Item Details

Thinking about language with Bourdieu: Pointers for social theory in the language sciences

Issue: Vol 12 No. 3-4 (2018)

Journal: Sociolinguistic Studies

Subject Areas: Gender Studies Linguistics

DOI: 10.1558/sols.32916

Abstract:

This paper presents Pierre Bourdieu's sociological gaze, agenda and toolkit to scholars of language, so as to offer a social theoretical framework within which sociolinguistic questions can be fruitfully investigated. It outlines Bourdieu's dual conception of social life and presents the key thinking tools - field and habitus - with which this dualism can be explored empirically. In addition, it locates work produced at the nexus of sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology where Bourdieusian insights have been productively employed. It also discusses Bourdieu's reputation as a macro theorist, and argues that this image must be supplemented with an understanding of his idea that social reality also has a mode of existence in people's bodies, habitus, and practices. The paper argues that Bourdieu's gaze and thinking tools import with them a solid social theoretical base of the comprehension of human practice, including linguistic practice, which therefore offers some purchase to account for the relationship between the market side of language and its embodied manifestations.

Author: Linus Salö

View Full Text

References :

Agha, A. (2007) Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Albright, J. and Luke, A. (eds) (2008) Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education. New York: Taylor and Francis.

Archer, M. (2007) Making Our Way through the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511618932.

Bauman, R. and Briggs, C. (1990) Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 59–88. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.000423.

Bell, A. (2016) Succeeding waves: Seeking sociolinguistic theory for the twenty-first century. In N. Coupland (ed.) Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates 391–416. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Blackledge, A. (2005) Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.15.

Blackledge, A. and Pavlenko, A. (2002) Introduction. Multilingua 21: 121–140.

Block, D. (2012) Unpicking agency in sociolinguistic research with migrants. In S. Gardner and M. Martin-Jones (eds) Multilingualism, Discourse and Ethnography 47–59. New York: Routledge.

Blommaert, J. (1999) The debate is open. In J. Blommaert (ed.) Language Ideological Debates 1–38. Berlin: de Gruyter. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110808049.1.

Blommaert, J. (2005) Bourdieu the ethnographer : The ethnographic grounding of habitus and voice. The Translator 11(2): 219–236.

Blommaert, J. (2015) Pierre Bourdieu and language in society. In J. O. Östman and J. Verschueren (eds) Handbook of Pragmatics 1–16. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Blommaert, J. (2018) Durkheim and the internet: On sociolinguistics and the sociological imagination. London: Bloomsbury.

Blommaert, J., Collins, J., and Slembrouck, S. (2005) Spaces of multilingualism. Language and Communication 25: 197–216. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2005.05.002.

Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2011) Language and superdiversity. Diversities 13(2): 1–21.

Bohman, J. (1999) Practical reason and cultural constraint: Agency in Bourdieu’s theory of practice. In R. Shusterman (ed.) Bourdieu: A Critical Reader 129–152. Malden: Blackwell.

Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1988) Homo Academicus. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1990) In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity.

Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity.

Bourdieu, P. (1993) Sociology in Question. London: Sage.

Bourdieu, P. (1996) The Rules of Art. Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Cambridge: Polity.

Bourdieu, P. (2000) Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge: Polity.

Bourdieu, P. (2004) Science of Science and Reflexivity. Cambridge: Polity.

Bourdieu, P. (2014) On the State: Lectures at the Collège de France 1989–1992. Cambridge: Polity.

Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. C. (1977 [1970]) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Bourdieu, P. and Chartier, R. (2015) The Sociologist and the Historian. Cambridge: Polity.

Briggs, C. and Bauman, R. (1992) Genre, intertextuality, and social power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2(2): 131–172. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.1992.2.2.131.

Broady, D. (1983) Dispositioner och positioner. Ett ledmotiv i Pierre Bourdieus sociologi. Stockholm: UHÄ.

Broady, D. (1991) Sociologi och epistemologi. Om Pierre Bourdieus författarskap och den historiska epistemologin. Stockholm: HLS.

