Language, Identity, and Social Division: The Case of Israel (Oxford Studies in Language Contact) - Hardcover

Ben-Rafael, Eliezer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198240724 ISBN 13: 9780198240723

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1994

Synopsis

The shift to Hebrew as a national language is at the root of the creation of Israel, yet many Jewish immigrants still use the language of their country of origin. Ultra-orthodox communities retain their own codes, and the use of Arabic remains a clear marker of the Israeli-Arab town and village. At the same time Israel's position in international affairs has encouraged a wide penetration of the society, along class lines, by languages of world-wide communication. These very same languages, for example English and French, have different values in their local context, and play active and different roles in the formation of social boundaries. In his analysis, Ben-Rafael focuses on linguistic resources and symbols which reflect and reveal the complex structure of class, ethnic, religious, and national identities and cleavages in Israeli society. More generally, he uses the Israeli case to show how sociolinguistic ideas may be related to sociological approaches to test some general sociological propositions about social aspects of language use.

About this title

Review:

"Ben-Rafael's book is sure to make a valuable contribution."--Anthropological Linguistics

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0198240724
• ISBN 13: 9780198240723
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304