Language, Media and Globalization in the Periphery

The Linguascapes of Popular Music in Mongolia

Sender Dovchin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351685337
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Sociolinguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The title seeks to show how people are embedded culturally, socially and linguistically in a certain peripheral geographical location, yet are also able to roam widely in their use and takeup of a variety of linguistic and cultural resources. Drawing on data examples obtained from ethnographic fieldwork trips in Mongolia, a country located geographically, politically and economically on the Asian periphery, this book presents an example of how peripheral contexts should be seen as crucial sites for understanding the current sociolinguistics of globalization. Dovchin brings together several themes of wide contemporary interest, including sociolinguistic diversity in the context of popular culture and media in a globalized world (with a particular focus on popular music), and transnational flows of linguistic and cultural resources, to argue that the role of English and other languages in the local language practices of young musicians in Mongolia should be understood as " linguascapes." This notion of linguascapes adds new levels of analysis to common approaches to sociolinguistics of globalization, offering researchers new complex perspectives of linguistic diversity in the increasingly globalized world.

1
Language, Media and Globalization in the Periphery

1.1 Introduction

When one of the popular alternative rock groups in Mongolia, A-Sound, released its English language album ‘Release’ in 2007, it was acclaimed by audiences and music critics as, ‘the best of the best,’ ‘original,’ ‘classic’ and so on. A majority of the songs on the album were written in English, and this use of ‘pure’ English has never been questioned or problematized by Mongolians but rather praised as ‘native sounding English.’ In contrast, when Gennie, a female rap artist in Mongolia, incorporated some bits and pieces of English resources in her nationalistically themed, yet English-titled, song ‘Don’t Cry,’ she was criticized by some listeners for using ‘meaningless’ and ‘gibberish’ English, and was accused of trying to imitate American hip-hop (Dovchin, 2017d).

These cases reveal some of the most debated, yet colliding local ideologies circulating around the spread of English and other foreign languages in contemporary Mongolia. Mongolians are notoriously open to the idea of ‘linguistic diversity’ and its underlying concepts such as bi/multilingualism and cosmopolitanism. The more languages you speak, the better opportunities follow, as a popular Mongolian proverb says, ‘Heltei bol hultei’ [‘If you have language, you have legs’]. Yet, the idea of linguistic diversity also carries intrinsic and extrinsic values that are simultaneously assessed both as ‘valuable’ and ‘detrimental’ by many Mongolians (Dovchin et al., 2015). ‘English from above’ (the use of English ‘by the hegemonic culture for purposes of international communication’ (Preisler, 1999, p. 241)) is highly valued by Mongolians as an opportunity for their educational and professional prosperity, while ‘English from below’ (‘the informal—active or passive—use of English as an expression of subcultural identity and style’ (Preisler, 1999, p. 241)) is explicitly overlooked. The ideology of linguistic diversity is particularly stigmatized by the empowering linguistic ideology of ‘standardized English’ (Milroy and Milroy, 1999)—the idolization of ‘pure’ English (Jernudd and Shapiro, 1989). This ideology of linguistic purism also applies to other languages such as Japanese, Korean, German, French, Russian and so on that are widespread in Mongolia. Foreign language users are expected to speak ‘standard’ or ‘pure’ forms of languages in all contexts. Even at the level of non-institutional settings, such as popular music, the performers are expected to sing in monolingual ‘standardized English,’ if they want to be accepted as authentic artists. This ideology is evident in the example of A-Sound, since their songs are exclusively written in English and sound like ‘British English’ when performed (see Chapter 5).

Meanwhile, when someone uses English outside of the ‘standard’ or ‘pure’ diaspora, they are often judged by the ideology of ‘linguistic dystopia’—the spread of various languages within local contexts portrayed as ‘the worst possible scenarios’ such as ‘linguistic imperialism, endangered languages, language death’ (Jacquemet, 2005, p. 257). Young Mongolians are often harshly criticized by purists for distorting the Mongolian language and culture due to excessively importing negative foreign influences into their daily linguistic and cultural lives, and losing their own language and identity (Dovchin, 2015). No wonder then that Gennie’s integration of English has been harshly criticized, since the Mongolian rap lyrics have been apparently ‘distorted’ by the ‘peripheralized Englishes’—Englishes that are deemed as ‘ungrammatical, nonstandard, incomplete, interlingual, in-process, or more generally, not normal or legitimate’ (Lee, 2017, p. 14).

