Metalinguistic Practices Research Articles

What's left when a language recedes? Belonging and place-making in the linguistic landscape of Hancock, Michigan

Our study examines how meanings related to Finnishness are reflected in the linguistic landscape of Hancock, Michigan, a small town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Centering on Benedict Anderson’s (1983/2003) concept, imagined communities, we investigate how discursive strategies in public spaces index belonging and place-making. The social correlates that underpin this reimagining affect ways of understanding larger sociocultural meanings about identity, place, and language use (Cornips & de Rooij 2015; Blommaert 2013; Bucholtz & Hall 2004; Leeman & Modan 2009). We aim to answer three questions: 1) how is Finnishness discursively indexed in Hancock’s linguistic landscape?; 2) how are meanings represented as recognizable and valued?; and 3) what are the ideological effects of the discursive practices and related meanings? Our analysis demonstrates that both linguistic and metalinguistic practices are abundant in Hancock. The ideological effects of Finnishness in the landscape reinforce values of Finnish identity and language, while simultaneously erasing (Gal & Irvine 2000) languages and identities of other residents, past and present. The collective discursive practices function ideologically to affect belonging and place-making.

“Je Suis Youtubeur”: Multilingual Multimodal Composing Abroad

ABSTRACT This study examined how seven American undergraduate students leveraged multiple modes to reflect on language, culture, and identity while learning French in a study abroad program. Grounded in the social semiotic framework of multimodality, this qualitative study applied open, axial, and selective coding to analyze students’ interviews and digital multimodal compositions (e.g., blogs, vlogs, video reflections, and final projects) from two study abroad courses. Findings revealed how multimodal composing supported students in learning French through metalinguistic practices of rehearsal and repair. Students further problematized cultural stereotypes through multimodal compositions. Additionally, students developed identities as legitimate multilingual multimodal composers by using French and other semiotic modes to create personalized design aesthetics. These findings illustrate the important ways that semiotic modes can interact to develop language, cultural awareness, and identity during study abroad. The study holds implications for teaching and analyzing the inseparability of language and other modes of expression.

L. V. Ščerba’s conception of language

Summary This contribution offers an introduction to an essay by the Russian linguist Lev Vladimirovič Ščerba (1880–1944), “О трояком аспекте языковых явлений и об эксперименте в языкознании” (“The threefold aspect of linguistic phenomena and experiment in linguistics”), which was first published in 1931. This introduction is followed by an annotated translation of Ščerba’s essay, proposed here for the first time to an English-speaking readership (Read the English translation at 10.1075/hl.00075.sce). The critical introduction provides the backstory behind Ščerba’s conception of language as a means of helping the reader to understand the connectedness of the various strands of his linguistic research. As is shown in our introduction, Ščerba’s general distinction between linguistic raw material, the linguistic system and individual speech activity (the “threefold aspect” alluded to in the title of his essay) serves as a framework to conceptualise metalinguistic practice and the relation of the social dimension of language to its individual embodiment. An examination of the explanatory potential of Ščerba’s conception of language for general linguistic problems suggests that his achievements lay in formulating a cohesive account of the interconnectedness of language phenomena, identifying the linguistic means with which to understand the social nature of language, and providing a theoretical basis for addressing the practical tasks of linguistics.

Sociolinguistics going ‘wild’: The construction of auratic fields

AbstractThis paper sets out to focus the “linguistic construction of publics” (Gal & Woolard, 2014 [2001]: 1) in a sense of the word that is often excluded from sociolinguistic discussion of linguistic action in the public sphere: it discusses how the public is constructed as an indexical (‘auratic’) arena, and a field for positioning, in sociolinguistic research. The paper attempts to point out how the public is (and has been for a long time), on the one hand, envisaged as a sort of counter‐field for academic linguistics (associated with “threatening” metalinguistic practices such as prescriptivism; Cameron, 1995: 5) and thereby juxtaposed to linguistics itself as an allegedly separate field of action, and on the other hand as that appealing place of ‘authentic’ linguistic practice (‘the field,’ ‘the real world,’ etc.) socially oriented linguists ultimately want to explore. The notions ofwild publicsandcreativityare discussed as cases in point.

