Language in autobiographical narratives: Motivation, capital and transnational imaginations

Anderson’s notion of imagined communities has helped to focus attention on the complex connection between language and membership of social groupings. This article explores the sense of membership of an imagined transnational community of ‘Europe’ through a selection of autobiographical narrative interviews in a multi-nation study of identity formation. Data drawn from a sample of European Union citizens reveals how people narrate their experiences
of transnational mobility and how languages feature in their storytelling. We present evidence of key linguistic situations and encounters, including childhood experiences of other languages, experiences of education, as well as language choices in mature relationships and careers. We engage with the question of what it means to identify oneself as a learner, user or non-user of
languages in the context of cross-border mobility. To the extent that language acquisition is advantageous for expanding cultural horizons, increasing mobility, extending networks and enhancing careers, the data is consistent with concepts of imagined community and language learning motivation. However, we also see evidence that linguistic diversity is a source of inequality and that languages can exclude as well as include. This prompts a conceptual discussion designed to articulate the problem that what is imagined is less than a collective
identity or community, and more a mental frame of reference. In this context, we consider the applicability in the European context of the metaphor of linguistic capital, investment, markets and the right to speak developed by Bourdieu and others. Extempore narratives provide particularly valuable data for showing how social relations of language are configured and how
they are experienced as constraint as well as opportunity.