46 min listen
Language Makes the Place
ratings:
Length:
55 minutes
Released:
Feb 18, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Ingrid Piller speaks with Adam Jaworski about his research in language and mobility.
Adam is best known for his work on “linguascaping” – how languages, or bits of languages, are used to stylize a place. A welcome sign may index a tourist destination, artistic arrangements of word blocks like “love”, “peace”, or “joy” may index consumption and leisure spaces, multilingual signage may index a cosmopolitan space, and the absence of language may suggest the quiet luxury of the super-rich.
As these examples suggest, Adam’s focus, often in collaboration with his colleague Crispin Thurlow, has been on privileged mobilities: European tourists in West Africa, business class travelers, and those frequenting the consumption temples of our time, upmarket shopping malls.
Such research is vital to understanding the intersection between language and inequality, as Adam explains in our interview. Privilege is the other side of the inequality coin, and a side that sociolinguists have often neglected.
First published on January 17, 2022.
“Chats in Linguistic Diversity” is a podcast about linguistic diversity in social life brought to you by the Language on the Move team. We explore multilingualism, language learning, and intercultural communication in the contexts of globalization and migration.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language
Adam is best known for his work on “linguascaping” – how languages, or bits of languages, are used to stylize a place. A welcome sign may index a tourist destination, artistic arrangements of word blocks like “love”, “peace”, or “joy” may index consumption and leisure spaces, multilingual signage may index a cosmopolitan space, and the absence of language may suggest the quiet luxury of the super-rich.
As these examples suggest, Adam’s focus, often in collaboration with his colleague Crispin Thurlow, has been on privileged mobilities: European tourists in West Africa, business class travelers, and those frequenting the consumption temples of our time, upmarket shopping malls.
Such research is vital to understanding the intersection between language and inequality, as Adam explains in our interview. Privilege is the other side of the inequality coin, and a side that sociolinguists have often neglected.
First published on January 17, 2022.
“Chats in Linguistic Diversity” is a podcast about linguistic diversity in social life brought to you by the Language on the Move team. We explore multilingualism, language learning, and intercultural communication in the contexts of globalization and migration.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language
Released:
Feb 18, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Julie Sedivy and Greg Carlson, “Sold on Language: How Advertisers Talk to You and What This Says About You” (Wiley, 2011): We’ve never been in a more crowded marketplace, with more corporations shouting for our attention and custom. Yet this choice is an illusion, as detailed in Sold on Language: How Advertisers Talk to You and What This Says About You (Wiley, 2011). by New Books in Language