This article discusses how stylization sheds light on the role of authenticity as an increasingly relevant concept in sociolinguistics. Building on research on style, crossing, and mock language use, the article demonstrates how multilingual stylization provides speakers with a wider range of resources for navigating and negotiating borders and…

This state-of-the-art article includes a review of past and recent studies on multilingualism at work in European environments. One aim is to provide the reader with a cross-cultural picture of workplace studies on various languages in Europe, another to discuss both positive and problem-based accounts of multilingualism at work. The overview…

This paper aims to contribute to the study of multilingualism in the workplace by analysing top-down language policies advocating parallellingualism at Denmark's eight universities. Parallellingualism, a key concept in Nordic language policy, has been suggested as a way to ensure an equitable balance between English and the Nordic language(s)…

This paper draws on the KINSA project (The Communicative Situation of Immigrants at Swedish Workplaces), which aimed to identify communicative factors that have a positive impact on the integration of second language speakers in the workplace and in their immediate work team. The focus here is on humour and swearing as strategies for doing…

South African higher education is at a critical juncture in the implementation of South Africa's multilingual language policy promoting institutional status for nine African languages, English, and Afrikaans. South African scholars, not content merely to comment from the sidelines on the policy, its promise, and challenges, have also engaged…

There has been considerable research both intra- and inter-linguistically on hedging in a variety of languages (e.g. Myers 1989; Markannen & Schroder 1997; Hyland 2005), primarily concentrating on its use in academic writing and identifying cultural differences in the propensity to hedge between different communities of practice. Furthermore,…

This paper addresses the fact that in spite of the descriptive and well-intentioned ambitions of much sociolinguistic-ethnographic research, members of studied groups often continue to interpret such research as a largely vertically organized socio-political activity that communicates a prescriptive social and linguistic normativity the researcher…

This paper advocates a new perspective on languages. It begins by demonstrating that, the occasional disavowals of sociolinguists notwithstanding, the lens through which we in the 21st century, both specialists and laypeople, view languages is predominantly biological. It then suggests that this biological metaphor is conceptually unhelpful and…

Hollywood movies have been a prime site for the representation of intercultural and multilingual encounters for decades. As such, they are not only of interest to everyday cinemagoers or home viewers, but have increasingly attracted the attention of scholars from various disciplines, including socio-linguistics. A main focus of much previous work,…

By comparing two recent French films, "L'Esquive" (Kechiche 2004) and "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" (Boon 2008), a realistic drama and a comedy, this article proposes an analysis of two different cases of stylisation that entertain complex relations of authenticity with stigmatised vernaculars, and in which actors stylise their own linguistic…

This paper examines language stylization in "Aigia Fuxia" ("The Fuchsia Goat"), a highly popular Greek Cypriot sitcom, where the (imagined) linguistic and socio-cultural "self" of a dialect-speaking community is subjected to extreme and aberrant stylization. The overarching filmic and generic trademark of "Aigia Fuxia" is its consistent…

Malaysia is a multiracial country with a diverse range of religions, leading to a broad range of religious festivals throughout the year. In recent years, corporate giants such as Petronas, Telekom Malaysia (TM), Tenaga and Astro have taken to airing television commercials (TVCs) that contain a local touch when greeting their customers. Perhaps…

Conversion narratives in the form of testimony are powerful means of consolidating and strengthening one's new religious identity (Beit-Hallahmi, Prolegomena to the psychological study of religion, Bucknell University Press, 1989; Rambo, Understanding religious conversion, Yale University Press, 1993; Stromberg 1993, as cited in Emmons &…

This study examines interactions from trials in the Syariah court in Malaysia. It focuses on the types of questioning, the choice of language and the linguistic resources employed in this particular context. In the discourse of law, questioning has been a prominent concern particularly in cross-examination and can be considered one of the key…

Bangla, as spoken in Bangladesh, is inseparable from the nation itself. The language movement of 1952, where several people died, played a significant role in the independence and the birth of Bangladesh. In fact, on 17th November 1999, UNESCO immortalized the movement by proclaiming 21st February as the International Mother Language Day. Bangla,…