Metroethnicities and Metrolanguages

Maher, John C.

doi:10.1002/9781444324068.ch26

Cited by 27 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…The past two decades have seen a rise in terminology to explain such practices in order to understand how individuals, by drawing on a language, multiple languages or even specific features of a variety to index their socio--cultural and dynamic identities, where meaning emerges, is negotiated and thus contingent on social interaction. 8 In their seminal work on metrolingualism, which draws on Maher's (2005Maher's ( , 2010 conceptualizations of metroethnicity and metrolanguage, Otsuji and Pennycook define metrolingualism as:…”

Section: A Planned Metrolingual Artifact and Linguoingmentioning

confidence: 99%

YO! or OY? - say what? Creative place-making through a metrolingual artifact in Dumbo, Brooklyn

Gonçalves

2018

International Journal of Multilingualism

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This paper investigates a metrolingual language object and creative place making in Dumbo, Brooklyn within the era of late capitalism. It is an analysis of how two simple letters "O" and "Y", when put together create two short words "OY" and "YO" yet carry exponential meaning about metrolingual language ideologies, language users and powerful social agents. An example of heteroglossic play and linguistic creativity, Deborah Kass's multilingual artwork is at the crossroads of social, cultural, political and linguistic boundaries of diverse communities in urban space. This paper focuses on how the work of one local Brooklyn-based artist was fabricated and re-contextualized for public space, use and consumption, but paid for by a private, influential individual gentrifier and his local real estate development company. In short, it examines a local narrative about key players within urban development schemes driving consumer cultures through unique selling propositions, and thereby laying the foundations for language to emerge and become both a cultural and material artifact reflecting global marketing practices and the semiotic landscaping of urban hubs.

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Section: A Planned Metrolingual Artifact and Linguoingmentioning

confidence: 99%

YO! or OY? - say what? Creative place-making through a metrolingual artifact in Dumbo, Brooklyn

Gonçalves

2018

International Journal of Multilingualism

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“…We draw first of all on an understanding of metrolingualism, a term originally developed by extending the notion of metroethnicity (Maher , ) to refer to ‘creative linguistic conditions across space and borders of culture, history and politics, as a way to move beyond current terms such as multilingualism and multiculturalism’ (Otsuji and Pennycook : 244). From this earlier understanding which focused on ‘the ways in which people of different and mixed backgrounds use, play with and negotiate identities through language’ and ‘on languages as emergent from contexts of interaction’ rather than languages as systems (2010: 246), our research has reoriented the term away from a focus on playful or willful creativity towards an understanding of everyday language use in the city in order to understand and capture the broader dynamism of urban linguistic practices.…”

Section: Metrolingualism Repertoires and Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metrolingual multitasking and spatial repertoires: ‘Pizza mo two minutes coming’

Pennycook

Otsuji

2014

Journal of Sociolinguistics

145

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Drawing on data from two restaurants in Sydney and Tokyo, this paper describes the ways in which linguistic resources, everyday tasks and social space are intertwined in terms of metrolingual multitasking. Rather than the demolinguistic enumeration of mappable multilingualism or the language-to-language or language-to-person focus of translingualism, metrolingualism focuses on everyday language practices and their relations to urban space. In order to capture the dynamism of the urban linguistic landscape, this paper explores this relationship between metrolingual multitasking -the ways in which linguistic resources, activities and urban space are bound together -and spatial repertoiresthe linguistic resources available in a particular place -arguing that a focus on resources, repertoires, space, place and activity helps us understand how multilingualism from below operates in complex urban places.

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“…Sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological research of the past decade has seen a boom in studies of globalization and culture contact, with a focus on wide-ranging issues such as language commodification (Heller 2007(Heller , 2010, discursive construction of space and place (Blommaert, Collins, and Slembrouck 2005;Blommaert 2010), performance in linguistic contact situations (Bauman and Briggs 1990), linguistic landscaping (Jaworski and Thurlow 2010), and reconfigurations of ethnicity and identity (Maher 2005(Maher , 2010. These approaches, which jointly constitute the new field of sociolinguistics of globalization, introduce important methodological shifts in the way we approach and analyze language contact and change.…”

Section: Globalization As Border Crossingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anxiety, insecurity, and border crossing

Hiramoto

Park²

2014

JAPC

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The modern conception of the self is grounded in stability and identity. Under this perspective, anxiety and insecurity of the border are only characteristic of peripheral communities. However, anxiety and insecurity are much more fundamental to linguistic life; heterogeneity of linguistic practice and our constant movement across communities, positions, categories, and identities mean that uncertainty and indeterminacy are just as salient in the way we use language. This special issue builds upon this insight to explore the subjectivities of border crossing in contexts of language contact under globalization. By bringing together studies that explore cases of language and cultural contact across the Asia-Pacific region from the perspective of anxiety and insecurity, it aims to highlight the importance of considering subjectivity in our analysis of language in globalization, and considers the new insights we may gain through an emphasis on the subjective dimensions of contact situations. Together, the contributions to the special issue identify three key issues for further research on the sociolinguistics of globalization: (1) the role of language ideologies in mediating experiences of transnationalism, (2) consequences of globally circulated semiotic resources on local articulations of subjectivities, and (3) the impact of neoliberal projects of social transformation upon our sense of self.

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Metroethnicities and Metrolanguages

Cited by 27 publications

References 20 publications

YO! or OY? - say what? Creative place-making through a metrolingual artifact in Dumbo, Brooklyn

YO! or OY? - say what? Creative place-making through a metrolingual artifact in Dumbo, Brooklyn

Metrolingual multitasking and spatial repertoires: ‘Pizza mo two minutes coming’

Anxiety, insecurity, and border crossing

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