Language, Identity, and the Body in Relation to Others: Sensemaking in a New Migratory Space

This chapter considers how linguistic and spatial repertoires are experienced and understood by English-origin adults who now reside in Sweden. Focus is given to the role that lived experiences of language play in the construction of participants’ repertoires, and most importantly, how lived experiences moderate the availability and accessibility of an individual’s acquired repertoire. The key theoretical notion used in the chapter is that of the ‘body image’, which is seen as being formed from the social, relational, and inter-human interactions of a subject, and importantly, for this chapter, is the idea that the body image is key in understanding current interactional practices, as well as expectations of interaction and wider ideologies of communication.