Description:
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.
Brief description:
Quentin Williams is Director of the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR) and an Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Linguistics Department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). He was the Ghent Visiting Professor (Leerstoel Houer) at the Centre for Afrikaans and the study of South Africa at Ghent University (Belgium) in 2022. He is Co-Editor of the journal Multilingual Margins: a journal of Multilingualism from the periphery. His most recent books are Global Hiphopography with Jaspal Singh (Palgrave, 2023) and Struggles for Multilingualism and Linguistic Citizenship with Tommaso Milani and Ana Deumert (Multilingual Matters, 2022).
Review Quotes: In a world divided by nations, institutional racism and sexism, and other forms of colonial injustice, Stroud's concept of Linguistic Citizenship allows us to rethink what it means to belong to and through language, to have agency and voice. This pathbreaking book is a must-read for anyone interested in linguistic justice, multilingualism and language and nationalism.