Language Global Mobilities Blue Collar Workers And Blue Collar Workplaces

This collection brings together global perspectives which critically examine the ways in which language as a resource is used and managed in myriad ways in various blue-collar workplace settings in today’s globalized economy. In focusing on blue-collar work environments, the book sheds further light on the informal processes through which top down language policies take place in different multilingual settings and the resultant asymmetrical power relations which emerge among employees and employers in such settings. Taking into account the latest debates on poststructuralist theories of language, the volume also extends its conceptualization of language to demonstrate the ways in which it extends to a wider range of multilingual and multimodal resources and communicative practices, all of which combine in unique and different ways toward constructing meaning in the workplace. The volume’s unique focus on such workplaces also showcases domains of work which have generally until now been less visible within existing research on language in the workplace and the subsequent methodological challenges that arise from studying them. Integrating a range of theoretical and methodological approaches, along with empirical data from a diverse range of blue-collar workplaces, this book will be of particular interest to students and researchers in critical sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, sociology, and linguistic anthropology.

Set in a multilingual cleaning company that serves Anglophone customers in the upper-(middle) class suburbs of New York City, this book presents an ethnographic study into power, language policy and communication from the perspectives of the Brazilian–American employer as well as the company’s Hispanophone and Lusophone employees. Power asymmetries in internal communication demonstrate the employer’s legitimated domination over her employees and her L1 Portuguese as a form of linguistic capital. Employees’ resourcefulness and multicompetence – rather than quantifiable levels of English-language proficiency – determine the extent to which they rely on language brokering to facilitate communication with their customers, directly impacting their agency. The book contributes to current debates on extra-linguistic modes of communication in multilingual settings and thematic analyses of care work, migration, communication and the role of English.

This innovative collection explores critical issues in understanding multilingualism as a defining dimension of identity creation and negotiation in contemporary social life. Reinforcing interdisciplinary conversations on these themes, each chapter is co-authored by two different researchers, often those who have not written together before. The combined effect is a volume showcasing unique and dynamic perspectives on such topics as rethinking of language policy, testing of language rights, language pedagogy, meaning-making, and activism in the linguistic landscape. The book explores multilingualism through the lenses of spaces and policies as embodied in Elizabeth Lanza’s body of work in the field, with a focus on the latest research on linguistic landscapes in diverse settings. Taken together, the book offers a window into better understanding issues around processes of change in and of languages and societies. This ground breaking volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars in multilingualism, applied linguistics, and sociolinguistics.

This book extends lines of inquiry at the nexus of migration, adult language learning, and multilingualism, illuminating the lived experiences of migrants in the Faroe Islands and critical new insights into sociolinguistics from the periphery. Building on recent epistemological shifts in research on minoritized languages, this volume integrates threads from scholarship on migration studies, new speakers, and critical sociolinguistics in examining blue-collar workplaces in the Faroe Islands. In bringing greater attention to these contexts, Holm showcases how these sites, when analyzed via an ethnographic lens, reflect both the changing sociolinguistic landscape at the periphery in light of globalization and adult language learners’ commitment to language learning as a form of personal and social investment. In shedding light on the specific case of Faroese, the volume critically reflects on the specific challenges involved in acquiring a small language in a bilingual context and on those impacting the sustainability of minoritized languages, including the increasing use of English, and the opportunities for stakeholders in language policy and planning to promote greater social inclusion for adult migrants. This volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars in critical sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, language education, migration studies, and applied linguistics.

Bringing together work from a team of international scholars, this groundbreaking book explores how language users employ translingualism playfully, while, at the same time, negotiating precarious situations, such as the breaking of social norms and subverting sociolinguistic boundaries. It includes a range of ethnographic studies from around the globe, to provide us with insights into the everyday lives of language users and learners and their lived experiences, and how these interact in translingual practices. A number of mixed methodological frameworks are included to study language users' behaviours, experiences and actions, cover the complexity of language evolutionary processes, and ultimately show that precarity is as fundamental to translingualism as playfulness. It points to a future research direction in which research should be pragmatically applied into real pedagogical actions by revealing the sociolinguistic realities of translingual users, fundamentally addressing broader issues of racism, social injustice, language activism and other human rights issues.

The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism provides a comprehensive survey of the field of multilingualism for a global readership and an overview of the research which situates multilingualism in its social, cultural and political context. This fully revised edition not only updates several of the original chapters but introduces many new ones that enrich contemporary debates in the burgeoning field of multilingualism. With a decolonial perspective and including leading new and established contributors from different regions of the globe, the handbook offers a critical overview of the interdisciplinary field of multilingualism, providing a range of central themes, key debates and research sites for a global readership. Chapters address the profound epistemological and ontological challenges and shifts produced since the first edition in 2012. The handbook includes an introduction, five parts with 28 chapters and an afterword. The chapters are structured around sub-themes, such as Coloniality and Multilingualism, Concepts and Theories in Multilingualism, and Multilingualism and Education. This ground-breaking text is a crucial resource for researchers, scholars and postgraduate students interested in multilingualism from areas such as sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, anthropology and education.

This book examines the effect of trade policy on language which represents an underrecognized area in the field of language policy and planning. It argues that trade policies like Japan’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) have important consequences for national language (education) policies and for discourses about language and nation. Since 2008, Japan has signed the EPAs with Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam to recruit migrant nurses and eldercare workers and manage their mobility by means of pre-employment language training and the Japanese-medium licensure examinations. Through the analysis of these language management devices, this book demonstrates that the EPAs are a manifestation and representation of contemporary language issues intertwined particularly with pressing issues of Japan’s social aging and demographic change. As the EPAs are intertwined with welfare, economy, social cohesion, and international political and economic relations and competitiveness, the book presents a far more complex picture of and a richer potential of language policy.

This collection turns a critical lens on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) research, making the case for a sociolinguistic-informed approach towards investigating social inequalities and making visible issues, processes and actors overlooked in CLIL research. The volume seeks to expand the borders of existing CLIL scholarship through situated ethnographic perspectives, highlighting the value of a critical sociolinguistic perspective in illuminating the relationship between the emergence of CLIL and specific socio-political and economic conditions in contemporary multilingual education. Drawing on examples from Europe, Latin America, Australia and Asia, the book focuses on exploring inequities in CLIL policy and implementation across different institutional contexts and demonstrates the ways in which CLIL extends beyond the classroom as situated in multiple and changing networks of interest, policy and practice. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in sociolinguistics, multilingual education, language policy and planning, and applied linguistics.