This dialogue starts from the perception that existential threats to national security has become... more This dialogue starts from the perception that existential threats to national security has become an increasingly pervasive concern in daily life, spreading fear and suspicion through civil society. Communicative practices play a central role in these processes of (in)securitisation, but sociolinguists appear to have paid them less attention than they deserve. So in what follows, six researchers discuss the significance of (in)securitisation for our everyday experience and the implications for sociolinguistic theory and research.
The dialogue opens with Ben Rampton and Constadina Charalambous, who introduce the concept of (in)securitisation from International Relations research and sketch potential connections and challenges to standard sociolinguistic theories and concepts. Then the four papers that follow pick this up from different angles in different geographic locations. Ariana Mangual Figueroa discusses (in)securitisation’s radical impact on research relationships in ethnography, focusing on the US. Zeena Zakharia addresses the effects of large-scale conflict on language education, both in the US and Lebanon. Erez Levon considers the connections between nationalism and sexuality, bringing in the strategies with which gay and lesbian Israelis navigate the insecuritising discourses they encounter. Then Rodney Jones discusses the interactional dynamics of surveillance, moving between police encounters and the internet to show the thin line between protection and precarity. At the end of the dialogue, we address three questions, collaboratively reaffirming the urgency of these issues, the significance of (in)securitisation in everyday communicative practice, and the ramifications for sociolinguistics.
Contents: 1. Ben Rampton & Constadina Charalambous. Sociolinguistics & everday (in)securitisation. p.3 2. Ariana Mangual Figueroa. Embodying the breach: (In)securitisation and ethnographic engagement in the US. p.14 3. Zeena Zakharia. Language and (in)securitisation: Observations from educational research and practice in conflict-affected contexts. p.20 4. Erez Levon. Language, (in)security and sexuality. p.28 5. Rodney Jones. Accounting for surveillance. p.35 6. All authors. Closing questions. p.41
These are brief notes that I often use when I teach Goffman, covering ‘interactional arrangements... more These are brief notes that I often use when I teach Goffman, covering ‘interactional arrangements’, ‘ritual investment in interaction’, ‘individual involvements in activity’, ‘frames, realms and keying’, and ‘implications’. Though they differ in format, they are offered to the Working Papers in the same spirit as Rob Moore’s ‘Founding concepts: Simmel and Sapir on communication’ (WPULL 232)
This paper explores the relationship between sociolinguistics as the study of everyday communicat... more This paper explores the relationship between sociolinguistics as the study of everyday communicative practice in changing social conditions on the one hand, and on the other, securitisation, a process that speaks of enemies and major threats to everyday existence. So is sociolinguistics irrelevant to securitisation, or can sociolinguistics point to everyday complexities in securitisation that would otherwise be missed? The discussion is divided into the following sections: (1) Changing ethno-politics in Britain; (2) Securitisation as exceptionalisation, departing from the everyday; (3) Learning the language of the enemy in Cyprus; (4) A sociolinguistic interpretation; (5) ‘Everyday international relations’: A growing field of interest; (6) Goffman and the study of everyday interactional insecurities; (7) Goffman for IR; (8) Summary and prospect. The paper draws on a collaboration established at King’s – www.kcl.ac.uk/liep.
The fieldwork for Crossing: Language & Ethnicity among Adolescents took place over 30 years ago. ... more The fieldwork for Crossing: Language & Ethnicity among Adolescents took place over 30 years ago. In this preface to a 3rd edition, I review three subsequent projects that have led beyond the book’s original findings and conclusions. These projects have shown (a) how crossing and stylisation involve ground level ideological commentary on different kinds of socio-historical process; (b) that the ways of speaking described in the book have been historically and biographically durable, lasting into middle age well beyond adolescence in the 1980s; (c) how the notion of ‘vernacular’ needs to be revised; (d) how second language speakers of English can be drawn into the account more fully; (e) that the concept of crossing is relevant to institutionalised language education in settings affected by legacies of violent conflict – it’s not only a vernacular practice; and (f) that crossing isn’t necessarily convivial, and it’s not just another word for ‘translanguaging’.
