In Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World the discourse of politicians and policy-makers in Britain links languages other than English, and therefore speakers of these languages, with civil disorder and threats to democracy, citizenship and nationhood. These powerful arguments travel along 'chains of discourse' until they gain the legitimacy of the state, and are inscribed in law. The particular focus of this volume is on discourse linking 'race riots' in England in 2001 with the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which extended legislation to test the English language proficiency of British citizenship applicants. Adrian Blackledge develops a theoretical and methodological framework which draws on critical discourse analysis to reveal the linguistic character of social and cultural processes and structures; on Bakhtin's notion of the dialogic nature of discourse to demonstrate how voices progressively gain authority; and on Bourdieu's model of symbolic domination to illuminate the way in which linguistic-minority speakers may be complicit in the misrecognition, or valorisation, of the dominant language.

Language is not simply a tool for communication - symbolic power struggles underlie any speech act, discourse move, or verbal interaction, be it in face-to-face conversations, online tweets or political debates. This book provides a clear and accessible introduction to the topic of language and power from an applied linguistics perspective. It is clearly split into three sections: the power of symbolic representation, the power of symbolic action and the power to create symbolic reality. It draws upon a wide range of existing work by philosophers, sociolinguists, sociologists and applied linguists, and includes current real-world examples, to provide a fresh insight into a topic that is of particular significance and interest in the current political climate and in our increasingly digital age. The book shows the workings of language as symbolic power in educational, social, cultural and political settings and discusses ways to respond to and even resist symbolic violence.

The most comprehensive overview available, this Handbook is an essential guide to sociolinguistics today. Reflecting the breadth of research in the field, it surveys a range of topics and approaches in the study of language variation and use in society. As well as linguistic perspectives, the handbook includes insights from anthropology, social psychology, the study of discourse and power, conversation analysis, theories of style and styling, language contact and applied sociolinguistics. Language practices seem to have reached new levels since the communications revolution of the late twentieth century. At the same time face-to-face communication is still the main force of language identity, even if social and peer networks of the traditional face-to-face nature are facing stiff competition of the Facebook-to-Facebook sort. The most authoritative guide to the state of the field, this handbook shows that sociolinguistics provides us with the best tools for understanding our unfolding evolution as social beings.

Population mobility is at an all-time high in human history. One result of this unprecedented movement of peoples around the world is that in many school systems monolingual and monocultural students are the exception rather than the rule, particularly in urban areas. This shift in demographic realities entails enormous challenges for educators and policy-makers. What do teachers need to know in order to teach effectively in linguistically and culturally diverse contexts? How long does it take second language learners to acquire proficiency in the language of school instruction? What are the differences between attaining conversational fluency in everyday contexts and developing proficiency in the language registers required for academic success? What adjustments do we need to make in curriculum, instruction and assessment to ensure that second-language learners understand what is being taught and are assessed in a fair and equitable manner? How long do we need to wait before including second-language learners in high-stakes national examinations and assessments? What role (if any) should be accorded students’ first language in the curriculum? Do bilingual education programs work well for poor children from minority-language backgrounds or should they be reserved only for middle-class children from the majority or dominant group? In addressing these issues, this volume focuses not only on issues of language learning and teaching but also highlights the ways in which power relations in the wider society affect patterns of teacher–student interaction in the classroom. Effective instruction will inevitably challenge patterns of coercive power relations in both school and society.

The International Society for Language Studies (ISLS) introduces its second volume in the series Readings in Language Studies with Language and Power, a text that represents international perspectives on power and bilingualism, identity in professions, media, the learner, and pedagogy. Founded in 2002, ISLS is a world-wide organization of volunteers, scholars and practitioners committed to critical, interdisciplinary, and emergent approaches to language studies.

This critical ethnographic school-based case study offers insights on the interaction between ideology and the identity development of individual English language learners in Singapore. Illustrated by case studies of the language learning experiences of five Asian immigrant students in an English-medium school in Singapore, the author examines how the immigrant students negotiated a standard English ideology and their discursive positioning over the course of the school year. Specifically, the study traces how the prevailing standard English ideology interacted in highly complex ways with their being positioned as high academic achievers to ultimately influence their learning of English. This potent combination of language ideologies and circulating ideologies created a designer student immigration complex. By framing this situation as a complex, the study problematizes the power of ideologies in shaping the trajectories and identities of language learners.

Language is a tool used to express thoughts, to hide thoughts or to hide lack of thoughts. It is often a means of domination. The question is who has the power to define the world around us. This book demonstrates how language is being manipulated to form the minds of listeners or readers. Innocent words may be used to conceal a reality which people would have reacted to had the phenomena been described in a straightforward manner. The nice and innocent concept "cost sharing", which leads our thoughts to communal sharing and solidarity, may actually imply privatization. The false belief that the best way to learn a foreign language is to have it as a language of instruction actually becomes a strategy for stupidification of African pupils. In this book 33 independent experts from 16 countries in the North and the South show how language may be used to legitimize war-making, promote Northern interests in the field of development and retain colonial speech as languages of instruction, languages of the courts and in politics. The book has been edited by two Norwegians: Birgit Brock-Utne is a professor at the University of Oslo and a consultant in education and development. From 1987 until 1992 she was a professor at the University of Dar es Salaam. Gunnar Garbo, author and journalist and former member of the Norwegian Parliament, was the Norwegian Ambassador to Tanzania from 1987 to 1992.