Thread by @Lg_on_the_Move

***On the conditions of authority in academic publics***

This thread 👇🏼 summarizes recent article by Ingrid Piller in Journal of #Sociolinguistics for the busy reader

#research #AcademicTwitter

Q: What makes a #text credible, trustworthy and authoritative?

Many people think it's the quality of #discourse: that some ways of using #language make text more believable

Certainly true BUT: world leaders may talk complete nonsense and still command authority and get elected

That is because "#authority comes to #language from outside” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 109)

Some of the pre-textual resources that give #authority to #discourse are listed by Smith-Khan (2019)

1. Linguistic capital
2. Material resources
3. Identity privilege
4. Platform privilege

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

1. Linguistic capital: people tend to consider someone who uses standard #English with a so-called "native" #accent as more authoritative than someone who struggles with #language #proficiency

https://twitter.com/Lg_on_the_Move/status/1204950084644851712

2. Material resources: if you bring your text to market on a well-designed website with stable URL, it is accorded greater #credibility than a handwritten note on a torn piece of paper

(Examples from Smith-Khan, 2019)

3. Identity privilege: it's the 21st century and stale pale males are still in charge ...

#authority
=
#race #gender #age #able

4. Platform privilege: look no further than #Twitter: number of followers and retweets are widely considered markers of #authority ...

Do #linguistic capital, material resources, #identity #privilege, and platform privilege make a difference to the #authority of #research, too?

Absolutely! Research published in #English and by #white #men commands the greatest authority, as Piller (2019) shows

Citation rates serve as a measure of #academic #authority

Irrespective how groundbreaking and innovative the #research, publications in #languages other than #English attract few citations

#English = #authority (research)

languageonthemove.com/academic-capit…

Female academics publish higher-quality papers and get cited less because we all collude to accord #authority to male #researchers (@erinhengel)

#gender #research #AcademicTwitter

languageonthemove.com/20818-2/

Same is true of #white scholars: they are more likely to be cited and accorded #authority

#race #research #AcademicTwitter

languageonthemove.com/why-are-you-no…

What can we do to tackle #inequality in the way #research is accorded #respect?

Remember that every #literature review, every #reference, every #citation accords or withholds #authority

Make them count!

#AcademicTwitter

"When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are #free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some #power, then your job is to #empower somebody else." (Toni Morrison)

#academia #research

Reference:

Piller, I. (2019). On the conditions of authority in academic publics. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 23(5), 521-528

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jo…

Open access preprint: languageonthemove.com/wp-content/upl…

Special thanks to @fonolog @Neerlandistiek, who blogged this paper almost immediately when it was published.

What a generous #authority boost! 🤗 Hartelijk bedankt!

neerlandistiek.nl/2019/11/taal-k…