Bilingualism and Identity


Book Description

Sociolinguists have been pursuing connections between language and identity for several decades. But how are language and identity related in bilingualism and multilingualism? Mobilizing the most current methodology, this collection presents new research on language identity and bilingualism in three regions where Spanish coexists with other languages. The cases are Spanish-English contact in the United States, Spanish-indigenous language contact in Latin America, and Spanish-regional language contact in Spain. This is the first comparativist book to examine language and identity construction among bi- or multilingual speakers while keeping one of the languages constant. The sociolinguistic standing of Spanish varies among the three regions depending whether or not it is a language of prestige. Comparisons therefore afford a strong constructivist perspective on how linguistic ideologies affect bi/multilingual identity formation.




Multilingualism, Cultural Identity, and Education in Morocco


Book Description

In this book, I attempt to show how colonial and postcolonial political forces have endeavoured to reconstruct the national identity of Morocco, on the basis of cultural representations and ideological constructions closely related to nationalist and ethnolinguistic trends. I discuss how the issue of language is at the centre of the current cultural and political debates in Morocco. The present book is an investigation of the ramifications of multilingualism for language choice patterns and attitudes among Moroccans. More importantly, the book assesses the roles played by linguistic and cultural factors in the development and evolution of Moroccan society. It also focuses on the impact of multilingualism on cultural authenticity and national identity. Having been involved in research on language and culture for many years, I am particularly interested in linguistic and cultural assimilation or alienation, and under what conditions it takes place, especially today that more and more Moroccans speak French and are influenced by Western social behaviour more than ever before. In the process, I provide the reader with an updated description of the different facets of language use, language maintenance and shift, and language attitudes, focusing on the linguistic situation whose analysis is often blurred by emotional reactions, ideological discourses, political biases, simplistic assessments, and ethnolinguistic identities.




Multilingualism, Citizenship, and Identity


Book Description

Through an innovative and interdisciplinary approach that combines critical sociolinguistic ethnography, multi-modality, reflexivity, and discourse analysis, this groundbreaking book reveals the multiple (and sometimes simultaneous) ways in which individuals engage and invest in representations of languages and identities.This timely work is the first to consider the significance of multilingualism and its relationship to citizenship as well as the development of linguistic repertoires as an essential component of language education in a globalized world. While examining the discourses and interconnections between multilingualism, globalization, and identity, the author draws upon a unique case study of the experiences, voices, trajectories, and journeys of Canadian youth of Italian origin from diverse social, geographical, and linguistic backgrounds, participating in university French language courses as well as training to become teachers of French in the urban, multicultural and global landscape of Toronto, Canada. In doing so, Byrd Clark skilfully illustrates the multidimensional ways that youth invest in language learning and socially construe their multiple identities within diverse contexts while weaving in and out of particularistic and universalistic identifications. This invaluable resource will not only shed light on how and why people engage in learning languages and for which languages they choose to invest, but will offer readers a deeper understanding of the complex interrelationships between multilingualism, identity, and citizenship. It will appeal to researchers in a variety of fields, including applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, language acquisition and linguistic anthropology.




Identity and Language Learning


Book Description

Identity and Language Learning draws on a longitudinal case study of immigrant women in Canada to develop new ideas about identity, investment, and imagined communities in the field of language learning and teaching. Bonny Norton demonstrates that a poststructuralist conception of identity as multiple, a site of struggle, and subject to change across time and place is highly productive for understanding language learning. Her sociological construct of investment is an important complement to psychological theories of motivation. The implications for language teaching and teacher education are profound. Now including a new, comprehensive Introduction as well as an Afterword by Claire Kramsch, this second edition addresses the following central questions: - Under what conditions do language learners speak, listen, read and write? - How are relations of power implicated in the negotiation of identity? - How can teachers address the investments and imagined identities of learners? The book integrates research, theory, and classroom practice, and is essential reading for students, teachers and researchers in the fields of language learning and teaching, TESOL, applied linguistics and literacy.




The Complexity of Identity and Interaction in Language Education


Book Description

This book addresses two critical calls pertaining to language education. Firstly, for attention to be paid to the transdisciplinary nature and complexity of learner identity and interaction in the classroom and secondly, for the need to attend to conceptualizations of and approaches to manifestations of (in)equity in the sociohistorical contexts in which they occur. Collectively, the chapters envision classrooms and educational institutions as sites both shaping and shaped by larger (trans)communal negotiations of being and belonging, in which individuals affirm and/or problematize essentialized and idealized nativeness and community membership. The volume, comprised of chapters contributed by a diverse array of researcher-practitioners living, working and/or studying around the globe, is intended to inform, empower and inspire stakeholders in language education to explore, potentially reimagine, and ultimately critically and practically transform, the communities in which they live, work and/or study.




