Language Ideological Debates Research Articles

Who's being elitist? A debate about the enregisterment of Singlish

Abstract This article is a rejoinder to Lee (2023) who makes certain claims about the enregisterment of Singlish via a case study of Spiaking Singlish. In challenging Lee's key claim that Spiaking Singlish deploys a form of elitist language, I argue that the Singlish features in the book need not demand a solely ludic reading and actually draw from everyday practices. Accordingly, enregisterment ought to be understood as a diachronic and evolving process in the vein of Butler's (1999) notion of sedimentation. Moreover, Lee's characterization of the ‘monolectal Singlish user’ is classist and reductionist, unsupported by recent research and census data. Consequently, Spiaking Singlish need not be seen as an elitist work, but as contributing to ever-changing attitudes towards Singlish in the public sphere. This article is an alternative iteration to Lee's (2023) that has implications for the way we understand enregisterment in Singapore and choose to represent it as a process. (Enregisterment, Singlish, Singapore, sociolinguistics, language ideological debates)*

A multi-layered comparative analysis of English-medium instruction in the Netherlands

AbstractThe rise of English in Dutch higher education has been accompanied by a language ideological debate that affects students’ and lecturers’ lives at the micro level, policy and planning at the meso (institutional) level and is related to the macro perspective (national political agenda). This study explores how language ideologies and attitudes play a role in this debate by comparing lecturers’ perceptions of the use of English in higher education to general language ideologies reflected in the Dutch printed press. A thematic analysis was conducted, including a three-dimensional investigation incorporating a vertical approach (macro, meso, micro) combined with a horizontal approach focusing on ideological themes present at the vertical level. Our data consist of 151 news items and 20 interviews with lecturers in higher education. Results show that monolingual language ideologies are the norm in both the perceptions of teaching staff and the Dutch media. Lecturers were generally more positive towards the exclusive use of English than the printed media. The study suggests that the Dutch/English dichotomy and accompanying persistence of a monolingual language ideology contrast with the reality of the Netherlands as a multilingual community. Implications for language policy and practice within EMI are presented.

Sociolinguistic upsets and people of color in social media performances

Abstract Particularly since the refugee “reception crisis” in 2015, Finland has started transforming into a more diverse and multicultural society. These societal changes have also been accompanied by sociolinguistic change, as well as language ideological debates and tensions, often manifesting in explicitly racist and xenophobic bursts of upset. In this article, our focus is on social media as a space where such societal and sociolinguistic upsets are articulated and re-worked. Drawing on recent sociolinguistic and discourse analytic work on transformative and critical popular cultural practices in social media, and studies on rap and belonging, we discuss how, in a mediatized society such as Finland, social media serve as a forum for antagonism and conflict, but also as a site for ‘talking back’. As our illustrative cases, we investigate two heteroglossic social media performances by entertainers and artists of color. In our analysis, we will show how these performances highlight and contest ideological notions of the way particular language resources are considered a key to Finnishness, as well as their role in the racialization and othering of people of color.

State policymakers on Latvian, English, and Russian in higher education in Latvia: language ideological debates through the lens of argumentation analysis

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the positions of state policymakers in Latvia on Latvian, English, and Russian in higher education. By using argumentation analysis, the study explores policymakers’ statements in two public debates: on the use of Russian as a medium of instruction (May 2018–June 2020) and on the use of English as a language of doctoral theses (November–December 2019). The paper shows that the main difference of opinion among policymakers is about the role of the state in university language policies. Through a focus on the discursive elements in policymaking, four responses to language use in academia are outlined: firstly, the dominant nationalising discourse, which is reinforced to insist on the need for the state to continue with its nationalising language policies; secondly, the globalising discourse, which is manifested in the statements of the same policymakers to justify the state’s support to English, but not Russian; the final two discourses emphasise that universities should be autonomous to implement their own language policies, yet one of these is solely used to argue for institutional autonomy, whereas the other links autonomy with arguments that suggest construing Russian in academia as a right and a resource, not as a problem.

The evolution of language ideological debates about English and French in a multilingual humanitarian organisation

This article traces the evolution of the ideological construction of elite multilingualism, with a focus on the values accorded to French and English, under transforming socioeconomic and institutional conditions at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC, a major humanitarian agency based in Geneva, opens a window onto the construction of “internationalisation” and its accompanying language ideologies, resulting in fluctuating hiring requirements for “delegates” (expatriate representatives). The data include job advertisements for delegate posts from 1989 to 2020 complemented by interviews with different generations of delegates and ethnographic fieldwork in a recruitment fair. The analysis of language ideological debates at the ICRC illuminates the articulations and tensions between “roots” in Geneva, symbolised by French, and “routes” in its delegations worldwide, with English as a lingua franca, in dominant discourses about multilingualism. The requirements for ICRC delegates include English as a must and at least a second ICRC working language. Concerning the latter, there are tensions between the desired language regime at headquarters, privileging French as the “parent” language, and the current needs in key operations, with a shortage of Arabic speakers. The analysis shows that French requirements for generalist delegates have fluctuated from perfect command and good knowledge to an optional second working language. In the 2020 recruitment campaign, elite multilingualism is hierarchically stratified into English as a global language, other “working languages” including Arabic, and non-European languages such as Pashto or Dari as newly-introduced “assets”.

