Jan Blommaert Research Articles

Digital writing in Low German: between elite and grassroot literacies

ABSTRACT This article analyses digital writing in Low German, a regional language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and currently undergoing a process of language shift towards German. Since medieval times, a substantial body of Low German literature has been written; however, today, the language serves mainly as a vernacular. The aim of this study is to examine whether digital writing could become a new domain for Low German speakers, thus forming a buffer in the ongoing struggle against language loss. In order to analyse digital writing in Low German, we apply Jan Blommaert’s concept of elite versus grassroot literacies (Blommaert, J. 2008. Grassroot Literacies. Writing, Identity and Voice in Central Africa. London, New York: Routledge) and examine two communities of practice: Wikipedia authors and experts working for Low German institutions using Low German online, and speakers communicating via Low German on social media. The results show two communities of practice among Low German speakers with distinctive writing practices and values: while elite writers aim to implement a standardised form of spelling, grassroot writers tend to reject prescriptivism and create ways to negotiate communication across variation.

Linguistic landscaping from above in China: scale-making and language ideologies

Abstract The sociolinguistics of mobility is one of Jan Blommaert’s significant theoretical legacies vis-à-vis language interactions in the age of globalization. This paper investigates the mobilization of English as a semiotic resource in the public space of Chinese cities to reveal how the process of linguistic landscaping rescales English in China’s layered language regime. In the three investigated cities in eastern China, the English language has been conceptualized as a symbol of internationalization, and the affective potentials of English signs turn the cities into spaces of friendliness. I argue that the visual bilingualism for internationalization purposes is loaded with state ideologies, and English semiotization in the urban space demonstrates the state’s keenness for international recognition and integration into the global world. Inherent in this linguistic landscaping process are Englishization as internationalization ideology, standard language ideology, and linguistic purism ideology. While the translocal status of English in the world language system serves to upscale the cities to a higher scale level, the valorization of English in the official domain also reinforces the hegemonic power of English in the indexicality order, marginalizing social groups with limited English literacy. Thus, a critical, dialectical lens is needed to analyze the role of English in top-down linguistic landscaping.

Seeking access. Applied ethnopoetic analysis

Abstract This paper discusses a poetic output of a research project at the intersection of linguistic ethnography (LE) and poetic inquiry (PI) which explores the barriers experienced by refugee and asylum seekers, seeking access to Higher Education. The research draws on Jan Blommaert’s applied ethnopoetics (AEP) work to reconstruct silenced voices (Blommaert, 2006). AEP as a ‘means of recognition’ of marginalised voices is explored. The paper goes on to explore the transformative possibilities for knowledge production offered by combining AEP with PI. This innovative approach and output are presented as act of resistance to normative expectations within academia which freeze conditions for voice (Blommaert, 2008). Questions are then offered to consider how we might advance the approach and its emancipatory potential further.

Toward the total semiotic fact

Abstract This paper explores the quest for an account of the total linguistic or semiotic fact. Speech act theory, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and social semiotics have all attempted, in various ways and at various times, to find a way to describe as much as possible what is going on around any speech event. While this search for the total linguistic fact will always be a chimerical goal, this paper draws on the inspirational work of Jan Blommaert to suggest a framework for moving in this direction. The acronym SEMIOSIS points to the complexity of what is at play, comprising social relations, emotional and affective domains, multilingual practices, iterative activity, objects and assemblages, spatial repertoires, interactivity, and sensory relations. Looking at data from a small Bangladeshi-run store in Tokyo, the paper shows how bringing in this wider set of concerns allows a more comprehensive account of semiotic moments.

