Why Austin Still Matters

Examino neste trabalho como J. L. Austin relativiza a questão da verdade a contextos de enunciações, em especial a propósitos específicos para os quais o usuário as emprega. Isso redunda em que a verdade se torna algo de ordem mais ou menos acurada, relativamente a determinadas enunciações, e não um atributo inerente a sentenças em sua putativa correspondência ao mundo 'lá fora'. Assim, o desconforto que Austin sentia em relação à forma como os filósofos tradicionalmente lidaram com a questão da verdade desponta como independente da sua celebrada tese de veredicção ter precedência sobre verum, sendo que este se legitima graças à autoridade de quem está por trás daquela. Isso, por sua vez, abre novos caminhos para pesquisa, fato que comprova que Austin ainda tem muito que ensinar futuras gerações de pesquisadores32358359

Down Memory Lane ... as LAEL celebrates its golden jubilee

In this paper, I attempt to trace the evolution of LAEL over the 50 years of its history, intertwining the narrative with my own personal trajectory since my arrival in Brazil in 1976. The narrative makes no claim to being a step by step account of the different facets of the Programme’s history. Rather, the focus is on how its developments through the years mirror the fortunes of the very area of academic pursuit we call Applied Linguistics363CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQ300991/2019-

Science Rhetoric And The Sociology Of Knowledge: A Critique Of Dascal’s View Of Scientific Controversies

Dascal’s position on scientific controversies is submitted to a critical examination. It is pointed out that his distinction between knowledge and understanding, between ‘hard rationality’ and ‘soft rationality’ is unlikely to survive sustained critical probing. What is egregiously missing in his approach is a recognition of the role of so-called ‘sociology of knowledge’ in the way scientific controversies play out. It is argued that, insofar as they constitute pragmatic events, scientific controversies cannot be studied properly without taking into account their inalienable sociological dimension.252433-46

Applied Linguistics and the pressing need of the hour

I argue in this paper that Linguistics can ill afford any more not to address the threat posed by burgeoning populist tendencies all over the world, coupled with the alarming spread of fake news and little regard for truth. We, researchers in the area of language, have a duty to intervene in the developing state of affairs with all that we can muster. If that means having to rethink our claims to be doing science and therefore be mere observers of the unfolding scenario lest we should be reneging on our oath to maintain value neutrality at any cost, then so be it.Key words: rising populism; fake news; critical linguistics; value neutrality; intervention.

Applied Linguistics and the pressing need of the hour

I argue in this paper that Linguistics can ill afford any more not to address the threat posed by burgeoning populist tendencies all over the world, coupled with the alarming spread of fake news and little regard for truth. We, researchers in the area of language, have a duty to intervene in the developing state of affairs with all that we can muster. If that means having to rethink our claims to be doing science and therefore be mere observers of the unfolding scenario lest we should be reneging on our oath to maintain value neutrality at any cost, then so be it.Key words: rising populism; fake news; critical linguistics; value neutrality; intervention.

CULTURE AS AN EXPERIENCE OF IDENTITY FORMATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING

That language and culture are viscerally tied to one another is irrefutable. By and large, they seem to work in tandem. At least that used to be the case. But currently many argue that the phenomenon of globalization has thrown a spanner in the works. Among other things, it has rendered murky the very identities of individual languages as well as those of the distinct cultures that are supposed to correspond to them (Appadurai, 1990, Higgins, 2011). As forces of transnationalism gather momentum across the world, these identities are slowly being eroded. Hybridity, it seems, is fast turning out to be the order of the day. Nowhere else is this more visible than the case of ‘World English’, a transnational, transcultural reinvention of the language once confined to good old Albion. Acquiring new language skills as part of an effort to become a citizen of the world necessarily implies reinventing oneself. Evidently this is an endless, ongoing task. Who would have thought that poet Tennyson actually prophesied it when he wrote “Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravel'd world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move”! Maybe we have here an apt definition of ‘languaging’

Language politics and the linguist

This paper focuses on language politics as it is currently unfolding in Brazil. Thanks to a legislative bid by a member of the House of Representatives to curb the wide-spread use of English in the country, large segments of the country's population have suddenly become interested in language-related issues. Professional linguists were taken by surprise and have, by and large, been reduced to the status of mere spectators. In an attempt to address the issue, I argue that there is an urgent need to attend to the wider public and engage them in a fruitful dialogue.Este trabalho tem como foco a política lingüística tal qual ela vem se processando no Brasil. Graças a uma tentativa empenhada por um deputado no sentido de coibir o uso descontrolado de inglês no país, grandes setores da população têm mostrado interesse repetino em assuntos relativos à questão linguística. Os lingüistas profissionais foram pegos de calças curtas e, de forma geral, foram reduzidos à condição de meros espectadores. Ao tentar compreender o desenrolar dos acontecimentos, argumento que há uma necesidade urgente de atender aos anseios do público e dialogar com ele.839

Prospects for language studies in our era of globalization

The idea of the “situatedness” of all scientific endeavour has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt by the so-called ‘sociologists of knowledge’ and is today beginning to be recognized even by some hard-core, dyed-in-the-wool philosophers of science. Linguistics, like all other human and social sciences, cannot help being socio-historically situated. Neither can linguists. It is also no secret that the science of language came into being at a time when the world lived by a completely different set of rules. Today the world we live in is a far cry from what it used to be in those times and the phenomenon of globalization has changed it unrecognizably. It only stands to reason that our science is in dire need of being rehashed or, who knows, radically revamped, so as to bring it more in tune with the changing times. This presentation addresses the mind-boggling prospects ahead, including that of having to rethink some of the fundamental concepts and categories with which we have got used to working in the field of linguistics

English and the discourses of colonialism

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O SIGNIFICADO DA TRADUÇÃO E A TRADUÇÃO DO SIGNIFICADO

Argumenta-se, nesse trabalho, que o próprio título escolhido para a mesa-redonda (da qual o presente texto serviu de palavras de abertura) é ambíguo. Falar do significado da "tradução' é uma coisa. O significado da tradução (sem aspas) é outra. A tradução (sem aspas) significa poder, isto é, a distribuição desigual de poder entre as partes envolvidas