Languages have deep political significance beyond communication: a common language can strengthen cultural bonds and social trust, or it may exacerbate cultural differences and power imbalances. ...Language regimes that emerge from political bargains can centralize power by favoring the language of one ethnolinguistic group, share power by recognizing multiple mother tongues, or neutralize power through the use of a lingua franca. Cultural egoism, communicative efficiency, or collective equality determines the choice. As Amy H. Liu demonstrates, the conditions surrounding the choice of a language regime also have a number of implications for a nation's economy.
Standardizing Diversityexamines the relationship between the distribution of linguistic power and economic growth. Using a newly assembled dataset of all language-in-education policies in Asia from 1945 to 2005 and drawing on fieldwork data from Malaysia and Singapore, Liu shows language regimes that recognize a lingua franca exclusively-or at least above all others-tend to develop social trust, attract foreign investment, and stimulate economic growth. Particularly at high levels of heterogeneity, the recognition of a lingua franca fosters equality and facilitates efficiency. Her findings challenge the prevailing belief that linguistic diversity inhibits economic growth, suggesting instead that governments in even the most ethnically heterogeneous countries have institutional tools to standardize their diversity and to thrive economically.
‘This is a map of the field of critical literacy – drawn with precision and care. Our guide on the journey is a scholar and teacher, political activist and woman warrior of the greatest strength and ...wisdom.’
Alan Luke, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
‘Hilary Janks argues that to critically change the educational system you need to understand the interrelationship between language and power. Her framework of dominance, diversity, access and design constitutes a complete theory of critical literacy, one that explains the successes and failures of past and current educational movements. Her thinking has helped me and the U.S. and Canadian teachers I work with outgrow our very selves as we plan new, more powerful, and more critical ways to change education.’
Jerome C. Harste, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
‘Unlike the biblical prophets, Janks is honoured in her own country, South Africa, for her enormous contribution to language and literacy education in complex linguistic and socio-cultural contexts. As a writer, her special gift is to make the complex accessible in ways that move readers to cry, to laugh, and most of all, to begin or to renew a commitment to critical literacy teaching and research.’
Yvonne Reed, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
‘Readers who know Janks’ ground-breaking work with critical language awareness with teachers and learners in South Africa have been waiting for this book. For those who don’t, now at last there’s an opportunity to learn how to make critical discourse analysis a central part of a pedagogical repertoire for critical literacy. Immediately helpful to teachers, teacher educators and researchers who are concerned with literacy and power, this fabulous book provides a review of key theory, original approaches to text analyses, and illuminating accounts from classrooms. It makes you want to teach. This will become the essential guidebook for language and literacy educators and researchers.’
Barbara Comber, University of South Australia
‘Hilary Janks develops an innovative model of critical literacy which makes a major contribution to the field. You will look at texts in new ways after reading this book. It will transform your understanding of how language works, it will give you new insights into language and politics in South Africa, and it will provide a principled basis for rethinking the teaching of language and literacy in your own context.’
Roz Ivaniĉ, Lancaster University, UK
‘Admirers of Janks’ scholarship will welcome Literacy and Power and recognise its qualities of lucidity, argumentative coherence, courage and compassion. With its organisation around four interdependent themes of domination, access, diversity and design, this book is the best introduction to critical literacies around.’
Terry Locke, University of Waikato, New Zealand
This book traces translation and interpreting practices in the Habsburg Empire’s (1848-1918) administration, courts and diplomatic service, and takes account of the “habitualised” translation carried ...out in everyday life. It then details the flows of translation among the Habsburg crownlands and between these and other European languages, with a special focus on Italian–German exchange. Applying a broad concept of “cultural translation” and working with sociological tools, the book addresses the mechanisms by which translation and interpreting constructs cultures, and delineates a model of the Habsburg Monarchy’s “pluricultural space of communication” that is also applicable to other multilingual settings. German version of the book: http://e-book.fwf.ac.at/o:18
Das Buch befasst sich mit der Übersetzungs- und Dolmetschpraxis der Habsburgermonarchie zwischen 1848 und 1918 in der Verwaltung, bei Gericht, im diplomatischen Dienst und als tägliche Alltagspraxis. Analysiert werden ebenso die Übersetzungsströme zwischen den einzelnen Sprachen der Kronländer und mit Ländern außerhalb der Monarchie; der Fokus dieser Untersuchungen wird schließlich auf die Übersetzungen aus dem Italienischen gelegt. Unter Anwendung des Konzepts der „kulturellen Übersetzung“ und auf Pierre Bourdieu basierender translationsoziologischer Methoden untersucht das Buch die kulturkonstruierenden Mechanismen von Translation und skizziert einen „plurikulturellen Kommunikationsraum der Habsburgermonarchie“, der auch auf andere mehrsprachige Räume anwendbar ist. Deutsche Version des Buches: http://e-book.fwf.ac.at/o:18
English-Only Europe? explores the role of languages in the process of European integration. Languages are central to the development of an integrated Europe. The way in which the European Union deals ...with multilingualism has serious implications for both individual member countries and international relations. In this book, Robert Phillipson considers whether the contemporary expansion of English represents a serious threat to other European languages. After exploring the implications of current policies, Phillipson argues the case for more active language policies to safeguard a multilingual Europe. Drawing on examples of countries with explicit language policies such as Canada and South Africa, the book sets out Phillipson's vision of an inclusive language policy for Europe, and describes how it can be attained.
Recently, in the wake of the Bologna Declaration and similar international initiatives, there has been a rapid increase in the number of university courses and programmes taught through the medium of ...English. Surveys have consistently shown the Nordic countries to be at the forefront of this trend towards English-medium instruction (EMI). In this paper, we discuss the introduction of EMI in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). We present the educational setting and the EMI debate in each of these countries and summarize relevant research findings. We then make some tentative suggestions for the introduction of EMI in higher education in other countries. In particular, we are interested in university language policies and their relevance for the day-to-day work of faculty. We problematize one-size-fits-all university language policies, suggesting that in order for policies to be seen as relevant they need to be flexible enough to take into account disciplinary differences. In this respect, we make some specific suggestions about the content of university language policies and EMI course syllabuses. Here we recommend that university language policies should encourage the discussion of disciplinary literacy goals and require course syllabuses to detail disciplinary-specific language-learning outcomes.
Contents: - On mother and other tongues: language ideology, inequality, and contradiction. - Disparate markets: the uneven resonance of language-medium schooling in the nation. - Advertising in the ...periphery: modes of communication and the production of school value. - An alter voice: questioning the inevitability of the language-medium divide. - In and out of the classroom: a focus on English.
Through an examination of the creation of the first linguistically organized province in India, Odisha, Pritipuspa Mishra explores the ways regional languages came to serve as the most acceptable ...registers of difference in post-colonial India. She argues that rather than disrupting the rise and spread of All-India nationalism, regional linguistic nationalism enabled and deepened the reach of nationalism in provincial India. Yet this positive narrative of the resolution of Indian multilingualism ignores the cost of linguistic division. Examining the case of the Adivasis of Odisha, Mishra shows how regional languages in India have come to occupy a curiously hegemonic position. Her study pushes us to rethink our understanding of the vernacular in India as a powerless medium and acknowledges the institutional power of language, contributing to global debates about linguistic justice and the governance of multilingualism.
Editorial Liddicoat, Anthony J; Kamwangamalu, Nkonko; Leech, Kerry-Taylor
Current issues in language planning,
08/2019, Volume:
20, Issue:
4
Journal Article
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