Critical Study Of Language Research Articles

Implications of Critical Language Studies for Language Studies and Foreign Language Education

Current issues such as global warming, climate change, human rights and social equality, and educational quality are all most debated issues in diverse discourses including education. Educators have the responsibility to enable their learners to critically think and question these debated issues for a sustainable world and must be equipped with the critical terminology and concepts to critique them in their classrooms. This critique requires an interdisciplinary approach to the hidden linguistic agenda in today’s global system. As a review study, this study offers the philosophical foundations of critical language studies with its roots in Critical Theory. This review casts light on what it means to be critical about language in the implication of language education, and why critical language studies are a requisite in educational settings and diverse discourses. Reviewing literature, key critical concepts and terms, and the significance of their implications for language education are provided in this study. Thus, this study may respond to the needs of scholars and individuals whose interests include language studies, and of foreign language learners, foreign language curriculum designers, and foreign language teachers and educators who seek alternative ways to transform their teaching and learning through critical use of language.

Critical Study of Islamic Educational Language In the Naquib Al – Attas Perspective

Linguistically, Islamic education has the equivalent of Arabic words in the form of tarbiyah, ta'lim, and ta'dib. After reviewing the meanings of the three languages, each of them has a characteristic that has consequences on different target fields. Tarbiyah is more directed to the physical- material aspect; ta'lim leads more to cognitive-intellectual aspects ; ta'dib is more directed towards moral-spiritual aspects. In the study of Naquib al-Attas, in fact the Arabic language which is more appropriate to be used as the equivalent of Islamic education is ta'dib, because ta'dib contains words that focus on the formation of a moral-affective domain, where it is the essence of the goals of Islamic education. However, the study of al-Attas was not automatically agreed upon by other Muslim scientists. Many of them are pro, but not a few contra. Ijtihad al-Attas about ta'dib, although it produced a monumental finding, tarbiyah is still popularly applied in pointing out the language of Islamic education.

The ‘Black Pete’ debate in Flemish newspapers: from conflict to moderation

ABSTRACT In recent years, a lot of academic attention has been paid to the public discussion on ‘Black Pete’ (Zwarte Piet) in the Low Countries. Black Pete is a much-debated blackface character which is part of the Saint-Nicholas tradition – a yearly festive event taking place at the beginning of December associated with gifts and celebration. ‘Tradition’ versus ‘racism’ seem to be the main arguments in the debate. The current study analyses the debate as it evolved in Flanders from 2012 until 2022, applying Critical Discourse Analysis to find out how the thinking about the event and the Black Pete character, as reflected in the newspapers, changed over a decade. Our sample consists of 143 articles from the four most read newspapers in Flanders (De Standaard, De Morgen, Het Laatste Nieuws, Het Nieuwsblad). All journalistic genres were included, news reports as well as opinion articles, but also readers’ letters. Based on an analysis of naming, modality and evidentiality (Fairclough [2013]. Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Routledge; Halliday [1994]. An introduction to functional grammar. Arnold), we illustrate and demonstrate how the tone of the debate gradually changed from a discourse of conflict into a discourse of moderation and appeasement.

Tugen culture and art: A critical study of Tugen mother language (form) in preservation of Tugen cultural identity

This paper examines and analyses the use of Tugen's mother language, which is explicitly manifested in both verbal and nonverbal communication. To understand the Tugen culture, it is imperative to examine the deeper and hidden meanings expressed in the use of the Tugen mother language as an integral part of Tugen culture in the preservation of its cultural identity. A superficial use of Tugen's mother language will lead to a misinterpretation of Tugen cultural identity. The study discusses the use of Tugen's mother language in instilling a set standard of behaviour being expressed in art (nonverbal communication, e.g. models, symbolism, magical objects, ceremonial dance, etc.) and beliefs/spiritual, physical, social and ideational environment (verbal communication). This study is intended to enhance knowledge, skills and countless norms guiding people’s way of interactions and coping with the ideational environment by identifying norms affecting knowledge, rituals, ideas, magic, and emotions which are being shared by the Tugen people so as to cope with the various and numerous demands of life. Therefore, the Tugen mother language forms an integral part of the modern educational system. The paper concludes that without a proper understanding of the deeper and hidden use of Tugen's mother language, it will result in the misrepresentation of Tugen culture, and that the proper use of the Tugen mother language will also lead to protection, provision and treatment against the exigencies of life experienced in the physical and spiritual world, especially in handling stressful life challenges to the "known meaningful" worldview of the Tugen people.

