Massimiliano Spotti - Böcker

This Oxford Handbook challenges basic concepts that have informed the study of sociolinguistics since its inception in the 1960s. In 27 chapters, the book challenges the modernist positivist perspective of the field that has treated languages and speech communities as bounded and the idealized native speaker as the ultimate authority. Instead, it offers a critical poststructuralist perspective that examines the socio-historical context that led to the emergence of dominant sociolinguistic concepts and develops new theoretical and methodological tools that challenge these dominant concepts. The contributors to this volume take this critical poststructuralist perspective as a starting point for engaging in explorations of a range of sociolinguistic topics including language variation, language ideologies, bi/multilingualism, language policy, linguistic landscapes and multimodality. Each of the contributors provides a critical overview of the limits of modernist positivist perspectives on their topic and offer ways of theorizing and researching their topic in ways that are aligned with a critical poststructuralist perspective. The book also provides a global perspective on these issues with contributors focused on North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Africa. Together, the interdisciplinary and global contributions reveal the limits of conventional approaches to sociolinguistics and offer a glimpse into directions for the future of the field.

This Oxford Handbook challenges basic concepts that have informed the study of sociolinguistics since its inception in the 1960s. In 27 chapters, the book challenges the modernist positivist perspective of the field that has treated languages and speech communities as bounded and the idealized native speaker as the ultimate authority. Instead, it offers a critical poststructuralist perspective that examines the socio-historical context that led to the emergence of dominant sociolinguistic concepts and develops new theoretical and methodological tools that challenge these dominant concepts. The contributors to this volume take this critical poststructuralist perspective as a starting point for engaging in explorations of a range of sociolinguistic topics including language variation, language ideologies, bi/multilingualism, language policy, linguistic landscapes and multimodality. Each of the contributors provides a critical overview of the limits of modernist positivist perspectives on their topic and offer ways of theorizing and researching their topic in ways that are aligned with a critical poststructuralist perspective. The book also provides a global perspective on these issues with contributors focused on North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Africa. Together, the interdisciplinary and global contributions reveal the limits of conventional approaches to sociolinguistics and offer a glimpse into directions for the future of the field.

A first synthesis of work done in sociolinguistic superdiversity, this volume offers a substantial introduction to the field and the issues and state-of-the-art research papers organized around three themes: Sketching the paradigm, Sociolinguistic complexity, Policing complexity. The focus is to show how complexity rather than plurality can serve as a lens through which an equally vast range of topics, sites, and issues can be tied together. Superdiversity captures the acceleration and intensification of processes of social ‘mixing’ and ‘fragmentation’ since the early 1990s, as an outcome of two different but related processes: new post-Cold War migration flows, and the advent and spread of the Internet and mobile technologies. The confluence of these forces have created entirely new sociolinguistic environments, leading to research in the past decade that has brought a mixture of new empirical terrain–extreme diversity in language and literacy resources, complex repertoires and practices of participants in interaction–and conceptual challenges. Language and Superdiversity is a landmark volume bringing together the work of the scholars and researchers who spearhead the development of the sociolinguistics of superdiversity.

A first synthesis of work done in sociolinguistic superdiversity, this volume offers a substantial introduction to the field and the issues and state-of-the-art research papers organized around three themes: Sketching the paradigm, Sociolinguistic complexity, Policing complexity. The focus is to show how complexity rather than plurality can serve as a lens through which an equally vast range of topics, sites, and issues can be tied together. Superdiversity captures the acceleration and intensification of processes of social ‘mixing’ and ‘fragmentation’ since the early 1990s, as an outcome of two different but related processes: new post-Cold War migration flows, and the advent and spread of the Internet and mobile technologies. The confluence of these forces have created entirely new sociolinguistic environments, leading to research in the past decade that has brought a mixture of new empirical terrain–extreme diversity in language and literacy resources, complex repertoires and practices of participants in interaction–and conceptual challenges. Language and Superdiversity is a landmark volume bringing together the work of the scholars and researchers who spearhead the development of the sociolinguistics of superdiversity.

What is required to achieve civic integration and citizenship in nation states across the world? Should language testing be a part of it? This book addresses the urgent need to develop a fuller conceptual and theoretical basis for language testing than is currently available, to enable widespread discussion of this theme and the concomitant linguistic and cultural requirements. The policy proposals for civic integration have so far been conducted almost entirely at a national level, and with little regard for the experiences of a countries with long traditions of migration, such as the USA, Canada, the UK or Australia. At the same time, EU enlargment and the ongoing rise in the rate of migration into and across Europe suggest that these issues will continue to grow in importance. This book raises the level of discussion to take account of international developments and to promote a more coherent and soundly based debate. It will appeal to researchers and academics working in sociolinguistics and language education, as well as those working on language policy.

