English as a Lingua Franca in Migrants' Trauma Narratives

233 Pages·2018·1.736 MB·English

by  Maria Grazia Guido

English as a
Lingua Franca
in Migrants'
Trauma
Narratives
Maria
Grazia
Guido
English as a Lingua Franca in Migrants’
Trauma Narratives
“Providing a positive counterbalance to the current anti-immigration rhetoric
which is so prevalent, Guido’s research offers pertinent insight into English as a
Lingua Franca being used in high stakes communicative acts where power
imbalances are acute, and will make substantial contribution to the field.”
—Haynes Collins, Associate Professor of Intercultural Studies,
University of Leeds, UK
“This book deserves high commendation not only because of its conceptual
originality but also because this yields an exceptionally insightful analysis, which,
far from being simply an academic exercise, addresses socio-political and moral
issues of immediate urgency. It is an excellent example of what applied linguis-
tics should be.”
—Henry Widdowson, Honorary Professor of English Linguistics,
University of Vienna, Austria, and Emeritus Professor of Education,
University of London, UK
Maria Grazia Guido
English as a Lingua
Franca in Migrants’
Trauma Narratives
Maria Grazia Guido
University of Salento
Lecce, Italy
ISBN 978-1-137-58299-7 ISBN 978-1-137-58300-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58300-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018959230
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To Myself
And I … now see that noble and most sovereign reason
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. Oh, woe is me,
T’ have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
(W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, III, 1)
Acknowledgements
It has not at all been easy for me to carry out for nearly twenty years my
enquiry into the variations of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) used for
intercultural communication in migration and asylum contexts. Despite
the emotional detachment deontologically required from scholars when
conducting their research, having to deal with traumatized migrants
and refugees who suffered unspeakable atrocities in their home coun-
tries, and who still have to undergo injustice in the host country, would
in fact put a strain on any attempt at being exclusively concentrated on
the linguistic outcome of the interactions. And yet, migrants and refu-
gees eventually narrate such ‘unspeakable’ atrocities in order to gain
access to socio-political rights and welfare benefits in the host country,
and they report them by using their ELF variations in unequal encoun-
ters where the experts in charge of interactions frequently act as ‘gate-
keepers’ with strong interpreting and decision-making powers. What a
researcher usually witnesses during such encounters is deep misunder-
standing and denial of rights, causing migrants even more distress. In
listening to traumatized migrants’ and refugees’ shocking narratives
over all these years, I’ve really “lost all my mirth”, to quote Hamlet’s
words—and it is not by chance that I dedicate this book to myself, by
making Ophelia’s words of dismay my own as she sees Hamlet’s mind
so overwhelmed by anguish. Indeed, I deserve this inscription, even if
it is the book that I’ve written myself, because together with “my mirth”,
vii
viii Acknowledgements
I’ve also lost my peace of mind, my faith in justice, even in a possible
divine justice, and my sense of wonder for the world, for “this brave
o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire”
which now “appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapors” (W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, II, 2).
And yet, the help for me to cope with all this suffering has come pre-
cisely from those people who have accompanied me in my research, and
so now I really wish to express my gratitude to all those people from the
charity associations dealing with migrants and refugees who have allowed
me over the years to carry out my ethnographic field-work, and to all the
migrants, asylum seekers, experts, and students who kindly agreed to
become the anonymous subjects of my case studies. In particular, I wish
to thank the Italian Council for Refugees (Consiglio Italiano per i Rifugiati)
that, for over ten years, has collaborated in organizing the Masters Course
in Intercultural and Interlingual Mediation in Immigration and Asylum
Contexts that I direct at the University of Salento.
Furthermore, there are a number of people to whom this book owes a
great deal. I wish to thank the colleagues of the international ELF-ReN
Group (English as a Lingua Franca Research Network) who have always
encouraged me to go on with this research, constantly offering me their
constructive feedback at the various ELF Conferences and on my publi-
cations. I’m particularly grateful to Barbara Seidlhofer and Henry
Widdowson whose precious comments have made a deep impression on
my ideas about intercultural ELF communication and have definitely
contributed to the development of my views on ELF in migration con-
texts expressed in this book. I also wish to thank the young colleagues of
the ‘ELF and Migration Research Group’—my former and present Ph.D.
students—who carry out their ELF research under my supervision at the
University of Salento. I would also like to thank my colleagues, Professors
Malcolm Awadajin Finney, Maurizio Gotti, Giuseppina Cortese, Dell
Hymes, Larry Selinker, Thomas Christiansen, Ayo Banjo, Eno-Abasi
Urua, Donatella Tanzariello, and Viktor Igreja, who, at various stages of
this research, let me have their valuable advice, pertinent comments, and
deep insight. Finally, I’d like to express my gratitude to the Italian
Ministry of the University and Scientific Research for having funded the
research on ELF in Intercultural Contexts that I coordinate as a Project
Acknowledgements ix
of Relevant National Interest (Progetto di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale),
and also to the Cassa di Risparmio di Puglia Foundation for having co-
funded, together with the University of Salento, my regional research on
Responsible Tourism in places affected by the massive arrivals of migrants
in Southern Italy.
Contents
1 Introduction: Setting the Scene 1
2 T rauma Narratives in Unequal Migration Encounters 7
2.1 Research Focus 7
2.2 Theoretical Grounds 11
2.3 Research Objectives 16
3 T rauma-Narrative Analysis at the Level of Modality 19
3.1 Epistemic Representations of Trauma in Western
Scientific Texts 19
3.2 D eontic Representations of Trauma in Non-Western
Migrants’ Narratives 21
3.3 P ossible-Worlds Constructs in Modal Logic Applied to
Migrants’ ELF-Mediated Trauma Narratives of ‘Hope’ 26
3.4 U nreal- and Impossible-Worlds Constructs in Modal
Logic Applied to Migrants’ ELF-Mediated Trauma
Narratives of ‘Frustration’ and ‘Despair’ 34
xi
xii Contents
4 Trauma-Narrative Analysis at the Level of Language
Typology 45
4.1 T ransitive Parameters of Passive Constructions in
Western PTSD Scientific Texts 45
4.2 E rgative Constructions in Non-Western Migrants’
Trauma Narratives 47
4.3 A ccusative Versus Ergative Event Structures of Migrants’
Trauma Narratives: The Rationale 50
4.4 A ccusative Versus Ergative Event Structures of Migrants’
Trauma Narratives: Case-Study Analysis 54
5 Trauma-Narrative Analysis at the Level of Lexis 63
5.1 APA Lexis in Transcultural Psychiatry Versus West
African Migrants’ Idioms of Distress in ELF Trauma
Narratives 63
5.2 H ybridization of Trauma Narratives in West African
Migrants’ Appropriation of Southern-Italian Idioms of
Distress 68
5.3 M etaphorical Uses of Idiomatic Lexis Through ELF in
West African Migrants’ Trauma Narratives: The
Rationale 71
5.4 M etaphorical Uses of Idiomatic Lexis Through ELF in
West African Migrants’ Trauma Narratives: Case-Study
Analysis 75
6 T rauma-Narrative Analysis at the Level of Text Structure 85
6.1 Th e Entextualization of African Refugees’ Oral Trauma
Narratives: Western Paragraphs Versus Non-Western
Ethnopoetic Verses 85
6.2 Ethnopoetic Entextualization of Non- Western Refugees’
Oral Trauma Narratives in Asymmetric Encounters: The
Rationale 90