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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 260

Part of Session 142: Deconstructing the urban-rural dichotomy (Other abstracts in this session)

Too hip to be square: Privileging the ‘urban’ in critical sociolinguistics

Authors: May, Stephen
Submitted by: May, Stephen (University of Auckland, New Zealand)

This paper provides an overview of the key theoretical arguments advanced in this colloquium. I argue that the increasing focus in critical sociolinguistics on ‘urban vernaculars’ too often and unnecessarily juxtaposes such language varieties with so-called rural ‘indigenous languages’. By way of example, I critique the  work of Makoni and Pennycook (2007) who assert explicitly in the African context that ‘there is a discernible shift from indigenous languages towards urban vernaculars…’ (p.26; my emphases). This position is developed within their wider dismissal of indigenous languages as ossified and fixed (in time and place) in comparison with their more ‘emergent’, ‘dynamic’, ‘hybrid’ urban counterparts. I argue that this urban-rural dichotomization of language varieties understates, even ignores, the complex ‘rural’-‘urban’ dialectic evident in many indigenous language contexts. It tends also ironically to reinforce rather than deconstruct a modernist conception of languages and a related hierarchization of language varieties – a supposed bête noir of critical sociolinguistics. And it fails to provide a convincing basis for the dismissal of indigenous language rights, a related feature of recent critical sociolinguistic contributions along these lines (see also Wee, 2010; Blommaert, 2010; Pennycook, 2010).

References

Blommaert, J. (2010). The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Makoni, S., and Pennycook, A. (2007). Disinventing and reconstituting languages. In S. Makoni and A. Pennycook (eds.), Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages (pp.1-41). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a Local Practice. New York: Routledge.

Wee, L. (2010). Language Without Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.