Linguistic Ideologies Research Articles

Navigating linguistic ideologies and market dynamics within China’s English language teaching landscape

Abstract This study explores the intricate interplay of linguistic ideologies, market dynamics, and linguistic habitus within the context of English language education in China. Analysis of Chinese English language teachers’ (CELTs) discourse on linguistic insecurity reveals a strong association between accentedness and incompetence, as well as between nativeness and teacher expertise. Despite dissatisfaction with nativeness-oriented criteria prevalent in the field, most CELTs reported experiencing anxiety due to the social stigma surrounding Mandarin-accented English. While certain Inner Circle English varieties are viewed as the most valuable capital, local and other non-Inner Circle varieties are considered the least valuable. Notably, Mandarin-accented English gains higher symbolic value than other perceived nonstandard English varieties beyond the teaching domain. This pricing mechanism within China’s English language teaching (ELT) landscape deviates from the price formation model of world Englishes proposed in previous work, which assigns a greater value to Outer Circle varieties than Expanding Circle varieties. By contextualizing CELTs’ experiences within broader language policies, this study illustrates how national interests, beyond the influence of Inner Circle publishers, intensify native-speakerism in China’s ELT market, thus emphasizing the intricate nature of explaining nuanced pricing patterns in the autonomous market within Expanding Circle contexts.

Identity and Language Advocacy: A Critical Collaborative Autoethnography

ABSTRACT Bilingual preservice teachers are uniquely positioned to enter into the figured world of K-12 schools, where many have experienced trepidation in their own education. Preservice teachers who are given opportunities to explore their identities, understand the big picture related to linguistic ideologies, and connect with one another are better able to grow a stronger sense of self. Through critical collaborative autoethnography, a group of undergraduates wrote their personal language identity story and explored, with their professors, their identities as influenced by languages, cultures, and educational journeys. Major findings include highlighting the identity improvisations of college students as they navigate a Primarily White Institution (PWI) dealing with discrimination, bias, and white and English hegemony. Coming together as a group to build student-led groups to be authentically themselves, honor their language and culture, and support their teacher dream created spaces to change the system. This work adds to the literature on the topic with recommendations that show the importance for PWIs to establish communities, networking and advocacy.

Competing language ideologies of health literacy

Abstract This article examines how ‘Sara’, a migrant woman living with a disability, narrates her experiences with Norway’s welfare and healthcare. Sara invokes a trope — tydelighet [clarity] — to describe successful communication styles in Norwegian institutional spaces. Through ethnographic investigation, I demonstrate how this trope indexes broader linguistic ideologies cycling through different levels of the Norwegian nation-state. To be able to communicate with clarity is linked to being a specific type of citizen-subject. On the one hand, Sara describes the sociopragmatic style of clarity as enabling access to healthcare and welfare services, stable employment, and speaker legitimacy. On the other hand, lack of clarity rationalizes inequalities in institutional spaces. I propose that this ideology has a racializing, gendering, and disabling function. The article offers insights into how language ideologies regulate Sara’s lived experience with health literacy to secure a healthy and employed life as a migrant with disability living in the welfare state.

Endangered words, threatened worlds: Sapara identity in dialogue with UNESCO

ABSTRACT This article explores the self-representation practices of the leaders of the Sapara Nationality of Ecuador in response to UNESCO’s cultural policies and the recognition of their oral traditions and cultural manifestations as Masterpieces of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity (2001). Through critical discourse analysis, the author elucidates how Sapara leaders’ identity narratives engage with UNESCO’s discourses on endangered languages. The analysis revolves around three linguistic ideologies strongly present in UNESCO’s discourses: the metonymic relation between language and territory, the co-occurrence between biological and cultural diversity and the objectification of language as a universal possession. The author argues that supranational institutions like UNESCO are influential in defining notions of indigenous ‘authenticity,’ to which Sapara leaders adapt, negotiate and resist.

What is a dialect? What is a standard?: shifting indexicality and persistent ideological norms

Abstract This paper examines the ways in which the indexical meanings that attach to enregistered speaking styles are debated and contested in interaction by younger Japanese adults. Contested meanings include discourses of so-called hyoojungo ‘Standard Japanese’ and the speaking styles that are collectively described as ‘Okinawan dialect’, which are associated with the islands of Okinawa Prefecture in Japan. This paper uses data from casual conversations between younger male adults who were all born and raised in Okinawa Prefecture but moved to the main island of Honshu for university. Discourse analysis of these conversations demonstrates how these younger adults negotiate the social meanings attached to Okinawan speaking styles, linking them to broader ideologies of so-called hyoojungo as well as gendered styles, and reproducing normative ideologies of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ speech. Homing in on moments in which these speech styles are negotiated, the results of this paper emphasize the persistence of normative linguistic ideologies even as the meaning and content of linguistic styles are being re-imagined.

