Introduction

Sociolinguists have long argued that language plays a crucial role in revealing and constructing a speaker's identity (for example, Edwards, 1985; Le Page and Tabouret-Keller, 1985). Recent public debate in the UK over what constitutes Britishness provides new impetus to the line of research where linguistic practices are seen as both markers and makers of individuals’ as well as groups’ identities. So far, attention has mainly been paid to how specific ethnic and sociocultural identities are constructed through distinctive ways of language use or how speakers borrow features of another ethnic or social group's language to index particular identities (for example, Rampton, 1995; Fought, 2006). In this chapter, we investigate a distinctively multilingual phenomenon, that is, codeswitching – the alternation of languages within the same episode of interaction – and argue that codeswitching is used strategically and creatively by multilingual, minority ethnic children in Britain to negotiate a complex and multidimensional identity, to challenge conventional values and attitudes and to construct a new sense of Britishness.

The data for this chapter come from two related research projects on the multilingual practices of British Chinese children. One focuses on the complementary schools context and the other on intergenerational conflict talk.We will first outline the sociolinguistic situation of the Chinese community in the UK, focusing on recent changes within the community. We then introduce the two contexts in which we conducted our research. Particular attention is given to the Chinese complementary schools, a major educational and cultural institution that has hitherto received relatively little research attention. The main body of the chapter is devoted to an analysis of codeswitching practices by Chinese-English bilingual children in the Chinese complementary school classrooms and at home with their parents. We will show that the tensions between different ideologies, between ideologies and practices, between different generations and their linguistic proficiencies and between competing sociocultural values all manifest in this particular multilingual practice. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of the implications of multilingual practices such as codeswitching for identity construction and negotiation, and for the notion of Britishness.

The changing linguistic landscape of the Chinese community in Britain

The Chinese are one of the largest and longest-established diasporic communities in the UK. Sizeable Chinese settlement can be traced to the 19th century.