JAPC Special Issue: Language and Communication of Asian Diaspora Communities in the West

Guest Editors: Florian Coulmas, Zi Wang



East Asian communities have been visible in the West for several decades. At the turn of the 21st century, this is only becoming increasingly so, as manifested by the rapid rate of growth of Chinese communities in a number of Western societies. Although much has been said about such diaspora movements from Asia to the West in terms of migration motives, issues of (non)integration into host societies, as well as questions of cultural identity and heritage, there has been less attention paid to the role of their native language in intra/inter-communal, and inter-generational communication, as well as issues and challenges of maintaining their home language in Western host societies.


This Special Issue of JAPC focusses on language and communication practices of East Asian diaspora communities in Europe and North America. The JAPC invites scholars whose works focus on language, migration, and society to analyse current situations of language (non)maintenance of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean communities, taking into consideration the following non-exhaustive list of issues:


窶｢The presence or lack of support frameworks, either from the host society or self-organised, to help maintain home language.
窶｢Different issues of language and identity faced by first and second-generation migrants.
窶｢The heterogeneous nature of a single community (e.g. in terms of geography of origin, period in which migration to the West occurred, socio-economic backgrounds) and different attitudes towards and practices of language (non)maintenance.


Contributors to this Special Issue will be asked to analyse home language maintenance and issues of communication both within a single community and between the community and the host society. Although we ask authors to include empirical findings related to one community (Chinese, Japanese, or Korean) in one specific Western host society, works of a comparative nature are equally welcomed. This may include studies that examine two or more migrant communities or one community in two or more host societies. Interested authors should send a brief abstract (400 words) stating the theme, methodology, and aim of the paper by 31 August 2018 to Florian Coulmas (florian.coulmas@uni-due.de) and Zi Wang (wz1205@gmail.com).