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1 – 10 of over 19000The issue of linguistic autonomy is a central one on the agenda of Catalan politics within the Spanish state. In the transition from Francoism, virtually all political groups in…
Abstract
The issue of linguistic autonomy is a central one on the agenda of Catalan politics within the Spanish state. In the transition from Francoism, virtually all political groups in Catalonia supported a statute of autonomy (1982) which declares that “Catalan is the official language of Catalonia, as is Castillian, the official language of the entire Spanish State.”
David Butcher and Sally Atkinson
Whilst language is recognised as playing a key role in the shaping of organisational phenomena, the importance of managing language actively in the context of change has received…
Abstract
Whilst language is recognised as playing a key role in the shaping of organisational phenomena, the importance of managing language actively in the context of change has received less attention. The particular relevance of the active management of language in changing the mindsets that underpin models of organisational change is discussed, leading to the conclusion that language has a key role in making apparent and legitimising emerging models that challenge the conventional “top‐down” paradigm.
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Barbara d.L. Voss, David B. Carter and Rebecca Warren
The study draws upon three accounts to examine post-truth politics and its link to accounting. In studying Petrobras, a Brazilian petrochemical company embroiled in a corruption…
Abstract
Purpose
The study draws upon three accounts to examine post-truth politics and its link to accounting. In studying Petrobras, a Brazilian petrochemical company embroiled in a corruption scandal, the authors draw upon a politics of falsity to understand how different depictions of similar events can emerge. The authors depict Petrobras' corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures during the period of corruption juxtaposed against the Brazilian Federal Police investigation (the Lava Jato/Car Wash Operation) and Petrobras' response to the allegations of institutional corruption.
Design/methodology/approach
The data set consisted of 56 Petrobras reports including Annual Reports, Financial Statements, Sustainability Reports and Form 20-Fs from 2004 to 2017, information disclosed by the Brazilian Federal Police concerning the Lava Jato Operation and media reports concerning Petrobras and the corruption scandal. The paper employs a discourse analysis approach to depict and interpret the accounts.
Findings
Through examining the connection between ontic accounts and ontological presuppositions, the authors illustrate a post-truth logic underpinning accounting, due to the interpretive, contestable and contingent nature of accounting information. Consequently, the authors turn to the “ethics of the real” as a response, as citizen subjects must be cautious in how they approach accounting and CSR disclosures.
Originality/value
Rather than relying on simplistic true/false dualities, the authors argue that the “ethics of the real” provides a courageous position for citizen subjects to interrogate the organisation by recognising the role of discourse and disclosure expectations on organisations in a post-truth environment. The study also illustrates how competing, contingent accounts of the same timeframe and events can emerge.
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Examines the reasons why administrators of non‐profit organizations are reluctant to embrace marketing ideas. Gives the most frequent answer, which is that marketing itself has a…
Abstract
Examines the reasons why administrators of non‐profit organizations are reluctant to embrace marketing ideas. Gives the most frequent answer, which is that marketing itself has a tarnished image which is often associated with wasteful expenditure, particularly in the areas of advertising and promotion, where things are very difficult. Differences are shown in background and training, and therefore language and concepts of markets and the administrators of non‐profit organisations. States that administrators in non‐profit organizations are not surprisingly reluctant to adopt a language, which they can often see as merely offering a rather poor translation of their own concepts. Sums up that marketing practitioners may feel uncomfortable about explicitly acknowledging the existence of such activity.
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Despite the importance of the first Chinese language movement in the early 1970s that elevated the status of Chinese as an official language in British Hong Kong, the movement and…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the importance of the first Chinese language movement in the early 1970s that elevated the status of Chinese as an official language in British Hong Kong, the movement and the colonial state’s response remained under-explored. Drawing insights primarily from Bourdieu and Phillipson, this study aims to revisit the rationale and process of the colonial state’s incorporation of the Chinese language amid the 1970s.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a historical case study based on published news and declassified governmental documents.
Findings
The central tenet is that the colonial state’s cultural incorporation was the tactics that aimed to undermine the nationalistic appeal in Hong Kong society meanwhile contain the Chinese language movement from turning into political unrest. Incorporating the Chinese language into the official language regime, however, did not alter the pro-English linguistic hierarchy. Symbolic domination still prevailed as English was still considered as the more economically rewarding language comparing with Chinese, yet official recognition of Chinese language created a common linguistic ground amongst the Hong Kong Chinese and fostered a sense of local identity that based upon the use of the mother tongue, Cantonese. From the case of Hong Kong, it suggests that Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of state formation paid insufficient attention to the international context and the non-symbolic process of state-making itself could also shape the degree of the state’s symbolic power.
Originality/value
Extant studies on the Chinese language movement are overwhelmingly movement centred, this paper instead brings the colonial state back in so to re-examine the role of the state in the incorporative process of the Chinese language in Hong Kong.
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Kasun Gajasinghe and Priyanka Jayakodi
This paper aims to explore the relationship between religious and linguistic nationalism in Sri Lanka in the context of the controversy on singing the national anthem in Tamil…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationship between religious and linguistic nationalism in Sri Lanka in the context of the controversy on singing the national anthem in Tamil during National Independence Day celebrations. It illuminates how language and religious policy work together to maintain Sinhala–Buddhist hegemony and exclude Tamil speakers as second-class citizens in postcolonial Sri Lanka.
