Creating Belonging in San Francisco Chinatown's Diasporic Community: Morphosyntactic Aspects of Indexing Ethnic Identity

by Adina Staicov

Overview

This book presents a much-needed discussion on ethnic identification and morphosyntactic variation in San Francisco Chinatown—a community that has received very little attention in linguistic research. An investigation of original, interactive speech data sheds light on how first- and second-generation Chinese Americans signal (ethnic) identity through morphosyntactic variation in English and on how they co-construct identity discursively. After an introduction to the community’s history, the book provides background information on ethnic varieties in North America. This discussion grounds the present book within existing research and illustrates how studies on ethnic varieties of English have evolved. The book then proceeds with a description of quantitative and qualitative results on linguistic variation and ethnic identity. These analyses show how linguistic variation is only one way of signalling belonging to a community and highlight that Chinese Americans draw on a variety of sources, most notably the heritage language, to construct and negotiate (ethnic) identity. This book will be of particular interest to linguists - particularly academics working in sociolinguistics, language and identity, and language variation - but also to scholars interested in related issues such as migration, discrimination, and ethnicity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030249922
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	08/21/2019
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	182
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Adina Staicov is Assistant Professor at Hiroshima University, Japan, where she teaches classes on Academic Writing and English for Academic Purposes.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction.
Chapter 2: San Francisco Chinatown: Introducing the community.
Chapter 3: Ethnolinguistic variation in North America.
Chapter 4: Ethnic identity and morphosyntactic variation in San Francisco Chinatown.
Chapter 5: Constructing Chinese Americanness in San Francisco Chinatown.
Chapter 6: Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

Chinatown, in Adina Staicov's careful study, is a place of belonging for the Chinese diaspora in the United States where language, and particularly varying repertoires of English, play an important role in constructing ethnic and generational identities. … Studying the languages and linguistic repertoires of Chinatown offers a unique examination of language and place.” (Lyn Wright and Elliott Burgess, Sociolinguistic Studies, Vol. 16 (2-3), 2022)

“Creating belonging in San Francisco Chinatown diasporic community introduces an original analysis concerning multiple dynamics of social belonging construction elicited through spontaneous speech among Chinese residents in San Francisco. The study brings into light important issues … which provide a kaleidoscopic overview on a historical community that currently represents 20% of the total population of the city. … I think this volume represents an important contribution to understanding linguistic and social dynamics among Chinese residents in San Francisco.” (Andrea Scibetta, Language in Society, Vol. 49 (5), 2020)

From the Publisher