This is a study of two Australian learners of Indonesian during a short stay abroad. It examines their contrasting success in acquiring L2 address terms, in tandem with their contrasting experiences of the L2 culture setting. It thereby helps explain the persistent finding of great individual variation in L2 gains--and in particular pragmatic…

This article discusses how stylization sheds light on the role of authenticity as an increasingly relevant concept in sociolinguistics. Building on research on style, crossing, and mock language use, the article demonstrates how multilingual stylization provides speakers with a wider range of resources for navigating and negotiating borders and…

Taking an interactional sociolinguistic approach, this study explores how multicultural and multilingual siblings interact with their Spanish grandfather and how, through the use of styling and stylization in these interactions, they negotiate and construct multicultural family identities. Using Tannen's power and solidarity framework, I…

The transgressive use of language by out-group speakers, or crossing is used in a variety of ways to achieve both affiliative and disaffiliative ends among youths. However, crossing can also be used as an affiliative resource in asymmetrical power relations between teachers and students. Reporting on the findings of a 1.5 year ethnography of an…

This article analyzes stylized pronunciations of English by Japanese speakers on televised variety shows in Japan. Research on style and mocking has done much to reveal how linguistic forms are utilized in interaction as resources of identity construction that can oftentimes subvert hegemonic discourse (Chun 2004). Within this research area,…

This study presents an analysis of a Nepali comedian's dialect stylization in a stand-up comedy show performed for the diasporic Nepali community in Bochum, Germany. The analysis shows that through creative deployment of diverse linguistic practices of Nepali speakers, the comedian, Manoj Gajurel, engages in important identity work both in…

This article draws on a study of language choice and language ideologies in an international company in Denmark. It focuses on the linguistic and social challenges that are related to the diversity of language competences among employees in the modern workplace. Research on multilingualism at work has shown that employees may be excluded from…

In this article, I present and discuss a commemorative book project to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Greek School of Lausanne. I examine the continuities and discontinuities of the notions of language, identity and community as these were represented through the voices of former Greek state officials, teachers and pupils. I take a long…

In this article the notion of "community" is examined through a lens which focuses on the way people interact and communicate in and around a Panjabi complementary school. Analysis of linguistic ethnographic data contributes to understandings of how identities are produced and reproduced, and how belonging becomes naturalised. The…

This article describes the learning which takes place between children, teachers and parents in a multilingual learning community. It centres on a community-based, supplementary/complementary Saturday class where--slightly differently from the usual pattern--the aim is not heritage language maintenance as such, but to enhance the pupils'…

This paper explores how referent honorifics contribute to identity construction on a Japanese TV shopping channel program. Drawing on Ochs' twostep model of indexicality (1993, 1996) and Agah's proposal (1993) that honorifics are not directly linked to social status but index a "relative position within events of discursive…

In recent years, politeness theory has increasingly focused on speakers' own conceptualizations of polite behavior, viewing politeness concepts as a type of language ideology. This article examines the construction of Japanese politeness concepts in the business etiquette training provided for new employees in Japanese companies. Drawing on…

This study examines manifestations of verbal aggression in an intergroup context between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese on computer-mediated communication (CMC) discussion boards. We examine the role of perceptions of national identity and face in occasioning instances of aggression in Sino-Taiwanese online interactions. It will be argued that…

This study looks at the discursive construction and negotiation of hybrid identities within binational couples. I analyze conversations produced by Anglophones married to German-speaking Swiss residing in central Switzerland. I employ Bucholtz & Hall's sociocultural linguistic model (2004, 2005, 2010), which views identity as emergent in…

Children of binational couples are often raised in the community of one of the parents and, thus, have limited exposure to the language of the other parent. This study focuses on a British/Moroccan family in the UK, where English is the dominant home language and Moroccan Arabic is the "other" language. Analysis of "live"…