Our choice of linguistic code is one of the most fundamental ways open to us of establishing our membership of some groups and our distance from others. This symbolic value of language may often leave it open to exploitation, especially by the state. The present volume demonstrates how the multi-faceted nature of the concept of identity makes its relationship with language both complex and unpredictable. Because of its particular historical and social characteristics, the French language provides especially fertile territory for the exploration of this theme. Four main axes stand out in the French context: 'institutionalised' identity, regional identity, social identity and competing identities. These themes are explored from different perspectives by leading experts from Britain, Europe and North America: Roger Baines, Kate Beeching, Danielle Bouverot, David Cowling, Edith Esch, François Gadet, Penelope Gardner-Chloros, David Hornsby, John E. Joseph, Dominique Lagorgette, Jacques Landrecies, Dawn Marley, Nicolas Pepin, Tim Pooley, Gilles Siouffi, Albert Valdman, Barbara von Gemmingen and Chantal Wionet.

This book re-examines the relationship between language and national identity. Unlike many previous studies, it employs a comparative approach: France and Sweden have been chosen as case studies both for their similarities (e.g. both are member states of the European Union) as well as their important differences (e.g. France subscribes in principle to a civic model of national identity, whereas the basis of Swedish identity is undeniably ethnic). It is precisely differences such as these which allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the ethnolinguistic implications of some of the major challenges currently facing France, Sweden and other European countries: regionalism, immigration, European integration and globalization.The present volume benefits from the use of a multidisciplinary approach, and differs from others on the market because of the variety of methods of inquiry used. A series of societal analyses is complemented by an empirical component, bringing a more grounded understanding to the issue of language and national identity.

Languages are inseparable from their contexts of use. They are not only congruent with, but also involved in the configuration of the worldviews and value systems manifested in cultures and embodied in texts. The spread of English worldwide foregrounds the issue of textual dynamics in intercultural settings. The production/reception of texts in English facilitates international contacts and exchanges, yet it also triggers hegemonic practices. The volume aims to investigate the representations and negotiations of sociocognitive identities in intercultural settings relevant for 'good practice'. Contributions explore 'languaging' strategies (verbal, visual, multimodal; English monolingual, bilingual, multilingual) through a range of methodological perspectives wherein the respect for sociocultural differences is a constitutive value.

Bilinguals often report that they feel like a different person in their two languages. In the words of one bilingual in Koven’s book, “When I speak Portuguese, automatically, I'm in a different world...it's a different color.” Although testimonials like this abound in everyday conversation among bilinguals, there has been scant systematic investigation of this intriguing phenomenon. Focusing on French-Portuguese bilinguals, the adult children of Portuguese migrants in France, this book provides an empirically grounded, theoretical account of how the same speakers enact, experience, and are perceived by others to have different identities in their two languages. This book explores bilinguals’ experiences and expressions of identity in multicultural, multilingual contexts. It is distinctive in its integration of multiple levels of analysis to address the relationships between language and identity. Koven links detailed attention to discourse form, to participants’ multiple interpretations how such forms become signs of identity, and to the broader macrosociolinguistic contexts that structure participants’ access to those signs. The study of how bilinguals perform and experience different identities in their two languages sheds light on the more general role of linguistic and cultural forms in local experiences and expressions of identity.

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.

Though positioning has been addressed in social psychology and in identity construction, less attention has been paid to the specific linguistic markers which are drawn upon in discourse to position the self and other(s). This volume focusses on address terms, pragmatic markers, code switching/choice and orthography, the indexicalities of which are explored in different communicative activities. The volume is unusual in: i) the range of languages which are covered: Bergamasco, Brazilian Portuguese, English, Finnish, French, Georgian, Greek, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish and Swedish; ii) the inclusion of different communicative settings and text-types: workplace emails, everyday and institutional conversations, interviews, migrant narratives, radio phone-ins, dyadic and group settings, road-signs, service encounters; iii) its consideration of both synchronic and diachronic factors; iv) its mix of theoretical and methodological approaches. The volume illustrates some of the linguistic means speakers draw on to position themselves and others and hopes to stimulate further research studies in this vein.