Experts of good language. Normativity and authority in debates about language
(2022) Sociolinguistic Symposium 24 — Location: University of Ghent (13.July.2022)
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- Abstract
- Starting from a number of recent evolutions regarding language (education) policies in Belgium and its bilingual capital Brussels, we wish to address in this presentation a number of influential tendencies in the discipline and draw attention to their consequences outside academia. We will discuss the principled rejection in the field of any kind of (value-based) linguistic category as an expression of power/domination and the related claim that all language use has equal value, to suggest they may themselves depend on taken for granted principles and categories which merit further consideration. We will show that this normative stance coexists, paradoxically, with the increasingly relativist epistemological view according to which objective knowledge about language in society must now be considered an at best naïve, and, at worst, disingenuous idea. We will inquire if a concern with structural inequality benefits from powerful knowledge claims and from reflection on the different ways sociolinguists may usefully and legitimately engage with linguistic norms and hierarchies.
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Hambye, P., & Jaspers, J. (2022). Experts of good language. Normativity and authority in debates about language. Sociolinguistic Symposium 24, University of Ghent. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/103578