Abstract This article examines how linguistic practices participate in the formation and global spread of musical genres by comparing two African American traditions with markedly different linguistic trajectories: the blues and hip hop. Drawing on theories of style, stylization, and genre, we argue that linguistic meaning in musical performance emerges at the intersection of individual artistic choice, genre-level expectations, and processes of transnational circulation. Corpus-based analyses of 540 blues recordings demonstrate that the globalization of the blues has been accompanied by the stabilization of a monolingual, anglophone idiom oriented toward highly salient features of African American English (AAE), which may function as markers of ‘authentic’ blues performance. Conversely, globalized rap within hip hop culture has evolved into a multilingual, hybridized practice in which performers mobilize local languages, marginalized linguistic varieties, and limited traces of AAE to construct locally meaningful forms of authenticity while aligning with global genre norms such as flow and competitive verbal dexterity. Through this comparison, we show that genres differ in the extent to which they stabilize around a linguistic variety or invite ongoing linguistic hybridity, and we propose that stylization functions as a key process through which performers negotiate the tension between genre-level expectations and individual artistic expression. Our findings hence highlight how linguistic patterns do not merely accompany musical genres, but actively contribute to their formation, circulation, and social meaning in the globalized world.
Abstract This article explores how the neoliberal subsumption of heritage language education in Sweden upsets an entrenched sociolinguistic regime in which the labour of language transmission has historically not had economic value. Since the 1970s, Sweden has funded mother tongue instruction (MTI) to protect minority identities through redistributive support for language maintenance. Today, MTI serves 180,000 students in 187 languages through approximately 3,050 full-time equivalent teaching posts. Recently, MTI teachers have increasingly been employed by profit-driven “free school” companies funded by the state, transforming their labour into a source of surplus value. The effects of this neoliberalisation were explored through an ethnographic case study shadowing three private and four public MTI teachers. Drawing on theories of alienation and emancipation, public and private teachers’ strategies for minimising exploitation were found to lead to different outcomes. Public teachers made recourse to the protectionist framework of the MTI eligibility criteria to limit challenging heterogenous teaching situations, while private companies were motivated to include as many students as possible and ignored these frameworks. Private MTI sees the labour of teaching and learning languages expropriated as a profitable arena, presenting a challenge to MTI’s traditional status as conservator of extant minority groups.
This article presents the design and conceptual framework of a trilingual English-German-Albanian dictionary of economic terminology developed for students of economics at the University of Prishtina who take German as an elective foreign language. Situated within the field of pedagogical specialised lexicography, the study responds to the challenges faced by learners with limited proficiency in German when engaging with language for specific purposes (Fachsprache) in economics. The dictionary under scrutiny was compiled as an author-led lexicographic project over an extended period of teaching practice and draws on a combination of academic literature, institutional documents, and professional input from university experts and practitioners in the banking and insurance sectors. Rather than functioning solely as a reference tool, it is conceived as a pedagogically grounded lexicographic instrument designed to support mediation between language, disciplinary knowledge, and multilingual conceptual understanding. The article outlines the theoretical foundations of the dictionary, its methodological design, and key features of its microstructure, with particular attention to cross-linguistic equivalence between English, German, and Albanian. Selected entries are used to illustrate structural and conceptual differences across languages. The present study contributes to ongoing discussions on multilingual higher education and specialised language learning by demonstrating how pedagogically orientated dictionary design can respond to the needs of semi-expert users in linguistically complex academic environments. Dieser Artikel stellt das Design und den konzeptionellen Rahmen eines dreisprachigen englisch-deutsch-albanischen W & ouml;rterbuchs der wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Terminologie vor, das f & uuml;r Studierende der Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Universit & auml;t Prishtina entwickelt wurde, die Deutsch als Wahlfremdsprache belegen. Im Bereich der p & auml;dagogischen Fachlexikografie verortet, reagiert die Studie auf die Herausforderungen von Lernenden mit begrenzten Deutschkenntnissen beim Umgang mit wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Fachsprache. Das untersuchte W & ouml;rterbuch wurde als autorengeleitetes lexikographisches Projekt & uuml;ber einen l & auml;ngeren Zeitraum der Lehrpraxis hinweg zusammengestellt und st & uuml;tzt sich auf eine Kombination aus wissenschaftlicher Literatur, institutionellen Dokumenten sowie fachlichem Input von Universit & auml;tsexpertinnen und -experten und Praktikerinnen und Praktikern aus dem Banken- und Versicherungssektor. Es wird nicht nur als Nachschlagewerk verstanden, sondern als p & auml;dagogisch fundiertes lexikographisches Instrument, das die Vermittlung zwischen Sprache, fachlichem Wissen und mehrsprachigem konzeptuellem Verst & auml;ndnis unterst & uuml;tzt. Der Artikel erl & auml;utert die theoretischen Grundlagen des W & ouml;rterbuchs, sein methodisches Design und zentrale Merkmale seiner Mikrostruktur, wobei besonderes Augenmerk auf die sprach & uuml;bergreifende & Auml;quivalenz zwischen Englisch, Deutsch und Albanisch gelegt wird. Ausgew & auml;hlte Eintr & auml;ge veranschaulichen strukturelle und konzeptuelle Unterschiede zwischen den Sprachen. Die Studie leistet einen Beitrag zu aktuellen Diskussionen & uuml;ber mehrsprachige Hochschulbildung und fachsprachliches Lernen, indem sie zeigt, wie ein p & auml;dagogisch orientiertes W & ouml;rterbuchdesign auf die Bed & uuml;rfnisse semi-experter Nutzerinnen und Nutzer in sprachlich komplexen akademischen Umgebungen reagieren kann.
