Uso e forme dell’inglese come marcatore identitario tra expat e migranti

According to the few studies on new migration, migrants who migrated in the last two decades usually consider themselves different from those who had migrated in the Fifties or the Sixties. They highlight this perceived difference through their ability to keep the varieties of their linguistic repertoire (i. e. Italian and English and/or the language of the host country) separated. Although there is a growing body of studies on this topic, further surveys are needed to better understand the specific linguistic behaviour of expats who perceive their experience to be different from that of recent migrants who do not identify with the category of expat. Therefore, this paper aims to compare two groups of migrants: the members of the first one who do not perceive themselves as expats but as 'migrants' or 'Italians abroad'; and a second group of Italians who consider themselves as 'expats'. The analysis focused on code-switching to English by expats and non-expats settled in two Anglophone cities, Toronto and London. The aim was to verify if there is variation among these two groups and if expats more frequently use English than the migrants who refuse to be included in the expat category. In doing so, we discussed the role of the use of English as identity marker by expats, adopting both a quantitative and a qualitative approach.