2020 has been a strange year for reading: some of us have had a lot more time for reading, others far less. Regardless whether you’ve been able to indulge or have missed out, most Language on the Move readers will be on the look-out for some good reads for the New Year ahead.
The Language on the Move team is here to help!
After the Language on the Move Reading Challenges of 2018, 2019, and 2020, this is the fourth time we are running the Language on the Move Reading Challenge.
This year, we have created a monthly calendar of reading recommendations to keep you company throughout the year.
As was the case previously, the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2021 is designed to encourage broad reading in the discipline and beyond, and to make linguistics reading fun. Anyone with an interest in the intersection of linguistic diversity and social life can join.
Throughout the year, make sure to watch out for in-depth reviews and interactive conversations related to each reading, both here on this site and over on Twitter @lg_on_the_move.
Enjoy the recommendations from our team and feel free to add your own recommendations in the comment section below! We are interested in any good reads illuminating the intersection of language and social life.
January
Hanna Torsh recommends The Sydney Language by Jakelin Troy (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2019, 2nd ed.).
“Jakelin Troy documents the language of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Sydney Region, which no longer has any speakers. Drawing on historical sources, the book provides a classic example of language contact and intercultural communication. Shadows of those encounters between Aboriginal people and colonizers continue to exist in the vocabulary of Australian English. “Waratah” is a good example. The flower to which it refers is the name of the NSW floral emblem and of a major rugby team.”
February
Pia Tenedero recommends Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (Crown Publishing, 2012).
“I like having Reading Group via Zoom because I feel more confident to express myself in this digital platform than in our face-to-face meetings – possibly an indication of my introvert side. This is partly why Susan Cain’s exploration of communication styles and the stereotypes linked to them appeals to me. There is a dominant belief that the ideal self, successful students, model employees, or the best leaders enjoy the spotlight, act quickly, and talk fast, aloud, and a lot. Extroversion is also perceived as a “Western” communication style. As a result, those who do not fit the pattern are oftentimes viewed through a deficit lens, as I have found in my research with globalized accountants in the Philippines.”
March
Vera Williams Tetteh recommends Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa by Nwando Achebe (Ohio University Press, 2020).
“In 2009, I gifted Ingrid (Piller) a glossy catalogue celebrating 50 years of Ghanaian history. She was puzzled at this short time span and asked where all the history before that was. Not having an answer at the time, I have become an avid reader of African history since. Nwando Achebe provides a brilliant African-centred history of women in leadership roles on the continent during pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial times. The book opens with my most favourite African proverb – “Until the lions have their own historians, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter” and, throughout, addresses the question: whose histories, whose stories, whose archives?”
April
Loy Lising recommends Challenging the Myth of Monolingual Corpora edited by Arja Nurmi, Tanja Rutten, and Paivi Pahta (Brill, 2017).
“This book addresses how the monolingual mindset pervades even the discipline of linguistics itself, specifically the sub-discipline of corpus linguistics. The monolingual mindset manifests in the compilation, annotation, and use of corpora, and multilingual practices are converted into monolingual corpora at each of these levels. As one of the contributors to the Philippine component of the International Corpus of English, I am concerned that any non-English data in that corpus are either marked as <indig>, if they are in a local language, or <foreign>, if they are in Spanish. The book offers many helpful lenses through which to query these practices and to consider how non-English elements could be better incorporated so that they can serve as meaningful evidence of language contact and language change.”
May
Madiha Neelam recommends Language Policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches by Elana Shohamy (Routledge, 2006).
“This book inspires me to think more deeply about how language can serve as a means of control and categorisation. Shohamy explains how perceptions of language as a limited entity, governed by fixed boundaries, and strict rules of correctness make language amenable to manipulation for political, social, and economic purposes. Language tests, in particular, are powerful tools of control and social categorisation.”
June
Samar Al-Khalil recommends Neoliberalism and English Language Education Policies in the Arabian Gulf by Osman Z. Barnawi (Routledge, 2017).
“Barnawi shows how education in the Gulf region is changing as societies move from oil-based to knowledge-based economies. In this context, education has become entirely subject to the needs of the job market and economic agendas. This has resulted in a series of tensions as this form of neoliberal and globalized education comes into conflict with Islamic values and Arab identities. The book helps me to think more critically about the broader socioeconomic context in which my research about the promotional discourses of private English language teaching institutes in Saudi Arabia is embedded.”
July
Shiva Motaghi-Tabari recommends Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia edited by Anita Heiss (Black Inc., 2018).
“Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia is an anthology of fifty short life stories written by Aboriginal people from all walks of life and spanning a variety of generations and regions. It is a compilation of diverse voices and perspectives which have identity, culture, and racism at their core. One of the themes that stands out throughout the book is the contributors’ struggles to understand their identity, and to find a sense of belonging and acceptance. The book enriched my own learning and understanding about Indigenous people in many ways, and I would recommend the book particularly to migrants to Australia, who can too easily avoid confronting Australia’s colonial history and the ongoing struggles of its First Nations people.”
August
Alexandra Grey recommends Language Investment and Employability: The Uneven Distribution of Resources in the Public Employment Service by Mi-Cha Flubacher, Alexandre Duchêne and Renata Coray (Palgrave, 2018).
“This book reports on a 9-month institutional ethnography inside various offices of Switzerland’s public employment service across the officially French-German bilingual Canton of Fribourg. It is a brilliant example of an institutional ethnography. The study demonstrates that language policy research should not always take a specific official language policy as its starting point. Instead, it is important for researchers to look at sites and processes where both overt and covert language policy is made and applied without taking on the official guise of ‘a policy about language’. Here, the rules, official policies and official discourses are, on their face, about eligibility for state assistance and employability, but the study shows how language practices, migration histories, and language repertoires are constructed within them.”
September
Ana Sofia Bruzon recommends Home advantage: social class and parental intervention in elementary education by Annette Lareau (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, 2nd ed).
