Translingual Discrimination: Skilled Transnational Migrants in the Labour Market of Australia

Abstract

Drawing on linguistic ethnographic data, this study examines the language-based discriminatory experiences of skilled transnational migrants in the labour market of Australia. Moving beyond two main concepts of ‘interlingual’ and ‘intra-lingual’ discrimination in applied linguistics, this article points out the concept of ‘translingual discrimination’, which refers to inequality based on transnational identities’ specific linguistic repertoires and backgrounds that are substantiated by the national order of things. Translingual discrimination adds intensity to transnational processes, with the skilled migrants showing particular potential for exclusion regarding two factors: translingual ‘name discrimination’ and ‘English discrimination’. ‘Translingual name discrimination’ is a homogenous form of ‘name’ policing, evident in multiple examples where the skilled transnational migrants’ job applications are often largely rejected on the grounds of their ‘birth name’ written on their curriculum vitae. ‘Translingual English discrimination’ is another common form of discrimination, where the skilled transnational migrants become subject to discrimination based on their English proficiency and their overall language skills, leading to ‘the paradoxes of migration’—discrepancies between the imagination and the reality—where they fall from ‘hero to zero’ in the host society.

INTRODUCTION

The current mass transnational flows of people moving to new spaces and seeking better opportunities is increasing, where ‘transnational identities’ (Darvin and Norton 2014)—migrants who retain the imprint of both countries of origin and settlement—emerge, ‘driven by diverse goals, serving different needs of the nation-state, and equipped with varying levels of capital’ (Darvin and Norton 2014: 113). Transnational identities, which Bhabha (1994) speaks of as a third space, no longer need to depend on the boundaries of home/host countries, as their movements allow for a super-diversity of forms of contact and communication that are available in a range of transnational communicative resources, modes, and repertoires (Hawkins and Mori 2018). The sociolinguistic movements of these transnational identities are often treated as emergent and embryonic, constantly being re-formed by the communicative dynamics of their participants (Li 2018).

Many of these transnational identities arrive as skilled migrants in the host society, seeming to belong to a truly global scale level of advancement, along with some who truly benefit from transnational mobility, while another major portion appears to play against the ‘national order of things’ in the country of settlement (Malkki 1995: 516). They are brought down to rigid domestic veracities in many aspects of their lives, including the labour market as one of the foremost obstacles (Li and Campbell 2009). A form of ‘translingual discrimination’—the language-based discrimination against transnational identities—may become an adverse impact of transnationalism, emerging specifically from the national order of employers (Ruecker and Ives 2015). Translingual discrimination is at the core of power processes characterized by transnational settings, and its main effects tend to be linguistic stratification, division, and prejudice among its participants. Such cases, we believe, illustrate much of the real-world challenges of transnationalism, and this analysis will bring out the vulnerability of these skilled migrants in the domain of the transnational labour market. Our study seeks to reveal that translingual discrimination that shapes the discriminatory experiences of these skilled transnational migrants, very often functions as the unyielding mechanism of selection and exclusion. What challenges and issues do these skilled transnational migrants face in the labour market? In what ways does their identity as skilled transnational migrants shape experiences of translingual discrimination?

LANGUAGE DISCRIMINATION IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Research on language discrimination in applied linguistics has been widely discussed in the main framework of Linguistic Human Rights (LHRs), foregrounding interlingual and intra-lingual discrimination as its two key concepts (Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas 1995; Blommaert 2001; Makoni 2012; Wee 2011). Interlingual discrimination is primarily based on the unequal relationship between minority and hegemonic language groups at the level of inter-nations, where minority groups are not able to fully utilize their mother tongues in critical participation within the dominant society. This may lead to ethnic conflicts since particular minority languages are often linked to specific ethnic groups. The account of interlingual discrimination, however, has been criticized by certain scholars for heavily focusing on unequal language power relations at the level of inter-nations, described by Blommaert (2001: 135) as the situation where a particular language identifies the nations, which in effect classifies nations as ethnolinguistic groups. Language discrimination is thus reduced to conflicts between particular language categorizations conveniently named ‘language’ that belong to certain nations (e.g. Mongolian, English, Russian, etc.), while overlooking the complex ‘intra-group’ relations with its ‘hegemonic–minority’ model. Its diversion from internal inequalities presupposes the existence of a ‘language community’ since it assumes that ‘the promotion of the mother tongue is the best way to ensure the protection of speakers’ socio-economic interests’ (Wee 2005: 49).

While the term interlingual discrimination is not necessarily obsolete and still has applications in the context of inter-nation linguistic power struggles, in a number of ways, the concept of intra-language or intra-lingual discrimination has instead been proposed as a more suitable candidate for an understanding of language discrimination, since it is much more useful to appreciate internal or intra-group linguistic inequalities (Blommaert 2001). If an intra-lingual variation is accepted as a potential source of discrimination, then speakers of non-standard varieties of the particular standard language can claim to be the victims of discrimination as they are judged to be less acceptable than their standard-using counterparts (Makoni 2012) . The tension between the correct form associated with an institutional setting such as school and the degrading of a non-standard variety associated with informal settings such as home may mean that language users themselves often collude in their own intra-lingual discrimination (Wee 2011) . Users of Singaporean English (Singlish) are, for example, potentially discriminated against due to a language policy that promotes Standard English in Singapore, while devaluing other language varieties such as Singlish (Wee 2011) . Intra-lingual discrimination is, therefore, mainly contested within an in-group space, where the speakers of a non-standard variety may endure resistance even from their fellow speakers within the same linguistic group (Blommaert 2001).

While a canonical view of intra-lingual discrimination is based on the premise that speakers are discriminated against on the basis of certain in-group linguistic variations, the process of investigating intra-lingual discrimination also involves a host of exclusions. The core belief of intra-lingual discrimination raises questions about whether it adequately addresses transnational linguistic differentiation beyond ‘intra-groups’ and its complex interconnection with other transnational factors because it pays its main attention to particular group-specific and same in-group linguistic community rights. The core linguistic battlefield is located in the space that exists between the standard and non-standard varieties within the linguistic community of the same nation, still aiming towards the central grammar and lexicon of sub-varieties of the dominant language, which is what leads to Singlish, for example, still being categorized as English. Indeed, language discrimination may also occur within, beyond, and across intra-groups because someone who is the victim of intra-lingual discrimination in one context may be celebrated in another, depending on the particular situation (Dovchin, 2021). Speakers of Singlish, for example, do not necessarily always ‘fit’ the definition of intra-lingual discrimination because they can also be fêted when they move beyond Singaporean contexts, where it can also be considered as legitimate. Intra-linguistic exclusion, centred on nationally defined sub-varieties, lacks adequacy to deal with other transnational linguistic possibilities. As Makoni (2014: 24) notes, the intra-lingual discrimination framework does not address ‘gendered forms of language discrimination, thereby underscoring the complexity of the notions of language and “group” on which LHR is anchored, including the complex interconnectedness of cultural communicative practices and power.’

