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

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 the 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 that is used for everyday conversations and social interactions within and outside the communities in Sicily. Though Sicily is not a British ex-colony, a high number of immigrants living there speaks the so-called New Englishes as a result of British colonization. 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 up with other languages and dialects. This paper brings into focus two levels of communication that involve, on the one hand, communication at the level 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, communication at the level of societal and cultural contacts between immigrants and Sicilians in a triple mixed linguistic variety. This gives rise to a function that is the combination between each immigrant’s native language/dialect, a hybrid Sicilian/Italian language, and a hybrid form of English springing 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 an EFL practice which, apparently, subverts the binary oppositions centre/margin, self/other, national/international, local/global.