Joseph Lo Bianco - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Joseph Lo Bianco
South Asia-journal of South Asian Studies, 2005
The conversation, Nov 13, 2017
Australian review of applied linguistics, 1991
This paper is a review of the achievements of the National Policy on Languages. The National Poli... more This paper is a review of the achievements of the National Policy on Languages. The National Policy on Languages was adopted by the Federal government in May 1987 and implemented from that date until June 1991. In September of 1991 the Federal government adopted a White Paper entitled Australia’s Language; The Australian Language and Literacy Policy. In the companion volume to this it stated that the White Paper is an extension and maintenance of the National Policy on Languages.
Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, May 9, 2008
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2015
This paper is a discourse on ideological communication on poverty in Latin America from three dif... more This paper is a discourse on ideological communication on poverty in Latin America from three different perspectives: the Catholic priest, the Shining Path guerrilla and the development economist. The paper concludes with a discussion of these three perspectives from the perspective of the theory of communicative action espoused by Jurgen Habermas
Melbourne Asia Review, 2021
Dynamics of Linguistic Diversity, 2017
In recent decades large components of the language sciences have been subjected to relentless cri... more In recent decades large components of the language sciences have been subjected to relentless critique. Criticism has not been exclusive to those branches directly concerned with application, such as applied linguistics, but it has been particularly robust when directed at language studies modified by the words ‘social’, as in socio-linguistics, sociology of language; or ‘education’, as in bilingual education, foreign language education; and ‘policy’ or ‘planning’, as in language policy (Lo Bianco 2004). Most trenchant has been the criticism generated from neo-Marxist, post structuralist and post-modernist positions, claiming that the practice, concepts and methods of the applied language sciences are complicit with the operations of power, especially the material and symbolic interests of powerful groups, and that LP practitioners are insufficiently aware of these collusions (seeLo Bianco 2010aand2010b, for an overview of these criticisms). In my field of specialisation, language policy and planning, LP, some of this criticism has served to sharpen our work, making contemporary LP writing more reflective and open to diverse kinds of socio-political activities that constitute LP, especially in urban, developed country multi-ethnic contexts, in contrast to ‘classical’ LP which had been directed for the most part to state activity and formal processes of resolving problems of national construction (Fishman 1972) in post-colonial developing societies. However, some of this criticism imagined that LP itself would be swept away, as a defective and tainted practice of state control of minority language, disadvantaged and marginalised populations (Lo Bianco 2009). While scholars of LP these days tend to be better aware of constitutive relations between forms and uses of language and social arrangements, replete with inequality, disparity, selective privilege and prejudice, one of the aspirations of the ‘critics’ was to challenge the very possibility of LP of any kind. However, in the early decades of the 21st century it has become clear that LP is a regenerated, invigorated andburgeoning practice. New kinds of LP scholarship and new kinds of LP activity that fuse technical procedures of formal policy making, with democratic practices of naming language problems and exploring solutions to them, are being generated. Rather than being a redundant practice located in the scientific policy era of the post-1950s, with its aspiration for finding technical solutions to contested social problems, what is emerging is a newly vibrant collaboration between language scholarship and community language vitality. The context of all this is the new, mainly urbanised but not exclusively so, multi-lingual polis of the contemporary age, the cities and cityscapes of a multilingual world on the move, tied together by instantaneous communications and immense population movements. What is needed to advance the rights and opportunities of minorities for intra-collective solidarity and transmission of tradition, with the imperative of horizontal communication across and beyond internal group solidarities? These twin needs of inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic conversation, in the context of a wider appreciation of the enduring importance of multi-lingualism, and of the emancipatory aspects of language and cultural diversity, are now problems posed globally, with solutions emerging in localities across the world shaped by contingencies that prevail in those places, and their historical legacies. New LP needs show that it was never simply enough to find fault with the methods, assumptions and practices of the applied language sciences. Producing the social improvement requires investment in democratised methods, refined concepts and critical awareness within reinvigorated language sciences, research informed by and close to its sites of application, and with new design and execution that the disciplines of language can produce. In such ways language planners, sociolinguists and language educators can generate knowledge to productively engage with the globalisation of multiculturalism. To put language and communication to the service of diverse kinds of social improvement requires more than criticism, it requires redirecting the critical eye towards productive ends, framing criticism within concern for improvement and directly engaging with the lived realities of complex communication in radically changing societies.
Language Assessment Quarterly, 2021
ABSTRACT This paper constitutes an edited transcript of two online panels, conducted with four sc... more ABSTRACT This paper constitutes an edited transcript of two online panels, conducted with four scholars whose complementary expertise regarding print literacy and migration offers a thought-provoking and innovative window on the representation of print literacy in applied linguistic research and in migration policy. The panel members are experts on language policy, literacy, proficiency and human capital research. Together, they address a range of interrelated matters: the constructs of language proficiency and literacy (with significant implication for assessment), the idea of literacy as human capital or as a human right, the urgent need for policy literacy among applied linguists, and the responsibility of applied linguistics in the literacy debate.