This paper starts with a sketch of the origins of Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS) in Gumperz ... more This paper starts with a sketch of the origins of Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS) in Gumperz and Hymes' early efforts to develop a general theory of language and society. Characterising the key features of Gumperzian IS, it emphasises the notions of 'inference' and 'contextualisation' as well as the (counter-hegemonic) centrality of intensive analyses of recorded interaction. It then turns to IS's close relationship with Linguistic Anthropology and Conversation Analysis, considering the challenges presented by IS's insistent interdisciplinarity and its relative lack of formalisation, following this with a brief discussion of how IS seeks to intervene in non-academic activity. Concurring with Auer & Roberts' view that Gumperz was the first to develop a sociolinguistics capable of handling globalised superdiversity, the paper then describes the ways in which his work on code-switching and intercultural communication has been updated in, respectively, studies of stylisation and asylum procedures. Finally, it suggests that in future work, IS should examine the interface between face-to-face and digital interaction together with the implications of new forms of surveillance, capitalising on the anti-structuralist rigour that IS can bring to the study of Foucauldian 'governmentality'.
‘Rapport’ in fieldwork involves the temporary interactional suspension of stranger-hood and dista... more ‘Rapport’ in fieldwork involves the temporary interactional suspension of stranger-hood and distance, and in traditional ethnography, it has positive value as a fieldwork ideal sketched in advisory rules of thumb. But in reflexive contemporary sociolinguistics, ‘rapport’ looks like a craft term concealing a great deal of ideological work, covering ethnocentricity in gate-keeping encounters and ‘synthetic personalisation’ in consumer culture. Can these two traditions be reconciled and if so, how? The paper proposes playback – retrospective participant commentary on recordings of interaction – as a productive reconfiguration of rapport which avoids the bad faith with which rapport is so easily identified.
This paper draws critical security studies into the investigation of language policy for two reas... more This paper draws critical security studies into the investigation of language policy for two reasons. First, critical security studies provides informative commentary on how ‘security’ is now being reconfigured, with developments in digital technology, large-scale population movements, and the privatisation of public services. Second, it is increasingly attentive to how geopolitics permeates the everyday. This generates considerable scope for connection with research on language in society, and this paper provides two case studies of how ‘enemy’ and ‘fear’ have been active principles in language policy development. The first shows how security has become an increasingly influential theme in the UK, and focusing on Cyprus, the second describes how legacies of large-scale violent conflict can generate rather unexpected ground-level enactments of language education policy.
This is a final report to the Leverhulme Trust of a project funded from 2012 to 2015. After long... more This is a final report to the Leverhulme Trust of a project funded from 2012 to 2015. After long-established hostility, as a reconciliatory gesture in 2003, the Republic of Cyprus introduced optional Turkish-as-a-Foreign-Language classes for Greek-Cypriots. Our investigation of adult and secondary school classes asked: a) how do teachers and students manage to teach & learn the language of a former enemy? b) what are the implications for efforts to produce intercultural understanding through foreign language teaching? c) what are the implications for sociolinguistic theory? The report includes a brief account of the grant, the research activity, conclusions and achievements, and publications & other outputs.
This short paper asks how applied linguistics is likely to be affected by ongoing changes in high... more This short paper asks how applied linguistics is likely to be affected by ongoing changes in higher education in countries like Britain. In the first part, it refers to (a) a growing role for universities in regional innovation, (b) a move towards project-based teaching, and (c) the digital challenge to established social science methods. Turning to applied linguistics, it then suggests that Manchester University’s Multilingual Manchester project illustrates some of these shifts, combining pedagogy, research and civic engagement in a way that helps to “interpret global issues on a local scale”. Indeed, here the methodological retheorisations associated with terms like ‘superdiversity’, ‘translanguaging’ etc can also play a valuable part, helping non-linguists to make better sense of changing sociolinguistic conditions. But when it comes to understanding how our lives are being reshaping by digital media, it is vital to assert the hard graft of technical skills development as a renewed priority in applied linguistics.
This short paper asks how applied linguistics is likely to be affected by ongoing changes in high... more This short paper asks how applied linguistics is likely to be affected by ongoing changes in higher education in countries like Britain. In the first part, it refers to (a) a growing role for universities in regional innovation, (b) a move towards project-based teaching, and (c) the digital challenge to established social science methods. Turning to applied linguistics, it then suggests that Manchester University’s Multilingual Manchester project illustrates some of these shifts, combining pedagogy, research and civic engagement in a way that helps to “interpret global issues on a local scale”. Indeed, here the methodological retheorisations associated with terms like ‘superdiversity’, ‘translanguaging’ etc can also play a valuable part, helping non-linguists to make better sense of changing sociolinguistic conditions. But when it comes to understanding how our lives are being reshaping by digital media, it is vital to assert the hard graft of technical skills development as a renewed priority in applied linguistics.
This paper follows Coupland (2010), who raises a number of doubts about the continuing power of s... more This paper follows Coupland (2010), who raises a number of doubts about the continuing power of standard English and its historic correlation with gradations of social class and linguistic insecurity, pointing instead to globalisation, to changes in social class structure and culture, and to individualisation and changing norms of self-presentation. But the paper also locates the development of standard language in the processes of ‘normalisation’ described by Foucault in Discipline and Punish (1977), and it moves from there to discussions of power and control in a ‘post-panoptic’ era of neo-liberal globalisation, where the state operates more as ‘gamekeeper’ than ‘gardener’ (Bauman 1987), and the population is increasingly constituted as consumers, seduced into the market economy and profiled in digital surveillance that separates and tracks individuals for efficiency and risk prevention, generating a ‘dual society’ in which a hypercompetitive, fully networked zone coexists with a marginal sector of excluded low-achievers (Haggerty & Ericson 2000; Fraser 2003). The study of language certainly forms part of these power/knowledge regimes, and may sometimes soften their harsher effects. But in talking of ‘resistance to the standard’, are we simply closing the barn door after the horse has bolted?
This paper follows Coupland (2010), who raises a number of doubts about the continuing power of s... more This paper follows Coupland (2010), who raises a number of doubts about the continuing power of standard English and its historic correlation with gradations of social class and linguistic security, pointing instead to globalisation, to changes in social class structure and culture, and to individualisation and changing norms of self-presentation. But the paper also locates the development of standard language in the processes of ‘normalisation’ described by Foucault in Discipline and Punish (1977), and it moves from there to discussions of power and control in a ‘post-panoptic’ era of neo-liberal globalisation, where the state operates more as ‘gamekeeper’ than ‘gardener’ (Bauman 1987), and the population is increasingly constituted as consumers, seduced into the market economy and profiled in digital surveillance that separates and tracks individuals for efficiency and risk prevention, generating a ‘dual society’ in which a hypercompetitive, fully networked zone coexists with a marginal sector of excluded low-achievers (Haggerty & Ericson 2000; Fraser 2003). The study of language certainly forms part of these power/knowledge regimes, and may sometimes soften their harsher effects. But in talking of ‘resistance to the standard’, are we simply closing the barn door after the horse has bolted?
This paper is the introduction to a book that brings together some of the work developed in a net... more This paper is the introduction to a book that brings together some of the work developed in a network of sociolinguistic research groups that have collaborated for several years with ‘language and superdiversity’ as a broad thematic heading. It sketches (1) what we mean by ‘superdiversity’and why we see it as a useful cover term; (2) key features of our approach and our collaboration; and (3) areas adjacent to superdiversity where further work seems especially important (securitisation and surveillance).
Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of callin... more Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of calling scripts is often characterised as dehumanizing and deskilling. But these accounts lack close analysis of how scripts are actually produced, taken up and used by call centre workers, and they are generally locked into dualistic analyses of control and resistance. In contrast, this paper combines long-term ethnography with transcontextual analysis of the production, circulation and uptake of calling scripts. This reveals a good deal of collective and individual agency in processes of text-adaptation, and produces a rather more nuanced picture of work in a call centre.
