Lionel Wee

Language without rights

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1. Introduction 2. On Boundary Marking 3. Language and Ethnic Minority Rights 4. Beyond Ethnic Minorities 5. Ethnic Diversity and Nationalism 6. Migration and Global Mobility 7. Language Education and Communication in the Workplace 8. Language, Justice, and the Deliberative Democratic Way 9. Culture Without Rights? BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

Personal Branding and the Commodification of Reflexivity

Reflexivity as a concept has produced theoretical debates which have explored the relationship of social actors to agency and identity. Less attention has been paid to reflexivity as a commodity, that is, to the forms of reflexivity that different actors display and to the appropriateness of these forms. Actors who display appropriate forms of reflexivity are likely to be treated differently from actors who do not display such forms, thus resulting in a differential distribution of agency. It is increasingly apparent that reflexivity is a desired commodity which is not available to everyone. In other words, reflexivity as commodity implicates reflexivity as cultural capital. This article explores these issues through an analysis of personal branding and considers how reflexivity and personal branding are in fact emergent from cultural production.

Language policy and nationalist ideology: Statal narratives in Singapore

Abstract In this paper, we aim to anticipate a potential challenge to Singapore’s language policy, which privileges a distinction between Asian ‘mother tongues’ on the one hand and English on the other. The challenge to this policy will arise as Singapore embarks on a foreign talent policy, where the goal is to ultimately attract talented foreigners to take up Singaporean citizenship. This other policy, if successful, could drastically change the nation’s demographics, making it difficult to maintain a language policy that dichotomizes Asian and Western languages. Because policies do not occur in isolation, but are legitimized by appeals to nationalist ideologies, we make use of a framework that treats such ideologies as institutional narratives. By paying attention to how the semiotic processes of iconization, recursiveness, and erasure are manifested in such narratives, we show how Singapore’s language policy may have to change ‒ and its accompanying narrative be modified ‒ in the light of the foreign talent policy.

Anxiety and Identity in the Language Classroom

While ELT has long recognized the need to address student anxiety in language learning situations, it has all too often assumed that such anxiety is primarily competence-based. Consequently, there has been insufficient recognition of the fact that identity-based anxiety, too, can have significant effects on language learning in the classroom. In this paper, we discuss some examples of identity-based anxiety, and argue that it requires a different approach to language teaching. We propose one such possible approach, which we call ‘double-crossing’.

Proper names and the theory of metaphor

Metaphorical expressions involving proper names have been discussed only sporadically. This paper demonstrates that there are in fact interesting things to be said about such metaphors, and makes two key points, one general and one specific. The general point is that their behavior accords more with the class-inclusion model of metaphor than the correspondence model. Having established this, I make the more specific point that there are cultural dimensions to these metaphors that pose particular problems for the kind of correspondence model proposed by Lakoff and his associates.

Neoliberalism and the regulation of consumers: legalizing casinos in Singapore

Singapores recent decision to legalize casinos raises questions such as the following: (i) How does the state address the relationship between the neoliberal values that rationalize the legalization of casinos, on the one hand, and the more locally established ideologies of pragmatism, communitarianism, and multiracialism, on the other? (ii) And since the state wants to encourage gambling among foreigners but not locals, how does it employ techniques of governing – such as the demarcation of zones and subject categories – to regulate gambling? To answer these questions, this paper analyzes a major speech by the prime minister where he discusses the decision to legalize casinos. By focussing on the stances adopted in the speech, the paper shows how the state attempts to allocate responsibility for the various potential implications of legalizing casinos.

Linguistic Human Rights and Mobility

The Linguistic Human Rights (LHRs) paradigm is motivated by the desire to combat linguistic discrimination, where speakers of discriminated languages find themselves unable to use their preferred language in society at large. However, in an increasingly globalised world where speakers may feel the need or the desire to travel across state boundaries, there is a question about the transposability of LHRs. This paper first considers the human rights discourse, and shows that problems in this discourse are inherited by and exacerbated in the LHRs paradigm, in no small part because its conception of language draws on an ideology of monolingualism. But since a world of mobile humans is one that is fundamentally plurilingual, what is therefore needed is a greater emphasis on the notion of a social language, which provides a more robust understanding of the nature of language, especially in a world where people tend to move around a lot.

