Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

162 Part 2: Language and Society
communication is infl ected and therefore not ‘telementation’, the variation
is primarily due to socialisation in regional, class or ethnic group, professional
role or communicative purpose. We learn to speak these ways
because the communication environments to which we are exposed model
these language varieties. These varieties help to constitute identity and are
performative of identifi cations.
However, ideological use of language as described here is heavily laden
with performativity and profoundly constitutive of its message; that is its
use helps form and infl uence patterns of language, social relationships
and meanings. This kind of variation in language is intended to bring
about language change (but it often also signals identity and belonging as
well). Commonly recognised forms of performance language are feminist
rejection of male bias in language, or anti-racist speech. Negatively racist
and sexist speech and all forms of hate speech are ideological and purposive
language, aiming to both deliver messages of hate or ideology and to
defy political correctness by insisting on the use of pejorative ways to
describe the groups against whom hatred is directed. When the intended
ideology relates to language itself, such as active preference for Latinate
expression in English, or active modelling of plain English expression,
or active use of blasphemy in contexts where this would have been
forbidden previously, these are examples of ideological language policy,
displayed as it is performed.
Although powerful and signifi cant individuals, celebrities, charismatic
leaders, and dominant institutions provide the communicative models, it
is the effect of such modelling on ‘ordinary users’ that determines the
success or failure of performative LP. Even mundane ordinary language,
but certainly ideological use of ordinary language, operates as a series of
‘acts of identity’ (LePage & Tabouret-Keller, 1985) available for emulation
as listeners and speakers modify speech to align with the displayed
models. In this way, regular communication becomes part of ongoing
processes of LP.
Performative action interacts with public debate focused on LP decisions,
and with public texts, which distill agreements or compromises
about language problems at a given point in time and in a given place and
social setting. Public texts are therefore decided instances of LP, public
discourses are ongoing debates about language problems, and performances
are the ongoing modelling of language forms desired and valued
by speakers or writers. Performative action can reinforce or violate LP
distilled in public texts or LP as suggested in prevailing discourses.
Ideological LP performance is what an English-fl uent French delegate at a
conference in Austria was engaged in when he refused to comply with a
decision to conduct the seminar in English. In private or professional uses,
in classrooms or courtrooms, language performances can extend, play
with and elaborate existing LP, or modify, contest, destabilise, contradict
and subvert LP.