Aree Manosuthikit

After decades of military dictatorship, Myanmar finally had its first democratic government in 2015. This political change opened up the opportunity for the country to establish legitimacy as a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Myanmar newspapers began to publish editorial pages discussing the country’s new foreign policy towards ASEAN, including its new roles, stances and engagements with this regional grouping. Using Van Leeuwen’s legitimation strategies (2007), his recontextualization scheme (2008, 2016) and insights on organizational legitimacy in the international organization context (Suchman, 1995; Tallberg and Zürn, 2019; Weber, 1964), this interdisciplinary study examines (1) the legitimation strategies employed by Myanmar journalists and (2) the discourses they drew on to justify post-2015 Myanmar’s ASEAN membership. The findings reveal that these dual levels of legitimation (strategies and discourses) worked jointly to achieve the editorials’ p...

This paper presents a critical review of three theoretical perspectives on language maintenance (LM) and language shift (LS) in minority language contexts. These three perspectives are (1) LS and subtractive bilingualism, (2) reversing LS and additive bilingualism, and (3) a critical perspective on bi/multilingualism. The review aims to demonstrate that much of the LM/LS literature as reflected in the first two perspectives (i.e., LS and subtractive bilingualism, and reversing LS and additive bilingualism) has been dominated by an essentialised view of language and its related concepts (i.e., identity and community) as whole, separate and autonomous entities within the bounds of nation-states. Such perspectives tend to reinforce a simplistic view of LM/LS as an all-or-nothing phenomenon and to advance its pessimistic outlook as language loss or language death. Hence, for a more fruitful framework, this paper presents a critical perspective on bi/ multilingualism that draws on postmo...

After decades of military dictatorship, Myanmar finally had its first democratic government in 2015. This political change opened up the opportunity for the country to establish legitimacy as a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Myanmar newspapers began to publish editorial pages discussing the country’s new foreign policy towards ASEAN, including its new roles, stances and engagements with this regional grouping. Using Van Leeuwen’s legitimation strategies (2007), his recontextualization scheme (2008, 2016) and insights on organizational legitimacy in the international organization context (Suchman, 1995; Tallberg and Zürn, 2019; Weber, 1964), this interdisciplinary study examines (1) the legitimation strategies employed by Myanmar journalists and (2) the discourses they drew on to justify post-2015 Myanmar’s ASEAN membership. The findings reveal that these dual levels of legitimation (strategies and discourses) worked jointly to achieve the editorials’ persuasive purpose and, together, produced the following editorial patterns of legitimation: Myanmar’s political leader’s pledge of solidarity with ASEAN; Myanmar to continue its neutralist stance towards ASEAN; Myanmar to potentially improve ASEAN’s democratic profile; Myanmar to bring cooperative security to ASEAN; and Myanmar rewarded with economic opportunities after integrating with ASEAN. The study also offers theoretical recommendations for future research on discursive legitimation in news media.

Aree Manosuthikit’s translation of this short story by renowned Thai writer Wanich Jarungkitanand takes us to the urban slums of Bangkok, where a university student falls in love with a young woman who lives in his neighborhood. A poignant commentary on the social ills facing contemporary Thai society, “We Both Live Here . . . in the Same Soi” is one of Jarungkitanand’s best-known short stories.
https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/by/aree-manosuthikit/

This paper presents a critical review of three theoretical perspectives on language maintenance (LM) and language shift (LS) in minority language contexts. These three perspectives are (1) LS and subtractive bilingualism, (2) reversing LS and additive bilingualism, and (3) a critical perspective on bi/multilingualism. The review aims to demonstrate that much of the LM/LS literature as reflected in the first two perspectives (i.e., LS and subtractive bilingualism, and reversing LS and additive bilingualism) has been dominated by an essentialised view of language and its related concepts (i.e., identity and community) as whole, separate and autonomous entities within the bounds of nation-states. Such perspectives tend to reinforce a simplistic view of LM/LS as an all-or-nothing phenomenon and to advance its pessimistic outlook as language loss or language death. Hence, for a more fruitful framework, this paper presents a critical perspective on bi/ multilingualism that draws on postmodern and poststructuralist theories (Heller 2007a, 2012; Makoni and Pennycook 2007; Pennycook 2010). By seeking to investigate bi/ multilingual speakers' local language ideologies and practices, this critical perspective enables not only a reconceptualisation of language, identity and community but also a more realistic and hopeful vision of bi/multilingualism in our pluralist, diverse, transnational and translocal world.

SLA research on age in naturalistic contexts has examined learners' ultimate attainment, while instructed research has emphasized the rate of learning (Birdsong 2014. Dominance and age in bilingualism. Applied Linguistics 35(4). 374–392; Muñoz 2008. Symmetries and asymmetries of age effects in naturalistic and instructed L2 learning. Applied Linguistics 29(4). 578–596). However, both streams of research, which view age as a biological construct, have overlooked this construct through an ideological lens. To address this gap, and in keeping with Blommaert's (2005. Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) call to examine language ideologies and related ideologies in an era of superdiversity, our paper explores the ideology undergirding age-based research and examines it in conjunction with the practice-based approach to better understand the use of Burmese as a heritage language, a language characterized by a hierarchical and an age-determined honorific system. Drawing on data from a larger ethnographic study involving Burmese migrants in the US, analyses of the bilingual practice of address forms of generation 1.5 Burmese youth demonstrated that age was relationally constructed. While these youth strategically adopted 'traditional' linguistic practices ratified by Burmese adults when interacting with their parents, such practices were invoked and subverted in interactions involving their siblings and other Burmese adults less familiar to them. In focusing on the social and linguistic struggles encountered by these transnational multilingual youth, this paper also addresses the complexities surrounding heritage language learning.