Design/methodology/approach
The examination of the anthem controversy includes language and religious policy documents, newspaper articles and YouTube videos.
Findings
The national anthem as a site of struggle is a powerful case to explore how nation-states’ actors mobilize affect, intertwining ideologies on language, religion, ethnicity, geography, and so on to maintain and reinforce dominance over minoritized groups. Therefore, the authors believe that (singing) the national anthem can be a site of study for language policy.
Research limitations/implications
The authors acknowledge that the data used in this study are only in Sinhala and English and identify the need for further research using data sources in Tamil.
Originality/value
While this paper generally contributes to the scholarly dialogues on religion and language, it also sheds light on understanding politics in Sri Lanka. Finally, the authors propose that any meaningful policy implementation efforts toward achieving linguistic justice in Sri Lanka need to include parallel policy changes that promote equality among religions.
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Much of the vocabulary of digital rights have not been translated into Kiswahili. This means that technology experts and digital rights defenders often use English words when they…
Abstract
Purpose
Much of the vocabulary of digital rights have not been translated into Kiswahili. This means that technology experts and digital rights defenders often use English words when they are discussing technology. This contributes to the frailty of efforts to defend digital rights because those who attempt to explain the importance of these issues to the broader societies are forced to rely on English vocabulary that is not rooted in or connected to Kiswahili contexts. This paper aims to discuss the importance of inviting people to use African languages on the internet.
Design/methodology/approach
Kiswahili is the most widely spoken African language in the world. Nearly 140 million people in East Africa speak Kiswahili as a first or second language, including in Kenya and Tanzania where it is the national language. There is a long history of Kiswahili writing, publishing and cultural production in Kiswahili. Kiswahili is also the only African language that is an official language at the African Union. Even so, Kiswahili lags behind significantly in the development of a vocabulary and grammar of technology.
Findings
Beyond vocabulary, the use of African languages online is important to strengthening democracy on the internet because language is keenly connected to identity. Efforts to translate the vocabulary of technology into Kiswahili are aimed at encouraging societies in East Africa to build communities online that represent their interests keenly. This article therefore looks at the importance of language in building society and the efforts by residents of East Africa to decolonise the internet, so that they are able to exist in their fullness on the internet. The article further examines the semiotics of language in digital innovation, and the importance of representing Kiswahili language communities properly online in efforts to decolonise the internet. This paper does not presume that Kiswahili is the only African language that can decolonise the internet, because even Kiswahili has a history of domination over other language communities in the region. Rather, the article uses the example of Kiswahili to urge the use of indigenous languages to defend digital diversity.
Originality/value
The importance of this article is in demonstrating the importance of language in the movement to develop digital rights and especially to remove colonial approaches to technology, an issue that, to the best of the author’s knowledge, has never been discussed in relation to the Kiswahili language.
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It is eminently fitting that the Greeks who gave us their word for “speaking fair” should also have supplied us with the ultimate exemplification of its use. They were wont to…
Abstract
It is eminently fitting that the Greeks who gave us their word for “speaking fair” should also have supplied us with the ultimate exemplification of its use. They were wont to refer to the Furies, a group of avenging goddesses, as the Eumenides or “The Fair Ones.” Since the Furies were imagined as having a batlike shape which was adorned with a profusion of snakish hair, they were not fair at all, but rather terrifying, intimidating in the highest degree. To euphemize a phenomenon is to call it something other than what it most particularly is, anything at all provided the new designation is gentler, milder, less offensive, less threatening. It is even possible, as in the case of the Furies renamed Fair Ones, to effect a 180‐degree reversal of meaning.
The paper draws out the key conceptual, methodological and substantive issues raised in the papers around the politics of equalities.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper draws out the key conceptual, methodological and substantive issues raised in the papers around the politics of equalities.
Design/methodology/approach
Rather than reviewing and summarising each paper in turn this introductory article synthesises the key themes from papers to develop an overview of the key issues raised in the edited collection.
Findings
The papers trouble traditional dichotomies in equalities studies, suggesting complex and fluid relationships between states, activists and professionals. They also identify some key elements of current equalities work such as equalities framing, diversity interpretation and the negotiation of ambiguity produced through the seesaw of hope/failure characterising this work.
Research limitations/implications
The collection highlights the continuing dearth of work around certain equalities strands, in particular, around sexualities and generation. It also suggests avenues for further work developing postcolonial analysis of equalities work in organisations.
Originality/value
The collection is unique in that it draws together current work crossing diverse national and sectoral contexts and from a range of equalities strands.
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Cuba’s 1959 Revolution brought about dramatic changes not only in that island‐nation but also in the USA. Cubans, and later Cuban‐Americans, have changed the face of Miami and…
Abstract
Cuba’s 1959 Revolution brought about dramatic changes not only in that island‐nation but also in the USA. Cubans, and later Cuban‐Americans, have changed the face of Miami and south Florida. The economic and social successes of Cuban‐Americans, the third largest Latino group in the USA, are prevalent in scholarly and popular literature. In this annotated bibliography, the author presents journal articles, chapters in books, books, and human rights reports, published between 1990 and 1998, as well as World Wide Web sites, that discuss the Cuban‐American experience. Articles from the popular literature are not included, nor are materials that deal primarily with Cuba or Cuba‐USA relations.
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