Blommaert, Jan (2007) “Sociolinguistic scales” in Intercultural Pragmatics 4-1: 1-19.

space is not a passive background but an agentive force in sociolinguistic processes, notably in the assessment of competences. Articulate, multilingual individuals could become inarticulate and “language-less” by moving to a space in which their linguistic resources were valued and recognized into one in which they didn’t count as valuable and understandable. – 2

the layered and polycentric analysis of sociolinguistic phenomena should be seen as tied to differences between “scales”, and that introducing the notion of scales strengthens the socio-theoretical foundations of sociolinguistic analysis. – 3

sociolinguistics should be the study of language in order to gain an understanding of society; not a reduction of society to linguistic structure. – 3

The point of departure: horizontal and vertical metaphors

The capacity to achieve understanding in communication is the capacity to lift momentary instances of interaction to the level of common meanings, and the two directions of indexicality (i. presupposing the retrieval of available meanings, and ii. entailing the production of new meanings; Silverstein 2006: 14) are at the heart of such processes. – 4

I have been using the term “scale” as an attempt to provide a metaphor that suggests that we have to imagine things that are of a different order, that are hierarchically ranked, stratified. The metaphor suggests spatial images; these images, however, are vertical metaphors of space rather than horizontal ones (implicit in terms such as “distribution” and “spread”, but also “community”, “culture”, and so on). Scales offer us a vertical image of spaces, of space as stratified and therefore power-invested; but they also suggest deep connections between spatial and temporal features. In that sense, scale may be a concept that allows us to see sociolinguistic phenomena as non-unified in relation to a stratified, non-unified image of social structure. Note that the introduction of “scale” does not reject horizontal images of space; it complements them with a vertical dimension of hierarchical ordering and power differentiation. – 4

3. Scales as Semiotized Space and Time

4. The social semiotics of scale

4.1 Loaded words, intertextual asymmetries

Intertextuality, in its classical interpretations, stands for the fact that words carry with them histories of use and abuse. As Bakhtin (1986) note, they also carry histories of evaluation, of value-attributions providing positive, negative and relative value to terms and statements. Intertextuality is what makes particular terms sensitive. – 8

terms trigger specific form of intertextuality, and that not every intertext has the same scope, range or weight (cf. Silverstein 2005). – 9

4.2 Scale and institutional habitus

4.3 Language and state

The state is, apart from the prime-language ranking agency, also often the prime language codifying agency. When languages are accepted as official by the state, such languages need to be converted into a literate standard. – 12

4.4 Global languages localized

5. Conclusion