Official coronation portrait (Image credit: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2015)

The Queen and the English language are both unique within their categories. The Queen enjoyed special social status among humans through a complex combination of exceptional legal standing, imperial power, accumulated wealth, and sophisticated celebrity cult. The same is true of English: it is different from any other language in terms of reach, clout, and popularity.

English has more speakers than any other language

English today is said to have around 1.5 billion speakers, close to 20% of the global population. Even if counting speaker numbers is notoriously tricky, that’s a lot more than any other language in history. If we were to include everyone with basic proficiency, 1.5 billion is a substantial undercount.

But it is not the large number of speakers that makes English exceptional. After all, Chinese is not far behind with 1.1 billion speakers.

What makes English categorically different from Chinese is the relationship between first and second language speakers. The overwhelming majority of Chinese speakers live in Greater China and speak Chinese as their mother tongue.

By contrast, only a minority of ca. 370 million English speakers live in the United Kingdom and its settler colonies (most notably the USA but also Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa).

The vast majority of English speakers live outside the Anglosphere: some in former exploitation colonies of the UK or USA (e.g., India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Bangladesh, Ghana), and others in countries with no special ties to the Anglosphere where English is learned as a foreign language (e.g., China, Germany, France, Japan, Russia).

In short, what makes English exceptional among languages is twofold: it is widely used outside the heartlands of the Anglosphere, and it is learned as an additional language by countless multitudes across the globe.

The most spoken languages worldwide, 2022 (Source: Statista)

English is more powerful than any other language

A language does not have power per se. It derives its power from the people and institutions it is associated with. And English has been associated with some of the most powerful people and institutions of the 19^th, 20^th, and 21^st centuries.

The British Empire was the largest empire in human history, covering 35.5 million km² in 1920 (when it was at its largest), or more than a quarter of the world’s land mass. Even after the decline of the British Empire, English got a second imperial boost due to US global domination.

English is not only associated with powerful states but almost all international organizations have English as their working language (sometimes along with a few other languages), from Amnesty International to the World Trade Organization. Even organizations far removed from the Anglosphere have adopted an English Only policy, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The political might of English is accompanied by economic clout. Most of the world’s most powerful corporations are headquartered in the USA, and even those that are not have been adopting English as their corporate language.

The world’s richest people speak English, too: 8 of the world’s 10 richest people are based in the USA, and the other two (one in France, one in India) undoubtedly also have English in their repertoires.

The examples could go on and on to illustrate that English is spoken in most of the world’s halls of power. That creates an effect that sociologists call “misrecognition”. Power comes from control over military, economic, or political resources; not from language. However, because English is so consistently associated with high power, it becomes “misrecognized” as a source of power.

And because everyone wants a piece of the cake, everyone wants to learn English so that they, too, can reap the successes it seems to confer.

Countries with largest numbers of English speakers

English is more hegemonic than any other language

Misrecognition is closely tied to another exceptional characteristic of English: it dominates through the ideas associated with it. English is stereotypically associated with the best in almost any field of human endeavor.

Most languages are associated with cultural stereotypes, beliefs, ideas, and emotions. Unlike the specific and relatively narrow cultural stereotypes associated with other languages (e.g., “French sounds romantic”), ideas about English are highly versatile: it is the language of modernity itself.

English is seen as the language of Hollywood media glitz and glamour, the language of freedom and liberal democracy, or the language of science and technology. Indeed, the cultural versatility of English is so great that it not only serves as the language of global capitalism but can also appear as its antagonist: the language of resistance.

One important way in which the hegemony of English is maintained is through the pomp and pageantry of the British monarchy. We are currently seeing global media saturation coverage. Its effect is not only to create a cultural, emotional, aspirational, and personally-felt connection with the Queen but with everything she stands for, including the English language.

The future of English

Although the role of the Queen is highly exceptional, her passing reminds us that the role was filled by an ordinary human being. It is likely that the next incumbent will be less capable at arresting the decline of the British monarchy. The role is likely to become less special, with a reduced realm and against the continuing diversification of celebrity cults.

The passing of the Queen has unleashed a global media frenzy, which also reinforces the hegemony of English (Image credit: sohu.com)

It might take longer for English to see a diminished status. In the past, imperial languages such as Latin and Persian survived the empires that spread them by hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

At the same time, the fate of English now rests to a significant degree with the language policies of countries outside the Anglosphere. And these might change as beliefs about the importance of the language change. For instance, if China were to curtail the role of English language proficiency for university entrance, this could send speaker numbers plummeting quite quickly.

The role of English is no longer solely in the hands of the Anglosphere.

Related content

To explore further how English went from peripheral peasant tongue to global superspreader language, and what its meteoric rise means, head over to this guest lecture I delivered at Yunnan University, Kunming, China) on Sept 28, 2021.

Afghan-style mantu (Image credit: Wikipedia)

One of our family’s favorite dishes is mantu. Mantu are steamed dumplings filled with minced lamb meat and served with a spicy lentil sauce and yoghurt. Mantu not only make a delicious meal but also offer a fun family activity. To prepare the thin dough sheets, the mince filling, and the lentil sauce, to stuff, fold, and steam the dumplings, and to get the whole assemblage together requires all hands on deck: it is a family affair that easily takes up a few hours.

Because mantu are time-consuming to prepare, it’s not a regular food in our house but we like it well enough that we cook it as a treat for special occasions a few times a year – we’ve recently had it to celebrate a birthday, a graduation, and an anniversary. This suggests that mantu play a pretty important role in our family culture.

Despite this importance, I had never tasted mantu or even heard of them until I was well into my thirties. In other words, mantu are not an ancient family tradition for us but a relatively recent addition to our culture.

Encountering mantu in Sydney

I first encountered mantu on the menu of an Afghan restaurant in Sydney – the excellent Khaybar in Auburn that always deserves a shout-out. Afghan restaurants are today an inextricable part of Sydney’s highly diverse food scene. Indeed, its multicultural cuisine is always a bragging point in Sydney destination marketing. As as a tourist article gushes: “From Hungarian to Taiwanese, Ethiopian to Chilean, Sydney’s multicultural food scene is as diverse as it is delicious.”

Turkish-style mantu (Image credit: Wikipedia)

Most often diversity is indexed through reference to a specific place overseas – the cuisine of a nation or city. For instance, on the Macquarie University Wallumattagal campus alone, our food options include outlets that self-identify as offering Istanbul, Korean, Lanzhou, Malaysian, Mexican, and Việtnamese foods; and there is even the option to have food that is “a French love affair with Vietnamese flavors.”

These restaurant self-descriptions point to the fact that we conceive diverse cuisine as additive: many different national cuisines exist side by side.

Outside marketing discourses, however, cuisines are rarely kept neatly separate, as my family’s adoption of mantu demonstrates.

Who owns mantu?

As I first encountered mantu in an Afghan restaurant, I believed them to be an Afghan dish. When I said so during a party conversation, I was strongly corrected by a man who claimed that mantu are a Turkish dish (and should be called “manti”).

A subsequent internet search informed me that manti (Манты) are a Russian dish.

And when I turned to discuss the matter with my students, I was told that mantu (馒头) was a Chinese dish. Not only that but I was also kindly advised that I was using the term wrong: mantu were steamed buns. The dish I was describing was supposed to be called “baozi” (包子).

Chinese mantu (Image credit: Wikipedia)

It seems that several groups lay claim to the dish; and can, in fact, not even agree what the dish that goes under this name is. Do some of them have to be wrong or can they all be right?

Food chains

Food has been a key site for language and culture contact since time immemorial. The earliest trade probably was in food stuffs. Barter economies center on food. Some of the most universal words are food terms, as I previously discussed with reference to “chocolate.”

Beyond basic necessity, food has also travelled as a marker of identity, out of curiosity, and as a luxury good. The consumption of exotic foods has long served as a marker of distinction for the rich and powerful. In his study of foodscapes in the 19^th century Indian Ocean world, Hoogervorst (2018), for instance, introduces us to an Acehnese sultan with a penchant for Persian sweets and to Mughal court culture, where professional cooks with expertise in West, Central, and South Asian cooking were considered indispensable to the display of courtly sophistication.

In short, food travels readily across languages and cultures. In the process, both the dishes and their terms undergo modification.

Mantu probably originated in China, where the term initially may have been the general word for filled and unfilled buns and dumplings. Its meaning contracted over time although in some Chinese dialects it may apparently still refer to a filled dumpling.

The Mongols picked up the dish and word from the Chinese, liked it, and took it with them to spread it across central Asia all the way to eastern Europe. Along the way, the precise details of the recipe have passed through the hands of countless cooks and so changed countless times.

The way we make and like mantu in my family is one such variety. To think of the language and culture chains and webs through which mantu arrived with us is both exhilarating and humbling: via an Afghan restaurant in Sydney our food connects us all the way back to the Mongol invasions and ancient China.

Do you have a favorite food with an interesting story of linguistic and cultural connections across time and space?

Reference

Hoogervorst, T. (2018). Sailors, Tailors, Cooks, and Crooks: On Loanwords and Neglected Lives in Indian Ocean Ports. Itinerario, 42(3), 516-548.

Related content

Piller, Ingrid. (2021). Thinking language with chocolate. Language on the Move. https://languageonthemove.com/thinking-language-with-chocolate/
Wilczek-Watson, Marta. (2019). Eating, othering and bonding. Language on the Move. https://languageonthemove.com/eating-othering-and-bonding/

“The Tosa dialect is fun!!” Notebook with characters representing the grammar of Tosaben, the dialect of the Kōchi prefecture in Shikoku. The cover also features popular landmarks of the prefecture.

Japan is often erroneously perceived as a monolingual country. This is not true and Japan is a multilingual and multicultural country where varied languages and traditions coexist.

This post explores Japan’s linguistic ecology by exploring the relationship between center and periphery. On our journey, we will see how linguistic resources change value, function and ownership as they move through an ideologically stratified system where the norms and criteria of appropriateness that emanate from the center influence those of peripheral and liminal territories.

Center

Our journey starts from the capital Tōkyō, the city that hosts the majority of the financial and political institutions of the country. Given its importance, it is not surprising that the city has had a central role in issues related to language as well.

Tōkyō has had a decisive impact on the ‘movement for the unification of the written and spoken language’ 言文一致運動 genbun itchi undō. Its goal was to replace older forms of the Japanese language with the vernacular variety of the time to facilitate literacy.

To achieve that, the Tōkyō variety (or “Edo”, as Tōkyō was called until the late 19^th century) was chosen as the base to envision a ‘national language’ 国語 kokugo.

150 years on and the political efforts that have been made to establish a common language can be considered largely successful. Communications in Japan have indeed been standardized, and Japan’s literacy rate is as high as 99%, one of the highest in the world.

Periphery

Standardization implies deviation. Therefore, all the other ways of speaking throughout the Japanese archipelago were categorized as dialects. Other varieties saw their usage severely curtailed, starting in schools which tried to stamp out anything other than Tōkyō Japanese.

Discouraged in official communication, dialects have become an expression of locality, part of the cultural identity associated with a specific place. This role has been embraced by prefectures and individuals alike. Institutional bodies such as museums and tourism boards use dialects as a means to promote local culture.