Positive vibrations – voice, sound, and resonance as insurgency

ABSTRACT The very idea of ‘critical language studies’ encourages one to develop a sense of criticality; that is, to interrogate the concepts that one uses, to explore the boundaries of one’s professional practice, and to push one’s thinking, if necessary, into new directions. This is typically done with the aim of contributing to epistemic as well as socio-economic justice. In this article, I think with, and through, the sociolinguistic concept of ‘voice’, seeking to move beyond its metaphorical use (as an index of agency) and linking it, explicitly, to sound and resonance, to materiality, affect and the senses. In doing so, I move beyond language, and include different sonic expressions and perceptions. The aim is to develop the broad contours of a ‘sonic criticality’. A ‘sonic criticality’ is also an ethical project: it encourages one to engage in new forms of listening (Robinson 2020), and to explore sound’s insurgent potential, its ability to unsettle and to change the world.

Can nonhumans speak? Languaging and worlds in posthumanist applied linguistics

Abstract This paper mobilises posthumanism as a way to theorise and articulate what language(s)/languaging may be for nonhuman animals. This is investigated via various concepts brought together: we turn to the ontological turn in anthropology to expand on what language is, or might be, amongst humans, and then discuss Umwelt and languaging as two possible modes of exploring ontologies and biosemiosis among nonhumans. The dialogue between posthumanism and biosemiosis is so far absent in the field of critical language studies. The aim, thus, is to contribute to the nascent field of posthumanist applied linguistics by tentatively linking discrete fields of enquiry for a productive exchange across disciplines, and to further the discussion of how nonhuman language is (or may be) ontologised.

Linking Research to transforming the real world: critical language studies for the next 20 years

ABSTRACT During the last 20 years, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies has played an important role in advancing research on critical applied linguistics. Although the level of scholarly interest in critical research and its visibility have increased, issues that critical research has attempted to problematize, such as normative ideologies of language and language education, continue to dominate policies, practices, and ordinary people’s consciousness in the real world. Critical approaches to research should be grounded in praxis, namely, committed reflection and action for transformation. In order to further promote critical language studies with a vision of praxis, it is necessary to amplify a synergy between producing scholarly knowledge within academe and making efforts to put the knowledge into practice through concrete actions for transformation in the real world. This article examines some challenges that scholars face in forging the synergy, including institutional constraints and neoliberal expectations that dissociate research from local impact. Proposed ideas for praxis-oriented scholarly work include, but are certainly not limited to, decolonizing our minds, paying attention to and intentionally making a commitment to transformation, actively engaging with public scholarship for knowledge mobilization, legitimizing and encouraging multilingual scholarship, changing institutional expectations and practices, and actively connecting with communities.

Keywords: an invitation

Keywordsan invitation Gerhard Maré (bio) and Peter Vale (bio) In the previous issue of Transformation we indicated that we would revisit the 'keywords' approach to discussing changes in discourse, ideology, and common sense. This approach has long been employed towards developing social theory. For this issue, therefore, we asked John Higgins to introduce the unfolding notion of 'keywords' to a contemporary readership, a full 13 years after the previous contribution of the technique to South African society (Shepherd and Robins 2008). Higgins was specifically asked because he has had a long interest in Raymond Williams, and has written about the issue and debates raised by that theorist since his ground-breaking work, Keywords, appeared in 1976. The essay which follows provides a clear guide to the history of the term and the approach it signifies (itself a changing keyword as is clear from his essay). But, as a close reading of the essay suggests, it explains why, when and how Raymond Williams' exploration of keywords is of direct relevance to Platform: In Theory, appearing in a society in great flux, South Africa: [A]s with theory, there is something in Keywords which is deliberately unsettling, something which actively challenges the consensus, and the apparently secure ground of common sense on which we stand in the world. Keywords threatens precisely the structure of meaning that Williams saw at work in Gramsci's famous notion of hegemony as something 'which is lived at such a depth, which saturates the society to such an extent, and which… even constitutes the substance and limits of common sense for most people under its sway'. (Higgins, in this issue) Williams employed 'theory' as a keyword in his own book (1976:266-8). One of us still has the 1976 Fontana paperback (loose pages, and all) which was used in teaching sociological theory in the 1980s–later to be updated by the welcome production of Emile Boonzaier and John Sharp's [End Page 87] South African Keywords (1988). And Williams, as will become clear in reading the Higgins essay, is central to what will always be on on-going project, reflecting on keywords in a post-1994 South Africa, and during a pandemic of tragic proportions. The essay demands and rewards a close and careful read, as much theoretical exploration does. In relation to our motivation, which now follows, we wish to alert the reader specifically to some aspects that struck us as crucial. Higgins notes that (emphases added): Keywords are best understood as both the stake and the site of conflicts over meaning in, and the consequent possibilities for the understanding of a social order. He also draws attention to dimensions of employing the keywords approach, namely that … the first step in a keywords-style analysis is to provide a historical survey of the uses of the term, in order to better understand both how we have come to that contemporary usage, and what exactly is taken up or marginalised in and through this usage. The aim of keywords analysis is to resist–by becoming aware of them–the active forgettings and marginalisations often at work in the pinning down of meaning; and later that the critical study of language and its use can show us not just what a dominant world view is, but how that worldview can come to feel like 'normal reality'. Further points to note, especially for the South African context, is the attention given to comparing not only terms across time, but as used in different contexts, and as terms appear in different languages; and the relevance to the educational context: Williams' recommendation, …, for comparative research, and [the] emphasis that 'key developments…can only be understood when other languages are brought consistently into comparison'. Higgins motivates for 'rereading' and 'reactivating' Keywords and what it illustrates: There are two broad sets of reasons … in the present moment. The first set lie in the theoretical insights that Keywords embodies, and the lessons these have for contemporary social, cultural and political activists, particularly in the academy. The second resides in the occasion any such active rereading gives for a better understanding of the ways in which theory is always generated from and within...

