Sri Lankan Tamil experiences of the home-land and host-land: The interaction between language and diasporic identity
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: This article takes an empirical approach to investigate how diasporic identification with the home-land and host-land interacts with language in a mutually influencing dynamic interplay, giving rise to new language ideologies and identities. Since scholars are increasingly of the opinion that the processes of dislocation and resettlement create multi-layered connections with the home-land and host-land (David 2012:377), it is crucial we recognise that the relationship between fixed geographical territories and communities, and the cultural-linguistic practices associated with them, need to be denaturalised (Rosa & Trivedi 2017:331). In doing so, it is possible to retheorise diasporic identity as a sociocultural process. Attention to language can help shift diasporic phenomena away from being defined as ‘bounded, territorialised, static and homogeneous’ (Canagarajah & Silberstein 2012:82). Examining Sri Lankan Tamil diasporic experiences of the home-land and host-land and their relationship with language will promote such an agenda. (Diaspora, space, home-land, host-land)*
Source: Language in Society
Author: Lavanya Sankaran
Institution: King's College London
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Leverhulme Trust
OpenAlex ID: W3084206244