In order to explore translinguistic precarity in greater depth, we need to do three things: First, move towards a sufficiently complex understanding of what precarity means (and does not mean). Is it a general condition of our times, a longstanding effect of capitalist exploitation or an emergent property of unequal social relations? Second, we need to think through ways of relating precarity to language. It is not enough to predefine precarious lives in terms of marginalisation, poverty, struggle or discrimination and then to assume that the language used by or towards such speakers is necessarily precarious or produces precarity. We need instead to understand the co-articulation of translingual practices and lived experiences of precarity, asking how one informs the other. So third, it is important to understand the dynamic interactions among material relations, language ideologies and linguistic resources, where precarity may be an emergent feature as much as a pre-condition, of a local assemblage. Drawing on data from our longitudinal metrolingual project we make a case for understanding translanguaging and precarity in relational terms, entangled with family and friendship support structures, contingencies of the local economy, gender norms, cultural and religious practices, and local language policies and possibilities.

Based on fieldwork at a Japanese restaurant in Toronto, this study uncovers the transnational workers’ complex power dynamics that exist behind the façade of jovial translingual practices. Through the multi-layered analysis of the restaurant’s menus, video-recorded staff meetings and worker interviews, we found that linguistic and semiotic resources used to enhance the ethnic identity of the business can cause frictions among the workers, whose linguistic resources are embedded and valued differently at the local and global levels. Japanese managers hold institutional power over the decisions concerning the restaurant’s identity and language policy. These managers, who have limited English skills, actually rely on the creation of a Japanese-dominant space, supported by the global popularity of Japanese cuisine, as a means of survival in the English-dominant local community. The managers depend on English-speaking servers to interact with local customers. On the other hand, the servers, who have limited Japanese skills, consider the restaurant as just a temporary stop on their transnational journey and envision their future as being in the global English-speaking labor market. This study shows how translingual practices, often romanticized as a representation of cosmopolitan conviviality, are built on the precarious grounds of power negotiations and job security among transnationals.