On another note, there is also a popular counter language ideology circulating amongst many young Mongolians, who, for example, claim their linguistically blended texts as sociolinguistically ‘valid,’ ‘authentic,’ ‘strategic’ and ‘meaningful’ (Dovchin, 2015), maintaining varied aspirations, desires, meanings, expressions, identifications and identities (Androutsopoulos and Georagakopoulou, 2003; Coupland, 2010, 2014; Dovchin et al., 2018; Terkourafi, 2010). Such linguistic ideology amongst young Mongolians urges us to re-evaluate how else, as opposed to purity or pollution, English and other foreign languages should be understood in today’s globalizing world.

This book consequently focuses on the linguistic and cultural dynamics of English and other foreign languages in the current context of globalization, specifically looking at the media form of popular music in the peripheral nation located in Asia—Mongolia (Sultana and Dovchin, 2016). Putting aside the dominant language ideologies of ‘linguistic dystopia’ and ‘linguistic diversity,’ this book explores particular aspects of sociolinguistic practices in post-socialist Mongolia, based upon the spread and use of various transnational linguistic and cultural flows, common among the young popular music artists in Mongolia. The study thus addresses the question of how ‘peripheralized Englishes’ and other languages in a post-revolutionary context such as Mongolia, are mediated by its young people.

In fact, much of the analysis on the issues of linguistic creativity in modern popular music contexts is developed around the extensive discussion of English such as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) (Roth-Gordon, 2009; Cutler, 2003b) and other English forms (Williams and Stroud, 2014). As Morgan (2001, p. 188) points out, research on hip-hop language seems to largely rely on ‘the study, knowledge, and use of African American English (AAE) and General American English (GAE) linguistic features and principles of grammaticalization.’ Clearly, there are other cases of non-English languages embedded within local rap lyrics. Yet, much less attention has been paid to other non-English linguistic resources used within the transnational popular music scene.

This book thereby seeks to address this research gap by emphasizing the fact that when local musicians cut modernity to fit their own dimensions, they may also go beyond English/AAVE. Pennycook (2007a) points out that research on hip-hop must look not only to the spread of English but also other languages for evidence of hip-hop linguistic practice. Similarly, Kubota (2015, p. 37) acknowledges that the linguistic studies with a more critical edge need to be understood ‘as a larger intellectual discourse involving other languages,’ and English should be just part of this broader discourse. Such a focus would allow greater importance to be placed not only on English but also on ‘critical understanding of the political and ideological underpinnings behind communication in additional languages’ (p. 37). Based on contemporary sociolinguistic theories of globalization such as ‘linguascapes’ (cf. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3), and the methodology of ‘linguistic (n)ethnography’ (cf. Chapter 4), this book therefore raises the issues of to what extent, how and why young Mongolian musicians employ not only English but also other transnational languages (e.g., Russian, Japanese, Spanish, French, etc.) within their musical practices and cultural productions.

1.2 Popular Music as the Media Form

This book focuses on the term ‘media’ through the focal discussion of ‘popular music,’ since popular music is often seen as one of the critical concepts in media studies (Frith, 1988). In one of the classic media studies literature texts, Christopher Small (1987), for instance, has pointed out that popular music is one of the most important media forms through which ‘social relationships are explored, affirmed, and celebrated, through which identities and subjectivities can be altered, shored up or tried on for size’ (cited in Walser, 2004, p. 403). In a similar vein, Holtzman and Sharpe (2014) define popular music as the crucial media resource for telling stories, sending multi-layered messages and as a key property for informal education and socialization. Living within an entertainment media culture, much of our sense of individual and social identity, our beliefs and philosophies about what is normal or different can be reinforced by popular music. It is thus important to acquire the critical ability and skills to observe and analyze these media messages in order to become an informed citizen wanting to develop independent thoughts, values and behaviors (Holtzman and Sharpe, 2014, p. xx). As Connell and Gibson (2003, p. 1) persuasively write, ‘popular music is spatial, which is linked to particular geographical sites, bound up in our everyday perceptions of place, and a part of movements of people, products and cultures across space.’

This is in line with Browne’s (1996, p. 25) assertion that popular music should be seen as more than just entertainment media, or the culture of entertainment of large groups of people, but rather should be examined through the daily lives of people in the society. It is better to understand popular music through the scholarly exploration of everyday cultures, whether it is liked or disliked, approved or disapproved of. Likewise, Fiske (1989, p. 6) proposes that media text such as popular music is ‘completed only when taken up by people and inserted into their everyday culture,’ and ‘relevance can be produced only by the people, for only they can know which texts enable them to make the meanings that will function in their everyday lives.’

