Multilingualism and Crossborder Mobility: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography of Myanmar Migrants in Tengchong

Drawing from the concept of linguistic entrepreneurship, this paper investigates how four Myanmar migrants in Tengchong mobilize various resources to invest in their multilingual repertoires for enhancing entrepreneurial opportunities, as well as how their language entrepreneurship experiences intersect with diverse social factors to influence the realization of their entrepreneurial aspirations. The findings based on semi-structured interviews indicate that Chinese-mediated multilingual competence serves as linguistic capital for Myanmar migrants in China to achieve their multilingual entrepreneurship, which can be converted into cultural, economic, and social benefits. On one hand, Chinese proficiency plays a significant role in the cross-border mobility and employment prospects of Myanmar migrants. It enhances the cultural identification of Myanmar migrants of Han Chinese to China, assists migrant workers in securing high-paying jobs, expands social networks, and facilitates career advancement and upward mobility. On the other hand, after migrating to China, Myanmar migrants continuously employ diverse strategies to improve multilingual skills and cultivate multilingual resource identities, thereby expanding their entrepreneurial networks. However, the successful transformation of their multilingual capital into entrepreneurial aspirations is not without problems. Despite displaying various entrepreneurial qualities in empowering their life trajectories in China, Myanmar migrants are confronted with different material constraints that June unintentionally hinder them from achieving their entrepreneurial dreams. This study can expand the scope of the existing scholarship of multilingualism and social mobility by examining the lived experiences of a cohort of Myanmar migrants in an under-explored but geopolitically important context.