This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of the Canadian policy discourse surrounding language and immigrant integration, focusing on the interdiscursive processes through which it recontextualizes discourse elements from a neo-liberal skills discourse, an academic discourse of language as communicative competency, and a research discourse of language as a factor in immigrant incorporation. This dominant discourse on language and integration is based on standard language ideology regarding the functional importance of language skills for economic integration of new immigrants and legitimizes (...) the increased salience of language within the Canadian immigration regime. It also plays a mediating role in changes in discourse practices surrounding language and integration policy associated with a neo-liberal transformation of the Canadian immigration regime. (shrink)

Transnational dynamics have significantly changed established notions of communities and belonging. Transnational perspectives however remain marginal in research on European identities which has typically conceptualised the latter as emerging from and relying on essential national referents. Drawing on data derived from members of a transnational organisation promoting civic participation in Europe, this paper challenges existing representations of Europeanness by offering a new interpretive metaphor of networked identities. Findings suggest that through this schema members are able to construct and reimagine their (...) belonging along axes that often bypass national identification. Identities are constructed along a spatial dimension that challenges a stable core–periphery or bounded logic, instead dynamically reorganising hierarchies and bringing to the fore individual agency, fluidity and creativity. In this context we argue, from an emic perspective, that the network metaphor represents a powerful referent for imagining European identity as more dynamic, complex and processual than previously conceptualised. (shrink)