"Multilingual Living"presents speakers' own accounts of the challenges and advantages of living in several languages at individual, family and societal levels. Individuals note profound differences in their sense of themselves, their relationships and their parenting, depending on which language they use - their experience highlights the interlinking of language, subjectivity and identity construction. The author further considers effects of the hierarchy of languages and power relationships. The book provides rich interview material of considerable interest to sociolinguists, psychologists, sociologists and lay readers interested in language and identity and in the dynamics of bilingual and multilingual living.
'This is a delightful, scholarly, moving and important work, in which the voices of people immersed in multilingual living can be heard giving weight to ideas on hybridity and postmodern multiplicity. Real life pokes its head in here, triumphantly demonstrating what it means to live in a linguistically complex world. Social research should always be this good.' - Stephen Frosh, Professor of Psychology and Vice-master of Birkbeck College,University of London.