Cover not available

Article published In: Anxiety, Insecurity, and Border Crossing: Language Contact in a Globalizing World
Edited by Mie Hiramoto and Joseph Sung-Yul Park
[Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 24:2] 2014
► pp. 141–151

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Anxiety, insecurity, and border crossing

Language contact in a globalizing world

 | National University of Singapore
Published online: 22 December 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.24.2.001int
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.
References (34)
Ahmed, Sara. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays , M. Holquist, ed., C. Emerson and M. Holquist, Trans., Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Besnier, Niko. (1990). Language and affect. Annual Review of Anthropology, 191, 419–451. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2011). On the edge of the global: Modern anxieties in a Pacific Island Nation. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, Richard, & Briggs, Charles L. (1990). Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology, 191, 59–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan, Collins, James, & Slembrouck, Stef. (2005). Spaces of multilingualism. Language & Communication, 251, 197–216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary. (2011). Race and the re-embodied voice in Hollywood film. Language and Communication, 31(3), 255–265. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas (Ed.). (2010). The handbook of language and globalization. Malden: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harvey, David. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heller, Monica. (2007). The future of ‘bilingualism’. In Monica Heller (ed.), Bilingualism: A social approach (pp.340–345). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2010). The commodification of language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39(1), 101–114. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Higgins, Christina. (2011). The formation of L2 selves in a globalizing world. In C. Higgins (Ed.), Identity formation in globalizing contexts: Language learning in the New Millenium (pp.1–17). Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hill, Jane H., & Hill, Kenneth C. (1986). Speaking Mexicano: Dynamics of syncretic language in Central Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hiramoto, Mie. (2011). Consuming the consumers: Semiotic of Hawai‘i Creole in advertisements. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 26(2), 247–275. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaworski, Adam, & Thurlow, Crispin (Eds.). (2010). Semiotic landscapes: Language, image, space. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kroon, S., Dong, J., & Blommaert, J. (2011). Truly moving texts. Tilburg papers in culture studies, paper 3. Accessed February 13, 2013. [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York city. Washington D. C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lutz, Catherine, & Abu-Lughod, Lila (Eds.). (1990). Language and the politics of emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maher, John C. (2005). Metroethnicity, language, and the principle of cool. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 111, 83–102.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2010). Metroethnicities and metrolanguages. In Nikolas Coupland (Ed.), The Handbook of language and globalization (pp.575–591). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McElhinny, Bonnie. (2010). The audacity of affect: Gender, race, and history in linguistic accounts of legitimacy and belonging. Annual Review of Anthropology, 391, 309–328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry B. (2005). Subjectivity and cultural critique. Anthropological Theory, 5(1), 31–52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, Joseph Sung-Yul. (2010). Naturalization of competence and the neoliberal subject: Success stories of English language learning in the Korean conservative press. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 20(1), 22–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, Joseph Sung-Yul, & Bae, Sohee. (2009). Language ideologies in educational migration: Korean jogi yuhak families in Singapore. Linguistics and Education, 20(4), 366–377. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair. (2005). Performing the personal. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 4(4), 297–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2007). Global Englishes and transcultural flows. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2010). Language as a local practice. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2012). Language and mobility: Unexpected places. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piller, Ingrid, & Cho, Jinhyun. (2013). Neoliberalism as language policy. Language in Society, 42(1), 23–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pratt, Mary Louise. (1987). Linguistic utopias. In Nigel Fabb, Derek Attridge, Alan Durant & Colin MacCabe (Eds.), The linguistics of writing: Arguments between language and literature (pp.48–66). New York: Methuen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilce, James. (2009). Language and emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (12)

Cited by 12 other publications

Licata, Gabriella, Tasha Austin & Aris Moreno Clemons
2023. Raciolinguistics and Spanish language teaching in the USA: from theoretical approaches to teaching practices. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching 10:2 ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Miyazaki, Ayumi
2023. Introduction: ideologies of contact and space in Japan: a theoretical expansion of language ideological work. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2023:284 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Wan, Tsung-Lun Alan
2022. Islands, geopolitics and language ideologies: Sociolinguistic differentiation between Taiwanese and Kinmenese Hokkien. Language & Communication 83 ► pp. 36 ff. DOI logo
Yang, Jinsuk & In Chull Jang
2022. The everyday politics of English-only policy in an EFL language school: practices, ideologies, and identities of Korean bilingual teachers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 25:3 ► pp. 1088 ff. DOI logo
Ito, Rika
2020. North Pillow Brings Bad Luck: Construction of Ideologies of English in a Japanese TV Drama, Massan. Japanese Studies 40:2 ► pp. 141 ff. DOI logo
Hasselbacher, Stephanie
2018. Introduction: Literacy ideologies. Language & Communication 61 ► pp. 71 ff. DOI logo
Lee, Claire Seungeun
2018. Experiencing “Internationalized precarity” in inter-Asian film production: A case study of Seediq Bale. Poetics 66 ► pp. 42 ff. DOI logo
De Costa, Peter I.
2016. Constructing the global citizen. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 26:2 ► pp. 238 ff. DOI logo
Hiramoto, Mie
2015. Who’s really normal?. Journal of Language and Sexuality 4:2 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Koven, Michele
2015. Language Awareness and Emotion. In Language Awareness and Multilingualism, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Koven, Michele
2016. Language Awareness and Emotion. In Language Awareness and Multilingualism, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Koven, Michele
2017. Language Awareness and Emotion. In Language Awareness and Multilingualism, ► pp. 67 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue