Description:
This book examines the ways in which our ideas about language and identity, which used to be framed in national and political terms as a matter of rights and citizenship, are increasingly recast in economic terms as a matter of added value. It argues that this discursive shift is connected to specific characteristics of the globalized new economy in what can be thought of as "late capitalism". Through ten ethnographic case studies, it demonstrates the complex ways in which older nationalist ideologies which invest language with value as a source of pride get bound up with newer neoliberal ideologies which invest language with value as a source of profit.
Review Quotes:
'This volume is most suited for upper-level graduate students and researchers with backgrounds in sociolinguistics and a good grasp of economics, processes of globalization, and Bourdieusian Social Theory. Because of its prominent interdisciplinary and methodological diversity, scholars outside of sociolinguistics (and even the social sciences) may find it of benefit, as well. Perhaps one of the strongest attributes of the volume as a whole is its ability to maintain a unifying theme without adopting an overly-dogmatic stance in terms of pushing a unified theory. As a result, the authors offer their own analyses as models for continued investigation and critique, thus opening possibilities for continued fruitful research.'- Linguist List