In the current sociolinguistic moment heavily influenced by globalization and nativist and anti-immigrant rhetoric, language-focused practitioners and researchers are considering the hybridity of language practices and their implications for language, education, and diversity. Using notions drawn from a more critical multilingual perspective (May, 2014), we explore how teachers and youth are understanding their rich, diverse linguistic experiences. Many of these youth live in contexts of superdiversity (Martinez, 2016) or have lived in multiple geographic spaces. Drawing from qualitative research data, the papers respond to the question of what does recognizing superdiversity or full linguistic repertoires allow for? Collectively, these papers interrogate the benefits of documenting and exploring the linguistic repertoires of teachers of color, Black and Latinx youth in the U.S., and indigenous language-speaking immigrants in locales across the US and Aotearoa New Zealand.
The first four papers deal with different populations across the US, focused on minoritized populations’ hybrid language practices and ideologies. The first discusses the importance of working with teacher candidates at a Hispanic-Serving Institution to examine their own linguistic repertoires, ideologies, and biases. The second paper looks at the deliberate cultivation of a “language of solidarity” between Black and Brown youth in spaces of superdiversity. The third paper examines the varying relationships that Mexican-origin youth from indigenous descent have with their various languages including English, Spanish, and Zapoteco. The fourth paper calls for a re-imagining of bilingual education that recognizes the full linguistic repertoire of Chicanx and Latinx youth whose languages do not fall neatly into the Spanish-English binary. The fifth and final paper discusses the possibilities and limitations of recognizing and supporting heritage and indigenous languages while also welcoming new and numerous migrant languages in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Martinez, D. C. (2016). Latino linguistic repertoires in an intensely-segregated Black and Latina/o high school: Is this super-diversity? International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 241, 69-95. May, S. (Ed.) (2014). The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and bilingual education. New York: Routledge.
May, S. (Ed.) (2014). The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and bilingual education. New York: Routledge.