Brubaker, R. (1993) Social theory as habitus. In C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma and M. Postone (eds) Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives 212–234. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2016) Embodied sociolinguistics. In N. Coupland (ed.) Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates 173–197. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107449787.009.

Cameron, D. (1990) Demythologizing sociolinguistics: Why language does not reflect society. In J. E. Joseph and T. J. Taylor (eds) Ideologies of Language 79–93. New York: Routledge.

Canagarajah, S. (2013) Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. New York: Routledge.

Coupland, N. (2007) Style. Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755064.

Crossley, N. (2001) The phenomenological habitus and its construction. Theory and Society 30: 81–120. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011070710987.

Duranti, A. (2003) Language as culture in U.S. anthropology: Three paradigms. Current Anthropology 44(3): 323–346. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/368118.

Farnell, B. (2000) Getting out of the habitus: An alternative model of dynamically embodied social action. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6: 397–418. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.00023.

Grenfell, M (ed.) (2011) Bourdieu, Language, and Linguistics. London: Continuum.

Grenfell, M., Bloome, D., Hardy, C. Pahl, K. Rowsell, J. and Street, B. (2012) Language, Ethnography, and Education: Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu. New York: Routledge.

Gumperz, J. and Cook-Gumperz, J. (2008) Studying language, culture, and society: Sociolinguistics or linguistic anthropology? Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4): 532–545. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00378.x.

Hanks, W. (1996) Language and Communicative Practices. Boulder: Westview Press.

Hanks, W. (2005) Pierre Bourdieu and the practices of language. The Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 67–83. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143907.

Heller, M. (1996) Legitimate language in a multilingual school. Linguistics and Education 8: 139–157. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0898-5898(96)90011-X.

Heller, M. (2011) Paths to Post-Nationalism: A Critical Ethnography of Language and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746866.001.0001.

Hepp, R.D. (2006) The relational thinking of Pierre Bourdieu. The American Journal of Semiotics 22(1–4): 55–68. Doi: https://doi.org/10.5840/ajs2006221/42.

Hilgers, M. (2009) Habitus, freedom, and reflexivity. Theory and Psychology 19(6): 728–755. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354309345892.

Hilgers, M. and Mangez, E. (eds) (2015) Bourdieu’s Theory of Social Fields: Concepts and Applications. New York: Routledge.

Irvine, J. (1989) When talk isn’t cheap: Language and political economy. American Ethnologist 16(2): 248–267. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1989.16.2.02a00040.

Karlander, D. (2017) State categories, state vision and vernacular woes in Sweden’s language politics. Language Policy 17(3): 343–363. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-017-9439-1.

Kelly-Holmes, H. (2016) Theorising the market in sociolinguistics. In N. Coupland (ed.) Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates 157–171. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107449787.008.

Kerfoot, C. and Bello-Nonjengele, B. O. (2014) Game Changers? Multilingual Learners in a Cape Town Primary School. Applied Linguistics 37(4): 451–473. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amu044.

Kroskrity, P. (ed.) (2000) Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Santa Fe: SAR.

Kroskrity, P. (2006) Language ideologies. In A. Duranti (ed.) A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology 496–517. Malden: Blackwell.

Lizardo, O. (2008) Comment of John Goldthorpe/5: Three cheers for unoriginality. Sociologica 1: 1–15.

Makoni, S. (2014) ‘The Lord is my shock absorber’: A sociohistorical integrationist approach to mid-twentieth-century literacy practices in Ghana. In A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy 75–98. New York: Springer.

Martin-Jones, M. (2007) Bilingualism, education and the regulation of access to language resources. In M. Heller (ed.) Bilingualism: A Social Approach 161–182. New York: Palgrave.

Mohr, J. (2013) Bourdieu’s relational method in theory and practice: From fields and capitals to networks and institutions (and back again). In F. Dépelteau, and C. Powell (eds) Applying Relational Sociology: Relations, Networks, and Society 101–135. New York: Palgrave.

Ortner, S. (2006) Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power, and the Acting Subject. Durham: Duke University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822388456.

Park, J. and Wee, L. (2012) Markets of English: Linguistic Capital and Language Policy in a Globalizing World. New York: Routledge.