“Working-class families want their children to succeed in school, just like middle-class families, but they are not endowed with the same resources. Lareau shows that social class has a powerful impact on educational success; that is, parental involvement in schooling correlates strongly to children’s educational attainment. For working-class families, school and family life are strictly separated. By contrast, school and family life are interconnected for middle class families. Parental possession and activation of cultural resources yields social and educational profits for middle class children, which results in the strong connection between social class and educational outcomes. The book challenges me to think more deeply about how the class-school relationship is complicated when linguistic difference and migrant status also come into play. Schools should help fill the gap by providing inclusive multilingual information.”
October
Jinhyun Cho recommends Language and Symbolic Power by Pierre Bourdieu (Polity, 1992).
“I have read this book numerous times and treat it as my sociolinguistic bible. I continue to find new perspectives and insights into the relationship between language and society at each reading. By shifting the focus from language per se to its situatedness in complex social relations, Bourdieu’s theory of language as capital works seamlessly in the theorisation of linguistic markets, in which a price is formed on language, and censorship operates in order to distinguish legitimate language from other varieties. Although Bourdieu’s theory was formed in the French context of the 2nd half of the 20th century, it has been foundational to my own research related to translation and interpreting in contemporary South Korea, where English serves as a key instrument of distinction.”
November
Tazin Abdullah recommends Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia by Samia Khatun (University of Queensland Press, 2019).
“Much of the narrative surrounding Australian immigrants posits migration as a recent phenomenon. Australianama (“The book of Australia”), in contrast, is a refreshing insight into the historic connection immigrants have had with land and people. Khatun traces the South Asian Muslim presence in Australia using literature in South Asian languages and stories found in Aboriginal accounts. She explains, convincingly, that an understanding of immigrant history is found not in languages associated with European/colonial knowledge systems, but within the literature of immigrant and Aboriginal languages. The stories that Khatun unearths definitively illustrate the influence of historical, social and cultural factors that produce the linguistic representation of immigrants. I thoroughly enjoyed this fresh perspective on the story of Australia.”
December
Ingrid Piller recommends The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns edited by Dohra Ahmad and with a foreword by Edwidge Danticat (Penguin, 2019).
“I’ve probably learned more about language – and life in general, I might add – from literature than from linguistics. And this anthology offers a kaleidoscope of the many facets in which language is entwined in the experience of migration. Ahmad has brought together a brilliant collection of migrant literature with pieces focused on the experience of leaving home, arriving in a destination, and creating, or trying to create, a new home. Although the US and UK still loom large among the destinations, Ahmad has made a huge effort to include a wide variety of origins and destinations. Another strength of the anthology is that, in addition to some well-known names, it features many newer writers who have not yet been widely anthologized – I’ve discovered a number of authors to add to my favorite writers list.”
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The book I would like to recommend is ‘Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Communication’, written by William B. Gudykunst. This book introduces the differences between ‘cross-cultural communication’ and ‘intercultural communication’. As the author illustrates: ‘intercultural communication’ refers to face to face communication with people from different countries, it is the study of culture and communication. And ‘cross-cultural communication’ is the comparison of communication in terms of different countries. It is really important for us to keep in mind that we need to respect and try to understand each other’s cultures to avoid conflicts and taboos. Especially now we are living in a multicultural environment. One thing the author broke my traditional concept of intercultural communication is that ‘intercultural’ not only means cultures in terms of different countries, it refers to people of different social groups with different cultures as well. I used to ignore the fact that besides countries, people’s social identities and social activities also decide the way of how they communicate with others. This book guides me to explore how cultures can influence people’s communication as well as factors that we need to consider for better communication. I believe it is very helpful.
I would like to recommend ‘Insights into Chinese Culture’,by Ye Lang, which is written specifically for Chinese and foreign readers who are interested in Chinese culture. With typical examples and abundant illustrations, the book elaborates on Chinese wisdom and religion, creativity and communication, art and aesthetics, folk customs and habits. It focuses on cultural spirit and core values. As a book that introduces China to the world, it fully displays the charm of Chinese culture with attractive descriptions and hundreds of beautiful illustrations. The book explores the thinking, character, life attitude and aesthetic taste of the Chinese people, as well as the universal values embodied in Chinese culture.
I would like to recommend a book which is “ Language, Culture and Identity in Two Chinese Community Schools: More Than One Way of Being Chinese?” by Sara Ganassin. I really enjoy reading it.
This book looks at the social, political, and pedagogical roles of community language teaching in migrant communities. It is based on an ethnographic study of the value of Mandarin-Chinese community schooling in the United Kingdom as an intercultural space for individuals involved. The book takes a ‘bricolage’ approach to understanding the interrelationship between ‘language,’ ‘culture,’ and ‘identity,’ bringing together a variety of theoretical approaches.
As a language teacher, I highly recommend everyone to read this book.
I highly recommend the novel “Stupeur et tremblements” (Fear and Trembling) by Francophone Belgian author Amélie Nothomb. I analysed this remarkable book for for my undergrad capstone project on cognitive context and identity formation, which drew heavily on James Marcia’s theory of the stages of identity formation.
The novel, which is to an extent autobiographical, tells the story of a French-speaking Belgian girl, who was born to diplomat parents in Japan and spent her early childhood there. Even though she later returned to Belgium with her family, she had become proficient in Japanese and considered herself Japanese. Upon graduating from university, she obtains an office job in Tokyo and returns to Japan, looking forward to reconnecting with what she considers her homeland. Of course, her perfect Japanese aside, Amélie’s cultural norms are entirely European. Her idea of herself as Japanese represented Identity Foreclosure – a naïve choice of identity which one makes without having explored the options.
She experiences severe culture shock (or, more properly, acculturative stress – I found that theoretical framework more useful for analysing this case), facing constant scolding from her bosses for being unable to navigate the strongly hierarchical and collectivist Japanese culture. She enters identity moratorium, struggling to find her real identity. Amélie still wants to be Japanese, but can no longer avoid the realisation that she is Western. Eventually, she acquires a bicultural identity. Her stoicism in face of hostility at work proves both to her and her superior, Fubuki, that she is in fact Japanese, at least to an extent. Yet she no longer denies her Westernness. She has finally entered the stage of Identity Achievement – but acquiring two identities instead of one.
This is a great novel, and highly relevant for the study of identity, culture and acculturation. I truly enjoyed reading it.