On another note, popular music is also defined as a significant media form, which bears an ever-growing spatiality that can portray the identities, aspirations, desires and lifestyles of contemporary young people. Quite simply, as Hesmondhalgh (2005, pp. 21–22) points out, ‘the most famous popular music of the past decades seems to have been created mainly by youngish people for young people’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2005, pp. 21–22). The relationship between popular music and young people is intimate, as the study of popular music equates to an important study of youth culture too (Dovchin et al., 2018). It includes various cultural and everyday activities in which young people hugely invest their time (Duncan-Andrade, 2004). Dolby (2006, p. 34) highlights the essential implications of popular music for the public spaces and the overall social fabric of a society, including the way that ‘youth conceptualize and enact their roles as citizens.’

In fact, many key studies in the language practices of young people have always said something about the role of popular music in the lives of young people (Benson and Chik, 2012). Indeed, it is almost impossible to understand the sociolinguistic practices of young people in today’s globalized world without understanding their involvement with popular music. Scholars such as Auzanneau (2002) and Pennycook (2007a, 2010b) have often reiterated that it is hard to see how we can proceed with any study of language, culture, globalization and engagement without dealing comprehensively with popular music. In this respect, Bennett (2000) highlights the essential role of popular music in creating diverse ‘urban narratives,’ which can create ‘local knowledges’ of place. Berger and Carroll (2003) acknowledge the politics and aesthetics of global pop music language, in which young people use its language not only to express personal and collective emotions, desires, and political resistance, but also other urgent socio-political issues. Understanding the dynamic relationship between popular music and youth may capture the hidden aspects of youth language and the related insights into who young people really are (Alim et al., 2009; Higgins, 2009a, 2009b). The language of popular music may open up new unexpected spaces where sociolinguists have never looked before (Sarkar, 2009). It is therefore a highly productive space, which opens up new possibilities to understand the sociolinguistic differences within the context of a shared community as it grows in different localities (Lee and Moody, 2012, Pennycook, 2010b). Overall, the interrelationship between popular music and its language is certainly an important and useful resource for analysis in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics (Dovchin et al., 2018).

From this point of view, this book will strive to focus on the term ‘media’ through the context of popular music as the focal point of discussion, since it is largely associated with young people’s daily sociolinguistic practices. The book will discuss how young people in the periphery do not necessarily ‘consume’ media but rather ‘produce’ their own important enactments, since ‘Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethos’ seems to be crucial to many young popular music artists around the world (Benson and Chik, 2012). In fact, youths in the periphery may often be some of the most active cultural producers. As Duncan-Andrade (2004, p. 313) emphasizes,

central to a discussion of youth popular culture is the point that culture is not just a process of consumption (critical or passive); it is also a process of production, of individual and collective interpretation (meaning making) through representations of styles, discursive practices, semiotics, and texts.

In line with this argument, this book will refer to youths in the periphery as creative cultural and linguistic producers, who contribute significantly and substantively to popular culture productions. Young songwriters, musicians and artists are perceived as critical producers, who mobilize the cultural and linguistic resources available to them in order to connect with the daily society. Put another way, young people play important roles in creating multiple media forms available in this current era of globalization. This book is hence not so much about the cultural industries as cultural producers, but rather young people themselves as cultural producers. The concerns regarding the participation of young people in producing cultural commodities (e.g., establishing music bands, song-writing etc.) are therefore taken seriously in what follows. Young people as popular music producers will be studied through how they are represented, what social identities they are associated with, how their texts are produced, and what mechanisms regulate their sociolinguistic activities. I have in this respect identified ‘youths in the periphery’ as one of the main ‘media producers,’ who make wider cultural production possible. I seek to hear not only what these young producers are saying through their productions, but also what they are composing—how they are using different linguistic and cultural resources, elements, modes, styles, rhymes and repertories to perform their desires, aspirations, identities, identifications, celebrations, values and philosophies. Following Kenway and Bullen (2008), youths will be seen as ‘flaneurs’—not merely a spectator but also ‘a critic.’

In this respect, Kenway and Bullen (2008, p. 28) highlight how the ‘young cyberflaneur uses these genres and forms to contest dominant ideologies and express alternative perspectives-for example, to expose corporate greed and call on corporations to be good global citizens and to conduct their affairs ethically.’

