Language Investment And Employability

Download or read book Language Investment and Employability written by Mi-Cha Flubacher and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-20 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a unique insight into negotiations around language investment for employability in the context of public employment services. Drawing on extensive ethnographical research carried out in Regional Employment Offices in Switzerland, the authors follow the stories of various job seekers. In doing so, they challenge the currently dominant assumption that investment in language competences leads to better employability. Arguing for a political economic perspective on these issues, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the connections between language and social inequality, as well as students and scholars of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics.

Download or read book Language, Migration and In/Exclusion in the Workplace written by Jo Angouri and published by Channel View Publications. This book was released on 2023-09-12 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today’s globalised world, large-scale migration is the norm. A contributing factor to the successful settlement of migrants is the ability to access work and economic security. This book focuses on the lived experiences of migrants who (try to) access the workplace, and explores the barriers and support they encounter. The editors bring together studies which look at the ways in which inclusion and exclusion from the workplace are done linguistically from historical, discourse analytical, narrative and language assessment perspectives. The chapters represent an innovative, holistic, intersectional and multidisciplinary approach to the subject, and illustrate a wide range of analytical methods and theoretical tools for the study of multilingualism and professional identity. The rich empirical data contained in the book cover a variety of professional contexts and countries, and the book will appeal to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.

Download or read book Norms and the Study of Language in Social Life written by Janus Mortensen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-03-21 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sociolinguistics and the social sciences more generally tend to take an interest in norms as central to social life. The importance of norms is easily discernible in the sociolinguistic canon, for instance in Labov’s definition of the speech community as ‘participation in a set of shared norms’ and Hymes’ concepts of ‘norms of interaction’ and ‘norms of interpretation’. Yet, while the notion of norms may play a central role in sociolinguistic theory, there is little explicit theoretical work around the notion of norms itself within the discipline. Instead, norms tend to be treated as conceptual primes – convenient building blocks, ready-made for sociolinguistic theorizing – rather than theoretical constructs in need of reflexive attention. The aim of this book is to assess and advance current understandings of norms as a theoretical construct and empirical object of research in the study of language in social life. The contributors approach the topic from a range of complementary disciplinary perspectives, including sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, EM/CA, socio-cognitive linguistics and pragmatics, to provide a multifaceted view of norms as a central concept in the study of language in social life.

Download or read book Language Learning and Forced Migration written by Marte Monsen and published by Channel View Publications. This book was released on 2022-09-12 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering piece of research on the situated study of language issues in the context of forced migration provides interdisciplinary insights into language as learned, used and lived by 12 Congolese refugees in Norway. It offers an innovative contribution to the field of SLA by bringing together structural, cognitive, social and critical approaches to data collected among the same individuals, these individuals being underrepresented within the field of SLA research as both refugees and learners whose experiences with language stem from the Global South. Their histories of mobility and their learning contexts are rarely reflected in theories and concepts from the Global North and this book thus makes a much-needed contribution to the field.

Download or read book English Language Training in the Workplace written by Qing Xie and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-18 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Workplace English language training programs represent a corporate investment in language skills enhancement and human capital development. This book evaluates English language training programs in Chinese workplaces by examining a range of training effectiveness variables and identifying the factors that facilitate or hinder effective learning outcomes for workplace English training programs and explores the potential benefits of these programs. This book will benefit both companies that are developing their training and development strategies and private training organizations that are developing training programs for particular industry and business needs. It will also be an excellent resource for learners who are seeking business English communication skills opportunities and trainers who are refining their workplace teaching practice. This book reiterates the significance of business English communication skills development programs in terms of the benefits to economic globalization, human capital development, employability, sustainable livelihoods, and lifelong learning in China. Having conducted a policy evaluation at both the national and local levels, this book also informs policy stipulation for corporate employee language training schemes. Although this book primarily examines corporate experience in China, the findings and recommendations will have important implications for other countries in Asia and worldwide.

Download or read book Language, Global Mobilities, Blue-Collar Workers and Blue-collar Workplaces written by Kellie Gonçalves and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Language and Neoliberal Governmentality written by Luisa Martín Rojo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-26 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against a background of the ongoing crisis of global capitalism and the fracturing of the neoliberal project, this book provides a detailed account of the ways in which language is profoundly imbricated in the neoliberalising of the fabric of social life. With chapters from a cast list of international scholars covering topics such as the commodification of education and language, unemployment, and the governmentality of the self, and discussion chapters from Monica Heller and Jackie Urla bringing the various strands together, the book ultimately helps us to understand how language is part of political economy and the everyday making and remaking of society and individuals. It provides both a theoretical framework and a significant methodological "tool-box" to critically detect, understand, and resist the impact of neoliberalism on everyday social spheres, particularly in relation to language. Presenting richly empirical studies that expand our understanding of how neoliberalism as a regime of truth and as a practice of governance performs within the terrain of language, this book is an essential resource for researchers and graduate students in English language, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and related areas.