Thank you, Alexander! Sounds amazing and I’ll make sure to add this to my summer reading list 😊
Hi Alexander
Wow thank you’re for the referral. I look forward to reading this novel. Severe culture shock or as you said , acculturative stress is a passionate area of reading for me. It’s a fascinating area that I think needs much more research. My first formal experience with this topic was after living and studying in Japan and experiencing so much cultural and identity stress which started the unsettling ongoing journey of questioning my culture, everything I believe, who I am, how I fit into the world and community, what my values are etc. This seems to be an ongoing process which I now really enjoy but have realised I can sadly not share my insights on this topic with very many others.
My first formal introduction to ” culture shock” was in University in Canada, after living in Japan, in a book or article called ” The Seven Stages of Culture Shock”. I wish I had understood some of this information prior to my stay in Japan the first time. It was invaluable the second time, when I stayed much longer in Japan and understood what was happening to some degree. I have searched repeatedly for this article /book many times but not been able to find it again.
Thank you again for the recommendation!
After learning the Indo-European language family in week three, I was interested in language families, so I found the article《An Intro to Language Families》on Google. The beginning of this article introduces the meaning and classification of language families. A language database “Ethnologue” maintained by the Summer Institute of Linguistics lists more than 120 different language families. Some families have only one language as some languages cannot be classified with other languages and are marked as isolated languages without any known relatives. The article next mentioned 18 languages, including Indo-European, Uralic, Caucasian, Altaic, Paleosiberian, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan, Tai, Austro-Asiatic, Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan, Austronesian, Indo-Pacific, Australian Aboriginal, Eskimo-Aleut and Macro-Algonquian. What interests me is that Aboriginal Australian is a separate family. Many Australian languages lack frictional consonants and do not distinguish between voiced sounds, but they do distinguish more places of articulation for stops and nasals. Finally, the author emphasizes that the number of languages in the family does not represent the number of speakers. In many cases, the language family may be small but the number of speakers is large. For example, the Austronesian and Niger Congo languages have the largest number of languages, but the Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan languages have the largest number of speakers.
Link of the article:
https://www.linguisticsnetwork.com/an-introduction-to-language-families/
In the 1980s in the Northern Territory of Australia, there was often an exhilarating sense of possibility. Arts based on tens of thousands of years of cultural continuity were moving from local ceremonies to international galleries and stages. With no Indigenous tradition of print literacy, bilingual schooling in larger communities was supported by literature production centres which involved the community in creating vernacular reading materials. These schoolbooks evolved to give communities written voices in their own languages. As a newly-arrived teacher from a print-oriented culture, the simple booklets with black and white line drawings produced in a nearby community showed me a love of language and keen, often witty, observations of life. They also helped me consolidate my understanding of the local lingua franca, Roper River Kriol.
While other art forms have gone from strength to strength since those times, the developing relationship with literacy in vernacular languages came to an abrupt end in most communities with the abandonment of bilingual education. The article Death by a Thousand Cuts: Indigenous Language Bilingual Education Programmes in the Northern Territory of Australia, 1972–1998, by Christine Nicholls, describes the significance of bilingual education in those communities, in contrast to the educational ramifications of monolingual schooling. It is saddening, but perhaps necessary, to learn about the processes by which this policy change came about.
Thanks, Ingrid! An important read for every Australian and everyone interested in language policy!
I recently read an article about Translanguaging, Emotionality and English as second language immigrants: Mongolian background women in Australia which was written by Sender Dovchin who was my previous university lecturer back to my country as she is now a senior research fellow at Curtin University. She wrote a lot of interesting articles on translinqualism, especially on linguistic racism and discrimination that I would suggest reading. The article that I mentioned earlier points out two main theoretical points. Firstly, when translanguaging moves beyond the classroom, it may provide ESL immigrants with an emotionally and linguistically safe space where they feel comfortable in managing their negative emotions through employing multiple entangled layers of linguistic and paralinguistic resources and also translanguaging data further presents that these ESL immigrants are deeply emotional and are prone to depression, putting their mental well-being in jeopardy. As a result of their depression, their academic concentration is inhibited, as is their ability to learn English well or easily.
Therefore, TESOL educators and teachers need to consider how ESL immigrant students use different linguistic repertoires outside the classroom, what they talk about, and which emotions they prefer to express in which forms of their linguistic repertoire; and their multiple emotions, traumas and psychological issues embedded within their multiple ways of learning, being, and speaking; and consolidate appropriate interventions aimed at reducing depressive symptoms that have the potential to negatively impact academic performance existing in L2 sociocultural contexts.
Thanks, Enkhzaya! An interesting read but I reject the belief that migrants are “deeply emotional and prone to depression” … as with all groups, there is a great variety of experience but migration per es is not a clinical condition 🙃
During this last lockdown, I read three books. The first one was Atomic Habits by James Clear, the second one was Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron PhD, and the last one was my favourite book, The Culture Map by Erin Meyer. This book is easy to read. It contains hilarious examples of the author. She explains through her own experience how cultural patterns of behaviour and beliefs impact our perceptions of what we see, think, and do. The purpose of the book is to help us improve our ability to understand these three aspects of culture and enhance our effectiveness in dealing with them.
Also, as a language teacher, I found this book excellent because it has good examples that I can use with my students to explain why we can´t learn grammar and vocabulary without real context. How important it is to understand the culture when we are learning a new language.
Therefore, in my opinion, being lockdown was an excellent excuse to connect to myself, read interesting books and watch documentaries on Netflix and understand more about language and culture.
Thanks
Hi!
I would like to recommend Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea: Indian Women as Cultural Intermediaries and National Symbols by Rebecca K. Jager (University of Oklahoma Press).
This book is an extraordinary resource to learn about these three exceptional women and get insight into who they were based not only on primary European records but also on Indian accounts from the colonial era, which together, in Jager’s words, “provide context and dept [and] are best understood in relation to each other”.
This book allows readers to understand who these female intermediaries were by offering detailed descriptions of their socio-cultural background, the roles they played as intermediaries between natives and first Europeans in the context of their societies and cultures, and the myths that have been built around them throughout time.