This framework, therefore, must consider socially and discursively constructed transnational group relations that may reflect diverse forms of language discrimination. Just as the concept of inter-language discrimination may do little more than pluralize monolingual discrimination, we are suggesting that the concept of intra-language discrimination does little more than to pluralize internal discrimination while accounting the ‘standardized’ substandard varieties of dominant languages that occur within the same intra-linguistic groups. This approach to language discrimination, thus, cannot do justice to those ‘Other’ kaleidoscopic (Pennycook 2007), vernacular, and pidgin (Mufwene 2002), or emergent transidiomatic practices (Jacquemet 2013), defined by one’s transnational movement.

TRANSLINGUAL DISCRIMINATION

Moving away from the two dominant visions of interlingual and intra-lingual discrimination, we locate the idea of language discrimination in the space of transnational identities within a more complex alternative position that we call ‘translingual discrimination’. As transnational identities start journeying to the globalized third place (Bhabha 1994), their linguistic practices may transform into fluid communicative practices that are available in a range of semiotic resources and repertoires. New terminologies, such as the users of ‘translingual’ (Canagarajah 2018; Lee 2018), ‘translanguaging’ (Li 2018; Perera, 2020), ‘transidiomatic’ (Jacquemet 2013), ‘transglossic’ (Sultana et al. 2015) practices, are thus identified by applied linguists, inclusive of a ‘translingual turn’ in an effort to comprehend the linguistic diversity of transnational identities. The central tenet of this ‘translingual turn’ reiterates the troublesomeness of delineating linguistic topographies through unequivocal language categories and argues for the fluid transitioning between and across language, presenting on-the-spot negotiation of resources for meaning-making (Lee and Dovchin 2019; Fang and Liu 2020). Transnationals are involved with the constant process of semiotic mobility across time and space, and dislocation from and relocation into a newer social context. The pivotal emphasis is on speakers’ ‘fluid and creative adaptation of a wide array of semiotic resources’, and ‘a product of their sociohistorical trajectories through a multitude of interactions across space and time’ (Hawkins and Mori 2018: 2–3).

As transnationals operate in different spaces, they are often positioned in multiple different and uneven universes as the particular translingual experiences they bring with them are assigned different values that are subject to systematic ‘translingual discrimination’. In other words, different ‘orders of translingual indexicality’ in which transnationals’ linguistic backgrounds are operationalized within large stratified complexes, where some forms of repertoires are systemically perceived as valuable, while others are seen as less valuable and are therefore undervalued (Blommaert 2010; Setter 2019). Some are not accepted at all, while all are subject to rules of access and regulations as to circulation by the larger sociocultural context (Lippi-Green 2011). Functions that are considered legitimate in certain dominant settings are enforced on the ways of communicating of transnationals, while their own translingual backgrounds only gain significance when others legitimize them (Flores and Rosa 2015; Foo and Tan 2019). Translinguals do not necessarily just move across transnational space, but they also move across different orders of translingual indexicality (De Costa 2020). Subsequently, what happens to transnationals in communication becomes less predictable than what would happen in their own environment. For example, ‘the English spoken by a middle-class person in Nairobi may not be (and is unlikely to be) perceived as a middle-class attribute in London or New York’ (Blommaert 2010: 38); or the African American Vernaculars could be validated as a middle-class attribute among young urban Mongolians (Dovchin 2018). As Darvin and Norton (2014: 113) note, ‘[w]hat may be a loss in one site, can be a gain in the other’. Similar forms of discrimination also remind us of the discussions in English as a lingua franca, in which it happens in a more mobile or transnational context where English is the lingua franca, but not the host country language (Jenkins and Mauranen 2019; Mauranen 2012).

This view of the ‘orders of translingual indexicality’ also aligns with what Dos Santos and Windle (2020) have noted—‘orders of being’ inspired by Goffman’s (1983: 6) ‘interaction order’, where ‘individuals are socially situated, and situate themselves, through language, in distinctive ways that are shaped by a shared focus and identification of their interlocutor’. Interaction orders may become the recipe for social classification and evaluation of interlocutors, and ultimately, one individual can make judgement of another by just the virtue of directly observing and hearing, placing the subject under observation ‘locked to a uniquely distinguishing identity’, through their outer ‘appearance, tone of voice, mention of name, or other person-differentiating device’ (Goffman 1963: 3 cited in Dos Santos and Windle 2020: 6; cf. Izadi, 2020).

‘Translingual discrimination’ therefore refers to a systemic linguistic inequality characterized by the ‘orders of translingual indexicality’—a linguistic and communicative order of indexicality emerging from the results of mass transnational mobilizations, in which transnational identities’ specific linguistic and communicative backgrounds are either validated or dismissed as soon as they mobilize in the transnational arena (Dovchin 2020a,b). Every translingual register is susceptible to a systemic pattern of authority, of control and evaluation, while concurrently shaping modes of linguistic inclusion and exclusion, and linguistic privileging and marginalization (Flores and Rosa 2015). As Blommaert and Rampton (2011: 12) caution we need to remember how far ‘normativity (or ‘ought-ness’) reaches into semiosis and communication’ because most of the linguistic repertoires that occur in any type of communicative practices can be taken for granted. It only takes, however, ‘a slight deviation’ from habitual or routine practice to send recipients into ‘interpretive overdrive’ as they might start to question what’s going on ‘when a sound, a word, a grammatical pattern, a discourse move or bodily movement does not quite fit’. (Blommaert and Rampton 2011: 12). This substantial scope for deviation in the norms may affect the kinds of effects people notice as illegitimate. As Blommaert and Rampton (2011: 12) further note that there can also be large variety in the ‘situated indexical interpretations that they bring to bear (‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘art’ or ‘error’, ‘call it out’, or ‘let it pass’, ‘indicative or typical of this or that’)’ (Blommaert and Rampton, 2011: 12). A sensitizing concept of ‘translingual discrimination,’ thus, indicates important aspects of power and inequality, where the traces and fragments of transnational linguistic identities that are ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ or ‘acceptable’ versus ‘illegitimate’ in the particular sociolinguistic system may neither be good nor bad enough in the other particular contexts. Translingual discrimination is, thus, the main product of transnational power: it stratifies the registers of transnational identities, weakening their roles in the scope of language as they face a new form of linguistic discrimination that could potentially project racial or other discriminatory beliefs and practices, and create new forms of resistance along the way.

TRANSLINGUAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE LABOUR MARKET

Some of the most prominent instances of translingual discrimination are often cited in the labour market of the host society, where skilled transnational migrants remain in a precarious labour condition brought about by institutional policies and practices (Canagarajah, 2017). Due to their linguistic and cultural backgrounds placing them in the category of transnationals by virtue of them simply being translinguals, their skills in the labour market are continuously de-skilled (Li and Campbell 2009; Piller, 2016). Two main concepts in relation to translingual discrimination in the labour market will be discussed in this study: (1) translingual name discrimination and (2) translingual English discrimination. First, ‘translingual name discrimination’ refers to one of the most prevalent cases among the research participants—where the transnational migrants’ job applications are instantly disqualified, often on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence—that is: one’s ‘birth name’. For many participants, their birth name is considered as the most significant connection to their own identity and individuality. It is far more than just a word, representing the most important aspect of their identity because when someone remembers their name, they feel respected and validated (Edwards 2006). Unfortunately, for many skilled migrants, their birth names have become something they feel ashamed of. Translingual name discrimination, in fact, is reminiscent of previous experimental (correspondence test) studies in which the researchers randomly assigned typical white-sounding names or ethnic-sounding names to two similar fictitious curriculum vitae (CVs). The results indicated that CVs containing ethnic cues, such as a distinctively African American or Asian name, lead to much fewer call-backs than CVs without such cues (Oreopoulos 2011).

Consequently, there is also a large portion of transnational migrants who deliberately ‘play’ with their names, not because they want to be cosmopolitan or creative, but rather they adopt the renaming practice as a strategy to resist the name discrimination, which calls to mind Blommaert’s (2005) concept of orthopraxy where subjects perform hegemonic acts without necessarily subscribing to their ideological underpinnings. A majority of research participants in this study reported that they use ‘fake’ English names to make it easier for ‘English’ ears, as their personal experiences have taught them that any effort to use their birth name, from coffee orders (e.g. all-Australian names that are easy to scribble on the side of a coffee cup) to job applications, is faced with discernment. This practice of altering one’s name is also called ‘CV’ whitening’ (Kang et al. 2016), in which ethnic minorities attempt to avoid anticipated labour discrimination by minimizing or downplaying their ethno-racial clues in job applications. Many immigrants consider this practice as vital and use a range of whitening strategies such as altering their birth names into something more ‘Anglo-Saxon sounding’. According to Goffman (1963: 103), this is an important ‘assimilative technique’ for racial and ethnic minorities because the intention behind name-changing is not solely to pass, but also ‘to restrict the way in which a known-about attribute obtrudes itself into the center of attention’. Thus, in the context of transnationals’ name whitening practices, it involves ‘toning down’ rather than entirely hiding one’s transnational status, while signalling conformity to the employers.

Secondly, ‘translingual English discrimination’ refers to experiences of skilled transnational migrants when their English combined with their translingual backgrounds and skills, becomes a burden (Gu and Canagarajah 2018). Once they transnationally move to other sociolinguistic spaces, they become subject to translingual English discrimination as the ‘native’ or ‘standard’ English becomes the one which, within the institutional limits of that hiring entity, imposes itself as the only legitimate language (Blommaert 2010). Tupas and Rubdy’s (2015) conception of unequal Englishes is useful also in examining translingual English discrimination, where the valuation of linguistic resources become dependent on the identities that possess them rather than the resources themselves. Skilled migrants pay ‘ethnic penalties’ when competing for jobs with locals, receiving unequal treatment not only on the grounds of their race and ethnicity but also on their translingual backgrounds and identities (Li and Campbell 2009). In particular, transnationals with English as an additional language (EAL) backgrounds seem to be considered one of the most vulnerable targets of linguistic discrimination, as they are excluded from the labour market by domestic employers in their initial job screening on account of their translingual identifications (Li and Campbell 2009). Employers rarely give skilled transnational migrants the credit they deserve, and there appears to be considerable unconscious bias against their linguistic, cultural, and communicative backgrounds. Indeed, ‘translingual discrimination’ is amplified, as De Costa (2020: 1) notes, when a speaker is transnationally mobile, ‘multilingual and shuttles between different languages and language varieties because more often than not, her ability to translanguage […] is seen as a liability instead of an asset’. The ‘native’ English is the one which, within the institutional limits of that hiring entity, imposes itself on the whole and leads hiring employers to treat it as the only legitimate language (Ruecker and Ives 2015).

This locally legitimate English becomes the hiring ‘order of things’ against which all other diverse linguistic backgrounds are accurately measured. The employers’ ‘accurate measurement’ seems to be the normative and standardized varieties of English, while they reject the linguistic skills transnationals bring with them. As Jenkins and Mauranen (2019) note, while Australian universities prioritize Standard Australian English, British universities expect the British Standard English. As a result, skilled transnational migrants encounter ‘the paradoxes of migration’ (Firkin et al. 2004: 46) , where their professional experience and English skills transform from ‘hero to zero’ despite their skilled work visas and permanent residency being granted on the basis of their highly valuable professional skills. While many migrants are granted permanent residence and are invited to migrate to the host society primarily based on their past valuable professional skills, the employers in the host society, in fact, place little or no value on their skills after their arrival (Dovchin 2021). As a result, highly skilled migrants are forced to work in low-skilled areas, as for example, a PhD graduate ending up driving a taxi (Coates and Carr 2005). The highly proficient English skills of these transnationals, which were favourably appreciated in their home countries may often be de-skilled in the host society, as their English status goes ‘from hero to zero’. The objectives of this study, thus, address these two main research questions.

• How, and to what extent, do skilled transnational migrants experience translingual name discrimination in the labour market?

• In what ways does their identity as skilled transnational migrants shape experiences of translingual English discrimination?

