[Ltg] HAIL Seminar (10th July): Dr Alexandre Duchene, University of Basel, Switzerland

[Andrew Lampert]

                      H.A.I.L. Seminar series
                          CSIRO ICT Centre
                   http://www.ict.csiro.au/HAIL/


Title:          Airport talks: language practices and ideologies
                    in a "globalized" institution

Speaker:        Dr Alexandre Duchêne
                Department of Linguistics
                University of Basel, Switzerland

Date:           Tuesday 10th July 2007 at 11am

                *** NOTE: Unusual seminar week ***

Location:       CSIRO ICT Centre,
                Building E6B, Macquarie University.

                See <http://www.ict.csiro.au/HAIL/location.htm> for details.

Video:          We usually stream live video of seminars.

                At the seminar time (see above), point your browser at:
                  <http://webcast.nsw.csiro.au/httpfs/ICT/HailSeminar/live.asx>


Abstract

The aim of this presentation is to interrogate the changing and shifting face of the work order and its impact on language use and multilingual practices by looking at a specific work place: an international airport located in Switzerland. The boom of the tourism industry, the increase of international business relations as well as the spread of transport facilities positions travel and tourism as strategic sectors within the globalized new economy.  Furthermore, the act of traveling implies that people -- and goods -- are circulating across borders inducing diverse forms of language practices and language contact. In that regard, airports can be considered as a key space for the exploration of a) the impact of the circulation of people on language practices, and b) the strategies used by globalized institutions in order to manage [linguistic] diversity.

Based on ethnographic research in a Swiss International Airport - including the collection of different types of data (interviews, recorded interactions in workplaces, institutional policy documents, participant observations) - I will first describe the institutional policies on language choice and communication practices and pinpoint their underlying ideologies. Second, I will move on to actual language practices on the basis of interactional data recorded at the Check-In and the Transit Counters. Through this analysis I will highlight the various challenges airport employees are facing in relation to multilingual competences and the discrepancies between institutional language policies and daily practices.

I will argue that the use of specific communication patterns or the choice of specific language(s) promoted within this airport is linked to economic and symbolic considerations. Multilingualism appears as a commodity and language choice is predominantly market-oriented.


Short resume

Alexandre Duchêne is Oberassistant (Assistant Professor) in the Language and Communication department of the University of Basel and co-directs a research project financed by the Swiss National Research Foundation on "Language, tourism and identity" in the English department of the University of Basel. He teaches courses in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and history of linguistics.

He completed his PhD in sociolinguistics on the discourses on linguistic minorities at the United Nations. He has published in several academic journals including Langage et Pratique, Revue Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée, Travaux Neuchâtelois de Linguistique and S.E.M.E.N. He has published various book chapters, both in French and English. and has co-edited (with Monica Heller) the book "Discourses of Endangerment: Interest and Ideology in the Defense of Languages" (Continuum 2007). He is currently editing (with Claudine Moïse) a book on "Language, gender and sexuality". He is also a member of the Executive Board of Swiss Society of Applied Linguistics.


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