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Approaching conceptualisations of English in East Asian contexts: ideas, ideology, and identification

Approaching conceptualisations of English in East Asian contexts: ideas, ideology, and identification
Approaching conceptualisations of English in East Asian contexts: ideas, ideology, and identification
English language, which does not have a precedent in the respect that it is used by such a variety of speakers with so many different first languages in such a wide range of contexts across the world, has served to make the complex nature of language more visible to us. Given such an opportunity, a considerable amount of research has been devoted to the description and analysis of what people do with this global lingua franca (i.e. people’s language practices, performances, and consequential linguistic variation and change). However, on the other hand, little research has approached what people say about this global phenomenon.

Given this gap, this PhD thesis explores the ways people think, talk about and make sense of English, language, communication, and various other issues and concepts surrounding this area of global language practices, since the nature of language cannot be fully understood from observation and description of actual language use alone. It is for this purpose that this thesis begins by engaging with academic theories of, approaches to, and research on English in a global context and language ideologies. Such conceptual understanding underpins the approaches taken in this research, which specifically explored East Asian English users’ ideas of and beliefs about English and language through a questionnaire survey and qualitative in-depth interviews.

Explorations and discussions of the findings of this study emphasise the point that what is accessible in people’s talk on language is emphatically not only their ideas of English or language at face value. People’s micro-level everyday practices and macro-level social expectations and norms are merged and condensed into their accounts on language through their interpretive filters, which is an invaluable source that help linguists have a better understanding of language both as a practice and concept. These insights pose critical questions for language attitude research and add deeper considerations to discussions of language(s) and language users in the field of English as a lingua franca.
Kitazawa, Mariko
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Kitazawa, Mariko
c47afd91-c566-4524-80d1-7b6b56d3e6c8
Jenkins, Jennifer
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Kitazawa, Mariko (2013) Approaching conceptualisations of English in East Asian contexts: ideas, ideology, and identification. University of Southampton, Faculty of Humanities, Doctoral Thesis, 580pp.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

English language, which does not have a precedent in the respect that it is used by such a variety of speakers with so many different first languages in such a wide range of contexts across the world, has served to make the complex nature of language more visible to us. Given such an opportunity, a considerable amount of research has been devoted to the description and analysis of what people do with this global lingua franca (i.e. people’s language practices, performances, and consequential linguistic variation and change). However, on the other hand, little research has approached what people say about this global phenomenon.

Given this gap, this PhD thesis explores the ways people think, talk about and make sense of English, language, communication, and various other issues and concepts surrounding this area of global language practices, since the nature of language cannot be fully understood from observation and description of actual language use alone. It is for this purpose that this thesis begins by engaging with academic theories of, approaches to, and research on English in a global context and language ideologies. Such conceptual understanding underpins the approaches taken in this research, which specifically explored East Asian English users’ ideas of and beliefs about English and language through a questionnaire survey and qualitative in-depth interviews.

Explorations and discussions of the findings of this study emphasise the point that what is accessible in people’s talk on language is emphatically not only their ideas of English or language at face value. People’s micro-level everyday practices and macro-level social expectations and norms are merged and condensed into their accounts on language through their interpretive filters, which is an invaluable source that help linguists have a better understanding of language both as a practice and concept. These insights pose critical questions for language attitude research and add deeper considerations to discussions of language(s) and language users in the field of English as a lingua franca.

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Published date: October 2013
Organisations: University of Southampton, Faculty of Humanities

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 367342
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/367342
PURE UUID: 0602aeef-7851-4b05-a0c1-cbd51c9518db

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Date deposited: 23 Oct 2014 11:40
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 17:28

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Contributors

Author: Mariko Kitazawa
Thesis advisor: Jennifer Jenkins

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