Sociolinguistics Of Globalization Research Articles

Towards a sociolinguistics of deglobalization

Abstract This article advocates for a ‘sociolinguistics of deglobalization’ that focuses on the sociolinguistic impacts of major shifts in the world system that have taken place since 2008 and have become particularly salient amidst the covid pandemic. Drawing on case studies of China, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, we describe the period after 2008 as an emerging post-neoliberal epoch characterized by the intensifying of state power, constrained resistance, differential inclusion, and organized abandonment. Our article explores the theoretical, methodological, and ethical challenges of researching the sociolinguistic impacts of these developments. We also argue that our discipline's dominant approach to global-scale analysis—the sociolinguistics of globalization—has impeded our ability to perceive the emerging dynamics of deglobalization. Our call for a sociolinguistics of deglobalization is offered as both a provocation and invitation to our discipline to engage with the rapidly changing nature of world politics. (Deglobalization, sovereignty, neoliberalism, coloniality, securitization)*

Decolonizing Language Resources in The Human-Machine Era

This essay engages with the issue of future developing language technologies. In recent policy publications that attempt to predict and document an increasingly technologized linguistic future, we see a set of assumptions and presuppositions at work that we approach from a decolonial perspective. We use a sociolinguistically inspired lens of critical engagement with colonialist premises underlying these ideologies and beliefs in universal technological progress in the arena of language and communication. Based on decolonial insights, we make a critical reading of, and an allegorical comparison to, these premises, and ask whether a pluralistic, decolonial view of the role of language/language resources in society could aid in counteracting potential automatic reproductions of existing macro- and micro-sociolinguistic inequalities embodied in future language devices as described and forecast in the LITHME (Languages in the Human-Machine Era) report, Microsoft Corporation’s Responsible Artificial Intelligence Principles and the Digital Language Vitality Scale, three examples of recent publications on this topic. We frame critical rejoinders, from the theoretical perspectives of linguistic imperialism, the sociolinguistics of globalization, and languaging theory, with the aim to address future linguistic and sociolinguistic outcomes in the human-machine era in a decoloniality-inspired manner. We conclude that persistent beliefs in the inevitability of technological progress will continue to underpin and drive dominant Western interests in a digital future, and, unless radical reappraisal and reprioritization take place, these will continue to systematically disadvantage speakers in many locales across the globe. We end by encouraging continued critical linguistic reflection in this area in the future.

Managing multilingualism in a tourist area during the COVID-19 pandemic

Intense mobility of people and languages driven by tourism, which propels “cultural transformation of places” (Urry, 1995:2) across the world, is manifested in their linguistic landscapes through varying regimes of multilingualism. Linguistic landscapes, which render themselves for “visual consumption” (Urry, 2005), emerge from the sedimentation and synchronization of diachronic semiotic processes which index current societal developments. The recent period of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a noticeable impact on linguistic landscapes globally through the emergence of a noticeable and coherent layer of pandemic regulatory signage. In a longitudinal study covering the period between the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020 to its decline in August 2022, we trace the implementation of regulatory measures in a highly frequented tourist region in Slovakia whereby the actors involved in the tourist industry implemented the official pandemic legislature aimed at preventing the spread of the disease. Our overall goal is to explore the management of “pandemic regulatory discourse”, i.e., how producers of regulatory signage manage multimodal resources to convey their authority and stance towards regulations, to legitimize regulatory measures, and to ensure compliance with them. The study is grounded in the theoretical-methodological approaches of ethnographic linguistic landscape studies, geosemiotics, sociolinguistics of globalization, sociopragmatics, and language management theory.