Heike Wiese is Professor of Contemporary German Language at the University of Potsdam, Germany an... more Heike Wiese is Professor of Contemporary German Language at the University of Potsdam, Germany and Speaker at the university’s Centre for Language, Variation, and Migration. She has research interests in linguistic variation, grammar, lexicon, and linguistic architecture, and her most recent work has investigated the urban vernacular Kiezdeutsch (lit. '(neighbour-)hood German'), spoken informally by young people living in linguistically and ethnically diverse urban areas. While the general public has tended to see Kiezdeutsch as 'broken German' and as evidence for a 'double semilingualism', Heike approaches it from a dialect perspective, showing that Kiezdeutsch phenomena are systematic, innovative and primarily motivated by internal dynamics of the German linguistic system rather than heritage language interference. This has provoked a veritable firestorm – an intense and often aggressive language ideological debate in the media, on the internet and in hate mail. She has described the conceptual contours of this in an earlier working paper, and in this very wide-ranging interview with Louise Eley and Ben Rampton, she talks about her personal experience of being at the centre of this uproar, the strategies she developed to handle it, the other ways in which she engages the public with her research on Kiezdeutsch, the responses from other linguists, and approaches to public and practical intervention in German academic life.
Low-key everyday ‘conviviality’ is quite often invoked as a vital source of social cohesion in su... more Low-key everyday ‘conviviality’ is quite often invoked as a vital source of social cohesion in superdiverse urban environments, while claims about the democratic potential of social media are confronted by the argument that much of the traffic is ‘phatic’, more about staying in touch than communicating information. Both issues invite close sociolinguistic scrutiny, but how is the movement between fine-grained micro-analysis and sociological generalisation best managed, and how well do ‘conviviality’ and the ‘phatic’ actually travel? This short paper offers some observations about multilayered investigation, identifies ‘phatic’ as a useful mid-level interpretive concept, and suggests that ‘conviviality’ fails as a generalisation about practice but works as the characterisation of particular local ideologies. It ends by suggesting that in the contemporary period, accounts of urban conviviality and phatic social media communication should also engage with security surveillance, though in sociolinguistics, this has not yet received the attention it deserves.
This dialogue starts from the perception that existential threats to national security has become... more This dialogue starts from the perception that existential threats to national security has become an increasingly pervasive concern in daily life, spreading fear and suspicion through civil society. Communicative practices play a central role in these processes of (in)securitisation, but sociolinguists appear to have paid them less attention than they deserve. So in what follows, six researchers discuss the significance of (in)securitisation for our everyday experience and the implications for sociolinguistic theory and research.
The dialogue opens with Ben Rampton and Constadina Charalambous, who introduce the concept of (in)securitisation from International Relations research and sketch potential connections and challenges to standard sociolinguistic theories and concepts. Then the four papers that follow pick this up from different angles in different geographic locations. Ariana Mangual Figueroa discusses (in)securitisation’s radical impact on research relationships in ethnography, focusing on the US. Zeena Zakharia addresses the effects of large-scale conflict on language education, both in the US and Lebanon. Erez Levon considers the connections between nationalism and sexuality, bringing in the strategies with which gay and lesbian Israelis navigate the insecuritising discourses they encounter. Then Rodney Jones discusses the interactional dynamics of surveillance, moving between police encounters and the internet to show the thin line between protection and precarity. At the end of the dialogue, we address three questions, collaboratively reaffirming the urgency of these issues, the significance of (in)securitisation in everyday communicative practice, and the ramifications for sociolinguistics.