Sometimes grammar rules and words are turned into anthropomorphic characters and appear on souvenirs and merchandise like the notebook I have received at the University of Kōchi during my time there as an exchange student. The linguistic and cultural distance between center and periphery has been turned into a marketable commodity. Dialects are also used to portray characters in media for their ability to convey the stereotypes associated to them.

In real life, too, dialects enable people who do not wish to fit within mainstream language practices to inhabit a different ‘voice’, performing what has been called ‘dialect cosplay’ as an act of linguistic transgression.

Dialects may seem to assume playful roles in many occasions. However, it is not all fun and games as the necessity to confront the demands of standard language remains, and most young Japanese students know this well. The dreaded ‘exam hell’, a series of standardized examinations that Japanese students must take during their entire school lives, require mastery of the standard language as well as being able to produce it as part of an appropriate repertoire. The stakes are high and students, already under immense pressure, can afford little to no space for linguistic deviations.

Liminality

The more we head towards the borders of the country, the greater diversity we find, including a number of endangered languages. The languages of the Ainu people from the northernmost island of Hokkaidō, for instance, are on the verge of extinction. The same is true of languages spoken on the islands that dot Okinawa prefecture to the South and those of the Izu islands, an archipelago that stretches far into the Pacific Ocean east of Tōkyō.

In these areas, the demographic crisis is taking a heavy toll on the number of speakers, as young people leave rural areas in search of opportunities otherwise unavailable to them.

The center cannot hold

Meanwhile, Tōkyō has become super-diverse linguistically. It is no longer only the center of Japan but also a global city. Japanese is today used alongside English and a host of migrant languages. Against these, struggling peripheries are trying to find new ways to express their local identities through “authentic” language. They follow the center’s norms but occasionally playfully transcend and violate those norms.

Overall, Japan’s linguistic ecology is deeply rooted in the center-periphery dichotomy but the center and the peripheries are themselves changing.

Reference

Heinrich, Patrick. (2018). Dialect cosplay: Language use by the young generation. In Patrick Heinrich & Christian Galan (Eds.), Being Young in Super-Aging Japan: Formative Events and Cultural Reactions (pp. 166-182). London: Routledge.

Easter chocolates in the supermarket (Image credit: Wikimedia)

I’ve been thinking a lot about chocolate lately. Maybe because it is Easter and supermarkets in my part of the world are laden with chocolate products.

Chocolate is good to think with

Chocolate is good to think with – and I don’t mean just because chocolate is known to make our brains release endorphins, chemicals that make us feel good.

Chocolate is good to think with because it provides an easy-to-grasp explanation of the workings of global capitalism and the persistence of a colonial world order.

Global chocolate

The global chocolate industry is worth over 100 billion US$ per year. That wealth accumulation starts with the cultivation of the cacao bean and ends with the Easter egg melting in your mouth.

Cacao grows in tropical climates close to the equator. The world’s largest producer and exporter of cacao beans are two West African countries, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Together with Ecuador, Cameroon, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, and Papua New Guinea they grow most of the world’s cacao.

Virgin forest cleared to make way for cacao plantation (Image credit: Peru Reports)

Cacao farming is a fast-growing plantation monoculture and a major factor in deforestation. 80% of Côte d’Ivoire’s rain forest, for instance, has in the past few decades been cut down to make way for cacao plantations.

Even though Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana dominate global cacao production, your Easter egg is not going to say “Made in Côte d’Ivoire” or “Made in Ghana.”

The label on your Easter egg is most likely to read “Made in Germany” because Germany is the world’s largest chocolate producer and exporter, followed by Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland.

Cacao – the raw product – is shipped from Africa to Europe to be transformed into the valuable chocolate.

The main consumers of chocolate are in North America and Europe. Over 10% of the world’s chocolate is eaten in USA alone, followed by Germany, France, United Kingdom, and Netherlands.

Per capita chocolate consumption in some of these countries is truly staggering. The average Swiss person, for instance, eats a whooping 8.8 kilos of chocolate per year. The thought alone is enough to give me constipation (although Australians are in no position to point fingers: each of us eats 4.9 kilos of chocolate per year).

The biggest multinational corporations running global chocolate are based in USA (Mars, Mondelēz, Hershey), Italy (Ferrero), Japan (Meiji, Ezaki Glico), Switzerland (Nestlé, Lindt & Sprüngli), UK (Pladis), and South Korea (Orion).

The back-breaking work of cacao production is done in the (supposedly former) colonies (Image credit: Insider)

The global division of labor could not be clearer: those who do the work and suffer the degradation of their environment are completely separated from those who grow rich on their exploitation and those who enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The chocolate profiteers and chocolate victims remain invisible

Despite the ubiquity of chocolate in supermarkets of the global north, few people know how the chocolate got there.

Most of us are ignorant of the money behind chocolate. Italy’s richest man, for instance, is Giovanni Ferrero, of the Nutella chocolate spread. Giovanni’s fortune is estimated to be 32 billion US$. By contrast, the average cacao farmer earns less than one US$ per day.

Now that we have the economics of global chocolate straight, let’s turn to language. The way we think about the word “chocolate” can tell us as much about language and culture contact, as it does about capitalism and colonialism.

“Chocolate” is a universal word

One of the most foundational ways to think about languages is to classify them into many different languages, each separate from the other.

From Afrikaans to Zulu, there are 6,000 languages or so. Each different from the other and each tied to a particular nation, ethnicity, or culture.

The word for “chocolate” and “cacao” in 56 languages (sourced from Google Translate; Latin alphabet used throughout for easy comparability)

Now consider the word for “chocolate” and “cacao” in those languages.

The table shows 56 translation equivalents of “chocolate” and “cacao”, all based on Google Translate, and all written in the Latin alphabet for easy comparability. One glance suffices to see that “chocolate” and “cacao” are essentially the same word in all these languages. There are pronunciation differences, for sure, but it is obvious that that is all there is.

Does it make sense to say that “cokollate” is an Albanian word, that “shukulata” is an Arabic word, that “tsokolate” is a Cebuano word, that “qiǎokèlì” is a Chinese word, that “chocolate” is an English word, that “Schokolade” is a German word, that “chokollis” is a Korean word, that “shoklat” is a Persian word, and that “ushokoledi” is a Zulu word?

Of course, each of these forms is adapted to the phonology of each language but it is equally clear that the most salient aspect of each of these words is not their difference but their similarity.

The German philological tradition has a term for these types of words that are pretty much identical across languages: wanderwort. Wanderwort literally means “wandering word” or “migrating word.” Such migrating words are “items that are borrowed from language to language, often through a long chain of intermediate languages” (Hock & Joseph, 2009, p. 484).

A textbook example for a wanderwort is “sugar” – another key ingredient in chocolate – which probably started out in Sanskrit as “śarkara” and moved westwards to become Persian “shakar,” Arabic “sukkar,” Greek “sákkharon,” and Spanish “azúcar.” The word did not stop with Spanish but hopped over to French “sucre”, Italian “zucchero”, German “Zucker”, and English “sugar.” The Greek version “sákkharon” took an additional route into Western Europe and also gave us English “saccharin”.

Migrating words – and there are many of them – remind us that the borders between languages are not fixed but highly porous. Language and culture contact is the norm, and has been the norm since time immemorial.

That is the first language lesson of chocolate.

Chocolate is a colonized word that has become universal

The overarching narrative of language contact and language spread in our time is of the triumph of English. Language – like everything else of value – supposedly emanates from the European centre to the rest of the world. Colonial languages are powerless and dying away in the face of the English juggernaut.

There is certainly some truth to this story but it is not the only story. An alternative story is encapsulated in the word for “chocolate”.

Precolonial Mesoamerican depiction of a marriage ceremony involving a drink of chocolate (Image credit: UC Davis Library)

The cacao bean has been cultivated in Mesoamerica and brewed into a chocolate drink for thousands of years. Accordingly, the words for “cacao” and “chocolate” have a long and varied history in the precolonial languages of the region (Dakin & Wichmann, 2000).

The migrating words for “cacao” and “chocolate” that we encounter today in (possibly?) all the world’s language is based on Nahuatl “kakáwa” and “čokola:tl.”

While colonial languages have certainly been spreading, individual words from colonized languages have been on the move, too. Some, like “kakáwa” and “čokola:tl” have made themselves at home universally.

Like “cacao” and “chocolate,” many universal words come from the world’s most threatened and minoritized languages.

Another iconic example is “kangaroo.” This universal word comes from Guugu Yimidhirr, an Australian language from Far North Queensland with less than 1,000 speakers.

The second language lesson of chocolate is that language spread is not a one-way street and colonized languages have also made their tracks around the globe.

Eurocentric etymologies

The Spanish conquest of the Americas brought the cacao bean and its preparation to the attention of Europeans.

The internet is full of claims that “Cortés was believed to have discovered chocolate during an expedition to the Americas” or that “Christopher Columbus discovered cacao beans after intercepting a trade ship on a journey to America and brought the beans back to Spain with him in 1502” (my emphasis).

Europeans have long lied to themselves about chocolate: this 17th century treatise depicts an Indian princess handing over chocolate to the higher-placed Poseidon, the ancient Greek god of the seas (Image credit: Internet Archive)

This is incorrect – like most “discoveries” of the colonial period and the so-called “Age of Discovery,” the existence of the cacao bean and its use in chocolate preparation was well-known to the Aztecs.

In today’s terms, what Cortés, Columbus, and all the other “discoverers” did might be called plagiarism or intellectual property theft.

Words like “cacao” and “chocolate” bear witness to that grand theft in the languages of the world.

Not surprisingly, the colonizers have tried to erase those linguistic tracks.

“Kangaroo” was for a long time thought to be “unknown” in any Australian language, and the idea was that Captain Cook and Joseph Banks somehow made up the word. Another apocryphal story had it that “kangaroo” actually means “I don’t know” in Guugu Yimidhirr. In this anecdote, local knowledge is completely erased while Cook and Banks come out as the heroic discoverers who made sense out of local ignorance.

It was not until 1980, when the publication of R.M.W. Dixon’s The languages of Australia finally settled the debate and confirmed something the Indigenous people of North Queensland had known all along: that the universal word “kangaroo” came from their language.

A similar obfuscation takes place when you look up the etymology for “chocolate” in English. English “chocolate” is said to derive from Spanish “chocolate” or French “chocolat.” The latter in turn derives from Spanish “chocolate,” and only in another step does it go back to Nahuatl “chocolatl.”

The etymology of the German “Schokolade” similarly highlights inner-European transmission by deriving German “Schokolade” from Dutch “chocolate,” which derives from Spanish “chocolate.” Nahuatl is only mentioned at the end of that list.

In Imperial Eyes, Mary Louise Pratt writes that “an imperial tendency to see European culture emanating out to the colonial periphery from a self-generating center has obscured the constant movement of people and ideas in the other direction” (p. 88).

Amongst other things, colonialism has been a huge project of knowledge transfer from the colonized to the colonizers. The third language lesson of “chocolate” is to lay bare the big con that has made it look as if knowledge only travels in the other direction.

