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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1329

Part of Session 191: Language variation, identity and urban Space (Other abstracts in this session)

Language and Identity within two Communities of Italians in the UK: the case of 3rd generation Italians in Bedford and Peterborough

Authors: Guzzo, Siria
Submitted by: Guzzo, Siria (University of Salerno, Italy)

The town of Bedford in the East of England is home to the largest Italian community in the UK that began to arrive in town in the early 1950s to seek employment in the local brick industries which were in desperate need of labour. Among other related communities in the UK, Peterborough is home to a significant group of Italian descents too.

Earlier results collected by means of a questionnaire survey, informal interviews with adolescents and audio recordings across three generations of Italian descents concentrate on the Bedford Community (Guzzo 2005, 2007, 2010) revealing quite a significant use of Italian, an extremely strong ethnic identity perception, a strategic use of both Italian and English in the workplace context according to the interlocutor within the Bedford composite hybrid community of speakers. 

Through natural occurring data collection, aiming at mapping and investigating the different sociolinguistic situations of all the Italian communities in the UK, I question whether other communities, such as the one in Peterborough, could reveal interesting patterns, similar or different compared to the Bedford findings. More specifically, 3rd generation adolescents who show phonological realisations, especially among the males, highly untypical of the area (Guzzo 2007) and lead the change within the Bedford Italian Community represent an attractive starting point to observe potential convergences/divergences in these two Anglo-Italian communities.