Language As Commodity (eBook, PDF)

Global Structures, Local Marketplaces
Redaktion: Rubdy, Rani; Tan, Peter

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Throughout human history, languages have been in competition with each other. As the world becomes more globalized, this trend increases. It affects the decision-making of those in positions of power and determines macro language policies and planning. Often decisions about language (or dialects or language variety) are related to usefulness - defined in terms of their pragmatic and commercial currency or their value as symbols of socio-cultural identity. Languages can be modes of entry into coveted social hierarchies or strongholds of religious, historical, technological and political power bases. Languages are seen now as commodities that carry different values in an era of globalization.
This volume engages with language policies and positions in relation to the roles and functions these languages adopt. It examines the 'value' of languages, defined in terms of the power they have in the global marketplace as much as within the complex matrices of the local socio-politics. These valuations strongly underpin the various motivations that influence policy-making decisions, and in turn, these motivations create the tensions that characterize many language-related issues; tensions that arise when languages become commodified.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 248
• Erscheinungstermin: 21. September 2008
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781441123985
• Artikelnr.: 38301876

Autorenporträt

Rani Rubdy is at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Peter Tan is at the Department of English Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore, Singapore.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction
Peter KW Tan (National University of Singapore
Singapore) and Rani Rudby (National Institute of Education
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore) 1. Dimensions of Globalization and Applied Linguistics
Paul Bruthiaux (Nanyang Technological University
Singapore) 2. Linguistic Instrumentalism in Singapore
Lionel Wee (National University of Singapore
Singapore) 3. The Commodification of Malay: trading in futures
Lubna Alsagoff (National Institute of Education
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore) 4. Beyond Linguistic Instrumentalism: the place of Singlish in Singapore
Huan Hoon Chng (National University of Singapore
Singapore) 5. Linguistic Pragmatism and Globalization in Singaporean Chinese homes
Bee Chin Ng (Nanyang Technological University
Singapore) 6. Anatomies of Linguistic Commodification
T Ruanni F Tupas (National University of Singapore
Singapore) 7. The English language as a commodity in Malaysia: The view through the medium-of-instruction debate
Peter K W Tan (National University of Singapore
Singapore) 8. English in India: the privilege and privileging of social class
Rani Rubdy (Nanyang Technological University
Singapore) 9. Negotiating language value in multilingual China
Agnes Lam and Wenfeng Wang (University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong) 10. Language Policy
Vernacular Education and Language Economics in postcolonial Africa
Nkonko Kamwangamalu (Howard University
Washington D.C.
USA) 11. On the Appropriateness of the Metaphor of LOSS
David Block (University of London
UK) 12. The commoditization of English and the Bologna Process: Global products and services
exchange mechanisms and trans-national labour
Jinghe Han (University of Western Sydney
Australia) & Michael Singh (University of Western Sydney
Australia) Index