This chapter makes the case that Willa Cather and Abraham Cahan present immigrant characters in their fiction as potentially powerful figures by virtue of their bi- and multilingualism. These, and other writers such as John Dos Passos, Mike Gold, and Anzia Yezierska, show that those who master English as well as the languages into which they are born are socially, geographically, artistically, and intellectually mobile figures. Such characters, in their codeswitching, exemplify a kind of linguistic mobility that is at the heart of ethnic American modernist literature, and that demonstrates pluralistic values that were often socially and politically absent in the period of their creation. These modernist writers look to language and the interpolation of foreign languages, whether through translational mimesis, codeswitching, or selective reproduction, as empowering. In doing so, they demonstrate the rich potential of an ethnic American literary modernism. The immigrant’s voice, with all its inflections and idiosyncrasies, is presented as the accent of the future.

Codeswitchingching, well known as a speech style in which bilinguals alternate languages between or within sentences, has recently been joined by a new term, translanguaging, which is widely used in bilingual education with a similar meaning. Among a variety of perspectives within the translanguaging literature, some scholars have adopted deconstructivism, the view that discrete languages and multilingualism do not actually exist. Deconstructivists see translanguaging as a theoretical alternative to codeswitching, as codeswitching implies internalized linguistic diversity. In this chapter, the author argues that the political use of language names (a concern of deconstructivists) can and should be distinguished from the social and structural idealizations used to study linguistic diversity, favoring what the author calls an Integrated Multilingual Model of bilingualism, contrasted with the Unitary and Dual Competence models. The author further distinguishes grammars from linguistic repertoires, arguing that bilinguals, like everybody, have a single linguistic repertoire but a richly diverse mental grammar, a viewpoint the author calls a multilingual perspective on translanguaging.

This chapter situates plurilingualism (at the individual level) and multilingualism (at the societal level), depending on the researcher’s approach to language contact, as enablers of various consequences of language contact. The relevant phenomena include language endangerment and loss (through language shift), codemixing and codeswitching (or translanguaging), the emergence of creoles, other mixed language varieties (including urban youth “stylects”), colonial varieties of European languages (such as Spanish), super-diversity, as well as structural change, borrowing, and the emergence of lingua francas. Concepts such as foreign workers’ interlanguages are contrasted with creoles and pidgins. Differences in their emergence are grounded in second language learning, degree and type of exposure to the hegemonic language, language shift, and the emergence of communal norms. The presentation in the chapter is generally grounded in population movements and changing population structures, therefore in speakers'/signers’ social history. It is also diachronic, explaining how domains of interest have evolved and expanded in language contact as a research area since the late nineteenth century, focusing on phenomena not elaborated in the chapters of Volume 1.

Jeff MacSwan describes himself as an "incorrigible" child of the working class in the United States. His work continues to be devoted to disadvantaged children. From the "opportunity room" to the university, Mac Swan deals with commitment, understanding, respect in his pedagogical approach to fighting ideology about natural limitations and socio-economic reproduction.

Marisa Cavalli discovered at a very young age that her family's dialect put her in a marginal position, under the symbolic domination of the tourists who invaded her Italian village every year. This situation led her to fight for the rights of minorities from an inclusive pedagogical perspective. She promotes the maintenance of languages, shedding light on the social-political power relations and, in turn, on the pedagogical aspects.

In Belgium, Piet Van Avermaet and Sven Sierens offer a joint biography where "Dutch" and local dialects were their norm. Both of them grew up in a multilingual environment with migrant classmates. As researchers, they turned to a critical sociolinguistic perspective to propose functional multilingual learning to give multilingual students a chance to use their linguistic repertoires.

Gunvor Mejdell writes about the phenomenon variously referred to as formal spoken Arabic (FSA) or educated spoken Arabic (ESA), a more formal Arabic variant that is used on occasions that require a less intimate or less relaxed variant of spoken Arabic. FSA/ESA plays a flexible intermediate role between everyday vernacular and Modern Standard Arabic that allows for calibration to spontaneous but more formalized speech on public or official occasions. That such a form of spoken Arabic has arisen is not unusual but it complicates the traditional diglossia idea of high and low variants of Arabic which have specific, bounded domains of performance. The term lugha wusṭā ‘middle language’ is often used to refer to this variant of Arabic, as is the term lughat al-muthaqqafīn, ‘language of the cultured’. The middle language also relates to the idea of an Arabic koiné, a spoken variant originally identified and discussed by Charles Ferguson. It remains controversial because of its malleability and its own regional differences, and also because it functions as a bridge between regional written and spoken forms of Arabic. Mejdell discusses aspects of codeswitching, but notes that no stability exists in FSA/ESA even at the personal level.

Taking on a contemporary topic of pervasive importance, Francesco Sinatora examines in detail linguistic heterogeneity and identity construction as they impact Arabic Facebook and YouTube discourse. Key issues of identity, positioning, performance, and multimodality are embedded in Arabic speakers’ use of discourse strategies that convey meaning in multiple ways and on multiple levels. ‘Social media’, states Sinatora, ‘provides a platform for the emergence of more hybrid practices, including the mixing of the vernaculars with MSA, as well as the localization of multilingual forms and global pop culture references.’ Sinatora reviews concepts of intertextuality and indexicality as they pertain to the use of language both written and spoken in Arabic-based social media. He connects these concepts to the idea of ‘vernacular globalization’, which refers to the linguistic construction of identities through diverse and multimodal formulation of powerful and appealing text messages. The second part of his paper documents how dissent is expressed through close examination of postings on Facebook and on YouTube. Through both written and spoken text analysis and face-to-face interviews with authors, Sinatora takes steps toward creating a new methodology for analysing variation in Arabic.

This chapter provides an autoethnographic account of the use of AAE from an African American middle-class perspective. Reflecting on some of the tensions and expectations that inform my own identity performance, I examine the quantitative distribution of several salient AAE features within my stylistic repertoire and discuss how such distributions inform assumptions about middle-class AAE and our understanding of intraspeaker variation.

This chapter begins with a review of the early literature on William Labov’s 1972 concept of the linguistic lame, its influence on the study of African American English, and its role in shaping linguistic perceptions of middle-class speakers. The chapter then proceeds with a summary of the small, but growing, body of research on the use of AAE by middle-class speakers, including studies of social stratification, intraspeaker variation, performative language practices, and attitudes and perceptions. The chapter ends with an overview of the topics covered in subsequent chapters of the book.

This chapter provides an analysis of the performative use of African American English by a panel of African American public figures in Tavis Smiley’s “State of the Black Union” symposium. The chapter considers the implications of such stylized uses for traditional definitions of "lame" linguistic behavior, as well as traditional understandings of the functions and motivations governing intraspeaker variation.