Stylistic variation in Hebrew reading tasks

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54
Author(s):  
Roey J. Gafter
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Stylistic Variation ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Local Language ◽  
The Core ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Interview Methodology ◽  
Read Speech

Abstract One of the core assumptions of the sociolinguistic interview methodology is that read speech tasks may be used to elicit more standard variants from a speaker. This link between reading and standardness, however, is a socially constructed relationship that may differ across cultures. Standard language ideologies in Israel differ from those in well-studied English speaking communities, and exhibit a complex tension between the notions of standardness and correctness. Drawing on a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews of 21 Hebrew speakers, this paper analyzes the variation in two Hebrew morpho-phonological variables. The results show a pattern of use that differs from the cline typically observed, which suggests that Hebrew speakers have a specialized reading register that recruits distinctive stylistic resources. These findings highlight the nature of reading as a stylistic performance that may manifest differently according to local language ideologies.

Ideologies of English in Asia: an editorial

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (271) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Alexandra Grey ◽  
Loy Lising ◽  
Jinhyun Cho
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The West ◽  
Binary Structure ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Local Perspectives ◽  
East West

Abstract That English has spread in Asia is well-known, but this critical reflection, and the five contributions and book review that we hereby introduce, contribute to rectifying the relative absence in the sociology of language literature of studies approaching language ideologies and practices in specific Asian contexts from local perspectives. We are not alone; our inspections of journal archives show that scholars are increasingly responding to this relative absence in recent years. What this special issue offers is further diversity of both authors and cases, and moreover this special issue draws attention to the immutable, binary structure underlying the various globally-circulating discourses of the East and the West as part of investigating how socially constructed East-West binaries interact with language ideologies about English and other languages. It shifts the attention from fixity – East versus West – to diversity, extending East to Easts and West to Wests as our contributors identify and examine multiple, endogenous “imaginative geograph[ies]” (from Arif Dirlik’s [1996] “Chinese history and the question of Orientalism”, History and Theory 35(4): 97) constructed through various Orientalist ideologies. It founds this approach on a combination of the theory of recursive language ideologies and critical Orientalism scholarship. This is generative of new and useful sociolinguistic analyses. Having laid out this theoretical extension, this editorial then provides an overview of the issue’s contributions, which examine how socially constructed East-West binaries are interacting with language ideologies about English and other languages on sub-national scales in various Asian contexts including in Korea, China, Japan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

English as Eastern: Zhuang, Mongolian, Mandarin, and English in the linguistic orders of globalized China

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (271) ◽  
pp. 35-64
Author(s):  
Alexandra Grey ◽  
Gegentuul Baioud
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Academic Discourses ◽  
East West

Abstract Socially constructed and globally propagated East-West binaries have influenced language ideologies about English in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but they are not hegemonic. This essay explores how East-West language ideologies are reformed in mergers with Mandarin-minority language ideologies. It discusses two separate but similar recent studies of minority language speakers and language ideologies in the PRC, respectively by Grey and Baioud. Each study reveals aspects of how Mandarin and English are being socially constructed as on the same side of a dichotomous and hierarchic linguistic and social order, in contradistinction to minority languages. The essay thus problematizes the construction of English as a Western language and Mandarin as an Eastern language; both in academic discourses and in wider social and political discourses. The essay uses Asif Agha’s theory of “enregisterment” to unify the points drawn from each study. It concludes that the language ideologies and practices/discourses under examination reproduce the displacement of a subaltern status; we describe this process as dynamic, internal Orientalism and “recursive” Orientalism, drawing on foundational theory of language ideologies. This essay paves the way for further studies of recursive Orientalism.

