Governmentality and Language

This article reviews how the analytics of governmentality have been taken up by scholars in linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics. It explores the distinctive logics of "linguistic governmentality" understood as techniques and forms of expertise that seek to go...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annual review of anthropology 2019-10, Vol.48 (1), p.261-278
Main Author: Urla, Jacqueline
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropological linguistics
Anthropology
Applied linguistics
Experts
Governmentality
Inequality
Language
Language ideologies
Language planning
Language policy
Linguistics
Modernism
Neoliberalism
political economy
Power
Sociolinguistics
subjectification
Subjectivity
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Summary:This article reviews how the analytics of governmentality have been taken up by scholars in linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics. It explores the distinctive logics of "linguistic governmentality" understood as techniques and forms of expertise that seek to govern, guide, and shape (rather than force) linguistic conduct and subjectivity at the level of the population or the individual. Governmentality brings new perspectives to the study of language ideologies and practices informing modernist and neoliberal language planning and policies, the technologies of knowledge they generate, and the contestations that surround them. Recent work in this vein is deepening our understanding of "language"-understood as an array of verbal and nonverbal communicative practices-as a medium through which neoliberal governmentality is exercised. The article concludes by considering how a critical sociolinguistics of governmentality can address some shortcomings in the study of governmentality and advance the study of language, power, and inequality.
ISSN:0084-6570
1545-4290
DOI:10.1146/annurev-anthro-102317-050258