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Ruth at Workshop about the notions of 'critique' and 'critical'
Date: 7 February 2013
Ruth is invited to University Jyväskyla from 7-9 February, to participate at a workshop discussing the notions of critique and critical.
See below for details.
Critical language research in transition:
Discourse studies, ethnography and sociolinguistics in dialogue
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Jyväskylä discourse think tank
February 2013, Jyväskylä, Finland
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"Critical" is an adjective that has become increasingly over-used in different strands of research about language in social life. But what "social critique" means in, say, (critical) discourse analysis, is not always synonymous or compatible with critical approaches in applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics and so forth. To this one should add that what "critical" meant thirty years ago might not necessarily reflect the imperatives of a socially and politically committed researcher in late modernity, a time during which questions of post-colonialism and post-nationalism cause us now to perhaps pause to reflect: the state is no longer the obvious target of academic concern, nor even really is "Big Business".
Despite these complexities, "critical" is a concept we are still using to describe our approach to language research. It may refer to our theoretical and empirical perspectives, to our research interests as well as to our stance as researchers. Starting from an interest in power relations and the ways in which language figures in, critical language research encompasses inquires in a wide scope of domains and topics. However, the particular interest often is in the conditions and consequences of changing social processes and practices, more centrally for distribution of access to production and circulation of resources, for defining market conditions that give them value. At the nexus of social sciences and linguistic research, critical language research also both contributes to and is faced with the challenges of multi- and transdisciplinary work. This seems to be particularly acute in our multi-method research on multilingualism, identity and language categories, language ideological processes, new economy and nationalism. We believe that it is worthwhile to bring into dialogue current research and emerging notions and visions from critical discourse studies, critical sociolinguistics, critical linguistic anthropology and critical ethnography. Firstly, such transdisciplinary dialogue allows us to test and tease the boundaries and usefulness of the concepts of "critical" and "language" across these fields as well as in comparison to various alternatives (e.g. reflexivity, communication, resources). Secondly, this kind of dialogue might help us to move forward with our thinking about what "critical" and "language" might mean under current conditions.
The current moment of transition and mobility, both in terms of the phenomena we examine but also as regards to the key concepts we are using (such as language, language boundaries, access, ownership), seems to point towards wider paradigmatic shifts. We seem to be at the point of ontological and epistemological transition as regards how to understand what "critical" but also "language" means and what would be a fruitful way to use these concepts. We have seen various attempts to capture some of these shifts, including resignifying the meaning of "critical" or the usage of newly coined terminology such as post-critical, critical-critical, creative, reflexive; or by drawing on rhizomatic approaches (multi-sited ethnography, nexus analysis); or foregrounding the time/space aspects (circulation, trajectories).
To discuss and brainstorm these issues further, we are planning to organize a two-day research think tank around the concept of "critical" in research on language and society. The aim is by no means to set various approaches, appropriations and applications of the concept of critique in competition with each other, but rather to explore what "critical" means in current conditions, how the concept may help or hinder our research on language and social change, processes and practices; and why alternative concepts have emerged, potentially opening up new understandings and challenges to it. The goal of this think tank will be to take this discussion further, and to rethink what it means to conduct "social critique" from a linguistic/discourse analytical perspective.
List of invited participants:
Alexandre Duchêne>
Hannele Dufva
Monica Heller
Kati Kauppinen
Bonnie McElhinny
Tommaso Milani
Simo Määttä
Sari Pietikäinen
Joan Pujolar
Anna Solin
Ruth Wodak
Further information
Associated staff: Ruth Wodak
Associated departments and research centres: Language, Ideology and Power Group (LIP), Linguistics and English Language
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Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Lancaster University
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