Those who help us understand our favourite global TV series in a local language

Babel ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamil Luczaj ◽  
Magdalena Holy-Luczaj
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Specific Problem ◽  
Alternative Strategy ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Subsequent Research ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract The main aim of this article is to critically analyse and systematise the debate concerning non-professional subtitling of TV series and movies in some non-English-speaking countries. Most of the studies on fansubbing deal with a specific problem, and they are based on various theoretical frameworks. This paper attempts to merge them into one coherent framework that can serve as a basis for subsequent research. The article addresses the issue of non-professional translation as a solution to the lack of official translations, but also as an alternative strategy for translating the texts of popular culture. The paper is divided into four parts. The first defines the phenomenon of fansubbing. The second shows how professional and non-professional translations differ. The following two parts, based on different national case studies, answer the questions: who are fansubbers, and what are their motivations?

What Are We Trying to Preserve? Diversity, Change, and Ideology at the Edge of the Cameroonian Grassfields

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Di Carlo ◽  
Jeff Good
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Key Aspects

Losses associated with language endangerment need not be restricted to individual language systems but can also involve the disappearance of distinctive language ecologies. This chapter explores the language dynamics of the Lower Fungom region of Northwest Cameroon, which offers an extreme case of linguistic diversity, from an areal and ethnographically informed perspective. Key aspects of local language ideologies are explored in detail, and it is argued that in this area languages symbolize relatively ephemeral political formations and, hence, should not be taken as reflections of deeply rooted historical identities. This conclusion has significance both regarding how research projects in the area should be structured as well as for what it might mean to ‘preserve’ the languages of a region that historically appears to have been characterized by frequent language loss and emergence, conditioned by changes in territorial and political configurations.

What is ‘global’ in an ELT global coursebook?

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Gerday
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Course Material

Abstract The adjective ‘global’ has become a buzzword in recent years, not least in academia. Within the area of English Language Teaching (ELT) in particular, ‘global coursebooks’ have aroused a great deal of interest, but also much suspicion, as their content turns out not to be as universal as the adjective ‘global’ might literally mean. In this paper, I investigate the 2014 New Headway Upper-Intermediate Student’s Book and bring to light some of the ideological constructions underpinning this supposedly global course material. As a result of this analysis, I provide an expanded characterisation of the ELT global textbook, regarding it as a course built upon standard language ideologies rather than, as suggested by previous studies, as an artefact shaped by a predominantly neoliberal agenda.

The role of the descriptor ‘broken English’ in ideologies about nonnative speech

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 649-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Lindemann ◽  
Katherine Moran
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideology ◽  
American English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Standard Language Ideology

AbstractThis study investigates how the descriptor ‘broken English’ is used to construct speakers as nonnative within standard language ideology. In-depth analysis of examples found through WebCorp, used to search US websites, and the Corpus of Contemporary American English found that the term was largely used to refer to comprehensible English identified as nonnative. Users of such English were constructed as Other, usually highly negatively. The rarer cases of more positive descriptions referred to encounters outside English-speaking countries, consistent with monolingualist ideology, and when used for a more distantly superior person, made them more attractive through greater apparent accessibility. Four mechanisms are discussed by which use of the term naturalizes ideologies. Crucially, its ambiguity promotes slippage between ‘neutral’ and negative uses, allowing any English identified as nonnative to be characterized as ‘broken’, slipping into ‘not English’, with such descriptions treated as an acceptable way to identify nonnative speakers as public menace. (Standard language ideology, ideology of nativeness, monolingualist ideology, Othering, corpus-informed research)*

Linguistic diversity in the international workplace: Language ideologies and processes of exclusion

Multilingua ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorte Lønsmann
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Essential Connection ◽  
Modern Workplace

AbstractThis article draws on a study of language choice and language ideologies in an international company in Denmark. It focuses on the linguistic and social challenges that are related to the diversity of language competences among employees in the modern workplace. Research on multilingualism at work has shown that employees may be excluded from informal interactions and from access to power structures on the basis of language skills in the company’s language(s). The data discussed here show that in the modern workplace, employees’ linguistic competences are diverse; international employees often have competence in the company’s lingua franca but lack skills in the local language while some ‘local’ employees lack competence in the corporate language (typically English). This can lead to the sociolinguistic exclusion of either group. In conclusion, the article relates these processes of exclusion to two language ideologies: one about an essential connection between language and nation and one about a hierarchy of English users.