Digital rockets: Resisting necropolitics through defiant languaging and artivism

This article draws from our ethnography in the Complexo do Alemão favelas (neighborhoods built by residents) in Rio de Janeiro to discuss how Black activists bring affordances of digitalization and enregistered practices into broader arenas of political participation. We unpack our own positionality and experience with the armed surveillance and securitization of normative regimes that challenge (and often cooperate with) the state in governing peripheral and, to a lesser extent, central areas in Brazilian cities. Favela residents are disproportionately affected by these violent forms of securitization. We look to their ordinary digital and enregistered languaging and ‘artivism’ as a means of surviving necropolitics that are proper to the African diaspora. In dialogue with the sociolinguistics of globalization and the sociology of violence, the study provides ethnographic evidence of situated cooperation and creative use of language and technologies. We believe this may offer promising paths for further objectives, including antiracist education and comparative studies of grassroots activism.

Towards an appreciation of individual positionality and the global-local interface: Facebook Actorhood in Zambia

ABSTRACT Using data from Zambian Facebook platforms, we argue for the complex intersectionality of the global-local semiotic assemblages for the production and consumption of a contested and unpredictable virtual landscape. While ‘glocality’ is a by-product of an on-going sociolinguistics of globalization, and that the local remains an active partner in the (co-)creation of glocality, the paper sees the virtual platform as a semiotic canvas on which individualized semiotic preferences are expressed within and beyond the pull and push of the sociolinguistics of globalization. The paper takes instances of translanguaging on Facebook as markers of semiotic and linguistic freedoms in which individual agency undercuts the global semiotic flows and goes against the normative expectation to act in an unpredictable way in the face of globalization. We thus argue for the role of assertiveness, spontaneity arising from the shared heritage, bilingualism and ‘play’ as motivation for the ‘messy’ yet meaningful virtual landscape.

Designed for failure: English instruction as a tool for the perpetuation of students’ dependent and dominated status

ABSTRACT English, being used predominantly at the official level, in higher education, and in the job market, is the most sought after language in Pakistan. Access to quality instruction in and for English, however, remains a dream for most of the socio-economically disadvantaged students. This study explores the amount, intensity, and quality of access to English instruction in general school systems in Pakistan through a phenomenological multi-case study perspective. Employing symbolic power and sociolinguistics of globalization as theoretical framework, observations of and interviews with the relevant stakeholders were used as instruments of data collection. The data were analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The findings suggest that the very education system hinders the students studying at general schools from ever achieving the high-level English skills that could accrue cultural, symbolic or economic capital for them. The general schools inculcate in students a habit to be dependent instead of original thinkers and to resolve with the fate of serving at lower social positions, thereby perpetuating their dominated status. The general schools are thus breeding social inequality and stifling the mobility of the underprivileged students. Language education policymakers and practitioners, therefore, need to reform education systems in order to rectify the inequality perpetuated.

Language Ideologies and Transnational Migration: A Study of Cape Verdeans in Galicia

Changes to the global infrastructure have contributed to the growing (linguistic) diversity of large metropolises. However, there have been calls from scholars to explore “emerging superdiversity” (DePalma and Pérez-Caramés 2018) in peripheral regions in order to fully understand the complexities and nuances of the sociolinguistics of globalisation (Wang et al. 2014; Pietikäinen et al. 2016). This article, therefore, explores language ideologies among a purposive sample of five young adults of Cape Verdean origin living in the peripheral region of Galicia, Spain, and draws on interview data to examine the ways in which multilingual migrants engage with the language varieties in their linguistic repertoire. In studying immigration from a former African colony to a bilingual European context, we can see how language ideologies from the migrant community are reflected in local ones. The sociolinguistic dynamics of Cape Verde and Galicia share many similarities: both contexts are officially bilingual (Galician and Spanish in Galicia, Kriolu and Portuguese in Cape Verde), and questions regarding the hierarchisation of languages remain pertinent in both cases. The ideologies about the value and prestige of (minority) languages that Cape Verdean migrants arrive with are thus accommodated by local linguistic ideologies in Galicia, a region which has a history of linguistic minoritisation. This has important implications for the ways in which language, as a symbolic resource, is mobilised by migrants in contexts of transnational migration. The findings of this study show how migrants are key actors in (re)shaping the linguistic dynamics of their host society and how, through their practices and discourses, they challenge long-standing assumptions about language, identity and linguistic legitimacy, and call into question ethno-linguistic boundaries.