The multidisciplinary research consulted and gathered by the author serves to gain an insightful understanding of what the lives of these women were truly like and differentiate that from the stories about them that have been created throughout the years to serve specific political and social ends.
This great book attempts to give a voice to these admirable women whose first-hand impressions we were not able to access.
My recommendation would be Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction by Rattansi (2011). I really enjoy Oxford Publishing’s collection of “A very short introduction” collection and this compact book is no exception. It took upon various themes related to culture and multiculturalism. The most impressive chapter and most relatable to this course is Chapter 4: “The pillars of integration”, where the author introduces various theories related to cultural integration. In the process of immigrants integrating into a foreign culture, people might think it is a one-way direction with the host culture absorbing migrants or migrants being forced to fit in. However, it is and should be a two-way process in which two cultures interact and evolve into a new environment that made birth to multiculturalism concepts. Studying and learning about language and cultures in contact has reminded me of this point by Rattansi, language is dynamic and is a clear representation of culture. In my opinion, multiculturalism comes along with multilingualism where the movement of people would enrich both language and culture.
Rattansi, Ali (2011). Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Price: USD 11.95; Pages 184; ISBN: 9780199546039.
It is hard to pick solely one article or book to recommend, as each one of them helped me form a better understanding of literacies. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Wolf, M. & Barzillai, M. (2009). The importance of deep reading. This is a pleasant read that not only explains the crucial impact of reading on our brain development and neuroplasticity but also explores the effects of online reading in this new digital era. I was deeply engaged in the topic (and the discussion we had in class afterwards!) as I could easily compare findings and statements with the real-life world we are all living in, but especially with the virtual space and the behaviours I sometimes observed in its inhabitants.
I am happy to see “The Sydney Language” by Troy recommended in the reading challenge. I read it a few years ago while writing my dissertation on language revival. As a European migrant in Australia, this was one of my first attempts at understanding the history of Australia and it really enriched my knowledge. I second that recommendation for sure!
Being in the middle of pandemic, pregnant women are noticeably more vulnerable than any person as the virus can negatively affect both mom and baby’s health. However, there have been different strain of thoughts towards the COVID-19 vaccination and the pregnant women’s decision of COVID-19 vaccination, therefore, becomes more challenging than ever. In my hometown – Saigon (Vietnam), when it used to have over eight-thousand cases per day, pregnant women were neither counted in public nor maternity information of vaccination. Although it is impotential to implement COVID-19 vaccination and resource mobilisation among these mom-to-bes as some have low level of literacy (especially the migrants coming from the other provinces), no campaign or reliable info source was conducted to raise awareness about vaccine. When it comes to suggestion of an article in literacy, I think about ‘Acceptance and willingness to pay for COVID- 19 vaccines among pregnant women in Vietnam’ of Nguyen (2021) and the co-authors, because of its reality reflection of insufficient effort in this matter and feasible solutions of communicating the vaccination’s benefits to low-literacy moms.
Thank you, Tammy, for raising this important issue. It’s good that there has been some research but I was surprised to see that there is a price on the vaccine. Is the vaccine not free in Vietnam? Or is it an issue of limited availability?
I would like to recommend the book, ‘My Year of Dirt and Water: Journal of a Zen Monk’s Wife in Japan’ by Tracy Franz. This book documents the physical and emotional journey of a university English teacher from America working in Japan while her husband, a Zen monk, completes his training at a Buddhist monastery in a remote area of Japan. In it, the author describes the initial feelings of loneliness many people experience when moving to another country and examines how Japanese culture influenced her relationship with a troubled past in Alaska. She also discusses the lives of Zen monks and how her husband’s lifestyle of dedicated practice in the face of failure affected her experience in Japan. This book illustrates the small, somewhat difficult to explain clashes of culture that can happen while living in a new country. I found it to be a sincere description of the emotions and situations one could experience as an expat in Japan.
Thank you, Jeff, for the recommendation! I’m always on the look-out for accounts of intercultural experience so will definitely look this one up!
Hi Jeff
Thank you for the recommendation. This sounds like a fascinating read. I am married to someone from a different culture and language, and we have lived, worked and travelled in a series of countries other than our own. These kind of books about intercultural communication, and the intricacies of “culture clash” and miscommunication are a passion of mine. I have noticed that even if people speak the same language there can be enormous miscommunication, and I have had amazing complex and interesting “conversations” and communication experiences with people where we speak not one word of each others language, for example in Tibet. So much of communication is about peoples willingness and intentions it seems. I look forward to reading this book. Thanks again.
I would like to highly recommend the Japanese work of literature The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu.
Growing up in remote, rural Canada, reading and literature were my portal to other worlds, cultures and languages. Reading provided an education about life I otherwise had no access to, and provided inspiration, imagination and creative thinking, which led to whole new universe of possibilities. I read the Tale of Genji for my undergraduate degree in a Japanese literature class. It is a 1000-year-old masterpiece, written in 11th century Japan during the Heian period. Some consider it the world’s first fictional novel and unusually for that time was written by a woman, which is loosely based a mid-level noble woman’s experience, who was called to court in Imperial Kyoto, to entertain her Empress. She was skilled at the popular form of poetry of the time called waka. In contrast, to the more famous and serious haiku poetry, waka is very witty and sensitive, reflecting on societies’ emotional experiences, relationships and the beauty of nature. Her book contains 800 poems describing the complexities of noble society, written for her Empresses’ entertainment. This book has caused much debate, much research and has 88 different translations, as it was written in archaic court language. It has permeated and influenced Japanese modern culture through numerous theatre plays, films, operas, scrolls, artwork, tourism products and tours, clothing decor, cosmetics, anime, inspired at least five manga (Japanese comics) and her image is on the 2000 yen note. Waka poetry has also had a modern revival. Yasunari Kawabata, a Japanese Nobel prize-winner for literature said in his 1976 acceptance speech that the Tale of Genji is, “the pinnacle of Japanese literature.” It provides great insight into Japanese society and culture, both past and present, and enriched and deepened the tapestry of my experience living, studying and working in Japan.
Thanks, Ally! Reading is a portal into other worlds, as you say so beautifully!
