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JournalISSN: 1542-7587

Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 

Taylor & Francis
About: Critical Inquiry in Language Studies is an academic journal published by Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Sociology & Language education. It has an ISSN identifier of 1542-7587. Over the lifetime, 308 publications have been published receiving 6454 citations. The journal is also known as: CILS.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that it is not enough to acknowledge that languages have been invented, nor that linguistic metalanguage constructs the world in particular ways; rather, we need to understand the interrelationships among metadiscursive regimes, language inventions, colonial history, language effects, alternative ways of understanding language, and strategies of disinvention and reconstitution.
Abstract: In this paper we argue that although the problematic nature of language construction has been acknowledged by a number of skeptical authors, including the recent claim in this journal (Reagan, 2004) that there is no such thing as English or any other language, this critical approach to language still needs to develop a broader understanding of the processes of invention. A central part of our argument, therefore, is that it is not enough to acknowledge that languages have been invented, nor that linguistic metalanguage constructs the world in particular ways; rather, we need to understand the interrelationships among metadiscursive regimes, language inventions, colonial history, language effects, alternative ways of understanding language, and strategies of disinvention and reconstitution. Any critical (applied) linguistic project that aims to deal with language in the contemporary world, however estimable its political intent may be, must also have ways of understanding the detrimental language effects i...

704 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explored the transition from the linguistic imperialism of the colonial and post-colonial ages to the increasingly dominant role of English as a neo-imperial language in the U.S. empire.
Abstract: The article explores the transition from the linguistic imperialism of the colonial and postcolonial ages to the increasingly dominant role of English as a neoimperial language. It analyzes ‘global’ English as a key dimension of the U.S. empire. U.S. expansionism is a fundamental principle of the foreign policy of the United States that can be traced back over two centuries. Linguistic imperialism and neoimperialism are exemplified at the micro and macro levels, and some key defining traits explored, as are cultural and institutional links between the United Kingdom and the United States, and the role of foundations in promoting ‘world’ English. Whereas many parts of the world have experienced a longstanding engagement with English, the use of English in continental Europe has expanded markedly in recent years, as a result of many strands of globalization and European integration. Some ongoing tensions in language policy in Europe, and symptoms of complicity in accepting linguistic hegemony, are explored....

235 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue for the need to rethink the notion of language as commonly formulated in linguistics and applied linguistics, and take up the concept of performativity as a way of thinking about language use and identity that avoids foundationalist categories.
Abstract: Drawing analogies with the crisis in understandings of culture that led to the development of cultural studies, I suggest in this article that a similar crisis in the understanding of language may give an important impetus to the development of language studies. Arguing for the need to rethink the notion of language as commonly formulated in linguistics and applied linguistics, I take up the notion of performativity as a way of thinking about language use and identity that avoids foundationalist categories, suggesting that identities are formed in the linguistic performance rather than pregiven. Such a view of language identity also helps us to see how subjectivities are called into being and sedimented over time through regulated language acts. This further provides the ground for considering languages themselves from an anti-foundationalist perspective, whereby language use is an act of identity that calls that language into being. And performativity, particularly in its relationship to notions of perfo...

184 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that learners' sense of membership of an imagined global community and of themselves as users of the language, as opposed to any desire to integrate with a target community, forms the basis of their motivation.
Abstract: This is a theoretical paper that attempts to re-conceptualize language learning motivation by taking into consideration the effects of globalisation on learners' sense of identity and how this impacts on the motivation to learn the unquestioned language of globalisation, English. I will argue that in EFL contexts it is learners' sense of membership of an imagined global community and of themselves as users of the language, as opposed to any desire to integrate with a target community, that forms the basis of their motivation. The paper proposes a model of motivation that places the learner's real identity as a member of an imagined global community, and a clear vision of an ideal language-using self at its core.

127 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Following Boaventura de Sousa Santos, the authors reject the type of "abyssal thinking" that erases the existence of counter-hegemonic knowledges and lifeways, adopting instead the...
Abstract: Following Boaventura de Sousa Santos, the authors of this article reject the type of “abyssal thinking” that erases the existence of counter-hegemonic knowledges and lifeways, adopting instead the ...

125 citations

Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Journal in previous years
YearPapers
202313
202225
202122
202017
201916
201818