Phonographie: la représentation écrite de l'oral en français by Rudolf Mahrer

Reviewed by: Phonographie: la représentation écrite de l'oral en français by Rudolf Mahrer Eric Louis Russell Mahrer, Rudolf. Phonographie: la représentation écrite de l'oral en français. Gruyter, 2017. ISBN 978-3-11-048812-8. Pp. 491. Mahrer's monograph, part of the collection Études de linguistique française, represents one of the few, if not the only, comprehensive works interrogating the connection between representations of spoken and written French. In this book, decidedly written for an academic audience familiar with linguistic and, especially, semantic theory, the author attends to a series of historical and present-day conceptualizations concerning the ways in which spoken French (i.e., the language as it is lived out through aural and oral communicative acts) is represented on the page, with particular focus on literary works. Mahrer distinguishes between three typologies of such representations: "la phonographie,"roughly akin to the representation of phonological patterns—normative or otherwise—using orthographic conventions; "la sémantique métalangagière," referring to means by which additional graphic and orthographic commentary or metalinguistic practices are co-opted to provide information about spoken patterns; and "la sollicitation prosodique," which relies upon the conceptualization of melody, rhythm, prosody, and related phenomena. After introductory sections, three comprehensive chapters are dedicated to each of these, comprising sections integrating theory and reviewing historical underpinnings, as well as their interpretations and applications. The overarching goal of the work thus far surpasses the straightforward description of how spoken French is represented on the page, but instead articulates a multifaceted interpretation and conceptualization of semiotic practices as they are manifested in literature. In this regard, Mahrer's work is as ambitious as it is singular: not only does he call upon a century of properly linguistic thought on the matter, citing widely-known (e.g., Saussure, Benveniste) and relatively unfamiliar thinkers, he incorporates discussion of the subject dating back much further, with a clear predilection for established literature and the European Francophone canon. The book is certainly well-organized and achieves a high level of academic style, but is ultimately undermined by its (at times seemingly superfluous) complex structure and rhetoric, not to mention the weightiness of the subject matter and the author's polyvalent approach to it. Indeed, even seasoned linguists will find it difficult to follow much of Mahrer's argumentation and proposals, taken as they are from a wide swath of theory and practice, often with little convincing connection. Beyond this, many of the author's descriptions and analyses are as confused as they are confusingly articulated: it is a dense, often opaque volume [End Page 202] that, while asking interesting questions and certainly grounded in a tremendous depth of knowledge, does not make a clear case for its own rhetoric or conclusions. And although the primary topic is attended to, frequent diversions into seemingly unrelated areas and abstractions—which could be related or clarified, perhaps necessitating a selection between different modalities or their separating into stand-alone monographs—deter from the overall impact of the work. Summarily, this ambitious undertaking is frequently lost in itself: it may prove to be useful to a narrow cadre, but the majority of French linguists and language scholars are likely to find little of interest, not to mention a great deal of frustration, when engaging with the volume. Eric Louis Russell University of California, Davis Copyright © 2018 American Association of Teachers of French

Linguistic know-how and the orders of language

This paper proposes an account of linguistic knowledge in terms of knowing-how, starting from Love's seminal distinction between first-order linguistic activity and second-order (or metalinguistic) practices. Metalinguistic practices are argued to be constitutive of linguistic knowledge. Skilful linguistic behaviour is subject to correction based on criterial support provided through metalinguistic practices. Linguistic know-how is knowing-how to provide and to recognise criterial support for first-order linguistic activity. I conclude that participation in first-order linguistic activity requires a critical reflective attitude, which implies that all first-order linguistic activity has a second-order dimension.

