National University of Singapore
LANGUAGE POLICY AS SPATIAL ASSEMBLAGE: PRACTICE, IDEOLOGY AND AFFECT OF BUSINESS INCUBATION IN THE GUANGDONG-HONG KONG-MACAO GREATER BAY AREA
Abstract
dc:description.abstractThis thesis examines the relationship between language policy and spatial production. The regulation of language is entrenched by extra-linguistic (political, cultural, economic and social) processes circulating in the open sociolinguistic ecology. The thesis presents the creation of territorial space in these entangling processes through the Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of ‘assemblage’ and a triadic framework (practice, ideology and affect). It draws upon the case example of business incubation (the industry nurturing early-stage companies) in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in South China. The analysis illustrates territories of ‘the nation’, ‘the market’ and ‘the subject’ re-calibrated in the GBA through the regulative use of language in business incubation. The study comes with two implications. First, language policy functions as spatial assemblage in producing territorial spaces that are enclosing but remain radically open with the ecological flows. Second, language is regulated in interactions between material practices and discursive ideologies bound by affective relations.
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
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- WU ZHAO ZHEN