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Journal ArticleDOI

Expanding the Notion of the Linguistic Repertoire: On the Concept of Spracherleben—The Lived Experience of Language

23 Jul 2015-Applied Linguistics (Oxford University Press)-Vol. 38, Iss: 3, pp 340-358
TL;DR: The authors explored the connections between the concepts of the linguistic repertoire, of language ideologies, and of lived experience of language, and foregrounded the concept of Spracherleben, the lived experience, which is based on phenomenological approaches, as developed by the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty.
Abstract: The aim of this article is to explore the connections between the concepts of the linguistic repertoire, of language ideologies, and of lived experience of language. In foregrounding the concept of Spracherleben, the lived experience of language, this article contributes to the ongoing debate on how to rethink the notion of the linguistic repertoire considering that current phenomena such as increased mobility, migration, or participation in transnational networks of communication make it difficult to take, as Gumperz (1964) did in his original concept, relatively stable speech communities as point of departure. The notion of the lived experience of language which I am elaborating here emphasizes the intersubjective dimension of language as a gesture toward the other and casts light on the often-neglected bodily and emotional dimensions of perception and speech. Attaching particular importance to the perspective of the experiencing subject, the concept is based on phenomenological approaches, as developed in the 1940s by the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the lens of semiotic repertoires enables synergies to be identified and provides a holistic focus on action that is both multilingual and multimodal, and they discuss key assumptions and analytical developments that have shaped the sociolinguistic study of signed and spoken language multilingualism as separate from different strands of multimodality studies.
Abstract: This paper presents a critical examination of key concepts in the study of (signed and spoken) language and multimodality. It shows how shifts in conceptual understandings of language use, moving from bilingualism to multilingualism and (trans)languaging, have resulted in the revitalisation of the concept of language repertoires. We discuss key assumptions and analytical developments that have shaped the sociolinguistic study of signed and spoken language multilingualism as separate from different strands of multimodality studies. In most multimodality studies, researchers focus on participants using one named spoken language within broader embodied human action. Thus while attending to multimodal communication, they do not attend to multilingual communication. In translanguaging studies the opposite has happened: scholars have attended to multilingual communication without really paying attention to multimodality and simultaneity, and hierarchies within the simultaneous combination of resources. The (socio)linguistics of sign language has paid attention to multimodality but only very recently have started to focus on multilingual contexts where multiple sign and/or multiple spoken languages are used. There is currently little transaction between these areas of research. We argue that the lens of semiotic repertoires enables synergies to be identified and provides a holistic focus on action that is both multilingual and multimodal.

226 citations


Cites background from "Expanding the Notion of the Linguis..."

  • ...…resources acquired over the course of their life trajectories through membership or participation in various socio-cultural spaces in which their identities are measured against normative centres of practice (Busch, 2012, 2015; Canagarajah, 2013; Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Jørgensen et al., 2011)....

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  • ...This theme embraces the concept of repertoire as the totality of linguistic resources of the individual (Busch, 2012, 2015; Spotti & Blommaert, 2017) and of translanguaging as the individual’s dynamic use of their linguistic resources in different contexts for meaning-making without regard for…...

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  • ...Different resources not only are differentially accessible, but also get ascribed different values and get assessed differently in different spaces, and are connected to emotions, different experiences, power relations, desires (Busch, 2012, 2015) and identities (Spotti, 2007)....

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  • ...With time, its use became more closely associated with a Chomskyan approach to language and often was placed on the same level as ‘competence’, until authors such as Blommaert and Backus (2013), Busch (2012, 2015) and Rymes (2010) took up the concept again....

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Book
13 Sep 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the implications of posthumanism for applied linguistics, in particular the ways we understand language in relation to people, objects, and place, and show how this can be better understood by stepping out of humanist constructs of the individual and the community and looking instead at the notion of distributed language and spatial repertoires.
Abstract: Posthumanism urges us to reconsider what it means to be human. From proclamations about the death of ‘Man’ to investigations into enhanced forms of being, from the advent of the Anthropocene (human-induced planetary change) to new forms of materialism and distributed cognition, posthumanism raises significant questions for applied linguistics in terms of our understandings of language, humans, objects, and agency. After reviewing the broad field of posthumanist thought, this paper investigates—through an overview of a series of recent research projects—the notion of repertoire, to show how this can be better understood by stepping out of the humanist constructs of the individual and the community and looking instead at the notion of distributed language and spatial repertoires. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of posthumanism for applied linguistics, in particular the ways we understand language in relation to people, objects, and place.

125 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that a theory of language must be able to account for all three methods of signaling as they manifest within and across composite utterances and can be viewed as intentionally communicative action involving the specific range of semiotic resources available in situated human interactions.
Abstract: Signers and speakers coordinate a broad range of intentionally expressive actions within the spatiotemporal context of their face-to-face interactions (Parmentier, 1994; Clark, 1996; Johnston, 1996; Kendon, 2004). Varied semiotic repertoires combine in different ways, the details of which are rooted in the interactions occurring in a specific time and place (Goodwin, 2000; Kusters, Spotti, Swanwick & Tapio, 2017). However, intense focus in linguistics on conventionalized symbolic form/meaning pairings (especially those which are arbitrary) has obscured the importance of other semiotics in face-to-face communication. A consequence is that the communicative practices resulting from diverse ways of being (e.g. deaf, hearing) are not easily united into a global theoretical framework. Here we promote a theory of language that accounts for how diverse humans coordinate their semiotic repertoires in face-to-face communication, bringing together evidence from anthropology, semiotics, gesture studies and linguistics. Our aim is to facilitate direct comparison of different communicative ecologies. We build on Clark’s (1996) theory of language use as ‘actioned’ via three methods of signaling: describing, indicating, and depicting. Each method is fundamentally different to the other, and they can be used alone or in combination with others during the joint creation of multimodal ‘composite utterances’ (Enfield, 2009). We argue that a theory of language must be able to account for all three methods of signaling as they manifest within and across composite utterances. From this perspective, language—and not only language use—can be viewed as intentionally communicative action involving the specific range of semiotic resources available in situated human interactions.