Chineseness, Taiwaneseness, and the traditional and simplified Chinese scripts:Tourism, identity, and linguistic commodification

This study investigates a language ideological debate concerning the adoption of simplified Chinese script—the norm in China—at tourist spots in Taiwan, where traditional Chinese script is the norm, after Taiwan opened up its market to Chinese independent travelers in 2011. With discourse data from the government, media, hosts, and Chinese travelers, we explore how the scripts are associated with various meanings and how the debate is interwoven with the contestation of Taiwanese identity. Multiple levels of tension are identified, including those between the symbolic and instrumental values of the scripts and between Taiwan's national identity and marketing considerations. We conclude that discourses concerning the two Chinese scripts serve as a discursive space where ‘Taiwaneseness’ and ‘Chineseness’ are variously constructed and negotiated along two main axes of differentiation.

Examining Students’ Co-construction of Language Ideologies through Multimodal Text

French immersion (FI), one of the hallmarks of French as a Second Language education in Canada and mandated in New Brunswick, Canada’s only officially English/French bilingual province, is often the target of language ideological debates surrounding its purposes and expected outcomes. Yet, notably absent in FI scholarship has been a focus on the ideologies informing students’ investment in French, including what bilingualism might mean for their language learning and identity. In this article, we discuss nine Grade 8 French immersion students’ co-construction of language ideologies regarding bilingualism. In a focus group, these students created a promotional video regarding the merits of bilingualism whose audience was comprised of fictional peers in a predominantly Anglophone province. Our analysis was guided by Darvin and Norton’s (2015) model of investment. We employed the tools of multimodal critical discourse analysis to consider the students’ construction of language ideologies through their video production. Through macro and micro analyses, we identified five primary ideologies: Bilingualism (a) is a matter of personal decision; (b) provides access to jobs; (c) provides access to economic capital; (d) provides access to Francophone communities of practice; and (e) provides access to symbolic capital. We discuss how the students have “remixed” the dominant provincial ideologies on bilingualism into their own, considering the implications of these ideologies on their investment in French. Finally, we suggest how multimodal practices provide a means to develop language students’ meta-cognition and expand their investment in their target language.

Linguistic Injustice and Global English: Some Notes From Its Role in Academic Publishing

In recent years, the position of English as the main language of international research publishing has become a growing source of language ideological debates within academia and most notably, of course, amongst Applied Linguists. In very short terms, there seems to exist a division between those who regard English as an agent of linguistic injustice for multilingual scholars, versus those who would place more emphasis on other, non-linguistic factors in accounting for the injustices perceived to exist in the publishing enterprise. In this article, summarising some of my own recent work on this topic, I suggest that looking at the issue as an ‘either-or’ is not only not useful, but it can also be counterproductive for our analyses. Instead, I propose we need to look at the question of English for research publication purposes as a ‘both-and’, meaning that both linguistic and non-linguistic factors have to be taken into consideration, and I sketch some ideas as to how that can be done.

Language policy and the status of languages in contemporary Catalonia: a public debate

Language ideological debates are a constant feature of virtually all language contact situations, particularly in contexts of a conflictive nature. In this article, we analyse one recent debate about languages in Catalonia. In April 2016 a group of linguists and language professionals published a manifesto - the Manifest Koiné - that provoked an explosion of opinions in mass-media outlets in the region. In the article, we analyse both the content of the manifesto and the reactions that it sparked. Our analysis shows that in presenting the situation of Catalan in a rather pessimistic light, the manifesto finds itself in line with a long-solidified line of thought in the Catalan language imaginary. At the same time, the negative terms that are used to portray both Spanish and bilingualism in the manifesto are the points that gathered the strongest opposition during the debate. In addition, the single official status for Catalan in an imagined future independent state (the position implicitly endorsed by the manifesto) also was not supported in the debate. We conclude that these results are in line with the changing nature of the language ideological landscape that Catalonia has experienced over the last decades.

A taxonomic approach to the use of English in the Italian media

AbstractInvestigating English borrowings in Italian media, this study analyzes various uses of English in headlines of the online version of the popular Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera. It addresses the pervasiveness of English borrowings in contexts where their use does not seem motivated by necessity. The analysis disambiguates informative loans from loans of manner (as well as pseudo‐Anglicisms from integral loans) in different topic domains. Findings show that non‐specialized borrowings are especially abundant in domains where the advertising power of English is exploited, and that borrowings are often hybridized in a systematic way, adapting to Italian morphosyntax. Moreover, this study responds to language ideological debates about the alleged ‘invasion’ of English into Italian and, by taking a taxonomic approach, demonstrates that such uses of English are associated with distinct pragmatic functions within the hybridized genre of news‐as‐advertising discourse.