Being nomadic and overseas rappers: Construction of hybrid identity in Chinese hip-hop scene

This research aims to explore the function of intercultural communication of Chinese Rap music and the construction of hybrid identity, through discourse analysis methods: Narrative Semiotics, visual semiology, and sociolinguistics of globalization. The general context of the research is the development of global youth culture and Rap music as an intercultural formulation of local identities. Songs of two Chinese Rap groups are analyzed: Higher Brothers and Bohan Phoenix. In short, it attempts to scrutinize their use of Rap lyrics in order to promote the intercultural communication and construction of hybrid identity.

English in the Russian-based recruitment discourse

The paper addresses the use of English in the Russian-based recruitment discourse. Language is viewed through the prism of the sociolinguistics of globalization and understood as a set of mobile trans-locally operative resources used to achieve specific goals of communication. The corpus for analysis includes job ads and rsums posted on the recruitment platforms HeadHunter and Super.Job, videotaped conversations of job seekers with recruiters and employers, and ethnographic interviews with recruitment professionals. We used discourse analysis, ethnographic methods, and quantitative measuring to analyze the data. The study consists of two stages. During the first stage, we found out that English can be used as the main language of recruitment or in the form of insertions in the Russian-based texts to demonstrate professionalism, position the company, and filter the candidates. The second stage revealed that the all-English segment of the Russian recruitment discourse has narrowed, while the use of English in truncated forms has increased. This dynamic is caused by the expansion of the digital segment of the Russian job market (social media, Internet channels), where English-mediated technologies are the main instrument of interaction with clients. It results in further hybridization and boosts translingualism in work-related settings. English, with its tendency to informal personified communication patterns, also affects the communicative conventions of the Russian-based recruitment discourse. The study demonstrates the growing role of English as an agent of global professional discourses and an intermediary between people and technologies.

Globalization and Culture: A Sociolinguistics Study

A significance feature of globalization is the transaction of ideas as indicated by internet. The concern engages the clash of cultures and the spread of acquisitive values. This has enormous influence on hoe people think, act or behave. The values that this entertainment industry reflects often promote materialism, violence and immorality. Hence, this paper examines the concept of globalization and culture as well as the study of sociolinguistics. It also scans the impact of globalization on culture. Since the turn of the Millennium, globalization has become a major focus in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, investigating themes such as: learning and teaching in diverse urban classrooms (Spotti, 2011; Karrebæk, 2012) complementary education (Blackledge & Creese, 2010); internationalisation in higher education (Piller & Cho, 2013) mass media and the internet (Androutsopoulos, 2007; Varis & Wang, 2011) popular culture and advertising (Jacquemet, 2005; Kasanga, 2010) hip-hop and graffiti (Pennycook, 2007) language vitality (Vigouroux & Mufwene, 2008) travel and tourism (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010) migration and asylum seekers (Vigouroux, 2008; Dong, 2011; Maryns, 2006) the new globalised economy (Block, 2012; Heller, 2003) and long-distance financial fraud (Blommaert & Omoniyi, 2006). Papers in Coupland (2003, 2010) and such monographs as (Fairclough, 2006; Blommaert, 2010; Heller, 2011) among others, have attempted general statements outlining a sociolinguistics of globalization.

Access to English in Pakistan: a source of prestige or a hindrance to success

ABSTRACTPrevious studies focusing on the role of English in developing countries have reached different conclusions. Some studies consider the English language to be beneficial for students’ academic and professional development, while others claim that it affects students’ progress and conceptual clarity and thus acts as a source of students’ failure. While reaching to such conclusions, usually such studies involve students with either low or high socioeconomic status (SES). Drawing from the symbolic power of language and the sociolinguistics of globalization as a theoretical lens, this study involves participants from four types of schools in Pakistan: elite private, elite public, general private, and general public to have participants from different social classes. The study adopts a phenomenological case study design and constructivist grounded theory for data analysis, and finds that English is proving linguistic capital for elite school students. However, lack of opportunities to learn the English language in general schools may lead to failure of the students for not knowing English in education and professional life. Considering the dividing role of English in education, this paper concludes the need for empowering Urdu and other local languages, and reducing differences in English instruction to provide equal access to the English language for students in different schools.

