ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses ‘language crossing’, the use of a language or variety that feels anomalously ‘other’ for the participants in an activity, involving movement across quite sharply sensed social or ethnic boundaries, in ways that can raise questions of legitimacy. The chapter begins by linking research on crossing to a more general shift in the assumptions governing linguistics and the study of multilingualism, and it then differentiates ‘crossing’ from other kinds of mixed speech. Our third section identifies several major themes emerging in recent empirical work, and in the fourth, our focus shifts from sites of urban migration and popular culture to educationally sponsored crossing in a conflict-ridden context (Cyprus). Our final section points to areas for further work. Other overviews of crossing can be found in Auer (2006), Coupland (2007), Quist and Jørgensen (2009) and Rampton (2001, 2003).