94 citations


Cites background from "Expanding the Notion of the Linguis..."

  • ...However, it is important to note that an individual’s repertoire is as much determined by the resources they do not have, as by those they do have (Busch, 2015, p. 14)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Conceptualizations of English as standard, as a lingua franca, or as part of translingual practice form part of the discourses surrounding its use in EMI as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Conceptualizations of English as standard, as a lingua franca, or as part of translingual practice form part of the discourses surrounding its use in EMI. While researchers generally agree that the...

65 citations


Cites background from "Expanding the Notion of the Linguis..."

  • ...CONTACT Maria Kuteeva maria.kuteeva@english.su.se orders of discourse, and ideologies – in which linguistic resources are assessed differently’ (Busch 2012, 520)....

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  • ...Together with the ‘baggage’ of linguistic resources (often conceptualized as languages x, y, and z) and lived experience of language, language ideologies also form part of an individual’s linguistic repertoire (Busch 2012, 2017)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors summarize the research programs of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, which take as their central task the specifications of the jointly constructed actions and courses of action comprising social contexts and thus significantly enhance a usage-based understanding of language.
Abstract: A key insight of a transdisciplinary perspective on second language acquisition (SLA) as articulated by the Douglas Fir Group (2016) is its usage-based understanding of language. Evidence on the fundamental role that usage plays in shaping individual language knowledge is no doubt compelling. However, while the force of social interaction in shaping language knowledge is acknowledged, missing are specifications of the jointly constructed actions and courses of action comprising social contexts of use. Also missing is a reconsideration of key SLA concepts engendered by a usage-based understanding of language. The intent of this paper is to redress these limitations. First, I summarize the research programs of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, which take as their central task the specifications of the jointly constructed actions and courses of action comprising social contexts and thus significantly enhance a usage-based understanding of language. Then, arguing that more suitable conceptual tools are needed to better capture current understandings of language knowledge and objects of L2 learning, I offer repertoire, semiotic resources, and register as alternative terms to competence and grammar. I conclude with a proposal for a Conversation Analysis/Interactional Linguistics-based research program for further advancing understandings of SLA and transforming understandings of L2 pedagogy.

63 citations


Cites background from "Expanding the Notion of the Linguis..."

  • ...It is narrower in that it refers to individual knowledge of resources for communicating rather than to the resources circulating in any one community (Blommaert & Backus, 2011, 2013; Busch, 2012, 2017; Canagarajah & Wurr, 2011; Hall, 2016; Hall et al., 2006; Rymes, 2010)....

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a plan of the present work, from absolute space to abstract space, from the Contradictions of Space to Differential Space, and from Contradictory Space to Social Space.
Abstract: Translatora s Acknowledgements. 1. Plan of the Present Work. 2. Social Space. 3. Spatial Architectonics. 4. From Absolute Space to Abstract Space. 5. Contradictory Space. 6. From the Contradictions of Space to Differential Space. 7. Openings and Conclusions. Afterword by David Harvey. Index.

10,114 citations

Book
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: The Feeling of What Happens as mentioned in this paper is a theory of the nature of consciousness and the construction of the self, which is the feeling of what happens-our mind noticing the body's reaction to the world and responding to that experience.
Abstract: The publication of this book is an event in the making. All over the world scientists, psychologists, and philosophers are waiting to read Antonio Damasio's new theory of the nature of consciousness and the construction of the self. A renowned and revered scientist and clinician, Damasio has spent decades following amnesiacs down hospital corridors, waiting for comatose patients to awaken, and devising ingenious research using PET scans to piece together the great puzzle of consciousness. In his bestselling Descartes' Error, Damasio revealed the critical importance of emotion in the making of reason. Building on this foundation, he now shows how consciousness is created. Consciousness is the feeling of what happens-our mind noticing the body's reaction to the world and responding to that experience. Without our bodies there can be no consciousness, which is at heart a mechanism for survival that engages body, emotion, and mind in the glorious spiral of human life. A hymn to the possibilities of human existence, a magnificent work of ingenious science, a gorgeously written book, The Feeling of What Happens is already being hailed as a classic.

5,154 citations

Book
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: The same intellectual courage with which she addressed issues of gender, Judith Butler turns her attention to speech and conduct in contemporary political life, looking at several efforts to target speech as conduct that has become subject to political debate as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: With the same intellectual courage with which she addressed issues of gender, Judith Butler turns her attention to speech and conduct in contemporary political life, looking at several efforts to target speech as conduct that has become subject to political debate and regulation. Reviewing hate speech regulations, anti-pornography arguments, and recent controversies about gay self-declaration in the military, Judith Butler asks whether and how language acts in each of these cultural sites.

3,971 citations

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01 Jan 1943

3,893 citations