Blue-collar workplace communicative practices: a case study in construction sites in Qatar

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the role of language in multilingual blue-collar workplaces by investigating how communication is realized in construction sites in Qatar. The State of Qatar offers a unique and, hence, very interesting setting for the linguistic investigation of migration-related issues, such as multilingualism (Pietikäinen et al. in Sociolinguistics from the periphery: small languages in new circumstances, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016), due to the fact that over 90% of its population consists of non-citizens (Ahmad, in: Kamrava, Babar (eds) Migrant labor in the Persian Gulf, Hurst & Company, London, pp 21–40, 2015). In addition, after its successful bid to host the World Cup 2022, the country is currently witnessing a rapid transformation of its landscape evident through its massive number of construction sites, where people of different national, ethnic and social class backgrounds from all over the world are hired to work together in developing the infrastructure that is part of the ambitious Qatar Vision 2030. Against this backdrop, the focus is on the sociolinguistic resources (Blommaert in The sociolinguistics of globalization, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010) mobilized in a construction site at a university in Qatar. The multilingual community of practice (Lave and Wenger in Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1991) investigated consists of blue-collar workers from India and their communication practices with their supervisors, who are project site engineers from all over the world. In such transnational fields, where effective communication is a sine qua non not only for the successful completion of the project or infrastructure itself but also, and perhaps most importantly, for the safety of everybody involved in the construction, multilingualism is the norm. It is argued that communication is realized through spatial repertoires (Canagarajah, in: Canagarajah (ed) The Routledge handbook of migration and language, Routledge, New York, pp 1–28, 2017), that are constructed and used as ingroup markers to facilitate communication among people from different nationalities, ethnicities and social classes. The ethnographic data, collected for almost 13 months, comprise voice-recorded interactions, field notes from on-site participant observation as well as ethnographic interviews with select blue-collar workers and their supervisors. The linguistic and exolinguistic analysis is contextualized in the broader socio-political and economic forces of Qatar (Fromherz in Qatar. A modern history, Georgetown University Press, Washington, 2012; Kamrava in Qatar: small state, big politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2015; chapters in Kamrava and Babar in Migrant labor in the Persian Gulf, Hurst & Company, London, 2015).

From form to function: Mobile language resources in the Vietnamese customs setting

ABSTRACTEnglish language for Customs is considered crucial for working in an international airport; however, few if any empirical studies have investigated the language repertoires of customs officers in such a multilingual and multicultural, but security-sensitive, context. This paper drew on Blommaert’s sociolinguistics of globalization and Hymes’s Ethnography of Communication to examine naturally occurring interactions in English between Vietnamese customs officers and foreign travelers. We explore typical communicative practices in customs and the factors influencing the interactants participating in these practices. Examining interactions in detail provides insights into the communicative resources that customs officers utilize to accomplish order and security in the airport, currently experiencing escalating numbers of international travelers. Findings highlight the functional deployment of English as the airport lingua franca and non-verbal resources to accomplish meaning, notably around the smooth and efficient security processing of travelers. The paper concludes with implications for English for Specific Purposes curriculum design and materials development in the important but previously neglected area of customs communication.

When socio-political pressure is more powerful than the boss: workplace language policies by Kurds that restrict Kurdish