1.3 Mongolia as the Periphery

One of the central discussions of this book—the term ‘periphery’ will be concentrated on contemporary Mongolia, a country located geographically, politically and economically on the Asian periphery. ‘Mongolia as the periphery’ is also a context which is very much under-represented in the current discussions of sociolinguistics of globalization. The global image of Mongolia is either portrayed as a landlocked country situated in Central Asia or as a remote and grassy land, populated by nomadic animal-herders. Mostly, international onlookers envision Mongolia through high mountains, ‘gers’ [yurts]—the nomadic dwellings, horses, and, justifiably, Genghis Khan, the emperor of Great Mongol Empire of the 13th century. This vision, however, seems to be a largely romantic and rather naive projection, at odds with contemporary Mongolian society.

As Myadar (2011, p. 335) reminds us, ‘the Mongolian landscape and Mongolian herders have become a facade through which the portrayal of Mongolia as a “nomadic nation” is widely constructed and perpetuated.’

Figure 1.1 Nomadic Lifestyle in Mongolia

Photograph by author.

Mongolia generally, but particularly its capital city, Ulaanbaatar, has witnessed a major shift in lifestyle since 1990, following the transition from 70 years of communist rule under the Soviet Union, to a newly democratic nation with a fledgling free market economy. In particular, Ulaanbaatar has experienced a dramatic increase in terms of its population, due to internal ‘rural to urban’ in-migration, becoming home to nearly 1.3 million people, almost half of the country’s entire population, since 1990. Almost 60% of the Ulaanbaatar population is under 35 years of age, now consisting of a mix of city- and rural-bred young residents and making Mongolia one of the most youthful countries in the world. The migration to the city is perpetuated not only by Ulaanbaatar’s rapid urbanization, including the diverse job, business and education opportunities available there, but also natural disasters such as ‘zud,’ the snow blizzard which ruins the grassland for livestock, playing a vital role in the acceleration of the growth of ‘rural-to-city’ migration. Since 1990, Mongolia and its capital city, Ulaanbaatar, have already integrated themselves as part of the transnational community, opening up their once closed border policy by welcoming an influx of transnational financial, cultural, political, technological, media and human flows. In fact, globalization acts as an expediter for urban Mongolians to somehow reconsider the financial particularities of nomadic culture, as newly democratic Mongolia in the 1990s was exposed to the rest of the world and the wider dynamics of globalization in multiple ways (Campi, 2006).

Figure 1.2 Ulaanbaatar, the Capital City of Mongolia

Photograph by author.

Today, young people living in contemporary urban Mongolia are not the ‘nomads,’ roaming the boundless steppe on horseback. They are, according to Sargaltay (2004), attracted to a western and modern lifestyle, not the nomadic traditions of generations ago. Young Mongolians are filled with a radical desire to reform every sphere of life. The concept of ‘pure nomadism’ is now widely repudiated in Mongolia’s increasingly urban context. As Campi (2006, p. 78) notes, ‘a society is split in two, as the modern urban Western lifestyle centered around Ulaanbaatar loses touch with the needs of the growing poor rural herdsmen around the country.’ To put it simply, ‘nomadism,’ according to Myadar (2011, p. 356), ‘has symbolically taken on a greater cultural significance and more central role in how Mongolians define themselves—independent, free-spirited, resilient (nomads within).’

In reality, young people in modern Mongolia copy the hairstyles of Korean pop stars; young male teenagers dream of wrestling in Japanese professional sumo (in recent times the major grand champions of Japanese professional sumo wrestling are largely Mongolians); they go to concerts by Russian pop artists; they watch Chinese TV dramas; the girls are keen to acquire goods with French brands such as Louis Vuitton (the official opening ceremony of the Louis Vuitton store was held in 2009, in Ulaanbaatar). Global music—American and Western/Eastern European popular music (e.g., Eminem, Britney Spears (American), Ace of Base and Abba (Swedish), Spice Girls (British), Modern Talking (German), T...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Permissions
• 1 Language, Media and Globalization in the Periphery
• 2 Globalization as a World of Scapes
• 3 A Theory of Linguascapes
• 4 Linguistic (N)ethnography
• 5 Derivative Linguascapes
• 6 Symbolic Linguascapes
• 7 Relocalized Linguascapes
• 8 Bi/Multilingualism, Linguascapes and Language Education
• References
• Index