Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 2022
In this Forum Discussion paper, we put forward the concept of ‘speakerness’ and discuss how this ... more In this Forum Discussion paper, we put forward the concept of ‘speakerness’ and discuss how this notion can be of relevance to the professions associated with language teaching and learning. By ‘speakerness’ we understand the processes through which social actors get defined by their language practices. We connect this concept with the ongoing debates around so-called ‘non-native’ speakers of English, which have clear implications for ‘non-native teachers’. We revisit these debates by widening the scope; that is, by making connections with another controversy around speakerness, namely that around the so-called ‘new speakers’ of European minority languages. By aligning the two strands of debate, we argue that they respond to common trajectories of nation-building and colonial expansion articulated through the ways in which nationalist and colonialist discourses have constructed languages and deployed them as means of state and colonial rule. After tracing the historical origins of t...
s by authors ....................................................................................... more s by authors .................................................................................................................... 17 Index of authors ........................................................................................................................... 91
"My study is based on an ethnography of two groups of young people from working-... more "My study is based on an ethnography of two groups of young people from working-class neighbourhoods in Barcelona. I was interested in researching the impact of Catalan language policies on the identities of young people of Spanish-speaking immigrant families. I sought to go beyond the constraints of traditional structuralist approaches in Sociolinguistics in order to make my analysis relevant to people working for gender equality, the promotion of the Catalan language, or other social causes. I combine ideas from Bakhtin, Bourdieu, Fairclough, Foucault and Goffman to build a dialectical, historical, process-centred perspective that conceptualises practices in terms of social and political struggles. I analyse young people's peer-group activities in terms of their significance for the construction of gender identities. I propose a variety of forms of masculinity and femininity according to the various ways in which members organised their gender displays in face-to-face interaction. I also show how their use of argot and dialectal Spanish was part of the processes whereby members defined their relationships, constructed particular subject positions in interaction and struggled to legitimate their own values. I explore the meanings constructed through Catalan and Spanish by looking into the code-switching practices of my participants. I analysed their talk in terms of narratives that present particular sequential dramatisations of events for conversational audiences. These narratives follow the expressive intention of the author, and are populated with multiple voices of animated characters. I argue that, in the groups I studied, Catalan was generally not used to animate the voices that were central to the identities of the peer-group, and particularly to masculine identities. In order to contextualise these practices within the wider society, I also look into the processes of language choice in face-to-face encounters. I argue that existing conventions made it difficult for people to find opportunities to speak Catalan. I also pointed to the difficulties that my participants had to find employment, which were particularly acute amongst the more politically aware individuals. I conclude that these young working-class people had little possibilities of investing in more egalitarian forms of identity given their lack of resources and opportunities to develop their identities in other social spaces, such as the workplace. "
I wish to reflect on how Catalan sociolinguistics has participated in what I call the ideology of... more I wish to reflect on how Catalan sociolinguistics has participated in what I call the ideology of ”normalization” and how contemporary social changes, including the rise of independentism, puts this ideology in crisis. ”Normalization” in the Catalan context, conjures up the inherently disturbing condition of minoritization. It epitomizes the desire for modernity as projected onto language, culture, democracy and the economy. The term is tributary to the ideas of ”normality” inscribed in the capitalist nation-state from procedures of standardization to the deployment of disciplinary regimes that defined models for the body, culture, and the rational subject. What is of interest in the Catalan context is the dissociation between state and civil society, whereby the latter develops independent infrastructures of capitalist production, scientific development, urban culture, education and welfare. The label ”Catalan sociolinguistics” points to a discipline born precisely in the context o...
Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Spain, this text proposes a new way of analyzing th... more Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Spain, this text proposes a new way of analyzing the relation between language use and gender identity. The theoretical and methodological discussion is also directly relevant to many researchers dealing with the study of language in use: pragmatics, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, conversational analysis, critical discourse analysis. As such it can be a useful tool for courses in any of these fields within higher education.
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 2022
In this Forum Discussion paper, we put forward the concept of ‘speakerness’ and discuss how this ... more In this Forum Discussion paper, we put forward the concept of ‘speakerness’ and discuss how this notion can be of relevance to the professions associated with language teaching and learning. By ‘speakerness’ we understand the processes through which social actors get defined by their language practices. We connect this concept with the ongoing debates around so-called ‘non-native’ speakers of English, which have clear implications for ‘non-native teachers’. We revisit these debates by widening the scope; that is, by making connections with another controversy around speakerness, namely that around the so-called ‘new speakers’ of European minority languages. By aligning the two strands of debate, we argue that they respond to common trajectories of nation-building and colonial expansion articulated through the ways in which nationalist and colonialist discourses have constructed languages and deployed them as means of state and colonial rule. After tracing the historical origins of t...
