Applied Linguistics 2013: 34/5: 509–515 ß Oxford University Press 2013

doi:10.1093/applin/amt024 Advance Access published on 7 October 2013

‘Transnational Identities’
1 2,
ANNA DE FINA and *SABINA PERRINO
1 2
Georgetown University, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
*E-mail: [email protected]

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INTRODUCTION
Socio-culturally oriented linguistics is going through a period of creative re-
definition and profound rethinking that, in our view, constitutes a vital and
necessary response to the rapidly changing conditions of our late-modern
world. The societies we live in are, according to many social scientists, funda-
mentally defined by processes of globalization that permeate all aspects of
human life and culture (Appadurai 1996; Held et al. 1999; Fairclough 2006).
To observers of modernity, globalization centrally involves unprecedented
flows of people, goods, money, but also discourses, images and all kinds of
symbols throughout the globe, and profound changes in communication tech-
nologies. For this reason, metaphors of movement and flow are becoming
prevailing frames to understand these new realities. Although mass mobiliza-
tions across the globe and sustained contacts among countries are not new to
the history of human kind, as Appadurai aptly noted, our world is character-
ized by ‘global interactions of a new order of intensity’ (1996: 27), as not only
mass migrations and global communications bring people together both spa-
tially and virtually in ways that would have been unthinkable in the past, but
they also allow for an unprecedented variety of new forms of contact, com-
munication, and socialization.
These changes and developments have been the object of close scrutiny by
linguists in the past decade, as it is clear that linguistics (particularly socio-
cultural approaches to language) needs to take into consideration these new
dimensions of social life in late modernity to produce adequate understandings
of language in use. In 2003, the Journal of Sociolinguistics called for a general
rethinking of ways of conducting linguistic analysis based on a reflection on
globalization. At the time, Coupland noted that the analysis of local phenom-
ena was impossible without looking at the global. In his words:
The qualities of linguistically mediated social experience that define
‘local’ - inhabitation of social networks, social identities, senses of
intimacies and community, differentials of power and control – all
potentially carry an imprint from shifting global structures and
relationships (2003: 466).
Following this first call of attention, a great deal of theoretical-methodo-
logical reflection in linguistics has focused on interactions between the local
510 ‘TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITIES’

and the global and, more generally, on ways in which phenomena central to
late modernity such as super-diversity, mobility, and the widespread use of
technologies, are impacting linguistic and communication practices. Among
these phenomena, we have chosen transnationalism (Vertovec 2009) because,
in our view, it constitutes one of the most important effects of globalization
and a focal domain of interest for the study of new forms of identity construc-
tion and communication. Transnationalism is a direct product of globalization

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in so far as globalized economies determine new interactions between centers
and peripheries (Heller 2003; Vigouroux 2008), pushing masses of people, who
either become redundant in their own countries or are trying to find work
opportunities, toward new destinations. Global models of education and social
advancement are also behind transnational movements as students travel for
educational and social achievement to new locations that are seen as offering
the best opportunities (Park and Lo 2012). As a result of these flows, urban
centers are being transformed into super diverse sites of encounter of peoples
from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. But although in the past,
dislocations often implied drastic separations from places and cultures of
origin, nowadays the diffusion of new globalizing media has resulted in
the ability of displaced populations to keep in touch with their home countries
and with other, far away interlocutors, and in the possibility for those who are
not physically displaced, to constitute and take part in virtual transnational
communities ‘with no sense of place’ (Meyrowitz 1985, quoted in Appadurai
1996: 28).
These changes have had a profound impact on the way identities are con-
structed, negotiated and lived within (but also outside) transnational commu-
nities, and it is precisely to the study of these processes that we devote this
Special Issue. We argue that an investigation of transnationalism forces critical
reflection on the relationship between language and identity and has led to a
number of recent shifts in socio-cultural and applied linguistics, such as the
following:
1 Complication of the dualistic ‘micro-macro’ distinction, through the intro-
duction of finer scalar distinctions and dynamics.
2 The critique of a view of speech communities as relatively homogeneous,
sharing in cultural repertoires and beliefs, and bound to specific locations.
3 An emphasis on the tension between homogenization and differentiation
in language practices, language ideologies, and identities.
4 The critical re-assessment of a default conception of languages as well-
defined codes that can be easily separated from each other and that are
anchored to distinctive and bounded speech communities.
The articles in this Special Issue offer case studies that illustrate the impli-
cations of the theoretical-methodological points listed earlier for the analysis of
identities. Later in the text we summarize and comment on the ways in which
the contributors develop these themes, and we highlight the particular insights
that each of them offers.
 A. DE FINA AND S. PERRINO 511