Foreign Language Policy and Pedagogy in the Philippines: Potentials for a Decolonial Approach

The implementation of the Department of Education’s Special Program in Foreign Language (SPFL) marked the beginnings of the nationwide institutionalization of a range of foreign languages (FL) in the Philippines, stimulating new sites of inquiry for the field of critical language studies. Many of the languages offered under the SPFL do not share the historical and social grounding of the country’s official languages. However, they find common ground with English in the extant colonial framings of language teaching and learning, which have often impeded local agency in structuring or reimagining encounters with the “foreign.” As such, this paper aims to explore decolonial approaches to issues that have emerged alongside the promotion and teaching of foreign language classes across all levels of education in the Philippines by drawing inspiration from the decoloniality movement in Latin America and related efforts to de-center knowledge and digress from extant canons. First, it problematizes the implicit reinforcement of the one-nation one-language habitus, paying particular attention to assumptions that guide foreign language policies, materials, and teaching methods that reinforce global linguistic hierarchies and assumptions in favor of “competitiveness.” Second, considerations for alternative foreign language teaching approaches and materials are put forward, factoring in the Philippines’ sociolinguistic and historical features that have guided its framing of the “foreign,” as well as extant challenges in promoting intercultural reflection in an increasingly neoliberal educational setting. Challenges in integrating a decolonial perspective in institutional conceptualizations and policies on foreign language teaching in the Philippines conclude this paper to stimulate reflection on how language teaching may offer opportunities to rethink our relationship to language and interlingual/intercultural encounters.

Author Biographies

Author Biographies

Normalization and the discursive construction of “new” norms and “new” normality: discourse in the paradoxes of populism and neoliberalism

ABSTRACT Highlighting a number of perspectives from critical social theory and research as well as critical language and discourse studies, this paper explores conceptions of normalisation particularly relevant to the analysis of its dynamics and trajectories in public discourse. Starting by disentangling the complex relationship between norms, normality, normalization and discourse, the article argues that two major trends in research on normalization – of violence and deviance – have been particularly influential in designing theories and analyses of normalisation processes. They have also been pivotal in pointing to path-dependencies of normalization processes, to the centrality of classification, distinction and stigmatization or to the role of pre-/legitimation and legitimation via social imaginaries as those which characterise the introduction and communication of new norms and normativites in the public domain. Crucially, many of those features of normalization are often both sustained and nested in context-dependent formats of normalization discourse. The latter, drawing on a wide array of discursive and linguistic features explored in the article, effectively enables the orchestration of new discursive shifts in public discourse as well as the introduction and pre-/legitimation of new or recontextualised norms and perceptions of what is, and what is not, acceptable and unacceptable in politics, media, institutions and beyond.

