2023 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 19_17-19_30
Backgrounds of increasing numbers of immigrants represent “superdiversity” (Vertovec 2007) and in sociolinguistics, attention has been paid to immigrants’ individual linguistic repertoire. By interviewing such people, we aim to examine how they self-evaluate their proficiency and use of their host society’s dominant language through their contact experiences with the host society, how they construct their identities, and to reveal part of how their linguistic repertoire is formulated. The narratives of 10 participants were analysed regarding their proficiency self-evaluations and identity. We found that overall, there were more similarities than differences in the trends of their self-evaluation of their host language proficiency and use in both countries. The results on their identity indicate a close relationship between the participants’ identities and their contact experiences in their host society. Moreover, we claim that the participants’ narratives on identities allow us to predict the direction of their linguistic repertoire construction. This type of in-depth examination of individuals’ repertoire will give us an important suggestion when we consider concrete language policies towards immigrants.