Contents: 1. Ben Rampton & Constadina Charalambous. Sociolinguistics & everday (in)securitisation. p.3 2. Ariana Mangual Figueroa. Embodying the breach: (In)securitisation and ethnographic engagement in the US. p.14 3. Zeena Zakharia. Language and (in)securitisation: Observations from educational research and practice in conflict-affected contexts. p.20 4. Erez Levon. Language, (in)security and sexuality. p.28 5. Rodney Jones. Accounting for surveillance. p.35 6. All authors. Closing questions. p.41
These are brief notes that I often use when I teach Goffman, covering ‘interactional arrangements... more These are brief notes that I often use when I teach Goffman, covering ‘interactional arrangements’, ‘ritual investment in interaction’, ‘individual involvements in activity’, ‘frames, realms and keying’, and ‘implications’. Though they differ in format, they are offered to the Working Papers in the same spirit as Rob Moore’s ‘Founding concepts: Simmel and Sapir on communication’ (WPULL 232)
This paper explores the relationship between sociolinguistics as the study of everyday communicat... more This paper explores the relationship between sociolinguistics as the study of everyday communicative practice in changing social conditions on the one hand, and on the other, securitisation, a process that speaks of enemies and major threats to everyday existence. So is sociolinguistics irrelevant to securitisation, or can sociolinguistics point to everyday complexities in securitisation that would otherwise be missed? The discussion is divided into the following sections: (1) Changing ethno-politics in Britain; (2) Securitisation as exceptionalisation, departing from the everyday; (3) Learning the language of the enemy in Cyprus; (4) A sociolinguistic interpretation; (5) ‘Everyday international relations’: A growing field of interest; (6) Goffman and the study of everyday interactional insecurities; (7) Goffman for IR; (8) Summary and prospect. The paper draws on a collaboration established at King’s – www.kcl.ac.uk/liep.
The fieldwork for Crossing: Language & Ethnicity among Adolescents took place over 30 years ago. ... more The fieldwork for Crossing: Language & Ethnicity among Adolescents took place over 30 years ago. In this preface to a 3rd edition, I review three subsequent projects that have led beyond the book’s original findings and conclusions. These projects have shown (a) how crossing and stylisation involve ground level ideological commentary on different kinds of socio-historical process; (b) that the ways of speaking described in the book have been historically and biographically durable, lasting into middle age well beyond adolescence in the 1980s; (c) how the notion of ‘vernacular’ needs to be revised; (d) how second language speakers of English can be drawn into the account more fully; (e) that the concept of crossing is relevant to institutionalised language education in settings affected by legacies of violent conflict – it’s not only a vernacular practice; and (f) that crossing isn’t necessarily convivial, and it’s not just another word for ‘translanguaging’.
This paper starts with a sketch of the origins of Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS) in Gumperz ... more This paper starts with a sketch of the origins of Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS) in Gumperz and Hymes' early efforts to develop a general theory of language and society. Characterising the key features of Gumperzian IS, it emphasises the notions of 'inference' and 'contextualisation' as well as the (counter-hegemonic) centrality of intensive analyses of recorded interaction. It then turns to IS's close relationship with Linguistic Anthropology and Conversation Analysis, considering the challenges presented by IS's insistent interdisciplinarity and its relative lack of formalisation, following this with a brief discussion of how IS seeks to intervene in non-academic activity. Concurring with Auer & Roberts' view that Gumperz was the first to develop a sociolinguistics capable of handling globalised superdiversity, the paper then describes the ways in which his work on code-switching and intercultural communication has been updated in, respectively, studies of stylisation and asylum procedures. Finally, it suggests that in future work, IS should examine the interface between face-to-face and digital interaction together with the implications of new forms of surveillance, capitalising on the anti-structuralist rigour that IS can bring to the study of Foucauldian 'governmentality'.
‘Rapport’ in fieldwork involves the temporary interactional suspension of stranger-hood and dista... more ‘Rapport’ in fieldwork involves the temporary interactional suspension of stranger-hood and distance, and in traditional ethnography, it has positive value as a fieldwork ideal sketched in advisory rules of thumb. But in reflexive contemporary sociolinguistics, ‘rapport’ looks like a craft term concealing a great deal of ideological work, covering ethnocentricity in gate-keeping encounters and ‘synthetic personalisation’ in consumer culture. Can these two traditions be reconciled and if so, how? The paper proposes playback – retrospective participant commentary on recordings of interaction – as a productive reconfiguration of rapport which avoids the bad faith with which rapport is so easily identified.
