Spatial and linguistic mobility in the narrative of a transnational speaker between Peru and Italy

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the language-space relationship by analysing the way Latin American transnational speakers experience mobility processes and the way these shape their linguistic practices and identities. Namely, the focal point of this study is the way spatial and sociolinguistic bordering are constructed and conceived by analysing the narrative of a transnational woman who experienced back and forth migration between Peru and Italy with her family. I will analyse this aspect from a theoretical point of view in the first part of the paper, where I will refer to that part of the literature that, while studying the relationship between language and migration, addresses questions about how language ideologies, the centre-periphery dynamics, as well as the material conditions of diaspora influence language practices and the construction of social identity in contemporary societies. I will then explore these epistemological aspects through the voice of a Peruvian transnational woman relating the social and sociolinguistic cross-bordering she experienced with her family through her spatial mobility.