Interplay of Language and Identity in Education: Prospection for Urdu and English Language and Second Language Teaching and Learning

Educational contexts are the primary sites for the promulgation of linguistic ideologies and for determining the linguistic market for a language. English language in Pakistan is considered vital for mundane, official, and academic activities hence its learning gains currency in the polity. Conversely, the learning outputs are unsatisfactory which necessitates understanding how English language learners perceive themselves concerning the languages they are taught in the educational context. This study explains the language identity for Urdu (L1) and English (L2) of Pakistani undergraduate English as second language (ESL) learners for institutionally recognized and prescribed languages in the national curriculum to explicate the interplay of language and identity of learners in educational settings. Learners’ demographic profiles (previous education, schooling system, language proficiency, and family’s socio-economic status) were also inquired to understand relationship variation across demographic traits. A validated survey questionnaire was administered to a sample (N=316) comprising male and female students from 28 different programmes at a large public university in Karachi. Descriptive analysis and one-way ANOVA were carried out using the IBM SPSS 22 version. The findings attest to learners’ hybrid identity revealing attachment neither with L1 nor to L2. Learners acknowledged the privileged status of the English language in polity and preferred British English compared to the indigenous variety of Pakistani English [PakE] echoing the language ideologies permeated through the Educational context. They also endorsed English language speaking skills for gaining higher recompenses in society however deluded themselves in code[1]switching instead of practicing speaking skills. Besides, no significant difference was found in the language identity of ESL learners across demographic traits. The study has strong implications for devising language policies for education and adopting pedagogical approaches calling to accentuate language identity as a catalyst in the teaching-learning process and not considering linguistic diversity a barrier in the multilingual context.

Code switching patterns in Kazakh-Russian hybrid language practice: An empirical study

The study investigates Kazakh-Russian and Russian-Kazakh code switching in the framework of hybrid language practice to provide insights into the sense-making process among bilinguals. The unique characteristics of the synchronic linguistic situation in Kazakhstan stem from historically rooted ethnic bi- and multilingualism. Language switching has evolved into a tool for addressing communicative partners and sustaining communication in bilingual culture, rather than being viewed as a deviant pattern. It appears to be a dynamic resource for ensuring mutual understanding and harmonised communication. The study aims to reveal the motivations behind individuals’ language switching, how Kazakh and Russian speakers explain hybrid communication, and their sentiments towards it. Data from two surveys conducted in January-February of 2021 and January of 2024 are presented. Each survey involved 50 respondents with higher education, ranging in age from 21 to 40, who have resided in Kazakhstan for an extended period, with many being native-born residents. We argue that switching between the Kazakh and Russian languages serves as a communicative tool utilised by Kazakh and Russian speakers to signify their belonging to a specific sociocultural community. The study posits that hybrid language practice can be viewed from two underlying perspectives: from a ‘deficit’ perspective, signalling limited proficiency in Russian or/and Kazakh, and from a more complex sense-making communicative perspective, assisting interaction. As part of the sense-making process and in sustaining interaction with communication partners, code switching serves an instrumental function. Importantly, hybrid language practice is not portrayed as a sign of cultural decline. There is no strong correlation between the mixing of Russian and Kazakh and social, cultural, and educational barriers. Further implications for research are prompted by the rapidly changing situation. The development of the Kazakh language as a state language is becoming a major goal and central focus in this evolving context, which inevitably raises the issues of linguistic ideology. Distinguishing between ideologically neutral analysis and critical analysis of language use as a tool of symbolic power for specific social groups would provide a more gradient picture of the dynamics in Kazakhstan’s bi- and multilingual situation.