OPEN ETHNOGRAPHIC OBSERVATION

The study was conducted with regulations for ethical research approved by the Human Research Ethics Office, Curtin University (HRE2018-0529), based on a larger open ethnographic observation (OEO) study, which investigated the daily language practices of 100 English as an Additional Language (EAL) background migrants living in Australia, considering the fact that migrants may speak different languages as first or second languages, while speaking EAL. OEO is primarily used to document the sociolinguistic experiences of interlocutors as they conduct their everyday lives and entail documentation through field notes of multiple observations and reflections, and audio-recording of on-the-spot interaction between the ethnographer and the participants (Copland and Creese 2015; Dovchin 2021). OEO is an open and experimental site in which ethnographers explore and try different ways of analysing language in society. It sets up possibilities for the constant and extended company between the researcher and the key participants through informal discussions and interactions, making the ethnographers’ interpretations more accurate and realistic as both parties have the opportunity to create more meaningful relationships while obtaining in-depth insights into participants’ thoughts and actions (Copland and Creese 2015). It also facilitates the formation of mutual partnerships, or ‘discursive shadowing’ noted by Dewilde and Creese (2016), a process in which the researcher and the key participant are often co-invested in the dialogues.

Under OEO, out of the broader 100 research cohorts, this article specifically focuses on the outcome of a study of four Ukrainian and nine Mongolian background women living in Australia, who have been observed in the period from August 2018 until August 2020 in multiple offline places (see Table 1). The selection of participants was open, welcoming everyone interested. However, the majority of participants who expressed their interest to participate in our research were women. As an ethnographer, the researcher played multiple roles: observer, researcher, interlocutor, and friend. Since Author 1 shared a similar ethnic (Mongolian) and sociolinguistic background (Mongolian and Russian) with these women, some of these roles were either mutually exclusive or supplemented each other at other times. Author 2 is an Australian whose first language is English. Her contribution has expanded our knowledge from an outsider’s perspective. While maintaining these multiple roles was challenging, it also allowed valuable and in-depth insights.

Table 1:

Participant information

Number	Pseudo names	Age	Living in Australia, years	Education level	Profession	Current Job
1	Saruul (Mongolian)	35	15	Postgraduate degree	Accountant	Housewife
2	Bolor (Mongolian)	34	16	Postgraduate degree	Economist	Shop assistant
3	Tseren (Mongolian)	35	12	Postgraduate degree	English Teacher	Receptionist at hotel
4	Khulan (Mongolian)	27	1.5	Postgraduate degree	Business management	TAFE student
5	Gerel (Mongolian)	39	6	Bachelor’s degree	Social economy	Housewife
6	Tsetseg (Mongolian)	26	5	Bachelor’s degree	Early childhood	Kitchenhand
7	Nomin (Mongolian)	27	2	Bachelor’s degree	Sociology	International student
8	Alimaa (Mongolian)	36	1	Postgraduate degree	Lawyer	International student
9	Altai (Mongolian)	42	5	Bachelor’s degree	Nurse	Housewife
10	Oksana (Ukrainian)	35	9	Postgraduate degree	Sports	Child-care coordinator
11	Natasha	51	6	Postgraduate degree	Social psychology	Part-time library technician/housewife
	(Ukrainian)
12	Katya	33	10	Postgraduate degree	HR management	Event manager
	(Ukrainian)
13	Natalia (Ukrainian)	48	8	Bachelor’s degree	Nursing	Shop assistant/housewife

All extracts used in this article were retrieved from the overall 33 h that were spent with these women, in which 12 h of communications were audio-recorded (See Table 2). Most of the time, the researcher spent 1–2 h with the participants without using any audio-recording, but rather cooking, shopping, hiking, visiting cafes, etc. After spending considerable time together, the participants were informed about the beginning of the audio-recording, and the main questions were raised in order to understand what participants’ everyday sociolinguistic practice would look like. The main questions were geared towards these women’s main challenges of living in Australia, their linguistic choices and problems in relation to their English backgrounds (see Appendix 1 for interview questions). In that way, participants gained the opportunity to share their stories as they were experienced by them, as well as offer their own reflections on matters recognized by the researcher.

Table 2:

Data collection information

Number	Pseudo names	Locations	Hours spent	Audio-recorded, hours
1	Saruul	Saruul’s house	4	2
2	Bolor	Bolor’s house	3	1
3	Tseren	Pub	3	1
4	Khulan	Café/Shops	2	1
5	Gerel	Café	2	1
6	Tsetseg	Library	2	1
7	Nomin	Library	1	1
8	Alimaa	Supermarket/Café	2.5	1
9	Altai	Mongolians’ event	4	1
10	Oksana (Ukrainian)	University campus	2	1
11	Natasha	Library/University campus	4	1
	(Ukrainian)
12	Katya	Café	2	1
	(Ukrainian)
13	Natalia (Ukrainian)	Café	1.5	1
Total hours			33	12

To ensure rigorous and accurate analysis, the data collected from OEO enabled the researcher to further triangulate the findings, where the researcher used two different methods (deductive codes/inductive codes) for the verification of the findings (See Table 3). The triangulation tracked both deductive codes related to research questions and inductive codes associated with participants’ reflections. It also enabled verification and editing of text transcripts to ensure the accuracy of the information, while the final transcribed text is exported to the Word file. After double triangulation and cross-examination of the data through these two codes, the corpus data was thematically analysed into sets of main themes such as ‘translingual name discrimination’ and ‘translingual English discrimination’, which were then categorized for their linguistic and content similarities and differences. After the completion of data coding, data extracts from interactions were analysed from the perspective of what research participants told us (content).

Table 3:

Data coding table

Participants’ background	Primary language of open ethnographic observation	Transcription of audio-recordings	Roman Transliteration	Translation
Mongolian participants	Mongolian and sporadic English, depending on contexts	Manual transcription	The Leipzig Glossing Rules	Mongolian–English translation by the researcher
Ukrainian participants	English and sporadic Russian, depending on contexts	Online certified Trint software except Russian	Not applicable	Not applicable

The data triangulation illustrated that all 15 women have self-reported translingual discrimination in explicit and implicit ways in varied contexts in Australia, from informal to formal settings. For all data examples, the application of concepts of both interlingual and intra-lingual discrimination would not necessarily fit as these skilled migrants do not belong to either interlingual or intra-lingual groups. All data examples thus are examined from the concept of translingual discrimination where two main themes are largely present: ‘translingual name discrimination’ and ‘translingual English discrimination’. Interview transcriptions are based on the convention guide below:

Transcription Conventions

regular fonts	Mongolian
italics	English
[…]	explanation of contexts for readers’ comprehensibility
?	question/rising intonation
!	exclamation
****	missing text

TRANSLINGUAL NAME DISCRIMINATION

In Extract 1, Bolor, a Mongolian woman, who lives in Western Australia (WA), is explaining to the researcher how her Anglo-Australian-born friend with an obvious Anglo-Australian name has secured a full-time job almost immediately. In contrast, Bolor is still looking for a full-time job after having lived in Australia for almost 15 years. Bolor has a university degree in finance, banking, and business management from a reputable university in Mongolia. Despite her degree and skill, Bolor has not found a suitable job in Australia yet. Bolor has been working as a shop assistant for a few years and has only started her undergraduate degree in accounting in one of the universities in Australia at the age of 37 years, despite her previous university degree from Mongolia.

