28.4099, Diss: English; Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Katharine S. Flowers: ''Local language policy: Shifting scales in the English-only movement''

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4099. Fri Oct 06 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4099, Diss: English; Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Katharine S. Flowers: ''Local language policy: Shifting scales in the English-only movement''

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Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2017 12:20:31
From: Katherine Flowers [ksf143 at msstate.edu]
Subject: Local language policy: Shifting scales in the English-only movement

 
Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
Program: English 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2017 

Author: Katherine S Flowers

Dissertation Title: Local language policy: Shifting scales in the English-only
movement 

Dissertation URL:  https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/98149

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     Discourse Analysis
                     Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)


Dissertation Director(s):
Paul Prior
Dennis Baron
Spencer Schaffner
Michele Koven

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation examines how language policymakers in the United States
write, discuss, and resist local English-only policies. By tracing the
trajectories of four interconnected, local campaigns to make English the
official language, I show that such policies are not static texts or abstract
impositions, but rather a kind of writing, one that emerges through local
action, collaboration, revision, uptake, and other literate activities. As one
of the few studies to examine how politicians and other policymakers write,
and the first to focus on the writing practices of people in the English-only
movement, this dissertation sheds light on the broader question of how people
create and change policies, particularly ones that reflect and affect people’s
understandings of language and communication. In order to analyze how and why
people enact such policies, I conducted audio- and video-recorded interviews
with 24 activists, writers, and politicians; analyzed public government
records, videos, and digital discourse; and visited the archives of John
Tanton (who founded the organizations ProEnglish and U.S. English), former US
Senator Paul Simon, and the National Council of Teachers of English. I argue
that local policies in schools, workplaces, and, increasingly, governments
have played a crucial role in shaping how people learn, use, and view
language. At the same time, the local scale is an ideological, discursive
concept that is constantly open to further entrenchment or renegotiation, and
it is always still connected to other scales. Local language policies thus
provide opportunities for people to (re)write not only their stances towards
language, but also their definitions of community. The opening chapter, “Local
Language Policy,” introduces these arguments; provides a history of such
policies in the US; introduces an analytical framework that combines work on
language policy, situated studies of writing, and research on local language
practices; and describes the stakes of this project for writing studies and
related fields. In Chapter 2, I move into the “Methodology and Methods” of the
study. Chapter 3, “Networked Localism,” focuses on how people write and
circulate local English-only policies, through text histories of four policies
that were based on the same template. In Chapter 4, “Upscaling and
Downscaling,” I turn from writing practices to language ideologies, in order
to show that, rather than adhere to a “one nation-one language” ideal, people
in the English-only movement flexibly align across, and distance themselves
from, various scales. The fifth chapter, “Resisting and Rewriting,” focuses on
the experiences and strategies of people opposed to the English-only movement.
Through a case study of a group of participants who successfully repealed
their county’s language policy, this analysis offers a model for future
language advocacy by showing the possibilities of meshing multilingual,
translingual, and raciolinguistic orientations towards language. Ultimately,
this dissertation opens up the worlds of policymaking, prescriptivism, and
English-only activism to more situated, discursive analysis, and the field of
writing studies to a kind of writing that has significantly shaped American
identity, education, and citizenship.




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