The communal creation of religious meaning is here examined in the context of an Irish Catholic Charismatic prayer meeting. Through a micro-analysis of the “spontaneous” ritual language of one such meeting, various discursive strategies are revealed which function to create for the participants an experience of divine/human communication. These include an explicit effort on the part of speakers to construct a thematically consistent and coherent ritual event out of a sequence of apparently spontaneous individual speech acts, as well as a marked use of evidentials to attribute spiritual authorship and authority to personal speech acts. In contrast to what has been suggested as the self-evident nature of ritual speech, the frequent use of evidentials is related to the relatively recent emergence of the movement, its ideology, and its emphasis on the personal narrative as the central form of religious discourse. (Ritual language, evidentials, Catholic religion, charismatic religion, religious movements, authority in discourse)

Metaphorical statements about speech are shown to embody implicitly certain indigenously named semantic dimensions. Hayas use these dimensions to conceive of and evaluate their own speech behavior. The dimensions are specified first through indigenous literal statements about speech, then through one-word metaphors applied to speech, and finally through ten proverbs about speech interactions that link metaphorically a named category of speech act with the alimentary act of expelling a flatus. (Metaphor, humor, componential analysis, folklore, proverbs, speech acts, ethnography of communication.)

The adoption of English as the official language of the transnational Ismaili Muslim community has its roots in the British Raj, which provides the backdrop for recent Ismaili history. Yet it is the Aga Khan IV, spiritual leader of the community since 1957, who has most avidly pushed English as part of a ‘language policy’. Drawing on Ismaili discourse published online, historical sources, secondary literature, and data collected during ethnographic fieldwork in Northern Pakistan and Eastern Tajikistan, this article addresses how English emerged as the community's official language, how and why it was made integral to the community's transnational infrastructure, and what English means to Ismailis living in a village in Hunza, Northern Pakistan and the city of Khorog, Eastern Tajikistan. It thereby underscores that identity and infrastructure emerge as entangled, and it reflects upon the implications of this relationship for research on English and Islam, and language and transnationalism. (Transnationalism, English, Ismaili, Pakistan, Tajikistan, identity, infrastructure, Islam)*

Drawing on the epistemologies of the Global South and the sociolinguistic reality of English in postcolonial Bangladesh, this article conceptualises English as a Southern language. This conception recognises the imperative of English for postcolonial societies in an English-dominant world while also emphasising the necessity of breaking away from its hegemony as represented by so-called native speaker or Standard English norms. It is argued that since English works as the principal epistemic tool for knowledge construction and theorising in most disciplines, decolonising knowledge and epistemology in favour of Southern perspectives may not be achieved without decolonising the language in the first place. While English as a Southern language builds on the paradigms of world Englishes, English as a lingua franca, and translanguaging, the proposed conception also seeks a notable departure from them. Calls for the co-existence of epistemologies of the North and South need to recognise English along the same lines. (English as a Southern language, epistemologies of the South, English in Bangladesh, English and representation of the world)*

This article analyzes folk-linguistic photo blogging as an example of twenty-first-century grassroots prescriptivism. Photo blogs engaged in grassroots prescriptivism usually focus on one specific linguistic phenomenon and collect visual evidence of its usage. Through the overt or covert language policing involved in such displays, folk-linguistic photo blogs contribute to the digital enregisterment of the linguistic practices they focus on as nonstandard or uneducated. This process is closely examined in a case study on emphatic quotation marks, a nonstandard form of punctuation that has been termed ‘greengrocer's quotes’, and its concomitant folk-linguistic photo blog. It is argued here that much of the persuasive power of such blogs can be attributed to their reliance on photographic material depicting signage in public space, and thus on the kind of visual semiotics that also informs many recent approaches in sociolinguistics. The simultaneity of these two phenomena is critically discussed. (Visual semiotics, enregisterment, computer-mediated communication, grassroots prescriptivism, emphatic quotation)*

This article explores one aspect of the many public protests surrounding the 1996 reform of German orthography: the first in a series of legal challenges, which was brought before the Federal Constitutional Court in May 1996. The first section begins by proposing how and why such protests can be usefully theorized in terms of Blommaert's (1999) concept of a “language ideological debate,” and then describes the historical background essential for an understanding of this legal dispute. The second section focuses on a critical analysis of the case brought against the reform, looking at the details of the challenge itself, together with the justification for its rejection by the Constitutional Court. The third section considers what this dispute can tell us about debates over the perceived origin of orthographic norms, with particular reference to the ideological relationship between individual, speech community, and (nation-)state. Finally, there is a brief summary of the way in which the matter was finally – albeit unsatisfactorily – resolved in 1998–1999.