South Asia-journal of South Asian Studies, 2005
The conversation, Nov 13, 2017
Australian review of applied linguistics, 1991
This paper is a review of the achievements of the National Policy on Languages. The National Poli... more This paper is a review of the achievements of the National Policy on Languages. The National Policy on Languages was adopted by the Federal government in May 1987 and implemented from that date until June 1991. In September of 1991 the Federal government adopted a White Paper entitled Australia’s Language; The Australian Language and Literacy Policy. In the companion volume to this it stated that the White Paper is an extension and maintenance of the National Policy on Languages.
Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, May 9, 2008
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2015
This paper is a discourse on ideological communication on poverty in Latin America from three dif... more This paper is a discourse on ideological communication on poverty in Latin America from three different perspectives: the Catholic priest, the Shining Path guerrilla and the development economist. The paper concludes with a discussion of these three perspectives from the perspective of the theory of communicative action espoused by Jurgen Habermas
Melbourne Asia Review, 2021
Dynamics of Linguistic Diversity, 2017
In recent decades large components of the language sciences have been subjected to relentless cri... more In recent decades large components of the language sciences have been subjected to relentless critique. Criticism has not been exclusive to those branches directly concerned with application, such as applied linguistics, but it has been particularly robust when directed at language studies modified by the words ‘social’, as in socio-linguistics, sociology of language; or ‘education’, as in bilingual education, foreign language education; and ‘policy’ or ‘planning’, as in language policy (Lo Bianco 2004). Most trenchant has been the criticism generated from neo-Marxist, post structuralist and post-modernist positions, claiming that the practice, concepts and methods of the applied language sciences are complicit with the operations of power, especially the material and symbolic interests of powerful groups, and that LP practitioners are insufficiently aware of these collusions (seeLo Bianco 2010aand2010b, for an overview of these criticisms). In my field of specialisation, language policy and planning, LP, some of this criticism has served to sharpen our work, making contemporary LP writing more reflective and open to diverse kinds of socio-political activities that constitute LP, especially in urban, developed country multi-ethnic contexts, in contrast to ‘classical’ LP which had been directed for the most part to state activity and formal processes of resolving problems of national construction (Fishman 1972) in post-colonial developing societies. However, some of this criticism imagined that LP itself would be swept away, as a defective and tainted practice of state control of minority language, disadvantaged and marginalised populations (Lo Bianco 2009). While scholars of LP these days tend to be better aware of constitutive relations between forms and uses of language and social arrangements, replete with inequality, disparity, selective privilege and prejudice, one of the aspirations of the ‘critics’ was to challenge the very possibility of LP of any kind. However, in the early decades of the 21st century it has become clear that LP is a regenerated, invigorated andburgeoning practice. New kinds of LP scholarship and new kinds of LP activity that fuse technical procedures of formal policy making, with democratic practices of naming language problems and exploring solutions to them, are being generated. Rather than being a redundant practice located in the scientific policy era of the post-1950s, with its aspiration for finding technical solutions to contested social problems, what is emerging is a newly vibrant collaboration between language scholarship and community language vitality. The context of all this is the new, mainly urbanised but not exclusively so, multi-lingual polis of the contemporary age, the cities and cityscapes of a multilingual world on the move, tied together by instantaneous communications and immense population movements. What is needed to advance the rights and opportunities of minorities for intra-collective solidarity and transmission of tradition, with the imperative of horizontal communication across and beyond internal group solidarities? These twin needs of inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic conversation, in the context of a wider appreciation of the enduring importance of multi-lingualism, and of the emancipatory aspects of language and cultural diversity, are now problems posed globally, with solutions emerging in localities across the world shaped by contingencies that prevail in those places, and their historical legacies. New LP needs show that it was never simply enough to find fault with the methods, assumptions and practices of the applied language sciences. Producing the social improvement requires investment in democratised methods, refined concepts and critical awareness within reinvigorated language sciences, research informed by and close to its sites of application, and with new design and execution that the disciplines of language can produce. In such ways language planners, sociolinguists and language educators can generate knowledge to productively engage with the globalisation of multiculturalism. To put language and communication to the service of diverse kinds of social improvement requires more than criticism, it requires redirecting the critical eye towards productive ends, framing criticism within concern for improvement and directly engaging with the lived realities of complex communication in radically changing societies.
Language Assessment Quarterly, 2021
ABSTRACT This paper constitutes an edited transcript of two online panels, conducted with four sc... more ABSTRACT This paper constitutes an edited transcript of two online panels, conducted with four scholars whose complementary expertise regarding print literacy and migration offers a thought-provoking and innovative window on the representation of print literacy in applied linguistic research and in migration policy. The panel members are experts on language policy, literacy, proficiency and human capital research. Together, they address a range of interrelated matters: the constructs of language proficiency and literacy (with significant implication for assessment), the idea of literacy as human capital or as a human right, the urgent need for policy literacy among applied linguists, and the responsibility of applied linguistics in the literacy debate.