The multilingual literacy practices of Mirpuri migrants in Pakistan and the UK : combining new literacy studies and critical discourse analysis
This thesis is part of a four-year study of a Mirpuri family's migrations, as seen through the lens of New Literacy Studies. This means understanding literacy as a social practice, applied in different contexts to meet different purposes, in this case for the purposes of migration. This focus meant exploring many different activities involving reading and writing in the everyday lives of migrants and relating these to those individuals' migrations embedded in the histories of specific Pakistani communities, their literacies and their migration trajectories, as well as the development of immigration policies in the UK. The study draws on the experiences of many family members but centres on one individual who migrated to the UK from Pakistan during the course of the fieldwork. Taking an ethnographic perspective implied taking part in many of these activities as well as observing them and asking about them in interviews. This generated a range of data from many different community locations in Mirpur and Hillington. These data were analysed by combining New Literacy Studies with Sociolinguistics and Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), specifically the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). What this meant was that
Capstick, Anthony Vincent
The multilingual literacy practices of Mirpuri migrants in Pakistan and the UK : combining new literacy studies and critical discourse analysis. This thesis is part of a four-year study of a Mirpuri family's migrations, as seen through the lens of New Literacy Studies. This means understanding literacy as a social practice, applied in different contexts to meet different purposes, in this case for the purposes of migration. This focus meant exploring many different activities involving reading and writing in the everyday lives of migrants and relating these to those individuals' migrations embedded in the histories of specific Pakistani communities, their literacies and their migration trajectories, as well as the development of immigration policies in the UK. The study draws on the experiences of many family members but centres on one individual who migrated to the UK from Pakistan during the course of the fieldwork. Taking an ethnographic perspective implied taking part in many of these activities as well as observing them and asking about them in interviews. This generated a range of data from many different community locations in Mirpur and Hillington. These data were analysed by combining New Literacy Studies with Sociolinguistics and Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), specifically the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). What this meant was that
multilingual literacy_practice migrant pakistan combine_new literacy study critical_discourse_analysis part year study family migration see lens new literacy studies mean literacy social_practice apply different contexts meet different purpose case purpose migration focus mean explore many_different activity_involve read_write everyday live migrant relate individual migration embed history specific pakistani community literacy migration trajectory well development immigration_policy study_draw experience many family_member centre individual migrate pakistan course fieldwork taking ethnographic perspective imply take_part many activity well observe ask interview generate range_data many_different community location data_analyse combine new literacy studies sociolinguistics critical_discourse studies cds specifically discourse historical meant