Neele Mundt - Böcker

This volume grew out of the 36th International LAUD Symposium, which was held in March 2014 at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Landau, Germany. There is general consensus among language experts that slightly more than half of today’s 7,000 languages are under severe threat of extinction even within fifty to one hundred years. The 13 papers contained in this volume explore the dramatic loss of linguistic diversity, why this matters, and what can be done and achieved to document and support endangered languages especially in the context of an ever increasing globalized world. The issue of vanishing languages is discussed from a variety of methodologies and perspectives: sociolinguistics, language ecology, language contact, language policy/planning, attitudes and linguistic inequalities.

This book offers a range of empirically-based case studies in the field of cultural linguistics and neighbouring disciplines such as intercultural pragmatics and language pedagogy. The first section explores intercultural communication and cross-linguistic/cross-cultural investigations in settings such as Brazil, Nigeria, Cameroon, Tanzania, Morocco, France and Canada. The second section focuses on applications of cultural linguistics in the field of foreign language teaching. By drawing on English as a Foreign Language and English as a Second Language contexts, the case studies presented further examine the ramification of cultural linguistics in the language classroom, enabling a better understanding of culture-specific conceptual differences between learners’ first and target language(s).

Over the past 25 years, previously separate fields of linguistic research have moved closer together, resulting in constructive collaborations: Cognitive Sociolinguistics draws on the framework of Cognitive Linguistics to investigate social factors in linguistic variation. Linguistic Landscape studies merge Semiotics and Sociolinguistics. Critical Discourse Studies link ideological dimensions of language to general conceptual principles. Language pedagogy is constantly informed by developments in Applied Linguistics. Furthermore, there is lively communication with neighbouring disciplines such as Literary and Cultural Studies. The present volume reflects this fruitful fluidity. It is a tribute to the linguist Martin Pütz, whose work has always been guided by this interdisciplinary spirit.