From Divided to Diasporic: Re-envisioning Italian American Texts through Transformative Translingual Practices

From Divided to Diasporic: Re-envisioning Italian American Texts through Transformative Translingual Practices

O PODER DA LIBERDADE: EM BUSCA DE ESTRATÉGIAS DEMOCRÁTICAS DE PUBLICAÇÃO ACADÊMICA

ABSTRACT In this essay, Jan Blommaert discusses fundamental issues on the economic dimension of academic publishing, the reasons and the intentions for publishing as an academic, and the available alternatives. The author presents the conditions of the productive cycle of academic journal publishers and argues that the business model is based on the threefold exploitation of academics’ work, as authors, reviewers, and readers of the articles, and of the institutions and governments who fund the published research. The author criticizes the false solution of “gold” and “green” access and expose the impact of new modes of circulation on the cheapening and high reaches of academic communication. He defends democratic strategies of academic publishing led by the people who do research and argues for our autonomy to promote the primary function of academic publishing: the debate of ideas with the largest possible number of experts in the field.

Representing the social through language: Theory and practice of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis

The article reviews research traditions and new findings pertaining to the issue of ‘language in society’ over the period from circa 2005 to 2020. Specifically, we discuss some of the tenets and analytical toolkits of American and Western European traditions of sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, as well as the strands of discourse analysis that integrate the former and/or the latter into their theoretical framework. Such contemporary schools of thought are represented, among others, by Michael Silverstein, Penelope Eckert, and Asif Agha in the USA, by Mary Bucholtz, Kira Hall, and Nikolas Coupland in the UK, by Jan Blommaert in the Netherlands, and by Jürgen Spitzmüller and Barbara Soukup in Austria. The topics and concepts discussed in the article include social indexicality of linguistic signs, enacting social relations between speakers, ethno-metapragmatics, and (social) styles. We begin with an overview of the ‘third wave’ of sociolinguistics, which has been focused on exploring linguistic variation as a medium used by individuals or groups for evoking or (re)constructing the ‘social world’. It is discussed how sociality is being enacted by individuals, how semiotic ties are set between a linguistic sign and social value, how persistent social attribution is created, and how all these phenomena can be explored through analysis of indexical tokens and types. Indexicality is seen here as the capacity of a (linguistic) sign to ‘point to’ a variable of the context of its usage. Social indexicality is thus seen as evoking such social value as forms of identity and communicative roles and social relations drawing on these forms. An overview of the history of sociolinguistics also serves to illustrate the transformation of views on agentivity, identity, and linguistic/semiotic objects: from the static view of identity as predefined by the social structure and (passively) projected through various semiotic media, including language, to a more perforative contemporary view of identity as (creatively) stylized in social encounters. It is further contended that a crucial prerequisite for such stylization is the malleability and mutability of social/indexical meanings, with so-called ethno-metapragmatics — reflexive activity targeting said meanings and signs carrying them — being the process driving the change. Finally, we show how these theories and methods can be traced to ideas expressed by Russian/ Soviet scholars of early and mid twentieth century.

Jan Blommaert and the use of sociolinguistics: Critical, political, personal

On 7 January 2021, Jan Blommaert died aged 59, after a ten-month battle with cancer. He was an extraordinary person and a brilliant academic, and there have been a great many very moving personal accounts of how much Jan meant to the people he interacted with. I knew and worked with him for over twenty-five years, and during his protracted illness, for me and for a lot of others, it was good to be able to tell him directly how much I owed him. But beyond the warm, hospitable, humorous and hugely energising individual we knew, Jan was profoundly committed to—indeed lived—a programme of sociolinguistics that he often traced to the writings of Dell Hymes, the founder ofLanguage in Society. A number of this programme's core elements were spelled out in the introduction to Hymes’ ground-breaking 1969 collection,Reinventing Anthropology, a ‘book… for people for whom “the way things are” is not reason enough for the ways things are, who find fundamental questions pertinent and in need of personal answer’ (1969:7). For my account of the value and vitality that Jan brought to sociolinguistics, I have borrowed from the title of Hymes’ introduction, ‘The use of anthropology: Critical, political, personal’ and, as well as citing some of Jan's own words, I also draw on the reflections of others as evidence of the vigour, clarity, and coherence with which he articulated a practice and purpose for work on language in society.

