Negotiating Linguistic Disruptions and Connections in Migratory Contexts: Language Practices among Child Migrants in an Urban Market in Ghana

Abstract

This article employs ethnographic methods to investigate communicative practices that shape the linguistic repertoires of child migrants in Agbogbloshie, an urban market in Ghana. Similar studies discuss the relationship between language and migration by focusing on language shift and loss among migrants; this article argues that migrants in complex linguistically diverse spaces—motivated by both social and economic dynamics of their space—make linguistic choices while negotiating their daily lives that lead to the development of complex, heterogeneous linguistic repertoires and practices. Data were gathered from interactions at childcare centers, where child migrants spend the day with peers and caregivers, and migrant homes, where child migrants spend the evenings and weekends with their families. The data reveal that while migrant parents negotiate their own multilingual practices with their migrant children, child migrants expand their linguistic repertoires through relationships and interactions with caregivers and peers in childcare centers and neighborhoods, leading to the development of heterogeneous language practices that neither their parents nor caregivers necessarily possess. The article concludes that migration may lead to complex linguistic diversity. The study contributes to Indigenous perspectives on linguistic diversity and our understanding of the structure and nature of super-diversification.