Differences in patterns of literacy can be understood in terms of communicative needs as governed by culturally learned notions about the appropriateness of a given communicative mode for a given social activity and by practicality as determined by biological structures and processes. It is through literacy that the deaf person can share in the linguistic experiences of the society at large, since written language is not distorted by the handicapped auditory sense. This study provides the first analysis of the ways writing is used among the deaf and between deaf and hearing communicators. Four groups were consulted and observed: the social community of deaf adults who sign, families in which parents are hearing and at least one child is deaf, families in which parents are deaf and children are hearing or deaf, deaf and hearing schoolteachers. Families with hearing parents use virtually no writing, whereas families with deaf parents and deaf adults in general use writing for several functions. The reading abilities of deaf school leavers seldom exceed fourth grade level; nevertheless, deaf adults use writing daily for exchange of information in the home, in public, on the job, and for communication by means of a telephone adaptation with a keyboard. The uses of literacy are largely conversational, personal, and instrumental. Commercial print in the form of captioned television and movies is also available. Deaf children born to deaf parents are socialized into these uses. Deaf children born to hearing parents are not. Writing which occurs in classrooms with deaf children is largely limited to lesson work, even when teachers are deaf. Literacy programs should take into account the communicative needs of deaf adults and the patterns of literacy use in deaf families. (Literacy, deafness, crosscultural analysis, ethnography of communication)

Ntam ‘reminiscential oath’ among the Akan of Ghana is a commissive form that has statutory force. In it, the oath-taker evokes the memory of historical events that are dangerous and unpleasant to mention. The statutory force of the oath is accomplished by the evocation of these memories in the community which shares them. This article reviews the types of ntam oaths, the contexts for their use, and their structure.

Focusing on Black Francophone migrants in Cape Town, it is argued that a locally based Francophone identity has emerged in South Africa that questions the institutional discourse of La Francophonie as the organization of French-speaking states. The new identity has little to do with the organization's ideology of a transnational community of people united by a common language and culture. This is shown by deconstructing the category of passeurs de Francophonie (literally ‘smugglers of la Francophonie’ as practice) to which the organization assigns migrants in non-Francophone countries who allegedly spread the French language and Francophone culture. It is argued that the notion of “Francophone” must be grounded empirically and approached in relation to the social environment of the relevant speakers. The post-apartheid South African setting assigns it a meaning different from what it has in Francophone states.

This article examines how essentializing ideologies of language and identity in Toronto's Portuguese ethnic market, constructed as monolingual and monocultural within the larger mainstream market of English-speaking Canada, provide the background for humorous sociolinguistic performances that playfully acknowledge, reproduce, and challenge ethnolinguistic stratification. After more than sixty years, the dominant spaces of the local Portuguese market continue to exclude most Portuguese-Canadian youth by rarely legitimizing the use of English, bilingual code-switching, or ‘broken’ or ‘Azorean’ Portuguese. By choosing YouTube as a space in which to engage audiences in ideologies of language and identity through performances of sociolinguistic caricatures, three young Portuguese-Canadian amateur comedians negotiate sociolinguistic boundaries with an ambivalent agency. The mocking performances are legitimized by the performers' in-group status and reveal, among other things, how a stigmatized variety of Azorean Portuguese and certain ethnolinguistic stereotypes can be reappropriated and reinforced relative to sociolinguistic hierarchies. (Language ideologies, ethnic humor, performativity, heteroglossia)*

Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of appropriation is a potentially powerful way to conceptualize discourse development in children. Typically, studies of discourse development have emphasized structural aspects of text. However, children appropriate not only forms, but also words, themes, purposes, and styles. From a developmental point of view, the concept of appropriation raises at least three questions: What is it that children appropriate? Where do they get their material? And what do they do with that material? In an attempt to make sense of appropriation as a developmental construct, we examine one third-grader's writing: Suzanne's book, The missing piece. We find that Suzanne appropriated material from two major sources: (a) adult-authored text – Margaret Sidney's novel, Five little Peppers and how they grew – and (b) the meanings and values of a stratified local peer culture. We conclude by discussing the significance of this work for future research on children's discourse development. (Discourse development, Mikhail Bakhtin, peer culture, social context of writing, children's writing, appropriation)

This article proposes the term interactional straining for the strategic manipulation of interaction as grounded in neoliberal governmentality. The interactional practice was observed among adult English learners in Yangshuo, which, through mobilizing English-speaking foreigners and commodifying English, has been attracting Chinese nationals seeking to improve their English, the gate-keeping language in global workplaces in China. Based on ethnographic observations and interviews, it is shown that what appears to be naturally occurring interactions with foreigners actually involves reflexive thinking at the backstage (Goffman 1959), which is aimed at the strategic manipulation of interactional contents and/or structure so as to establish oneself as (pass for) a legitimate interlocutor. This study shows that interaction constitutes a key site where the contradictions and tensions of neoliberalism are lived out. It also argues that as reflexivity becomes a key morality under neoliberal globalization, metadiscourses provide important insights for our critique of neoliberalism. (English, language ideology, interaction, neoliberalism, work, globalization, China)*

Sixteen African Americans affiliated with a university participated in open-ended interviews exploring their experiential, attitudinal, and descriptive responses to Black English Vernacular (BEV). The fields of sociolinguistics and education report complex and contradictory attitudes and research findings regarding this code. In addition, media representations of BEV have been misleading. This article investigates how these sources have influenced the attitudes of these African Americans over the last 20 years. We found few trends and little unanimity among our respondents. This finding is neither problematic nor surprising. African Americans do not comprise a monolithic group, acting, speaking, and thinking as one. The results are summarized, and three issues that emerged from the interviews are discussed: problems with the label, Black English Vernacular; the possibility that BEV was socially constructed; and the perception that BEV is a limited linguistic system. (Sociolinguistics, education, attitudes toward language varieties, Black English Vernacular)

Despite a shift to service-based economies, male-dominated, high-status workplaces have been the predominant focus of research into language and gender in the workplace. This study redresses this shortcoming by considering one female-dominated, low-status, highly regimented workplace that is emblematic of the globalized service economy: call centres. Drawing on 187 call centre service interactions, institutional documents, interviews, and observations from call centres in two national contexts, the study employs an innovative combination of quantitative and qualitative discourse-analytic techniques to compare rule compliance of male and female workers. Female agents in both national contexts are found to comply more with the linguistic prescriptions despite managers and agents emphatically denying the relevance of gender. The study offers a new perspective on language and gender, pointing to the need to expand the methodologies and theories currently favoured to understand how language perpetuates occupational segregation in twenty-first-century workplaces. (Call centres, language and gender, new perspectives, male/female differences, globalized service economy)*

The article examines the introduction of English as a corporate language in a Danish consultancy company from a critical angle. Based on analyses of language policy documents and interviews with language policy makers in the company, we investigate the underlying assumptions of the policy-making process, and explore how the language policy functions as a means of exerting power beyond the domain of language. The article shows how the language policy is heavily influenced by the language ideology of English as the natural language in global business as well as by neoliberal ideals of international expansion. Drawing on the notion of language commodification, the article investigates how the language policy reconfigures the social space of the organisation. The analysis shows that while the language policy aims to change the company culture towards a more ‘global mindset’, it also effects social change by legitimising certain types of employees while marginalising others. (Language policy, social change, English as a corporate language, language ideologies, linguistic market, language commodification)*

This paper examines Negative Incorporation in various lects of two historically related sign languages, French Sign Language and American Sign Language. Negative Incorporation not only offers interesting insights into the structure of French and American Sign Language, but also into the descriptive and explanatory power of variation theory. By viewing Negative Incorporation in a dynamic framework, we are able to describe the variable usage of Negative Incorporation as a phonological process in French Sign Language and as a grammatical process in American Sign Language, to argue for possible early creolization in American Sign Language, to show the historical continuum between French Sign Language and American Sign Language despite heavy restructuring, and to demonstrate the influences of social variables on language variation and change, especially illustrating the progressive role of women in sign language change and the conservative forces in French Sign Language as compared with American Sign Language. (Sociolinguistics, sign language, creolization, linguistic changes.)

