Volume 37, Issue 6 -

This paper examines language ideologies underlying the media representation of Chinese citizens speaking multiple foreign languages. It argues that a figure of good citizenship is being articulated via valorization of multilingual competence that is grounded both in the newly cherished moral values of neoliberal globalization – entrepreneurship, reflexivity and flexibility – and in the traditional moral values of patriotism and contribution to society. Such configuration of citizenship departs from the nationalist monoglot language ideology, and yet demonstrates a flexible nationalism that links multilingual competence to personal welfare and social harmony. This study shows the importance of paying attention to the dynamic interplay between social class, nationalism, and neoliberal globalization in our analysis of language and citizenship.

Vernaculars are increasingly used in media. They are considered to be stylistic resources to attract audiences and to construct media identities. That increase seems to be particularly significant in the case of youth media, which is also the case of Gaztea, a youth webradio station within the Basque public EITB group that we analyse in this work. Gaztea was created in the 90’s and, at that time, its whole production was in Standard Basque. In fact, promoting the newly created Standard Basque was considered to be Gaztea’s principal public service remit. Nowadays, however, the hegemony of that standard in Gaztea has been challenged by a more heteroglossic model in which vernacular speech is strategically used to empathize with the young Basque audience and to construct media identities. At the same time, though, the dominance of Standard Basque persists in Gaztea’s general stylistic design and practice: Vernaculars are excluded from writing, as well as from informative genres and serious and leading voices. Those are some of the conclusions of the research we have carried out on the distribution of vernaculars and Standard Basque across modes, genres and voices in Gaztea, and also from the information we have drawn from interviews with the managers of the media in question. Results from both data sources are important to understand the current ideological views Gaztea shares with young Basque people, as well as how Gaztea positions itself as a stylizer in the language ideological world of Basque youth.

This study investigates Polish expatriates’ stories of encounters with local personnel in a Chinese subsidiary of a Western multinational company. A narrative analysis of the stories produced important insights into Polish-Chinese communication in an intra-subsidiary context. Low proficiency in the host language was a serious obstacle to expatriate socialization and a source of expatriates’ exclusion and social isolation in the workplace, which often led to stress, frustration, and negative attitudes toward collaboration with local personnel. Language-related issues prevented the expatriates from acquiring information from Chinese superiors, learning about problems within a team, and participating in decision-making. The findings of this case study relate to communication challenges in the Chinese subsidiary, expatriates’ accounts of how they overcame communication difficulties, and their reflections on what fostered and hampered intercultural communication.

Tetun Dili, an Austronesian language spoken in East Timor, was until 1999 primarily an oral language of intercultural communication. Since the 1999 vote on independence from Indonesia, Tetun Dili has become the dominant language of public life, including the government, education and the media, as well as becoming an official language alongside Portuguese, a former colonial language. The rapidly evolving press register of Tetun shows significant impact from language contact. Portuguese influence is seen primarily in extensive lexical borrowing, brought in by the Portuguese-educated elite as well as by translators and writers. Indonesian influence is seen in several calques for expressing anaphora, brought in by Indonesian-educated writers, and an adversative passive. Other new constructions, including a more general passive and final quote margins, have come about through the combined influence of Portuguese, Indonesian and English, the last as a source language for much literal translation into Tetun. Some discourse features of press Tetun, such as high information density and events being told out of chronological order, are the results of international journalistic style. While a rapid evolution of new written registers is not uncommon, the East Timor situation is unique in its combination of contact languages, and the significant number of grammatical innovations.

This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources – standard vs. non-standard and regional varieties – in two linguistic minority communities in Denmark. Concentrating on Turkish and Farsi mother tongue classes, the study departs from two interviews with the parents of mother tongue students. Additional ethnographic evidence from the respective mother tongue classes show when and how the two overall varieties of the respective languages are reacted to and valorized among the study participants. Two main issues are explored in this context: first, language ideological paradigms of dominance – anonymity and authenticity – and, second, the extension and expansion of language users’ ideologies regarding registers of language . The article concludes that during the encounters and discussions concerning ideological views supporting either of the overall language resources, a form for authority exists and becomes oriented to in line with the history of language policy of the countries of origin.

This paper proposes law drafting techniques, especially in Chinese, that aim to enhance the fluency and readability of Hong Kong bilingual legislation. The study is based on the plain language guide published by the Department of Justice of Hong Kong in 2012, with the goal of helping the current legislation to comply with the guidelines. Using data from seven recently-enacted ordinances, the analysis illustrates drafting techniques for their English and Chinese versions in accordance with the plain language guide published by the Department of Justice. This process is accomplished by suggesting revisions for relevant Chinese sections of legislation and their corresponding English sections according to contrasting aspects of English and Chinese grammars. The discussion will also evaluate the plain language drafting and the overall theoretical and philosophical trend of law drafting in Hong Kong, in light of the “Seven Standards of Textuality” proposed by de Beaugrande and Dressler. This is believed to be the first undertaking to study plain legal language against its official guidelines in the Hong Kong context.

This paper reports on the diversity of languages displayed in the linguistic landscape of Julfa district, a largely Armenian dominated area, in the city of Isfahan in Iran. The data included a corpus of 323 photographs taken from the top-down and bottom-up signage in this quarter of the city. Ethnographic fieldwork was also conducted to reach a deeper understanding of the linguistic landscape in Julfa. The results of the analyses indicated that Julfa, as home to Armenians in diaspora and also a luxurious neighborhood frequented by more modern strata of the Isfahani society, is occupied more noticeably with Persian and English language and to a lesser extent with Armenian language. The findings further revealed that this neighborhood represents not only Iranian but also Armenian and Christian identities. The results are analyzed based on Bourdieu’s theory of language as a symbolic power. Furthermore, the collective identity and language ecology of Julfa in Isfahan are discussed. At the end, some lines of research for further studies in the LL of Iran are provided.