Language and globalization
01 Dec 2007-Vol. 19, Iss: 28, pp 140-149
About: The article was published on 2007-12-01 and is currently open access. It has received 231 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Globalization.
Citations
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TL;DR: The authors argue that No Child Left Behind and other education reforms promoting high-stakes testing, accountability, and competitive markets continue to receive wide support from politicians and public figures, and educators need to question whether neoliberal approaches to education should replace the previously dominant social democratic approaches.
Abstract: No Child Left Behind and other education reforms promoting high-stakes testing, accountability, and competitive markets continue to receive wide support from politicians and public figures. This support, the author suggests, has been achieved by situating education within neoliberal policies that argue that such reforms are necessary within an increasingly globalized economy, will increase academic achievement, and will close the achievement gap. However, the author offers preliminary data suggesting that the reforms are not achieving their stated goals. Consequently, educators need to question whether neoliberal approaches to education should replace the previously dominant social democratic approaches.
549 citations
Cites background from "Language and globalization"
...Similarly, Fairclough (2003) demonstrated how globalization discourse represents global economic change as inevitable,...
[...]
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
TL;DR: In this paper, the formation of the cosmopolitanized nations' as a facet of world risk society is investigated, with a particular focus on competing conceptions of the future, and how these cosmopolitan transformations of nationhood are taking place in the context of the emergence of a global risk society regime that marshalls a set of cosmopolitan imperatives situating the global other in our midst.
Abstract: Cosmopolitan sociology has tackled broad themes like risk, family, religion, power, war, inequality, memory, and civil society movements exploring their reconfiguration in the global age. Tellingly, the concept of the national is often perceived, both in public and scientific discourse as the central obstacle for the realization of cosmopolitan orientations. Consequently, debates about the nation tend to revolve around its persistence or its demise. We depart from this either-or perspective by investigating the formation of the cosmopolitanized nations' as a facet of world risk society. This re-imagination of nationhood evolves, among other things, in the context of global norms (e.g. human rights), globalized markets, transnational migrations and embeddedness in international organizations. Here we focus on a mechanism involving the promulgation of 'risk societies'. Modern collectivities are increasingly preoccupied with debating, preventing and managing risks. However, unlike earlier manifestations of risk characterized by daring actions or predictability models, global risks cannot be calculated or forecast anymore. Accordingly, more influence accrues to the perception of risk, largely constructed by media representations of disasters. In a first step we distinguish between a normative cosmopolitanism and analytic cosmopolitization processes. The cosmopolitanized nations, we argue, reflect a new mode of collective identification, whereby we differentiate between presumptions of thick belonging and the actual proliferation of cosmopolitan affiliations. This leads to a gradual distinction between a conventional (and naturalized) view of the national and an emerging figuration of cosmopolitan nationhood. In a second step we overcome the territorial fixation of the social sciences by shifting our attention to temporal dimensions, with a particular focus on competing conceptions of the future. Our findings suggest that cosmopolitanized nations are reimagined through the anticipation of endangered futures. In a third step we demonstrate how these cosmopolitan transformations of nationhood are taking place in the context of the emergence of a world risk society regime that marshalls a set of cosmopolitan imperatives situating the global other in our midst. In a fourth step we illustrate these developments by exploring how the mediatization of risk, and concomitant notions of the future contribute to the re-imagination of cosmopolitan risk collectivities.
186 citations
Cites background from "Language and globalization"
...Research shows that global media images are recontextualized through national broadcasting frames (Clausen, 2003) and their consumption is prefigured by national cultural inflections (Fairclough, 2006)....
[...]
...At the beginning of the 21st century we are witness to several (partly concentric) circles of real existing cosmopolitanization which may, or may not, culminate in the internalization and emergence of cosmopolitanism....
[...]
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the emergence of transnational crises and threats such as the Muhammad cartoons controversy, the avian flu epidemic and climate change, call for new ways of analysing news.
Abstract: In this article, I argue that the emergence of transnational crises and threats such as the Muhammad cartoons controversy, the avian flu epidemic and climate change, call for new ways of analysing news. The point of departure is that news media content seems to be becoming more and more deterritorialised, involving complex relations and flows across national borders and continents. In a globalising world, news on politics, ecological processes, agriculture etc. could thus become endowed with a global outlook on social reality, something which has by tradition only been associated with financial news. Even if it seems difficult to estimate more exactly the extent to which everyday news media content has become global, the indications are that it has become harder to categorise news texts as either solely domestic or foreign news. This, in turn, argues for the potential usefulness of the concept of global journalism, which transgresses and transcends the traditional domestic-foreign dichotomy. In news media...
176 citations
Cites background from "Language and globalization"
...The lack of empirical studies ought to have to do with the fact that, even if there is research on globalisation and the language of news (Fairclough, 2006; van Ginneken, 2005), there is no elaborated definition of global journalism as a news style which could be applied to empirical materials....
[...]
TL;DR: In this article, an approach to democratization that de-emphasises authoritative formal institutions, and instead operates in the more informal realm of the engagement and contestation of discourses in global public spheres is presented.