This paper draws critical security studies into the investigation of language policy for two reas... more This paper draws critical security studies into the investigation of language policy for two reasons. First, critical security studies provides informative commentary on how ‘security’ is now being reconfigured, with developments in digital technology, large-scale population movements, and the privatisation of public services. Second, it is increasingly attentive to how geopolitics permeates the everyday. This generates considerable scope for connection with research on language in society, and this paper provides two case studies of how ‘enemy’ and ‘fear’ have been active principles in language policy development. The first shows how security has become an increasingly influential theme in the UK, and focusing on Cyprus, the second describes how legacies of large-scale violent conflict can generate rather unexpected ground-level enactments of language education policy.
This is a final report to the Leverhulme Trust of a project funded from 2012 to 2015. After long... more This is a final report to the Leverhulme Trust of a project funded from 2012 to 2015. After long-established hostility, as a reconciliatory gesture in 2003, the Republic of Cyprus introduced optional Turkish-as-a-Foreign-Language classes for Greek-Cypriots. Our investigation of adult and secondary school classes asked: a) how do teachers and students manage to teach & learn the language of a former enemy? b) what are the implications for efforts to produce intercultural understanding through foreign language teaching? c) what are the implications for sociolinguistic theory? The report includes a brief account of the grant, the research activity, conclusions and achievements, and publications & other outputs.
This short paper asks how applied linguistics is likely to be affected by ongoing changes in high... more This short paper asks how applied linguistics is likely to be affected by ongoing changes in higher education in countries like Britain. In the first part, it refers to (a) a growing role for universities in regional innovation, (b) a move towards project-based teaching, and (c) the digital challenge to established social science methods. Turning to applied linguistics, it then suggests that Manchester University’s Multilingual Manchester project illustrates some of these shifts, combining pedagogy, research and civic engagement in a way that helps to “interpret global issues on a local scale”. Indeed, here the methodological retheorisations associated with terms like ‘superdiversity’, ‘translanguaging’ etc can also play a valuable part, helping non-linguists to make better sense of changing sociolinguistic conditions. But when it comes to understanding how our lives are being reshaping by digital media, it is vital to assert the hard graft of technical skills development as a renewed priority in applied linguistics.
This short paper asks how applied linguistics is likely to be affected by ongoing changes in high... more This short paper asks how applied linguistics is likely to be affected by ongoing changes in higher education in countries like Britain. In the first part, it refers to (a) a growing role for universities in regional innovation, (b) a move towards project-based teaching, and (c) the digital challenge to established social science methods. Turning to applied linguistics, it then suggests that Manchester University’s Multilingual Manchester project illustrates some of these shifts, combining pedagogy, research and civic engagement in a way that helps to “interpret global issues on a local scale”. Indeed, here the methodological retheorisations associated with terms like ‘superdiversity’, ‘translanguaging’ etc can also play a valuable part, helping non-linguists to make better sense of changing sociolinguistic conditions. But when it comes to understanding how our lives are being reshaping by digital media, it is vital to assert the hard graft of technical skills development as a renewed priority in applied linguistics.
This paper follows Coupland (2010), who raises a number of doubts about the continuing power of s... more This paper follows Coupland (2010), who raises a number of doubts about the continuing power of standard English and its historic correlation with gradations of social class and linguistic insecurity, pointing instead to globalisation, to changes in social class structure and culture, and to individualisation and changing norms of self-presentation. But the paper also locates the development of standard language in the processes of ‘normalisation’ described by Foucault in Discipline and Punish (1977), and it moves from there to discussions of power and control in a ‘post-panoptic’ era of neo-liberal globalisation, where the state operates more as ‘gamekeeper’ than ‘gardener’ (Bauman 1987), and the population is increasingly constituted as consumers, seduced into the market economy and profiled in digital surveillance that separates and tracks individuals for efficiency and risk prevention, generating a ‘dual society’ in which a hypercompetitive, fully networked zone coexists with a marginal sector of excluded low-achievers (Haggerty & Ericson 2000; Fraser 2003). The study of language certainly forms part of these power/knowledge regimes, and may sometimes soften their harsher effects. But in talking of ‘resistance to the standard’, are we simply closing the barn door after the horse has bolted?
