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This collection brings together global perspectives which critically examine the ways in which language as a resource is used and managed in myriad ways in various blue-collar workplace settings in today's globalized economy. In focusing on blue-collar work environments, the book sheds further light on the informal processes through which top down language policies take place in different multilingual settings and the resultant asymmetrical power relations which emerge among employees and employers in such settings. Taking into account the latest debates on poststructuralist theories of language, the volume also extends its conceptualization of language to demonstrate the ways in which it extends to a wider range of multilingual and multimodal resources and communicative practices, all of which combine in unique and different ways toward constructing meaning in the workplace. The volume's unique focus on such workplaces also showcases domains of work which have generally until now been less visible within existing research on language in the workplace and the subsequent methodological challenges that arise from studying them. Integrating a range of theoretical and methodological approaches, along with empirical data from a diverse range of blue-collar workplaces, this book will be of particular interest to students and researchers in critical sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, sociology, and linguistic anthropology.
List of contents
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Language, Global Mobilities, and Blue-collar Workers and Workplaces: An Introduction
By Kellie Gonçalves and Helen Kelly-Holmes
Chapter 2
"Jobs for Life"?: Mining Temporalities in a Transforming Arctic Periphery
By Sari Pietikäinen and Kori Allan
Chapter 3
"Tant qu’ils comprennent": mobile workers and the language ideologies of resource extraction
By Mireille McLaughlin
Chapter 4
Researching language at work in public and hidden domains. Historical time and temporal contextualization
By Florian Hiss
Chapter 5
Spanish bonnes in 1960s Paris: Occupational narratives from transnational migrants in later life
By David Divita
Chapter 6
Investigating language use in immigrant businesses: Workplace practices of a Thai massage salon owner in Germany
By Stefan K. Serwe
Chapter 7
Language Practices through the Lens of the Neoliberal Imaginary in Kurdish-Owned Eating Establishments in Istanbul
By Anne Schluter
Chapter 8
The policy and institutional discourse of communication ability: The case of (migrant) eldercare workers in Japan
By Ruriko Otomo
Chapter 9
Evolving private labor markets and the (non-) acquisition of language
By Tamah Sherman and Jiří Homoláč
Chapter 10
Physical work, customer service or teamwork? Language requirements for seasonal cleaning work in the booming Arctic tourism industry
By Maiju Strömmer
Chapter 11
"The Filipinos, they can do it" - Migrant workers in a multilingual water manufacturing company in Saipan
By Dominique B. Hess
Chapter 12
Blue-collar work and multilingualism: ‘C’est tough’
By Alastair Pennycook
About the author
Kellie Gonçalves is a post-doctoral fellow at Multiling: Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan at the University of Oslo, Norway.//
Helen Kelly-Holmes is Professor of Applied Languages in the School of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at the University of Limerick, Ireland.
Summary
This collection brings together global perspectives which critically examine the ways in which language as a resource is used and managed in myriad ways in various blue-collar workplace settings in today’s globalized economy.
