New Ethnicities and Language Use is a study of self-representations of their own patterns of language use of a group of 30 adolescents of mainly South Asian descent in West London. The study contributes to an analysis of the nature of ethnicity amongst Britain's visible minorities at the turn of the century. The young people portrayed are living out British identities which go largely unrecognized, as dominant voices both inside and outside their communities seek to foreground and hold in place alternative positionings of them as principally Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims or as Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, or again as Panjabi, Gujarati, Hindi, and Urdu speakers. However, a significant number of these young people, while retaining both diasporic and local links with a variety of traditions derived from the Indian subcontinent, are nevertheless fundamentally shaped by an everyday low-key Britishness - a Britishness with new inflections. This sensibility marks them as Brasians.

About the Author:
Roxy Harris is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Science and Public Policy at King's College London, UK