Jan Blommaert, linguistic landscapes and complexity

Abstract This tribute to the work of Jan Blommaert discusses his complex relation with the field of linguistic landscape studies. Blommaert was interested in the insights an understanding of the linguistic landscape could bring to better appreciate the ways people lived their diverse lives. This appreciation of the importance of his work focuses on his insistence on ethnographic work in order to understand complexity.

Estilização de gênero e ideologias linguísticas

Este artigo discute sobre as conexões teóricas entre estilização de gênero e ideologias linguísticas. O conceito de estilização de gênero parte da teoria de gênero de Judith Butler (2019) sobre estilização do corpo e as definições de ideologias linguísticas são dadas por Judith Irvine (1989), Jan Blommaert (2014) e Deborah Cameron (2014). O objetivo principal é compreender como as ideologias linguísticas atuam na estilização de gênero para produzir e legitimar diferenças de gênero. Além disso, o artigo procura mostrar a utilidade de alinhavar os estudos sobre esses dois fenômenos para o campo da Linguística Feminista. As discussões fundamentam-se nas teorizações sobre ideologias linguísticas e estilização de gênero, performatividade e atos de fala (AUSTIN, 1962) e distinção sexo/gênero (RUBIN, 1975). Há, ainda, um panorama dos estudos feministas e da Linguística Feminista antes e depois da virada performativa iniciada por Butler. O artigo mostra, em suas observações teóricas, que na rígida estrutura reguladora que constrói a estilização de gênero participam ativamente as ideologias linguísticas. Para mostrar a atuação desses fenômenos no contexto ocidental vigente, o artigo trata dos aspectos do novo biologismo (CAMERON, 2009; 2010; 2014), uma ideologia linguística com ares de cientificidade.

Narrative Intersubjectivity: Voice and Connection in Stories about Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract: This study of narratives about intimate partner violence (IPV) asserts that narrative can exemplify a patterning of language that weaves a complex structure of "voice." For Jan Blommaert, voice is the ability to have one's speech heard such that the speaker is understood as closely as possible to his or her intended meaning and that the speaker's subject position is recognized/recognizable. Like narrative, voice is produced in on-the-ground performances that are by nature social. Taking a discourse analytic approach to narrative, narrative is a discourse that responds to the changeable nature of ongoing interaction and contextualization, and thus we find voice performed in storytelling. Perhaps due to its social, interactive, and performative nature, narrative is a place where people can encounter an/other, and the storyteller can offer up their stories in contexts that can involve and create something like empathy, contexts that create real connections between interlocutors (Ritivoi). That is, through narrative, storytellers can make their experiences available to interlocutors in ways that create intersubjectivity. In the context of violence described here, stories about trauma are told to an auditor in ways that ask for trauma to be witnessed and for empathy to develop. Using discourse analysis to analyze the stories told by an IPV victim/survivor, this article argues that through the construction of voice in narrative, trauma and vulnerability become present to an interlocutor who may have never experienced such.

Uses of the Throne Hall in the former Royal Palace in Bucharest from 1947 to 2019: a social semiotic perspective

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, from a socio-semiotic perspective, the manner in which the political regimes installed after the forced abdication of King Mihai I (on 30 December 1947) used the Throne Hall in the former royal palace in Bucharest to meet their own needs. In December 1947, Romania was illegally turned from a constitutional monarchy into a popular republic, with the help of the Red Army. Then, the popular republic was transformed into a socialist republic, in fact, a communist dictatorship. In December 1989, the communist regime collapsed and was replaced by a post-communist one, a regime which did not seem willing to leave behind the communist ideological legacy, manifest, in the 1990s, in the brutal repression of anti-government protesters in University Square in Bucharest, or in the Romanian Mineriads of 1990 and 1991. The political regimes that succeeded to power after 1947 deprived the Throne Hall of its monarchic symbolism and used it in ways incongruent with its inherent function, albeit for official purposes. The manner in which the communist regime made use of this particular place is indicative of its intent and success in reinventing traditions or adapting older traditions to its ideological goals, in order to alienate Romanians from their recent past, in disrespect for the nation’s heritage. Although the former royal palace was completely transformed into a national museum of art after 1990, a cultural institution meant, by its very purpose, to save at least part of the nation’s memory, political decision makers ignored the symbolism of a national museum such as the National Museum of Art of Romania, known to many Romanians as the former royal palace. In bewildering, yet not unprecedented fashion, the Throne Hall has been recently used, by the Romanian government, as a dining hall in a series of events that preceded the takeover of the presidency of the EU Council by Romania in January 2019. We claim that the government’s decision can be circumscribed to Jean Baudrillard’s concept of consumerism, characterized by the rule of sign value as a status symbol. In addition, Jan Blommaert’s and Barbara Johnstone’s taxonomies further the argument that the Throne Hall is not a mere space, but a place, its function having been perverted by both ideological manipulation and aggressive consumerism.

POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN POST-DIGITAL SOCIETIES

ABSTRACT In his contribution to the Special Issue “Digital and semiotic mechanisms of contemporary populisms”, Jan Blommaert offers a communicability model which accounts for political discourse (and others) in the post-digital era we live. He starts by arguing that the idea of the public (a homogeneous entity) that was very popular in the 20th century sociological imagination of how propaganda worked in “manufacturing consent” can no longer be used to explain the fragmented audiences of our post-digital era. The author illuminates his argument by resorting to the circulation of political tweets/retweets as texts in our algorithmic-oriented world. Such a circulation aims at niched audiences. In the last section, the author argues that discourse analysts need to operate from this communicability model if they are to understand the cruciality of political discourse in our contemporary social lives.

Decolonisation and South African TVET: A Different Missing Middle

This paper explores the South African Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector in relation to calls for decolonisation that have emanated from higher education institutions (universities) and basic education institutions (schools). Both the public and the academic community have echoed these institutions’ calls for transformation through protests and articles in academic journals and the popular media. Apart from two articles in the popular media the silence on decolonisation and TVET has been deafening. A key phrase during the #FeesMustFall protests was “the missing middle,” referring to those students who were too rich for NSFAS bursaries but too poor to afford university fees. I argue that the TVET sector is a different missing middle in that it is missing from debates about decolonising education in South Africa. Through a document analysis of TVET related legislation, I argue that it is too “high” for basic education and too “low” for higher education. By drawing on Jan Blommaert’s notion of “voice” and Gayatri Spivak’s notion of “the subaltern,” the paper considers why there has been such silence on decolonising the TVET sector.

DIALOGUES WITH ETHNOGRAPHY: NOTES ON CLASSICS, AND HOW I READ THEM BY BLOMMAERT, J. BRISTOL: MULTILINGUAL MATTERS, 2018, 184 PAGES.

Jan Blommaert’s Dialogues with Ethnography is a collection of previously published essays including one obituary and two book reviews, all of which concern the topic of ethnography and what Blommaert dubs “the classics”. This distinction is important to consider in anthropology where the “classics” are often texts such as the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard, 2010), Argonauts of the Western Pacific(Malinowski, 2008), and even some works by the Greeks. Here Blommaert diverts from such trends and offers us insights into a series of texts that should be considered classics to sociolinguists, linguistic anthropologists, linguistic ethnographers, discourse analysts and others.Cite as: Jocuns. A. (2018). Dialogues with ethnography: Notes on classics, and how I read them (Book review). Journal of Nusantara Studies, 3(2), 176-181. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol3iss2pp176-181

Ventriloquism as a matter for discourse analysis

As a discourse analyst, I take François Cooren's compelling reconstruction of communication theory as ventriloquism as a universe in which the world speaks through us and by our speaking of it, as an invitation to new noticings, new conversations, new questions for analysis (of discourse; interaction; communication). In this discussion note, I stage an inter-action between Cooren’s ventriloqual universe and the concepts of affect, orders of indexicality and polycentricity that animate the work of discourse scholars Rick Iedema and Jan Blommaert. In doing so, I consider how these concepts and the noticings they invite may enhance a ventriloqual view and (perhaps selfishly), how they matter to me as I continue to develop my thinking and doing in discourse studies.

