Language, Global Mobilities, Blue-Collar Workers and Blue-collar Workplaces

Kellie Gonçalves, Helen Kelly-Holmes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000281040
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 “Jobs for Life”?: Mining Temporalities in a Transforming Arctic Periphery
• 3 “Tant qu’ils comprennent”: Mobile Workers and the Language Ideologies of Resource Extraction
• 4 Researching Language at Work in Public and Hidden Domains: Historical Time and Temporal Contextualization
• 5 Spanish Bonnes in 1960s Paris: Occupational Narratives From Transnational Migrants in Later Life
• 6 Investigating Language Use in Immigrant Businesses: Workplace Practices of a Thai Massage Salon Owner in Germany
• 7 Language Practices Through the Lens of the Neoliberal Imaginary in Kurdish-Owned Eating Establishments of Istanbul
• 8 The Policy and Institutional Discourse of Communication Ability: The Case of (Migrant) Eldercare Workers in Japan
• 9 Evolving Private Labor Markets and the (Non-) Acquisition of Language
• 10 Physical Work, Customer Service, or Teamwork?: Language Requirements for Seasonal Cleaning Work in the Booming Arctic Tourism Industry
• 11 “The Filipinos, They Can Do It”: Migrant Workers in a Multilingual Water Manufacturing Company in Saipan
• 12 Blue-Collar Work and Multilingualism: “C’est Tough”
• Index