I am currently reading a book titled “Gendered talk at work: constructing social identity through workplace discourse” written by Janet Holmes in 2006. This book could be of great value to those eager to explore how socially established norms, gendered stereotype, institutional order and interactional order have exerted an influence on the way in-group members negotiate their gender identities and professional roles. There have been numerous insightful discourse-related theoretical concepts produced in this work such as “linguistic capital”, “cultural capital”, “habitus”, “communicative resources” and the like. The key message in this book is that gendered conventions have long been omnipresent and imbued in the majority of professional settings. Therefore, participants need to be equipped with competent linguistic repertoires, background knowledge and sensitivity to the interactional context to decode taken-for-granted presuppositions and intended meanings conveyed by other members.
Thank you for the recommendation Meghan. This sounds like a fascinating book. I look forward to reading it.
EMPIRE REIMAGINED: TOWARDS A NEW DEFINITION-SOGDIAN CASE STUDY (4TH CENTURY BCE-10TH CENTURY CE) by Arwen Maier
Although this reading is a thesis, it is one of the resources that helped me alot for the group presentation. The Sogdians was a very foreign topic for our group but there wasn’t a lot of resources relating to the Sogdians. This thesis gave me an insight who the Sogdians were and the influence they had while they were performing their duties as mediator of the silk road trade route. Maier further explains the influence of the Sodgians at the time and gives an insight to the to the contacts Sogidans had with other regions along the silk road. The geopolitical factors, their multiligual skills and thier mobility, allowed them to monopolise trade at the time. This allowed them to influnece language, culture, religion, fashion and many more other things. Although the topic of the Sogdians is know well known by many people but I highly encourage for those who are wanting to read about a group of people who were able to perform great influence at an important point in history.
Thanks, Hee Won! I’m so glad you found this thesis and introduced the Sogdians to all of us! Btw, bits and pieces of Sogdian continue to live on in many modern languages of the area: https://www.languageonthemove.com/erasing-diversity/
I would like to suggest a book called” linguistic justice: black language, literacy, identity and pedagogy”. This book is about Anti-Black Linguistic Racism which involves the linguistic violence and marginalization of Black Language-speakers endure when they use their language in the classroom. To achieve Black linguistic liberation, a new way of Black Language Pedagogy is invented to build the confidence of Black students. I think this book is interesting since it combines the aspect of linguistic, cultural, racial, intellectual and pedagogy together to pursue linguistic justice. And it is believed that language pedagogy is essential to illustrate how theory, research and practice can work together to achieve linguistic justice. I think it is really helpful for us to be sensitively concerned about the linguistic issues related to culture, identity and racism to apply them into our pedagogical practice.
Thank you, Chen Wang, for your recommendation! Language really is fundamental to all aspects of our lives!
Thank you for the recommendation Chen. This sounds like a fascinating book that will enrich my education on important issues of some of my students. It is really so important as a teacher to educate ourselves to the lived cultural experiences of our students, in order to know how to appropriately support and empower them. Hopefully by providing a positive educational experience we can give students skills to better navigate issues like social justice and inspire them towards potential opportunities and which may otherwise be difficult and overwhelming. So much of our language, identity, culture, race, family and history so powerfully influence our experiences within society. Too often the inequities and injustices built into so many systems are invisible to the majority of society, who actually believe that everybody has a fair go, which is such a dangerous myth which then just keeps perpetuating these inequities as in the Mathew effect Ingrid shared with us.
I recommend Academic culture – A student’s guide to studying at university (3rd edition) by Jean Brick, Maria Herke, and Deanna Wong (Macmillan Science and Education, 2016).
As an international student, I used to struggle with academic literacies such as how to read academic texts effectively or write a fabulous assignment, since they are not highly emphasized in the context that I studied before. The recommended book has widened my horizons regarding academic literacy. Like many countries and communities, universities nurture their own “academic culture”. This book is a treasure for students entering university for the first time, which helps readers understand the “academic context” and offers them a wide range of academic language usage and abilities, especially academic reading and writing skills for their studying at university. Moreover, it guides readers to work towards goals, attitudes, values, and expectations shared by people of this community. This book not only provides the students with the ability to use academic discourse effectively, but it also grants the students the knowledge, awareness, and application of the academic culture in the higher education environment.
Thanks, Zoe! Glad you found this book by our Macquarie colleagues useful!
The quote “there is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with the same facilities, text books, teachers, and curriculum…” from Ingrid’s book “Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice” has had the most profound impact on me and reminds me of the picture depicting the difference between equality and equity where three people of varying heights are given 1 box each to look over the fence, instilling in me a sense of the depth of its reach even in literacies or education in general whereas previously it carried only a tangible sense.
On a side note, my favourite website is Wordsmith.org, which gives a new word a day but each week carries a different theme. This week’s theme is words from fairy tales and words come with the etymology.
Thanks, Thao, for both recommendations! These one-word/sentence/etc-a-day websites can be really helpful to language learners and can help to instill good learning habits 🙂
Vietnam is a multi-ethnic nation with 54 ethnic groups including Kinh, Chinese, Thai, etc. However, not all people in ethnic groups can learn, speak or read or write Vietnamese language, a national one. My recommendation is about how ethnic minority Vietnamese maternal women (Thai and H’s Mong) in mountain areas can deal with health literacy when most of them are at a low level of literacy, research is Distributed Health Literacy in the Maternal Health Context in Vietnam, conducted by McKinn, S. et al., (2019).
I am interested in this article because it showed a big issue with Vietnamese women people, especially those in minority ethnic groups. Those women face issues with understanding pregnant, childcare knowledge, reading, understanding Vietnamese language. They have to rely on shared knowledge from their mothers or experienced women with pregnancy or childcare. This is very common happening to most Vietnamese women in general. Also, they rely on their educated family members, particularly their husbands to help them understand information conveyed or written in the Vietnamese language.
Based on this study, women have not been created enough conditions or opportunities to increase/attend their education or literal levels yet. They have not been received the knowledge of health literacy from the health department yet. Obviously, the literacy rate in ethnic minority Vietnamese people is not equal compared to men. Also, health knowledge and health literacy have not been conveyed to minor ethnic women yet.
