ERIC Number: EJ1108321
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Jul
Pages: 31
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0167-8507
EISSN: N/A
Language Policy and Governmentality in Businesses in Wales: A Continuum of Empowerment and Regulation
Barakos, Elisabeth
Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, v35 n4 p361-391 Jul 2016
In this paper, I examine how language policy acts as a means of both empowering the Welsh language and the minority language worker and as a means of exerting power over them. For this purpose, the study focuses on a particular site: private sector businesses in Wales. Therein, I trace two major discursive processes: first, the Welsh Government's national language policy documents that promote corporate bilingualism and bilingual employees as value-added resources; second, the practice and discourse of company managers who sustain or appropriate such promotional discourses for creating and promoting their own organisational values. By drawing on concepts from governmentality, critical language policy and discourse studies, I show that promoting bilingualism in business is characterised by local and global governmentalities. These not only bring about critical shifts in valuing language as symbolic entities attached to ethnonational concerns or as promotional objects that bring material gain. Language governmentalities also appear to shape new forms of "languaging" the minority language worker as self-governing, and yet, governed subjects who are ultimately made responsible for "owning" Welsh.
Descriptors: Language Planning, Public Policy, Bilingualism, Welsh, English, Work Environment, Corporations, Employees, Foreign Countries, Language Minorities, Empowerment, Organizational Culture, Economic Development
De Gruyter Mouton. Available from: Walter de Gruyter, Inc. 121 High Street, Third Floor, Boston, MA 02110. Tel: 857-284-7073; Fax: 857-284-7358; e-mail: service@degruyter.com; Web site: http://www.degruyter.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: N/A
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom (Wales)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A