Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to investigate everyday translanguaging practices in public encounters in an emergent superdiverse city, namely Turin (Italy). The focus is on a Halal butcher shop in the neighbourhood of Porta Palazzo, and how shop owners and customers translanguage, that is, draw on different linguistic, semiotic and multimodal resources to construct meaning in everyday encounters. Recent research in (post)multilingualism studies, in its broad sense, has foregrounded a view of translanguaging as a practice and an orientation towards communication, which favours sociality, conviviality and processes of meaning making seemingly contributing to break and overcome linguistic and cultural differences. In this paper, I consider how in public encounters with diversity fleeting moments of conviviality and conflict intertwine, and how the latter affect the co-existence between long-term and newly arrived residents, namely migrants, refugees, asylum seekers in terms of sociability, identities, ideologies and communicative practices. This paper argues that it is through and in everyday translanguaging practices that identities and ideologies can be (re)negotiated and (re)constructed, as well as opposed and subverted.
Mini-Bio:
Gerardo Mazzaferro is a Researcher in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Turin (Italy). He has carried out research in several fields of sociolinguistics of multilingualism and immigration. He taught, published and took part in numerous international conferences on all these subjects. He is the organizer of the International Conference on the Sociolinguistics of Immigration. Recent publications include Translanguaging as Everyday Practice. Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands (2018)