Skip to main content

Commentary

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Discursive Approaches to Language Policy

Abstract

As Karl Marx famously wrote: ‘If everything were as it appeared on the surface, there would be no need for science’ (cited in Harvey 2014, p. 4). Marx used the term ‘fetishism’ to refer to the masks, disguises, and distortions that surround us, and his desire to understand what was really going on in the world, especially with reference to rapid industrialization in the nineteenth-century Europe, required a massive analysis and critique of capital in order to uncover the fundamental bases of social relations and social inequality in society. In Volume 1 of his magisterial work Capital (1967), Marx made the following observation regarding the task that confronted the reader of his book:

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Blommaert, J. (2006). Language policy and national identity. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy: Theory and method (pp. 238–254). Malden: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blommaert, J. (2013). Policy, policing and the ecology of social norms: Ethnographic monitoring revisited. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 219, 123–140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blommaert, J., & Verschueren, J. (1998). Debating diversity: Analysing the discourse of tolerance. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. (1982). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of Bourgeois society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (2006). The limits to capital. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (2014). Seventeen contradictions and the end of capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hymes, D. (1967). Models of the interaction of language and social setting. Journal of Social Issues, 23(2), 8–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hymes, D. (1996). Ethnography, linguistics, narrative inequality: Toward an understanding of voice. London: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, D. C. (2010). Implementational and ideological spaces in bilingual education language policy. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13(1), 61–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Labov, W. (1982). Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science: The case of the Black English trial in Ann Arbor. Language in Society, 11, 165–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (1967). Capital. New York: International Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricento, T. (2003). The discursive construction of Americanism. Discourse & Society, 14(5), 611–637.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ricento, T. (2005). Problems with the “language-as-resource” discourse in the promotion of heritage languages in the U.S.A. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9(3), 348–368.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ricento, T. (Ed.) (2015). Language policy and political economy: English in a global context. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricento, T. (Ed.) (2016). Language policy and planning: Critical concepts in linguistics. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricento, T., & Hornberger, N. H. (1996). Unpeeling the onion: Language planning and policy and the ELT professional. TESOL Quarterly, 30(3), 401–427.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tollefson, J. W. (1991). Planning language, planning inequality: Language policy in the community. London: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tollefson, J. W. (2013). Language policy in a time of crisis and transformation. In J. W. Tollefson (Ed.), Language policies in education: Critical issues (2nd ed., pp. 11–34). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Ricento, T. (2016). Commentary. In: Barakos, E., W. Unger, J. (eds) Discursive Approaches to Language Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53134-6_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53134-6_12

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-53133-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53134-6

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics