Area of Interest: Language ideology
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September 2024: English Is Not Thriving Everywhere
This Spotlight is contributed by Language, Culture and Justice Hub coordinator Leigh Swigart. It has become a commonplace to characterize English as the language of globalization, the contemporary sine qua non of international business, international education (see Rosemary Salomone’s May 2024 Spotlight), international law (see Leigh Swigart’s December 2022 Spotlight), international diplomacy, and more. English…
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June 2024: Colonialingualism
This month’s feature comes from critical sociolinguist and Hub member Paul J. Meighan. His text introduces us to the notion of “colonialingualism,” which Paul developed in his 2022 article entitled “Colonialingualism: colonial legacies, imperial mindsets, and inequitable practices in English language education.” The languages implemented in mainstream education predominantly reflect the knowledge and belief systems…
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February 2024: Considering Language about “the Conflict”
As the world remains transfixed by daily news reports about the ongoing conflict involving Israel and Palestine, playing out largely in Gaza, some observers have directed attention to how events are being verbally described in the English-language press. It would appear that a war of actions is being bolstered by a war of words.
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December 2021: “Securing the Borders of English and Whiteness”
Brass ‘White Australia’ protection badge, 1906. Image credit: National Museum of Australia This month’s Spotlight features a recently published commentary from Language on the Move (LOTM), a peer-reviewed sociolinguistics research site devoted to multilingualism, language learning, and intercultural communication in the contexts of globalization and migration. It was prepared by Ingrid Piller, LOTM editor and Distinguished Professor…
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March 2021: “How International War Law Makes Violence Legal: A Case Study of the Rome Statute”
This month’s Spotlight was contributed by Annabelle Lukin, Associate Professor of Linguistics at Macquarie University. For many years, she has studied language ideologies around war and violence. She comments here on her recently published article analyzing the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute. The standard narrative about the history of international war law is that it has…
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December 2020: “Language, Culture and Justice Hub celebrates inaugural event”
Thanks to the 120 persons who recently participated in Rights, Rules and Rhetoric: Exploring Language for and about Migrants in Australia, Europe and North America. This was the first public program sponsored by Brandeis University’s Language, Culture and Justice Hub, with conveners hailing from the three continents. Participants logged on from 19 countries across the globe, including several…
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May 2020: “Lawyers Need to Know More About Language”
This article was originally published on 18 July 2019 at Language on the Move, a peer-reviewed sociolinguistics research site devoted to multilingualism, language learning and intercultural communication in the contexts of globalization and migration. It was authored by Hub members Laura Smith-Khan and Alexandra Grey. It discusses presentations made at the most recent Biennial Conference of the International Association of Forensic…
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December 2019: ‘Race, Language and Belonging: How Just is our Listening?’
A recent talk by University of Toronto scholar Vijay Ramjattan delves into the field of raciolinguistics, which examines how language is used to construct race and how ideas of race influence language and language use, especially in relation to racialized subjects. Scholars Nelson Flores (University of Pennsylvania) and Jonathan Rosa (Stanford University) coined the term “raciolinguistic ideologies”…