Extract 1

Number	Informal conversation	Mongolian-English Translation
1	Bolor: Ajil deer minii neg ayagui sain naiz okhin baidag yum. Nadaas nileen duu baikhaa.	There is a good girlfriend of mine at work. She is much younger than me
2	Researcher: Za?	Yeah?
3	Bolor: High schoolee tugsuud unid orood gants khoyor jil yavj baigaad teriigee khayaad tegeed manaid casualaar orood.	[She] finished her high school and went to uni for a year or two and actually left it [for good] and joined us as a casual
4	Researcher: Aankhan?	Uh huh?
5	Bolor: Ayugui khuurkhun aashtai maashtai. Tugsuugui. 25tai.	She has a lovely personality. Hasn’t completed [her uni]. [Only] 25 [years old]
6	Researcher: Hmmm	Hmmm
7	Bolor: Ter tegsen nadaa ‘Khuuee! Bi ajil oltson full time!’ geel tekhgui yu!	Shen then told me: ‘Hey! I found a full-time job!’
8	Bolor: ‘Uu! Yostoi bayar khurgey bi!’ geel!	‘Oh! Big congratulations!’ I said
9	Bolor: Tegsen chini ‘I only applied for 10 jobs’ geel avaad khayadag yum daa!	But then, shockingly, she said: ‘I only applied for 10 jobs!’
10	Researcher: What?	What?
11	Bolor: Tegsen chini neg ni minii yag sonirkhood baisan teller meller geed job. ANZ banknii first level job.	Then her new job was exactly the job I was so interested. Some kind of teller job. ANZ bank’s first level job.
12	Bolor: Tegeed bi kharin ‘Did u only apply for ten jobs? And you had like 2 or 3 interviews?’ I applied like hundreds of times for those too!	Then I asked her again: ‘Did u only apply for ten jobs? And you had already like 2 or 3 interviews?’ I applied like hundreds of times for those too!
13	Bolor: Bi bur maybe namaig bol ‘Khuush! Ene ner mer ni khaanakh chi yum bilee!’ geel khaschikhdag baikh. ‘Angliaar yarij chaddag ch yumuu ugui yumuu’	Maybe they might have rejected me assuming, ‘Hey! We wonder where her name is from! [She] might not even be able to speak English!’’
14	Bolor: Tugsuugui 25-tai. Tegeed angaital avdag yum daa. Localshdee.	Didn’t complete [her] uni. Only 25. I was shocked. She is a local.

In Extract 1, Bolor ardently describes to the researcher about her encounter with translingual name discrimination based on her Mongolian birth name, which may easily give away her transnational identity. Bolor explains that her Australian-born friend is someone who is much younger than her (25 years old), with a great personality, who quit her university studies, and joined Bolor’s workplace as a shop assistant. Bolor hints that her Australian friend is much more inexperienced than Bolor, because Bolor completed her university degree in the area of bank management in Mongolia. Bolor further reveals her shock to discover that her Australian friend secured the same job (bank telling) that Bolor has vainly been applying for. Her friend only applied for 10 jobs with 2–3 interview invitations, while Bolor has been applying (and is still applying now) for the exact same jobs ‘hundreds of times’ without a single interview invitation.

In line 13, the core of Bolor’s perceived translingual discrimination is based on her assumption that her applications might have been rejected due to her transnational sounding name, hinting that her Mongolian name could be the cause for instant disqualification, as her CV has never been given a chance to get her into an initial interview. Bolor’s name is a traditional Mongolian name, Bolor Perliijantsan (pseudonym), and she started feeling uncomfortable with her name being demonstrated on her CV as it is. Bolor’s name is the most obvious marker of her translingual identity, creating cultural and linguistic implications that, when compared with local Australian names indicate local culture and experience, are less valued. This can be demonstrated by Bolor’s local Australian friend securing full-time work after only applying for 10 jobs, compared with Bolor sending out hundreds of CVs with no success. The friend, being a young local Australian with intrinsic knowledge of Standard Australian English and having an Anglicized English name, has access to job opportunities that are not within Bolor’s scope.

Bolor’s translingual identifying information, which is obviously not from English or European roots, may be considered by many employers as low on the order of translingual indexicality (Blommaert, 2010), which leads to the real-world consequence of Bolor being unable to find a job in her preferred field, despite her translingual competence, and work and postgraduate educational experience. Her background and experiences are undervalued because her translingual name implies that her linguistic and educational experiences do not fit in with standardized and Anglicized English norms (Li and Campbell 2009). This institutional exclusion means that despite Bolor’s capability and employability, she is not seriously considered as a suitable candidate, putting her in a precarious and unstable position within Australian society.

Bolor shows that she is conscious of the exclusion that she receives. Later, she reveals that she has adopted a strategy to, at least, pass through initial CV screening by altering her name to sound more Australian, [‘I was going to change my name’]. Once she gets in, Bolor reasons, she would have a chance to persuade interviewers to seriously consider her (Interview, 7 September 2018, WA). Therefore, the participants felt like they had no choice but to alter or change their names as a way to overcome discrimination, downplaying their ethno-racial identities (Kang et al. 2016) in a bid to conform to the expectations of employers. As another Mongolian participant, Nomin, with a postgraduate degree in teaching English from the National University of Mongolia, notes, ‘I have been ashamed of my Mongolian name since I arrived in Australia. It puts me in a place where I feel like an alien. This is why I use my shortened English name nowadays’ (Interview, 22 September 2018, WA). Another Mongolian participant, Altai, a former businesswoman in Mongolia, explains, ‘I’m convinced that the employers choose Australian-sounding name over any types of Mongolian or foreign-sounding name [when they check the CV]. It is quite obvious and it has been like this for many many years’ (Interview, 11 August 2019, WA). In the next Extract 2, we will discuss how whitening one’s birth name is utilized by Oksana (35), a Ukrainian woman, living in WA.