Language politics and global city

The state in Singapore has long insisted that Singaporeans be bilingual in English and an officially assigned ethnic mother tongue. English is to serve as the inter-ethnic lingua franca and facilitate economic competitiveness. The official mother tongue (Mandarin for the Chinese, Malay for the Malays, and Tamil for the Indians) is to serve as a cultural anchor for all the members of its associated ethnic group. Singapores recent desire to establish itself as a global city, however, means that the social and linguistic order that the state has constructed on the basis of historically inherited ethnolinguistic affiliations and boundaries has to come to terms with a society that is opening up economically, culturally, and politically. The relationship between language and (ethnic) identity needs to be broadened so as to accommodate more diverse ethnolinguistic experiences. In this paper, I suggest that modernist assumptions informing Singapores language policy need to be re-evaluated as the country attempts to re-invent itself as a global city, focusing on the implications for language education. I argue that citizenship as a form of reflexive defensive engagement is particularly useful if we are to comprehensively situate the complex state–society negotiations that characterize the politics of language in Singapore.

Neutrality in language policy

Abstract The unavoidability of language makes it critical that language policies appeal to some notion of language neutrality as part of their rationale, in order to assuage concerns that the policies might otherwise be unduly discriminatory. However, the idea of language neutrality is deeply ideological in nature, since it is not only an attempt to treat language itself as a homogenous entity, but also the group of speakers (typically understood as the ethnic group or the nation) for whom the language represents some policy-related concern. This paper suggests, via the examination of specific examples, various dimensions of language neutrality that might be worth attending to, if we are to gain a better appreciation of how the notion is applied in language policy. In particular, it is suggested that it is useful to consider language neutrality in terms of two dimensions: that of substance (neutrality regarding which language, what kind of neutrality, and for which group[s]?), and stance (neutrality according to whom and why?).

Introduction: Political Economies of Literacy in Multilingual South-east Asia

The paradigm shift from viewing literacy as a technological tool to one where it is treated as a form of social practice (cf. Street, 1984) allows for the recognition of (1) the role of literacy in the mediation of social change and (2) the effect of social changes on the nature of literacy. As a set of practices ‘embedded in political relations, ideological practices and symbolic meaning structures’ (Rockhill, 1993: 162), literacy in one or more languages is one prime semiotic means by which social orders are constituted, represented and transformed. One topical area of interest therefore concerns the role that literacy plays as a site of contestation, where the acquisition of different literacies in different languages is an important arena for the constitution and distribution of, and access to, social, economic and cultural capital. Investigations into this area can also serve to reveal how everyday interactions and perceptions of literacy are related to the sociolinguistic positioning of the speaker, as for individual speakers (and their communities) literacy may well be available as a resource for the management of identity. That is, individuals position self and other variably with respect to, and by means of, different literacies. However, the practice, representation and ‘sponsorship’ (Brandt, 1995, 2001) of literacy are clearly contingent upon the specific sociopolitical context. From having been considered a moral right and imperative historically, literacy today in many societies is a capital investment and a force in production. With changing societal functions, transformations and shifts follow in the institutions that grant access to literacy and in the way literacy is socialised. For example, it is arguably the case that the importance of the church, family and school for earlier literacy socialisation is rapidly being superseded by the sponsorship of corporate and private institutions. As a result, the learning of literacy practices is either highly dependent upon the individual’s position in the production process, or a by-product of consumerism, thus blurring the boundaries between learning and consuming (Brandt, 2001). One consequence of this is that the meanings and functions of locally situated literacies are often hegemonically reinterpreted in terms of economies of value (Blommaert, 2003). As a result of globalisation processes, literacy