The Multilingual Citizen

In this ground-breaking collection of essays, the editors and authors develop the idea of Linguistic Citizenship. This notion highlights the importance of practices whereby vulnerable speakers themselves exercise control over their languages, and draws attention to the ways in which alternative voices can be inserted into processes and structures that otherwise alienate those they were designed to support. The chapters discuss issues of decoloniality and multilingualism in the global South, and together retheorize how to accommodate diversity in complexly multilingual/ multicultural societies. Offering a framework anchored in transformative notions of democratic and reflexive citizenship, it prompts readers to critically rethink how existing contemporary frameworks such as Linguistic Human Rights rest on disempowering forms of multilingualism that channel discourses of diversity into specific predetermined cultural and linguistic identities.

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 edited book makes a significant contribution to the relatively under-explored field of multilingualism and politics, approaching the topic from two key perspectives: multilingualism in politics, and the politics of multilingualism. Through the lens of case studies from around the world, the authors in this volume combine theoretical and empirical insights to examine the inter-relation between multilingualism and politics in different spheres and contexts, including minority language policy, national identity, the translation of political debates and discourse, and the use of multiple, often competing languages in educational settings. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of politics, sociology, sociolinguistics, language policy, and translation and interpreting studies.

Through an innovative and interdisciplinary approach that combines critical sociolinguistic ethnography, multi-modality, reflexivity, and discourse analysis, this groundbreaking book reveals the multiple (and sometimes simultaneous) ways in which individuals engage and invest in representations of languages and identities.This timely work is the first to consider the significance of multilingualism and its relationship to citizenship as well as the development of linguistic repertoires as an essential component of language education in a globalized world. While examining the discourses and interconnections between multilingualism, globalization, and identity, the author draws upon a unique case study of the experiences, voices, trajectories, and journeys of Canadian youth of Italian origin from diverse social, geographical, and linguistic backgrounds, participating in university French language courses as well as training to become teachers of French in the urban, multicultural and global landscape of Toronto, Canada. In doing so, Byrd Clark skilfully illustrates the multidimensional ways that youth invest in language learning and socially construe their multiple identities within diverse contexts while weaving in and out of particularistic and universalistic identifications. This invaluable resource will not only shed light on how and why people engage in learning languages and for which languages they choose to invest, but will offer readers a deeper understanding of the complex interrelationships between multilingualism, identity, and citizenship. It will appeal to researchers in a variety of fields, including applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, language acquisition and linguistic anthropology.

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.

With examples of conversation, this book is a lively account of social and intellectual import of everyday talk about language.

This volume explores the concept of 'citizenship', and argues that it should be understood both as a process of becoming and the ability to participate fully, rather than as a status that can be inherited, acquired, or achieved. From a courtroom in Bulawayo to a nursery in Birmingham, the authors use local contexts to foreground how the vulnerable, particularly those from minority language backgrounds, continue to be excluded, whilst offering a powerful demonstration of the potential for change offered by individual agency, resistance and struggle. In addressing questions such as 'under what local conditions does "dis-citizenship" happen?'; 'what role do language policies and pedagogic practices play?' and 'what kinds of margins and borders keep humans from fully participating'? The chapters in this volume shift the debate away from visas and passports to more uncertain and contested spaces of interpretation.

This book is a multidisciplinary analysis of the meaning and dynamics of multilingualism from the perspectives of multilingual societies and language communities in the margins, who are trapped in a vicious circle of disadvantage. It analyses the social, psychological and sociolinguistic processes of linguistic dominance and hierarchical relationships among languages, discrimination, marginalisation and assertive maintenance in multilingualism characterised by a Double Divide, and shows the relationship between educational neglect of languages, capability deprivation and poverty, and loss of linguistic diversity. Its comparative analysis of language-in-education policies and practices and applications of multilingual education (MLE) in diverse contexts shows some promises and challenges in the education of indigenous/tribal/minority children. This book will be of interest to students, researchers, educators and practitioners in sociolinguistics, educational linguistics, psycholinguistics, multilingualism and bilingual/multilingual education.