Extract 2

Oksana (35), a Ukrainian woman in Western Australia, has gained her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in sports science and management from her home country before arriving in Australia. She was extremely confident that she would find an appropriate job within her skill capacity when she first arrived in Australia. Unfortunately, she ended up being unemployed for the first 2 years, which led her to depression for that entire period. When she finally found a job, she was pressured into volunteering at an aged care centre under the perception that she would get the job after a month of work experience. However, she was never given the promised job. Currently, she works at a childcare centre, which is not necessarily related to her university degree. She also started taking new courses at an academic institution in Australia in the field of early childhood education to align with her current work (Interview, 1 May 2019, WA).

Number	Interview transcripts
1.	Researcher: Can you tell me more about the challenges you have faced [in Australia]?
2	Oksana: Yeah. First, I have to change my last name when I was applying for [job]
3	Researcher: Job?
4	Oksana: For job, so instead of writing my last name, like last name ends with a suffix -ova
5	Oksana: I was writing my husband's last name because his last name was
	(without a suffix). So, it's like, and my name is Oksana, but just so don't look so much Russian or Ukrainian I was***
6	Oksana: I was*** I changed my name for Oksana and just and we also in Ukraine have a second name by our father. It's like my father name is a typical Eastern European male name. So, I'm in passport …
7	Oksana: *****. But here, if I would put this in my CV, everywhere, they would say, where I'm from? Post-Soviet Union country so I didn't put it, so I changed my names and … Because before that no one was responding to me, I probably sent around like hundreds of CV and I didn't get a response. Until I did some changes

Indeed, what transpires from Extract 2 is that her life in Australia was dominated by the despair of being unemployed, as Oksana indicates seeking employment as being one of her major ‘challenges’ (lines 1 and 2). She explains how she sent her CV to ‘hundreds’ of employers (line 7) with no success. From the perspective of Oksana, her Ukrainian name, which represents ‘Russian’ sentiment (line 7), continuously plays against her and is seen as indexical of the ‘Other’, as no single employer out of ‘hundreds’ was ‘responding to’ her CV (line 7). Instead, the employers were asking her where she was from, ‘they would say, where I'm from’ (line 7)—the consequences of ‘Othering’ or ‘identity denial’—a type of threat to one’s identity that was inflicted on the recipients through the question of ‘where are you really from’, as is often misperceived as either ‘from another country’ putting the addressee instantly at a disadvantage (Li and Zhu 2016: 454). The ‘name whitening’ practice is also apparent in Oksana’s case where she altered her birth name by removing her heavily ‘post-Soviet sounding/looking’ last name (pseudonym) ‘Пугачева’ [‘Pugacheva’]’s suffix, ‘-ева’ [‘-eva’] to give more Western feel. Instead, she used her husband’s last name, which is presented with no ‘-eva’ suffix that may sound more Western to locals’ ears and eyes (line 5). Whitening her name, therefore, does not necessarily render a disfavored translingual migrant completely invisible, but it makes the most damaging features less prominent , as Oksana describes, ‘So, it's like .. and my name is Oksana, but just so don't look so much Russian or Ukrainian’ (line 5) (Interview, 1 May 2019, WA). Oksana's resisting strategy, therefore, reminds us of Goffman's (1963) idea of ‘covering’ where one manages a stigmatized identity through attempting neither to entirely disguise a stigmatized feature nor to downright appear as members of the majority group. Instead, the goal is to downplay the salience of particular characteristics that might nurture discrimination. As Goffman (1963: 103) notes, ‘persons who are ready to admit possession of a stigma (in many cases because it is known about or immediately apparent) may nonetheless make a great effort to keep the stigma from looming large’. After Westernizing her name on her CV, Oksana finally managed to get a few callbacks as she mentions in line 7 that no one was responding to her until she did some changes.

Overall, the data examples we have presented in this section reveal that a good portion of transnationals self-report their experience with name discrimination for job applications. In fact, a majority of research participants in this study (11 out of 13) have had their CV rejected ‘hundreds of times’ by employers since their migration to Australia, with no chance of passing through the initial CV screening stage that secures interviews. These rejected groups assume that one of the most obvious or likely reasons for these massive rejections is their ‘birth names’ which most likely sound or look ‘translingual’, that is, the explicit tell-all or direct representation of translingual names.

In the next section, we will discuss another prevalent form of translingual discrimination—‘translingual English discrimination’—where transnationals’ job applications are often largely rejected on the grounds of the particular ‘translingual English’ they display. English, which supposedly belongs to transnational identities, is often precisely measured against the normative and standardized variety of English, validated by those hiring entities.

TRANSLINGUAL ENGLISH DISCRIMINATION

A Ukrainian woman, Natasha, has a PhD degree in educational sciences, a Master’s degree in Psychology, and a Bachelor’s degree in History. She was a lecturer at one of the most prestigious universities in Ukraine, while she published a large number of research articles in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. In fact, Natasha is fluent in those three languages. Natasha was in a privileged and strong position in Ukraine, where she was educated and employed by the best academic institutions in the country. All too often, unfortunately, according to Natasha, she found it ‘extremely difficult’, or at times, ‘almost impossible’ to get secure and fulfilling work that would match her skills in Australia (Interview, 29 April 2019, WA). Natasha’s CV has been disqualified from the very first initial stage ‘hundreds of times’, if not thousands, with one of the main rejection grounds, according to Natasha, due to ‘seeking native/near-native English speakers’ (Interview, 29 April 2019, WA). Even for those like Natasha, whose CV hinted substantial clues about her high qualifications and skills to hiring personnel in Australia, and with English papers published in international journals, her CV, in reality, has continuously played against her chances at finding a job. This discrimination was validated, perhaps, by the preceding perceptions or stereotypes on ‘native speakerism’ in which her Australian employers operate. Her CV has continuously ‘given off’ predefined typecasts about Natasha’s linguistic, cultural, and academic background, allowing employers to make quick interpretive judgements from just a ‘CV’ to an individual. Natasha’s strong image of a truly vibrant translingual citizen—a Ukrainian-educated Australian with translingual skills of English, Ukrainian, and Russian, with an Australian passport, clearly portrayed on her CV, had in fact become the rejection basis of how she would likely communicate or perform at work. The strong clues about her professional trajectories, translingual skills, transnational movements, all taken together, construct a new kind of translingual profile, one that does not, unfortunately, fit the hiring conditions of the employer, but one that fits the realities of many struggling transnational identities. So, while Natasha belongs to a truly transnational scale level of mobility, the treatment of her CV is brought down by the employers to an unyielding local institutional order. After living almost 11 years in Australia, Natasha is still looking for that ‘perfect’ job, after sending out hundreds of CVs (Interview, 29 April 2019, WA). We will discuss this type of ‘translingual English discrimination’ further in the next section through a Mongolian participant.

