Elite Language Research Articles

Mobility-in-place: how to keep privilege by being mobile at work

Abstract In this paper, we explore the notion of mobility as a dynamic process of keeping oneself in a privileged position through the mobilisation of linguistic, communicative, and semiotic resources. It is a proposed construct that troubles our understanding of the two dominant paradigms in the study of language in globalisation: the sociolinguistics of distribution (study of language-in-place) and the sociolinguistics of mobility (study of language-in-motion) (Blommaert and Dong 2007. Language and movement in space. Working Papers in Language Diversity. University of Jyväskylä). We examine the professional life story of Andrew and Juanito to map out the inventive manner by which they move around within their workplaces through their deployment of language, and English in particular. While there has been substantial work dedicated to unpacking elite language and how it enables the mobility of speakers, our paper departs from it by constructing an understanding of how such privilege is organized in terms of people’s ability to shift between linguistic and stylistic choices in order to mobilize their own privileged mobility within their chosen workplaces. What we see here is the mobilisation of ‘language-in-motion-in-place’ -- or broadly, mobility-in-place -- which erases the conceptual dichotomy between the two dominant paradigms in the study of language and globalisation: while the speakers are in place, they are also mobile.

Revisiting symbolic power and elite language education in China: a critical narrative ethnography of the English education major at a top language university in Shanghai

ABSTRACT Despite the promise of English language teaching and the use of English as a medium of instruction, concerns have been growing about the decline in the number of English majors as well as structural problems in elite language education reflected in the rural-urban divide and resulting educational gaps in China. The English education major at a top language-intensive university could serve as a key site for this investigation. However, existing literature has significantly overlooked this important area. This study explored the life course stages of Chinese students who were originally from rural areas or socioeconomically underrepresented regions/districts and majoring in English education at a top language-intensive university located in Shanghai. By adopting a critical narrative ethnographic approach, the authors wrote field notes and conducted in-depth interviews with 18 study participants. The findings showed that mothers’ involvement significantly influenced students’ motivation to learn English, college admission, and academic major choice. However, students also developed personal perceptions about career prospects while in college. By applying the Bourdieusian approach to language and symbolic power, this study interpreted participants’ developmental process of linguistic habitus and capital, regardless of their socioeconomic status. This study further interpreted their management of accumulated linguistic capital, while critiquing existing structural problems of the elite language education system, along with the English major crisis in the Chinese higher education system. As critical narrative ethnographers, the authors presented their reflexive turns on symbolic power and the future of English education in a Sino-Anglo context.

Intercultural communication between Chinese college students and foreign teachers through the English corner at an elite language university in Shanghai

This paper uses an ethnographic approach and draws critical pedagogical and sociolinguistic insights from Pierre Bourdieu to explore Chinese college students’ participation in an English Corner program at an elite language university in Shanghai. Accordingly, this paper promotes scholarly conversations about intercultural communication between Chinese college students and foreign teachers from English-speaking countries. By underpinning the concepts of intercultural capital, this paper analyzes these themes: (a) linguistic habitus and capital in the stratified field of elite language education; (b) articulating English proficiency; (c) bridging cultural distance and improving intercultural competence; and (d) personal growth and professional development. This paper critically interprets Chinese college students’ benefits and mutual relationships with foreign faculty from English-Speaking Countries; how they cultivated intercultural capital in the field of elite education beyond linguistic capital, how they strove to maintain their accumulated capital to secure better career prospects, and what the roles of international faculty should be.

Intimacy and Race in Late Soviet Central Asia

Intimacy and Race in Late Soviet Central Asia

Latest history of the Polish language (1918–2018)

The latest history of the Polish language (1918–2018) consists of four phases (1918–1939, 1939–1945, 1945–1990, after 1990). In the area of extra-linguistic phenomena and sociolinguistic trends, the Polish language has evolved from the status of an elite language to a democratised code and from the double division of communication varieties (common language : dialects) to the triple division (common language : folk dialects : mixed codes). In the area of intra-linguistic phenomena, the trends of economisation and completion of linguistic devices dominated throughout the history, while preserving the uniform dynamics of other trends (unification, repartition, nobilitation). These processes and specific language changes have affected all structural layers of the Polish language system in a proportional manner, which proves the effectiveness of optimisation processes. Keywords: language history – latest history of the Polish language – Polish language evolution – language system – extra-linguistic factors – intra-linguistic factors – sociolinguistic trends – language system development trends.

