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Metadiscursive regimes of diversity in a multinational corporation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Joseph Sung-Yul Park
Joseph Sung-Yul Park*
Affiliation:
English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, AS5, 7 Arts Link, Singapore 117570ellpjs@nus.edu.sg
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Abstract

Informed by recent work on the commodification of language and identity, this article offers a critique of the neoliberal corporate discourse of “diversity management,” in which the diversity of the workforce is conceived as a resource for maximizing profit. Through a close analysis of the language ideologies deployed in an interaction between three mid-level managers at a multinational corporation and a researcher, this article shows how the discourse of diversity management, constituting a metadiscursive regime, works to rationalize and justify the inequalities of the global workplace through the specific ways in which older and newer discourses of language and identity are juxtaposed. The findings emphasize how sociolinguistic research may contribute to a deeper understanding of the conditions of work in the new economy by identifying language as an indispensable part of the mechanism that sustains processes of control. (Metadiscursive regime, diversity management, neoliberalism, work, language ideology)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 42 , Issue 5 , November 2013 , pp. 557 - 577
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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