References

Dakin, K., & Wichmann, S. (2000). Cacao and chocolate: a Uto-Aztecan perspective. Ancient Mesoamerica, 11(1), 55-75.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1980). The Languages of Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hock, H. H., & Joseph, B. D. (2009). Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics (2nd rev ed.). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Pratt, M. L. (2008). Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

The Language on the Move team is here to help!

After the Language on the Move Reading Challenges of 2018, 2019, and 2020, this is the fourth time we are running the Language on the Move Reading Challenge.

This year, we have created a monthly calendar of reading recommendations to keep you company throughout the year.

As was the case previously, the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2021 is designed to encourage broad reading in the discipline and beyond, and to make linguistics reading fun. Anyone with an interest in the intersection of linguistic diversity and social life can join.

Throughout the year, make sure to watch out for in-depth reviews and interactive conversations related to each reading, both here on this site and over on Twitter @lg_on_the_move.

Enjoy the recommendations from our team and feel free to add your own recommendations in the comment section below! We are interested in any good reads illuminating the intersection of language and social life.

January

Hanna Torsh recommends The Sydney Language by Jakelin Troy (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2019, 2^nd ed.).

“Jakelin Troy documents the language of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Sydney Region, which no longer has any speakers. Drawing on historical sources, the book provides a classic example of language contact and intercultural communication. Shadows of those encounters between Aboriginal people and colonizers continue to exist in the vocabulary of Australian English. “Waratah” is a good example. The flower to which it refers is the name of the NSW floral emblem and of a major rugby team.”

February

Pia Tenedero recommends Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (Crown Publishing, 2012).

“I like having Reading Group via Zoom because I feel more confident to express myself in this digital platform than in our face-to-face meetings – possibly an indication of my introvert side. This is partly why Susan Cain’s exploration of communication styles and the stereotypes linked to them appeals to me. There is a dominant belief that the ideal self, successful students, model employees, or the best leaders enjoy the spotlight, act quickly, and talk fast, aloud, and a lot. Extroversion is also perceived as a “Western” communication style. As a result, those who do not fit the pattern are oftentimes viewed through a deficit lens, as I have found in my research with globalized accountants in the Philippines.”

March

Vera Williams Tetteh recommends Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa by Nwando Achebe (Ohio University Press, 2020).

“In 2009, I gifted Ingrid (Piller) a glossy catalogue celebrating 50 years of Ghanaian history. She was puzzled at this short time span and asked where all the history before that was. Not having an answer at the time, I have become an avid reader of African history since. Nwando Achebe provides a brilliant African-centred history of women in leadership roles on the continent during pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial times. The book opens with my most favourite African proverb – “Until the lions have their own historians, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter” and, throughout, addresses the question: whose histories, whose stories, whose archives?”

April

Loy Lising recommends Challenging the Myth of Monolingual Corpora edited by Arja Nurmi, Tanja Rutten, and Paivi Pahta (Brill, 2017).

“This book addresses how the monolingual mindset pervades even the discipline of linguistics itself, specifically the sub-discipline of corpus linguistics. The monolingual mindset manifests in the compilation, annotation, and use of corpora, and multilingual practices are converted into monolingual corpora at each of these levels. As one of the contributors to the Philippine component of the International Corpus of English, I am concerned that any non-English data in that corpus are either marked as <indig>, if they are in a local language, or <foreign>, if they are in Spanish. The book offers many helpful lenses through which to query these practices and to consider how non-English elements could be better incorporated so that they can serve as meaningful evidence of language contact and language change.”

May

Madiha Neelam recommends Language Policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches by Elana Shohamy (Routledge, 2006).

“This book inspires me to think more deeply about how language can serve as a means of control and categorisation. Shohamy explains how perceptions of language as a limited entity, governed by fixed boundaries, and strict rules of correctness make language amenable to manipulation for political, social, and economic purposes. Language tests, in particular, are powerful tools of control and social categorisation.”

June

Samar Al-Khalil recommends Neoliberalism and English Language Education Policies in the Arabian Gulf by Osman Z. Barnawi (Routledge, 2017).

“Barnawi shows how education in the Gulf region is changing as societies move from oil-based to knowledge-based economies. In this context, education has become entirely subject to the needs of the job market and economic agendas. This has resulted in a series of tensions as this form of neoliberal and globalized education comes into conflict with Islamic values and Arab identities. The book helps me to think more critically about the broader socioeconomic context in which my research about the promotional discourses of private English language teaching institutes in Saudi Arabia is embedded.”

July

Shiva Motaghi-Tabari recommends Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia edited by Anita Heiss (Black Inc., 2018).

“Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia is an anthology of fifty short life stories written by Aboriginal people from all walks of life and spanning a variety of generations and regions. It is a compilation of diverse voices and perspectives which have identity, culture, and racism at their core. One of the themes that stands out throughout the book is the contributors’ struggles to understand their identity, and to find a sense of belonging and acceptance. The book enriched my own learning and understanding about Indigenous people in many ways, and I would recommend the book particularly to migrants to Australia, who can too easily avoid confronting Australia’s colonial history and the ongoing struggles of its First Nations people.”

August

Alexandra Grey recommends Language Investment and Employability: The Uneven Distribution of Resources in the Public Employment Service by Mi-Cha Flubacher, Alexandre Duchêne and Renata Coray (Palgrave, 2018).

“This book reports on a 9-month institutional ethnography inside various offices of Switzerland’s public employment service across the officially French-German bilingual Canton of Fribourg. It is a brilliant example of an institutional ethnography. The study demonstrates that language policy research should not always take a specific official language policy as its starting point. Instead, it is important for researchers to look at sites and processes where both overt and covert language policy is made and applied without taking on the official guise of ‘a policy about language’. Here, the rules, official policies and official discourses are, on their face, about eligibility for state assistance and employability, but the study shows how language practices, migration histories, and language repertoires are constructed within them.”

September

Ana Sofia Bruzon recommends Home advantage: social class and parental intervention in elementary education by Annette Lareau (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, 2^nd ed).

“Working-class families want their children to succeed in school, just like middle-class families, but they are not endowed with the same resources. Lareau shows that social class has a powerful impact on educational success; that is, parental involvement in schooling correlates strongly to children’s educational attainment. For working-class families, school and family life are strictly separated. By contrast, school and family life are interconnected for middle class families. Parental possession and activation of cultural resources yields social and educational profits for middle class children, which results in the strong connection between social class and educational outcomes. The book challenges me to think more deeply about how the class-school relationship is complicated when linguistic difference and migrant status also come into play. Schools should help fill the gap by providing inclusive multilingual information.”

October

Jinhyun Cho recommends Language and Symbolic Power by Pierre Bourdieu (Polity, 1992).

“I have read this book numerous times and treat it as my sociolinguistic bible. I continue to find new perspectives and insights into the relationship between language and society at each reading. By shifting the focus from language per se to its situatedness in complex social relations, Bourdieu’s theory of language as capital works seamlessly in the theorisation of linguistic markets, in which a price is formed on language, and censorship operates in order to distinguish legitimate language from other varieties. Although Bourdieu’s theory was formed in the French context of the 2^nd half of the 20^th century, it has been foundational to my own research related to translation and interpreting in contemporary South Korea, where English serves as a key instrument of distinction.”

November

Tazin Abdullah recommends Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia by Samia Khatun (University of Queensland Press, 2019).

“Much of the narrative surrounding Australian immigrants posits migration as a recent phenomenon. Australianama (“The book of Australia”), in contrast, is a refreshing insight into the historic connection immigrants have had with land and people. Khatun traces the South Asian Muslim presence in Australia using literature in South Asian languages and stories found in Aboriginal accounts. She explains, convincingly, that an understanding of immigrant history is found not in languages associated with European/colonial knowledge systems, but within the literature of immigrant and Aboriginal languages. The stories that Khatun unearths definitively illustrate the influence of historical, social and cultural factors that produce the linguistic representation of immigrants. I thoroughly enjoyed this fresh perspective on the story of Australia.”

December

Ingrid Piller recommends The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns edited by Dohra Ahmad and with a foreword by Edwidge Danticat (Penguin, 2019).

“I’ve probably learned more about language – and life in general, I might add – from literature than from linguistics. And this anthology offers a kaleidoscope of the many facets in which language is entwined in the experience of migration. Ahmad has brought together a brilliant collection of migrant literature with pieces focused on the experience of leaving home, arriving in a destination, and creating, or trying to create, a new home. Although the US and UK still loom large among the destinations, Ahmad has made a huge effort to include a wide variety of origins and destinations. Another strength of the anthology is that, in addition to some well-known names, it features many newer writers who have not yet been widely anthologized – I’ve discovered a number of authors to add to my favorite writers list.”

Victorian Multicultural Commission, Melbourne (Image credit: Pramuk Perera, via Unsplash)

In August, Australia’s Acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Alan Tudge, announced the extension of the Adult Migrant Education Program (AMEP) as well as a stronger focus on Australian values in the Australian citizenship test.

Increasing the provision of free English classes through the AMEP is undoubtedly a good thing. Although it needs to be mentioned in brackets that most classes will be online, which is highly problematic because language in use actually involves collaboration and communication.

Here, I am concerned with the rationale for the extended provision of English language lessons.

Non-English speakers a fifth column

In his address to the National Press club, “Keeping Together at a Time of COVID”, the minister claimed that national cohesion in Australia was at risk because of communities who have poor English. He explained that “poor English” made them “more reliant on foreign language sources.” This is a problem, according to the Minister: ‘‘Despite now being proud Australians, some communities are still seen by their former home countries as ‘their diaspora‘ – to be harassed or exploited to further the national cause.”

This negative understanding of  “diaspora” is selective because, in fact, the overwhelming majority of Australians are part of some diaspora or other. After all, all non-Aboriginal Australians have ties and loyalties to ancestral cultures and languages that come from somewhere else. This is true even if their family has lived in Australia for generations. When I grew up in Australia in the 1960s, we learnt Scottish, Welsh, and Irish folk songs at school, about heather and misty braes, and we swore allegiance to an English queen.

Diaspora, then, is the lived experience of millions of Australians. But does a diasporic sense of belonging – the experience that various cultural traditions may touch your heart or that your palate has a taste for cuisine associated with more than one place – necessarily involve dual loyalty in the political sense?

Non-English media as sources of misinformation

The Minister says so and his reasoning is this:  “malign information or propaganda can be spread through multicultural media, including foreign language media controlled or funded by state players.”

The connection between English language proficiency and “multicultural or foreign language media” consumption is spurious. After all, in a globalized world, direct contact with home country media is just a few clicks away. Even fluent bilinguals are likely to access news from their home country and keep in contact with family members, who are often dispersed across the world and intertwine other languages with English in their home.

The choice of media and language is complex, depending on the time, the place, the users and the context. A Chinese friend who has lived in Australia for 25 years tells me that she and her husband access multiple daily sources of information in both languages, of both local and international provenance. Her Australian-born children use only English-language media and her elderly parents-in-law rely exclusively on Chinese language media and their family members as sources of information. She reports that this diversity of information sources sometimes leads to lively family discussions!

English doesn’t make national cohesion and multilingualism doesn’t break it

Furthermore, the Minster confuses community and foreign languages when he claims that “through the pandemic […] it has been difficult to communicate with all Australians through the mainstream channels.” “Mainstream channels”, in Australia, of course, include local multilingual sources, including government notifications and the extensive local ethnic media, as well as recognizing that most immigrant families and networks include some fluent English users who pass on information.

