Gender, identity, and the political economy of language: Anglophone wives in Tunisia

1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Walters
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Mixed Marriages ◽  
A Site ◽  
Political Economy Of Language ◽  
Tunisian Arabic

ABSTRACTUsing the frameworks of the political economy of language, and of language use as acts of identity, this study attempts to describe and analyze the situation of natively anglophone wives living with their Tunisian husbands in Tunisia – a speech community characterized by Arabic diglossia and Arabic/French bilingualism. Particular attention is devoted to these women's beliefs about using Tunisian Arabic (TA), the native language of their husbands, and the ways in which access to TA or the use of it becomes a site of conflict between husbands and wives, or mothers and children, in these mixed marriages. (Gender, identity, political economy of language, ideology, Tunisia, Arabic, francophonie, diglossia, code-switching, bilingualism, multilingualism, family relations)

scholarly journals Distributing productive play: a materialist analysis of Steam

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Interaction Design ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sales Promotions ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
New Space ◽  
A Site

Valve Corporation’s digital game distribution platform, Steam, is the largest distributor of games on personal computers, analyzed here as a site where control over the production, design and use of digital games is established. Steam creates and exercises processes and techniques such as monopolization and enclosure over creative products, online labour, and exchange among game designers. Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding framework places communication at the centre of the political economy, here of digital commodities distributed and produced by online platforms like Steam. James Gibson’s affordance theory allows the market Steam’s owners create for its users to be cast in terms of visuality and interaction design. These theories are largely neglected in the existing literature in game studies, platform studies, and political economy, but they allow intervention in an ongoing debate concerning the ontological status of work and play as distinct, separate human activities by offering a specific focus on the political economy of visual or algorithmic communication. Three case studies then analyze Steam as a site where the slippage between game-play and work is constant and deepening. The first isolates three sales promotions on Steam as forms of work disguised as online shopping. The second is a discourse analysis of a crisis within the community of mod creators for the game Skyrim, triggered by changes implemented on Steam. The third case study critiques Valve Corporation’s positioning of Steam as a new space to extract value from play by demonstrating historical continuity with consumer monopolies. A concluding discussion argues Steam is a platform that evolves to meet distinct crises and problems in the production and circulation of its digital commodities as contradictions arise. Ultimately, Steam shows how the cycle of capital accumulation encourages monopolization and centralization.

Digital media communication, intellectual property, and the commodification of language

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-266
Author(s):  
Joseph Sung-Yul Park
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
For Profit ◽  
A Site ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Focusing on fansubbing, the production of unauthorized subtitles by fans of audiovisual media content, this paper calls for a more serious sociolinguistic analysis of the political economy of digital media communication. It argues that fansubbing’s contentious position within regimes of intellectual property and copyright makes it a useful context for considering the crucial role of language ideology in global capitalism’s expanding reach over communicative activity. Through a critical analysis of Korean discourses about fansubbing, this paper considers how tensions between competing ideological conceptions of fansub work shed light on the process by which regimes of intellectual property incorporate digital media communication as a site for profit. Based on this analysis, the paper argues for the need to look beyond the affordances of digital media in terms of translingual, hybrid, and creative linguistic form, to extend our investigations towards language ideologies as a constitutive element in the political economy.

Developing an Economy of Sex

2018 ◽  
pp. 161-181
Author(s):  
Elizabeth S. Manley
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Dominican Republic ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This chapter connects the social and economic history of tourism in the Dominican Republic and Haiti with its impact on masculinity, gender identity, and heterosexual performance. Elizabeth Manley's analysis builds on recent research in anthropology that views sex work as contributing substantially to conflicts of gender relations and changing gender norms. Manley analyzes how these relate to the political economy and development.

scholarly journals Distributing productive play: a materialist analysis of Steam

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Interaction Design ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sales Promotions ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
New Space ◽  
A Site

Valve Corporation’s digital game distribution platform, Steam, is the largest distributor of games on personal computers, analyzed here as a site where control over the production, design and use of digital games is established. Steam creates and exercises processes and techniques such as monopolization and enclosure over creative products, online labour, and exchange among game designers. Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding framework places communication at the centre of the political economy, here of digital commodities distributed and produced by online platforms like Steam. James Gibson’s affordance theory allows the market Steam’s owners create for its users to be cast in terms of visuality and interaction design. These theories are largely neglected in the existing literature in game studies, platform studies, and political economy, but they allow intervention in an ongoing debate concerning the ontological status of work and play as distinct, separate human activities by offering a specific focus on the political economy of visual or algorithmic communication. Three case studies then analyze Steam as a site where the slippage between game-play and work is constant and deepening. The first isolates three sales promotions on Steam as forms of work disguised as online shopping. The second is a discourse analysis of a crisis within the community of mod creators for the game Skyrim, triggered by changes implemented on Steam. The third case study critiques Valve Corporation’s positioning of Steam as a new space to extract value from play by demonstrating historical continuity with consumer monopolies. A concluding discussion argues Steam is a platform that evolves to meet distinct crises and problems in the production and circulation of its digital commodities as contradictions arise. Ultimately, Steam shows how the cycle of capital accumulation encourages monopolization and centralization.

scholarly journals For an international journal in transnational times

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (267-268) ◽  
pp. 213-218
Author(s):  
Joseph Sung-Yul Park
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Academic Capitalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Academic Journals ◽  
Linguistic Practice ◽  
A Site ◽  
Colonial Capitalism

Abstract Academic journals are a site of tension between the perspective of the transnational and international – between an emphasis on the agency and creativity of linguistic practice that transcends boundaries of nations and languages and a focus on the enduring relations of colonial capitalism that impose bounded and hierarchized order upon our social and linguistic life. Being an international journal in transnational times comes with the challenge of having to facilitate transnational flows of knowledge without reifying the oppressive structure of the political economy of knowledge production. The International Journal of the Sociology of Language’s response to this challenge may lie in its commitment to solidarity and collaboration, where it serves as a ground for resisting the pressures of academic capitalism and for collectively seeking an agenda for research which dismantle hierarchies and boundaries that sustain and rationalize inequalities.

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