Sounding Out Difference: Polycentricity of Ideological Orientations among Polish‐Speaking Migrants in Transnational Timespace

Abstract

This article reports emerging polycentric ideological orientations among UK‐educated middle‐class Polish‐speaking young adult migrants living and working in South‐East England in 2013–2014. The analysis of phonetic‐semiotic details in stance‐taking acts in chronotopic representations of experience reveals a continuum of sociolinguistic authority in which despite a shared sociocultural background, sociolinguistic possibilities are differently conceptualized and enacted. A close examination of the ways in which the participants exploit differences in clusters of morphonological detail demonstrates that English‐like realizations in Polish, while motivated by particular linguistic context and discursive function, co‐occur mainly in the speech of female “cosmopolitans” to signal orientation toward relevant social images and create locally valid and recognizable value effects. The relational, collective, and embodied soundings of sameness and difference depend on scalarity and complex interconnections between ethnicity, class, and gender in transnational timespace. The findings have implications for studies of variation and migrant discourse.

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