JanBlommaert. Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity (Critical Language and Literacy Studies 18). Bristol, U.K.: Multilingual Matters. 2013. 144 pp. Hb (9781783090402) £69.95/€84.95/US$109.95.

Journal of SociolinguisticsVolume 19, Issue 2 p. 260-265 Book Review Jan Blommaert. Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity (Critical Language and Literacy Studies 18). Bristol, U.K.: Multilingual Matters. 2013. 144 pp. Hb (9781783090402) £69.95/€84.95/US$109.95. Lars Hinrichs, Lars Hinrichs [email protected] English Department, The University of Texas at Austin, 204 W 21st St., B5000, Austin, TX 78712 U.S.ASearch for more papers by this author Lars Hinrichs, Lars Hinrichs [email protected] English Department, The University of Texas at Austin, 204 W 21st St., B5000, Austin, TX 78712 U.S.ASearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 May 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12113Citations: 2Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Citing Literature Volume19, Issue2April 2015Pages 260-265 RelatedInformation

A Comparison of “Popular Music Pedagogy” Discourses

The purpose of this study was to interrogate discourses of “popular music pedagogy” in order to better understand music education practices generally and specifically those in the United States. Employing a conceptual framework based on the work of Jan Blommaert (2005), a content analysis was conducted on a sample of 81 articles related to popular music and music education according to the variables of journal and nationality. Results suggest that international differences in discourse existed. American-based authors focused on issues of legitimacy and quality (repertoire and teaching), whereas non-American-based authors focused on matters of utility and efficacy, with an emphasis on the quality of learning and pedagogical relationship. The lack of awareness (national and international) of discourse features and functions may be limiting the effectiveness of both communication and practice.

The Sociolinguistics of Globalization by Jan Blommaert

World EnglishesVolume 31, Issue 2 p. 271-273 REVIEWS The Sociolinguistics of Globalization by Jan Blommaert Jamie Shinhee Lee, Corresponding Author Jamie Shinhee Lee Department of Language, Culture, and Communication, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI 48128, USA. E-mail: jamilee@umd.umich.eduSearch for more papers by this author Jamie Shinhee Lee, Corresponding Author Jamie Shinhee Lee Department of Language, Culture, and Communication, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI 48128, USA. E-mail: jamilee@umd.umich.eduSearch for more papers by this author First published: 17 May 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2012.01758.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume31, Issue2June 2012Pages 271-273 RelatedInformation

Inequalities and crossings: Literacy and the spaces-in-between

Debates on literacy inequalities have been powerfully advanced through Jan Blommaert's work, which demonstrates the ways in which discourse forms can lose function as they are moved into different environments. Looking through a south-north lens, Blommaert maps this feature of loss of function against world wide inequalities conceptualised through the centre-periphery models outlined in world systems theory. This paper presents work that I have done over a number of years on the concept of recontextualisation, examining at a micro-level (rather than a transnational level) examples of everyday print and digital texts which people produce and interpret as part of processes in workplaces and development projects in New Zealand and South Africa. The research then explores what happens to the fit between form and function when these particular texts are projected across contexts in the sequences of events necessary to ‘make things happen’. I explore the implications of this shift in terms of the unit of analysis, questioning how the concepts of literacy events and practices, so central to the New Literacy Studies (NLS), can account for such shifting. I identify the resources that actors have access to and draw on in each event in these sequences, and in their ability to project beyond the local, looking more closely at the materiality of literacy. As people and/or their texts are recontextualised as part of such meaning-making trajectories, time and space become important dimensions of analysis: I explore the levels at which time and space can be analysed in these crossings, treating these levels as forms of scaling. The multi-sited, micro-ethnographic work involved in tracing these trajectories shows that function can be lost, but it can also be sustained and/or gained. The paper suggests that a shift is needed from the focus (evident in much research and teaching in language and literacy studies) on the production and interpretation of meanings within contexts towards a focus on the projection of meanings across contexts. This shift of focus can contribute to new understandings of the placedness of resources for meaning making, the notion of capabilities and the understanding of literacy inequalities.