Choosing between Italian, dialect and English: Linguistic repertoires across generations of first and second generation Italian migrants in Bedford (UK)

This paper describes the plurilingual repertoires of two Campanian heritage speakers settled in Bedford, England. It focuses on code choice and code-switching between dialect, Italian and English in first and second generation migrants. By comparing the linguistic behaviour of two speakers, Giovanni and Carmela, it attempts to verify whether and to what extent the code choice between Italian, dialect and the dominant language of the society is conditioned by the situation speakers are involved in. In order to do so, the paper inevitably adopts a predominantly qualitative and ethnographic approach. The paper demonstrates how code choice is predominantly conditioned by external parameters and, in particular, by the relationship with the interlocutor, the type of communicative event, the feeling of belonging assigned by speakers and community members to the variety that constitutes the migrants’ repertoire.