The Evolving Landscape of Spanish Language Representation in U.S. Media: From Overt to Covert Discrimination

Despite the continuously expanding presence of Spanish-speaking communities in the United States, media representation of the Spanish language and that of its speakers has remained relatively scarce. At present, however, a growing interest in reaching and cashing in on this influential consumer group is forcing significant changes in the mass media communication landscape. Not only are an increasing number of movies and TV shows working with more diverse casts (ethnically, culturally, linguistically, etc.), but there also seems to be a heightened presence of Latinx characters in leading or supporting roles. This tendency, however, does not necessarily mean that mainstream media is becoming more inclusive and less anglocentric. In fact, a careful look at the storylines of individuals who are perceived to be Spanish speakers will reveal that they mostly portray stereotypical roles and behaviors. When their stories are told, they are all too often infused with unwarranted messages that portray Latinxs as lazy, unskilled, unintelligible in speech, hypersexual, or simply too ‘foreign’ to fit in. Whether overtly or covertly expressed, the negative impact of these persistent transgressions has the potential to shape real-world ideologies, attitudes, and prejudices. This paper adopts a critical raciolinguistic perspective, which underscores the co-naturalization of language and race, to highlight the role of media in reinforcing discrimination against the Spanish language and its speakers. In our analysis of six recently popularized TV shows (i.e., East Los High, Family Guy, Gentefied, Jane the Virgin, One Day at a Time, and That ‘70s Show), we examine the perpetuation of racialized stereotypes toward Latinx characters’ linguistic practices with regard to (i) the environment in which they exist, (ii) their mannerisms, (iii) speech patterns, and (iv) interactions with other characters. We demonstrate how these shows’ blending of seemingly harmless linguistic ideologies with stereotypical and sensationalized representations grounded in colonial hierarchies reproduces hegemonic interests, perpetuates social inequalities, and places racialized Spanish speakers at a disadvantage.

What does linguistic structure tell us about language ideologies?

Abstract This paper examines how bilingual and monolingual German speakers’ language use reflects underlying linguistic ideologies. I present a corpus study on bilingual and monolingual German speakers, focusing on phonological, lexical, and discourse pragmatic features. The data suggest that bilingual speakers use more markers of formal language and fewer markers of informal language in formal communicative situations than monolingual speakers. I argue that this is due to monolingual ideologies and standard language ideologies, particularly influencing these formal settings in bilingual speakers. These ideological patterns may lead to linguistic pressure in bilingual speakers to align with the monolingual majority, a phenomenon related to majority language anxiety. Complementing the corpus analysis, semi-structured interviews with bilingual speakers provide personal insights, further illuminating how linguistic ideologies shape their linguistic choices and social experiences.

It's better to die before dishonour: Linguistic creativity and the negotiation of meaning in the Nigerian Army community of practice

This article investigates emblematic language use and the negotiation of meaning with particular emphasis on generative mechanisms like jargon and slang in two Nigerian Army barracks in Calabar municipality, Cross River State, south-eastern Nigeria. The study is anchored in a linguistic ideology framework which is grounded in beliefs and values people have towards explicit and implicit language use in a particular communicative context. Drawing on qualitative ethnographic data sourced through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 30 participants who were purposively sampled, the authors argue that jargon and slang are indexical linguistic resources that enable military personnel to create diverse new meanings in the informal linguistic ecology of the army. We conclude that beyond helping to create a new linguistic convention in the barracks, jargon and slang also facilitate the construction of professional identity, enact inclusion/exclusion and sustain dominant values and professional ethos. The study focuses on ways of interpreting the specificity of the military world and the reality of dominance through the prism of these linguistic specimens. Jargon and slang, therefore, offer a firmer lens to appreciate the army's social universe and subjectivities, and more broadly to enhance an understanding of contextually embedded social practices in the military.

Officers and men and fallen heroes: The discursive construction of regimented masculinity in the Nigerian Army

This paper examines the use of gendered language in the Nigerian Army's community of practice through the application of insights from language ideology and theory of masculinity. Data were generated by means of participant observation and semi-structured interviews in a one-year fieldwork involving representative sample of 18 personnel of the 6 Battalion, Ibawa and 2 Brigade, Uyo, both in Akwa Ibom State in South-eastern Nigeria. The findings show that the Nigerian Army maintains institutional gendered language practices used among its personnel in regimented functions and social events. The gendered registers occur in the soldiers' generic use of male address terms, adaptation to male-coded voice pattern in parades, masculinisation of Army's workout songs, and the subordination of femininity in institutional associations, all combined to construct the regimented and performative masculinisation of the profession. This practice is observed to be informed by the numerical domination of men in the profession that was originally perceived as males'; a conception that has shaped the linguistic ideology and performance of the Nigerian Army to rehearse masculine orientations. It is however recommended that the Army's language practices should capture modern ideals of a gender sensitive world that connect to the clamour for gender equality and equal social belonging through the inclusion of feminine linguistic markers in workplaces.

ETHNOCULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PAMIR-SPEAKING COMMUNITIES AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF MIGRATION PROCESSES

The article determines the place of mother tongues in the life of Pamir-speaking communities, their transformation and functioning at different stages of the migration process. It outlines features that enhance our understanding of the phenomenon of Pamir diaspora. The linguistic and cultural priorities of diasporic Pamir communities are identified in light of their linguistic ideology, and ethno-religious and cultural perspectives. To study the dynamics of language life in different contexts, data on language biographies are presented, together with an analysis of the work of grassroots activists, who, by their lingua-cultural creativity, are involved in promoting their cultural and linguistic heritage, thus demonstrating their sociolinguistic rights. Analysis of the mother tongue – an important marker of the community’s socio-cultural life – reveals that Pamir languages lie at the core of the community’s cultural heritage, its spiritual and material traditions. These languages fulfil reproductive, creative and existential-ethical functions, acting as a reference point for socio-cultural practices that stimulate the revival of local culture and support the preservation of traditional cultural values. The prospects for the functioning, development and preservation of Pamir languages in the diaspora are considered.

The income effects of minority co-ethnic employment: the case of Hungarians in central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT What is the effect of minority co-ethnic employment on income? While the business organizations literature argues diversity allows for knowledge accumulation, optimal labour allocation, and efficient interactions, absent is any consideration of language – e.g. language competency or language ideology. We argue when co-ethnic minorities work together, this shared language allows for bounded trust to develop; it also ensures there are preference similarities – factors that can increase firm productivity and individual wages. Using survey data of minority Hungarians in three Central and Eastern European countries (Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia), we find (1) diversity has no positive effect on income; and in fact, (2) co-ethnic employment increases wages in Southern Slovakia and Vojvodina. Additionally, we confirm that co-ethnic employment is not happening simply because of demographics. Instead, with one exception, the proportion of Hungarians in the workplace is significantly higher than in the areas where these jobs are located – suggesting a strategic behaviour by minority Hungarians. The implication is not that we endorse homogeneous workplaces per se, but that we remain cognizant of how asymmetric linguistic competencies and the underlying linguistic ideologies can shape power hierarchies – thereby limiting the benefits of diversity.

The Differential Object Marker in Valencian: Another Failure of Prescriptivism

A rich tradition of studies on languages with differential object marking (DOM) is available in the literature. Languages like Spanish or Romanian are frequently cited in discussions about DOM, but Valencian is seldom mentioned in this context. This oversight may stem from a lack of familiarity with the Valencian language and an over-reliance on guidelines set by textbooks and official prescriptive grammars—in the case of Valencian, by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua—which drafts the linguistic regulations of the Valencian language. This study aimed to analyze the usage of the DOM in Valencian and explore the social variables that help explain this usage (sex, age, and education). To achieve this goal, Spanish–Valencian bilingual participants completed an oral production task to evaluate their use of DOM in Valencian. Statistical analysis revealed that Valencian is a DOM language that marks direct objects that refer to humans and definite entities. These results point to the linguistic ideologies in Valencia that attempt to artificially create linguistic differentiation between Valencian and Spanish, the co-official languages in the region. Furthermore, the results emphasize the limitations of top-down prescriptive policies in modifying vernacular linguistic varieties.

Language ideologies and the use of French in an English-dominant context of Canada: new insights into linguistic insecurity.

Teachers play an essential role in fostering linguistic security in their classrooms. The aim of this study is to identify the language ideologies articulated by teachers in the Francophone schools of the English-dominant context of British Columbia (Canada) in order to explore how the different practices they implement to foster the use of French in their multilingual classrooms and foster linguistic security may interact and expose contradictions. The findings are based on a thematic analysis of interviews with twenty-one French-speaking high school teachers. I argue that linguistic ideologies provide a useful locus for studying the tensions produced by institutional policies and practices and the possible impact on the students' feelings of linguistic insecurity. Building on excerpts from the interviews, the findings indicate that the practices the teachers use to implement the French-language policy in their classrooms must be examined further as they might be harming the efforts they are making to increase linguistic security. This paper is intended to contribute tothe ongoing conversation about the practical process of engaging with linguistic insecurity.