s by authors ....................................................................................... more s by authors .................................................................................................................... 17 Index of authors ........................................................................................................................... 91
"My study is based on an ethnography of two groups of young people from working-... more "My study is based on an ethnography of two groups of young people from working-class neighbourhoods in Barcelona. I was interested in researching the impact of Catalan language policies on the identities of young people of Spanish-speaking immigrant families. I sought to go beyond the constraints of traditional structuralist approaches in Sociolinguistics in order to make my analysis relevant to people working for gender equality, the promotion of the Catalan language, or other social causes. I combine ideas from Bakhtin, Bourdieu, Fairclough, Foucault and Goffman to build a dialectical, historical, process-centred perspective that conceptualises practices in terms of social and political struggles. I analyse young people's peer-group activities in terms of their significance for the construction of gender identities. I propose a variety of forms of masculinity and femininity according to the various ways in which members organised their gender displays in face-to-face interaction. I also show how their use of argot and dialectal Spanish was part of the processes whereby members defined their relationships, constructed particular subject positions in interaction and struggled to legitimate their own values. I explore the meanings constructed through Catalan and Spanish by looking into the code-switching practices of my participants. I analysed their talk in terms of narratives that present particular sequential dramatisations of events for conversational audiences. These narratives follow the expressive intention of the author, and are populated with multiple voices of animated characters. I argue that, in the groups I studied, Catalan was generally not used to animate the voices that were central to the identities of the peer-group, and particularly to masculine identities. In order to contextualise these practices within the wider society, I also look into the processes of language choice in face-to-face encounters. I argue that existing conventions made it difficult for people to find opportunities to speak Catalan. I also pointed to the difficulties that my participants had to find employment, which were particularly acute amongst the more politically aware individuals. I conclude that these young working-class people had little possibilities of investing in more egalitarian forms of identity given their lack of resources and opportunities to develop their identities in other social spaces, such as the workplace. "
I wish to reflect on how Catalan sociolinguistics has participated in what I call the ideology of... more I wish to reflect on how Catalan sociolinguistics has participated in what I call the ideology of ”normalization” and how contemporary social changes, including the rise of independentism, puts this ideology in crisis. ”Normalization” in the Catalan context, conjures up the inherently disturbing condition of minoritization. It epitomizes the desire for modernity as projected onto language, culture, democracy and the economy. The term is tributary to the ideas of ”normality” inscribed in the capitalist nation-state from procedures of standardization to the deployment of disciplinary regimes that defined models for the body, culture, and the rational subject. What is of interest in the Catalan context is the dissociation between state and civil society, whereby the latter develops independent infrastructures of capitalist production, scientific development, urban culture, education and welfare. The label ”Catalan sociolinguistics” points to a discipline born precisely in the context o...
Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Spain, this text proposes a new way of analyzing th... more Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Spain, this text proposes a new way of analyzing the relation between language use and gender identity. The theoretical and methodological discussion is also directly relevant to many researchers dealing with the study of language in use: pragmatics, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, conversational analysis, critical discourse analysis. As such it can be a useful tool for courses in any of these fields within higher education.
Research into language, culture and identity in the global age requires an interdisciplinary appr... more Research into language, culture and identity in the global age requires an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand the phenomena of identification in the contemporary world. This article provides critical analysis of the discourses on language and identity in modernity, based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, and explores the new theoretical frameworks that question the sociological and anthropological traditions that assume that the phenomena of identity is intrinsically linked to territory. In a globalised context characterised by mobility, we need new paradigms in social sciences that are not based on the static geographic nature of human formations. Among other aspects, attention needs to be paid to the timeframe for social phenomena. For this reason, we set out the need to develop understanding of this temporality in our disciplines in order to learn to historicise or place in time the social and cultural processes involved in today’s construction of identities.
As Woolard explains in her book,, there are quite strict rules concerning language choice between... more As Woolard explains in her book,, there are quite strict rules concerning language choice between Spanish and Catalan, that is, the way in which the use of one or the other language variety is negotiated in ordinary interaction in Catalonia. But the last ten years have been quite critical as far as these rules are concerned because the use of the Catalan language has expanded to public spheres, and so the values and attributes attached to both Catalan and Spanish have changed. This work is meant to be a reflection about language choice in spoken interactions in Catalonia. In order to do so, I will study an interview held recently on the Catalan TV channel "TV3".
This paper consists of two main parts. The first is a description of some features of the interview which show how ethnic consciousness is implicitly and maybe unconsciously monitored through the particular way in which the identity of the Spanish speaking interviewee is treated. The second part is a description of what rules, problems or issues seem to be underlying the language choices and code-switching of the Catalan speaking interviewees, and it is also a comparison with Woolard's findings together with other recent research about the same issue and my personal experience as a Catalan speaker. Kathrin Woolard's book will be in fact my point of departure. It will be employed during the whole paper both as a source of information and comparison and as a resource for all kinds of references as it must be now one of the most widely available and comprehensive studies of the ethnolinguistic situation in Catalonia.
Finally, building on my own analysis, I will try to explain what is going on in terms of Aracil's situative-normative models, as a conflict of norms of use. By this I mean that the traditional linguistic conventions are becoming or have become problematic. This will lead me to make some reflections on what I think is the need for carefully planned political intervention with respect to the ethnolinguistic situation in Catalonia.
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This paper consists of two main parts. The first is a description of some features of the interview which show how ethnic consciousness is implicitly and maybe unconsciously monitored through the particular way in which the identity of the Spanish speaking interviewee is treated. The second part is a description of what rules, problems or issues seem to be underlying the language choices and code-switching of the Catalan speaking interviewees, and it is also a comparison with Woolard's findings together with other recent research about the same issue and my personal experience as a Catalan speaker. Kathrin Woolard's book will be in fact my point of departure. It will be employed during the whole paper both as a source of information and comparison and as a resource for all kinds of references as it must be now one of the most widely available and comprehensive studies of the ethnolinguistic situation in Catalonia.
Finally, building on my own analysis, I will try to explain what is going on in terms of Aracil's situative-normative models, as a conflict of norms of use. By this I mean that the traditional linguistic conventions are becoming or have become problematic. This will lead me to make some reflections on what I think is the need for carefully planned political intervention with respect to the ethnolinguistic situation in Catalonia.