Scalar politics, language ideologies, and the
sociolinguistics of globalization
among transnational Korean professionals
in Hong Kong
1
Adrian J. Bailey,
a
Suresh Canagarajah,
b
Shanshan Lan
c
and
Devereux Gong Powers
d
a. Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
b. Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A.
c. The University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
d. Brandeis University, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
This paper argues that the sociolinguistics of globalization is
accompanied by a constitutive scalar politics. Based on ten interviews
with Korean professionals in Hong Kong, we report that Korean
migrants’ use and experience of English is characterized by competing
language ideologies we identify as: Pragmatic English/Perfect English,
Multilingualism/English Only, and Global Language/Local Language.
Tensions within these ideologies were revealed as respondents referenced
the contexts of their daily lives as intersecting sets of geographic,
temporal, and social scales. We discuss how sociolinguistic relations
associated with the transnational lifecourse, hybridizing identity, and
racialization were imagined in ways that re-negotiated these scales to
serve the interests of the participants and provide coherence to their
communicative practices. Sociolinguistic relations both reference scales
and constitute them. We conclude that attending to scales and scalar
politics provides a better explanatory framework for the ways the
uneven linguistics markets of globalization are negotiated by
transnational subjects.
本文认为全球化的社会语言学与尺度政治是相互辅助的关系。基于对十
位香港韩裔专业人士的访谈资料,我们发现韩裔移民对英语的运用和体验
反映出几种相互竞争的语言意识形态:实用英语/完美英语,语言多元化/单
一英语,全球语言/地方语言。这些语言意识形态之间的张力体现为地域、
时间和社会尺度在受访者日常生活中的互相交错。我们探讨与跨国人生
历程,身份混杂化,和种族化相关的社会语言关系如何重新协调这些尺度,
使受访者受益并为他们的沟通实践提供连贯性。社会语言关系不仅指代
尺度而且建构尺度。在结论里我们认为关注尺度及尺度政治为跨国主体
协调不均衡的全球化语言学市场提供了一个更好的诠释框架。[Chinese]
Journal of Sociolinguistics 20/3, 2016: 312–334
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd