Voice and Social Relations in a City Market
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Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation Paper 2 Voice and Social Relations in a City Market Adrian Blackledge, Angela Creese, Rachel Hu A report on Phase One of the Birmingham case study of AHRC-funded Translating Cultures project, ‘Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities’. (AH/L007096/1) Please reference as: Blackledge, A., Creese, A., and Hu, R. (2015) Voice and Social Relations in a City market. Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP. 2). (http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/generic/tlang/index.aspx) Abstract This study investigated the ways in which people communicate in encounters where the participants have different biographies, trajectories, and linguistic histories. It was conducted in Birmingham Bull Ring Indoor Market, and focused on a Chinese butcher’s stall. Researchers conducted linguistic ethnographic observations over a period of four months. The analysis concluded that superdiversity was experienced and perceived as a normal part of social life in the market. The Chinese butchers told of the physical hardship of setting up a new business in the market, and of their determination to succeed. The butchers were recorded as they engaged in communicative events in which they encountered the voices of others, and through which they began to find their voice. The day-to-day practices of buying and selling in the indoor market were normally characterized by good humour, conviviality, generosity of spirit, and people’s willingness to get on with other people. We saw that elaborate performance, including gesture and mime, was a feature of the spatial repertoire of the market, as people with different proficiencies in different languages entertained themselves and each other, and conducted commercial interactions. Communicative interactions included movement across languages, but languages were by no means the most significant dimension of the translanguaging event. The translanguaging repertoire in play incorporated biographies and learning trajectories, and aspects of communication not always thought of as ‘language’. In translanguaging events spaces for communication were opened up, and people made meanings in whatever way possible. The market was a place where resources could be tried out in translanguaging spaces and encounters. Our observations of the market traders’ communicative repertoires were not limited to face-to- face encounters, nor to interactions in the market. The butchers’ exchanges with family at home, and their social media communication, represented important dimensions of their communicative repertoires. 2 Executive Summary Between September 1st and December 19th 2014 we (Rachel Hu and Adrian Blackledge) repeatedly visited Birmingham Bull Ring Indoor Market to conduct linguistic ethnographic observations of a Chinese butcher stall. Our aim was to investigate the ways in which people communicate in encounters where the participants have different biographies, trajectories, and linguistic histories. We visited the stall on thirty occasions, and wrote more than 104,000 words of observational field notes. We audio-recorded the stall-holders as they worked, and on their breaks, amounting to 35 hours of workplace interactions. We also video-recorded one three-hour session at the stall. We interviewed the key participants, and Rachel audio-recorded other informal conversations with them. Together we interviewed eighteen of the other stall-holders in the market. We took 300 photographs inside the market hall, and a further 120 in the surrounding neighbourhood. The key participants also audio-recorded themselves in their family and domestic setting. Most of these recordings were made in their family home, with one or two exceptions. In all the key participants audio-recorded 47 hours of family and domestic interactions. In addition we asked them to collect records of their social media posts. They copied 445 messages, almost all of them from their mobile phones, in the ‘WeChat’ platform. This collected material of observational field notes, home- and work-based audio-recordings, video-recordings, interviews, social and digital media posts, and photographs, constitutes the stuff out of which we have woven together meanings for this report. We have gathered together our analysis in six sections, as follows: Markets The market traders told us that the profile of national and ethnic backgrounds of their customers had changed in recent times. Their account was that ethnic, religious, linguistic and socioeconomic diversity was experienced and perceived as a normal part of social life in Birmingham, and not as something particularly special. The market traders were more concerned with the role of the city council in the support and administration of the markets, and with the local management of the markets. At the same time they were proud of the markets, and the role they played in the city. One of the stall holders, a flower seller, said ‘This is the heart and soul of Birmingham, irrespective of what anyone else thinks, the market is the heart of Birmingham’. The market traders did not view the arrival of speakers of many different languages as in any way problematic. In the discourse of the market traders there was a clearly identifiable local language ideology which permitted and even encouraged meaning-making by whatever means possible. It was a language ideology which had the potential to act as a catalyst for convivial engagement. Narratives of Becoming The narratives of Meiyen Chew and Kang Chen, the couple who were proprietors of the butcher stall, told stories of arrival in the UK, gaining legal status, setting up a business, developing a market, and orienting to the future. Gaining legal status to remain and work in the UK afforded the couple important protection against exploitation. The couple told us that setting up the business was initially difficult, as they were lacking knowledge of the butcher’s trade. They endured physical challenges, 3 but they developed a customer base by supplying a niche market. As the business became established they gained in confidence, and were better able to negotiate with suppliers and customers. As they looked to the future they became increasingly aspirational, seeking new opportunities beyond the market stall. Ideological Becoming Kang Chen and Meiyen Chew deployed a wide range of discourse strategies as they interacted with each other, and with their colleagues and customers. Their interactions constituted constant and ongoing negotiations, in which they conducted their business, set fair prices and stuck to them, pushed for sales, commented on their customers, made evaluative remarks about typifications of ‘British’ cultural practices, translated and translanguaged, and made meaning in zones of encounter by whatever means possible. The discursive worlds of Kang Chen and Meiyen Chew were constituted in pathways of linked events through which they began to find their voice. This notion of ‘voice’ extended beyond the verbal repertoire to include gesture, metapragmatic signs such as smiling, and other means of communication. A further dimension of their ‘becoming’ was their focus on bringing up and managing a young family. Everyday Encounters The day-to-day practices of buying and selling in the indoor market were normally characterized by good humour, conviviality, generosity of spirit, and people’s willingness to get on with other people. The market hall can be described as ‘superdiverse’, with people of myriad national, educational and socio-economic backgrounds, with different legal statuses and biographical trajectories, coming together in zones of encounter where social relations were rapidly formed, and just as rapidly moved on from. This superdiversity had become normalized over time, as a result of accumulated experiences of difference. Difference was something that people lived with, and differences between people could even at times have a unifying effect. Proficiency in English was not a requirement for convivial interaction with others in the indoor market. Rather, a willingness to engage with others was a social skill required in this superdiverse context. Voice The market was a place in which encounters were often ephemeral, even where they were serial, and relationships were formed in brief interactions, usually between market traders and customers. However, the fleeting nature of many interactions in the market did not mean that practices did not sediment into registers, or norms, as they were repeated. We saw that elaborate performance, including gesture and mime, was a feature of the spatial repertoire of the market, as people with different proficiencies in different languages entertained themselves and each other, and conducted commercial interactions. We saw people create points of communicative overlap, often through metacommentary on appearance, language, and gesture. However, we also saw that the interaction of biographical trajectories and spatial repertoires was not always a straightforward experience for all concerned. Everyday Translanguaging We frequently observed communicative interactions which included movement across languages, but in which languages were by no means the most 4 significant dimension of the translanguaging event. The translanguaging repertoire in play was a repertoire which incorporated biographies and learning trajectories; it included aspects of communication not always thought of as ‘language’, including