Regional flows and language resources. (original) (raw)

Abstract

This chapter discusses regional flows and the dynamics of language resources within those flows. First it outlines the scholarship on language as resource, particularly in terms of migration, and defines the terms to be used in the chapter. Second it gives an overview of regional flows of people and the role of language within that, outlining current literature on language as a resource in migration. Next the chapter considers the issue of the changing value of resources in different contexts and what implications this has for regional flows. It draws mainly on research conducted in South Africa, looking at both the value of English as a resource and the value of African languages. The chapter describes how the value of language (value in the Bourdieusian sense of economic and/or cultural capital) changes within various regional flows – and how language resources are conferred value at a local level. The chapter demonstrates through the lived experiences of people that language resources carried between regions do not maintain a neutral or static value but that value is always negotiated within local contexts, and that in many migration scenarios this can result in language resource attrition.

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