Finally, “malign information or propaganda” does not only spread through languages other than English. English monolinguals are just as prone to draw on malign sources and fall prey to “fake news”. And many of the English-language media sources they draw on are not Australian at all and emanate from foreign countries.

Ultimately, the link that the Minister makes between English language proficiency and national cohesion is unfortunate. Instead of building bridges between communities and enhancing national cohesion, as was presumably intended, the framing of English language learning as a matter of national loyalty can only increase barriers between communities and lead to distrust.

The special issue of Multilingua devoted to “Linguistic Diversity in a time of crisis”, which originally motivated the call for contributions to this series, has now been published and all the papers are available for free access.

***

Covid-related misinformation in Morocco

African sayings related to crocodiles – the author at the Agadir Crocodile Park

The Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis has just published a report entitled “Moroccans and Quarantine: General satisfaction and cautious optimism”. The findings show considerable negative psychological effects of the pandemic despite the fact that most Moroccans are satisfied with the government’s measures to keep the epidemic under control. One of the reasons for this discrepancy may be information overload.

Since the beginning of the lockdown in Morocco on March 20, 2020, information and misinformation have abounded, and it has not been easy to distinguish between these two.

The closure of schools, cafes, hammams, restaurants, and mosques, together with the ban on mass gatherings, inter-city travel, parties and family celebrations have helped to keep the spread of the virus under control. But they have also been controversial and deprived people of functioning normally in a society.

Moroccans’ sources of information – and misinformation – have been social media, national and international TV channels, the internet, and communications from a range of social actors and groupings.

Social media, in particular, provide the ideal platform for the dissemination of misinformation.

The mimesis power of disinformation

The Covid-19 infodemic can be approached as a synthesis of concepts: a static signified (COVID-19) and a dynamic signifier (misinformation) are transformed in local, regional and global contexts.

Globalization has promised Moroccans – as many others around the world – wealth and prosperity together with equality and respect. Unfortunately, these have turned out to be chimeras. How is anyone to know that the measures taken to curb the spread of COVID-19 are not another such chimera?

Misinformation is like a carcinogenic cell that duplicates irrational and implausible facts, and then transforms them into a growth of seemingly trustworthy and verified information via social media. Misinformation is fueled by a melange of a bit of reality and a lot of chimeras.

It is in the nucleus where the misinformation is duplicated, echoed and confabulated into a form of neo-information or malignant misinformation that mimics the style, the content, and the source of credible information. Once the target audience has become trapped, the reptilian and emotional brain does not have the time or capacity to think critically due to cognitive overload. Thus, misinformation proliferates because the human brain is prone to cognitive bias and dissonance.

Lack of timely high-quality information is the perfect niche for misinformation to get a foot in the door and from there to create a web of lies and half-truths for the anguished and traumatized of this world for whom the pandemic is yet another disaster that incomprehensibly befalls them from afar.

The crocodile giggles while we paddle with the stream, as the proverb says.

Language challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic

Visit here for the full Language on the Move coverage of language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis. The special issue of Multilingua of 12 peer-reviewed research papers about “Linguistic diversity in a time of crisis” is available here.

***

(Image Credit: Confucius Institute Adelaide)

As vehicles for the promotion of Chinese language and culture, Confucius Institutes and Classrooms are a kind of global cultural flow. They can be considered a global project, which Nederveen Pieterse (2009) defines as the actions of people, groups, organisations and governments “to shape global conditions” in their favour (pp. 16-17). This is particularly the case considering they have recently been identified as an important aspect of achieving the Chinese Dream (中国梦zhōngguó mèng) of making China a global power. China hopes that the Chinese language teaching and cultural activities conducted by the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms will create a positive image and narrative of China, and thereby increase understanding of and sympathy for its positions and goals in global politics.

In my previous research, I adapted Held et al.’s (1999) framework for studying global flows to map and evaluate the Confucius Institute project. This framework consists of four components:

• Extensity: the geographical coverage of the Confucius Institute project
• Intensity: the volume of the Confucius Institute project
• Velocity: the speed of development of the Confucius Institute project
• Impact: the consequences or outcomes of the Confucius Institute project

I concluded the Confucius Institute project was a diffused global project because it covered much of the world (high extensity); the number of Confucius Institutes and Classrooms and the volume of their activities was substantial (high intensity); and it had reached these dimensions in not much more than a decade (high velocity). Its impact was low because, although it made a valuable contribution to Chinese language and culture education, it did not influence the policies and actions of other countries in ways favourable to China, or create more positive views of China (Gil, 2017).

(Source: Hanban)

At present though, global cultural flows are being reshaped by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most obviously, Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, like other educational institutions, have suspended or altered their normal activities. The University of Adelaide Confucius Institute, for example, has moved many of its activities online, including a Chinese conversation corner, HSK exam preparation classes and cultural activity classes.

But another change is also underway – Confucius Institutes and Classrooms are closing in increasing numbers and with increasing frequency. Sweden recently became the first European country to close all of its Confucius Institutes and Classrooms. In January, the University of Maryland – the first American university to host a Confucius Institute – announced its Confucius Institute would close at the end of the 2019 to 2020 academic year. The University of Delaware, University of Kansas, University of Arizona and University of Missouri also indicated late last year or early this year that their Institutes would be closing. In the USA alone, some 29 have shut since 2014, most in the last two years. Globally, around 50 closed between 2013 and 2020. This is a remarkable reversal of the previous growth in the Confucius Institute project. In the years 2008 to 2015, for example, there was an average annual increase of 37 Confucius Institutes and 122 Confucius Classrooms (Gil, 2017).

How are these closures connected to the COVID-19 pandemic, and what might the Confucius Institute project look like in a post-pandemic world?

Like any global project, the Confucius Institute project has received mixed reactions. Some regard it as beneficial for Chinese language and culture education because Confucius Institutes and Classrooms provide valuable resources, such as teaching materials, teaching staff, language classes and cultural activities. Others regard it as a threat. Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, according to proponents of this view, restrict academic freedom, spread propaganda, engender self-censorship and allow China to influence universities and schools.

This second view of the Confucius Institute project is the driving force behind the closures. It is founded on opposition to the nature of China’s political system, as well as its policies and conduct, domestically and internationally. Most recently, China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, actions in the South China Sea and handling of the Hong Kong protests have all negatively impacted its reputation and the way it is perceived. There is growing reluctance on the part of foreign universities and schools to be involved with a project with connections to the Chinese government.

The COVID-19 pandemic is also affecting China’s reputation and image in the world. Because China is where the virus most likely originated, and the government mishandled the initial stages of the outbreak, negative views of China have increased. China’s attempts to spread disinformation about the virus, as well as its sometimes aggressive responses to concerns raised by other countries, have also created suspicion and mistrust. A recent poll by the Pew Research Centre, for example, found that 71% of Americans had no confidence in President Xi Jinping, 66% had an unfavourable view of China and 62% saw China’s power and influence as a major threat.

It is likely that these general perceptions of China will influence views on the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, and contribute to more closures. As a result, the Confucius Institute project is likely to lose ground as a global project.

Confucius Institute Logo (Source: Confuciusmag)

However, the number of Confucius Institutes and Classrooms which have closed represents a small percentage of the total number. According to Hanban, the body responsible for Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, there are 541 Institutes and 1,170 Classrooms in the world, although it is unclear whether this figure reflects the most recent closures. So, a complete end to the Confucius Institute project is unlikely – it will continue in some form after the pandemic.

An important clue to what it might look like is the geography of the closures. So far, they have mainly occurred in North America, Europe and Australia – Confucius Institutes and Classrooms in other regions of the world are not closing. This is not surprising considering Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East have in recent times had positive views of China and its influence.

Another indication of the future shape of the Confucius Institute project is China’s own priorities. In 2019, China announced a plan to “optimise” the spread of Confucius Institutes, which suggested the emphasis will be on countries included in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Confucius Institute project may progressively become focused on, and possibly even confined to, these countries.

This would mean it moves towards being what Held et al. (1999) call a thin global project – it would maintain its high extensity, but its intensity, velocity and impact would be low, or at least lower than before.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the nature of global cultural flows, but China nevertheless remains an important “pole in the global geopolitical, economic and cultural order” (Grey & Piller, 2020, p. 55). It will therefore be influential in generating global flows once the pandemic has passed, and the Confucius Institute project will be part of this, although on a somewhat different scale and scope.

References

Gil, J. (2017). Soft power and the worldwide promotion of Chinese language learning: The Confucius Institute project. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Grey, A. & Piller, I. (2020). Sociolinguistic ethnographies of globalisation. In K. Tusting (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of linguistic ethnography (pp. 54-69). London: Routledge.
Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. & Perraton, J. (1999). Global transformations: Politics, economics and culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2009). Globalization and culture: Global mélange (2nd ed.).  Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Language challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic

Visit here for our full coverage of language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis.

***

“The trend of the future is working from home. The big question is: Are Filipinos ready for this kind of work?” This question was asked by an employer of Filipino virtual accountants providing offshore services to clients overseas during my fieldwork in June 2018. Two years later, office workers all over the world find themselves forced to do just that—work from home—as a social distancing measure in light of the COVID-19 pandemic situation. In Australia alone, 1.6 million reported this significant change in their working conditions.

Unsurprisingly, there are many different reactions to this global shift to remote-work setup—some readily embracing it as the new normal, others taking a more critical stance. In the interim, as working from home continues to be the norm for some occupation groups, the experience of offshore accountants, who are employed to work remotely, pandemic or no pandemic, provides a picture of how this work arrangement works on a permanent basis.

A sociolinguistic analysis of the globalized accountant experience of working from home was the subject of a webinar co-organized on 3 July 2020 by the Linguistic Society of the Philippines (LSP) and the Lasallian Institute for Development and Educational Research.

In this online lecture, I explore how working remotely has shaped communication practices and ideologies in globalized accounting practice in the Philippines. Examining communication in this context is important as the demand for off-shored (including home-based) accounting services is increasing. This trend comes with the positioning of the Philippines as an emerging global provider of knowledge process outsourced services to businesses headquartered overseas. Ethnographic data collected from this work context for my PhD thesis (in progress) is analyzed using the lenses of performance and audit. Findings show that the way accountants communicate has evolved to fit the shape of virtual work environments. Digital solutions are making communication skills more salient and creating new norms and protocols of transparency that contribute to tensions between autonomy and accountability. The lessons highlighted from accountants’ experiences potentially reflect communication challenges and opportunities in other work domains especially during this period of COVID-19 pandemic, when mandatory physical distancing is redefining workplace interactions.

You can watch this virtual presentation uploaded in the LSP YouTube channel.

Language challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic

Visit here for our full coverage of language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis.

Muslim women praying in a Minquan mosque

While everyone knows that China is now the second largest economy in the world, few people realize that there are still over five million people living in poverty in the country. The majority of China’s poor live in its multilingual and multicultural peripheral regions.

