A Response to David Lehmann

Abstract

The author offers a simple theological framework for critiquing the issues of globalization and empire. The vast majority of people look at the world with theological lenses, and far too often those who attempt to speak to them use language that makes little sense to the rank and file. Here then is one form that such a framework might take.

The Powers Are Good

The Powers Are Fallen

The Powers Can Be Transformed.     

Talking class,talking race: language,class, and race in the call center industry in South Africa

Against a backdrop of declining manufacturing employment, this article uses a study of the call center industry to argue that English language proficiency is central to new service jobs in post-apartheid South Africa. Drawing on research in Durban, we in this study show that access to call center work—especially the highest paid niches—is heavily mediated by English language skills generally attainable only at the most elite high schools. In doing so, we argue that access to English-medium education can challenge racial disadvantage, but simultaneously that English can help to consolidate white privilege through the continued association of a ‘prestigious’ accent with whiteness. The study accordingly reveals the importance of language in the changing intersectionality of race and class and, in doing so, underlines the value of social and cultural perspectives in labor geography.     

New challenges for old commons: The role of historical common land in contemporary rural spaces

In Scotland, as elsewhere in Western Europe, many examples of historical common land have endured to the present day, but are under major pressure from the economic restructuring, socio-cultural recomposition and changing policy context that characterise contemporary rural change. For the crofting common grazings of Scotland, two particular challenges have arisen in the form of: (1) the growing difficulty of gaining sufficient livelihood contributions from traditional agriculturally-based activities; and (2) the increasing heterogeneity of rights-holders. This paper elaborates the findings of a recent survey, which sought to identify the main implications of these challenges for common grazings use and governance. An overall decline in levels of use of common grazings was identified, as well as decreasing involvement and investment in associated local institutions. This informs a discussion of the factors shaping the role of historical common land in contemporary rural spaces, an area neglected in the common property literature.     

The Linguistic and Rhetorical Legacy of the Prague Spring: Reading the Czechoslovak Communist Party Daily,Rudé právo,from the Late 1980s

This study uses a corpus-informed lexicological approach to analyse texts published in the Czechoslovak Communist Party daily Rudé právo during the final years of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. The analysis aims to uncover how far such texts represented a departure from or a reaffirmation of the norms of the pre-Gorbachev era and, in particular, the role that they played in the Party’s attempt to control interpretations of the 1968 Prague Spring. The investigation also considers ways in which the texts sought to construct a ‘new’ reality in the light of the changes in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. The article maintains that the ‘authoritative discourse’ model represents an especially useful analytical framework for evaluating the impact of ideological language in the context of the Communist system. The model both helps to explain the relative acquiescence of most of the population, and also to track the extent to which the ‘coded’ message of the approved discourse was successful in slowing the demise of the regime.     

The Study of Chinese Internet Slang from the Perspective of Sociolinguistics

网络语言是随着互联网的风靡而兴起的一种新的交际语言。网络语言也以其简约的语风、独特的语法构造、朗朗上口的特点广为流传。本文从社会语言学理论出发,从语言变体、言语社区、以及语言变化的社会语言出发深入浅出的分析网络语言的构成及其稳定性。     

Putting the “art” back into arts policy making: how arts policy has been “captured” by the economists and the marketers

Abstract: This paper explores the current discourse about arts policy and funding and its placement within an economic paradigm. The models of “cultural industry” and “creative industry” are explored and how they affect arts funding discourse. Similarly the impact of the introduction of the language of industry and business to the arts sector is considered. If bottom-line arguments are used by funders, governments and critics to argue the merits or otherwise of arts activity, how does this affect arts practice? In recent times arts funding agencies have been restructured to reflect a market-driven agenda rather than an arts-driven agenda. The impact of all these issues is considered in the context of Australian arts' models in particular, but with reference to examples in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The paper concludes with suggestions for a reassertion of core cultural values in future discourse.     

Breaking into the conversation: cultural value and the role of the South African National Arts Festival from apartheid to democracy

The paper examines the value of the South African National Arts Festival (NAF) in the transition to democracy using theories of cultural capital. NAF history from 1974 to 2004 is used to argue that the Festival provided an important arena for the expression of political resistance in the 1980s and, to some degree, continues to do so today. It is concluded that an important part of the value of the arts is their ability to provide a forum for debating the goals and values of society and that individualistic utility theory is not always successful in measuring such social value.     

David J. Starkey,Chris Reid and Neil Ashcroft: England's Sea Fisheries. The Commercial Sea Fisheries of England and Wales since 1300. Chatham Publishing,London 2000, 272 pages

Abstract

This article explores the management practice of protection notices, fredlysning, in the traditional practice of eider down harvesting in Northern Norway. Previously, private initiatives were legitimate for protecting land and resources from public utilization, while today only the state authorities have this privilege. By juxtaposing empirical material from current eider down harvesting activities with childhood memories of growing up in this area during the 1960s, and available legal documents, the author finds that some quite radical changes have tacitly taken place, indicating rather tense dilemmas concerning local perceptions of land use issues. Analytically, Olwig's distinction between customary and natural law is used as a tool for addressing the political dimensions of the landscape concept historically. In this perspective, fredlysning fluctuates in and out of codified law through the centuries, and under growing impact of natural law rationale. Land issues, both concerning property rights and public access and use of the common resources of the outlying fields, utmarksressurser, are here understood as very powerful means to bind the people to the land, as a way of transforming the legitimate scale of polity, of building bonds to the nation.     

Language maintenance through corpus planning – the case of Kven

ABSTRACT

The Kven language that is spoken in northernmost Norway was officially recognized as a language in 2005. The history of the language community dates back to the sixteenth century according to tax books. There is still an ongoing discussion among certain language users, whether Kven is in fact a language or one of the Finnish dialects. The language planning of Kven has started in 2007 by determining the orthography and choosing principles for the standardization. This article discusses the history of the process that led to the recognition of Kven as a language and reviews the progress of the language standardization until the present. The principles of language planning are reviewed through document analysis – earlier literature, minutes or summaries and participant observation of the language board’s meetings, and expert interviews – and analysed according to Lars S. Vikør’s language planning model. Some of the preferred features seem to follow the language planning ideology of the Norwegian standards – Bokmål and Nynorsk – in terms of allowance of variation and parallel forms as well as dialectal diversity.