Language, Migration and Social Inequalities

Alexandre Duchêne is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Fribourg and Director of the Institute of Multilingualism of the University and HEP Fribourg (Switzerland). Recent publications include Ideologies across Nations (2008), Discourses of Endangerment (with Monica Heller, 2007) and Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit (with Monica Heller, 2011).Melissa Moyer is Professor of English Linguistics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, where she leads the C.I.E.N. Research Team. Her current research is concerned with multilingualism and mobility in connection to linguistic practices and the construction of identity. She was editor of The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism (2008, with Li Wei).Celia Roberts is Professor of Applied Linguistics at King's College London, UK in the Centre for Language, Discourse and Communication. Her publications include Talk, Work and Institutional Order (1999, with Srikant Sarangi). Her main interest is in the practical relevance and application of sociolinguistics to real world problems.

This stimulating volume brings together classic strands of critical sociolinguistic work on how immigrants are disadvantaged in social gatekeeping institutions and the contemporary sociolinguistics of globalization. Taking a broad view of 'migrants' as sociolinguistically mobile citizens, the authors mobilize an impressive array of ideological, political and economic frameworks to explore the continuing power of institutions to confer and withhold status and opportunity as well as forms of resistance to these processes.

• 1. Alexandre Duchêne, Melissa Moyer & Celia Roberts: Introduction: Recasting Institutions and Work in Multilingual and Transnational SpacesPart I: Sites of Control2. Eva Codó: Trade Unions and NGOs under Neoliberalism: Between Regimenting Migrants and Subverting the State3. Kori Allan: Skilling the Self: The Communicability of Immigrants as Flexible LabourPart II: Sites of Selection4. Celia Roberts: The Gatekeeping of Babel: Job Interviews and the Linguistic Penalty5. Ingrid Piller & Kimie Takahashi: Language Work aboard the Low-Cost Airline6. Luisa Martín Rojo: (De) Capitalising Students through Linguistic Practices. A Comparative Analysis of New Educational Programmes in a Global Era7. Vally Lytra: From Kebabçı to Professional: The Commodification of Language and Social Mobility in Turkish Complementary Schools in the UKPart III: Sites of Resistance8. Werner Holly & Ulrike Hanna Meinhof: ‘Integration hatten wir letztes jahr.’ Official Discourses of Integration and their Uptake by Migrants in Germany9. Melissa G. Moyer: Language as a Resource. Migrant Agency, Positioning and Resistance in a Health Care Clinic10. Cécile B. Vigouroux: Informal Economy and Language Practice in the Context of Migrations11. Maria Sabaté i Dalmau: Fighting Exclusion from the Margins: Locutorios as Sites of Social Agency and Resistance for MigrantsMike Baynham: PostscriptContributors