Khulan, a Mongolian woman, explains to the researcher in Extract 3, how she has been experiencing ‘the paradoxes of migration’ (Firkin et al. 2004) , where her English and translingual skills are often seen as a burden instead of an asset by Australian employers. After sending her CV out to hundreds of employers, Khulan has never managed to find a suitable job. Here, she outlines one of her experiences during a job interview:

Extract 3

Number	Informal conversation	Mongolian–English translation
1	Khulan: Minii Angli kheliig interview deer zasaad!	My English was corrected during the [job] interview!
2	Researcher: Yaaj?	How?
3	Khulan: ‘Very’ gedeg ugiig ‘Worry’ geed duudsan yum shig baina lee… Tegsen chini khajuunaas neg khuukhen aimar changaar ‘Very Very’ gej zasaad!	I think I mispronounced ‘Very’ as ‘Worry’… Then there was a woman [in the selection committee] who loudly corrected it as ‘Very Very’!
4	Researcher: Tiim uu?	Really?
5	Khulan: Bi V and W zuruulj khelsen yum shig baina lee…	I guess I mispronounced V as W…
6	Researcher: Hmm!	Hmm!
7	Khulan: Minii accentiig ikh ‘international’ accent baina geed ineeldeed baisan!	[Then] they were kind of laughing sarcastically, saying that my accent was kind of ‘truly international’!
8	Researcher: Ineeldeed ee?	Laughing?
9	Khulan: Bi Englishee saijruulaad accent deeree ajillakh kheregtei yum baina gej oilgood l garsan…	I understood to my core that I should improve my English and work on my accent when I left that interview…
10	Researcher: Hmm…	Hmm…
11	Khulan: Tegeed ayugui ikh nukhurteigee practice khiideg bolson! Ayugui ikh news uzdeg bolson. Khamaagui deerdsen!	So, I started practicing a lot with my husband! I also started watching a lot of news. I improved a lot!
12	Researcher: Tiim uu?	Yeah?
13	Khulan: Gehdee l odoogooroo oligtoi ajil oldokhgui! Yagaad gevel namaig khen ch khun gej avch kheleltsekhgui ugaasaa!	[I] still can’t find a suitable job nowadays! Because my identity as a person is already damned here!

Khulan describes to the researcher that her English, which was slightly Mongolian accented, was corrected by the selection committee members during her job interview (Interview, 13 August 2019, WA). She specifically recalls the incident, where she mispronounced ‘very’ as ‘worry’ (line 3)—a common mistake for many Mongolians, who often confuse the ‘v’ sound with ‘w’ (line 5). Khulan further recalls the moment where the selection committee people ‘laughed sarcastically’ and called her English accent ‘truly international’ (line 7). Perhaps, this sarcastic way of referring to Khulan’s accent as international is another way of politely rejecting her English as ‘translingual’. Khulan starts describing her strategy to improve her English after many failed interview attempts, as she started practicing her English with her Australian husband and started watching a lot of Australian news (line 11). Khulan admits that her strategy has immensely helped her improve her English and her accent, but she still has not found the right job yet. She is still jobless because she assumes that her translingual background is useless or, in her own words, ‘damned’ in Australia (line 13) (Interview, 135 August 2019, WA).

Overall, Khulan’s translingual English accent does not, systematically, fit the hiring condition of the employers, but one that fits the sad realities that transnational identities face. To speak of translingual-accented English is tacitly to disrupt the position of the English language of that particular employment unit. Khulan’s translingual English she had brought with her from Mongolia to Australia means that she has lost her credentials during her transnational mobility, which has penalized her for becoming a ‘translingual English speaker’. In other words, Khulan has been socially classified and her English, despite her fluency and translingual skills, has been found wanting. The dynamic between her as a job interviewee and the powerful position of the interviewers, leads to an order of being, where language defines the social situation of individuals (Goffman 1963; Izadi 2020). Therefore, instead of Khulan being seen as a skilled employee with linguistic talents, her English features are viewed through a deficit lens—as ‘truly international’. Despite this obvious admission that Khulan is a cosmopolitan individual, the true intent is to show how Khulan’s translingual English is not suitable for the job on offer, with these repeated rejections leading to her self-belief that her identity in Australia is ‘already damned’. This identity invalidation shows the fragility of the situations that many transnational people face in searching for a job in Australia, and shows that despite all the skills that people like Khulan bring to the table, interactions that expose English varieties and features can lead to social classification and discrimination, which can cause great difficulty in the lives of transnational and translingual speakers when gaining employment.

Extract 4

In a similar vein to Khulan in Extract 3, Saruul, a Mongolian woman, explains to the researcher in Extract 4 how she has been experiencing ‘the paradoxes of migration’, where her English and translingual skill are often seen as a burden instead of an asset by Australian employers. Back in Mongolia, Saruul had a university degree in business administration and she was working in one of the biggest international mining companies in Mongolia as an office manager. She enjoyed her work and lifestyle in Mongolia until she met an Australian man and decided to marry him and move to Australia with him. After whitening her name and sending it out to hundreds of employers, Saruul has never managed to find a suitable job. She still stays home, looking after her two children. Not only is her English not appreciated, but also her vibrant linguistic skills, such as her fluency in Kazakh, Mongolian, and Russian, have never been appreciated either.

Number	Interview transcripts	Mongolian–English translation
1	Saruul: Bi ajiltai turultei, bolovsroltoi *** Uuriin uchiraa oltson gekhiimuu, tee? Uuriin gesen tiim bailaa shd, tee? Mongold baikhdaa yamar baiv, tee? Tegeed end ireed, yakhav? Shuud gert suusan!	I had a job, education*** I got my shit sorted, right ? I had my own life, right? How [good] was my life back in Mongolia, right? Then when I came here, what happened? I sort of, abruptly stayed home!
2	Researcher: Tekh…	Yeah…
3	Saruul: Er ni shuud ajild oroy gesen tertee tergui minii Englishiig goldog, tee? Englishiig golno, Mongoliig ni tookhgui, Orosiig ni tookhgui, Kazakhiig ni avch kheleltsekhgui!	I wanted to work straight away but my diploma didn’t work, right? I had my English unappreciated, my Mongolian unaccounted, my Russian ignored, my Kazakh unaccounted!
4	Researcher: Tekh…	Yeah…
5	Saruul: Mongoldoo baisan bol khezee ch ingekhgui baikh baisan yum! Shal uur tuukh baikh bailaa!	If I was in Mongolia, I would have never been in this situation! It would have been a completely different story!

