In the introduction to the special issue “Languaging the worker: globalized governmentalities in/of language in peripheral spaces”, we take up the notion of governmentality as a means to interrogate the complex relationship between language, labor, power and subjectivity in peripheral multilingual spaces. Our aim here is to argue for the study of governmentality as a viable and growing approach in critical sociolinguistic research. As such, in this introduction, we first discuss key concepts germane to our interrogations, including the notions of governmentality, languaging, peripherality and language worker. We proceed to map out five ethnographically and discourse-analytically informed case studies. These examine diverse actors in different settings pertaining to the domain of work. Finally we chart how the case studies construe the issue of languaging the worker through a governmentality frame.
The purpose of our program of research is to explore the role of languaging on the part of older adults residing in long-term care facilities. We suggest that languaging-based activities can enhance the quality of life of such older adults including aspects of their cognition and affect. Languaging is the use of language to mediate cognitive and affective processes (Swain, 2006, 2010). In this case study, Mary (a resident) engages in the effortful re-construction of autobiographic episodes. Through microgenetic analysis we document changes in Mary’s emotional response to recreating aspects of her life history, and a change in her cognition involving a shift from other- to self-regulation in her ability to remember past events. We argue that Mary’s narration of past events (a type of languaging) is related to her positive affective and cognitive changes; this is consistent with Vygotsky’s view that cognition and affect are inextricably intertwined.
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