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.

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.

Language Ideologies and Minority Language Education: Lessons from Brittany for Kashubia

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 192-206
Author(s):  
Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska ◽  
Michael Hornsby
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Minority Language Education ◽  
Educational Programmes ◽  
Ethnographic Data

In many situations of minority language education, the focus has been on gains in the absolute numbers of speakers, with the result that less attention has been paid to the processes and linguistic outcomes associated with students in these educational programmes. In this article, we initiate a discussion on the revitalization situations in Brittany and Kashubia from a comparative perspective. In particular, we look at the different models of education in each of these regions and examine ethnographic data that highlight the attempts of students to attain legitimate ‘speakerhood’ of the minority languages in question. In particular, we take into the consideration the difficulties associated with these situations of attempted additive multilingualism when the general trend, among the majority populations, is toward standardized monolingualism. By way of a conclusion, we attempt to evaluate the different educational systems in both regions in terms of the production of future generations of ‘successful’ Kashubian and Breton speakers by examining the various language ideologies that are apparent in both situations of language revitalization.

scholarly journals Democracy and Minority Language Recognition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy H. Liu ◽  
Mike Medeiros
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Distinct Group ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Recognition ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
The Government

Language is one of the most important markers of a distinct group identity: It brings members together from the inside, and it demarcates boundaries from the outside. Accordingly, it is a common assumption in the literature on the politics of language—whether it is political science, sociology, linguistics, anthropology, or area studies—that minority groups want their languages recognized (or, at a minimum, left alone and not eradicated) by the government. But recognition of minority languages is inherently a political process. It requires the government to acknowledge that the vernacular spoken by the minority group is distinct from that of the majority (i.e., it is a language). When governments dismiss a vernacular as simply a derivative of the majority’s (i.e., it is a dialect), it suggests that speakers of that vernacular are inferior. Moreover, recognition requires some awareness to the differing language ideologies (i.e., how society should be linguistically organized). When the ideology of the politically dominant group is the only ideology in consideration, this influences the type of language policies. And whether governments acknowledge minority language ideologies and minority demands for linguistic recognition depends on a number of factors. One factor is whether the minority group is concentrated in a regional territory. Another factor is whether the political institutions in the country are generally more power sharing (e.g., proportional electoral rules and federalism). How the government accommodates minority languages—if it does, and if so, to what extent—can have far-reaching implications. Failure to accommodate minority demands can lead to intergroup social tensions, if not outright violent conflicts. Moreover, expecting minorities to learn a language that is not native to them—and especially if it is linguistically distant—can have economic ramifications, including higher levels of poverty and lower levels of literacy. However, by recognizing minority languages, governments allow for trust to build. This can manifest between members of different ethnic groups or among minorities toward the state. How governments accommodate minority languages can also affect local attitudes toward immigrants (e.g., when are they more likely to hold nativist viewpoints) and the assimilation of immigrants (e.g., what explains why some immigrant communities struggle to learn the language of the host country).

scholarly journals Language Ideologies and Transnational Migration: A Study of Cape Verdeans in Galicia

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Nicola Bermingham
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Peripheral Region ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Cape Verdean ◽  
Language Identity ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Symbolic Resource

Changes to the global infrastructure have contributed to the growing (linguistic) diversity of large metropolises. However, there have been calls from scholars to explore “emerging superdiversity” (DePalma and Pérez-Caramés 2018) in peripheral regions in order to fully understand the complexities and nuances of the sociolinguistics of globalisation (Wang et al. 2014; Pietikäinen et al. 2016). This article, therefore, explores language ideologies among a purposive sample of five young adults of Cape Verdean origin living in the peripheral region of Galicia, Spain, and draws on interview data to examine the ways in which multilingual migrants engage with the language varieties in their linguistic repertoire. In studying immigration from a former African colony to a bilingual European context, we can see how language ideologies from the migrant community are reflected in local ones. The sociolinguistic dynamics of Cape Verde and Galicia share many similarities: both contexts are officially bilingual (Galician and Spanish in Galicia, Kriolu and Portuguese in Cape Verde), and questions regarding the hierarchisation of languages remain pertinent in both cases. The ideologies about the value and prestige of (minority) languages that Cape Verdean migrants arrive with are thus accommodated by local linguistic ideologies in Galicia, a region which has a history of linguistic minoritisation. This has important implications for the ways in which language, as a symbolic resource, is mobilised by migrants in contexts of transnational migration. The findings of this study show how migrants are key actors in (re)shaping the linguistic dynamics of their host society and how, through their practices and discourses, they challenge long-standing assumptions about language, identity and linguistic legitimacy, and call into question ethno-linguistic boundaries.

scholarly journals Teaching the Romanian neighbors Hungarian: language ideologies and the Debrecen Summer School

Multilingua ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Gyula Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Summer School ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The One ◽  
Hungarian Language ◽  
Historical Discourses

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.

