Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T10:35:07.972Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Stylisations as teacher practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2014

Jürgen Jaspers*
Affiliation:
Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Département de langues et littératures, Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, CP 175, 1050 Brussels, [email protected]

Abstract

Studies on stylised language use have tended to focus on the creative exploitation of linguistic heteroglossia among urban multi-ethnic youth. This article argues that there are good reasons for exploring how such practices can also be initiated by norm-enforcing white adults such as teachers. I report on linguistic ethnographic fieldwork in one mixed-ethnicity class at a Brussels Dutch-medium school and describe how one teacher often produced the creative, stylised language use one usually associates with younger speakers. The analysis emphasizes that while teacher stylisations provided alleviation from the friction between linguistic expectations and the reality of the classroom floor, they were also functional in maintaining the school linguistic policy inasmuch as they typified nonstylised, nonaccented, and standard language use as normal and expected. These findings suggest that stylisations can be closely tuned to linguistic normativity and reproductive of wider patterns of sociolinguistic stratification. (Stylisations, urban heteroglossia, crossing, classroom interaction, Brussels, Dutch, enregisterment)*

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agha, Asif (2005). Voice, footing, enregisterment. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15:3859.Google Scholar
Agha, Asif (2007). Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson-Levitt, Kathryn (2005). The schoolyard gate: Schooling and childhood in global perspective. Journal of Social History 38:9871006.Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan, & Rampton, Ben (2011). Language and superdiversity. Diversities 13:121.Google Scholar
Canagarajah, Suresh (2011). Codemeshing in academic writing: Identifying teachable strategies of translanguaging. The Modern Language Journal 95:401–17.Google Scholar
Ceuleers, Evy (2008). Variable identities in Brussels. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 29:291309.Google Scholar
Chambers, Jack K. (1995). Sociolinguistic theory. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Charalambous, Constadina (2012). ‘Republica de Kubros’: Transgression and collusion in Greek-Cypriot adolescents' classroom silly-talk. Linguistics and Education 23:334–49.Google Scholar
Chun, Elaine (2009). Speaking like Asian immigrants: Intersections of accommodation and mocking at a US high school. Pragmatics 19:1738.Google Scholar
Cook, Vivian (2008). Second language learning and second language teaching. London: Hodder.Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas (2007). Style: Language variation and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creese, Angela, & Blackledge, Adrian (2010). Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for teaching and learning? The Modern Language Journal 94:103–15.Google Scholar
D'Amato, John (1993). Resistance and compliance in minority classrooms. In Jacob, Evelyn & Jordan, Cathie (eds.), Minority education: Anthropological perspectives, 181207. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
De Fina, Anna (2007). Style and stylization in the construction of identities in a card-playing club. In Auer, Peter (ed.), Style and social identities, 5784. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dubberley, William S. (1993). Humor as resistance. In Woods, Peter & Hammersley, Martyn (eds.), Gender and ethnicity in school, 7594. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penny (2000). Linguistic variation as social practice. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ellis, Rod (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Foley, Douglas (1990). Learning capitalist culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
García, Ofelia (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gilroy, Paul, & Lawrence, Errol (1988). Two-tone Britain. In Cohen, Philip & Bains, Harwant S. (eds.), Multiracist Britain, 121–55. Bastingstoke: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1961). Asylums. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1971). Relations in public. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Grahame, Peter R., & Jardine, David W. (1990). Deviance, resistance and play. Curriculum Inquiry 20:283304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica (1995). Language choice, social institutions and symbolic domination. Language in Society 24:373405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica (2010). Paths to post-nationalism: A critical ethnography of language and identity. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hornberger, Nancy, & Link, Holly (2012). Translanguaging and transnational literacies in multilingual classrooms. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 15:261–78.Google Scholar
