Language Ideologies and Media Discourse: Texts, Practices, Politics

Description

The study of language ideologies has become a key theme in sociolinguistics over the past decade. It is the study of the relationship between representations of language, on the one hand, and broader aesthetic, economic, moral and political concerns, on the other. Research into the particular role played by media discourse in the construction, reproduction and contestation of such ideologies has been widely scattered - this book brings together this emerging field. It considers how, in an era of global communication technologies, the media - by which we understand the press, radio, television, cinema, the internet and multimodal gaming - help to disseminate preferred uses of, and ideas about, language. The book is tightly focussed on the relationship between language ideologies and media discourse, together with the methods and techniques required for the analysis of that relationship. It also places emphasis on television and new-media texts, incorporating and expanding upon recent theoretical insights into visual communication and multimodal discourse analysis. International in scope, this book will also be of interest to students from a wide range of fields including linguistics (particularly sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology), modern languages, education, media studies, communication studies and cultural theory.

Sally Johnson is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at University of Leeds, UK. Tommaso M. Milani is George C. and Jane G. Greer Professor and Head of Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University, USA.

"Language Ideologies and Media Discourse is an excellent collection which demonstrates the complex and multilayered ways in which language value is shaped by both media power and media use, and reciprocally, how media power and media use themselves are entangled at every step with the value-laden nature of language. It joins a growing body of work within sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and discourse analysis devoted to prying apart the always and everywhere socially, politically, historically, and culturally-charged nature of language use and language value. Here we see in bold relief, just how language choices, linguistic registers, discursive idioms, and linguistic labels across a range of media (e.g. television, newspapers, radio, Internet, and computer games) have consequences for national, ethnic, and global affiliations, as well as the very tenor of people's affective encounters with media technologies." -Debra Spitulnik, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Emory University, USA English-speaking academics in the field of language ideologies will appreciate it and feel familiar with many of these topics ... [M]any contributions can open doors for the study of the social dynamics of cultures and ideologies. -- Yves Laberge, Affiliate Researcher, Equipe FQRSC, and member of the Centre institutionnel de recherche en education, environnement, ecocitoyennete, UQAM, Canada * Discourse & Communication *