Investigating Multilingual Identities and Ideologies among Iranian Communities in Contexts of Mobility

Abstract

In this chapter, I focus on the ways Iranians in indigenous and diasporic contexts draw on their bilingual resources and ideologies in order to (co-)construct their identities and negotiate their social positionings relative to the notions of language and identity. Specifically, I provide a comparative study of Farsi-English bilingual speakers’ metapragmatic commentary in Iran and the U.S. to investigate how mobility across time and space impacts their identities as well as their bilingual practices and language-ideological discourses. The findings suggest that Farsi-English code-switching serves as an act of differentiation in the indigenous context of Iran and an act of solidarity in the diasporic context of the U.S.

Appendix: Transcription Conventions

Underline:

emphatic stress

(. . .):

intervening material has been omitted

(.):

brief pause

(hahaha):

laughter

(()):

transcriber comment

():

English translation within brackets is added by the author for clarification

[:

speaker overlap

=:

contiguous utterances

,:

utterance signaling more to come

.:

utterance final intonation

::

lengthening of preceding sound

CAPS:

increased volume

↑:

rising intonation

↓:

falling intonation

bold :

switch to English