Jaffe, Alexandra (2008). Language ecologies and the meaning of diversity. In Creese, Angela, Martin, Peter, & Hornberger, Nancy (eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education, 225–35. New York: Springer Science + Business Media LLC.Google Scholar
Jaspers, Jürgen (2005). Linguistic sabotage in a context of monolingualism and standardization. Language and Communication 25:279–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaspers, Jürgen (2011a). Talking like a ‘zerolingual’: Ambiguous linguistic caricatures at an urban secondary school. Journal of Pragmatics 43:1264–78.Google Scholar
Jaspers, Jürgen (2011b). Strange bedfellows: Appropriations of a tainted urban dialect. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15:493524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kearney, Patricia; Plax, Timothy G.; Hays, Ellis R.; & Ivey, Marilyn J. (1991). College teacher misbehaviors. Communication Quarterly 39:309–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kothoff, Helga (2007). The humourous stylization of ‘new’ women and men and conservative others. In Auer, Peter (ed.), Style and social identities, 445–76. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Long, Michael (1983). Linguistic and conversational adjustments to non-native speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 5:177–93.Google Scholar
Macbeth, Douglas (1990). Classroom order as practical action. British Journal of Sociology of Education 11:189214.Google Scholar
Madsen, Lian Malai (2013). ‘High’ and ‘low’ in urban Danish speech styles. Language in Society 42:115–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martín-Rojo, Luisa (2010). Constructing inequality in multilingual classrooms. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Mayer, Diane; Mitchell, Jane; MacDonald, Doune; & Bell, Roslyn (2005). Professional standards for teachers. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 33:159–79.Google Scholar
Menken, Kate, & García, Ofelia (eds.) (2010). Negotiating language policies in schools. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Møller, Janus, & Jørgensen, Jens Normann (2011). Linguistic norms and adult roles in play and serious frames. Linguistics and Education 22:6878.Google Scholar
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2005). Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers: Final report. Online: www.oecd.org/edu/teacherpolicy.Google Scholar
Pérez-Milans, Miguel (2011). Being a Chinese newcomer in Madrid compulsory education. Journal of Pragmatics 43:1005–22.Google Scholar
Piirainen-Marsh, Arja (2011). Irony and the moral order of secondary school classrooms. Linguistics and Education 22:364–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollard, Andrew (1980). Teacher interests and changing situations of survival threat in primary school classrooms. In Woods, Peter (ed.), Teacher strategies, 3460. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben (1995). Crossing. Language and ethnicity among adolescents. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben (2006). Language in late modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben (2009). Interactional ritual and not just artful performance in crossing and stylization. Language in Society 38:149–76.Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben (2010). Speech community. In Jaspers, Jürgen, Östman, Jan-Ola, & Verschueren, Jef (eds.), Society and language use, 274303. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben (2011). From ‘multi-ethnic urban heteroglossia’ to ‘contemporary urban vernaculars’. Language & Communication 31:276–94.Google Scholar
Sene Mongaba, Bienvenue (2013). Le lingála dans l'enseignement des sciences dans les écoles de Kinshasa. Ghent: Ghent University dissertation.Google Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi, & Ochs, Elinor (eds.) (1986). Language socialization across cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Snell, Julia (2010). From sociolinguistic variation to socially strategic stylisation. Journal of Sociolinguistics 14:630–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stebbins, Robert A. (1980). The role of humour in teaching. In Woods, Peter (ed.), Teacher strategies, 8497. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Sylvester, Ruth (2011). Teacher as bully: Knowingly or unintentionally harming students. Morality in Education 77:4245.Google Scholar
Talmy, Steven (2009). Forever FOB? Resisting and reproducing the other in high school ESL. In Reyes, Angela & Lo, Adrienne (eds.), Beyond yellow English, 347–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Willis, Paul (1977). Learning to labour. Farnborough: Saxon House.Google Scholar
Woods, Peter (1983). Coping at school through humour. British Journal of Sociology of Education 4:111–24.Google Scholar
Woods, Peter , & Hammersley, Martyn (eds.) (1977). School experience: Explorations in the sociology of education. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar