Professional and cultural identity performances in transnational, middle-class migrants: A sociolinguistic case study of the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Previous studies on English language users in the United Arab Emirates have largely focused on the local, native populations in higher education and its K-12 school environments. While significant and necessary, a large piece of the puzzle, a focus on UAE’s burgeoning and transient, professional, multilingual, middle-class, expatriate population, has been overlooked, most likely due to issues of access. The current study addresses this research gap by investigating the professional identities, language use, and cultural selves of a segment of the middle-class migrant population. Drawing on survey data, the paper argues that due to their transient and impermanent status in the UAE, this population has a higher propensity towards transnationalism which in turn heightens their cultural, linguistic, transcultural, and translinguistic flows and ways of being. In addition, this study calls for further and continued investigations of migrant populations to widen our understanding of the ever-changing sociolinguistic complexities of the UAE.

Department(s)

English

Document Type

Article

DOI

10.1080/14788810.2024.2341458

Keywords

cultural and linguistic flows, language use, middle-class migrants, transnational, United Arab Emirates

Publication Date

1-1-2025

Journal Title

Atlantic Studies Global Currents

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