Therefore, as part of its efforts to eradicate poverty, the Chinese government has implemented the nationwide project to promote Putonghua as a form of linguistic capital. This promotion of Putonghua – along with widespread English language learning – from above has been widely discussed and researched by Chinese sociolinguists (see, for instance, these PhD theses available right here on Language on the Move: Grey, 2017, Li, 2017, Yang, 2013, Zhang, 2011).

However, what seems to have been largely overlooked is language learning of other languages from below and the empowerment it can bring, as I learned in my research into Arabic language learning in Minquan, a Muslim-centered and poverty-stricken region.

Socioeconomic and demographic features of Minquan

Located in the far east of Henan Province, central China, Minquan County has a population of 870,000. The vast majority of these are farmers. Because the ever more frequent droughts have rendered production of the main crops of maize, cotton, peanuts, and wheat unstable, an increasing number of young people are leaving Minquan for China’s big developed cities in search of better opportunities.

Education and literacy levels in Minquan are low in comparison with the rest of China and only two third of teenagers in Minquan continue their studies beyond compulsory junior high school education.

Another feature of Minquan is its sizable Hui ethnic minority, whose members are Muslim. In Minquan it is common for local people to exchange greetings in Arabic and for the women to wear colorful hijabs. Five times a day, the streets echo with the Muslim call to prayer chanted slowly and sonorously in Arabic over the audio systems of the local mosques.

Arabic as a way out for Minquan’s Muslim women

The Hui ethnic group do not have their own language but speak Chinese. However, in recent years, I have observed an increasing trend for local people to study Arabic, the holy language of Islam, not only for religious purposes but also for material profit. For my graduation research project at Yunnan University, I probed the Arabic language learning experiences of three Muslim women from Minquan. All three participants, two of whom are my relatives, were born and raised in Muslim families in Minquan. Their mother tongue is Chinese and they all started to study Arabic formally in their teens.

Their reasons for Arabic language study were initially due to their limited opportunities.

The youngest participant, Ma Lifang (all names are pseudonyms) is a 19-year-old high-school graduate, who has studied Arabic in a mosque since 2018. After failing the gaokao (the national university entrance exam), she followed an imam’s recommendation to learn Arabic in order to maintain her education and with an eye to a profitable future through Arabic as experienced by Ma Zhenyi (32) and Ma Xiangling (39).

Ma Zhenyi is an entrepreneur who now runs her own translation and interpreting company in Yiwu, the world largest wholesale market. Despite her excellent academic performance in junior high school and her desire to continue her studies, she was denied the opportunity of receiving a high school education because of her family’s poverty. The traditionally low expectations on Muslim women in her community also played a role. While she did not have the courage at age 15 to oppose her parents when it came to high school, she found a way to convince them to let her study Arabic in the mosque:

别人都一直说，都是建议让我跟爸爸妈妈讲（我想学），然后当时也没那么大的勇气。因为我姐姐她也想去学习，但是爸妈没同意，就没学成。我也没有那么大的勇气去说。后来越学越感兴趣，越学越感兴趣。然后，就鼓起勇气说。
Others kept telling me, suggesting that I should tell my parents (I want to study), but I didn’t have the courage. My older sister also meant to study, but my dad and mom refused and she could not. I just didn’t have the courage. Later Arabic interested me more and more, I had to be brave enough to tell them. (Interview with Ma Zhenyi)

Perhaps it was Ma Zhenyi’s talent in memorizing Arabic verses that contributed to her success; or the fact that her older sister could share the family’s financial burden so that Ma Zhenyi could have the chance of further study for a couple of years. Either way, while seeking her spiritual asylum in the holy language of Islam, Ma Zhenyi could continue to study and build her dream for the future.

Middle-Eastern buyer checking cargo with seller in Yiwu (Image credit: promotional video for Yiwu)

Her excellent performance together with her deep faith next launched her to another opportunity to continue her Islamic and Arabic studies in Xi’an, one of China’s largest cities and the capital of Shaanxi Province. At that stage, she won a scholarship to go to Egypt for further Arabic study. There, she met her husband and when both of them returned to China, they settled in Yiwu, where they first took up Arabic translation and interpreting jobs and eventually opened their own translation company in 2012.

Ma Xiangling (39) also works as an Arabic-Chinese translator and interpreter in Yiwu. Like Ma Zhenyi, she was denied a senior high school education after graduating from junior high school in 1998. She was sent to learn Arabic at a local mosque-based school instead. At the time, she did not expect any material rewards from learning Arabic at all. She simply followed the local expectation of being a good Muslim woman in the hope that she might assist her future husband and educate their child in the faith. Upon graduation, she got married but almost immediately found herself engulfed in constant domestic violence. Over many years, Ma Xiangling’s life was torn to pieces as her only financial support was her tormenting husband. She finally managed to regain her freedom through a painful divorce. In 2014, with the help of friends doing business in Yiwu, she revived her Arabic language skills and migrated to Yiwu to work as translator there.

Self-transformation through Arabic

Confronting their disadvantages in age, gender and poverty, these three women turned to Arabic as a way out.

All three women started to learn Arabic as a low-cost study option when they failed to progress in the Chinese public educational system. Their parents believed that learning Arabic would increase their daughters’ marriage prospects by making them good assistants to their future husbands serving the faith. The value of speaking Arabic as a profitable commodity in the new contexts of China’s global expansion was not obvious to my participants until they embarked on their journey and seriously invested in learning Arabic. Nevertheless, their Arabic skills have shaped a brand new life vision for them.

Ma Xiangling’s social media post in Chinese and Arabic about destiny (my English translation)

Their years of investment into Arabic have transformed their identities from poor subjugated Muslim women into independent and enterprising individuals. Despite failing to gain admission to a Chinese university, Ma Lifang, for instance, now even considers PhD study within her reach:

有的(课本）都是北大的什么的… 还有那种全阿语的.都是老师们从国外给带来的。好多老师也是从国外的毕业，还有博士学位。
Some (textbooks) are from Peking University, and some are written in Arabic, imported from abroad. Many teachers graduated from abroad, some with PhD degree. (Interview with Ma Lifang)

When asked what she wanted to do with her life, Ma Lifang readily talked about several options, such as taking up a translation job in China’s booming export industry or going abroad for higher education, just like her teachers.

Ma Zhenyi has experienced the transformational career that Ma Lifang anticipates. Learning Arabic has expanded her life trajectory from a poor village girl first to the big city of Xi’an and from there to Egypt. The level of Arabic language proficiency she gained there, enabled her to work as an interpreter and translator in Yiwu, and later to establish her own business there.

Business opportunities related to Arabic are plentiful, as she explained to me:

大概有目前来说有102个国家的人来这里(义乌)进行购物。其中呢大概有40到50个国家，大概了50%左右是以阿拉伯语为沟通媒介的……我现在接触的这些人啊，多数都是在40以上的。年龄40以上的人并没有意识到他们需要学英语你知道吗。
There are foreign businessmen from 102 countries coming to Yiwu to purchase commodities. 40 or 50 countries out of 102, about 50% of foreigners use Arabic for communication…the majority of my foreign customers are over 40 years old. You know, people over 40 are not aware of the necessity to speak English. (Interview with Ma Zhenyi)

Although Ma Xiangling’s career has been less stellar, Arabic has transformed her, too, into an economically and spiritually independent woman supporting herself and her family. In January 2020, her family (her parents and her disabled son) was able to move into a newly built two-storey house.

Tensions and contradictions of Arabic

Despite their empowerment, Arabic is not a panacea and all three women face tensions and contradictions embedded in wider structural constraints that are beyond their control.

Reflecting on the profits Arabic has brought to her, Ma Zhenyi, for instance strongly feels the tension between its material and spiritual rewards. While she is grateful for the material rewards that learning Arabic has brought her, she also finds herself in a constant state of dilemma between her entrepreneurial identity as a successful businesswoman and her sense of guilt at not having enough time for prayer and reading Quran, or for mothering her school-aged daughter.

The gendered market also impacts their opportunities to invest in their future, as Arabic language practices are more gendered than those of many other languages. Ma Xiangling explained that women can only go so far with Arabic. While they might be able to secure a translation job in Yiwu or elsewhere in China, their opportunities to work abroad or even travel for business are heavily constrained, particularly when it comes to major Arabic-speaking trading partners like Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Ma Xiangling’s reflections on working abroad must be understood against the emerging oversupply of Arabic speakers in China as Chinese universities have begun to actively promote non-English foreign languages. As a middle-aged woman without a degree, Arabic proficiency alone is no longer enough to make her feel confident about her future.

Arabic as a third space

Arabic has become a significant foreign language for China’s relationship with the Middle East. However, for the women in my study, it is much more than that. Arabic also functions as a way out, as a reachable escape route for Muslim women who have been trapped in the cage of poverty and religion.

Reciting Arabic verses as a child, reading the Holy Quran as a teenager, and eventually translating for Sino-Middle East trade as adults, Chinese Muslim women from less-developed areas have turned the Arabic language into a third space where they can continue their education, obtain career success, and achieve emancipation in their daily lives. In Minquan, this impoverished corner of the world, Arabic provides both a spiritual asylum and financial independence. It frees and awakens Muslim women tormented by misogyny and poverty.

After quoting to me the Hadith “all men are brothers”, Ma Zhenyi added what has been missing from there: “and women are sisters.”

References

Grey, A. (2017). How do language rights affect minority languages in China? An ethnographic investigation of the Zhuang minority language under conditions of rapid social change. (PhD), Macquarie University.
Li, J. (2017). Social Reproduction and Migrant Education: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography of Burmese Students’ Learning Experiences at a Border High School in China. (PhD), Macquarie University.
Yang, H. (2012). Naxi, Chinese and English: Multilingualism in Lijiang. (PhD), Macquarie University.
Zhang, J. (2011). Language Policy and Planning for the 2008 Beijing Olympics: An Investigation of the Discursive Construction of an Olympic City and a Global Population. (PhD), Macquarie University.

Wei Duan introduces herself to a group of Bangladeshi students at Yunnan University

As a postgraduate student at Yunnan University in Southwest China, I have been conducting a longitudinal ethnography with a group of international students from Bangladesh since their arrival at my university in 2018. While receiving Putonghua-mediated courses, many of my participants complain that they do not see their identities as Chinese language learners depicted in their textbooks. Their exposure to Chinese language textbooks does not expand their intercultural communication capacity but reduces them into reproducing stereotypes.

How is that possible? One of the reasons relates to the representation of interlocutors’ cultural elements in Chinese textbooks, as I found in my research.

The selected data for investigation of Chinese language textbooks are the eight textbooks of the Boya series including four levels: Elementary I/II, Quasi-intermediate I/II, Intermediate I/II, and Advanced I/II. The reasons for selecting this series are that Boya textbooks are the main materials for Bangladeshi students learning Chinese at my university. These textbooks have been published by Peking University Press and were approved by China’s national Eleventh Five-year Plan for general higher education.

Despite their thoroughly Chinese identity, an investigation of the linguistic and cultural representations of the imagined Chinese language learners in these textbooks reveals surprisingly Anglo-centric perspectives on human diversity.

International students with innate English proficiency

One of these Anglo-centric assumptions about Chinese language learners is that they naturally have English language proficiency.