Abstract: The global governance of climate change represents one of the more profound and, to date, intractable sets of problems confronting humanity. Legitimacy, accountability, fairness, and representation matter as well as effectiveness. In the absence of effective centralised authority, these democratic norms need to be sought in a polycentric context. An approach to democratisation is advanced that de-emphasises authoritative formal institutions, and instead operates in the more informal realm of the engagement and contestation of discourses in global public spheres. Democracy here is conceptualised not in terms of elections and constitutions, but in aspirations for inclusive, competent, and dispersed reflexive capacity. Based on empirical analysis of discursive engagement in several structured settings, key challenges for improving the democratic quality of global climate governance are assessed.
123 citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: The authors argue that No Child Left Behind and other education reforms promoting high-stakes testing, accountability, and competitive markets continue to receive wide support from politicians and public figures, and educators need to question whether neoliberal approaches to education should replace the previously dominant social democratic approaches.
Abstract: No Child Left Behind and other education reforms promoting high-stakes testing, accountability, and competitive markets continue to receive wide support from politicians and public figures. This support, the author suggests, has been achieved by situating education within neoliberal policies that argue that such reforms are necessary within an increasingly globalized economy, will increase academic achievement, and will close the achievement gap. However, the author offers preliminary data suggesting that the reforms are not achieving their stated goals. Consequently, educators need to question whether neoliberal approaches to education should replace the previously dominant social democratic approaches.
549 citations
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
TL;DR: In this paper, the formation of the cosmopolitanized nations' as a facet of world risk society is investigated, with a particular focus on competing conceptions of the future, and how these cosmopolitan transformations of nationhood are taking place in the context of the emergence of a global risk society regime that marshalls a set of cosmopolitan imperatives situating the global other in our midst.
Abstract: Cosmopolitan sociology has tackled broad themes like risk, family, religion, power, war, inequality, memory, and civil society movements exploring their reconfiguration in the global age. Tellingly, the concept of the national is often perceived, both in public and scientific discourse as the central obstacle for the realization of cosmopolitan orientations. Consequently, debates about the nation tend to revolve around its persistence or its demise. We depart from this either-or perspective by investigating the formation of the cosmopolitanized nations' as a facet of world risk society. This re-imagination of nationhood evolves, among other things, in the context of global norms (e.g. human rights), globalized markets, transnational migrations and embeddedness in international organizations. Here we focus on a mechanism involving the promulgation of 'risk societies'. Modern collectivities are increasingly preoccupied with debating, preventing and managing risks. However, unlike earlier manifestations of risk characterized by daring actions or predictability models, global risks cannot be calculated or forecast anymore. Accordingly, more influence accrues to the perception of risk, largely constructed by media representations of disasters. In a first step we distinguish between a normative cosmopolitanism and analytic cosmopolitization processes. The cosmopolitanized nations, we argue, reflect a new mode of collective identification, whereby we differentiate between presumptions of thick belonging and the actual proliferation of cosmopolitan affiliations. This leads to a gradual distinction between a conventional (and naturalized) view of the national and an emerging figuration of cosmopolitan nationhood. In a second step we overcome the territorial fixation of the social sciences by shifting our attention to temporal dimensions, with a particular focus on competing conceptions of the future. Our findings suggest that cosmopolitanized nations are reimagined through the anticipation of endangered futures. In a third step we demonstrate how these cosmopolitan transformations of nationhood are taking place in the context of the emergence of a world risk society regime that marshalls a set of cosmopolitan imperatives situating the global other in our midst. In a fourth step we illustrate these developments by exploring how the mediatization of risk, and concomitant notions of the future contribute to the re-imagination of cosmopolitan risk collectivities.
186 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the emergence of transnational crises and threats such as the Muhammad cartoons controversy, the avian flu epidemic and climate change, call for new ways of analysing news.
Abstract: In this article, I argue that the emergence of transnational crises and threats such as the Muhammad cartoons controversy, the avian flu epidemic and climate change, call for new ways of analysing news. The point of departure is that news media content seems to be becoming more and more deterritorialised, involving complex relations and flows across national borders and continents. In a globalising world, news on politics, ecological processes, agriculture etc. could thus become endowed with a global outlook on social reality, something which has by tradition only been associated with financial news. Even if it seems difficult to estimate more exactly the extent to which everyday news media content has become global, the indications are that it has become harder to categorise news texts as either solely domestic or foreign news. This, in turn, argues for the potential usefulness of the concept of global journalism, which transgresses and transcends the traditional domestic-foreign dichotomy. In news media...
176 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an approach to democratization that de-emphasises authoritative formal institutions, and instead operates in the more informal realm of the engagement and contestation of discourses in global public spheres is presented.
Abstract: The global governance of climate change represents one of the more profound and, to date, intractable sets of problems confronting humanity. Legitimacy, accountability, fairness, and representation matter as well as effectiveness. In the absence of effective centralised authority, these democratic norms need to be sought in a polycentric context. An approach to democratisation is advanced that de-emphasises authoritative formal institutions, and instead operates in the more informal realm of the engagement and contestation of discourses in global public spheres. Democracy here is conceptualised not in terms of elections and constitutions, but in aspirations for inclusive, competent, and dispersed reflexive capacity. Based on empirical analysis of discursive engagement in several structured settings, key challenges for improving the democratic quality of global climate governance are assessed.
123 citations