Neoliberalism, linguistic commodification, and ethnolinguistic identity in multilingual Nepal

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bal Krishna Sharma ◽  
Prem Phyak

ABSTRACTThis article examines the consequences of neoliberalism in two separate domains of multilingual language use in the context of Nepal: language education and tourism. We show that institutions and individuals have appropriated and reproduced this ideology with their creative tactics, agency, and practices that both help them promote and commodify their ethnolinguistic identity and language skills while also allowing them to acquire multilingual repertoires in global languages such as English, German, Chinese, Japanese, and the indigenous local language Newari. We show that English as a global language does not always accord more cultural capital and economic value, nor is the teaching and learning of local indigenous languages always confined to the ideologies of identity politics and language preservation. We argue that while the ideologies of English as a global language and of indigenous languages as tools for ethnolinguistic identity do not disappear from the scene, new forces of globalization and neoliberalism bestow new meanings to multilingual repertoires and practices. (Neoliberalism, multilingualism, commodification, ethnolinguistic identity, Nepal)*

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 139-144
Author(s):  
Muhammad Badrus Sholeh ◽  
Sahril Nur ◽  
Kisman Salija

Task-Based Learning (TBL) is one of the contemporary approaches, which has attracted a great deal of study in recent decades. It is a language education approach that offers students the opportunity to use authentic target language use by tasks. Task-Based Learning drives skill-based teaching and learning, engages students in the learning process, motivates and enhances student imagination. This paper focuses on some fundamental aspects of TBL in literature: (1) the task-based learning definition, (2) the task-based learning characteristics, (3) the task-based learning framework, (4) the task-based learning benefits, and (5) a proposed task-based learning practice for EFL learners. The paper gives useful suggestions to EFL teachers who have similar teaching strategies to help students meet such learning goals in their classrooms and continue positive TBL patterns in teaching and learning.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Van Huy ◽  
M. Obaidul Hamid

Purpose – This paper aims to shed light on the process of adopting and accommodating a global language education framework, namely the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages, in the context of Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach – The data to develop the argument of the paper are obtained from a doctoral research project that aims to understand the reception, interpretations and responses of key stakeholders in the process of enacting the CEFR in a Vietnam public university. The study was designed as a qualitative case study with data being collected using policy document analysis, classroom observation and in-depth interviews with 21 purposively sampled participants, including school administrators, English language teachers and students over a period of six months. Findings – The paper argues that the adoption of the CEFR, as it currently stands, can be seen at best as a “quick-fix” (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004, p. 58) solution to the complex and time-consuming problem of improving the quality of English language education in Vietnam, which fails to address some critical issues in the practice of teaching and learning the language in the country. Originality/value – The study speaks to the body of literature on the CEFR as a contemporary global language policy borrowing phenomenon in developing countries. It contributes to a better understanding of how a global language policy is adopted and appropriated at the grass-root level.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Zubeyde Sinem Genc ◽  
Kıymet Selin Armagan

The aim of the study is to investigate gender-bound language use in Turkish and English languages and to identify the differences and similarities across cultures and genders in the plays with family and social themes. Four English and five Turkish plays were chosen randomly for comparison. The number of words in the plays were taken into consideration for an accurate and balanced analysis. For this reason, the closeness of the number of words used by male and female characters in the plays were more important than the number of plays in total. The Turkish plays consisted of 6781 words and the English plays comprised 7091 words. Thus, in the plays considered as samples of language, a total of 13.872 words were studied with respect to the use of intensifiers, hedges and tag questions in two major groups: (1) cross gender & same culture, (2) same gender & cross culture, within the framework of Lakoff’s (1975) proposal concerning linguistic differences between males and females. A Pearson chi-square test was conducted on the quantitative data for all the analyses. The findings of the study showed that there were significant differences only in the use of hedges. No significant differences in the use of intensifiers and tag questions within the corpus under investigation were observed between the groups. This cross-cultural comparison on English and Turkish implies that Lakoff’s proposition regarding gender-bound language use needs further exploration. The study sheds light upon intercultural communication, and raises awareness and understanding of whether and how language use differs between different genders and cultures, which might be helpful for teachers and learners during the processes of teaching and learning English or Turkish as a foreign language. Furthermore, when the results of the study are considered from the point of intercultural communication, this investigation unveils the similarities and differences between English and Turkish languages in terms of use of intensifiers, hedges, and tag questions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-88
Author(s):  
Ulrike Jessner ◽  
Elisabeth Allgäuer-Hackl

Research interest in multilingual development and multilingual awareness (MLA) has been growing over the last years, and MLA has been defined as a key component of multilingual learning and multiple language use. The first part of the article focuses on the development of MLA in learners as a subcomponent of metacognition and a key factor of emergent properties in multilinguals as presented from a dynamic systems and complexity theory perspective in the Dynamic Model of Multilingualism (DMM) (Herdina and Jessner, 2002). The second part describes a DMM-based language teaching and learning approach, the Five Building Blocks of Holistic Language Education/Learning, which visualises the relationship between linguistic and cognitive processes and enables teachers and learners to reflect on language acquisition and use in order to develop MLA.


