The Revaluation of the National Language in a Post-National Era: Language Policy and the Governance of Migration and Citizenship

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorHaque, Eve
dc.creatorMillar, Jeffrey Darren
dc.date.accessioned2015-01-26T14:58:21Z
dc.date.available2015-01-26T14:58:21Z
dc.date.copyright2014-08-11
dc.date.issued2015-01-26
dc.date.updated2015-01-26T14:58:20Z
dc.degree.disciplineLinguistics and Applied Linguistics (Applied Linguistics)
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation examines the influence of neo-liberal discourses and strategies of governance on a revaluation of the national language, in the form of formalized requirements and testing of language proficiency, within immigration, integration, naturalization, and citizenship policy in Canada and the United Kingdom. Employing an interdiscursive language policy analysis (da Silva & Heller, 2009), the dissertation combines textual analysis of policy documents, informed by the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), with an ethnographic understanding of the policy process gathered through interviews with policy actors. It applies the key CDA analytical categories of emergence, selection, operationalization, and materialization of discourses within domains of social action, and recontextualization of discourses across domains (Fairclough, 2009; Wodak & Fairclough, 2010) to a comparative case study of the policy processes surrounding language, immigration, and citizenship in Canada and the UK. The analysis of the cases reveals how neo-liberal discourses of the knowledge-based economy and communitarian discourses of cohesion and active citizenship have been recontextualized within the domains of immigration and citizenship policy, ultimately constituting a similar hegemonic discourse on the importance of language skills in a common, national language for immigrant integration. Further, the operationalization and materialization of this discourse is interpreted, drawing on the field of governmentality studies, as instantiating an advanced liberal political rationality (Rose, 1996, 1999), with formal language requirements and tests serving as political technologies for the subjectivation of prospective citizens. It is also revealed, however, that contestation over, and contradictions within this neo-liberal strategy of governance have shaped the particular policies regarding language, immigration, and citizenship in each case. The dissertation contributes to the literature on language testing practices for immigration and citizenship by identifying the motivation for such practices in the political economy of contemporary globalization and neo-liberal state strategies for the governance of immigration, integration, and citizenship. It also contributes to the field of Language Policy and Planning (LPP) by suggesting a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of state language policies in a neo-liberal, post-national era.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/28250
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectLinguistics
dc.subjectEnglish as a second language
dc.subjectEducation policy
dc.subject.keywordsKnowledge-based economyen_US
dc.subject.keywordsLanguage policyen_US
dc.subject.keywordsCitizenship language testingen_US
dc.subject.keywordsLanguage and nationalismen_US
dc.subject.keywordsGovern-mentalityen_US
dc.subject.keywordsNeoliberalismen_US
dc.subject.keywordsMigrationen_US
dc.subject.keywordsIntegrationen_US
dc.subject.keywordsLanguage skillsen_US
dc.titleThe Revaluation of the National Language in a Post-National Era: Language Policy and the Governance of Migration and Citizenship
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Millar_Jeffrey_D_2014_PhD.pdf
Size:
1.13 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.83 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
YorkU_ETDlicense.txt
Size:
3.38 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download

Collections

Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.