Among eight Boya textbooks, there are 69 units in total and each unit consists of a Chinese reading passage with more than 30 lists of words for explanation. Almost all of the Chinese words listed are matched with English definitions. The frequency of using English as equivalent translation for Chinese words and Chinese grammatical knowledge is quite intense for the elementary level I and II. For example, the phonological knowledge of Chinese language is illustrated with English translation: “汉语的音节由三部分组成：声母、韵母和声调。声调不同，意义就可能不一样” (Among the components of a Chinese syllable, there is tone besides the initial and the final. Syllables with same initials and finals but in different tones usually have different meanings) (Elementary I, p. 1).

Examples such as these are obviously informed by the assumption that international students learning Chinese can refer to English as help if they find Chinese words difficult to understand. However, this assumption is questionable and not borne out by the reality that not all international students are proficient in English.

What further problematizes such English translations is their redundancy and low quality. When international students move to intermediate and advanced levels, they are assumed to be able to understand the basic terms but need additional help in culture-loaded words such as “宝剑” and “内涵”. However, these two words have been mistranslated into “double-edged sword” and “intention” respectively on p. 79 from Intermediate II and p. 45 from Advanced I. In reality, “宝剑” is best translated simply as “sword”. It refers to a traditional hand sword used as a weapon. “内涵” is used to describe someone’s quality or cultural knowledge of a certain practice. It has numerous English translations, including “attribute”, “connotation”, and “inner quality”.

English as panacea in China

Apart from the overwhelming coverage of English translation, English is constructed as a panacea in China: English is presented as the key to solving intercultural communication problems, finding a profitable job, and establishing social status. This is illustrated in the following example, a sample dialogue between a Chinese restaurant owner and international students at a Chinese restaurant in China.

有一天，我们四个刚来中国的老外去饭馆吃饭。点菜的时候碰到了麻烦：我们不认识菜单上那些奇奇怪怪的菜的名字。老板想了不少办法，希望我们能明白这些菜是什么。他一边做着奇怪的动作，一边在桌子上画画。他重复了好几遍，可我们还是猜不出他的意思。这时，一个中国姑娘在旁边说话了：“老板，很多老外不吃鸭头，也不吃猪心、猪肚。”她又用英语解释给我们听。听了她的解释，再想想老板的动作，我们都笑了。我们上了来北京后最有用的一堂课，记住了“心”“肝”“肚”“下水”。

One day, we four newcomers went to a Chinese restaurant. We had some trouble ordering dishes because we didn’t know the odd names on the menu. The owner tried several ways to make us understand what dishes they were. He was drawing pictures on the table while doing weird actions. He repeated several times, but we still couldn’t get his meaning. At this moment, a Chinese girl said to the owner, “many foreigners don’t eat duck heads, pig hearts or stomach.” Then she explained to us in English. Hearing her explanation and recalling the funny actions of the owner, we all laughed. This was the most useful lesson we had when we first arrived in Beijing. We remembered the words for “heart”, “liver”, “belly” and “meatloaf” in Chinese. (Quasi-intermediate I, p. 32, my translation)

The above excerpt seems to convey a delightful tone in understanding Chinese culture. However, a close examination of the excerpt indicates the unequal and hierarchical relation. First of all, the Chinese restaurant owner turns out to be incompetent and powerless in front of a group of newly arrived international students in Beijing, the capital city of China. Instead of using Putonghua, the lingua franca in China or turning to any translation apps, it is the Chinese restaurant owner who has to make all the effort to make himself understood by using “weird” and “funny” actions. Second, the newly arrived international students seem to be the norm-givers in judging what to eat, what is “odd” and “weird”, and how others are supposed to behave when any intercultural communication problems arise. The efforts made by the restaurant owner are not appreciated but considered as laughing stock for fun. Thirdly, it is English that comes to the rescue and helps overcome the supposed embarrassment of the Chinese restaurant owner doing business in China.

The effortless experiences that the Chinese language learners represented in the textbooks have in China is often associated with constructing “laowai” (foreigners) as desirable speaker of English in China,

在大城市，能说英语的人太多。在北京，连出租车司机也能说英语。很多时候你刚说出“你好”，好学的中国人就会马上说起英语来。由于你的汉语不如他们的英语流利，所以常常是他们说，你听。

In big cities, many people can speak English. In Beijing, even taxi drivers can speak English. Many times when you begin to say “Hello” in Chinese, studious Chinese will immediately talk with you in English. As your Chinese is not as fluent as their English, it is you who listen and them who speak. (Quasi-intermediate II, p. 32, my translation)

English is also constructed in Chinese language textbooks as desirable capital for getting a profitable job and upgrading social status.

汽车杂志》诚聘记者2名：汽车专业、中文专业或其他相关专业大学本科以上，英语 6级 425分以上或托福 500 分以上。

“Automobile Magazine” is looking for two journalists with majors in Automotive Studies or Chinese or other related subjects with Bachelor degree or above. The applicants should provide their English certificates either with more than 425 scores in CET 6 or more than 500 in TOFEL. (Quasi-intermediate II, p. 62, my translation)

王大伟的简历：在美国上大学，在英国读研究生，在中国学汉语，在美国 IBM 公司做工程师，香港 IBM 公司经理，上海大学教授，北京大学教授。

Wang Dawei’s CV: undergraduate study in the USA, postgraduate in UK, learning Chinese language in China; an engineer in the American IBM company, a manager in Hong Kong IBM company, professor in Shanghai University and Peking University. (Quasi-intermediate I, p. 206, my translation)

The USA as source of reference

When non-Chinese cultures and identities are referenced in the eight Boya Chinese language textbooks, USA-related cultural practices and figures predominate and they always are presented in a positive light. Statements like “美国人……” (American people are …) or “美国……” (the USA is …) are ubiquitous throughout the textbooks. If the topic is about self-introduction, American people are definitely included in the content. If it is about geography, the USA, or US states and cities such as California or New York are chosen as example for comparison. With other social issues like education, festivals, food or the economy, the USA is the ever-present reference point in the textbooks.

The USA not only predominates quantitatively but is also constructed as a desirable way of living. One of the highly valued qualities is that the USA is constructed as the best destination for learning English. “我想学习英语， 我一定要去美国” (I want to learn English. I must go to the USA) (Elementary I, p. 180). Besides, the USA is reproduced as the most developed and most powerful country. For instance, on p. 105 from textbook Advanced II, the USA is described as “世界最发达国家” (the most developed country in the world); on p. 167 from textbook Intermediate I: “在今天的世界舞台上，美国扮演着非常重要的角色” (The United States plays a very important role throughout the world today). Apart from that, American people are represented as successful, innovative and flexible.

比尔盖茨20岁有了自己的公司，开始做微软老板

Bill Gates had his own company at the age of 20 and has became the boss of Microsoft. (Intermediate I, p. 112, my translation)

Other American figures such as Olympic athletes and the founder of Disney are also positively represented in these Chinese language textbooks, to name only a few.

工作时是医院的大夫还是公司老板，一到球场美国人就会完全变成另一个人。他们会身    穿公牛队服，脚上穿着200美元一双的耐克运动鞋，把自己当作一个篮球运动员，完全       和他们本来的身份不同。

They might be hospital doctors or company owners. As long as American people go to a basketball match, they will wear Bull uniform and Nike shoes worth US$200 and make themselves look like basketball players, totally different from who they are. (Quasi-intermediate I, p. 75, my translation)

Wei Duan celebrates the successful defense of her thesis together with her supervisor Dr Li Jia

Where does the ubiquity of English leave Bangladeshi Chinese language learners?

As one of my Bangladeshi friends complained: “My country has been colonized by Britain for over 200 years. I used to think I could escape from English control when I migrated to China, but you see what I’ve learned here? All about America!”

My friend has good reason to point out the Americanized orientation in China as exemplified in the Boya Chinese language textbooks. They construct a world where English and the USA are on top, Chinese and China are subordinate, and other languages and countries simply don’t exist. As such, these Chinese language textbooks surprisingly replicate English monolingual ways of seeing a multilingual world (Piller, 2016).

This erasure not only frustrates and denies international students of non-English backgrounds but also limits the potential of Chinese language learning as bridging China to the world. It is high time that a more inclusive approach should be adopted in Chinese language textbooks targeting international students of diverse backgrounds.

Reference

Piller, I. (2016). Monolingual ways of seeing multilingualism. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 11(1), 25-33. doi:10.1080/17447143.2015.1102921 [available open access] ]]> https://languageonthemove.com/can-chinese-language-learning-reinforce-english-supremacy/feed/ 25 22517 https://languageonthemove.com/linguistic-diversity-and-social-justice-in-arabic/ https://languageonthemove.com/linguistic-diversity-and-social-justice-in-arabic/#respond Sun, 02 Feb 2020 23:48:07 +0000 https://www.languageonthemove.com/?p=22266

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Read a lot, write a lot! Reading enhances your productivity as this selection (!) of recent books authored by Language-on-the-Move team members proves

Are you ready for the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2020? After the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2018 and 2019, this is the third time we are running the Language on the Move Reading Challenge. As was the case previously, the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2020 is designed to encourage broad reading in the discipline and beyond, and to make linguistics reading fun. Anyone with an interest in the intersection of linguistic diversity and social life can join.

Here is how it works: the challenge will run from February to November, or ten books over the course of the year. The challenge is to commit yourself to reading one item in each of the categories below. In each category, you can read the recommended title or replace it with another one of your choice.

We invite anyone who takes the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2020 to write a review of a book they have read and submit it to Language on the Move to have it considered for publication.

Another way to share your progress is to tweet about it. Mention @lg_on_the_move as we will occasionally be gifting linguistic goodies to our interactive followers throughout the year. In fact, right now you have the chance to win one of five stylish Language on the Move t-shirts if you mention @lg_on_the_move or respond to one of our tweets in between now and January 20, 2020.

Enough introduction! Are you ready to take the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2020?

February: A book about the climate emergency

We will start with a book about the perilous state of our planet. Not strictly about language but it is impossible to think about linguistics if your house is on fire.

Klein, Naomi (2014). This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. New York: Simon & Schuster.

This fellow is a regular visitor at our house. Sometimes we feed him, sometimes we don’t. When we don’t, he screeches “Tightarse dugai!” You’ll have to read “Mullumbimby” to find out what that means; although we are a fair way from Bundjalung country …

March: A novel providing an Indigenous perspective and some language learning opportunities

In This Changes Everything, you will have learned that the destruction of the planet is closely intertwined with colonialism and the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Therefore, the second challenge will be to read a novel written by an Indigenous author and providing an Indigenous perspective on human relationships to country. Language is an important part of those relationships and the two recommended novels will give you a tantalizing taster of Bundjalung, an indigenous language of Northern NSW and southern Queensland. Both novels were written by the deadly Melissa Lucashenko (in case you did not know, you will also learn that “deadly” means “awesome, great, fantastic” in Australian Aboriginal English).

Lucashenko, Melissa (2013). Mullumbimby. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.
Lucashenko, Melissa (2018). Too Much Lip. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.

April: An ethnography of language death

Very early in Too Much Lip you will have encountered this scene:

The snake-crow tilted its mutant head at her.
‘Gulganelehla Bundjalung.’ Speak Bundjalung. A test of good character.
‘Bundjalung ngaoi yugam baugal,’ she said. My Bundjalung is crap. The bird hesitated.
‘It’s a trap, a trap, a trap!’ the other crows screeched.

