[Linganth] Call for Papers - Fifty Years of The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges: Pierre Bourdieu and the Critical Study of Language, Power, and Inequality

[General Editor]

*Call for Papers - **Language, Culture and Society*

*Special Double Issue 9:1 (July 2027) & 9:2 (December 2027)*



*Fifty Years of The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges: Pierre Bourdieu and
the Critical Study of Language, Power, and Inequality*



To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Pierre Bourdieu’s *The Economics of
Linguistic Exchanges *published in *Social Science Information* (16:6),
this special double issue of *Language, Culture and Society* invites short
papers that revisit the place of Bourdieu’s work in the critical study of
language, power, and social inequality.



We take *The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges* as a starting point to open
up reflection on Bourdieu’s larger legacy for sociolinguistics, applied
linguistics, and linguistic anthropology, as well as for the broader study
of language in society. This includes engagement not only with his writings
on language, symbolic power, practice, habitus, field, reproduction, and
distinction, but also with the ways his work has been taken up, adapted,
contested, or rejected across different intellectual traditions and
geopolitical locations.



Bourdieu’s influence on the critical study of language has been
substantial. His work has helped scholars examine the relations between
language and symbolic domination, linguistic markets, educational
inequality, state legitimation, class stratification, and the reproduction
of social hierarchies through discourse and communicative practice. At the
same time, his reception has been multiple and often controversial. Across
sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and linguistic anthropology,
researchers have questioned the limits of Bourdieusian frameworks: their
treatment of agency and creativity, their adequacy for multilingual and
postcolonial settings, their relative silence on race and coloniality, and
the kinds of critique they have enabled as well as foreclosed.



This double issue is therefore not intended simply as a celebration of
Bourdieu. It is an invitation to engage his work critically, historically,
and reflexively. We seek contributions that examine what Bourdieu’s
scholarship has made possible for the critique of language in society, but
also what it may have constrained, obscured, or prevented. We are
especially interested in papers that consider the uneven, productive, and
contentious receptions of Bourdieu in the study of language and social
inequality.



We invite *short papers of 5,000–6,000 words* that engage with Bourdieu’s
work in *conceptual, empirical, or autoethnographic/reflexive* ways.



Topics may include, but are not limited to:

   - the reception of Bourdieu in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics,
   and linguistic anthropology
   - linguistic capital, symbolic power, symbolic violence, habitus, field,
   and their afterlives
   - Bourdieu and the study of language and social class
   - Bourdieu, language, and the reproduction of inequality
   - critical reassessments of linguistic markets and legitimate language
   - Bourdieu in relation to multilingualism, mobility, and late modernity
   - postcolonial, decolonial, feminist, and racial critiques of
   Bourdieusian approaches
   - Bourdieu and language policy, education, and institutional power
   - the uses and limits of Bourdieu for contemporary research on language
   and society
   - reflexive or autoethnographic accounts of how Bourdieu has shaped,
   enabled, or constrained scholars’ own research trajectories



We welcome papers that work with Bourdieu, against Bourdieu, or beyond
Bourdieu.



*Timeline*



   - *Abstract deadline:* 30 April 2026
   - *Notification of acceptance:* mid-May 2026
   - *Full paper (first draft) deadline:* 1 November 2026
   - *Review Process: *December 2026 – June 2027
   - *Publication of Issue 9:1:* July 2027
   - *Publication of Issue 9:2:* December 2027



*Submission details*



Please submit an abstract of *300–400 words*, along with your name,
affiliation, and contact details. Abstracts should clearly indicate the
paper’s main argument, approach, and relevance to the theme of the special
issue.



*Word limit for full papers:* 5,000–6,000 words

*Submission address:*  lcs.journal.jb1 at gmail.com

*Review process:* All papers will be subject to double-blind peer review.



We look forward to submissions that revisit, interrogate, and reframe
Pierre Bourdieu’s legacy for the critical study of language, culture, and
society.



*LCS – Editors in Chief*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20260410/85ff39cb/attachment.htm>