Language Policy and Identity Construction


Book Description

The (dis)empowerment of languages through language policy in multilingual postcolonial communities often shapes speakers’ identification with these languages, their attitude towards other languages in the community, and their choices in interpersonal and intergroup communication. Focusing on the dynamics of Cameroon’s multilingualism, this book contributes to current debates on the impact of politic language policy on daily language use in sociocultural and interpersonal interactions, multiple identity construction, indigenous language teaching and empowerment, the use of Cameroon Pidgin English in certain formal institutional domains initially dominated by the official languages, and linguistic patterns of social interaction for politeness, respect, and in-group bonding. Due to the multiple perspectives adopted, the book will be of interest to sociolinguists, applied linguists, pragmaticians, Afrikanists, and scholars of postcolonial linguistics.




Identity, Multilingualism and CALL


Book Description

This volume focuses on a range of topics and studies that address the notion of plurilingualism and multilingual identity in computer-mediated language learning spaces. Interest in digital multilingual identity in the fields of applied linguistics and language education has been growing exponentially in recent years, encompassing new variables and realities of life, such as translanguaging, heightened multilingualism, linguistic superdiversity, multimodal computer-mediated communication, and even social justice and forensics. New theoretical assumptions and recent global challenges urge researchers to problematize the traditional notion of virtual identity in the face of increased virtual connectedness and the hybridization of transcultural and translingual practices and intersecting physical movements of people. Singling out identity research within the field of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is particularly critical in the era of hyperlingualism, a form of multilingualism characterized by the increased participatory nature of digital communication and the provision of multiple languages in their own bounded spaces and places of use on the web and in other digital contexts. This volume contributes to this fast-growing body of interdisciplinary research, featuring conceptual papers and research studies of identity performance and multilingual communication in highly complexified digitally mediated social platforms. Although researchers have recently begun to explore some aspects of identity and plurilingualism in digital spaces, this volume seeks to (a) contextualize digital multilingual communication as it pertains to FL learning and teaching via a historical and conceptual overview of the multilingual movement in technologically mediated SLA along with in-depth explorations of how multilingual practices and digital affordances affect language learner identities beyond the classroom context, (b) fill the research void by exploring critical aspects of identity and multilingual digital communication across a range of educational and non-institutional contexts where language learners actively participate in translingual and plurilingual practices, and (c) illustrate new ways of evaluating and adapting CALL materials and teaching practices to accommodate multilingual subjects, and reflect the increasingly hyperlingual nature of digital communication.




Indigenous Youth and Multilingualism


Book Description

Bridging the fields of youth studies and language planning and policy, this book takes a close, nuanced look at Indigenous youth bi/multilingualism across diverse cultural and linguistic settings, drawing out comparisons, contrasts, and important implications for language planning and policy and for projects designed to curtail language loss. Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars with longstanding ties to language planning efforts in diverse Indigenous communities examine language policy and planning as de facto and de jure – as covert and overt, bottom-up and top-down. This approach illuminates crosscutting themes of language identity and ideology, cultural conflict, and linguistic human rights as youth negotiate these issues within rapidly changing sociolinguistic contexts. A distinctive feature of the book is its chapters and commentaries by Indigenous scholars writing about their own communities. This landmark volume stands alone in offering a look at diverse Indigenous youth in multiple endangered language communities, new theoretical, empirical, and methodological insights, and lessons for intergenerational language planning in dynamic sociocultural contexts.




Language and Identity


Book Description

The language we use forms an important part of our sense of who we are - of our identity. This book outlines the relationship between our identity as members of groups - ethnic, national, religious and gender - and the language varieties important to each group. What is a language? What is a dialect? Are there such things as language 'rights'? Must every national group have its own unique language? How have languages, large and small, been used to spread religious ideas? Why have particular religious and linguistic 'markers' been so central, singly or in combination, to the ways in which we think about ourselves and others? Using a rich variety of examples, the book highlights the linkages among languages, dialects and identities, with special attention given to religious, ethnic and national allegiances.




Language and Identity Politics


Book Description

In an increasingly multicultural world, the relationship between language and identity remains a complicated and often fraught subject for most societies. The growing political salience of questions relating to language is evident not only in the expanded implementation of new policies and legislation, but also in heated public debates about national unity, collective identities, and the rights of linguistic minorities. By taking a comprehensive approach that considers both the inclusive and exclusive dimensions of linguistic identity across Europe and North America, the studies assembled here provide a sophisticated look at one of the global era’s defining political dynamics.