Transcript Multilingualism and language policy/ policing

Jan Blommaert
Tilburg University
THE POINT
New communicative environments offer ‘free
spaces’: no established rules
 Yet we see instant creation of codes, norms,
stable patterns
 Raise questions of ‘global’, ‘local’, ‘authentic’
 Two directions:
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 Super-vernacularization
 Deglobalization
SUPER-VERNACULARIZATION
Globalization creates supergroups
 Through new communication technologies
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 Long-distance
online networks
 New large-scale communities
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Communities develop new vernaculars
 Based
on existing resources: English, standard
literacy
 Cf pidginization, creolization
 But superfast, literate and NORMATIVE
SMS AND CHAT CODE
Late 1990s: emergence of mobile phone +
chat systems as everyday commodity
 Large constituencies engage in new forms of
communication
 Speed + (initially) cost + keyboard structure
(mobile phones)
 Emergence of global ‘code’ based on English
and orthography
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@
2
4
8
B
C
U
Thx
Msg
Tmrw/2mrw
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At
To, too
For
Eight-ate-ait
Be
See
you
Thanks
Message
tomorrow
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Nth
Sth
Grz
Bck
Btr
wry
Fwd
,  etc
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Nothing
Something
Greetings
Back
Better
worry
forward
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Conventional morphosyntax
 B4
(‘before’)
 Ur (‘your’)
 Mayb (‘maybe’)
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The famous 8
 L8
(‘late’)
 W8 (‘wait’)
 W8 (‘weight’)
 I 8 (‘I ate’)
A NEW GLOBAL VERNACULAR
Lookin fwd 2 c u @ urs @ 4 
 NORMATIVE:
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 Looking
fwd 2 s u @ urs @ 4 
NOT anything goes
 But strictly norm-governed
 Defines genres, styles, topics, identities (like
any sociolinguistic variety)
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DEGLOBALIZATION
Supervernaculars brought into strictly local
economy of meaning
 Blending of resources: global code + local
‘accent’
 Global becomes hermetic/local group code
 Co-existing with supervernacular proper
 Dialects of the supervernacular
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DUTCH COLLOQUIALIZATION
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8 = ‘acht’ (‘eight’)
W8 = ‘wacht’ (‘wait’)
 W817= ‘wacht eens even’ (w-acht een-zeven, ‘wait-oneseven’) = ‘wait a moment’
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Kganete = ‘ik ga eten’ (‘I go to eat’); Kweni = ‘ik
weet niet’ (‘I don’t know’); kw1 = ‘ik ween’ (I’m
crying’)
Colloquial variety projected onto sms/chat code
 Affordances of code deployed for strictly local/regional
writing
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FINNISH HETEROGRAPHY
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Lavli! Til tumorou ten!
 Lovely!
Til tomorrow then!
Sii juu! (see you! Cu!)
 Häv ö seif flait tu joor nyy houm, Phaia! :-*
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 Have
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a safe flight to your new home, Piia! :-*
Häpi bööffei! 
 Happy
birthday 
Global English blended with (a) Finnish accent
and (b) Finnish orthographic norms
 Outcome: in-group code, ‘localized’ within a
globalized Finnish community
 A dialect of a supervernacular
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BROADENING UP
Same phenomenon in ALL forms of
sociolinguistic globalization
 Global supervernaculars blended with local
‘accent’, leading to dialects of supervernacular
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‘
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SPEECH COMMUNITIES?
Super-vernaculars create and sustain superspeech communities
 Indexical orders shared even if common
linguistic orders are distorted
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 Global
orders: SMS/chat codes, English, literacy
conventions: resources offering multiple
AFFORDANCES
 Local orders can be blended with them: one
particular affordance of the supervernacular is
deglobalization
‘AUTHENTIC’ SPEECH COMMUNITIES?
The potential to localize global resources
expands the scope of ‘authenticity’
 E.g. HipHop: global template of HipHop enables
new discourses & semiotizations of authenticity
 Global stuff makes it globally recognizable as
HipHop; local stuff makes it locally significant
 Speech communities organized around
indexicals of authenticity (not locality)
 Authenticity as the ultimate norm?
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CONCLUSION: MICROPOLITICS
In open, non-predefined spaces, norms and
conventions are created rapidly and spread
effectively, forming new vernaculars
 Reason: communication requires recognizability of
code as basis for understanding
 Emergent normativity = emergent culture within a
superdiverse context
 Focused on authenticity
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[email protected]
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The Sociolinguistics of Globalization.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010