At an overarching level this paper attempts to draw attention to emerging trends in the humanities where alternative ways of doing science reconfigure epistemological traditions and research methodologies, the role of intellectuals and their engagement with current conditions of the world, including ways in which scholars gazes are constituted.…

In this article, we take up and expand upon a number of issues of linguistic theory raised in Ursula Ritzau's recent article "Learner language and polylanguaging: how language students' ideologies relate to their written language use" published in the "Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism". The present critique is…

The subject of multilingualism in institutions has long been a central interest in sociolinguistics, and it is worth asking why. The answer lies in the role of institutions in the modern nation state, a point made over and over again by Michel Foucault. Institutions control access to all the resources a state can distribute; it distributes them…

Depending on how one does the math, there are between a quarter-million and a million words in the English language. Of all these words, the author holds in contempt only one. That word is "like"--not the tepid expression of mild appreciation but the parasitic form that now bleeds the mother tongue, marks the user as a dunce, and, were it truly…

Monolingual speakers of a national language continue to be the ideal figures on which national identities and senses of community are built. Yet this longstanding equation between nation and language is being contested by other ideologies. Alternatives are emerging from such disparate social locations as the European Union, now advocating for…

The study of bullshit, what the author calls "taurascatics", has been making a splash of late. It was Harry Frankfurt who tossed the stone: his essay "On Bullshit" came out in "Raritan" in 1986, hit the "New York Times" best-seller list as a book in 1995, and has been adopted, adapted, and criticized across the academy since. The ripples spread…

In this essay Amanda Fulford examines the subject of inter-cultural understanding from two perspectives: first, through considering Naoko Saito's exploration of translation and inter-/intra-cultural understanding, and second, through a discussion of work from the field of literacy studies, in particular the New London Group's "pedagogy of…

As US classrooms approach a decade of response to No Child Left Behind, many questions and concerns remain around the education of those labeled as "English language learners," in both English as a Second Language and bilingual education classrooms. A national policy context where standardized tests dominate curriculum and instruction…

This paper explores Stanley Cavell's notion of "passionate utterance", which acts as an extension of/departure from (we might read it as both) J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Cavell argues that Austin having made the revolutionary discovery that truth claims in language are bound up with how words perform, then gets bogged by convention…

Considers how changes in language usage come about and whether such changes can be identified and examined as they occur in a language, focusing on changes in the English language in past centuries and the present day. (MDM)

Definitions of literacy necessarily express a social relationship between self and other, projecting the way literate members of society wish to relate to those considered illiterate. This essay questions current definitions of the "illiterate other". (Author/LHW)

Discusses four types of doublespeak: euphemism, jargon, bureaucratese, and inflated language. Cites examples of the pervasive use of doublespeak in business, politics, and the military. Asserts that to eliminate doublespeak, English teachers should teach respect for language as well as effective use of language. (MM)

Examines the decline, death, and resurrection of the Cornish language. Looks at 17th and 18th century writings on the subject and at the problems faced in reviving the language, especially in connection with the reconstruction of its phonological and lexical components. Considers the state of Unified Cornish today. (SED)

The arbitrariness of linguistic categories is discussed. Consideration of some other fields of human activity suggests that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true, and it is suggested that the process of grammaticalization might be understood as a kind of ritualization. (57 references) (Author/LB)

Examples from a variety of sources (history texts, newspaper reporting, courts) are used to show that truth telling is commonly subordinated to other goals, especially the self-justification or the profits, power, and prestige of those promoting the lies. (24 references) (Author/LB)