Immigration and bureaucratic control : language practices in public administration / by Eva Codo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Codó, Eva, 1971-

Series:

Language, power, and social process ; 20.

Language, power, and social process, 1861-4175 ; 20

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sociolinguistics--Spain.

Sociolinguistics.

Communication in public administration--Spain.

Communication in public administration.

Immigrants--Spain--Language.

Immigrants.

Multilingualism--Spain.

Multilingualism.

Spain--Emigration and immigration.

Spain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (272 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This original study looks at language practices in a government agency responsible for granting or denying legal status to transnational migrants in Spain. Drawing on a unique corpus of naturally-occurring verbal interactions between state officials and migrant petitioners as well as ethnographic materials and interviews, it provides a fascinating insight into the relationship between language, social heterogeneity, and practices of exclusion. The book investigates how a national agency with homogenizing views of citizenship copes with the fundamental contradiction resulting from the state's commitment to the values of pluralism, justice, and equality, and its function as the regulator of access to socioeconomic resources. By focusing on information provision, the book explores how much room there is for individual agency in institutional contexts; and shows that what happens in front-line talk has very little to do with allowing immigrants access to crucial information but rather revolves around the regimentation of language and behavior, and the enactment of social control. This publication will be welcomed by students and researchers in the fields of sociolinguistics, language and immigration, institutional talk, and multilingualism.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Part I: Situating the study

Chapter 1 Immigration, bureaucracy and language

Chapter 2 Service activities and bureaucratic procedure

Part II: Information as valuable capital

Chapter 3 An illusion of information

Chapter 4 Strategies of information management

Part III: Regimented spaces

Chapter 5 The scrutinisation of behaviour

Chapter 6 Language choice and multilingual practice

Backmatter

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613428486

9781283428484

1283428482

9783110199086

3110199084

OCLC:

476197130