Review: The Rise of Coptic: Egyptian versus Greek in Late Antiquity, by Jean-Luc Fournet

Review: <i>The Rise of Coptic: Egyptian versus Greek in Late Antiquity</i>, by Jean-Luc Fournet

Teaching English to Linguistically Diverse Students from Migration Backgrounds: From Deficit Perspectives to Pockets of Possibility

This article reports on an interview study with six secondary school LX English teachers working in a part of Austria where there is an above-average number of residents–and thus also students–who are multilingual and come from migration backgrounds. It attempts to extend research on deficit perspectives of multilingual learners from migration backgrounds to the area of LX English learning and to provide insights into a language learning context that is underrepresented in international applied linguistics research, which has tended to focus on elite language learning. The article explores teachers’ perceptions of teaching English in this context. We hypothesized that teachers would hold negative beliefs about their students’ multilingual backgrounds and practices. The typological analysis of teachers’ interview data revealed that teachers did hold some dominant deficit perspectives about their students’ multilingualism and language learning; however, it also suggests that teachers are taking on the rudiments of a translanguaging stance that values multilingual practice. The article thus closes by considering how possibility perspectives can be harnessed and extended to foster students’ multilingual and multicultural development, with particular regard to LX English language learning.

The Merits and Dangers of Latin:

Abstract: In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in the kingdom of Hungary, intellectuals and politicians were fiercely debating the merits and dangers of Latin. In a country in which Latin was still the official language, and the second language of elites, this was no mere academic discussion. Rather, it concerned both the practical aspects of coexistence in a complex multi-ethnic feudal polity and the question of the identity of the nation and its development. The social and political role of Latinity was negotiated by its supporters and detractors in the Diet, the county assemblies of the nobles, and in countless pamphlets and newspaper articles. In 1808, a surreptitious attempt to steer the public debate on the topic led to an essay competition known as the “Tübingen Call”, which attracted a fair number of submissions. The surviving essays from the competition present a wide range of arguments for and against the use of Latin from various points of view, which are reviewed and analysed here.

МОВНА ОСОБИСТІСТЬ ТА ВИШУКАНА МОВНА ОСОБИСТІСТЬ ЯК КЛЮЧОВІ ПОНЯТТЯ ТЕОРІЇ ЛІНГВОПЕРСОНОЛОГІЇ

The article deals with the notions of language personality and elite language personality within the new linguistic guideline as linguopersonology. On the background of the viewpoints of the famous linguists (A. and N. Zah-nitkiv,V. Karasyka, T. Kosmedi, O. Saharova, A Romanchenko a etc.,) the author described the diversity of scientific concepts on contents , level model and structural – component composition of the language personality, highlighted the formation and development of this phenomenon within the sphere of the related disciplines. The criteria given as to the outlined elite (refined) language personality with reference to the exemplary speech, high intellect, linguocreativity, moral and ethic image and communicative competence. The statement is drawn out that the language personality is multilayered phenomenon presenting the collective consciousness, while the refined language personality standing out for high level of language proficiency may be the pattern to follow for study the native language and development of language competency of the represent-tatives of national lingocommunity. The selected material was traced through by The methods used in this scientific study are determined by its purpose. These include traditional descriptive with classification technique, methods of analysis and synthesis to represent the author's intentions for classification and presentation of updated theoretical material, the method of induction – to obtain general conclusions based on the principles underlying the proposed classifications, and the method of deduction – for selection of important theoretical postulates and their comprehension, the author's generalizations are offered by means of an interpretive method.