Dialect Exercises and their Linguistic Ideologies in Current Southern German Textbooks

Dialect Exercises and their Linguistic Ideologies in Current Southern German Textbooks

Enseignant·es mexicain·es de FLE ou acteur·rice·s glottopolitiques pour la diversité linguistique ?

This contribution presents the results of a study carried out among Mexican teachers of French as a foreign language as part of a doctoral research project currently being finalized. Through comprehensive semi-structured interviews, this article explores how the participants in this survey appropriate and invest in French, examining in particular their positioning with regard to linguistic diversity in the Mexican context and the persistence of linguistic inequalities.We illustrate how sociolinguistic appropriation among four teachers contributes significantly to the (de)construction of linguistic ideologies, leading to the development of various glottopolitical stances and identities. We examine how these actors in Mexican education and the promotion of French represent their trajectories, their plurilingual imaginaries and their professional practices within a glottopolitical perspective in favor of linguistic plurality.

Хранительница нематериального культурного наследия: о роли бабушки в передаче этнического языка и культуры (на материале социолингвистических обследований в чувашской и марийской диаспорах Московского региона)

An essential mechanism for transmitting ethnic language within families involves the transfer from older to younger generations, with grandmothers playing a prominent role in this process. The paper presents the findings of the field research conducted within the Chuvash and Mari internal diasporas of the Moscow region. The study subjects were the first-generation natives of the diaspora urban environment and the second-generation representatives. The findings indicate that intergenerational language transmission is notably weak, mainly because Russian is omnipresent in urban environments and minority languages are marginalized due to prevailing linguistic ideologies. Although being recognized as state languages along with Russian in the relevant administrative-territorial entities, Chuvash and Mari languages do not have this status in the internal diaspora, becoming minority languages. Nevertheless, according to the research results, ethnic language is one of the key markers of ethnic identity necessary for preserving ethnic group boundaries. In the majority of cases, the task of preserving the ethnic language is assigned to grandmothers, the eldest women in the family, who reside in the rural area of their small native land. This model follows the long-existing practice of city dwellers sending their children to the countryside in summer for the latter to learn an ethnic language in the natural environment by communicating with their grandmother. Besides teaching the ethnic language, the grandmother also imparts knowledge about ethnic customs and traditions, such as ethnic cuisine, songs, and elements of folk and religious culture, making her a valuable keeper of intangible cultural heritage.

Tangible traces of language ideologies

Abstract As the last issue of the Belgian Journal of Linguistics (BJL), this volume delves into linguistic ideologies. Language usage and the evaluations we make about it are intricately intertwined: even in the absence of visual cues of the speaker or writer, we intuitively develop perceptions about the sociolinguistic context of our interlocutor. The language employed often offers subtle hints about their age, gender, or social and regional origins. Particularly in spoken discourse, we find ourselves assessing not just their accent, but also forming impressions about the individual’s likability, perceived arrogance or intelligence, and various other attributes. Similar to its predecessors spanning 36 volumes, the content of this ultimate issue of the BJL is diverse, encompassing historical sources that shed light on language ideologies of bygone eras, insights from the language classroom, and perspectives from everyday language users.

Algorithmic power and scientific knowledge

Abstract This paper critically revisits traditional perspectives on technology within academic and scientific writing studies. It aims to comprehend the intricate, emerging, and dynamic sociotechnical configurations that underlie contemporary scientific practices. These practices increasingly involve language, text, and literacy practices, seen as products of the collaboration between humans and machines. The paper draws on empirical research on influential institutional metadiscourses in high-impact scientific writing produced and/or disseminated by public universities and a research institute in the State of São Paulo (Brazil), whose local policies of globalization are driven by international university rankings. I use a qualitative content analysis approach grounded in socio-anthropological, socio-semiotic, and pragmatic studies of linguistic ideologies to shed light on how ideological and socio-semiotic processes support the metapragmatics of scientific writing in university policy documents. This metapragmatics is utterly alien to the role of performative sociotechnical infrastructures in the production, distribution, and hierarchization of scientific texts. Additionally, these documents do not account for the diverse conditions and restrictions that shape the production and circulation of academic knowledge in geopolitically marginal and equally diverse regions within the country, including those within São Paulo.