Notes: Blommaert "Situating Language Rights"

 Notes
Language Rights - language oppression - idealized vs. modes of use
392
"The issue of linguistic rights is couched in the problem of inequality in (and
between) societies ^ a problem of speakers, in which we intend to locate the
role and place of their linguistic resources.4 The problem, it should be underscored,
is primarily a social one, and we need to understand the ways in which
language and inequality must be understood in relation to larger social
patterns and processes."
(Farrell)
English not "killing off other language" - think about speakers vs. what "language is doing"

LRP - Language Rights Paradigm


Language as a resource
 "Instead of ‘languages’ or even linguistically defined language varieties, we
have to see the ‘matter’ of language primarily in terms of socially loaded linguistic
resources, subject to patterns of distribution in society and thus becoming
ingredients of repertoires for speakers."


centering 
orient to--
"imagined groups" - negotiate between communities; mean different things to different ppl - we "construct our groups"
394

state - "dominant" centering institutions - don't control ppls. behavior...but do guide "choices"
Methodologically - SEE what people are doing.

orders of indexicality
speakers...orders of indexicality: p. 393.  situating norms back and forth - language not just signalling, but showing relation to group
economic structure that is real...disrupts "all controlling" institution

Milani:
""In essence, a language ideological approach proposes that “What we think
about language will be related to how we perceive ourselves and eventually how
others perceive us” (Lanza and Woldemarian 2009: 189). This belief system is inter
alia the precipitate of discourses that create indexical links between: (1) perceived
or presumed features, genres, styles or varieties of language; and (2) broader images
of their purported speakers in terms of nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexuality,
aesthetics, morality and so forth (see e.g. Woolard 1998)."


voice and inequality
394
ability to be "heard" - resources that you have access to (speaking out of station)

"Inequality

" would say, is voice understood as the capacity to make oneself ‘heard’ (or
‘read’) in terms of what we have sketched above (cf. Voloshinov 1973; Hymes
1996).Voice is the capacity to engage in socially ‘placeable’communication, to
produce a degree of isomorphism between projected ‘meaning’ (i.e. functionvalue)
and granted ‘meaning’, or in other words, the capacity to produce the
right functions in communication dialogically, by means of creative practice
which develops within a set of constraints""

Problematic but economic opportunity -- 

Heller - language as a skill - commodity; generates economic value - value lies in relationship to economic system
"opportunity"
- marginalization of what?
authenticity
develop language toward corporate enterprise...what DOES language index?
How does that effect everyday language?

475
IDENTITY!!!

Contradiction of language