scholarly journals Organizational Patterns of English and Foreign Texts for Language Teaching: A Contrastive Analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Fabiola D. Kurnia
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
English Text ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Organizational Patterns ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Cultural Features

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the organizational patterns of imaginative English and foreign texts in an English speaking community of a mixed cultural literary work. A contrastive list of foreign English text in Galsorthy's Quality and the standard English texts was used as the data. The data were then analyzed according to the organizational patterns of sound systems, grammatical structures, vocabulary system, and cultural features. The analysis suggests that foreign English texts offer a source of systematic preliminary study of language. The conversations in the work of literature provides the learners with ample apractice to recognize the standard of language correctness and the non-standard language variations.

scholarly journals LEXICAL MEANS OF VERBALIZATION OF THE ENGLISH CONCEPT HAIR

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.M. Mikava
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
English Language ◽  
Body Hair ◽  
Facial Hair ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Somatic Feature ◽  
The Given

The article is devoted to the consideration of the features of the verbalization of the concept HAIR in the English language. The purpose of the work is to examine the structure of the English concept HAIR as a fragment of the English-language picture of the world of the English-speaking society. The main attention is focused on the analysis of the language embodiment of the given concept in the naïve and professional varients of the picture of the world. The English concept HAIR is a fragment of the conceptual picture of the world, which is reflected in the language picture of the world, namely in its three fragments, verbalized by the constituents of the lexical-semantic groups, distinguished according to the somatic feature. They are head hair, facial hair, body hair. The analysis of the language and speech material showed that the structure of the English concept HAIR in the naive picture of the world is a three-component formation, which consists of a core, a nuclear zone and a periphery. The core includes such conceptual features as somatic and gender. The nuclear zone includes objective and various associative conceptual features, namely: age, thinness, protection, beauty, strength / success, value. The periphery of the concept consists of socially-identifying functions - professional, religious and social-group. The core of the concept HAIR in the professional picture of the world includes such conceptual features as somatic, gender, structure and development. The nuclear zone includes objective conceptual features, namely: health, age, protection. The periphery of the concept consists of professional, religious, and social-group social-identifying functions. Thus the periphery of the given concept in the two variants of the picture of the world is identical. The prospects for further research are seen in the consideration of the mentioned aspects of verbalization on the material of English artistic speech as well as professional discourse.

scholarly journals Human Rights and British Citizenship: The Case of Shamima Begum as Citizen to Homo Sacer

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-363
Author(s):  
Mercedes Masters ◽  
Salvador Santino F Regilme
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Public Security ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
The Core ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Global North ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Uk

Abstract In the post-9/11 context, citizenship in the global North has been reoriented towards the concept of public security. Much of this lay in political rhetoric definitions of who is a threat to the security of a nation state, with a particular emphasis on the ‘threatening Other’. The ‘war on terror’ motivated governments to revoke the citizenship of such persons. In February 2019, the British teenager Shamima Begum was branded as such, and swiftly had her citizenship stripped, which the UK authorities justified as a necessary precaution to protect the nation’s safety. This article asks the core question: how does Britain embed notions of hierarchical human rights, particularly in Begum’s case? The article upholds two key arguments. First, the revocation of citizenship suggests hierarchical notions of humanity, whereby the state’s obligations to its constituents differ depending on each individual’s socially constructed racial and gender identities. Second, the legitimization of exceptionalist security politics suggests the deployment of differentiated conceptions of the state’s obligations to its citizens. The case of the revocation of Begum’s citizenship illustrates how persistent colonialist and stratified conceptions of citizenship enable the demotion of a citizen to a bare human or homo sacer.

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