Is “Language as the Key to Integration” A Myth? Legitimate Speakership and the Politics of Recognition in Migration Context

Abstract

Drawing on critical sociolinguistics, this article questions the widespread assumption that language competence straightforwardly results in integration. It argues that what matters in everyday evaluations is legitimate speakership, namely whether speakers and their varieties are recognised as credible, acceptable, and worthy of being heard. Drawing on focus group discussions with university students, the article examines how encounters with migrants and refugees are narrated and interpreted through language, categorisation, and social evaluation. A narrative analytic approach is used to trace how participants make sense of the relationship between language and migration within their story worlds. The findings show that, across narratives, language is repeatedly intertwined with other social categories such as ethnicity, refugee status, and racialised privilege. They further show that speaking the dominant language does not guarantee social recognition for migrants, as legitimacy is negotiated through evaluations of accent, variety, and the social identities associated with them. The article therefore argues that the language-integration nexus is better understood through the politics of legitimate speakership rather than linguistic ability alone. It concludes that approaches reducing social acceptance and cohesion to a shared language risk overlooking the social conditions and gatekeeping practices that shape who is heard as legitimate and who is kept at the margins.