Germans in the United States

Identities are formed within specific cultural and societal contexts, and language is a very important tool for the formation and communication of these identities. Before people emigrate, they are usually not aware of how much their identities are products of one particular society, culture and language. Identities are not only expressed through language, but they are also shaped, confirmed and challenged by others within these particular societal and linguistic contexts. This book explores how acculturation levels and cultural identities of German immigrants are conveyed in discourse. The analysis of the data from group interviews with sixteen German immigrants who have resided in the San Francisco Bay Area for one, five, ten and twenty years, demonstrates how time influences the construct of the immigrant identity. This book examines code-switching and deixis of person, place and time to show the relationship between acculturation, multicultural identity formation and discourse analysis. Applying discourse analysis to acculturation studies, this book offers the concept of cultural reinvention of immigrant identities as an alternative to the concept of acculturation. It is geared towards readers who are interested in German immigrants in the United States, intercultural communication, cultural adaptation and sociolinguistics.