Metalinguistic truisms and the emancipation of the language sciences

In his influential critiques of the theoretical foundations of the language sciences, Nigel Love claims that modern linguistics is based on “a cultural metafiction” and that it must “emancipate itself from what is no more than a profoundly important but nonetheless culturally parochial way of construing linguistic phenomena.” This paper reviews Love's account of the historical sources and modern consequences of this cultural metafiction and asks why it is so frustratingly difficult to emancipate the language sciences from the epistemological presuppositions of this ethnocentric metafiction. In addressing these questions, the paper explores the accountability of the expert metalinguistic discourse of the language sciences to the normative rhetoric of lay metalinguistic practices – or, in Wittgenstein's distinctive use of the term, to the ‘grammar’ of those practices.

Reflexivity, repetition, and language-making online

This paper considers the reflexivity of language and its value to linguistic analysis. The focus is on the metalinguistic concept of ‘repetition’ and on how repetition is implemented as an integral part of the communication process by participants engaged in written online communication. The conditions that govern repetition in episodes of communication are explored, and analytically relevant aspects for the processes of situated sign-making are identified. With an example from a longitudinal (retrospective) study of a Danish online forum it is shown how the continuity of such processes may be analysed, based on the digital traces of reflexive episodes left by participants over a period of 5 years (2009–2014). Everyday metalinguistic practices are not generally placed high on the linguistic research agenda, and linguists tend to be more concerned about the fact that linguistics itself ultimately depends on the reflexivity of language. However, it is argued that the reflexivity of language does not logically invalidate linguistics. On the contrary, it holds the solution to situated linguistic analysis.

Transborder contact: Shifting patterns of linguistic differentiation in a Zapotec transborder community

AbstractThis article contributes to the study of linguistic differentiation in a Zapotec transborder community formed by migration between the village of San Juan Guelavía, Oaxaca, Mexico, and West Los Angeles, California. In the Tlacolula Valley of Oaxaca, an area characterized by remarkable linguistic diversity combined with extreme localism, the way a person speaks, whom they can understand and who can understand them marks their place on a complex sociolinguistic map. However, the contours of this map are shifting due to domestic and international migration patterns. Among Guelavians in Oaxaca judgments of sociolinguistic differences between speakers are often made on the basis of the particular linguistic variety spoken by an individual, and its perceived similarity or divergence from San Juan Guelavía Zapotec. In contrast, among Guelavian migrants in Los Angeles there is a widespread tendency to evaluate migrants from other Zapotec-speaking communities on the basis of where, when and to whom they speak Zapotec, regardless of the variety. By analyzing differences in the metalinguistic practices of Guelavians living in Oaxaca and Los Angeles this work contributes to understandings of the shifting relationship between language, locality and identity brought about by indigenous transborder migration.

New Age with Chinese Characteristics? Translating Inner Child Emotion Pedagogies in Contemporary China

AbstractThis article examines the translation of inner child emotion pedagogies in contemporary China. With a focus on several interactions taking place within evening salons, the article observes the pedagogical strategies and metalinguistic practices that translate as well as transform inner child pedagogies in novel ways. I emphasize the ways in which these encounters play upon the boundaries between “inner” and “outer” selves in the teaching of a distinct discursive consciousness regarding the role of language and embodied expression in the healing of the inner self. I argue that this creates both a distillation as well as expansion of western psychotherapeutic ideologies of language, emotion, and the self. I further highlight the ways in which the interactions index a broadly distributed process of concurrent events and sociohistorical circumstances that bring adapted versions of psychotherapeutic and New Age spiritual discourse into China. This article argues that the translation of inner child emotion pedagogies in China unfolds through a process of living translation, in which specific encounters serve as instances in which the meaning and implications of semiotic and linguistic registers are continuously remade in an ongoing stream of embodied interactions that are mediated by various ideologies of language, emotion, and personhood.本文探讨了在当代中国内在小孩情感教学法的翻译。通过”内在小孩疗愈晚间沙龙”的几次互动, 本文重点观察教学策略和元语言实践——即对内在小孩疗愈法的创新翻译和转化。在这种独特的话语意识教学中, 笔者强调, 冲突在”内在”和”外在”自我界限间作用的这种方式, 在治愈内在自我过程中, 对语言和形象化表达的作用。笔者认为, 这在语言、情感和自我方面同时凝练而拓展了的西方心理治疗体系。笔者进一步强调, 互动指向广泛分布的同期事件和社会历史状况的这种方式, 把本土化的心理治疗学和新世代心灵的语言带入了中国。本文认为, 在中国的内在小孩情感疗愈是通过当下翻译来展开的, 在此翻译过程中, 特定冲突被作为微观民族志的实例。这些例子中, 符号学和语言学记录的含义持续地通过语言、情感和人格知识体系在具象化的互动中获得。

