How did the concept of language come to dominate modern intellectual history? In Language Alone, Geoffrey Galt Harpham provides at once the most comprehensive survey and most telling critique of the pervasive role of language in modern thought. He shows how thinkers in such diverse fields as philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, and literary theory have made progress by referring their most difficult theoretical problems to what they presumed were the facts of language. Through a provocative reassessment of major thinkers on the idea of language-Saussure, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Rorty, and Chomsky, among them-and detailed accounts of the discourses of ethics and ideology in particular, Harpham demonstrates a remarkable consensus among intellectuals of the past century and beyond that philosophical and other problems can best be understood as linguistic problems. And furthermore, that a science of language can therefore illuminate them. Conspicuously absent from this consensus, he shows, is any consideration of contemporary linguistics, or any awareness of the growing agreement among linguists that the nature of language as such cannot be known. Ultimately, Harpham argues, the thought of language has dominated modern intellectual history because of its singular capacity to serve as a proxy for a host of concerns, questions, and anxieties-our place in the order of things, our rights and obligations, our nature or essence-that resist a strictly rational formulation. Language Alone will interest literary critics, philosophers, and anyone with an interest in the uses of language in contemporary thought.

This book, focused on corpus planning in language policy, provides a broad, integrative framework and also discusses multiple languages in detail. It provides readers with great familiarity with a wide range of language cases and at the same time gives them the theoretical tools and analysis to see how they inter-relate.The novelty of this volume i

Focusing on corpus planning in language policy, this book provides an integrative framework, and also discusses multiple languages in detail. It provides readers with familiarity, with a range of language cases, and at the same time gives them the theoretical tools and analysis to see how they inter-relate. This book, focused on corpus planning in language policy, provides a broad, integrative framework, and also discusses multiple languages in detail. It provides readers with great familiarity, with a wide range of language cases and at the same time gives them the theoretical tools and analysis to see how they inter-relate. "Do Not Leave Your Language Alone: The Hidden Status Agendas Within Corpus Planning in Language Policy" begins with a brief introduction to language planning as a whole, to corpus planning in particular, and to the unavoidability of a status component in the execution of all corpus planning past, present, and future. The topics of the central chapters include: Corpus planning and status planning - separates, opposites, or Siamese twins; The directions and dimensions of corpus planning; 'Does "folksiness" come before or after "cleanliness"?'; The bi-polar dimension of uniqueness vs. Westernization; The classicfization vs. "panification" bi-polar dimension; The Ausbau vs. Einbau bi-polar dimension; The interdependence and independence of dimensional clusters; and, Can opposites and incommensurables be combined?

Originally published in hardcover in 2021 by Aladdin.

Winner of the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award! A young girl notices things about her grandmother that make her curious. Why does her grandmother have long, braided hair and beautifully coloured clothing? Why does she speak Cree and spend so much time with her family? As the girl asks questions, her grandmother shares her experiences in a residential school, when all of these things were taken away. Also available in a bilingual Swampy Cree/English edition. Download the free teacher guide on the Portage & Main Press website.

At the heart of this volume lies an exploration of what actually happens to languages and their users when cultures come into contact. What actions do supra-national institutions, nation states, communities and individuals take in response to questions raised by the increasingly diverse forms of migration experienced in a globalized world? The volume reveals the profound impact that decisions made at national and international level can have on the lives of the individual migrant, language student, or speech community. Equally, it evaluates the broader ramifications of actions taken by migrant communities and individual language learners around issues of language learning, language maintenance and intercultural contact. Reflecting Jan Blommaert's assertion that in a world shaped by globalization, what is needed is 'a theory of language in society... of changing language in a changing society', this volume argues that researchers must increasingly seek diverse methodological approaches if they are to do justice to the diversity of experience and response they encounter.