MOBILIZING LINGUISTIC AND SEMIOTIC RESOURCES, CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES IN LOCAL LIFE WORLDS: MIGRANT WORKERS FROM TIMOR- LESTE AND THEIR FOOTBALL CLUBS

Abstract

This paper is based on research of a sociolinguistic and ethnographic nature, which was carried out with young migrants from Timor-Leste, who were based in a small town in Northern Ireland (CABRAL; MARTIN-JONES, 2017). Through this research we traced their migration trajectories (via Portugal or England), and we documented the agentive ways in which they were dealing with local conditions of settlement and employment, and, at the same time, creating new spaces of solidarity and conviviality within local life worlds. We focus here on one particular life world – that of sport – and on the nine football clubs formed for Timorese men and boys in this local Irish setting. We describe and analyse three different aspects of the communicative practices that were developing around the football: (1.) The linguistic, cultural and semiotic practices involved in the naming and branding of the clubs e.g., practices that indexed different Timorese identities (from different regions of Timor-Leste) and practices that indexed different globalised cultural worlds of football; (2.) the language resources of the Timorese club managers (including Tetum, Portuguese and English), and their organisational practices, their ethos and their funds of knowledge; (3.) the significance of the scheduling of football tournaments around key dates in the establishment of the nation of Timor-Leste – a regular practice that indexed an orientation to a shared national origin.