The first theme that we consider is that of ‘micro-macro’ dynamics. Social

constructionist approaches to identity have long argued both against views of
local identities as basically determined by macro phenomena and as com-
pletely removed from them (De Fina 2003; Bucholtz and Hall 2005; De Fina
et al. 2006), affirming that identities at the local level are always entrenched
in complex ways with wider social identities, ideologies, and Discourses.
Recent work on center-periphery dynamics and scales has allowed for a new

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understanding of such relations, by positing that a variety of scales and time
frames interact at any given moment in a particular communicative event
(Blommaert 2005; Blommaert et al. 2005; Agha 2007), and that it is in the
interplay of all these dimensions that one can find connections among more
local and more global phenomena. These insights are developed in a number of
contributions that show how in the case of transnational groups and in their
communicative practices local identity displays cannot be interpreted without
consideration of different scales. In their study of the ‘good reader’ identity
attributed to, and performed by, a young Mexican girl belonging to a trans-
national family in the USA, Wortham and Rhodes illustrate how such identity
is the product of a variety of processes at different scales: from historical, cul-
tural, and economic processes involving Mexico and the USA as nation states,
to ideological constructions about literacy, to specific local educational and
family events. In her contribution, De Fina discusses how a local radio broad-
cast in the Washington, DC area for a Latin American audience becomes the
site for the production and negotiation of Latin@s identities that are embedded
in, and motivated by, processes at different levels: from top-down commercial
operations designed by corporations to attract consumers, to bottom-up nego-
tiations between local radio operators. In her analysis of the defense and use of
Veneto dialect by two right-wing political parties in northern Italy, Perrino
illustrates how present-day identity performances constitute strategic breaks
with past ideologies about national languages and local varieties that have
been central to the creation of the nation state. New interconnections between
local and global scales are also the focus of Chun’s analysis of the YouTube
performances of a young Chinese–American showman and of their evaluation
by the virtual community of viewers that follows them. Chun illustrates how
globally circulated local personae are renegotiated in cyberspace by audiences
who define and redefine the indexical value of these personae based on their
own needs and views. Chun’s essay also shows how ideologies of race, gender,
and authenticity embodied in local performances help redefine images of Asian
masculinity at a more global scale.
The phenomena discussed above illustrate how the relationships between
centers and peripheries, that until recent times seemed rather stable, are sub-
ject to continuous redefinition under late-modern conditions. Such redefin-
itions may involve, for example, the hierarchical relations between identities
that index one’s belonging to the center or to the periphery, or the re-evalu-
ation of peripheral cultural resources in light of new social movements and
processes.
512 ‘TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITIES’

The inadequacy of a view of speech communities as relatively homogeneous

and populated by stable linguistic subjects is another theme that emerges in
the contributors’ reflections on the effects of shifts in time/space coordinates
on the linguistic practices of transnational communities. As discussed earlier in
the text, modern urban centers have seen the rise and rapid growth of dia-
sporic groups whose identity changes cannot be explained in terms of simple
dichotomies between ‘the national and the transnational, the rooted and the

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routed, the territorial and the deterritorialized’ (Jackson et al. 2004: 2).
Contributors demonstrate how, for example, immigrant groups and trans-
national individuals maintain ties with their home countries through a variety
of virtual and physical connections that allow them to be at the same time part
of ‘here’ and ‘there’.
In this light, De Fina illustrates how ethnic radio proposes itself as a space for
connecting Latin@s in the Washington, DC area with people in their countries
of origins through advertising, selection of news on events in Latin America,
and through a construction of the audience as not completely belonging to
‘here’ but strongly attached to its roots ‘there’. In their study of a small net-
work of transnational Chinese students in Britain, Li Wei and Zhu Hua de-
scribe how they share and read together a magazine produced for Chinese
youth in Hong Kong and how the activity of reading this magazine becomes
the source for identity confrontations involving these young men’s own
Chinese origins. Perrino discusses how Veneto speakers in the Veneto region
reach out to Veneto speakers in different parts of the world to create a sense of
community, and how Italians of Veneto origins living abroad use resources
produced in Veneto that sometimes end up fostering the latter’s revitalization
efforts back in Italy. In her article on the YouTube, identity performances of a
young Chinese American showman, Chun points to the emergence of a virtual
community that includes people in the USA interacting with consumers scat-
tered around the world. All these cases demonstrate how often communities
nowadays are not territorially anchored, how they emerge in the performance
of different kinds of semiotic practices, and, finally, how these practices involve
the breaking up of an older space-time imaginary that envisioned autonomous
speech communities as rooted in place and time.
Given their past or ongoing participation in processes of movement, disloca-
tion and uprooting, transnational communities and individuals are particularly
exposed to the contradictions of in-betweenness and hybridity. For this reason,
self-other differentiation, proclamations of sameness, and strategic identity
positionings are especially complex and ambiguous in their case. Sometimes
in-betweenness is openly proclaimed, as shown by Li Wei and Zhu Hua in their
article. They illustrate that the transnational Chinese young men featured in
their analysis often embrace their ability to claim different identities, as when
they declare that they are sometimes Chinese and sometimes British or
Singaporean. However, the same individuals may also underscore their ‘in-
groupness’, opposing themselves to Chinese from China or to British people.
Something similar happens with the young Chinese American individual
 A. DE FINA AND S. PERRINO 513

