The article proposes a framework for the analysis of identity as produced in linguistic interaction, based on the following principles: (1) identity is the product rather than the source of linguis...

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Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach

▪ Abstract This paper provides a survey of critical discourse analysis (CDA), a recent school of discourse analysis that concerns itself with relations of power and inequality in language. CDA explicitly intends to incorporate social-theoretical insights into discourse analysis and advocates social commitment and interventionism in research. The main programmatic features and domains of enquiry of CDA are discussed, with emphasis on attempts toward theory formation by one of CDA's most prominent scholars, Norman Fairclough. Another section reviews the genesis and disciplinary growth of CDA, mentions some of the recent critical reactions to it, and situates it within the wider picture of a new critical paradigm developing in a number of language-oriented (sub) disciplines. In this critical paradigm, topics such as ideology, inequality, and power figure prominently, and many scholars productively attempt to incorporate social-theoretical insights into the study of language.

Critical discourse analysis

This engaging 2005 introduction offers a critical approach to discourse, written by an expert uniquely placed to cover the subject for a variety of disciplines. Organised along thematic lines, the book begins with an outline of the basic principles, moving on to examine the methods and theory of CDA (critical discourse analysis). It covers topics such as text and context, language and inequality, choice and determination, history and process, ideology and identity. Blommaert focuses on how language can offer a crucial understanding of wider aspects of power relations, arguing that critical discourse analysis should specifically be an analysis of the 'effects' of power, what power does to people, groups and societies, and how this impact comes about. Clearly argued, this concise introduction will be welcomed by students and researchers in a variety of disciplines involved in the study of discourse, including linguistics, linguistic anthropology and the sociology of language.

Discourse: A Critical Introduction

The social life of cultural value

New theoretical approaches to the study of negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts "The making of an American" - negotiation of identities at the turn of the 20th century, Aneta Pavlenko constructions of identity in political discourse in multilingual Britain, Adrian Blackledge negotiating between bourge and racaille - Verlan as youth identity practice in suburban Paris, Meredith Doran (Pennsylvania State University) Black Deaf or Deaf Black? being Black and Deaf in Britain, Melissa James and Bencie Woll (City University, London) mothers and mother tongue - perspectives on self-construction by mothers of Pakistani heritage, Jean Mills (University of Birmingham) the politics of identity, representation, and the discourses of self-identification, Frances Giampapa (University of Toronto) Alice doesn't live here anymore - foreign language learning and identity reconstruction, Celeste Kinginger (Pennsylvania State University) intersections of literacy and construction of social identities, Benedicta Egbo (University of Windsor) multilingual writers and the struggle for voice in academic discourse, Suresh Canagarajah (City University of New York) identity and language use - the politics of speaking ESL in schools, Jennifer Miller (University of Queensland) sending mixed messages - language minority education at a Japanese public elementary school, Yasuko Kanno (University of Washington)

Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts

"Language ideologies" refers to the representation, whether explicit or implicit, of the intersection of language and human beings in a social world. This collection of essays examines definitions and conceptions of language in a wide range of settings, focusing on how such defining activity organizes individuals, institutions, and the relationships between them. The contributors look at language and its role in such fundamental social institutions as religious ritual, child socialization, gender relations, the nation-state, schooling and the law, and in doing so, link language to larger issues of identity, aesthetics, morality, and epistemology. This will be the first collection of work in this rapidly growing field.

Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory

Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia

Constructing languages and publics: Authoriy and representation

A surge of public and political advocacy for an independent Catalonia has brought renewed urgency to questions about what it means, personally and politically, to speak or not to speak Catalan and to claim Catalan identity. This book develops a framework for analyzing ideologies of linguistic authority and uses it to illuminate the politics of language in Catalonia, where Catalan jostles with Castilian for legitimacy. Longitudinal research by the author across decades of political autonomy contextualizes this ethnographic study of the social meaning of Catalan in the 21st century. Part I lays out the ideologies of linguistic authenticity, anonymity, and naturalism that underpin linguistic authority in the modern western world, and gives an overview of a shift in the ideological grounding of linguistic authority in contemporary Catalonia. 
Part II examines public discourses in the media. Chapters analyze three public linguistic controversies, over an immigrant president’s linguistic competence, a municipal festival, and an international book fair. Part III explores linguistic practices and discourses at the individual level, drawing on classroom ethnographies and interviews with two generations of young people from the same high school. The book argues that there is an ongoing shift at both public and personal levels away from the ethnolinguistic authenticity that powered relations in the early transition to political autonomy, and toward new discourses of anonymity, rooted cosmopolitanism, and authenticity understood as a project rather than an essence.

Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in 21st Century Catalonia

The essays in this collection examine the public construction of languages, the linguistic construction of publics, and the relationship between these two processes. Cultural categories such as named languages, linguistic standards and genres are the products of expert knowledge as well as of linguistic ideologies more widely shared among speakers. Translation, grammars and dictionaries, the policing of correctness, folklore collections and linguistic academies are all part of the work that produces not only languages but also social groups and spheres of action such as "the public". Such representational processes are the topic of inquiry in this voume. They are explored as crucial aspects of power, figuring among the means for establishing inequality, imposing social hierarchy, and mobilizing political action. Contributions to this volume investigate two related questions: first, how different images of linguistic phenomena gain social credibility and political influence; and, secondly, the role of linguistic ideology and practices in the making of political authority. Using both historical and ethnographic approaches, they examine empirical cases ranging from small-scale societies to multi-ethnic empire, from nineteenth-century linguistic theories to contemporary mass media, and from Europe to Oceania to the Americas. Contributors include Susan Gal, Kathryn Woolard, Judith Irvine, Richard Bauman, Michael Silverstein, Jane Hill, Joseph Errington, Bambi Schieffelin, Jacqueline Urla and Ben Lee.

Kathryn A. Woolard

Papers

Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory

Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia

Constructing languages and publics: Authoriy and representation

Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in 21st Century Catalonia

Languages and Publics: The Making of Authority