Lingoing, language labels and metrolingual practices
-
Alastair Pennycook
and
Emi Otsuji
Abstract
There is a potential tension between the descriptions of language use by contemporary sociolinguistic researchers keen to focus on metro- poly- or translanguaging – with a focus on repertoires of semiotic resources – and the terms used by language users themselves – which may accord much more with traditional linguistic labels. While we tried to account for this disparity in previous discussions by focusing on the push and pull between fluid and fixed language use and descriptions, we focus in this paper on the negotiations around the labels used by the participants themselves. While it is certainly the case that the tools for discussing language use and affiliation in everyday discourse are themselves linguistically constrained (using commonly accepted language labels) the terms people use to talk about their multilingual environments are not necessarily as normative as they first appear. Such apparently stable referents are themselves part of a more complex set of identity repertoires that are always being reworked. What is at stake, therefore, is not so much a polarisation between fluid language use and fixed language ascriptions as a constant reconfiguration of language meanings.
References
Agha, Asif. 2007. Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalisation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar
Barad, Karen. 2003. Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28(3). 801–831.10.1086/345321Search in Google Scholar
Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham: Duke University Press10.2307/j.ctv12101zqSearch in Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan & Jie Dong. 2010. Ethnographic fieldwork: A beginner’s guide. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781847692962Search in Google Scholar
Brailsford, Henry. 1906. Macedonia: Its races and its future. London: Methuen.Search in Google Scholar
Busch, Brigitta & Jürgen Schick. 2007. Educational materials reflecting heteroglossia: Disinventing ethnolinguistic differences in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Sinfree Makoni & Alastair Pennycook (eds.), Disinventing and reconstituting languages, 216–232. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781853599255-011Search in Google Scholar
Creese, Angela & Adrian Blackledge, 2010. Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching? Modern Language Journal 94. 103–115.10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00986.xSearch in Google Scholar
Dovchin, Sender, Shaila Sultana & Alastair Pennycook. 2015. Relocalising the translingual practices of young adults in Mongolia and Bangladesh. Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts 1(1). 4–26.10.1075/ttmc.1.1.01dovSearch in Google Scholar
Dvorak, Petula. 2012. Forcing Frederick County’s immigrants to speak English: Dubious motives, obvious benefits. The Washington Post 24 February 2012 http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/forcing-frederick-countys-immigrants-to-speak-english-dubious-motives-obvious-benefits/2012/02/23/gIQAxXzlWR_story.html (accessed 1 August 2015).Search in Google Scholar
García, Ofelia. 2009. Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Oxford: Wiley.Search in Google Scholar
Harissi, Maria, Emi Otsuji & Alastair Pennycook. 2012. The performative fixing and unfixing of subjectivities. Applied Linguistics 33(5). 524–543.10.1093/applin/ams053Search in Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith & Susan Gal 1999. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Paul V. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, politics and language, 35–84. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press.Search in Google Scholar
Jørgensen, Jens Normann. 2008. Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism 5(3). 161–176.10.1080/14790710802387562Search in Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 2004. Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry 30(2). 225–248.10.1086/421123Search in Google Scholar
Madsen, Lian Malai. 2015. Fighters, girls and other identities: Sociolinguistics in a martial arts club. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781783093991Search in Google Scholar
Makoni, Sinfree & Alastair Pennycook. 2012. Disinventing multilingualism: From monological multilingualism to multilingua francas. In Marilyn Martin-Jones, Adrian Blackledge & Angela Creese (eds.), The Routledge handbook of multilingualism, 439–453. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Maher, John. 2005. Metroethnicity, language, and the principle of Cool. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 11. 83–102.10.1515/ijsl.2005.2005.175-176.83Search in Google Scholar
Massey, Doreen. 2005. For space. London: Sage.Search in Google Scholar
Møller, Janus Spindler and Jens Normann Jørgensen. 2011. Enregisterment among adolescents in superdiverse Copenhagen. In Janus Spindler Møller & Jens Normann Jørgensen (eds.), Language enregisterment and attitudes. Copenhagen Studies in Bilingualism, 63, 99–121. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen.Search in Google Scholar
Otsuji, Emi & Alastair Pennycook. 2010. Metrolingualism: Fixity, fluidity and language in flux. International Journal of Multilingualism 7. 240–254.10.1080/14790710903414331Search in Google Scholar
Otsuji, Emi & Alastair Pennycook. 2014. Unremarkable hybridities and metrolingual practices. In Rani Rubdy & Lubna Alsagoff (eds.), The global-local interface, language choice and hybridity, 83–99. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781783090860-006Search in Google Scholar
Panayiotopoulos, Prodromos Ioannou. 2010. Ethnicity, migration and enterprise. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230290501Search in Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair. 2010. Language as a local practice. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203846223Search in Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair & Emi Otsuji. 2014. Market lingos and metrolingua francas. International Multilingual Research Journal 8(4). 255–270.10.1080/19313152.2014.951907Search in Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair & Emi Otsuji. 2015. Metrolingualism: Language in the city. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315724225Search in Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben. 2007. Neo-Hymesian linguistic ethnography in the UK. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11(5). 584–608.10.1111/j.1467-9841.2007.00341.xSearch in Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben. 2011. Style contrasts, migration and social class. Journal of Pragmatics 43. 1236–1250.10.21832/9781800410008-008Search in Google Scholar
Sealey, Alison. 2007. Linguistic ethnography in realist perspective. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11(5). 641–660.10.1111/j.1467-9841.2007.00344.xSearch in Google Scholar
Seargeant, Philip. 2009. The idea of English in Japan: Ideology and the evolution of a global language. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781847692030Search in Google Scholar
Walter, Henriette. 1988. Le français dans tous les sens. Paris: Robert Laffont.Search in Google Scholar
©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Sociolinguistics in a languagised world: Introduction
- Lingoing, language labels and metrolingual practices
- Learning to live with “Languages”
- Language learning, polylanguaging and speaker perspectives
- Troubling translanguaging: language ideologies, superdiversity and interethnic conflict
- Between ideologies and realities: Multilingual competence in a languagised world
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Sociolinguistics in a languagised world: Introduction
- Lingoing, language labels and metrolingual practices
- Learning to live with “Languages”
- Language learning, polylanguaging and speaker perspectives
- Troubling translanguaging: language ideologies, superdiversity and interethnic conflict
- Between ideologies and realities: Multilingual competence in a languagised world
