ABSTRACT
I teach the module Multilingualism and Multiculturalism on the BA program at Birkbeck College, University of London. The first assignment is writing a short linguistic autobiography. As our students come from all over the world, have a wide range of socioprofessional backgrounds and belong to different age groups, they sometimes produce astonishing accounts of peripatetic lives where multiple languages and dialects are acquired, lost, resuscitated in unique circumstances. They typically enjoy the exercise because it stimulates self-reflection and self-awareness—critical academic skills. As I was about to embark on a similar project, I decided to follow a more or less chronological order. I shall try and make sense of my experiences in crossing linguistic, social, cultural, and geographical boundaries by applying some of Bourdieu’s (1986, 1993) ideas on social and cultural capital.
