1st Edition

Academic Irregularities Language and Neoliberalism in Higher Education

By Liz Morrish, Helen Sauntson Copyright 2020
    252 Pages
    by Routledge

    252 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    *RUNNER UP FOR 2021 BAAL BOOK PRIZE*

    This volume serves as a critical examination of the discourses at play in the higher education system and the ways in which these discourses underpin the transmission of neoliberal values in 21st century universities. Situated within a Critical Discourse Analysis-based framework, the book also draws upon other linguistic approaches, including corpus linguistics and appraisal analysis, to unpack the construction and development of the management style known as managerialism, emergent in the 1990s US and UK higher education systems, and the social dynamics and power relations embedded within the discourses at the heart of managerialism in today’s universities. Each chapter introduces a particular aspect of neoliberal discourse in higher education and uses these multiple linguistic approaches to analyze linguistic data in two case studies and demonstrate these principles at work. This multi-layered systematic linguistic framework allows for a nuanced exploration of neoliberal institutional discourse and its implications for academic labor, offering a critique of the managerial system in higher education but also a larger voice for alternative discursive narratives within the academic community. This important work is a key resource for students and scholars in applied linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, sociology, business and management studies, education, and cultural studies.





    List of tables and figures





    Acknowledgements





    Introduction





    Chapter 1 – Critical University Studies: Defining a Field





    Chapter 2 – The Student as Consumer and Commodity





    Chapter 3 – Marketing the Goods





    Chapter 4 – Language and Audit Culture 1: Research and Performance Management





    Chapter 5 – Language and Audit Culture 2: The Case of the Teaching Excellence Framework





    Chapter 6 – Colonising the Corporate Academic





    Chapter 7 – Conclusions and Possibilities for Contesting the Discourse





    Glossary of terms

    Biography

    Liz Morrish is an independent scholar. For over 30 years, she taught linguistics at Nottingham Trent University.

    Helen Sauntson is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at York St John University, UK.