studied by Chun, who puts his contradictory affiliations with Asians and
African Americans at the center of his YouTube performances by ironically
declaring his desire for being part of the Black community (but, at the same
time, also his inability to actually belong to it). In their ethnography of a
Mexican family in the USA, Wortham and Rhodes also argue that the
Mexican girl named Allie and her parents deal with contradictory identities
and affiliations. Although Allie loves belonging to her American community of

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learners and identifies herself as an English speaker rather than a Spanish one,
she also emphasizes her Mexican heritage and cherishes her memories of
Mexico. Her parents struggle to come to terms with having an ‘American’
daughter, while at the same time admiring her ability to be part of a ‘more
advanced’ society.
Thus, on the one hand, communities and individuals engage in new prac-
tices and put forth personae that emphasize their hybridity and diversity, but,
on the other hand, they often try to stress continuity and homogeneity. This
is the case when they reach back to past times or places of origin through
recourse to constructs such as (real or invented) tradition (Hobsbawm 1983).
This process may lead to ‘heritaging’, that is the construction of identities or
practices as authentic and as reflecting an established cultural past
(Blommaert, this issue). Heritaging can be a top-down strategy pushed by
big corporations to sell products to an audience, as discussed in De Fina’s
article, where Latin@s are presented by advertisers as fun lovers and good
dancers. It can also be a strategic resource for pushing a political agenda, as
in the case of the proclamation of Veneto dialect as a language of tradition in
the political speeches of separatist movements in Italy, as shown in Perrino’s
contribution.
Some of the articles also address the issue of a reassessment of the language-
as-code metaphor. Recent research has suggested that the extreme and
increasing linguistic diversity in our urban centers is at the heart of new
ways of speaking and styles that cannot be simply subsumed under the um-
brella of language mixing or code-switching. Thus, scholars have proposed
to look more closely at linguistic super-diversity, proposing new constructs
such as ‘translanguaging’, ‘polylanguaging’, ‘codemeshing’, and so forth
(Blackledge and Creese 2010; Blommaert and Rampton 2011; Canagarajah
2011), to account for language practices that creatively build on resources at
different levels. Translanguaging can be a significant identity resource for
transnational communities and individuals, as shown in Li Wei and Zhu
Hua’s article, as it allows them to underscore their in-betweenness and hy-
bridity. However, it can also turn into a terrain for ideological battles as in the
case discussed by De Fina. In her analysis, users show different orientations to
Spanish and English. Although some regard them simply as communicative
resources that can be brought together in communication, others view them as
rigidly different codes. Thus, Spanish and English, and accents related to the
two languages, may be used as resources for identity work in various ways.
Furthermore, the recourse to different language repertoires and styles can be a
514 ‘TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITIES’

conscious strategy for the constitution of new transnational spaces and iden-
tities as demonstrated in Perrino’s analysis of style shifting between standard
Italian and Veneto dialect in the speech of politicians and in Chun’s discussion
of the indexical associations attributed to African–American expressions in the
construction of a cool persona in YouTube videos.
Finally, some of the articles in this Special Issue also engage with the im-
portant question of the role of mediation in late modern society. Appadurai

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points to mediation and migration as two focal ‘diacritics’ (1996: 3) of global-
ization processes. Along these lines, the authors examine the role of new
(Chun) and more traditional (De Fina; Perrino) media in constituting the vir-
tual space for the expression and negotiation of transnational identities and the
power of technologies in affording opportunities for people to cross borders
and reach out to distant others, thus creating communities that need to share
neither locations, nor beliefs, nor cultures.
In conclusion, this Special Issue presents contributions that discuss a variety
of themes, geographical areas, and media within the frame of the construction of
transnational identities. However, authors also share a number of fundamental
theoretical and methodological premises, such as an emphasis on practices (lin-
guistic and semiotic) as the locus of investigation of identity processes; the rec-
ognition that identities are constructed and interpreted through different
modalities involving both open performances and indexicalities; an ethno-
graphic orientation that prioritizes participants’ emic categories and interpret-
ations; a commitment to micro-linguistic analysis as a fundamental but not
exclusive level of investigation, and, finally, the central role given to reflection
on the dynamic relations between time and space in linguistic research.
In sum, this Special Issue’s contributions show that the study of transnation-
alism is both a fertile ground for investigating changes in the articulation of
language and identity in our late-modern society, and a new horizon that can
be unveiled through shifts in the theoretical and methodological orientation of
socio-cultural linguistics.

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