This paper is about an arts-based research project on the theme of belonging carried out with forced migrants in Hong Kong. The project Navigating Belonging: Exploring Settlement for South Asians in Hong Kong combined the study of oral interaction with participatory photography and digital storytelling to examine how people from South Asian backgrounds narrate and construct their belonging. In the project's first phase, the research team worked with five women, all clients of a refugee support centre, to explore understandings of belonging in weekly research workshops. The paper presents perspectives on the project's contexts: the concrete and physical space; the interactional space where meaning is generated; and the meeting point for methodologies. Then we analyse talk involving one project participant. Findings shed light on how the project brought different lifeworlds into contact, and how the physical space of the project's activities became a place of interaction and meaning, and where static understandings of both "South Asian" and "Asylum seeker" could be challenged. Our conclusions concern the utility of a creative practice project for understanding dislocation and relocation in Hong Kong.
Over the past decade, the Faroe Islands have increasingly become recognised as an emerging tourist destination. This, however, does not come without challenges, and in the Faroe Islands, tourism's environmental and social consequences have been a topic of public debate for years. In this article, we explore how a stakeholder in the tourism industry - namely, a Faroese tour guide - navigates inherent tensions in tourism regarding, for example, sustainability, while she at the same time relies on tourism as a source of income. The tour guide is shown to use her agency to educate tourists through the regulation of their behaviour and way of thinking in order to resist and possibly remedy the negative effects of tourism. However, we argue that the guide's agency should not conceal the ambivalence and paradoxical nature of her position, which encompasses criticising and distancing herself from the way tourism is conducted in the Faroe Islands while simultaneously taking part in this industry. Seinastu 10 & aacute;rini eru F & oslash;royar & iacute; alsamt st & oslash;rri mun vor & eth;nar vi & eth;urkendar sum eitt framkomi & eth; fer & eth;am & aacute;l. Hetta kemur t & oacute; ikki uttan avbj & oacute;& eth;ingar, og & iacute; F & oslash;royum hava umhv & oslash;rvisligu og sosialu avlei & eth;ingarnar av fer & eth;avinnuni veri & eth; eitt evni & iacute; almennum kjaki & iacute; & aacute;rav & iacute;s. & Iacute; hesi grein kanna vit, hvussu ein & aacute;hugapartur & iacute; fer & eth;avinnuni - nevniliga ein f & oslash;royskur fer & eth;alei & eth;ari - navigerar & iacute;bornar spenningar & iacute; fer & eth;avinnuni vi & eth;v & iacute;kjandi t.d. bur & eth;ardygd, samstundis sum hon l & iacute;tur & aacute; fer & eth;avinnuna sum innt & oslash;kukeldu. Fer & eth;alei & eth;arin v & iacute;sir seg at n & yacute;ta s & iacute;n leiklut til at menna fer & eth;af & oacute;lk gj & oslash;gnum regulering av atfer & eth; og hugsanarh & aacute;tti teirra fyri at standa & iacute;m & oacute;ti og m & oslash;guliga b & oslash;ta um neiligu & aacute;virkanina hj & aacute; fer & eth;avinnuni. Men megi hennara skal ikki skal dylja, at leiklutur hennara er tv & iacute;sinna & eth;ur og paradoksalur, t & iacute; hon b ae & eth;i kritiserar og tekur fr & aacute;st & oslash;& eth;u fr & aacute; m & aacute;tanum, fer & eth;avinnan ver & eth;ur rikin & iacute; F & oslash;royum, samstundis sum hon tekur lut & iacute; hesi vinnugrein.