Thank you, Jenny, for this recommendation and summary!
Recently, I only get involved with the reading related to literacy and culture from the sources in language on the move. However, I tend to read more inspiring books to keep me calm during this hard time. I currently read a book called “ Love for imperfect things” by Haemin Sunim first published in the US in 2018. This book is simply about improving our self-care by accepting the way we are and the flaws we have. Moreover, this book reflects some life’s lessons which we can learn from when we strive for solutions in our lives. Therefore, when I feel like I am being so hard on myself, I always read some parts of this book.
what a nice and rich blog! I already add it to my favorited page.
I would recommend the book of “the secret life of words. How English became English “by Henry Hitchings. it talks about the origin of the English words that we are using today. Thus, it is revealed that English language has absorbed words from more than 350 language, the reader after reading this nook will not use the words for granted. It gives an example for the words that we could using it daily, but we would surprise if we knew where it came from? Shampoo for example in Hindi word, kiosk is a Turkish, marmalade is a Portuguese etc. it very beautiful book and it helps any student in the language and linguistic field.
So pleased to hear you like the reading challenge! There will be another one for 2022 soon 🙂 … and thank you for your recommendation, too! The stories of words are endlessly fascinating … is ‘chocolate’ included in the book? https://www.languageonthemove.com/thinking-language-with-chocolate/
My recommendation is- May, Kaitlyn E, & Elder, Anastasia D. (2018). Efficient, helpful, or distracting? A literature review of media multitasking in relation to academic performance.
This review article is my unit reading which gave me a heartfelt insight on how multi-media multitasking (switching attention, constant messaging in classroom/outside classroom while focusing on something or other pointless stuff on the web) has unconsciously or consciously caused havoc in the adults & adolescent minds. Everyone so far has assumed that media-multitasking is beneficial, but facts show that this trend of “media- multitasking” has induced implications and consequences to students’ academic performance, attentiveness, cognitive functioning, toil on working memory, comprehending matter etc. This shows the misuse/ overuse of the internet and technology which was created for our assistance can also mess up our lives and disrupt the supercomputer “our brain”.
The book I would like to recommend is Chinese Language, Life and Culture by Kenneth Wilkinson, which was published in 2002. Many years ago, I majored in Chinese as a foreign language at undergraduate level. In class, we were required to speak Chinese with foreign students as much as possible. However, for foreign students who have just arrived in China, their Chinese language skills are almost zero. Therefore as a teacher, it was important to be able to introduce them to the Chinese language and culture in English. Although the author of this book is a foreigner, the book gives a very detailed overview of China in general, such as its history, geography, language, culture, religion, important festivals and so on. I assume that the author has lived in Beijing for some time, as he describes with humour and ‘accuracy’ the ‘unique’ details of Beijing: there are only two seasons per year, winter and summer. Even more thoughtful is the ‘Taking it further’ section at the end of each chapter, where the author provides a list of books for the reader to learn more about the subject. I learnt a lot of English expressions related to Chinese language and culture in this book, and it was interesting to see the language and culture of my country through the eyes of a foreigner.
Thank you, Alicia! You might also like this blog post asking whether the use of English in Chinese language teaching is reinforcing English supremacy: https://www.languageonthemove.com/can-chinese-language-learning-reinforce-english-supremacy/
I would like to recommend ‘A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language’ by David Moser. I came across this book a few years ago and it serves as a great overview of language policies and language issues in China. The themes in the book cover the development of a national standard language, the reform of Chinese characters, and the development of the pinyin phonetic system. There is also discussion on how other dialects in China were impacted by these language policies, yet it has still been successful in functioning as a lingua franca within Chinese speaking communities.
Thanks, Grace! That’s another great recommendation!
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/forgetting-my-first-language
E-article is my first choice to read during the lockdown as its comfortable design works for me. The above article link is shared above which I read these days; I was touched since some friends around me had similar experiences of forgetting their first language. They followed their parents immigrating to the new country starting from an early age and their parents may not be good at speaking English. In doing so, they are marginalized and suffered language challenges in the multilingual society. Can’t imagine how did they deal with shallow communication with their parents, the relationship always be isolated. It occurs in many immigrants, so I highly recommend this article to TESOL teachers.
Thank you, Milly! Such a touching read!
For those language lovers out there who don’t have time to read a long story, I have exactly what you need: In Other Words: A Language Lover’s Guide to the Most Useful and Intriguing Words from Around the World by Christopher J. Moore. The book offers you a variety of words in many languages. There are words that you can translate into other languages, but there are also cases where keeping the originals would be best. With only 128 pages, it’s a wonderful book to have you sit back and dive into a colorful world of languages and cultures.
A favorite word of mine from the book:
meraki [may-rah-kee] (adjective)
This is a word that modern Greeks often use to describe doing something with soul, creativity, or love — when you put “something of yourself” into what you’re doing, whatever it may be. Meraki is often used to describe cooking or preparing a meal, but it can also mean arranging a room, choosing decorations, or setting an elegant table.
This article showed us a lot of interesting books what we can read together during this year. During this special year, we can read more good books by ourselves. Because we need to stay at home to isolate. This is our way to against the COVID-19 virus. But I want to introduce a Chinese book which is called ” Watching” written by Long Yingtai. This is a book about the love between parents and children. The relationship between parents and children are warm, especially during the epidemic, which let us pay attention about the relationship between us and our parents. We need look after our parents carefully.In times of emergency, children will always be the biggest support for parents.I want to recommend this book to everyone, because reading this book at every stage of life will have a different experience, but what remains unchanged is our feelings about family affection.
Thank you, kexin, for the recommendation! I’ll look out for the book.
This article highlights some really interesting books related to language and cultures in contact. I’ll share an e-link of a website which has the excerpts of some of the best Urdu language poets and writers and it also has the translation of the subject matter. If you are interest in Indo-Pak Literature this website has some really informative and interesting content for you. I used this website for my research project and it has a lot of content about language and its relationship with the culture.
https://www.rekhta.org/
Thank you, Jay, for the recommendation! I’m curious why Urdu is mostly written in Latin script on the website?
