Scaling diasporic soundings in the globalised world: A study of Polish stops in the UK

Abstract

This article examines the intersection of ethnicity, class and gender in situated acts of identification of Polish-speaking migrants in the UK through analysis of stop aspiration. Discourse analysis demonstrates that the migrants differently scaled and positioned themselves and others in transnational timespace despite their shared background. This was also accompanied by various orientations to available linguistic resources. Quantitative methods show that both ideology and the language system influenced aspiration with adherence to ‘standard’ Polish norms falling along a continuum from nationally-oriented to ‘Cosmopolitan’ speakers. Female Cosmopolitans relied on English-like VOTs with a tendency to signal (dis)alignment from Poland/the current locality. The study draws attention to the bodily semiotics of self-presentation highlighting the role of phonetic realisations in contemporary processes of value attribution.