ELF e le varietà linguistiche afro-asiatiche nella Sicilia dei migranti

Abstract

Abstract – This study arises from recent research within the context of a new Sicily, where the various ethnic groups inhabiting it have become EFL users who have different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and appropriate English without necessarily conforming to its grammatical and lexical norms. This phenomenon places Sicily in a complex position with regard to the construction of EFL speakers and English itself becomes the language which is used for everyday conversation and social interaction within and outside the migrant communities in Sicily. Though Sicily is not a former British colony, a high number of immigrants living there speak one of the so-called new Englishes as a result of British colonisation. In this perspective, their usage of English acquires peculiar linguistic and cultural connotations, which define the language they speak for communication as a hybrid global English, which is spoken by non-native English immigrant speakers in a variety of Anglo-English mixed with other languages and dialects. This chapter brings into focus two levels of communication that involve on the one hand, that of immigration – that is to say, non-native English speakers who communicate with one another in a double mixed linguistic variety which is the sum of their native language/dialect (French, Indian, Arab, etc.) and English and, on the other hand, that of societal and cultural contacts between immigrants and Sicilians in a triple mixed linguistic variety which is the combination between each immigrant's native language/dialect, a hybrid Sicilian/Italian language and a hybrid form of English which derives from colonial and postcolonial history. Specific case-studies will support this paper to testify to the use of English as a relexified, hybridised and cannibilised language, which is adapted to the immigrants’ phonological, syntactical, lexical and semantic necessities as a result of EFL practice which, apparently, subverts the binary oppositions centre/margin, self/other, national/international, local/global.