Language, Borders and Identity - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0748669760 ISBN 13: 9780748669769

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2014

Synopsis

This book sets out to encompass a broad, geographically diverse spectrum of border contexts, and to illustrate a representative range of methodological approaches used by researchers in the field. Political borders that divide monoglossic and heteroglossic territories are examined, as are regional and local borders. Symbolic borders, which may for example be encoded in the semiotic manipulation of the linguistic landscape, are also considered. We assess the linguistic implications of the presence of borders of the preceding kinds in applied contexts such as language planning and policy (e.g. for multilingual education; protection of minority languages) and border control (via the chapter on language analysis for the determination of origin, ‘LADO’). Each border is unique to itself, making generalisations about how language functions in ‘borderlands’ difficult to formulate. Casting the net as wide as we intend will, however, equip us to develop and refine models of how language is used to construct borders, and to indicate on which side of a border speakers situate themselves. The dual reactive and proactive functions that language serves in this respect are brought into focus, and the interface and tensions between essentialist and constructionist approaches to identity are explored. The book will place particular emphasis on the last of these topics.

About this title

About the Authors

Dominic Watt lectures in Forensic Speech Science at the University of York, UK

Carmen Llamas lectures in sociolinguistics at the University of York. She is co-editor (with Dominic Watt) of Language and Identities (2010) and (with Peter Stockwell and Louise Mullany) of The Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics (2007). Her research deals primarily with phonological variation and change in the North East and the Scottish-English border region.

From the Back Cover

A wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary discussion of the connections between language, borders and identities.Drawing on a broad, geographically diverse spectrum of studies of language use and attitudes in a variety of border contexts, Language, Borders and Identity takes an integrative interdisciplinary approach by combining sociolinguistic research with insights and investigative techniques from human geography, anthropology and social psychology. The book illustrates a range of methodological approaches used by researchers in the field and examines socio-psychological and symbolic borders alongside the political borders that divide monoglossic and heteroglossic territories.Using international case studies and examples throughout, this book also looks to symbolic borders, which may be encoded via the semiotic manipulation of the linguistic landscape. It further assesses the linguistic implications of the presence of borders in applied contexts, including language planning and policy (e.g. in multilingual education or for the protection of minority languages) and the role of linguistic behaviour in the enforcement of border controls.Language, Borders and Identity develops and refines models of how language is used to construct borders, and how it serves to index how speakers place themselves with respect to these boundaries. Through exploration of the tensions between essentialist and constructionist approaches to identity, this book brings into focus the dual reactive and proactive functions that language fulfils in this respect, and offers a valuable resource for advanced students and researchers in sociolinguistics and the sociology of language.Dominic Watt is Senior Lecturer in Forensic Speech Science at the University of York, UK.Carmen Llamas is Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at the University of York, UK.

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0748669760
• ISBN 13: 9780748669769
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Watt Dominic, Llamas Carmen