As interpretations of results from small-scale research sites are incomplete without consideration of the social structures that frame them (Block, in: Gardner, Martin-Jones (eds) Multilingualism, discourse and ethnography, Routledge, New York, 2012), the current study uses the theoretical lens of agency to examine the language policies of four of Istanbul’s Kurdish-owned eating establishments with respect to socio-political structures. Set in a context in which Turkish nationalist ideologies trickle down to long-standing and pervasive stigma toward Kurdish at local levels (Coskun et al. in Scar of tongue: consequences of the ban of the use of mother tongue in education and experiences of Kurdish students in Turkey, DISA, Diyarbakir, 2011; Saracoglu in Kurds of modern Turkey: migration, neoliberalism, and exclusion in Turkish society, Tauris Academic Studies, New York, 2011; Polat in Crit Inq Lang Stud 8:261–288, 2011; Schluter and Sansarkan in Icduygu, Goker (eds), Rethinking migration and integration: bottom-up responses to neoliberal global challenges, The Isis Press, Istanbul, 2014), Kurdish workplaces represent rich sites for investigating the relative influence of differently scaled structures on individual free will. Based on ethnographic data collected through observations and interviews, the results, which align with Ortner’s (Anthropology and social theory: culture, power, and the acting subject, Duke University Press, Durham, 2006) and Archer’s (Being human: the problem of agency, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, Making our way through the world: human reflexivity and social mobility, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007) conceptualizations of agency, indicate that while structures severely constrain managers’ ability to determine policy, a small number of opportunities also exist to resist these structures. In contrast to much of the literature that emphasizes the dominance of global scales in the current neoliberal era (Cf. Heller in J Socioling 7(4):473–492, 2003; Blommaert in The sociolinguistics of globalization, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010; Flubacher and Del Percio in Language, education and neoliberalism: critical studies in sociolinguistics, Multilingual Matters, Bristol, 2017; Lorente in Scripts of servitude: language, labor, migration, and transnational domestic work, Multilingual Matters, Bristol, 2017; Block in Political economy in sociolinguistics: neoliberalism, inequality and social class, Bloomsbury, London, 2018), nationally scaled structures feature most prominently. A center-periphery distinction emerges with respect to the magnitude of the nation’s influence over policy: peripherality, in agreement with Kelly-Holmes (in: Pietikainen, Kelly-Holmes (eds) Multilingualism and the periphery, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) and Hiss (Lang Soc 46:697–718, 2017), comes with diminished pressure to adhere to the norms of the center. These findings both underline the considerable power of Turkish national structures over individuals in this setting while indicating a small space for alternative marketplaces (Woolard in Am Ethnol 12:738–748, 1985).

Medical tourism and its niched impact in Tabriz, Iran

Abstract Tourism with all its concomitant economic and sociocultural influences across the globe accounts for today’s largest mobilization of people, money, and culture. This study explores how the arrival of medical tourists from the Republic of Azerbaijan in the city of Tabriz in Iran over the last few years has had a niched impact on the linguistic landscape of the city. Drawing upon theoretical developments within the sociolinguistics of globalization and mobility and linguistic landscapes, the research sheds light on how Azerbaijanis in Tabriz mobilize certain semiotic resources to both construct locality and channel mobility for their co-ethnic medical tourists, both establishing a sense of ‘at-homeness’ and attracting more travelers and economic gain. Given the legal prohibition of using foreign languages on public signage, the research also uncovers contesting language ideologies which may contribute to the development of a tension between Azerbaijani, as the largest minority language, and Farsi, the only official language, challenging the semiotic domination of Farsi over Azerbaijani.

Im/politeness on the move: A study of regulatory discourse practices in Slovakia's centre of tourism

Centres of tourism across the world are established by social practices performed by actors in the tourism industry, among which practices of im/politeness, as displayed in public signs and notices, can be seen as conveying particular configurations of interpersonal relations and contributing thus to the making of ‘linguascapes’. It is suggested that the ubiquitous public signage offers visitors a possibility to infer the norms and values to which their authors orientate themselves as well as a key to the study of the overarching societal politeness ethos. Our ethnographic study explores im/politeness practices carried out in the Štrbské Pleso holiday resort, Slovakia's prime site of mountain tourism, using a corpus of its public regulatory signage in which directive speech acts of requesting and prohibiting are performed. The overall aim of the study is to explore how the manifestations of the key tension between homogenization and heterogenization within the current ‘geocultural globalization’ is resolved in place. We conclude that the patterns of regulatory discourse practices of the place emerge from the hybridity and amalgamation of globally-uniform and locally-endemic resources which are transculturally mobile and which are relocalized bidirectionally. The theoretical-methodological approaches used are the sociolinguistics of globalization, politeness as social practice, linguistic landscape, and geosemiotics and the key analytical tool is ethnographic linguistic landscape analysis.