In the Garden of Language: Religion, Vernacularization, and the Pashto Poetry of Arzānī in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

This article presents translations and analyses of some of the earliest known examples of Pashto literature: the poems of a figure known as Mullā Arzānī. The Pashto ghazals of Arzānī reflect a Sufi and messianic religio-cultural milieu in which Pashto is understood to be a divine language. An exploration of Arzānī’s poetry and Arzānī’s understanding of his own language use presents a strong challenge to the overly deterministic role that notions of “Pashtun identity” have played in Euro-American understandings of Pashto literature. Arzānī’s use of Pashto aimed not to express Pashtun ethnic identity. Rather, Arzānī’s ghazals position Pashto as an elite language that accords with the messianic and mystical logics of early modern Persianate cultures. Arzānī paired the cosmopolitanism of Persian and Islamic discourses with the particularity of Pashto language as a means to present Pashto as a divine and revelatory language within the messianic milieu of the Roshaniyya movement.

The Imperium of the Colonial Tongue? Evidence on Language Policy Preferences in Zambia

AbstractSub-Saharan Africa stands out as a part of the world that primarily uses, as its official languages, former colonial languages that are neither spoken at home nor in the community. In this paper, we elicit preferences for colonial versus local languages and analyse the role of perceived costs and returns to different languages. In order to do so, we elicit beliefs about the effects of hypothetical changes to Zambia’s language policy on schooling outcomes, income and social cohesion. Our results show overwhelming support for the use of the colonial language to act as official. Looking at the determinants, we find that fears of being disadvantaged by the installation of another group’s language, high perceived costs of learning in another group’s language and lack of association between retaining the elite language and socioeconomic inequality as crucial factors in affecting preferences over language policies.

Big Data Comes for Textualism: The Use and Abuse of Corpus Linguistics in Second Amendment Litigation

Some scholars, judges, and advocates have recently urged that legal corpus linguistics, a methodology that uses computerized searches of large volumes of texts known as “corpora,” can determine the original meaning of constitutional provisions. More particularly, certain of these advocates have argued that corpus linguistics searches of Founding era corpora prove that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms protects only a collective, militia right and not an individual, private right to arms, contrary to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of that amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S 570 (2008). In this article, we argue that relying on corpus linguistics to determine the meaning of the Second Amendment suffers from severe conceptual and practical difficulties. One of the most fundamental flaws concerns the central methodological assumption of corpus linguistics—the “frequency hypothesis”—which posits that the most frequent meaning of a word or phrase returned by a corpus search should be the meaning adopted for purposes of constitutional interpretation. Even if the phrase “bear arms” most frequently appears in a military context, that does not mean that the constitutional language excludes an individual right to bear arms for self-defense and other private purposes. Military and militia references were more likely to appear in public discussions of the right to bear arms simply because they were more “newsworthy” than the mundane acts of ordinary people carrying a firearm for hunting or defense, which would rarely be recorded. Contemporary examples, including references by the Founders themselves, show that the right to “bear arms” included protection of an individual right as well as furthering a well-regulated militia. In addition, corpus linguistics suffers from serious problems concerning the composition of the corpora, which are biased in favor of elite language usage and are critically incomplete, missing some of the key texts that historians and legal scholars have long relied upon in discerning the Second Amendment’s meaning. Use of legal corpus linguistics also raises serious practical difficulties in actual constitutional litigation, including the absence of the usual safeguards applicable to expert or “scientific” evidence. In the end, the counting of words resulting from a corpus search cannot overcome the history and traditions at the time of the Founding that allowed free carry and use of firearms, and the core conception by the Founders that self-protection with arms is a pre-existing right that cannot be taken away from the individual by any act of civil society.