Canadian Immersion Students’ Investment in French

AbstractFrench second language education, including the option of one‐way French immersion, is mandated for majority‐language Anglophone children in New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province. Language ideological debates in the province surrounding official English–French bilingualism led us to investigate adolescent majority‐language immersion students’ investment in French, the co‐official minority language, using Darvin and Norton's tripartite (capital, ideology, identity) model. We discuss 3 student profiles, drawing on data collected from multimodal focus groups conducted among 8th‐grade French immersion students. Our analysis reveals a dominance of neoliberal ideologies in these students’ investment in French, rendering it imbalanced and largely driven by imagined access to future economic capital. Language as cultural or social capital figures inconsistently in their investment. Drawing on our data, we conclude by proposing that Darvin and Norton's model, with a balanced focus on each kind of capital within the model, may be used conceptually by educators in program development. The model used in such a way would enable educators to give equal priority to students’ identity and intercultural development as to their preparation for participation in economic marketplaces, thus potentially expanding majority‐language students’ investment in their co‐official minority second language.

Language Ideological Debates and Intercultural Learning in French Immersion Education

Bien qu’au Canada, le multiculturalisme et l’éducation bilingue offrent l’occasion aux secteurs de l’éducation de promouvoir la citoyenneté interculturelle des étudiants, les débats linguistiques idéologiques (DLI) qui ont cours au Nouveau-Brunswick — seule province canadienne officiellement bilingue — risquent d’engendrer la création de structures faisant obstacle au développement interculturel des élèves anglophones en immersion française. En s’appuyant sur l’hypothèse selon laquelle les DLI peuvent être réifiés dans le matériel éducatif, les auteures soumettent à une analyse du discours les objectifs culturels du document de base des Provinces atlantiques en matière d’immersion française, faisant appel au modèle d’acquisition des langues socialement située du groupe Douglas Fir. Elles se penchent sur l’incidence des forces idéologiques (au niveau macro) sur la construction discursive de ces objectifs (au niveau méso). Des ambiguïtés idéologiques sont relevées : l’apprentissage culturel est inscrit dans les idéologies nationales de multiculturalisme et de bilinguisme relativement au capital économique sur le marché mondial, et il est distancé de son lien avec l’histoire du Nouveau-Brunswick. On donne préséance à la communication fonctionnelle des étudiants avec les francophones sur leur évolution personnelle. Les auteures suggèrent des façons d’aborder avec les étudiants du français langue seconde la discussion sur les idéologies linguistiques de manière à favoriser le développement interculturel.

Language ideological debates about linguistic landscapes

Abstract In 2013, Richmond city council was presented with a petition calling for the regulation of all language signs, drawing national attention to the amount of Chinese-only signage. The signage debate has become well-known in Canada as a result of the media, which has provided a platform for debate through online reader commentary. By applying concepts from linguistic landscapes, language ideologies and nationalism in addition to analytical tools from SFL, we employ critical discourse studies to examine how representations of and responses to language signage in online news commentary contribute to the construction of in-groups and out-groups in the Canadian context. Findings show that stereotypical representations of ethnicity and culture are represented as a threat to the Canadian status quo. Also, contradictory ideologies of Canadian official bilingualism are employed to justify discrimination against Chinese language speakers. Findings suggest that language ideologies remain deeply tied to understandings of Canadian nationhood and belonging.

Wrestling between English and Pinyin

Abstract This paper examines the code choice and contestations on street name signs in China to find out the dynamics of language politics and the language ideological debates. In China, Hanyu Pinyin and English compete for visibility on street signs, though only Pinyin is the legally-endorsed alphabetic form for place names. Spolsky’s (2004, 2009) tripartite language policy model is adopted to analyse the management, practice and ideologies regarding the code choice on street name signs in Chinese cities. It shows that Pinyin has been promulgated as domestic standard fused with national interests in the official discourse, while English win the favour of the general public and some international-oriented cities due to its pragmatic value and the symbolic capital associated with it. The resilient approach taken by the top authority suggests that the traditional model of language management relying on political authority and ideological hegemony is hard to work its way out nowadays.

Gendered politics of enmity

This paper analyses the role language and gender have played in the construction of animosity among various constituencies during a political crisis in Brazil. To do so, it investigates a language ideological debate about the innovative use of the letter X as a gender morpheme – an inclusive alternative against Portuguese binary grammatical gender system. The data include op-eds, blog posts, news articles and in-depth semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in the debate. The analyses track the emergence of competing metadiscursive and metapragmatic regimes about grammar, gender and politics. On a macro-sociological level, this language ideological work helps shape politics of enmity which characterise the current state of democracy in Brazil and elsewhere. However, it also points to the emergence of situated counterdiscourses of solidarity which help individuals face an otherwise debilitating social context.