This paper follows Coupland (2010), who raises a number of doubts about the continuing power of s... more This paper follows Coupland (2010), who raises a number of doubts about the continuing power of standard English and its historic correlation with gradations of social class and linguistic security, pointing instead to globalisation, to changes in social class structure and culture, and to individualisation and changing norms of self-presentation. But the paper also locates the development of standard language in the processes of ‘normalisation’ described by Foucault in Discipline and Punish (1977), and it moves from there to discussions of power and control in a ‘post-panoptic’ era of neo-liberal globalisation, where the state operates more as ‘gamekeeper’ than ‘gardener’ (Bauman 1987), and the population is increasingly constituted as consumers, seduced into the market economy and profiled in digital surveillance that separates and tracks individuals for efficiency and risk prevention, generating a ‘dual society’ in which a hypercompetitive, fully networked zone coexists with a marginal sector of excluded low-achievers (Haggerty & Ericson 2000; Fraser 2003). The study of language certainly forms part of these power/knowledge regimes, and may sometimes soften their harsher effects. But in talking of ‘resistance to the standard’, are we simply closing the barn door after the horse has bolted?
This paper is the introduction to a book that brings together some of the work developed in a net... more This paper is the introduction to a book that brings together some of the work developed in a network of sociolinguistic research groups that have collaborated for several years with ‘language and superdiversity’ as a broad thematic heading. It sketches (1) what we mean by ‘superdiversity’and why we see it as a useful cover term; (2) key features of our approach and our collaboration; and (3) areas adjacent to superdiversity where further work seems especially important (securitisation and surveillance).
Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of callin... more Call centres have been widely criticised as standardized workplaces, and the imposition of calling scripts is often characterised as dehumanizing and deskilling. But these accounts lack close analysis of how scripts are actually produced, taken up and used by call centre workers, and they are generally locked into dualistic analyses of control and resistance. In contrast, this paper combines long-term ethnography with transcontextual analysis of the production, circulation and uptake of calling scripts. This reveals a good deal of collective and individual agency in processes of text-adaptation, and produces a rather more nuanced picture of work in a call centre.
Heike Wiese is Professor of Contemporary German Language at the University of Potsdam, Germany an... more Heike Wiese is Professor of Contemporary German Language at the University of Potsdam, Germany and Speaker at the university’s Centre for Language, Variation, and Migration. She has research interests in linguistic variation, grammar, lexicon, and linguistic architecture, and her most recent work has investigated the urban vernacular Kiezdeutsch (lit. '(neighbour-)hood German'), spoken informally by young people living in linguistically and ethnically diverse urban areas. While the general public has tended to see Kiezdeutsch as 'broken German' and as evidence for a 'double semilingualism', Heike approaches it from a dialect perspective, showing that Kiezdeutsch phenomena are systematic, innovative and primarily motivated by internal dynamics of the German linguistic system rather than heritage language interference. This has provoked a veritable firestorm – an intense and often aggressive language ideological debate in the media, on the internet and in hate mail. She has described the conceptual contours of this in an earlier working paper, and in this very wide-ranging interview with Louise Eley and Ben Rampton, she talks about her personal experience of being at the centre of this uproar, the strategies she developed to handle it, the other ways in which she engages the public with her research on Kiezdeutsch, the responses from other linguists, and approaches to public and practical intervention in German academic life.