Yes, Ingrid generally the Urdu websites have a Latin script but basically this website has three options (Urdu, English and Hindi) and that’s why it is on of the most authentic websites for Urdu literature especially in Pakistan.
The podcast from this unit about the Chinese revolution towards Latinization reminds me of a series of Chinese literary magazines – New youth.
I’m sure a lot of us know this magazine very much. These are published magazines that initiatively used simplified Chinese back to the 1920s and, to some extent, successfully narrowed the literate gap between civilian people and feudal aristocracy. Subsequently, it strongly affected New Culture Movement and the later May Fourth Movement. We can’t tell that the magazines awakened people’s mindset directly but they surely did serve as a medium where knowledge equally is accessible without any class discrimination. More importantly, this series of magazines demonstrated how literacy is socially related and how powerfully it could work in many aspects.
Thanks, Anka, for the recommendation! We never got round to discussing Yurou Zhong’s “Chinese Grammatology” in class but it’s such a fascinating exploration of the relationship of written and spoken language in its social context!
For our group presentation, I grabbed David Crystal’s book The Story of English in 100 words. I like Crystal’s books aimed at a lay audience for their ease of understanding. I dipped into this book looking for some basic information on the etymology of the word potato, and soon found myself happily distracted by the French origins of the word chattel, the Anglo-Saxon origins of the word bridegroom and many more. This book is essentially a word book, providing the reader with information about the origins of a range of English words. The individual words are related to major themes in the development of English and provide the reader with a broad sense of the linguistic history of English in an entertaining, easy-to-read format.
I want to recommend a book named “A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order” by Judith Flanders. I accidentally found this book, and its title made me curious to spend a whole weekend reading it immediately. I have never regretted my decision because I was given a lot of fascinating and helpful information about a weird and unlikely way to create the alphabet. The alphabet was developed about 3,000 years ago in Egypt’s western desert, along a corridor used by merchants and troops from around the Middle East. After many language contacts, they discovered that memorizing twenty or thirty symbols and reorganizing them into new phrases was simpler than learning hundreds of different languages. However, the alphabetical order had a considerably lengthier and more roundabout route to dominance. I hope anyone curious about the history of written word and language contact can enjoy this book.
Thanks, Tu! Sounds like an interesting book, even if not quite accurate. If you are interested in the history of writing, you might want to take our “Literacies” unit next year 😊
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KQXKB95ZKrY
A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610 by R. Po-chia Hsia.
I read this book for our group presentation and I found it really fascinating. Jesuits mission in China can be dated back to thousand years ago, as one of the representatives among Jesuits in China, the historical story of Matteo Ricci is complicated and hard for people who know nothing about it before to understand. This book offers a clear and comprehensible timeline of Ricci’s life, from his birth in Macerata, education in Rome, his first work in Macao and most importantly, how he adapted himself here in different cities in China through the learning of the Chinese language, as well as how did he build a relationship with the Chinese people. Language learning served a fundamental role throughout his life in China because only by mastering the language, Ricci could further continue his missionary work. I highly recommend those who are interested in language and cultural contact, also history, to read this book, because it tells the story in a systematic and clear way, it is easy to understand, very informative, but also intriguing to read.
Thanks, Xiaowen! So glad you discovered the book through your research project!
I would like to recommend the novel Mao’s Last Dancer. It is a true story of a famous dancer called Li Cunxin. Li wrote this book as his autobiography and recounted his fascinating experience of determination, courage, perseverance, efforts, and his ultimate passion for dance.
Li was selected by the Beijing Dance Academy at 11 years old from a small village in China. He took every opportunity he had and not be afraid of challenges; he then became a very famous ballet dancer who had done performances in America and across the world. The audience was amazed by his dancing skills and felt empathised by his dance performance. In his book, he demonstrated the language and cultural contact from his view as a dancer. Li felt overwhelmed by experiencing the cultural conflicts between China and America because of the different political ideologies and ways of living. Even though he has struggled from adapting to western culture as an immigrant, he achieved his goal fearlessly and became one of the most famous ballet dancers in the world. This book makes me think that art has the power of forming real connections between different cultures.
Thank you, Rhonda, for the recommendation! There’s a gripping movie based on the book, too.
Liam Brockey’s book, Journey to the East: the Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724, was of particular interest to me as it set out the meeting of two highly learned groups: on the one hand the Jesuits and the other the literati of the Ming Empire. It also caused me to consider how, in an age before the internet, European scholars dealt with the difficulty of not only learning Chinese but learning the language to an extent that would enable them to be taken seriously by the scholar officials with whom they would have to interact. The detailed descriptions of the methods of learning this sung language of birds were very inspirational for someone with a keen interest in the practice of teaching language.
Thank you, Adam, for the recommendation! This book is also among my favorites 🙂
I want to recommend the book “Beyond culture” by Edward Hall. In this book, Dr. Hall showed we want to communicate effectively with other people from other countries, language learning isn’t enough, we must understand about those cultures. He explained, from birth, we begin to learn from the people around us. Over time, learned actions develop into ingrained habits. Eventually, these habits become second nature, almost automatic, unconscious behaviours, specific to the culture in which we were raised. When meeting and interacting with people from other cultures, there are many misunderstandings between cultures because we view the world through our unique cultural glasses, we expect other people to act and think the way we do. So, next time, when working or socialising with someone from a different cultural background and are confused by something the person did, resist judge the behaviour by our own cultural yardstick. Instead, consider how this behaviour might make sense within the context of the person’s culture. This will help us handle such a situation more sensitively in the future, and we might even learn something new.
Thank you, Frances, for the recommendation! Hall’s book is a classic that everyone in our field should have read. At the same time, it’s important to move beyond the essentialism that characterizes much of the intercultural communication literature of that period. As a follow-on read and with all due humility, I’d recommend my own book about Intercultural Communication: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/intercultural-communication/1262954747987CE9B8BFDCD4F8BB36AF
Hi Ingrid,
Thank you for your recommendation! I will read it.
Thank you for the recommendation!!
I will definitely read it.
“The effect of Australian culture on compliment responses of mainland Chinese speakers of English” by Li, X. (2015).