Letters beautiful and harmful: print, education, and the issue of script in colonial North India

ABSTRACTThe question of script was paramount in the nineteenth-century debate over Hindi and Urdu, two closely related languages that are characterised by “extreme digraphia”. Rather than rehearsing the well-known story of the culturally and politically charged process of differentiation in which the two sister languages became prime markers of religious identity, this paper explores the function and visual dimension of Devanagari and the Perso-Arabic script in the field of primary education. In investigating the impact of movable type printing and lithography in educational publishing, it asks how shifts in print technology and typographic innovation intersected with language ideology. The paper traces the variety of aesthetic, technological, and social arguments advanced by colonial officials, missionaries, and Indian educators in favour of either script, while also exploring how the movement for Romanisation and the prevalence of popular writing systems such as Kaithi challenged the use of the Nagari and Urdu scripts in primary education. Against the backdrop of the complex linguistic ecology of North India, it argues that the issue of script cannot be reduced to language ideological debates. Looking beyond language antagonism and engaging writing systems through the lens of functionality, standardising technologies, and typographic change will help elucidate how their social and cultural function was constituted in educational contexts.

<i>Ein Mischmasch aus Deutsch und Französisch</i>

Luxembourg has often been classi?ed as a ‘triglossic’ country in sociolinguistic literature, due to Luxembourgish being used predominantly for spoken functions and French and German for written functions. However, language use in late modern Luxembourg is characterized by increased levels of spoken French coupled with the growing presence of written Luxembourgish in the public sphere, thus altering certain long-standing patterns of language use. In this context, Luxembourgish is often framed as an important marker of authenticity and national identity in language ideological debates. At the same time, the ideological positioning of Luxembourgish as the national language stands in tension with varying levels of uncertainty regarding writing conventions in Luxembourgish, particularly in more formal contexts. Based on the analysis of metalinguistic comments from focus group data, this article examines how the participants discursively construct Luxembourgish in their negotiation between positioning Luxembourgish as the national language whilst also describing it as not being a fully ?edged standardized language. On a broader scale, this paper contributes to language ideological research that explores the construction of national languages as well as the relationship between the standard language ideology and the one-nation one-language ideology.

La propiedad de la lengua: norma y uso en la obra de Ricardo Monner Sans

The question of purity in language has been a common topic in the fields of language ideological debates in the Spanish-speaking world. In this paper, we propose an analysis of the various conceptualizations on linguistic correctness in the work of Ricardo Monner Sans in order to elucidate the links between his linguistic theory and his position on language policy. In that sense, we assume that these conceptualizations should be analyzed as a consequence of a more general consideration about linguistic usage and purity . This consideration seeks a regulatory intervention on the linguistic practices of society based on philological knowledge. Thus, the dimension of usage is divided into a common usage which corresponds to the widespread use in community, and correct usage , that which has been legislated by philological knowledge and which is, for this reason, the criteria for linguistic correction on which the ideal of a homogeneous linguistic community is based.

Whose French is it anyway? Language ideologies and re-emerging indexicalities of French in Flanders

AbstractIn this article I address a number of recent controversial language-related incidents and ideological statements regarding the use of French in the public sphere by Flemish nationalist aldermen in two Flemish towns. By drawing on interviews with different stakeholders (shop owners, aldermen, and passers-by), I address the different perceptions and ideological indexicalities of French shop names and signs in these Flemish contexts. In the data, the indexical field (Eckert 2008) of French in Flanders emerges as both polyvalent and indexically ordered, while the Flemish nationalist interpretations involve rescaled and historically recursive indexical meaning that can only be understood vis-à-vis the historical language ideological debate in Belgium. Language use in the public sphere has thus become a tool to impose monolingual ‘doxic logics’ (Bourdieu 1977) in Flanders, in spite of the fact that commercial and private language use is not regulated by language laws in Belgium. (Flemish nationalism, language ideologies, linguistic landscape)*

Castilian Takes Backstage in the Balearic Islands: The Activation of Catalan Standardization Recursions in Facebook

This article explores the ideological consequences of recent language policy changes in the Balearic Islands, where Catalan and Castilian are the official languages. It will approach the intersection between minoritized language contexts and ideologies of standardization, focusing on negotiations of linguistic authority and linguistic differentiation at the individual level. In the frame of intense language ideological debates in the archipelago, I examine the interactions between members of two large Facebook communities to show how the ideological frame shifts toward one in which the relationship between Balearic varieties and the Catalan standard becomes central, and in which Castilian is only implicitly addressed.