Reported speech and the development of authorial voice in middle childhood

The presentation of speech-in-text is an inherently meta-linguistic practice. When children bring speech into their writing, they are necessarily attending to speech as such. Constructing reported speech requires them to use language reflexively and may be a critical component of the development of an authorial voice. We examined 3495 occasions of reported speech or talk about speech in 689 personal narratives by 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in two inner-city schools. We found grade-related increases in the use of reported speech, in the variety of forms of reported speech used, and in the strategic alignment of reported speech form with plot. We also found a relationship between the use of reported speech and explicitly meta-narrative comments. We argue that as children begin to perform Bahktin’s ‘layering of voices’ in their stories, they are developing a meta-awareness of stories-as-stories. This meta-awareness, we propose, co-evolves with children’s use of reported speech forms, reveals itself in their strategic use of these forms, and gives us a glimpse of an emerging self-conscious narrator. As they become more conscious of themselves as authors in middle childhood, their stories begin to demonstrate qualities of literariness–the qualities of an authorial voice.

Language Ideologies and Hegemonic Factors Imposed upon Judeo-Spanish Speaking Communities

This study explores the concept of hemispheric intersection by analyzing language ideologies that have shaped the linguistic construct of the Judeo-Spanish language. Given the abundance of languages that have influenced the overall linguistic strata of Judeo-Spanish over the past five centuries, the primary questions of this study are: (1) what are the hegemonic factors that have been imposed on Judeo-Spanish speaking communities and (2) how are such factors representative of linguistic change within the language? This article, therefore, commences by providing a brief historical development of the Judeo-Spanish language so that readers understand how this language may be considered a language rich in global interaction and construction. In order to address the main questions of this study, I describe a similar phenomenon occurring in three Judeo-Spanish communities worldwide: Israel, Turkey and the United States. I then describe what are to be considered the reasons for linguistic assimilation, language modification and language shift in the context of each setting. Analysis of these dynamics will guide the examination of Judeo-Spanish metalinguistic practices and choices based on the global dwelling of the language and its speaker. I then conclude by reviewing the central elements that are factored into contemporary Judeo-Spanish linguistic constructs and suggest expansion of this research.

“What an un-wiki way of doing things”

Wikipediadefines itself as “the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the internet”, thus featuring an explicit language policy in its mission statement. Bearing in mind that the site has become the most popular source of encyclopaedic information online, its significance for public encounters with multilingualism should not be underestimated. This article offers a critical and multimodal discourse analytical approach toWikipedia’s explicit and implicit multilingual policies and practices. I examine, under “explicit metalinguistic practice” (Woolard 1998), public disclaimers and exemplary user practice and talk on the “Multilingual Coordination” entry. Under “implicit metapragmatics”, I shall offer a multimodal analysis ofWikipedia’s multilingualism-oriented interface design; the corporate logo and its paratextual meta-commentary on a number of linguistic and journalistic websites; and a code-critical reading ofWikipedia’s “Babel” user language templates. My observations are discussed against the backdrop of postcolonialist theories on the role of English aslingua francaof the information age.