This book explores the instrumentality of language in constructing identity in contemporary society. The processes of globalization, hyper-mobility, rapid urbanization, and the increasing desire of local populations to be linked to the global community have created a pressing need to reconfigure identity in this new world order. Following the digital revolution, both traditional and new media are dissolving linguistic boundaries. The centrality of language in organizing communities and groups cannot be overstated: our social order is developed alongside our linguistic allegiance, shared narratives, collective memories, and common social history. Keeping in mind the fluidity of identity, the book brings together fourteen chapters providing cultural and social perspectives. The ideas reflected here draw on a range of disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, the politics of language, and linguistic identity.

This book is a historical study of modern Gujarat, India, addressing crucial questions of language, identity, and power. It examines the debates over language among the elite of this region during a period of significant social and political change in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Language debates closely reflect power relations among different sections of society, such as those delineated by nation, ethnicity, region, religion, caste, class, and gender. They are intimately linked with the process in which individuals and groups of people try to define and project themselves in response to changing political, economic, and social environments. Based on rich historical sources, including official records, periodicals, literary texts, memoirs, and private papers, this book vividly shows the impact that colonialism, nationalism, and the process of nation-building had on the ideas of language among different groups, as well as how various ideas of language competed and negotiated with each other. Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c.1850–1960 will be of particular interest to students and scholars working on South Asian history and to those interested in issues of language, society, and politics in different parts of the modern world.

Language not only expresses identities but also constructs them. Starting from that point, Language and Identity examines the interrelationships between language and identities. It finds that they are so closely interwoven, that words themselves are inscribed with ideological meanings. Words and language constitute meanings within discourses and discourses vary in power. The powerful ones reproduce more powerful meanings, colonize other discourses and marginalize or silence the least powerful languages and cultures. Language and culture death occur in extreme cases of marginalization. This book also demonstrates the socio-economic opportunities offered by language choice and the cultural allegiances of language, where groups have been able to create new lives for themselves by embracing new languages in new countries. Language can be a 'double-edged sword' of opportunity and marginalization. Language and Identity argues that bilingualism and in some cases multilingualism can both promote socio-economic opportunity and combat culture death and marginalization. With sound theoretical perspectives drawing upon the work of Bakhtin, Vygotsky, Gumperz, Foucault and others, this book provides readers with a rationale to redress social injustice in the world by supporting minority linguistic and cultural identities and an acknowledgement that access to language can provide opportunity.

This book is an introduction to the social and educational aspects of bilingualism. It presents an overview of a broad range of sociolinguistic and political issues surrounding the use of two languages, including code-switching in popular music, advertising, and online social spaces. It offers a well-informed discussion of what it means to study and live with multiple languages in a globalized world and practical advice on raising bilingual children.

This volume explores and compares linguistic practices among young people in linguistically and culturally diverse urban spaces.

Language is central to our existence and it happens to be the most sophisticated product of the human mind. It is inconceivable to think of ourselves, our societies, our ideas, cultures or identities without language. It is the primary means of socialization, and whatever we know is a result of it. It is the primary medium of construction and dissemination of knowledge, and structures our thought processes in important ways that constitute our identity. In very complex ways, it interacts with the social, political and economic power structures that remain significant in defining the identities of individuals and societies. The essays in this volume create an awareness and understanding about the role of linguistic context in negotiating identity. The book explains identity and the complex relations between language and several aspects of our society. It explores identity through text and context, and will serve to trigger a novel discourse around the centrality of identity in contemporary society.

This collection of essays highlights the great variety one finds in contemporary scholarly discourse in the fields of English and American studies and English linguistics in a broad and inclusive way. It is divided into thematically structured sections, the first two of which examine the motif of travelling and images of recollection in literary works, while the third and the fourth parts deal with male and female voices in narratives. Another chapter discusses visual and textual representations of history. The last two subsections focus on the rhetorical and theoretical questions of language. The pluralism of themes indicated in the book’s title can thus be regarded not as a limitation, but, rather, as evidence of its potential.