Linguistic precariat: Judith Butler’s ‘rethinking vulnerability and resistance’ as a useful perspective for applied linguistics
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Susan Samata
Abstract
In the twenty years since the publication of Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech, more so since Gender Trouble (1990), political and cultural landscapes have changed considerably. One general aspect of this change has been a move away from binary oppositions and discrete categories, and towards recognition of multiplicity and plasticity across many areas, including Butler’s central focus of gender, but also perceptions of race, nationality, and language. Butler’s recent publication, ‘Rethinking vulnerability and resistance’ (2016), may also have significance for the field of Applied Linguistics. It is not only the intentional act, for example of promising (Austin 1962) or incitement (Butler 1997), but any utterance has elements of performativity in that it situates a speaker vis-à-vis their surroundings. In any situation that crosses some socio-linguistic boundary, be it across languages, dialects, or markers of class, a delicate calculus of identification and subjectivity is in play. There are echoes here of Bourdieu’s (1991) notion of the types of personal capital, and of Claire Kramsch’ observation that language indexes social relations; ‘Any harmony or disharmony … is registered on this most sensitive of Richter scales.’ (Kramsch 1998: 77) (Italics in original). This paper will discuss the possible application, to language-centred issues facing second generation migrants and others, of Judith Butler’s theory of vulnerability in resistance (Butler 2016). In this theory, vulnerability is framed not as a prima facie need for protection, but as the very ground for resistance.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Effects of two forms of concept mapping on L2 reading comprehension and strategy awareness
- Exploring the effects of school context on Chinese students’ use of language learning strategies in English learning
- Language choice, identity and social distance: Ethnic minority students in Vietnam
- Linguistic precariat: Judith Butler’s ‘rethinking vulnerability and resistance’ as a useful perspective for applied linguistics
- Multi-modal language input: A learned superadditive effect
- Word knowledge in academic literacy skills among collegiate ESL learners
- Integrating Linguistic Theory and Experimentation in L2 Acquisition: Learning of Spanish Differential Object Marking by Portuguese and English speakers
- Pinpointing the role of the native language in L2 learning: Acquisition of spatial prepositions in English by Russian and Turkish native speakers
- Rethinking perceptions of fluency
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Effects of two forms of concept mapping on L2 reading comprehension and strategy awareness
- Exploring the effects of school context on Chinese students’ use of language learning strategies in English learning
- Language choice, identity and social distance: Ethnic minority students in Vietnam
- Linguistic precariat: Judith Butler’s ‘rethinking vulnerability and resistance’ as a useful perspective for applied linguistics
- Multi-modal language input: A learned superadditive effect
- Word knowledge in academic literacy skills among collegiate ESL learners
- Integrating Linguistic Theory and Experimentation in L2 Acquisition: Learning of Spanish Differential Object Marking by Portuguese and English speakers
- Pinpointing the role of the native language in L2 learning: Acquisition of spatial prepositions in English by Russian and Turkish native speakers
- Rethinking perceptions of fluency