Reflecting on the scene, you might ask yourself why a proud Bundjalung person would have a poor command of her own language. To find an answer, the April challenge is to read about why and how languages die.

Spoiler alert: the answer is ‘3Cs’ (capitalism, Christianity, colonialism).

The recommended title is by the anthropologist Don Kulick, and you will also learn how a white guy does – or does not – cope with fieldwork in a multilingual swamp village in Papua New Guinea.

Kulick, Don (2019). A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books.

May: A classic in urban sociolinguistics set outside the Anglophone world and written by a female academic

In A Death in a Rainforest, the Taiap language is not the only entity that dies. There are many deaths in the book, and one of these affects the village itself. This is in a line with the ongoing migration from rural to urban areas that started with the Industrial Revolution. Today, more than half the world’s population live in cities, and understanding language in urban settings constitutes a pressing issue – one that has been addressed by much of the classic work in sociolinguistics. Therefore, the May challenge will be to read a foundational book in urban sociolinguistics set outside the Anglophone world and written by a female academic.

My suggestion is Agathe Lasch’s Berlinisch.

Lasch, Agathe (1967 [1928]). Berlinisch: Eine berlinische Sprachgeschichte. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

In this book, Agathe Lasch argued that ‘urban language is not, as is often claimed, a random, degenerate mix’ – a full forty years before Bill Labov! Unfortunately, this fact is pretty much universally ignored by sociolinguists; I have yet to see a sociolinguistics textbook that even mentions this pioneering sociolinguist.

Who said that "urban #language is not, as is often claimed, a random, degenerate mix"?

— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) February 3, 2019

If you do not read German – sadly, even if unsurprisingly, no English translation exists – or cannot get your hands on Berlinisch, I recommend these two excellent alternatives:

Dakubu, Mary Esther Kropp (1997). Korle Meets the Sea: A Sociolinguistic History of Accra. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haeri, Niloofar (1996). The Sociolinguistic Market of Cairo: Gender, Class, and Education. London: Kegan Paul.

June: An ethnography that makes the connection between urban sociolinguistics and multilingual education

Your May reading will have been primarily concerned with linguistic variation in the city. In June, you will need to read a title that explores the consequences of linguistic diversity for educational achievement. The recommended title is an exemplary ethnography of the tensions, struggles and contradictions involved in the literacy experiences of a number of families from different backgrounds.

Li, Guofang (2010). Culturally contested literacies: America’s” rainbow underclass” and urban schools. London: Routledge.

July: A book about language, migration, education, and class

Most of the families in Culturally contested literacies have high expectations of their children’s academic achievement. However, their capacity to translate those expectations into effective support differ widely. Particularly in migration contexts, the most frequent explanation for differential settlement outcomes is ‘culture’. Guofang Li, however, shows that what really matters is material resources – class background, in other words. Therefore, in July, the challenge is to read a book that systematically explores the intersection between class and education in a transnational context. The recommended reading, by the always highly readable Pei-Chia Lan, explores how global aspirations play out in the lives of middle-class and working-class Taiwanese families at home and abroad.

Lan, Pei-Chia (2018). Raising Global Families: Parenting, Immigration, and Class in Taiwan and the US. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

August: A memoir by an adult who was raised bilingually as a child

Many of the Taiwanese families you will have encountered in Raising global families aspire for their children to grow up speaking English – sometimes in addition to Mandarin, sometimes instead of Mandarin. Indeed, how to raise children bilingually has become a pressing question for many families around the world. While the literature on bilingual child rearing is exploding, we know far less about the actual consequences of bilingual child rearing. Therefore, the July challenge is to read a memoir of someone who was raised bilingually.

There are two suggestions because I can’t make up my mind – both will take you into worlds that no longer exist: highly multilingual upper-class European Jewry of the early 20^th century and equally multilingual upper-class Palestinians before Israel.

Canetti, Elias (1999). The Tongue Set Free: Remembrance of a European Childhood. London: Granta.
Said, Edward W. (2000). Out of Place: A Memoir. London: Granta.

September: A book about multilingual governance

Whether you will have read Elias Canetti or Edward Said in August, you likely will have been struck by the fact that both men experienced languages simultaneously as bridges and as barriers. If multilingualism creates tensions and contradictions for individuals, this is even more so true for societies. Managing multilingualism in a just and equitable manner constitutes a substantial policy challenge. The reading challenge for September is therefore to read a book that explores how multilingualism is managed in different polities around the world.

Leung, Janny H. C. (2019). Shallow Equality and Symbolic Jurisprudence in Multilingual Legal Orders. New York: Oxford University Press.

October: A history of a multilingual polity

One of the big questions of Shallow Equality and Symbolic Jurisprudence in Multilingual Legal Orders is whether identity rights are more important than other public interests. Janny Leung concludes that this is not automatically the case. The October challenge is to take that argument one step further through an exploration of the history of a multilingual polity with shifting identities.

Kulczycki, John J. (2016). Belonging to the Nation: Inclusion and Exclusion in the Polish-German Borderlands, 1939–1951. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

November: A book that explains why the 2020 Language on the Move Reading Challenge is important

A number of people have asked to make this year’s reading challenge about journal articles and book chapters. Many of our readers are PhD students and university-based academics; so setting journal articles and book chapters might make sense – this is stuff we have to read anyways. The reason I have resisted the call for shorter readings is that books constitute a higher-order challenge for our brain than shorter pieces. The final challenge therefore is to read about the importance of book reading for your intellectual, aesthetic and moral life.

Wolf, Maryanne (2008). Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. New York: HarperCollins.

Happy reading! And keep us posted!

Language on the Move

In mediated and digital communication, it seems today that we hear a myriad of public voices. Additionally, linguistic productions are not necessarily carefully edited and policed before they go public. One effect appears to be that formerly unmarked populations and their language practices are questioned in their position as ‘the normal people’ using ‘normal language’. They are no longer an unquestioned  hegemonic source of power. So-called ‘voices from nowhere’ (Gal & Woolard 2001) that once were able to pass themselves off as standard and neutral, find their social situatedness and privilege exposed. They have come to be seen for what they are: as being ‘from somewhere’, too.

Thus, new forms of public spaces have emerged in which the ‘normal’ is increasingly questioned. In this situation, formerly hegemonic populations adopt new discursive strategies of legitimation. To understand social and linguistic diversity, it is of paramount importance to examine such reconfigurations of social patterns and discourse relationships. This means to understand potentially new forms of establishing social hierarchies. And, as sociolinguistically minded academics, we also need to reflect on our own positions, ideologies, desires and activities in relation to societal publics and in contexts of academic publics.

How do traditional social and academic elites react to the exposure of their hitherto naturalized position of authority? What are the strategies of reproducing and legitimizing privilege employed by (formerly) hegemonic speakers? What is our role as academics and linguists in these new public spaces? Where do we tacitly (and maybe unwillingly) reproduce existing dichotomies? And what can we do in academia in practical terms to support marginalized voices in academic public spaces and beyond?

The November issue of the Journal of Sociolinguistics on ‘The Sociolinguistics of Late Modern Publics’, guest-edited by Theresa Heyd and myself is devoted to precisely these questions and brings together scholars working on discourses of legitimation of socio-political elites in different cultural contexts and, secondly, focuses on academic notions of ‘publics’ and on authority in academic publics.

Susan Gal analyses the phenomenon of the ‘piggy-backing’ of discourses of social justice and humanitarianism by right-wing politicians and develops a differentiation of discursive moves that contribute to the enregisterment of authority in current political discourse. In addition to this analysis of authoritative discursive structures, two contributions add to our understanding of late‐modern public discourse as emotional regimes. Mary Bucholtz focuses on the affective construction of white fragility in US American late‐modern publics and examines discursive strategies of fragile white affects. Ana Deumert examines how white South Africans respond to being constructed as colonizers.

Jürgen Spitzmüller changes perspective by taking a meta‐disciplinary perspective on sociolinguistics. He proposes an explicit link between the analyzed phenomenon – public space – and the analyzing sociolinguistic actor. The allure of diverse and multilingual publics may rub off upon researchers of such spaces and endowing them with an aura of creativity or even subversiveness.

Finally, Ingrid Piller demonstrates that authority, ultimately, rests on pre-textual conditions. She shows that, in academic publics, publications in languages other than English, and publications by women and/or people of color, are seen as carrying little authority. One way to accord authority to marginalized voices is to reference them.

All in all, it is the aim of ‘The Sociolinguistics of Late Modern Publics’ to start a conversation about the complex pre-textual, affective and discursive strategies employed to maintain and challenge authority in contemporary discourse. How do you enact, challenge or simply observe authority in your everyday lives?

References

Bucholtz, M. (2019). The public life of white affects. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 23(5), 485-504. doi:10.1111/josl.12392 [open access]

Deumert, A. (2019). Sensational signs, authority and the public sphere: Settler colonial rhetoric in times of change. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 23(5), 467-484. doi:10.1111/josl.12377

Gal, S. (2019). Making registers in politics: Circulation and ideologies of linguistic authority. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 23(5), 450-466. doi:10.1111/josl.12374

Gal, S., & Woolard, K. A. (2001). Languages and publics: The making of authority. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.

Heyd, T., & Schneider, B. (2019). The sociolinguistics of late modern publics. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 23(5), 435-449. doi:10.1111/josl.12378 [open access]

Piller, I. (2019). On the conditions of authority in academic publics. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 23(5), 521-528. doi:10.1111/josl.12393 [unedited preprint available here]

Spitzmüller, J. (2019). Sociolinguistics going ‘wild’: The construction of auratic fields. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 23(5), 505-520. doi:10.1111/josl.12383 [open access] ]]> https://languageonthemove.com/the-sociolinguistics-of-late-modern-publics/feed/ 2 22155 https://languageonthemove.com/mobile-language-immobile-people/ https://languageonthemove.com/mobile-language-immobile-people/#respond Wed, 09 Oct 2019 04:35:34 +0000 https://www.languageonthemove.com/?p=21934

Welcome message to the Aga Khan IV inscribed into the mountain, Pasu, Upper Hunza, Pakistan

Transnationalism is a notion that is both presumed to be clear whilst also recognised as in need of explanation. Perhaps we can talk about it as a keyword, in the sense of Williams (1976, 14) – as a term that is used in “interesting or difficult ways”. Transnationalism has been defined from myriad perspectives. For Levitt (2001, 196), it is “used to describe everything under the sun”; a fact “which seriously diminishes its explanatory power”. At the same time, it tends to take on the meaning of “another form of migration” (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002, 322), such that transnationalism is presumed to be the result of migration. Transnationalism is, from this vantage point, created through migration from one nation-state to another.

This emphasis on migration has accompanied the concept since it became popular in the social sciences in the 1990s, with scholars using “transnationalism” to describe the fact that immigrants “live their lives across borders and maintain their ties to home, even when their countries of origin and settlements are geographically distant” (Glick Schiller, Basch and Blanc-Szanton 1992, ix). In connection with a widely shared understanding that the world has globalised, the term tends to be used to draw attention to movements, flows and interconnections across nation-state boundaries. And these resultant ties and networks are recognised as having implications for all kinds of social practice, including language.

