Life in a New Language

This volume breaks new ground by focusing on Doings: a group of diverse researchers collaboratively doing close listening and looking over 20 years, as adult immigrants to Australia engage in doing life, things, words, family, and work in a new language. The result is not only new understandings of the participants' self-making, but also the making of a new research trajectory that focuses not simply on the learning of a language, but on humanity doing life in language." Ofelia García, The Graduate Center, City University of New York)
This is a moving book that represents the voices of migrants on their challenges and successes across different kinds of boundaries. It embodies impersonal structural and geopolitical pressures as negotiated in the dreams and aspirations of migrants. The authors share findings from decades-long separate research projects to develop richer insights, as a model for data sharing and ethical research." Suresh Canagarajah, Pennsylvania State University
Without any exaggeration this is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I am blown away by not only the variety of stories, but also how they are analyzed with keen insight and clear links to policy/planning, all without ever getting bogged down in academia-ese. I was even able to see myself in many of the stories, despite that I obviously came to Australia with both English background proficiency and the "non-immigrant" image you discuss in the text. Noting how others dealt with their experiences was eye-opening, and made me appreciate even further the hard work that goes in to joining a new community who speak a different language than you, or even a different English than the one you expect. * Dr. Wes Robertson, Discipline Chair, Languages and Cultures, School of International Studies, Macquarie University *