The people's critical linguistics: Using archival data to investigate responses to linguistic informalisation

AbstractArguments about the sociopolitical significance of the informalisation of English have been central to the critical study of language in society since the 1980s. This article demonstrates that informalisation was also a key concern of ordinary users of British English in the 1980s. Correspondents in the British Mass Observation Project articulated judgements of informalisation that were in many ways continuous with those of academic linguists. The article argues that such critical arguments about language were part of a ‘structure of feeling’ (Raymond Williams) of late twentieth-century Britain. This suggests a rethinking of ordinary language users’ relations to their linguistic experience, not as unthinkingly ‘prescriptivist’, nor as merely ‘commonsensical’, but as exhibiting a nuance which academic linguists would do well to engage with more fully. The article makes the case for the use of social-historical archives in investigations of metalanguage, as a means by which the social significance of language can be better understood. (Critical linguistics, folk linguistics, terms of address, informalisation, synthetic personalisation, prescriptivism)

Resisting English medium instruction through digital grassroots activism

ABSTRACT Recently, we have been witnessing the emergence of digital grassroots activism in social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) – affording discursive tools and spaces to engage in normative approaches to preserve Turkish(ness) and raise ideological oppositions against English medium instruction (EMI). By linking Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, N. 2013. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London, UK: Routledge.) with the principles of visual semiotics (Kress, G., and T. van Leeuwen. 2006. Reading Images. London: Routledge.), the current study explores the discursive acts of language policing (Blommaert, J., H. Kelly-Holmes, P. Lane, S. Leppanen, M. Moriarty, S. Pietikainen, and A. Piirainen Marsh. 2009. “Media, Multilingualism and Language Policing: An Introduction.” Language Policy 8 (3): 203–207.) manifested by means of textual descriptions and visual artefacts in four Facebook groups which have been established around the idea(l)s of maintaining the linguistic order and Turkish(ness). It is found that these groups maintain linguistic order as guardians of monoglot ideology, and by recontextualizing the EMI debate within the broader discourses of nationalism and national identity with the help of symbols (e.g. flags), strategies (e.g. quotes) and actors (e.g. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk) evident in the collective psyche of the Turkish nation. .

HOMOPHOBIA AND ‘UN-AMERICANNESS’ AS RISING FACETS OF ISLAMOPHOBIA: AN ANALYSIS OF ORLANDO SHOOTING MEDIA TRANSCRIPTS

HOMOPHOBIA AND ‘UN-AMERICANNESS’ AS RISING FACETS OF ISLAMOPHOBIA: AN ANALYSIS OF ORLANDO SHOOTING MEDIA TRANSCRIPTS

Tracing new ground, from language to languaging, and from languaging to assemblages: rethinking languaging through the multilingual and ontological turns

ABSTRACTThis paper traces recent theorisation stemming from the multilingual turn and brings this into dialogue with assemblage thinking, discussing the critical potential of bringing these perspectives together to explore what language is and how it is understood. The argument maps salient features of the multilingual turn which have extended the fields of applied and socio-linguistics beyond a preoccupation with separable languages embedded within a code-based depiction of linguistic behaviour. Within this body of research, we highlight the influential theoretical frames of (trans)languaging and metrolingualism, which position language as a dynamic process – and practice – rather than a product. We then begin to think through language/languaging as assemblage, a process which heralds an ontological shift. In so doing, we consider the ontological turn within and beyond linguistics to extend the potential of critical language studies, breaking with hegemonic language ideology via a radical reconsideration of the temporality, complexity and materiality of language.

Out-Side-Text Knowledge: A Critical Discussion of Its Importance in the Analysis and Comprehension of Political Discourse

The relation between knowledge and discourse is a problematic one. While speaking, we may activate one part of our knowledge and leave anther one silent to serve the coherence of what we seek to convey. Having this in mind, this paper seeks to discuss the importance of out-side-text knowledge in the analysis and comprehension of political discourse. To study this issue, concern is devoted to two axes of discussion. First, focus is given to the analysis and discussion of some key concepts to form a workable frame for the study. It also seeks to high-light the boundaries between interpretation and over-interpretation. Second, focus shifts to the analysis of some examples to put into practice the tools of the established approach. Also, the extent to which the knowledge we activated served to produce worthwhile interpretations is questioned. The selected examples are taken from presidential speeches delivered by Bush, Obama, and Trump. The method we used consists of two phases: one simple and the other complex. In phase one, the meaning the speaker sought to convey is decoded based on the types of knowledge he activated. In phase two, we activated the knowledge we have about the context of each speech to communicate the un-said. While doing this, we used the logic of critique to avoid over-interpreting the examples. The results showed that our activation of the required knowledge served to demystify what the speakers hide and to work out deception by highlighting the gap between discursive reality and social reality. It is also proved that the issue of boundaries between interpretation and over-interpretation remains a matter of critique. Though bringing valuable contributions to the critical study of language in use, the paper left the doors open for further research on how to use out-side-text knowledge to communicate the un-said.