HISTORY OF BORROWING WORDS TO CREATE VOCABULARY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE INFLUENCED BY VARIOUS LANGUAGES

English is one of the most peculiar languages in the world. It is thoroughly confusing and quite difficult to learn for non-natives. The prime reason for this complexity lies in the history of English language. Over the ages, English language has been heavily influenced by numerous languages. In fact, English, as a language by itself, is said to have drawn from several languages in its conception. Invasions, cultural clashes, intellectual advancements, societal changes, colonialism, and globalisation – all have lent towards making the vocabulary of English rich and diverse. The way a language influences English was often determined by the class of people who used it. Languages used by common people influenced the common nouns and words of daily usage, while the language of elites influenced words related to a certain sector or class. Also, the history of the English is quite lengthy (over 1400 years) and the language has witness numerous social changes and cultural clashes over the ages. Due to such all these reasons, several languages have had considerable influence on English language. So that, English is often said to be an amalgamation of multiple languages, rather than a language of its own. The paper focusses on History of languages which were used by a certain sect of people or for a certain purpose influenced words related to only that sector, while having virtually no influence on the rest. These major influences, world-wide colonialism has led to English borrowing and absorbing several words from native languages all around the world.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AS A GLOBAL EMPLOYMENT SKILL: THE VIEWPOINT OF PAKISTANI ACADEMIA

Purpose of the Study: The current research aims at exploring the need of effective English skill as a global employment skill and its various reasons, as there are various Pakistani institutes which are dedicated to The English language teaching and reinforce its relationship with employability. The importance of the study being conducted in Pakistan becomes more evident as English enjoys the status of the second language in the country. Methodology: Current study uses a mixed-method research design and employs both questionnaires and interviews as research instruments. The questionnaire was administrated on a sample of 392 university students while a sample of 13 informants from university faculty participated in an interview for data collection. Main Findings: The study concludes that the importance of English was associated with increased connectivity due to globalization. The study also concludes that the importance of English for finding jobs and making a career was well-established. To conclude, it can be said that English language proficiency is amongst the top global employment skills in the viewpoint of Pakistani academia. Application of this Study: The study implicates that the importance of English for employment across the globe and a successful career will further lead to the formulation of English Specific courses for different professional and occupational groups in Pakistan. The originality of the Study: There is a scarcity of empirical evidence in terms of the importance of English as an employment skill though English is considered very important as an elite language and a status symbol. The study proposes to fill in the gap by providing empirical evidence, therefore, the research is being conducted to assess the status of English and its importance for global employment skills.

РЫНОК КАК ОТРАЖЕНИЕ ЦЕННОСТНЫХ ОРИЕНТИРОВ В ПОЭТИЧЕСКОМ ДИСКУРСЕ

The article considers the features of the word “rynok” (market) used in poetic texts. The textual data are taken from the Russian National Corpus. The work particularly focuses on axiological aspect of the word functioning since poetic texts are supposed to represent the key cultural concepts from the viewpoint of the elite language personality who is able to perceive social values exceptionally vividly. Semantics of “rynok” in poetic texts is ambiguous and reflects the features disapproved by the poet (eagerness to get profit) as well as positive sides (colorfulness of life).

English

This article addresses the question, how does Sierra Leone’s language regime, moderated through formal and informal education, contribute to post-war globalization dynamics? Since Sierra Leonean independence from Britain in 1961, Krio, a type of Creole, has gone from being the mother tongue of a small ethnic minority to the lingua franca, particularly in Freetown, the state capital. English has been Sierra Leone’s elite language since colonial times and remains the only official language of government. Yet many other languages are spoken in Sierra Leone in different communities and contexts. Drawing on interviews and political ethnographic work in Freetown and the districts, the study argues that language and identity shift connected to post-war globalization reflects tensions between upward socio-economic mobility and cultural survival. Key words: Sierra Leone, language, education, participation, identity, citizenship.