2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Majid Hayati ◽  
Amir Mashhadi

This paper explores the effects of different political ideologies on language, using as examples three historical stages and three political periods in the history of Iran, and the differing policies adopted in these eras concerning language and language education. Over the years, political ideologies have served as a barrier as well as a contributor to language use (whether first or foreign) and to language teaching. The paper then turns to explore local language policies and the status of the Persian language in the modern era, focusing particularly on foreign language teaching policies after the Islamic revolution and their implications for teaching and learning activities and practices in Iran’s educational system. Finally, using several Iranian political periods as an example, this study demonstrates how globalization has influenced the teaching of foreign languages, especially English.


Author(s):  
Dentik Karyaningsih ◽  
Puji Siswanto

Lecture courses in the English Language Education Study Program of STKIP Setiabudhi Rangkasbitung are still conducted in face-to-face class, so the students who do not attend lectures cannot know the pronunciation material at that time, because the Pronunciation course is a practical course in the English pronunciation system. The E-Learning Pronunciation is built so that lectures can be carried out anywhere and anytime without reducing the quality of the teaching and learning process. Therefore, the students who are left behind can continue to follow the Pronunciation course material, as well as habituating students in utilizing communication and information technology. E-Learning Pronunciation is important to be built to improve the ability of students’ pronunciation when doing distance learning, so that students are clearer and more firm in understanding Pronunciation so that there are no errors in English pronunciation. Participants in this study were first semester students of English education study programs. This study uses an experimental research design with the Prototype System development method and system of testing uses Black box testing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Tankosić ◽  
Jason Litzenberg

Abstract Language in the Balkan region of Southeastern Europe has a complex and turbulent history, acutely embodied in the tripartite and trilingual state of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in which Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs all make claim to their own mutually-intelligible varieties of local “languages”. This study utilizes a linguistic landscape methodology to consider language use in Sarajevo, the capital of BiH, approximately 20 years after a brutal war that led to the establishment of the country. Data originate from three municipalities within the Sarajevo Canton – namely, Old Town, Center, and Ilidža – because of their representation of the region’s diversity and history. Signs were classified according to the three primary language varieties, i.e., Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian; BCS, representing a common core among the three varieties, as well as English, other languages, and mixed languages. The application of BCS uniquely positions the present research in comparison to other studies of language use in the region and allows for a more nuanced, less politically and ethnolinguistically fraught analysis of the communicative tendencies of users. More specifically, data indicate that actors in the linguistic landscape transcend the boundaries of their national, ethnic, and religious identities by tending towards the more neutral BCS, suggesting an orientation towards more translingual dispositions than previous variety-bound approaches have indicated. Thus, instead of the divisiveness of linguistic identity politics, the linguistic landscape of Sarajevo indicates a tendency toward inclusion and linguistic egalitarianism.


Multilingua ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Gyula Kiss

AbstractThis article is a contribution to the hitherto scant literature on learning a historical minority language and on language ideologies in the context of a study abroad program in Hungary, Debrecen. I analyse the language ideologies of the decision makers in Hungary and in the Debrecen Summer School in relation to the teaching of Hungarian to the neighboring peoples. Drawing on interactional data of participants from Romania, the perspective of learning Hungarian as a historical minority language is examined. The present article combines a historical approach with language ideologies by focusing on an institution offering language education. Language ideologies are presented as they appear in the larger historical discourses, contemporary documents, and media interviews. I briefly outline the major turning points in the history of the institution which also reflects the changing language ideologies and cultural politics of Hungary. The qualitative discourse analysis of interviews and the conclusion of this ethnographic study demonstrate that language ideological positions in relation to the teaching and learning of Hungarian have been firmly located in historical and cultural contexts. Discourse analysis of various data demonstrates that, on the one hand, the course providers have espoused competing ideologies of who the learners should be as well as how to present the country and the culture, while, on the other hand, showing that the learners have had to negotiate prejudice and stereotype rooted in discourses about the often burdened history.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Bohnemeyer ◽  
Katharine T. Donelson ◽  
Randi E. Moore ◽  
Elena Benedicto ◽  
Alyson Eggleston ◽  
...  

We examine the extent to which practices of language use may be diffused through language contact and areally shared, using data on spatial reference frame use by speakers of eight indigenous languages from in and around the Mesoamerican linguistic area and three varieties of Spanish. Regression models show that the frequency of L2-Spanish use by speakers of the indigenous languages predicts the use of relative reference frames in the L1 even when literacy and education levels are accounted for. A significant difference in frame use between the Mesoamerican and non-Mesoamerican indigenous languages further supports the contact diffusion analysis.


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