Xiaoyi Zhang, Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen, John Hajek
ABSTRACT This article examines the language life of young Malaysian Chinese immigrants in Australia and their construction of multi‐membership as reflected in their daily language behaviors. It develops the concept of everyday linguistic citizenship and uses this concept as a theoretical lens to understand how the young adults build, maintain, and negotiate their membership of different social units through language. Ethnographic interview data suggests that the participants’ language practices, language beliefs, and (perceived) language activism, which showed their rights and responsibilities within the communities they engaged in, were guided by affective conditions and social commitments. The young adults' language practices and language beliefs were where they negotiated their membership and sense of belonging, expressed their sentimental attachments to, and exhibited the emotional dimensions of their everyday linguistic citizenship of different (imagined) groups or institutions. The participants’ (perceived) language activism, on the other hand, showed their desire/endeavor to engage with meaningful attempts beyond daily activities to enact the participatory aspects of their everyday linguistic citizenship. The young adults’ citizenship status in multiple communities might be, however, in a strong or weak form, depending on non‐language factors that had an influence on their connection with people in these communities.