Provides a sociolinguistic account of classroom interaction, based on research in an inner-city high school.

This book offers a fresh perspective on the social life of multilingualism through the lens of the important notion of linguistic citizenship. All of the chapters are underpinned by a theoretical and methodological engagement with linguistic citizenship as a useful heuristic through which to understand sociolinguistic processes in late modernity, focusing in particular on linguistic agency and voices on the margins of our societies. The authors take stock of conservative, liberal, progressive and radical social transformations in democracies in the north and south, and consider the implications for multilingualism as a resource, as a way of life and as a feature of identity politics. Each chapter builds on earlier research on linguistic citizenship by illuminating how multilingualism (in both theory and practice) should be, or could be, thought of as inclusive when we recognize what multilingual speakers do with language for voice and agency.

This book aims at deconstructing and problematizing linguistic ideologies related to Portuguese in late modernity and questioning the theoretical presuppositions which have led us to call Portuguese ‘a language.’ Such an endeavor is crucial when we know that Portuguese is a language which is increasingly internationalized, used as the official language in four continents (in ten countries) and which has come to play a relevant role in the so-called linguistic market on the basis of the geopolitical transformations in a multipolar world. The book covers a wide range of social, political and historical contexts in which ‘Portuguese’ is used (in Brazil, Canada, East-Timor, England, Portugal, Mozambique and Uruguay), and considers diverse linguistic practices. Through this critique, contributors chart new directions for research on language ideologies and language practices (including research related to Portuguese and to other ‘languages’) and consider ways of developing new conceptual compasses that are better attuned to the sociolinguistic realities of the late modern era, in which people, texts and languages are increasingly in movement through national borders and those of digital networks of communication.

This book explores multilingualism as an imaginative articulation of the experience of modernity in twentieth-century Spanish and American literature. It argues that while individual multilingual practices are highly singular, literary multilingualism exceeds the conventional bounds of modernism to become emblematic of the modern age. The book explores the confluence of multilingualism and modernity in the theme of barbarism, examining the significance of this theme to the relationship between language and modernity in the Spanish-speaking world, and the work of five authors in particular. These authors – Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Ernest Hemingway, José María Arguedas, Jorge Semprún and Juan Goytisolo – explore the stylistic and conceptual potential of the interaction between languages, including Spanish, French, English, Galician, Quechua and Arabic, their work reflecting the eclecticism of literary multilingualism while revealing its significance as a mode of response to modernity.

Bi- and multilingualism are of great interest for contemporary linguists since this phenomenon deeply reflects on language acquisition, language use, and sociolinguistic conditions in many different circumstances all over the world. Multilingualism was, however, certainly rather common already, if not especially, in the premodern world. For some time now, research has started to explore this issue through a number of specialized studies. The present volume continues with the investigation of multilingualism through a collection of case studies focusing on important examples in medieval and early modern societies, that is, in linguistic and cultural contact zones, such as England, Spain, the Holy Land, but also the New World. As all contributors confirm, the numerous cases of multilingualism discussed here indicate strongly that the premodern period knew considerably less barriers between people of different social classes, cultural background, and religious orientation. But we also have to acknowledge that already then human communication could fail because of linguistic hurdles which prevented mutual understanding in religious and cultural terms.

A study of minorities and social change from a sociolinguistic perspective

In this monograph, Anatoliy V. Kharkhurin presents the results of his empirical investigation into the impact of multilingual practice on an individual's creative potential. Until now, the relationship between these two activities has received little attention in the academic community. The book makes an attempt to resuscitate this theme and provides a solid theoretical framework supported by contemporary empirical research conducted in a variety of geographic, linguistic, and sociocultural locations. This study demonstrates that several factors - such as the multilinguals' age of language acquisition, proficiency in these languages and experience with cultural settings in which these languages were acquired - have a positive impact on selective attention and language mediated concept activation mechanisms. Together, these facilitate generative and innovative capacities of creative thinking. This book will be of great interest not only to scholars in the fields of multilingualism and creativity, but also to educators and all those interested in enhancing foreign language learning and fostering creativity.