Where All the Good Teachers are Cape Verdean Americans: A White Teacher’s Identity Positionings in an Urban Elementary School

This study examines how a white language teacher???s understanding of race affected her teaching practice in an urban elementary language classroom with predominantly Cape Verdean immigrant students. The teacher relied on her experiences teaching English in Namibia and her experiences learning Spanish in the United States and Afrikaans in Namibia to ground her practice, which focused on cultural difference and standard English language teaching without specific reference to race in the context of the United States. I adopt the theory of LangCrit, an intersection between Critical Race Theory, Critical Language Studies, and Positioning Theory, to first demonstrate that the teacher???s justifications of her teaching practices were contradictory and conflicting, and in fact shows how, despite her good intentions, whiteness is imposed, assumed, or negotiated in the context of urban language classrooms. Based on these findings, I suggest possibilities for and constraints on using critical theory-oriented praxis in the classroom grounded in teachers??? personal experiences to help teachers interrogate and disrupt whiteness in language classrooms. Without greater support from critically-oriented urban teacher educators, many white teachers with the best of intentions will continue to struggle in their search for culturally responsive and empowering pedagogies for immigrant English learners of color in urban school settings.

On hybridity, the politics of knowledge production and critical language studies

On hybridity, the politics of knowledge production and critical language studies

The Linguistics of Ethnic Nationalism in the Western Balkans

The Western Balkans socio-political discourse is heavily focused on the exclusive and radical ethnic nationalism and ideology. In this regard, the media and the political elites, through their focus on symbols, myths, ethnicity, tradition, history, language and culture play an important role in shaping the public opinion. Consequently, the daily newspapers in reporting the views of the political elites, within linguistic, discursive, socio-political and ideological contexts, can influence the masses who usually do not analyze the news critically. The paper also seeks to examine and interpret differences in language use by selected Western Balkans political leaders and the way their language choice influenced public opinion. Political, nationalist and ideological discourses promoted by the political elites are very specific and the journalists should report such discourses objectively. Therefore, it is significant to compare and contrast the role played by the media and the political elites in their linguistic, discursive and socio-linguistic choices in the text that may carry ethnic nationalist and ideological meanings. The theoretical and conceptual framework of the paper was based on Fowler’s (1989; 2003; 2010) works: “ Language and Power”, “Analyzing Discourse” and “ The Critical Study of Language”. In order to test research objectives on the coding and analyzing ethnic nationalism and ideology in the Western Balkans newspapers, the research employed critical discourse analysis for N=534 randomly selected news from the following four newspapers: Dnevni avaz (Bosnia and Herzegovina), “ Vecernji list” (Croatia), “ Vecernje novosti” (Serbia), “ Vijesti” (Montenegro), limited to a period between 2016 and 2018.

Parental and gender hegemonic struggle in Iranian wedding invitations across (1970–1990) and (1990 to present)

There is a mutual relationship between conventional ways of discoursal practice and social changes which create new ways of thinking or ideology in a particular society. Considering the changes that Iranian society has undergone throughout two different periods of time (1970–1990 and 1990 to present), the current study aimed to show how these changes in terms of reference and person deixis, as a discourse practice in wedding invitations (WIs), introduce a marked shift in parental hegemony and small beginning of shifts in gender roles in Iran’s society. To this end, 100 WIs were divided into two corpus, one dating from 1970 to 1990 and the other from 1990 to present. Then, a pilot study was arranged to identify the linguistic features which had predominantly changed and could have mirrored the sociopolitical changes. The results of the pilot study revealed that terms of reference and personal deixis in the WIs had changed remarkably across the two groups of WIs. To analyze the frequency and percentage of reference and personal deixis in the WIs, two small corpus (one containing 1970–1990 WIs and the other containing 1990 to present) were created using Sketch Engine website. Finally, Fairclough’s [2010. Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. London: Routledge] framework of critical discourse analysis as a form of critique of social change in terms of historical dynamics was used to account for the changes. The analysis of the data revealed that paternal, as well as gender hegemony, has been diluted in WIs published in recent times.