However, without denying the potential relevance of migration, in practice there is no necessary tie between migration and transnationalism. A person can migrate yet not maintain transnational networks. On the reverse, someone can have transnational ties yet not have migrated themselves. This means that someone can also feel and believe that they are transnational in the absence of migration. This is an argument Dahinden (2009) makes on the basis of research carried out in the Swiss city of Neuchâtel. And her research leads her to argue for the importance of including non-migrants in studies of transnationalism.

Sign describing renovation of traditional house by the Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan, Altit Fort, Central Hunza, Pakistan

Such a view also has implications for how we might think about language and transnationalism. As Blommaert (2010, 6) reminds us, movement is never across empty space. Through movement people come into contact with one another, and in doing so, their ways of speaking come into contact, too. Whilst these different ways of speaking co-exist in new environments, their co-existence is stratified. This means that languages are typically used and evaluated in relation to one another, such that hierarchies of use and perception emerge. However, if we follow Dahinden’s (2009) approach to transnationalism, the ways people use and orient towards particular languages can be influenced by “connection[s] (elsewhere)” (Clifford 1994, 322) even in the absence of migration. This is the case for many Ismaili Muslims with whom I spent time in a village in Hunza in northern Pakistan and the city of Khorog in eastern Tajikistan. Part of a community who are dispersed in over 25 countries around the world, many Ismailis in Hunza and Khorog are not mobile themselves. Yet, we can still think about them as transnational and this is relevant for understanding their attitudes towards English.

In a 2011 interview given with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, the community’s spiritual, social and political leader since 1957, the Aga Khan IV, refers to an explicit “language policy” which made English the community’s official “second language”. Implemented in the 1960s and 1970s, the language policy is said to have been put in place in an attempt to enhance the “development potential” of Ismailis. During fieldwork amongst Ismailis in Hunza and Khorog, I explored how Ismailis appropriate English and whether their attitudes towards and views on English match those suggested in official discourse. Whilst it was readily apparent that English tends not to have second but rather third (in Central Hunza, after Burushaski and Urdu) or fourth (amongst ethnic Pamiris in Khorog, after Shughni, Russian and Tajik) language status, I found a shared stance on English. In both Hunza and Khorog, my interlocutors underscored the key role played by the Aga Khan for their attempts to learn English. The Aga Khan orders Ismailis to learn English. A 1960 farman (‘edict’) issued during his first visit to Hunza in 1960, for instance, calls upon his followers to “Think in English, speak in English and dream in English”; a message which has been rendered durable, by being printed onto physical signs which hang in classrooms in the broader region. However, it is also the fact that the Aga Khan uses English himself which is deemed important. Ismailis describe themselves as trying to learn English to understand what he tells his followers and to gain “direct access”. In using English and ordering Ismailis to learn English, the Aga Khan gives the language status as a potentially valuable economic resource, and my interlocutors share this perspective on its value. However, English also becomes entangled with issues of identity and with what we might label transnational “consciousness” (Vertovec 1999) or “subjectivity” (Dahinden 2009). As put by an elderly authority in Hunza, Zafar, English has “almost become a matter of faith for every Ismaili around the world”. Its ready adoption can, as he explained it to me, be associated with the Ismailis’ “intellectual faith”, which emphasises “process” not “product”. Or as suggested by Salma, a young woman from Hunza, whilst non-Ismailis are recognising the importance of English, “our community has left other communities far behind in this race of learning”.

Photos displayed in Altit Fort of the Aga Khan IV with Prince Charles, during their visit in 2006

Writing about diaspora, Clifford (1994, 322) underscores the importance not simply of connections elsewhere, but more specifically that it is “the connection (elsewhere) that makes a difference (here).” Yet, this is not particular to diaspora. It is possible for meaningful situated local differences to be forged through connections with an elsewhere. In this case, with the Aga Khan; with Ismailis who have migrated and returned, or with whom one communicates online; and with texts and documents that circulate across space and time. This is not to deny the relevance of mobility. And it is probable that Ismailis who are mobile will engage in language practices (e.g., language learning) in an attempt to facilitate their mobility and that they will, in turn, be linguistically affected by their mobility. However, having a particular orientation towards a language – English in this case – which surpasses the utilitarian and becomes entangled with identity as a result of connections elsewhere is not the result of migration. Transnationalism in the sense of migration should perhaps not then be used as a starting point for thinking about language; or if it is, we need to be aware of the fact that it might not be the relevant starting point for our interlocutors. It might thus not be the most relevant frame to explore language on the move, and on the reverse, Ismailis’ languages might be on the move even in the absence of migration.

References

Blommaert, J. 2010. The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clifford, J. 1994. Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology 9, 302–338.
Dahinden, J. 2009. Are we all transnationals now? Network transnationalism and transnational subjectivity: The differing impacts of globalization on the inhabitants of a small Swiss city. Ethnic and Racial Studies 32.8, 1365–1386.
Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch and C. Blanc-Szanton. 1992. Towards a definition of transnationalism. Introductory remarks and research questions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 645, ix–xiv.
Levitt, P. 2001. Transnational migration: Taking stock and future directions. Global Networks 1.3, 195–216.
Vertovec, S. 1999. Conceiving and researching transnationalism. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22.2, 447–462.
Williams, R. 1976. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Shelves in the Martha-Muchow-Library of Education at Hamburg University

After a busy 2018 and a relaxing break, Language on the Move is back for another year of sociolinguistics of intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism in contexts of migration and globalization. After the success of last year’s Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2018, we’ll start the excitement with yet another reading challenge.

As was the case last year, the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2019 is designed to encourage broad reading in the discipline and to make linguistics reading fun. It is aimed at anyone with an interest in the relationship between linguistic diversity and social life.

Here is how it works: the challenge will run from February to November, and the challenge is to commit yourself to reading one item in each of the categories below. Team members at Macquarie will undertake the reading challenge as part of their weekly meetings. Others can commit publicly by pledging in the comments below or they can keep their participation to themselves.

One piece of feedback we received from last year’s Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2018 was that participants had difficulties selecting a reading in each category, that they spent more time on selecting than reading, or that they were disappointed in their choices. Therefore, this year each category includes one or more suggested readings. You may simply follow the suggestion or choose a different reading within the set category.

February

Anthropological linguist Alexandra “Misty” Jaffe passed away in November 2018. She will be sadly missed and an obituary is available here. Her paper “Poeticizing the economy: The Corsican language in a nexus of pride and profit” was in production with Multilingua at the time of her death, as part of a special issue devoted to “Re-Imagining Language Revitalization in Contemporary Europe” (guest-edited by Sabina Perrino and Andrea Leone-Pizzighella). The publisher, deGruyter Mouton, has made the paper freely available as a tribute to Misty, and I suggest you start this year’s Reading Challenge with this paper, and maybe (re)read some of Misty’s other publications.

Suggestion

Jaffe, A. (2019). Poeticizing the economy: The Corsican language in a nexus of pride and profit. Multilingua, 38 (1), 9-27. doi:10.1515/multi-2018-0005 [open access]

March

A book about language policy in a migration context.

Suggestion

Salomone, R. C. (2010). True American: Language, identity, and the education of immigrant children. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

Reading Challenge or not … always a good read

April

A book about intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism in a legal context.

Suggestion

Angermeyer, P. S. (2015). Speak English or What? Codeswitching and Interpreter Use in New York City Courts. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

May

A book about intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism in early childhood.

Suggestion

Benz, V. (2017). Bilingual Childcare: Hitches, Hurdles and Hopes. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
You might wish to complement this with the following paper, which is available open access:
Piller, I., & Gerber, L. (2018). Family language policy between the bilingual advantage and the monolingual mindset. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1-14. doi:10.1080/13670050.2018.1503227

June

A longitudinal ethnography about intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism in the context of migration and globalization. These are as rare as hens’ teeth and the two suggested titles are the only ones I am aware of. So, let’s read both.

Suggestion

Farr, M. (2006). Rancheros in Chicagoacán: Language and Identity in a Transnational Community. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Zentella, A. C. (1997). Growing up Bilingual: Puerto Rican Children in New York. Oxford: Blackwell.

July

For the Northern Hemisphere summer holidays: a novel where intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism are central themes.

Suggestion

Adichie, C. N. (2013). Americanah. London: HarperCollins.

August

UNESCO has declared 2019 the Year of Indigenous Languages. This means a reading about indigenous languages will have to go on your list. My recommendation is based on what was, for me, the highlight of last year’s Reading Challenge.

Suggestion

Adejunmobi, M. (2004). Vernacular Palaver: Imaginations of the Local and Non-native Languages in West Africa. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

And don’t forget to add some children’s books to your readings this year!

September

By September, my annual Literacies class for postgraduate students at Macquarie University will be in full swing and so the challenge will be to read a book about literacy and the politics of knowledge.

Suggestion

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (2012). Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. New York: Columbia University Press.

October

An autobiography of a multilingual writer. Having started on Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o in September and keeping the Year of Indigenous Languages in mind, continue the challenge with his two memoirs with their focus on the politics of language in colonial Kenya.

Suggestion

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (2010). Dreams in a time of war: a childhood memoir. New York et al.: Random House.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (2012). In the house of the interpreter: a memoir. New York et al.: Random House.

November

In November we’ll be hosting the conference of the Australian and New Zealand Associations of von Humboldt Fellows at Macquarie University. The theme is Sharing Knowledge in the Spirit of Humboldt. 2019 is also Humboldt’s 250^th anniversary. Therefore, the final reading of the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2019 will have to be about the extraordinary multilingual polymath Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859).

Suggestion

Wulf, A. (2015). The invention of nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s new world. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Share your progress

We invite Reading Challenge participants to submit reviews of their readings to Language on the Move, and we’ll consider them for publication. For ideas check out the review posts which were written as part of the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2018:

• Yining Wang, Being Chinese in Australia
• Pia Tenedero, Virtually multilingual
• Ingrid Piller, In search of myself
• Laura Smith-Khan, In search of a language and an identity
• Gegentuul Baioud, One orientalism or many orientalisms?
• Ingrid Piller, Why are you not citing any African female expert?
• Ingrid Piller, The Devil’s Handwriting
• Ingrid Piller, Globalization between crime and piety

Another way to share your progress is to tweet about it. If you do, mention @lg_on_the_move as we will occasionally be gifting copies of Intercultural Communication and Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice to one of our interactive followers throughout the year.

Research and knowledge need linguistic diversity

Before you get started, enjoy this multilingual video, which the Language-on-the-Move team produced to celebrate Humboldt’s 250th anniversary. For us, Humboldt today means linguistic diversity in research, science and education.

Can you identify all the languages spoken in the video?*

Humboldt heute = multilingual science. „Humboldt forschte und lehrte auf Deutsch, en français, en español and in English.” #Humboldtian Ingrid Piller and the @Lg_on_the_Move team

What does Humboldt mean to you today? Share your video or photo: https://t.co/QwUjkesytf #AvH250 pic.twitter.com/xUoj0vMDq4

— Humboldt-Stiftung (@AvHStiftung) January 18, 2019

*Other than the obvious English, they are, in this order: Tagalog, Ga, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Persian, Ndebele, Urdu, Cantonese, German