Language ideologies in a Uyghur comedy sketch: the comedy sketch Chüshenmidim ‘I don’t understand’ and the importance of Sap Uyghur

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (248) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Cabras
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
National Government ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Language Practices ◽  
Autonomous Region ◽  
Han Population ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Intellectual Discourse ◽  
Standard Chinese ◽  
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

AbstractUyghur, a Turkic language spoken mostly in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China, is at present undergoing changes in usage. The spread of Standard Chinese promoted by the national government and the growing Han population are contributing to the Sinicization of Uyghur and shaping new language practices. Language-related issues are therefore a common topic in the Uyghur community, in intellectual discourse as well as in daily conversation. This article analyses a Uyghur comedy sketch entitled

“In the mouth of an aborigine”: language ideologies and logics of racialization in the Linguistic Survey of India

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (252) ◽  
pp. 97-123
Author(s):  
Hannah Carlan
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Systematic Effort ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Colonial Government

AbstractTheLinguistic Survey of India(LSI), edited and compiled by George Abraham Grierson, was the first systematic effort by the British colonial government to document the spoken languages and dialects of India. While Grierson advocated an approach to philology that dismissed the affinity of language to race, theLSImobilizes a complex, intertextual set of racializing discourses that form the ideological ground upon which representations of language were constructed and naturalized. I analyze a sub-set of theLSI’s volumes in order to demonstrate how Grierson’s linguistic descriptions and categorizations racialize minority languages and their speakers as corrupt, impure, and uncivilized. I highlight how semiotic processes in the text construct speakers as possessing essential “ethnic” characteristics that are seen as indexical of naturalized linguistic differences. I argue that metapragmatic statements within descriptions of languages and dialects are made possible by ethnological discourses that ultimately reinforce an indexical relationship between language and race. This analysis of the survey sheds light on the centrality of language in colonial constructions of social difference in India, as well as the continued importance of language as a tool for legitimating claims for political recognition in postcolonial India.

Facts and transformations in European minority language media systems amid digitalization and economic crisis

2018 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iñaki Zabaleta ◽  
Arantza Gutierrez ◽  
Carme Ferré-Pavia ◽  
Itxaso Fernandez ◽  
Nikolas Xamardo
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Media Type ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Systems ◽  
Comparative Nature

This article investigates the reality and variations of the European minority language media systems between 2009 and 2016, a period of serious economic crisis and accelerated digitalization process. To that aim, several parameters were measured: structure of the media systems and changes during that period along the variables of media type, ownership and reach; presence and relevance of major media in each of the communities; number and variation of full-time journalists; and the density or relative weight of the media systems with regard to the speaking population. The 10 minority languages under analysis (Basque, Catalan, Galician, Corsican, Breton, Frisian, Irish, Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic and Sámi) represent a wide range of communities. The relevance of the study lies in its direct comparative nature and in the fact that it thoroughly updates previous scholarly literature, measuring the changes which occurred within the 10 media systems.

Remarks by Rauer Meyer

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 190-192
Author(s):  
Rauer Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Legal Framework ◽  
European Countries ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Department Of Commerce ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
East West

I shall address myself to controls on exports. And here, when the program talks about the “Legal Framework of East-West Trade,” it might more properly be called a “thicket” rather than a “framework.” At least ten pieces of legislation govern exports, but I shall focus on controls exercised by the Department of Commerce, since they affect the vast proportion of commodities in commercial transactions with the Communist countries. I shall not distinguish between the situation with regard to the People’s Republic of China and the Eastern European countries, because our published regulations make no such distinction.

scholarly journals Doing Content and Language Integrated Learning With a Minority Language: A Teacher Development Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Marcella Menegale ◽  
Ada Bier
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Development ◽  
New Teacher ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Teacher Autonomy ◽  
Development Model ◽  
Teaching Skills ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Educational Goal ◽  
Functional Literacy

Recent research suggests that minority languages cannot be lastingly revitalised unless related functional literacy skills become an explicit educational goal. Focussing on the Friulian minority language in Italy, this paper discusses the importance of developing literacy skills in the minority language. In line with this, a new teacher development model in CLIL has been conceived and piloted with a small group of teachers of Friulian. The findings of the study suggest that the model was effective in relation to both the development of teaching skills in CLIL and in literacy related issues and, more in general, to the promotion of teacher autonomy.

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