Changing identities. The role of language in migration: A life-course perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15135/2018.6.1.1-13Abstract
This paper investigates the interrelations between language, identity and migration through the retrospective viewpoint of two European Jewish migrants arriving in Israel in the late 1940's. Their individual migration experiences and the concomitant change of their main languages coincide with a larger scale attempt at forging a new national identity in the then newly established State of Israel. Based mainly on the analysis of interviews, but also drawing on Social Identity Theory and the Ethnolinguistic Identity Theory, it is suggested that language may be – and in this case has been – used as a means to establish a new identity and distance oneself from an older, unwanted one. Finally, some parallels with other migration contexts are considered and ideas for future research are suggested.
Literaturhinweise
Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, acculturation and adaptation. Applied Psychology: An international Review, 46 (1), 5-34.
Berry, J. W. (2001). A psychology of immigration. Journal of Social Issues, 57(3), 615-631.
Brubaker, R., & Cooper, F. (2000). Beyond “identity”. Theory and Society, 29(1), 1-47.
Espin, O. M. (2006). Gender, sexuality, language, and migration. In R. Mahalingam (Ed.),Cultural psychology of immigrants (pp. 241–258). Mahwah, NJ.: Erlbaum.
Giles, H. & Johnson, P. (1987). Ethnolinguistic identity theory: A social psychological approach to language maintenance. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 68, 69-99.
Grinberg, L., & Grinberg, R.(1989). Psychoanalytic Perspectives of Migration and Exile, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Safran, W. (2005). Language and nation-building in Israel: Hebrew and its rivals. Nations and Nationalism, 11(1), 43-63.
Tajfel, H. (1978). Social categorization, social identity and social comparisons. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Differentiation between social groups (pp. 61-76). London: Academic Press.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin, & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33-47). Toronto: Brooks/Cole.
Tannenbaum, M. (2007). Back and forth: immigrants’ stories of migration and return. International Migration 45. (5): 147–175.
Zittoun, T. (2007). Dynamics of interiority: ruptures and transitions in the self development. In L. Simão & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Otherness in question: Labyrinths of the self (pp. 187-214). Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing.
Witzel, A. (2000). Das problemzentrierte Interview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 1(1), Art. 22
