Jeremie Bouchard – författare

This collection brings together theory and ethnographic research from a range of national contexts to offer unique insights into the nature of agency in language policy and planning. Situated within a broader sociological framework, the book explores agentive processes at work in case studies from around the world, engaging in discussions of such key themes as language and identity, language ideologies, linguistic diversity in education, and language revitalization. Each chapter examines the ways in which decisions made at both the local and national level impact language use and in turn, the dynamic relationship between language use, policy, and practice in these contexts. Taken together, this volume advances our understanding of agency in language policy and planning and directions for future research, making this key reading for students and scholars in language and education, critical sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

This collection brings together theory and ethnographic research from a range of national contexts to offer unique insights into the nature of agency in language policy and planning. Situated within a broader sociological framework, the book explores agentive processes at work in case studies from around the world, engaging in discussions of such key themes as language and identity, language ideologies, linguistic diversity in education, and language revitalization. Each chapter examines the ways in which decisions made at both the local and national level impact language use and in turn, the dynamic relationship between language use, policy, and practice in these contexts. Taken together, this volume advances our understanding of agency in language policy and planning and directions for future research, making this key reading for students and scholars in language and education, critical sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

This concise collection features seven studies on agency in language policy and planning across five different national contexts. Building on themes explored in Agency in Language Policy and Planning, this volume highlights the complex relationship between agency and broader ideological discourses, integrating social theory toward contributing to and enhancing growing scholarship on language policy and planning. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in language policy and planning, language and education, critical sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

This concise collection features seven studies on agency in language policy and planning across five different national contexts. Building on themes explored in Agency in Language Policy and Planning, this volume highlights the complex relationship between agency and broader ideological discourses, integrating social theory toward contributing to and enhancing growing scholarship on language policy and planning. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in language policy and planning, language and education, critical sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

This book suggests that applied linguistics research is inherently concerned with complexity, emergence and causality, and because of this it also requires a robust social ontology. The book identifies and unpacks a range of conceptual issues in applied linguistics from a social realist perspective, and provides a critique of successionism and interpretivism as two dominant and enduring empiricist tendencies in the field. From this critique, it considers the emergence of complex dynamic system theory as viable yet not entirely unproblematic conceptual sophistication of current applied linguistics research. Although the growing popularity of complex dynamic system theory is undeniable and understandable, this book argues that its integration within a social realist ontology is necessary for further developments in the field. The book will be of interest to applied linguists and social scientists interested in language-related issues including language learning and teaching, languagechange, language policy and planning, bilingualism/multilingualism, and language and identity. 

Associated with an important epistemological shift from language proficiency to language criticality in applied linguistic research, this book provides a sociological perspective on foreign language education in Japan. By employing ethnographic methods to investigate the relationship between three core analytical elements – foreign language education geared towards the development of learners’ intercultural communicative competence; nihonjinron and native-speakerism as potentially constraining ideological forces; and EFL practices observed at four Japanese junior high schools – the author not only shares valuable insights into how English is taught and learned in a stratum of the Japanese EFL system which has received limited attention from researchers over the years, but also clarifies the fundamental and complex changes currently taking place in the Japanese EFL landscape. 

This multi-faceted book also calls for greater consideration in postmodern ideology critique for the stratified nature of social processes as well as the material conditions and underlying generative mechanisms involved in the production and consumption of (including resistance to) ideological discourse. Accordingly, it outlines several challenges shaping ideology research in educational settings, and responds by developing a realist-oriented theoretical and methodological approach to address these challenges. This book serves as a unique point of reference for the study of parallel nationalist discourses embedded in foreign language education systems around the world.