostino 2021: 93; Saleem 2016)
What is literacy?
§ Literacy and schooling do not always coincide
§ Inadequate models of schooling (e.g., drop out)
§ Different models of schooling (e.g., traditional religious school)
Results:
§ Children are able in hand-eye coordination and in controlling and leading the graphic gesture;
they are also often able to spell the letters of this alphabet (many of them are also able to spell
in English or French).
§ Young people who have only attended these schools do not develop the ability to segment long
phonic and/or graphic sequences into smaller signifying elements (they therefore do not even
recognise word boundaries). (D’Agostino 2021: 93)
What is literacy?
§ Literacy and schooling do not always coincide
§ Informal literacy (e.g., group of peers, migration journey, social media)
«[I]n areas of the world where access to education is not generalised, it is not uncommon to learn
numbers and operations, or how to read or even write, in the most diverse situations outside the
classroom. It may happen in a shop or tailor's shop, from a friend who goes to school, from a brother or
sister, etc. In many cases one may know numbers but not read, or one may know how to decipher a
sentence but not know how to write. Therefore intermediate situations next to absolute illiteracy and full
literacy are widespread: knowledge of numbers, recognition of letters (in Roman or other alphabets),
ability to sign, slow decoding of certain words, etc. This means that even those who claim not to have
attended any schooling can have partial or significant writing skills.» (D’Agostino 2021)
What is literacy?
§ Literacy and schooling do not always coincide
§ Informal literacy (e.g., group of peers, migration journey, social media)
«[I]n areas of the world where access to education is not generalised, it is not uncommon to learn
numbers and operations, or how to read or even write, in the most diverse situations outside the
classroom. It may happen in a shop or tailor's shop, from a friend who goes to school, from a brother or
sister, etc. In many cases one may know numbers but not read, or one may know how to decipher a
sentence but not know how to write. Therefore intermediate situations next to absolute illiteracy and full
literacy are widespread: knowledge of numbers, recognition of letters (in Roman or other alphabets),
ability to sign, slow decoding of certain words, etc. This means that even those who claim not to have
attended any schooling can have partial or significant writing skills.» (D’Agostino 2021)
Digital practices: a case study
§ Multilingual digital writings of 20 sub-Saharan migrants (18-30 y.o.)
§ low or non-literate and/or schooled
§ literate and/or schooled (at least 10 years)
§ collection and analysis of Facebook interactions (arrival to 2019)
§ «Networked multilingualism» (Androutsopoulos 2019)
D’Agostino & Mocciaro (2021a)
Digital practices: a case study
§ Multi-/mistilingual posts (Ibrahim, literate)
§ Posts in individual languages (non-autonomous/autonomous)
§ Posts in different languages (e.g., American slang nigga, Libyan Arabic
ayuwa 'let's do it’)
§ «Copy posts» replicating the same information in multiple languages (e.g.,
greetings)
Mandinka / Djola / Wolof / English:
Sungo Asunya saacha thief
or what so ever call him is undone, this is against any form of humanity.
(1)
Digital practices: a case study
§ Multi-/mistilingual posts (Ibrahim, literate)
§ «Completion posts» with distributed content
(2)
(3)
inglese / mandinka / wolof
So it’s like the government has being lying and playing around with the youths all this
while
Ka sappo la sappo ‘From frying pan to fire.’
Chei Gambia! ‘To bad about the Gambia!’
§ «Mixed-language posts»
inglese / mandinka
Congrats sister!! Abaraka for uplifting the Gambia.
Digital practices: a case study
§ Emergent multilingualism (Yero, non-literate)
(4)
Digital practices: a case study
§ Emergent multilingualism (Yero, non-literate)
(5a)
Digital practices: a case study
§ Emergent multilingualism (Yero, non-literate)
(5b)
Digital practices: a case study
§ Emerging writing: Operations
§ Copy-paste from other posts.
§ Repetition of holistically interpreted (vs. decoded) formulas, e.g.,
§ 'happy birthday' or 'happy year’.
§ Repetition of short segments, e.g. adjectives of appreciation (nice) or
formulas (goods) (with overextensions, e.g., goods 'like’)
Digital practices: a case study
§ Emerging writing: Operations
§ Continuum of progressive autonomy in the use of written forms
§ Facebook = context of naturalistic exposure to written language
§ Analogy with widely documented operations for oral acquisition in naturalistic
contexts (cf. inter al. Bybee 2008)
Digital practices: a case study
§ Emerging writing: final remarks
§ Writing on FB does not reflect language skills recorded through tests
(oral and written, ItaStra tests).
§ It reflects literacy strategies that are generally ignored in formal language
learning These strategies are highly connected to plurilingualism
Questions?
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