Language, Media and Globalization in the Periphery: The Linguascapes of Popular Music in Mongolia

Sender Dovchin

May 2018 · Routledge

About this eBook

The title seeks to show how people are embedded culturally, socially and linguistically in a certain peripheral geographical location, yet are also able to roam widely in their use and takeup of a variety of linguistic and cultural resources. Drawing on data examples obtained from ethnographic fieldwork trips in Mongolia, a country located geographically, politically and economically on the Asian periphery, this book presents an example of how peripheral contexts should be seen as crucial sites for understanding the current sociolinguistics of globalization. Dovchin brings together several themes of wide contemporary interest, including sociolinguistic diversity in the context of popular culture and media in a globalized world (with a particular focus on popular music), and transnational flows of linguistic and cultural resources, to argue that the role of English and other languages in the local language practices of young musicians in Mongolia should be understood as "linguascapes." This notion of linguascapes adds new levels of analysis to common approaches to sociolinguistics of globalization, offering researchers new complex perspectives of linguistic diversity in the increasingly globalized world.

About the author

Sender Dovchin received her Ph.D. from University of Technology, Sydney in 2015. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Education, Curtin University, Western Australia. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the Centre for Language Research, University of Aizu, Japan. Her research explores the linguistic practices of young generation in the current age of globalization. She has published her works in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, International Journal of Multilingualism, Multilingua, English Today, World Englishes, Asian Englishes, International Multilingual Research Journal, Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts and Inner Asia. Her most recent book is Popular Culture, Voice and Linguistic Diversity: Young Adults Online and Offline (2018) co-authored with Alastair Pennycook and Shaila Sultana.