{"title":"“I know how to improve. You know what I mean?”. Neoliberalism and the development of multilingual identities through study abroad","authors":"Vasilica Mocanu","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0088","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present article examines the relationship between study abroad and the construction of multilingual identities regarded as more marketable in the neoliberal economy. The main objective is to provide an insight on student mobility and dominant visions of the future in line with which languages are chosen to be taught/learned at tertiary level and how this offer mirrors the economized perspective adopted in the higher education system. It focuses on European higher-education students participating in study abroad through the Erasmus program in three contexts across Europe (Finland, Romania, and Catalonia). In the first place, the article delves into the ways neoliberal discourses on the value of study abroad and the skills that are expected to be acquired through the experience – this is, the type of individuals that the participants might become – shape their decision to enroll in a sojourn abroad in a particular context. Secondly, this article analyzes to what extent European youth participating in study abroad eventually perceive they added to their identities the desirable marketable skills they expected and how they consider this is going to materialize in the future. By looking at how multilingual identities are constructed through the Erasmus program, this study hypothesizes that study abroad is another mechanism embedded in educational practices that respond to economic demands in which the marketization of language skills plays a prominent role.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47106863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A comparative analysis of two cases of language death and maintenance in post-Islam Egypt and Great Khorāsān: reasons and motives","authors":"F. Dehghan, Masoumeh Dehghan, M. Farkhondehzadeh","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0053","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper compares two areas of Egypt and Khorāsān in post-Islamic era regarding the loss and maintenance of their mother tongues. While in Egypt, Coptic was gradually removed from both formal and colloquial usages, in Khorāsān, Persian (Farsi or Parsi Dari), though was out of official and governmental services for more than two centuries, was able to finally maintain its status. The most important reason found behind this difference can be attributed to the independence seeking movements in Khorāsān (e.g. Sho’ūbieh), leading to the establishment of the first post-Islamic independent Iranian governments who supported the revival of Iranian culture and the maintenance of Persian language. Secondly, the migration of Arab tribes and the Arabization of the conquered societies were more successful in Egypt compared to Eastern Iran, which changed the demographic composition of Egypt. Moreover, the role of Persian-speaking epic poets, the social class of dihgāns in Iranian society and the fact that Coptic was not as old a language as Persian are other important reasons. It is argued that language maintenance can happen better in cases where top–down governmental and institutional support exists.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49408598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discursive valuing practices at the periphery: Javanese use on Indonesian youth radio in multilingual Solo","authors":"Udiana Puspa Dewi, Zane Goebel","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0039","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper seeks to understand how languages are discursively identified and valued within a youth radio station in Solo, Indonesia. This study seeks to contribute to the body of knowledge on the dynamic relationship between the national language, Bahasa Indonesia, and the local language, Javanese, by utilizing a social value and centre-periphery lens to approach continuity and change in present-day Central Java. Valuing practices are observed by examining the situated use of linguistic features and norms of their use within specific social practice (radio programming). From June 2020 to July 2020, a total of 120 h of radio content was recorded for analysis. Analysis showed that valuing practices emerged in response to the use of linguistic features within different radio segments of the program. The formation of participatory frameworks in the periphery and the evaluative commentaries accompanying them contributed to the construction of norms for using these linguistic features. Our analysis shows how paying attention to evaluative practices can highlight how the value of sets of linguistic features emerge, circulate, and are transformed within the media practices in the periphery.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47636183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sweden’s multilingual language policy through the lens of Turkish-heritage family language practices and beliefs","authors":"U. Bohnacker","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0059","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study explores the language maintenance efforts of Turkish heritage-speaker families in Sweden and their relation to state-level language policy from three angles. First, Swedish mainstream language ideology is described as it manifests in legislation, language policy and mother-tongue tuition. Then, the language practices of the families of 105 Turkish/Swedish children (age four to seven) are characterised via a questionnaire survey. This is complemented by findings from a follow-up study two years later, where ten of the families participated in interviews and home observations. Parents preferred to speak Turkish and wanted their child to learn and speak Turkish alongside Swedish. Another common denominator was the children’s early, extensive preschool attendance. Parent-child interaction was predominantly Turkish, although second-generation parents raised in Sweden reported higher uses of the majority language Swedish. Exposure to Swedish increased over time due to schooling, sibling interaction and media use, but third-generation children still spoke Turkish to a considerable degree. In their heritage-language maintenance efforts, many parents enlisted the support of grandparents, mother-tongue tuition, and literacy activities. Parents generally considered Turkish and Swedish equally important and showed low levels of anxiety regarding their children’s bilingualism, unlike what has been reported in studies of the same ethnolinguistic group in other national settings. The interviews revealed that parents who consulted Swedish health professionals and teachers were advised to speak and support the heritage language (Turkish) and maximise exposure to it in the home. Whilst unusual from an international perspective, this is in line with the official multilingual language ideology in Sweden.