Remix Multilingualism


Book Description

"Remixing multilingualism" is conceptualised in this book as engaging in the linguistic act of using, combining and manipulating multilingual forms. It is about creating new ways of 'doing' multilingualism through cultural acts and identities and involving a process that invokes bricolage. This book is an ethnographic study of multilingual remixing achieved by highly multilingual participants in the local hip hop culture of Cape Town. In globalised societies today previously marginalized speakers are carving out new and innovating spaces to put on display their voices and identities through the creative use of multilingualism. This book contributes to the development of new conceptual insights and theoretical developments on multilingualism in the global South by applying the notions of stylization, performance, performativity, entextualisation and enregisterment. This takes place through interviews, performance analysis and interactional analysis, showing how young multilingual speakers stage different personae, styles, registers and language varieties.




Remix Multilingualism


Book Description

"Remixing multilingualism" is conceptualised in this book as engaging in the linguistic act of using, combining and manipulating multilingual forms. It is about creating new ways of 'doing' multilingualism through cultural acts and identities and involving a process that invokes bricolage. This book is an ethnographic study of multilingual remixing achieved by highly multilingual participants in the local hip hop culture of Cape Town. In globalised societies today previously marginalized speakers are carving out new and innovating spaces to put on display their voices and identities through the creative use of multilingualism. This book contributes to the development of new conceptual insights and theoretical developments on multilingualism in the global South by applying the notions of stylization, performance, performativity, entextualisation and enregisterment. This takes place through interviews, performance analysis and interactional analysis, showing how young multilingual speakers stage different personae, styles, registers and language varieties.




Remix Multilingualism


Book Description




My Soul Look Back in Wonder


Book Description

This is the story of Dr. Geneva Smitherman, aka "Dr. G," the pioneering linguist often referred to as the "Queen of Black Language." In a series of narrative essays, Dr. G writes eloquently and powerfully about the role of language in social transformation and the academic, intellectual, linguistic, and societal debates that shaped her groundbreaking work as a Black Studies O.G. and a Womanist scholar-activist of African American Language. These eleven essays narrate the development of Dr. G’s race, gender, class, and linguistic consciousness as a member of the Black Power Generation of the 1960s and 70s. In My Soul Look Back In Wonder, Dr. G links the personal to the professional and the political, situating the struggles, and successes, of a Black woman in the Academy within the historical experiences and development of her people. As Dr. G enters her eighth decade, in this Black Lives Matter historical moment, she seeks to share the meaning and purpose of a life of study and struggle and its significance for all those who seek racial and social justice today.




Multilingualism


Book Description

This book is an authoritative account of multilingualism in the present era, a phenomenon affecting a vast number of communities, thousands of languages and millions of language users. The book’s focus is specifically on the knowledge and use of multiple languages, but its treatment of the topic is very wide-ranging. It deals with both bilingualism and polyglottism, at the level of the individual speaker as well as at the societal level. The volume addresses not only linguistic facets of multilingualism but also multilingualism’s cultural, sociological, educational, and psychological dimensions, moving from classic perspectives to recent and emerging directions of interest. The book’s extensive coverage takes in topics ranging from the ‘new linguistic dispensation’ in our globalized world to child development in multilingual environments, from the classification of multilingual groupings to characteristics of the multilingual mind. This breadth makes Multilingualism an ideal advanced textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the areas of linguistics, education and the social sciences.




Multilingualism


Book Description

Using a multidisciplinary approach, this book explores how multilingualism is shaped by a variety of factors such as globalisation and migration. It examines language use in a range of cultural contexts, exploring how children and adults become multilingual and the impact of multilingualism on society and identity.




Multilingualism


Book Description

HOW DO LANGUAGES LIVE AND DIE? WHAT ROLE DOES TRANSLATION PLAY IN HELPING LANGUAGES TO THRIVE? ARE POLYGLOTS VIEWED WITH SUSPICION, GIVEN THE LINKS BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY? IS THE MAINTENANCE AND REVIVAL OF FLAGGING LANGUAGES WORTH THE EFFORT? CAN A LANGUAGE REMAIN 'PURE'? IF LANGUAGE PATTERNS CONSTANTLY ALTER, WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT IDENTITY? Multilingualism is everywhere in a globalized society. This book looks at the origins and development of languages, at language contact and competition, and at the emergence and the consequences of multilingualism. Edwards also examines lingua francas, pidgins, creoles and artificial languages as a part of a broader snapshot of the social life of language. This compelling short introduction is required reading for all entry-level students of multilingualism, and a primer for language lovers in general.




Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Multilingualism


Book Description

Multilingualism is a typical aspect of everyday life for most of the world’s population; it has existed since the beginning of humanity and among individuals of all backgrounds. Nonetheless, it has often been treated as a variant of bilingualism or as a phenomenon unique to individual areas of study. The purpose of this book is to review current knowledge about the acquisition, use and loss of multiple languages using a multidisciplinary perspective, highlighting the common themes and stimulating insights that can emerge when multilingualism is viewed from different but related areas of investigation. The chapters focus on research evidence, showing that multilingualism is a complex phenomenon that involves a myriad of linguistic and extra-linguistic forces and that should be studied in its own right as evidence of human potential and capacity for language. The book is primarily addressed to students and scholars interested in deepening their understanding of the different facets of multilingualism, including the individual and societal circumstances that contribute to it, the cognitive and neural mechanisms that make it possible, and the dynamics involved in the acquisition, use and loss of multiple languages.




An Introduction to Multilingualism


Book Description

This book offers an introduction to the many facets of multilingualism in a changing world. It begins with an overview of the multiplicity of human languages and their geographic distribution, before moving on to the key question of what multilingualism actually is and what is understood by terms such as 'mother tongue', 'native speaker', and 'speech community'. In the chapters that follow, Florian Coulmas systematically explores multilingualism with respect to the individual, institutions, cities, nations, and cyberspace. In each of these domains, the dynamics of language choice are undergoing changes as a result of economic, political, and cultural forces. Against this background, two chapters discuss the effects of linguistic diversity on the integration and separation of language and society, before a final chapter describes and assesses research methods for investigating multilingualism. Each chapter concludes with problems and questions for discussion, which place the topic in a real-world context. The book explores where, when, and why multilingualism came to be regarded as a problem, and why it presents a serious challenge for linguistic theory today. It provides the basic tools to analyse different kinds of multilingualism at both the individual and society level, and will be of interest to students of linguistics, sociology, education, and communication studies.




Multilingualism


Book Description

How do children and adults become multilingual? How do they use their languages? What influence does being multilingual have on their identities? What is the social impact of multilingualism today and how do societies accommodate it? These are among the fascinating questions examined by this book. Exploring multilingualism in individuals and in society at large, Stavans and Hoffmann argue that it evolves not from one factor in particular, but from a vast range of environmental and personal influences and circumstances: from migration to globalisation, from the spread of English to a revived interest in minority languages, from social mobility to intermarriage. The book shows the important role of education in helping to promote or maintain pupils' multilingual language competence and multilingual literacy, and in helping to challenge traditional monolingual attitudes. A clear and incisive account of this growing phenomenon, it is essential reading for students, teachers and policy-makers alike.