Puddephatt, A., Shaffir, W., and Klenknecht, S. (2009) Introduction: Exercises in reflexivity: Situating theory in practice. In A. Puddephatt, W. Shaffir and S. Klenknecht (eds) Ethnographies Revisited: Constructing Theory in the Field 1–34. New York: Routledge.

Rampton, B. (2011) From ‘Multi-ethnic adolescent heteroglossia’ to ‘Contemporary urban vernaculars’. Language and Communication 31: 276–294. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2011.01.001.

Salö, L. (2014) Language ideology and shifting representations of linguistic threats: A Bourdieusian re-reading of the conceptual history of domain loss in Sweden’s field of language planning. In A.-K. Hultgren, F. Gregersen and J. Thøgersen (eds) English in Nordic Universities: Ideologies and Practices 83–110. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/wlp.5.04sal.

Salö, L. (2015) The linguistic sense of placement: Habitus and the entextualization of translingual practices in Swedish academia. Journal of Sociolinguistics 19(4): 511–534. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12147.

Salö, L. (2017) The Sociolinguistics of Academic Publishing: Language and the Practices of Homo Academicus. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58940-4.

Salö, L. (2018) ) Seeing the point from which you see what you see: An essay on epistemic reflexivity in language research. Multilingual Margins 5(1): 24–39. Doi: https://doi.org/10.14426/mm.v5i1.87.

Salö, L., Ganuza, N., Hedman, C., and Karrebæk, M. (2018) Mother tongue instruction in Sweden and Denmark: Language policy, cross-field effects, and linguistic exchange rates. Language Policy 17(4): 591–610. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-018-9472-8.

Schieffelin, B., Woolard, K. and Kroskrity, P. (eds) (1998) Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

Silverstein, M. and Urban, G. (eds) (1996) Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Stroud, C. (2002) Framing Bourdieu socioculturally: Alternative forms of linguistic legitimacy in postcolonial Mozambique. Multilingua 21: 247–273. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/mult.2002.011.

Stroud, C. (2004) Rinkeby Swedish and semilingualism in language ideological debates: A Bourdieuean perspective. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8(2): 196–214. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2004.00258.x.

Swartz, D. (1997) Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226161655.001.0001.

Swartz, D. (2013) Metaprinciples for sociological research in a Bourdieusian perspective. In P. S. Gorski (ed.) Bourdieu and Historical Analysis 19–35. Durham: Duke University Press.

Swigart, L. (2001) The limits of legitimacy: Language ideology and shift in contemporary Senegal. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 10(1): 90–130. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2000.10.1.90.

Thompson, J. (1984) Studies in the Theory of Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Vandenberghe, F. (1999) ‘The real is relational’: An epistemological analysis of Pierre Bourdieu’s generative structuralism. Sociological Theory 17(1): 32–67. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/0735-2751.00064.

Wacquant, L. (1989a) Towards a reflexive sociology: A workshop with Pierre Bourdieu. Sociological Theory 7(1): 26–63. Doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/202061.

Wacquant, L. (1989b) For a socio-analysis of intellectuals: On Homo Academicus. Berkeley Journal of Sociology 34: 1–29.

Wacquant, L. (1993) Bourdieu in America: Notes on the transatlantic importation of social theory. In C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma and M. Postone (eds) Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives 235–262. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Wacquant, L. (2009). Habitus as topic and tool: Reflections on becoming a prizefighter. In A. J. Puddephatt, W. Shaffir, and S. W. Kleinknecht (eds) Ethnographies Revisited: Constructing Theory in the Field 137–151. New York: Routledge.

Williams, G. (1992) Sociolinguistics: A Sociological Critique. New York: Routledge.

Woolard, K. A. (1985) Language variation and cultural hegemony: Toward an integration of sociolinguistic and social theory. American Ethnologist 12(4): 738–748. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1985.12.4.02a00090.

Woolard, K. A. (1998) Introduction: Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In B. B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard, and P. V. Kroskrity (eds) Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory 3–47. New York: Oxford University Press.

Woolard, K. and Schieffelin, B. (1994) Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology 23: 55–82. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.23.100194.000415.