ABSTRACT
For us as sociolinguists, fieldwork not only provides us with the raw data we work with but is also an important step in understanding the community we are studying. While most sociolinguistic studies follow the tradition of dialectology in focusing on established populations, more and more studies are paying attention to immigrant communities. Immigration is, of course, nothing new, but recent improvements in access to mobility, coupled with social and economic persecution, wars, and economic hardship, have all brought about an unparalleled scale of global migration that has altered the ethnolinguistic landscape of many cities around the world. English-speaking cities in North America and Australia have historically been immigrant communities, but more recently, cities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe have become increasingly multiethnic and multilinguistic. Immigrant groups, especially more recent arrivals, are relatively vulnerable because of language barriers, socioeconomic status, discrimination in work and housing, legal status, and public safety.