This book is the fruition of five years’ work in exploring the idea of superdiversity. The editors argue that sociolinguistic superdiversity could be a source of inspiration to a wide range of post-structuralist, post-colonial and neo-Marxist interdisciplinary research into the potential and the limits of human cultural creativity and societal renewal under conditions of increasing and complexifying global connectivity. Through case studies of language practices in spaces understood as inherently translocal and multi-layered (classrooms and schools, youth spaces, mercantile spaces and nation-states), this book explores the relevance of superdiversity for the social and human sciences and positions it as a research perspective in sociolinguistics and beyond.

This book is the fruition of five years’ work in exploring the idea of superdiversity. The editors argue that sociolinguistic superdiversity could be a source of inspiration to a wide range of post-structuralist, post-colonial and neo-Marxist interdisciplinary research into the potential and the limits of human cultural creativity and societal renewal under conditions of increasing and complexifying global connectivity. Through case studies of language practices in spaces understood as inherently translocal and multi-layered (classrooms and schools, youth spaces, mercantile spaces and nation-states), this book explores the relevance of superdiversity for the social and human sciences and positions it as a research perspective in sociolinguistics and beyond.

Builds on the profound and challenging legacy of sociolinguist Jan Blommaert, one of the most important thinkers in contemporary sociolinguistics, who dismantled the theoretical and ideological orthodoxies of his time.This volume honours the influential work of Jan Blommaert, furthering his critical and constructive engagement with power dynamics across numerous domains. It takes Blommaert’s work as a starting point to approach the challenges of a changing social world, using his frameworks to explore new contexts and applying new methodologies to established fields of study.The chapter authors – Jan’s colleagues, students and others inspired by his work – explore four themes of his scholarly legacy, expanding on his work and looking to new contexts. They elaborate on the concept of chronotopes, explore ideologies of language diversity and inequality, address normativities in complex online and offline spaces, and analyse voice as agency in time and space.Spanning a wide range of academic disciplines and contexts, they share a core commitment to analysing language in relation to society and power, arguably the most pressing legacy of Blommaert’s work.This book is open access under a CC BY NC ND licence.

Builds on the profound and challenging legacy of sociolinguist Jan Blommaert, one of the most important thinkers in contemporary sociolinguistics, who dismantled the theoretical and ideological orthodoxies of his time.This volume honours the influential work of Jan Blommaert, furthering his critical and constructive engagement with power dynamics across numerous domains. It takes Blommaert’s work as a starting point to approach the challenges of a changing social world, using his frameworks to explore new contexts and applying new methodologies to established fields of study.The chapter authors – Jan’s colleagues, students and others inspired by his work – explore four themes of his scholarly legacy, expanding on his work and looking to new contexts. They elaborate on the concept of chronotopes, explore ideologies of language diversity and inequality, address normativities in complex online and offline spaces, and analyse voice as agency in time and space.Spanning a wide range of academic disciplines and contexts, they share a core commitment to analysing language in relation to society and power, arguably the most pressing legacy of Blommaert’s work.This book is open access under a CC BY NC ND licence.

This is an in depth analysis of the linguistic issues surrounding civic integration and citizenship in nation states across the world. What is required to achieve civic integration and citizenship in nation states across the world? Should language testing be a part of it? This book addresses the urgent need to develop a fuller conceptual and theoretical basis for language testing than is currently available, to enable widespread discussion of this theme and the concomitant linguistic and cultural requirements. The policy proposals for civic integration have so far been conducted almost entirely at a national level, and with little regard for the experiences of countries with long traditions of migration, such as the USA, Canada, the UK or Australia. At the same time, EU enlargement and the ongoing rise in the rate of migration into and across Europe suggest that these issues will continue to grow in importance. This book raises the level of discussion to take account of international developments and to promote a more coherent and soundly based debate.It will appeal to researchers and academics working in sociolinguistics and language education, as well as those working on language policy. "The Advances in Sociolinguistics" series seeks to provide a snapshot of the current diversity of the field of sociolinguistics and the blurring of the boundaries between sociolinguistics and other domains of study concerned with the role of language in society.

This edited volume consists of chapters celebrating the career of scholar Sjaak Kroon, who has produced ground-breaking work in the field of ethnography of education, immigrant minority language teaching and language politics.