The study of lyric epiphany, essential to any coordination of sociolinguistics and literature, is defined in terms of five considerations (e.g., its role in political rhetoric), and linguistic criteria such as phonic compression. One track in the argument deals with lyric epiphany in ordinary language (e.g., M.L. King's speeches), in prose (e.g., Cather and Tolstoy), and in the long poem. The second, intermittently intersecting track consists of intense analyses of four cases of linguistic epiphany in The Odyssey that involve (1) semantically ramifying root symbols such as the olive in Greece, (2) simile concentration, as in the reverse similes that commute antithetical subcategories, (3) phonic texturing (e.g., alliteration, phonaesthesia), and as a limiting case, (4) epiphany through chiasmus. The conclusions suggest the universal, cross-language and cross-cultural reality of lyric epiphany (e.g., not just classic Russian and Homeric Greek, but Quechua, Eskimo, and Sanskrit and Hebrew religious texts). Lyric epiphany is a subtype of generic epiphany: an intuition or revelation of truth values beyond language and empirical experience. Lyric epiphany, while a component of classical poetics – both Western and Eastern – and a subcategory of ideologies of Primitivism and, within that, of Modernism, is also, like the human body, part of the human experience that can and should be studied as part of cultural linguistics and sociolinguistics.

This article investigates how naturalized models of hegemonic masculinity affect race and sexuality in the James Bond film series. Through close analysis of film dialogue and paralinguistic cues, the article examines how the sexualities of East Asian female and male characters are constructed as oversexed and undersexed, respectively. The analysis therefore affirms Connell's (1995) conception of white heterosexual masculinity as exemplary: East Asian characters are positioned not only as racial Others, but as bodies upon which Bond's heterosexual masculinity is reflected and affirmed as normative and, by extension, ideal. In this way, race is curiously invoked to ‘explain’ sexuality, and Bond's unmarked white masculinity becomes the normative referent for expressions of heterosexual desire. By showing how the sexuality of East Asian characters is typecast as non-normative, the article gestures toward the possibility of theorizing racialized performances of heterosexuality as queer. (East Asia, James Bond, sexuality, race, masculinity, femininity, normativity, film)*

This article offers discourse analysis of young transgender people's interaction, in which they describe being rendered powerless through misgendering or misrepresentation. It argues that the young people's collective responses to these moments enable them to challenge the ideologies underpinning their marginalisation, and to recontextualise the language used by others to describe their bodies. Stance-taking, the production of affect, and constructed dialogue are shown to be key tools in their production of an agentive, mutual identity. The article thus provides close analysis of dialogic embodiment, a process by which the body is quite literally spoken into being. By critiquing the cisnormative structures which inform and enable the young people's marginalisation, the article responds to the call for a trans linguistics (Zimman 2020) and reflects upon the author's positionality as a cisgender researcher. (Embodiment, affective stance, agency, trans identity, cisnormativity, trans linguistics)*

This article brings together research on migration and identity in translocal and superdiverse contexts, and the recently expanding interest in narratives and interaction in social media, by examining the construction of identities in narratives shared in a private Facebook group message. The participants are former fellow refugees from Poland who reconnected on Facebook after two decades. The article analyzes three narratives produced in response to the researcher's question about ethnic and national affiliations. Using Bucholtz & Hall's (2004) tactics of intersubjectivity framework, this study examines the complex and conflicting ways in which individuals position themselves with respect to various contexts of belonging and difference (Meinhof & Galasiński 2005) that emerge in their narratives. I argue that the narratives show a link between essentialist or nonessentialist views of ethnicity/nationality, and the teller's assumed agency over her identity. The study also discusses new possibilities for discursive practices in social media contexts. (Narrative, migration, social media, identity, belonging)