Sustainable Development Goals: Tracing Social Media’s Tamil Citizen Voices in Indian context

As per Human Development Index of 2019 report, India is in the 129th rank. Nearly 28% of the Indian population lives below the poverty line. As per another report from The Lancet journal on healthcare index, India is in 154th position among the 195 countries. According to India’s Annual Status of Education Report 2017, 14% of children in the age group of 14-18 are not enrolled in any school system. Education, health and living standards are the primary factors to measure the quality of life in any social settings. Giving this grim view of social conditions in India, the role of public institutions as well as individual members’ are crucial in lending adequate support to the society to enhance the standings of living conditions. According to a study published in 2011, only 2% of news space were being given to the issues pertinent to development by the leading Indian national newspapers. Many news stories in these 2%, might have appeared due to 'Coups and earthquakes syndrome’ type of events that contained news values of death, disease and disaster. From the perspective of Sustainable Development Goals, the participatory approach of individuals is more meaningful in order to achieve the stated 17 goals as well as 169 targets. Apart from the government’s initiative for the SDGs and substantial fundings from the donor agencies, awareness about the SDGs is essential and ideal for the bottom-up approach towards achieving the development goals and its targets by 2030. In this respect, with the help of twitteR package of and text mining tools of R programming, citizen’s voice was measured for those keywords and its equivalent hashtags which were appeared in June 2018. English is being the elite language in India, one regional language Tamil would be included to compare the non-English private sphere with regard to SDGs in Indian context.

From Sikh identity to ultimate reality: Literary journey of Bhai Vir Singh

ABSTRACTBhai Vir Singh was a product and a leading light of the Singh Sabha movement. Using Punjabi as a medium for his creative writings rather than the elite language of Braj, Vir Singh's literary output not only demolished the myth of Punjabi as a rustic language, but also countered Marxist critics who regarded him as ignorant about modern trends in literature. Based on the study of hitherto unknown material available in the personal collection of Bhai Vir Singh in Amritsar and Dehradun, this paper throws fresh light on poet's literary modernity and modern trends in Punjabi literature introduced by him.

Соперники Тольятти: борьба волжских городов за новый автозавод как частный случай регионального лоббизма эпохи позднего социализма

The article addresses the topic of interactions of center and periphery in the recent national history. The publication of the office memorandums that are being thus introduced into scientific use throws light on the construction of the industrial plant. The article examines the problem of regional lobbying in the USSR in the mid-1960s, at the dawn of the Brezhnev era. It focuses on the declassified archival documents from the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) and the Center for Documentation on the Contemporary History of the Yaroslavl Region (TsDNIYaO). The article analyzes office memorandums on the organization of a new car plant. The record keeping documents of 1965, sent to the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the RSFSR from several regions, are well reasoned petitions. The authors of the memos are Soviet regional leaders of the 1960s: A. A. Skochilov and V. P. Vasiliev (the Ulyanovsk Obkom of the CPSU and the Regional Executive Committee), S. L. Knyazev (Tatar Obkom of the CPSU), F. I. Loschenkov (Yaroslavl Obkom of the CPSU). The analysis of the documents provides answers to a number of questions. Firstly, what were the general trends of lobbying for regional interests in the system of arguments of the local elite? Secondly, what hidden potential problems of regional development of the RSFSR in the mid-1960s can be traced in the petitions of Soviet regional leaders? Thirdly, what were the peculiarities of the local elite language in lobbying for regional interests? Well-reasoned petitions of regional leaders of the late Soviet era on the organization of a new industrial facility are original and little-studied historical sources. The analyzed type of archival documents carries high source study potential, it is of great value for studying regional lobbyism in the early Brezhnev era. The study of such documents can shed light on the invisible processes of the economic life of the late USSR.

Decolonising English Teaching in India: Remarks on English as All-Indian Elite Language (EAEL)

This paper is a humble attempt to share some nagging thoughts in the mind of an English teacher. In consonance with the desire for sharing, the paper often resorts to a personal and intimate style. It argues for an interdisciplinary approach and indispensable interfacing between teaching language and literature. The paper proposes that decolonizing English teaching takes different forms in different social contexts. It contends that, in India, English language teaching should be oriented towards reaching the grassroots learners to fulfill the project of decolonizing at present. In literature, it is argued, that native literature should be given prominence, and the texts in English translations can be used to counteract colonial alienation. Offering a critique of double linguistic hegemony of English and Sanskrit, the paper argues that the teachers of English have a responsibility in rehabilitating native or regional literature. It is suggested that a paradigm shift in the importance given to translations is needed in carrying out the decolonizing project.