Revisiting borders: Named languages and de-colonization

Recent developments in sociolinguistics have been characterized by a move away from the notion of languages as discrete and separate entities. This has come within a frame of general criticism of structuralism as a theory of language fundamentally emanating from, or at least being tied to, monolingual ideologies of 19th-century European nationalism. Based on the recognition that linguistic borders are little more than political constructs, many sociolinguists prefer to describe language behavior as social practice where speakers make use of shared linguistic repertories in fluid and dynamic ways rather than adhering to the static rules of pre-packaged and labelled languages. Revealing the ideologically-driven monolingual bias in applied and sociolinguistics, this work focusses instead on translanguaging and/or translingual practices, and has been immensely important in putting forward a more adequate understanding of language.However, this intellectual impetus should not lead us to lose sight of the fact that, invented and artificial as they may have been, named languages and their borders do exist and play very important roles not only as layman's concepts but also as part of the long process of political and cultural de-colonization in many parts of the world. The celebration of translanguaging as a better and more sophisticated analytical lens need not come with the denigration of other understandings. The argument against one bias must not simultaneously develop its own biases. While the notion of translanguaging helps us describe language behaviors in more adequate ways and can also usefully inform pedagogical practices, the political as well as practical consequences and potential benefits of nationally-defined languages must also be seriously considered within a sociolinguistics of globalization. This paper examines this point by considering the cases of the sociolinguistic situations in Malaysia and Algeria.

The sociolinguistics of globalizing China

AbstractThe sociolinguistics of globalization has emerged as an important research paradigm in response to the challenges of global social change. As a country undergoing some of the most drastic changes during the past few decades, China provides a rich site for exploring the issue of language and globalization empirically and theoretically. This article seeks to map out the new socio‐cultural values being produced or re‐conceptualized in the process of China's transformation, with a view to understand the materiality of language use under the current conditions of global economy and geopolitics. It reviews recent research mainly from four perspectives: identity, social stratification and consumerism; English and neoliberal globalization; diversity, ethnicity and race; state and nationalism, and concludes with suggestions for future research.

Rapping the ‘Better folk’: Ideological and scalar negotiations of past and present

Drawing on sociolinguistics of globalization, discourse studies and global hip hop studies, this article examines how the ideological sociocultural and -historical reality of Finland is (re)constructed and (re)negotiated in a local rap song and how the song takes issue with the official, but often tension-ridden Finnish–Swedish bilingualism. Its specific, ironic take arises from the fact that the rap artist is Finnish-speaking, but echoes a Swedish-speaking minority who are traditionally and stereotypically seen as a privileged, historical elite. The song exemplifies how rap can constitute a site for investigation of language ideological debates in bi/multilingual societies and how nationalistic-laden ideologies (one nation–one language–one state) are taken for granted, brought forth but also significantly problematized and questioned.

Scalar politics, language ideologies, and the sociolinguistics of globalization among transnational Korean professionals in Hong Kong

This paper argues that the sociolinguistics of globalization is accompanied by a constitutive scalar politics. Based on ten interviews with Korean professionals in Hong Kong, we report that Korean migrants’ use and experience of English is characterized by competing language ideologies we identify as: Pragmatic English/Perfect English, Multilingualism/English Only, and Global Language/Local Language. Tensions within these ideologies were revealed as respondents referenced the contexts of their daily lives as intersecting sets of geographic, temporal, and social scales. We discuss how sociolinguistic relations associated with the transnational lifecourse, hybridizing identity, and racialization were imagined in ways that re‐negotiated these scales to serve the interests of the participants and provide coherence to their communicative practices. Sociolinguistic relations both reference scales and constitute them. We conclude that attending to scales and scalar politics provides a better explanatory framework for the ways the uneven linguistics markets of globalization are negotiated by transnational subjects.