Reviewed by Louisa Buckingham, Sabanci University Writing Center, Turkey

This monograph on language contact in multilingual settings foregrounds the study of communicative processes, and thus breaks with the tendency of language in contact research to prioritize the study of structural-grammatical change. The work comprises thirteen ethnographic studies on a variety of languages used in an equally broad variety of settings. The studies examine transnational and intra-national migration processes and the role of language in maintaining and re-asserting identities.

The book is organized into three parts. Part 1, ‘Scale and multilingualism’, focuses on migration, whether internal or transnational, and multilingual encounters in studies spread across four continents. Part 2, ‘Spatialization, migration and identity’, considers migrants’ narratives about the process of displacement and making a life in new environments. The final section, Part 3, ‘Studying processes and practices across time and space’, examines the interrelatedness of networks and language.

Numerous contributions to this volume analyze language-related issues raised by migration. Joan Pujolar, in Ch. 6, ‘Immigration in Catolonia: Marking territory through language’ (85–106), investigates the role language plays in situating immigrants in a Catalan language teaching classroom within a broader Catalan-Spanish social context. In Ch. 9, ‘”Either” and “both”- The changing concepts of living space among Polish post-communist migrants to the United Kingdom’ (170–87), Aleksandra Galasińska and Olga Kozłowska study the perception of living space and movement as experienced by Polish immigrants to the United Kingdom within a broader context of sociopolitical change in Europe. Gill Valentine, Deborah Sporton, and Katrine Bang Nielson discuss the use of English, Somali, and Dutch among Somali migrant children in Sheffield in Ch. 10, ‘The spaces of language: The everyday practices of young Somali refugees and asylum seekers’ (189–206). The authors illustrate the inter-relatedness of language and identity, and examine how these multilingual individuals have developed different socially constructed identities. Gabriele Budach’s article in Ch. 11, ‘‘Canada meets France’: Recasting identities of Canadianness and Francité through global economic exchanges’ (209–31), investigates the positioning of French Canadian products on the French market and their promotion by transnational service providers who use selected aspects of Quebec culture, customs, and language, to promote their region-specific products.

Other studies focus on social communicative processes and how speakers seek to use language to position themselves in a context of flux and fluidity, often typical in migrants’ lives. Ch. 1, ‘Goffman and globalization: Frame, footing and scale in migration-connected multilingualism’ (19–40) by James Collins and Stef Slembrouck, investigates multilingual encounters within a Mexican migrant family whose members use three languages, shifting between them to position themselves in social contexts. Jie Dong and Jan Blommaert discuss perceptions generated among standard Mandarin speakers of dialectal forms produced by Chinese internal migrants in Ch. 3, ‘Space, scale and accents: Constructing migrant identity in Beijing’ (42–60). The scenarios described illustrate the monoglot ideology of language in which the standard, Putonghua, is viewed as the only language that rightfully extends itself through all sectors of the capital. Cécile Vigouroux, in Ch. 4, ‘A relational understanding of language practice: Interacting timespaces in a single ethnographic site’ (62–83), examines how language choices, both oral and writtenforms, reflect the broader social context within which the users of an internet café (proprietors and clients) situate themselves.

Although it would be a mistake to view globalization as a central theme to this compilation (as suggested by the title), the book presents a collection of ethnographic studies that illuminate the multifarious purposes of language as a social tool among speakers of different status in multilingual settings. It is likely to appeal to both sociolinguists and ethnographers alike.