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41443768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2023-frontmatter283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2023-frontmatter283","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135200296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“That’s all it takes to be trans”: counter-strategies to hetero- and transnormative discourse on YouTube","authors":"Hanna Bruns","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2023-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2023-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The discourse surrounding transgender people has for a long time been influenced by certain narrative practices necessary to authenticate people’s trans status to medical professionals. This conventional narrative (master narrative), based on ideals of hetero- and cisnormativity, has led to stereotypical representations of trans identities. These largely continue to exist today. Nevertheless, counter-discourse to these stereotypical representations is becoming more prominent. Particularly YouTube has become an increasingly popular platform for counter-discursive action. The current case study therefore focusses on two transgender YouTubers who challenge the normative ideals by creating their own counter-discourse. The YouTubers address four major topics of stereotypical representation: the ideal of binary gender, heterosexuality, the wish to transition in order to pass as cisgender, and the belief that transgender people have always identified as the other gender. The two creators recognise the discursively reproduced stereotypes and use a combination of five different strategies to refute them: Inversion, Parody, Complexification, Shift, and Personal Experience. Making use of these strategies, the subjects’ positive discourse aims at presenting a multi-faceted representation of transgender identities.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49459032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Positioning English as the international language during the Interamerican scientific integration: the role of multilingualism in defining the scope of a scientific journal in the mid-20th century","authors":"Yuirubán Hernández-Socha","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2021-0129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2021-0129","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Caldasia, a journal published by the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, was the arena of language tensions originating in scientific exchanges in the mid-20th century at a time when English was in the process of affirming its place as the lingua franca of science. In the 1940s, the journal showed indications of a multilingual process reflected in the considerable presence of US authors and their articles in English published in its pages. This paper examines Caldasia’s communication circuit, specifically the negotiations that emerged between the editor and US researchers when deciding on the most appropriate language for publishing the articles. Selecting the language of the articles was considered by them as a critical element in determining the geographical scope of the journal, positioning Caldasia as a regional or international journal. This analysis demonstrates how the tension between multilingual repertoires and linguistic ideologies was experienced in Caldasia. The editor promoted Caldasia as a multilingual journal and to reach this objective the editor managed the multilingual repertoires of the authors in the journal. The case of Caldasia indicates that the Anglicization process of science in the XX century required intense scientific contacts carried out in non-English-speaking spaces; multilingualism was one of the strategies by which English became a globally accepted language.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48965190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Raciolinguistic perspective on labor in the Americas","authors":"Lara Alonso, Laura Villa Galán","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2023-0051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2023-0051","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This introduction presents the concept of raciolinguistic ideologies and discusses its potential to look at issues related to labor in the Americas. We explore the concept of raciolinguistics as a helpful anchor for researchers to examine the co-construction of race and language. Additionally, we link the current reproduction of social and economic inequality to the interconnection of slavery and capitalism stemming from the colonial projects. We briefly present the six contributions to this special issue, a collection of works that rely on different theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and analytical approaches to examine the (re)production of inequality in American labor markets as it materializes in unfair working practices and discourses that naturalize labor discrimination across the region. The six papers included in the issue offer an interesting dialogue between the raciolinguistic perspective and political economy approaches. Finally, these papers highlight four overarching themes: the repercussions for vulnerabilized communities of the stratification of the labor market, the ways in which the commodification and decommodification of racialized languages tend to favor powerful social positions, the way in which language authority operates to decide what counts as legitimate languages/speakers; and the need felt by speakers to make discursive sense of raciolinguistic practices and discourses.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48495479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Língua e raça no Brasil colonial","authors":"C. Severo, Sinfree B. Makoni","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0072","url":null,"abstract":"Resumo Neste artigo, exploramos e analisamos o processo de racialização da língua portuguesa e dos sujeitos africanos no contexto colonial brasileiro. Para tal, exploramos a relação entre as dimensões econômica e política do colonialismo e as práticas linguísticas dos povos africanos escravizados no Brasil. À luz do aparato colonial português – que combinava interesses religiosos, políticos e econômicos – este artigo analisa o papel desempenhado pelas línguas e pelas ideologias linguísticas racializadas, tanto na promoção da exploração como na resistência à dominação colonial. A partir de uma perspectiva histórica e crítica, analisamos o dispositivo econômico e social que sustentou os africanos escravizados no Brasil, profundamente orientado por um sistema baseado no modelo do engenho. Exploramos quatro exemplos: o uso dos termos boçal, ladino, crioulo e língua; a aprendizagem do português pelos africanos escravizados e o papel da proficiência em português; a política de nomeação e etnização; e as ideologias linguísticas missionárias. Apontamos para a relação entre quatro elementos inter-relacionados: as dimensões ideológicas da língua, os processos de racialização, a dominação econômica e as práticas de resistência. Concluímos em defesa de um conceito descolonizador de língua em contextos coloniais que considere a pluralidade de vozes e a epistemologia crítica inscrita na noção de multilinguismos diaspóricos coloniais do Sul Global.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44781699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International students and their raciolinguistic sensemaking of aural employability in Canadian universities","authors":"Vijay A. Ramjattan","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0067","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract International students in Canadian universities are deemed valuable immigrants for the Canadian nation as they are equipped with formal credentials easily recognizable for local employers. Despite having desired technical skills and knowledge, the English of these students is perceived as hindering their ability to voice this expertise. This then forces international students to think about how language can affect their employability during their studies. Drawing on a narrative analysis of the experiences of 14 international students in Ontario and focussing on speech accent, this article explores how they make sense of aural employability, the ability to be heard as employable, through participating in Canadian higher education. The students connected aural employability with ‘sounding Canadian’ through raciolinguistic sensemaking, a type of sensemaking that interprets the linguistic world with various ideologies of whiteness. Such sensemaking speaks to how Canadian universities, as sites of workplace language learning, cannot be divorced from the white settler logics that pervade these institutions.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41481618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}