Chinese language learners tend to have cross-cultural miscommunication when they transfer linguistic and pragmatic knowledge from L1 to L2. This book investigates how Chinese speakers of English response to the compliment responses in Australian environment and it reveals ESL learners’s English use get changed when they are exposed to direct targeted environment and ESL learners do not hold stereotypes.
It is a quite interesting book. Being an international student, when I speak English, sometimes I do think of the way how I can speak because language and culture are inseparable. Take Chinese and English as an example, because of the different ways of thinking between English and Chinese people, people might have some misunderstanding. Even if you did not mean to say somethings, but the listeners might think why you were being rude due to the various cultures. Therefore, learners need to change the way they speak when they are in some targeted context and avoid negative transfer of native language to ESL students.
Dancing with strangers, Inga Clendinnen.
The very early languages and cultures in contact in human beings’ world (or society), I would say, is lively demonstrated by this book! Those distinguishable views from the fleet crew and their individual reactions to Australian aboriginal ancestors are bringing us back to that day they landed on the continent, that moment they enjoyed local life, that night they ‘betrayed’ local amity and purity. It gives readers excitement, satisfaction of curiosity, sadness, and even anger, also a chance to look back and reflect on the present.
One of my recent (within the last year or so) favourites was How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do — And What It Says About You by Katherine D. Kinzler. (As a bonus, the audiobook version is narrated by one of my undergrad Theatre professors, Andi Arndt, and she’s fabulous!). The book is an easily-digestible exploration of why we, as humans, make snap judgments about a person when we hear them speak.
As a grad student and a mum of young kids, I don’t always have time to sit down with a book and read, but I do listen to lots of podcasts, so here are some of my favourites (which don’t all relate to linguistics directly but that I’ve learned A LOT from in regards to culture, language and history):
The History Of English Podcast:
(Looks at the history of the development of English from the Proto-Indo-European speakers until now)
https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/
The Bechdel Cast
(Based on the Bechdel Test, created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, this podcast examines movies from an intersectional feminist lens)
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-the-bechdel-cast-30089535/
Dressed: A History of Fashion
(Examines why we wear what we wear and all of the cultural/historical implications that go along with it)
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dressed-the-history-of-fashion/id1350850605
Maintenance Phase
(Examines the toxic history of diet culture and debunks myths surrounding it)
http://maintenancephase.com/
Thanks for the recommendations, Brynn! I’m a podcast fan, too, and one of my favorite podcasts is about books 🙂 the New Books Network at https://newbooksnetwork.com/
Well, in terms of reading materials to recommend for people who want to research about linguistic and culture, I am not hesitant to advice them to have a go with all blogs (in Writing tasks) of this unit. Thanks Ingrid again to give us opportunity to get to know about the diffusion of words and things, spaces of similarly intense language and culture contact, mediators in languages and cultures in contact, everyday language and culture contact in contemporary Australia, the linguistic and social consequences of contemporary “English fever”, the relationship between language ideologies and the everyday lived experiences of mobile people, … through those blogs. These are very helpful.
I also want to recommend a book:
Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher.
Does culture influence language? Do speakers with different languages have different thoughts? Does our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for “blue”? The book will give you the answer: YES. This interesting book demonstrates both ways in which culture influences language – the ”language mirror” and how language shapes the world-view of its speakers – the ”language lens”. The author, Guy Deutscher, provides a wealth of information in understanding differences and how far we have come in understanding each other’s worlds of words. He discusses how our mother tongue can affect how we think and how we perceive our world. The interesting ”trips” mentioned in the book are from Homer to Darwin; from Yale to the Amazon; from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water —a “she”— becomes a “he” once you dip a tea bag into her. Attractively, the author’s writing style is clear and relaxed. I enjoy the way that he used social and historical background to add context to the discussion, and then explain the findings and implications of the studies and experiments.
Hope you enjoy the book!
Thank you, Lynn, for the shout-out and the recommendation!
I’ve also read Through The Looking Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher and absolutely loved it! Great recommendation!
Lydia
Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea: Indian Women as Cultural Intermediaries and National Symbols.
Book by Rebecca Kay Jager
The first time I read this book was doing our group’s presentation in this unit. After reading, I can’t imagine how great these three women are, and their roles are essential to the transmission of culture. There is no doubt that they are successful as Cultural intermediaries.
Brief introduction of this book
This book introduces three outstanding and legendary female cultural intermediaries, Malinche (from sixteenth-century Mesoamerica), Pocahontas (from the seventeenth-century Chesapeake), and Sacagawea (from the nineteenth-century West. The author examines their initial contact with Euro-Americans, their negotiation of multinational frontiers, and their symbolic representation over time in this book.
Thank you, Lydia, for this recommendation!
When I want to learn about something, I would prefer to read less formal writings such as social media posts, short articles or even fact sheets.
One of these materials that I came across is “Arab Cultural Awareness: 58 Factsheets”, which is a handbook issued by Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence/ US Army Training and Doctrine Command. Based on the issuer, this handbook is designed to give American soldiers serving in the middle east an overview on the Arab culture and some linguistic features that many people are not aware of. https://www.militarynewbie.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/US-Army-Arab-Cultural-Awareness-2006.pdf
Thank you, WAA! I’ve got a reading recommendation for you:
Wolf, M. (2008). Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. New York: HarperCollins.
This book explains the importance of “deep reading” of books for human thinking. It’s a big topic in the “Literacies” unit I teach if that’s on your study plan 🙂
The Power Of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John McWhorter
The author of this book talks about language in a very entertaining way and brings readers to want to know more about the history of language. The book covers the story of Babel (the beginning of language”s”), how languages changed or disappeared over time, and other interesting information about language. I was intrigued by how the author could make a somewhat difficult history of language so easy for the readers to understand. The author’s allegory in the introduction of how he first realized that different languages exist invited me to recognize that languages can play a role in bringing people together while also isolating those who do not speak the same one. The author is very witty in how he delivers the information, including an epilogue at the end of the book, imagining what language Adam and Eve, the first humans on Earth, would have spoken. I highly encourage those who would like to read something easy and fun – yet highly informative.
Thanks, Kim, for the recommendation!