ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the human need to migrate and the circulation of capital, technology, culture and knowledge when people, and their languages, move. Although the focus is firmly on human migration, other aspects of mobility are included. First, we explore migration prior to the formation of nation-states through case studies of Polynesian migration. Understanding culture is central to understanding the evolution of language in this chapter as are the cultural and linguistic practices which encode meaning in symbols at particular places on people’s migrations. Included in this discussion is the evolution of language and the emergence of different technologies, including writing, and their role in migration. In the second part of the chapter the discussion moves towards migrants’ multilingualism which is often an outcome of their migration – and takes a perspective known as critical multilingualism which enables the reader to explore language use by addressing power, social and linguistic hierarchies and social cohesion as aspects of an increasingly globalized world. The chapter addresses the linguistic marketplace of migrants’ language use and explores the relationship between writing and identity by paying careful attention to the language practices of young people in urban settings as well as in their online interactions. The chapter ends with a review of how the voices of migrants are researched through their narratives, how telling stories is a way of sharing and making sense of experiences and of recounting emotional or traumatic events in migrations.
