This colloquium interrogates the production, dissemination and uptake of sociolinguistic ideas, and the processes through which they are entextualized. The papers included engage with the ways in which such ideas are forged,... [ view full abstract ]
This colloquium interrogates the production, dissemination and uptake of sociolinguistic ideas, and the processes through which they are entextualized. The papers included engage with the ways in which such ideas are forged, enter into circulation, possibly go viral, and become tied to various interests. Particularly, the colloquium discusses how and why concepts like ‘polylingual,’ ‘metrolingualism,’ ‘translanguaging,’ ‘semilingualism,’ ‘plain language,’ and ‘intercultural communication’ have gained legitimacy and purchase in scholarship and, occasionally, in other sectors of society. Engaging broadly with the history of ideas, the colloquium centres on how scientific knowledge can give rise to concepts, capable of emigrating from the spaces where they were formulated to materialize eventually as institutional regimes (see Foucault 1972, 137ff.). Adding sociological rigor to the study of such processes, we adopt Bourdieu’s (e.g. 1990) pivotal concept of fields to compute ‘spaces’ as arenas of discursive exchange and struggle, populated by agents with particular interests and agendas. This lens underscores that the research enterprise involves struggles over classification, and that the ideas over which struggles are waged are likewise laden with value and interests. By targeting such exchanges, the colloquium inexorably taps into the shifting visions of morality and justice that underwrite much of sociolinguistic thinking. The lens opted for also provides a means for examining the proliferation of ideas within and across fields, for instance, from the academic field to the bureaucratic or legislative field, and vice versa. Thus, the matter at issue is not to decide whether certain concepts are ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ ‘accurate or inaccurate,’ ‘effective’ or ‘ineffective,’ but rather to understand the social processes through which ideas gain salience and legitimacy in sociolinguistics and beyond. By treating the sociolinguistic conceptual inventory accordingly, paraphrasing Bourdieu (1990), we hope to advance a reflexive sociolinguistics, capable of understanding the social life and afterlife of its own ideas. In this vein, the colloquium seeks to create a vantage point for capturing sociolinguistic knowledge production and its effects.
References
Bourdieu, P. 1990. In Other Words. Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity.
Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge. And the Discourse on Language. London: Tavistock.