Saruul describes her ‘from hero to zero’ scenario where she had it all in Mongolia, while she lost everything in Australia (line 1). She compares her previous established life with a proper job (a manager at a company) and education (postgraduate degree in business management) in Mongolia to her current ‘unemployed’ life in Australia, where she ‘stays home all day’. She explains that her English skill which was considered as ‘high-level’ English in Mongolia was not welcomed in Australia: that is, one of the main rejection grounds for her unemployment in Australia (line 3). She also hints that her translingual skill—a fluent speaker of English, Russian, Mongolian, and Kazakh—is unappreciated by employers in Australia (line 3). Overall, even those like Saruul, whose translingual skill, which was highly valued in Mongolia, has, in reality, continuously played against her for being a transnational identity and decreased her shot at finding a suitable job. Saruul further comments that she would have been better off if she were still in Mongolia (line 5), while also revealing later in the interview ‘Everyone was so proud of my multilingual skills in Mongolia, but now I have no use for them’ (Interview, 5 August 2019, WA). This example also reminds us of one of Heller’s (2003) key arguments that language resources circulate in unequal ways in social networks and discursive spaces and they are organized in ways that make sense not only in a specific social context but also at a particular time. This is apparent in Saruul’s experience, where she suffers from migrational paradoxes (Firkin et al. 2004) , where her wide array of talent and experience is unrecognized by employers due to her translingual identity, which is not normative enough to Standard Australian English for her to be seriously considered as a job applicant.

Saruul’s transnationally vibrant and linguistically resourceful translingual profile does not, unfortunately, fit the hiring condition of the recruiters, but fits the sad realities that transnational identities agonize. After living almost 15 years in Australia, Saruul is still looking for that ‘perfect’ job, after sending out ‘hundreds of’ CVs (Interview, 5 August 2019, WA). To speak of non-standard English, with further ‘translingual specifications’, as transnationals do, is tacitly to disrupt the official definition of the official language of that particular employment unit. Overall, the linguistic, cultural, academic, professional resources, and skills she had brought with her during her departure from Mongolia and move to Australia lost their essential values during her transnational mobility. By the time Saruul was ready to offer her skills and resources to employers in Australia, they had been transformed into negative trajectories that are played against her.

CONCLUSION

In this article, we have discussed how translingual discrimination may play out across skilled transnational migrants, those who leave their country of origin for settlement in another country to seek a better livelihood. Moving beyond two main concepts of language discrimination in applied linguistics: ‘interlingual’ and ‘intra-lingual’ discrimination, translingual discrimination refers to inequality based on transnational identities’ specific linguistic repertoires and backgrounds that are substantiated by the national order of things. When transnational identities move from one social space into another, their linguistic background is affected, and the result can be imagined as something like a ricochet thrown back against their lives. Translingual discrimination adds more intensity to transnational processes, with the skilled migrants in this study showing particular potential for exclusion regarding two factors: ‘translingual name discrimination’ and ‘translingual English discrimination’.

‘Translingual name discrimination’ is a homogenous form of ‘name’ policing, evident in multiple examples where the transnational identities’ job applications are often largely rejected on the grounds of their ‘birth name’ written on their CV. Consequently, transnationals are forced to apply the strategy of ‘CV whitening’ in order to subtly camouflage information about aspects of their translingual identity that would most likely become a basis for discrimination. This is done through actions such as ‘whitening one’s name’. ‘Translingual English discrimination’ is another common form of discrimination, where the skilled translingual migrants become subject to discrimination based on their English proficiency and their overall language skills, leading to ‘the paradoxes of migration’—discrepancies between the imagination and the reality—where they fall from ‘hero to zero’ in the host society despite their permanent residence being granted on the basis of their highly valuable work skills. The monolithic standard English becomes the hiring norm against which all other diverse linguistic possibilities are measured. Translingual English and other heritage languages of transnationals are placed in the bottom of the employers’ order of things, stereotyped as the repertoire of ‘non-native’ Asian or Eastern European English, expanded by ‘unworkable heritage languages’ such as Mongolian, Kazakh, and Ukrainian etc., whose translingual identity is mainly created by circumstances outside any form of Australian ‘normalcy’.

This leaves a final point and implication: while it is far too easy to complain about translingual discrimination in the labour market, the point that needs to be made is graver than that. It is ultimately about the discrepancies between the rigid national order of employers for deciphering skilled transnational migrants from the reinforced homogeneity and space where many migrants no longer correspond to the classifications of such orders (Canagarajah 2017). What would the livelihood of skilled transnational migrants look like if employers interpret their CV tied to an individual’s peculiar biographical trajectory? What if employers read their CV as set in a real context, and validate their qualifications as a real achievement accomplished by real people? If they do not, their CV will make no sense, leading to rejection based on the flimsiest evidence such as, for example, one’s ‘birth name’. We suggest that we accept these skilled transnational migrants as who they are and appreciate their ‘educated’ and ‘informed’ conditions of life as their reality (Blommaert 2010). Language policymakers should consider current linguistic maxims in its policy that prepares national employers for ‘foreign-sounding transnationals’ name’ as a non-pragmatic issue and that matters of one’s ‘not-native’ and translingual English background are just surface features that do not necessarily indicate one’s linguistic competence in the deep grammatical structure of the language. The very fact that these transnational identities were ‘formally’ educated outside Australia, and they learned their English in the context of their deeply informed life, should be taken seriously (Dovchin 2021). The results are linguistically vibrant and socioculturally and linguistically informed identities, and such translingual ‘vibrancy’ should be expected as ‘employable’ under national employers’ order of things. The transnational mobility of these migrants should strengthen their linguistic position that is not tied to any form of ‘employers’ linguistic order’, if not a national and established regime of language.

Funding

This research was supported by Australian Research Council (grant number DE180100118), the Department of Home Affairs (grant number 4-AXFMHKT) and the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

Conflict of interest

There is no conflict of interest to disclose.