Despite the existence of a ‘large body of research into adolescents in the fields of anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and sociolinguistics’ (Cooke 2008, p.24), less attention has been paid to Polish adolescent migrants, both in the field of socio and applied linguistics (Schleef, Meyerhoff & Clark 2011), and within migration studies (Moskal 2014; Pustułka 2014; Slany & Strzemecka 2016), although as I have noted elsewhere, interest in younger EU migrants has increased since the 2016 Referendum (Young 2018). In socio and applied linguistics, while identity construction of
adolescents has been investigated, much of the work has been centred on specific areas. Attention has often concentrated on members of the BAME communities, investigating individuals who are second generation or later, and based predominantly in urban settings.
Much work on adolescents has focused on language learning practices, where studies have often been school-based. In a UK setting, Catherine Wallace (2008) explores the way that individual migrants in two London schools bring their experiences to bear on literary studies, and in doing so, index their various identities. Studies also examine how power relations are negotiated within the classroom, and how such relations are
informed by an ‘[o]fficial discourse [which] legitimates the teacher as the source of power and authority’ (Bourne 2001, p.103). In a US study, Chen (2010) focuses on the lack of agency available to Evan, a nine-year-old Chinese-speaking student. In each setting within his school – maths class, English classes, and the main classroom – different learner identities come into play, yet in each Evan finds himself unable to challenge the way he is positioned by his teachers. Also within a US context, McKay and Wong (1996) argue that the ‘asymmetrical power relations’ (p.603) implicit in the school environment are informed by discourses external to the school setting, including those of race and colonisation. The student is thus positioned through these wider discourses, and may find herself negotiating identities that are ‘multiple, dynamic, and often contradictory’ (McKay & Wong 1996, p.580). Salient findings from studies based within school settings are explored in more detail in section 4.4.3.
Another factor common to many of the adolescent-focused studies based in the UK is their emphasis on members of BAME groups. Such work includes that by Rampton (1995, 2005), who investigates language crossing practices amongst adolescents of Anglo-Punjabi and Anglo-Caribbean backgrounds. Rampton suggests that in their incorporation of the use of Creole and Punjabi with that of English, these adolescents are thus engaged in constructing hybrid identities. In his study of adolescents of South Asian descent living in West London, Harris (2006) similarly highlights the creation of hybrid identities. Here, Harris explores how the adolescents’ linguistic practices enable them to establish and display a hybrid ‘Brasian’ identity that fuses both British and Asian elements.
Polish teenagers have, however, been the focus of research in variationist
sociolinguistics, where work which explores questions of identity is relatively recent (Drummond & Schleef 2015). Studies suggest that the acquisition of certain local variables in speech may indicate identity positions that the speakers are adopting. In
work investigating the pronunciation of ‘ING’ by Polish adolescents living in
Manchester, Drummond (2012) argues that acquiring ‘local speech features could be viewed […] as indicative of a growing sense of local identity’ (p.112). This is reinforced by Newlin-Łukowicz (2015), who, in her study of Polish immigrants in the US and the UK, suggests that speakers’ sense of their own Polish identity influences the extent to which they adopt regional speech variations in English (p.332). Meyerhoff and Schleef (2012), exploring the speech patterns of Polish teenagers in Edinburgh and London, also propose that the pronunciation of certain variables indexes the adolescents’ social affiliation with their peers. That these studies focus on first-generation migrants, as well the participants being Polish speakers, contrasts with much of the UK-based work in applied linguistics, which often concentrates on individuals from the second or later generation (e.g. Rampton 2005; Harris 2006; Preece 2009).
Another feature of studies on migrant identity construction is that the majority are situated in urban settings, with relatively little attention given to ‘those outside large conurbations’ (Rasinger 2012, p.33). A strong rationale lies behind this emphasis, seeing that contemporary ‘urban centers are being transformed into super diverse sites of encounter of peoples from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds’ (De Fina
& Perrino 2013, p.510; also see Simpson & Cooke 2009). Cadier and Mar-Molinero (2012) have turned the spotlight on language practices within Southampton, where ‘the de facto linguistic situation is one of multilingualism’ (p.162), while London is perhaps
the epitome of the modern city as a multi-ethnic, multilingual space (Block 2006a;
Blommaert 2008). Cooke (2008) highlights the city’s cosmopolitanism amongst urban youths: drawing on Hewitt, she suggests that London is a place where ‘young people [can] share local multilingual vernaculars’ (p.25); this is echoed by Preece (2009) in her study of linguistic practices amongst young undergraduates in the city.
It has been argued that in such urban areas, an individual may choose between remaining ‘relatively anonymous’ or displaying an ‘outspoken identity’, thanks to the profusion of networks enabling this (Blommaert 2008, p.87); it may also be easier for individuals to view themselves as ‘multicultural citizen[s]’ (Norton 1995, p.25) when a multitude of identities are on display around them. The negotiation of linguistic identities may accordingly be easier in such settings. Nonetheless, as Moskal (2014) notes, while ‘[c]ities remain the main centres of concentration, […] rural areas are increasingly affected by migration’ (p.282). Non-urban environments may therefore also be sites of multilingualism, yet such locations remain less addressed in the literature.
It can thus be seen that, while research in applied linguistics has investigated linguistic practices within urban settings, with a particular focus on experiences of members of the BAME communities, less attention has been paid to migrant adolescents living in other regions, and from other backgrounds. The experiences of first or 1.5 generation adolescents, such as those in this study (see section 1.4), also feature less in the literature.
The following section will examine work done on school-based studies and how the school environment may be implicated in adolescent migrant identity construction.