Low-key everyday ‘conviviality’ is quite often invoked as a vital source of social cohesion in su... more Low-key everyday ‘conviviality’ is quite often invoked as a vital source of social cohesion in superdiverse urban environments, while claims about the democratic potential of social media are confronted by the argument that much of the traffic is ‘phatic’, more about staying in touch than communicating information. Both issues invite close sociolinguistic scrutiny, but how is the movement between fine-grained micro-analysis and sociological generalisation best managed, and how well do ‘conviviality’ and the ‘phatic’ actually travel? This short paper offers some observations about multilayered investigation, identifies ‘phatic’ as a useful mid-level interpretive concept, and suggests that ‘conviviality’ fails as a generalisation about practice but works as the characterisation of particular local ideologies. It ends by suggesting that in the contemporary period, accounts of urban conviviality and phatic social media communication should also engage with security surveillance, though in sociolinguistics, this has not yet received the attention it deserves.
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Papers by Ben Rampton
The dialogue opens with Ben Rampton and Constadina Charalambous, who introduce the concept of (in)securitisation from International Relations research and sketch potential connections and challenges to standard sociolinguistic theories and concepts. Then the four papers that follow pick this up from different angles in different geographic locations. Ariana Mangual Figueroa discusses (in)securitisation’s radical impact on research relationships in ethnography, focusing on the US. Zeena Zakharia addresses the effects of large-scale conflict on language education, both in the US and Lebanon. Erez Levon considers the connections between nationalism and sexuality, bringing in the strategies with which gay and lesbian Israelis navigate the insecuritising discourses they encounter. Then Rodney Jones discusses the interactional dynamics of surveillance, moving between police encounters and the internet to show the thin line between protection and precarity. At the end of the dialogue, we address three questions, collaboratively reaffirming the urgency of these issues, the significance of (in)securitisation in everyday communicative practice, and the ramifications for sociolinguistics.
Contents:
1. Ben Rampton & Constadina Charalambous. Sociolinguistics & everday (in)securitisation. p.3
2. Ariana Mangual Figueroa. Embodying the breach: (In)securitisation and ethnographic engagement in the US. p.14
3. Zeena Zakharia. Language and (in)securitisation: Observations from educational research and practice in conflict-affected contexts. p.20
4. Erez Levon. Language, (in)security and sexuality. p.28
5. Rodney Jones. Accounting for surveillance. p.35
6. All authors. Closing questions. p.41
a) how do teachers and students manage to teach & learn the language of a former enemy?
b) what are the implications for efforts to produce intercultural understanding through foreign language teaching?
c) what are the implications for sociolinguistic theory?
The report includes a brief account of the grant, the research activity, conclusions and achievements, and publications & other outputs.
The dialogue opens with Ben Rampton and Constadina Charalambous, who introduce the concept of (in)securitisation from International Relations research and sketch potential connections and challenges to standard sociolinguistic theories and concepts. Then the four papers that follow pick this up from different angles in different geographic locations. Ariana Mangual Figueroa discusses (in)securitisation’s radical impact on research relationships in ethnography, focusing on the US. Zeena Zakharia addresses the effects of large-scale conflict on language education, both in the US and Lebanon. Erez Levon considers the connections between nationalism and sexuality, bringing in the strategies with which gay and lesbian Israelis navigate the insecuritising discourses they encounter. Then Rodney Jones discusses the interactional dynamics of surveillance, moving between police encounters and the internet to show the thin line between protection and precarity. At the end of the dialogue, we address three questions, collaboratively reaffirming the urgency of these issues, the significance of (in)securitisation in everyday communicative practice, and the ramifications for sociolinguistics.
Contents:
1. Ben Rampton & Constadina Charalambous. Sociolinguistics & everday (in)securitisation. p.3
2. Ariana Mangual Figueroa. Embodying the breach: (In)securitisation and ethnographic engagement in the US. p.14
3. Zeena Zakharia. Language and (in)securitisation: Observations from educational research and practice in conflict-affected contexts. p.20
4. Erez Levon. Language, (in)security and sexuality. p.28
5. Rodney Jones. Accounting for surveillance. p.35
6. All authors. Closing questions. p.41
a) how do teachers and students manage to teach & learn the language of a former enemy?
b) what are the implications for efforts to produce intercultural understanding through foreign language teaching?
c) what are the implications for sociolinguistic theory?
The report includes a brief account of the grant, the research activity, conclusions and achievements, and publications & other outputs.