The Oxford Handbook Of Language And Society

Contributors explore a range of sociolinguistic topics, including language variation, language ideologies, bi/multilingualism, language policy, linguistic landscapes, and multimodality. Each chapter provides a critical overview of the limitations of modernist positivist perspectives, replacing them with novel, up-to-date ways of theorizing and researching. [Publisher]

"First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2015"--Title page verso.

This book provides a state-of-the-art account of past and current research in the interface between linguistics and law. It outlines the range of legal areas in which linguistics plays an increasing role and describes the tools and approaches used by linguists and lawyers in this vibrant new field. Through a combination of overview chapters, case studies, and theoretical descriptions, the volume addresses areas such as the history and structure of legal languages, its meaning and interpretation, multilingualism and language rights, courtroom discourse, forensic identification, intellectual property and linguistics, and legal translation and interpretation. Encyclopedic in scope, the handbook includes chapters written by experts from every continent who are familiar with linguistic issues that arise in diverse legal systems, including both civil and common law jurisdictions, mixed systems like that of China, and the emerging law of the European Union.

Offers a set of diverse analyses of traditional and contemporary work on language structure and use in African American communities.

"In thirty-three chapters, The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact examines the various forms of contact-induced linguistic change and the levels of language which have provided instances of these influences. In addition, it provides accounts of how language contact has affected some twenty languages, spoken and signed, from all parts of the world."-- Jaquette.

"This handbook is the first volume to offer a sustained theoretical exploration of all aspects of language and race from a linguistic anthropological perspective. A growing number of scholars hold that rather than fixed and pre-determined, race is created out of continuous and repeated discourses emerging from individuals and institutions within specific histories, political economic systems, and everyday interactions. This handbook demonstrates how linguistic analysis brings a crucial perspective to this project by revealing the ways in which language and race are mutually constituted as social realities. Not only do we position issues of race, racism, and racialization as central to language-based scholarship, but we also examine these processes from an explicitly critical and anti-racist perspective. The process of racialization-an enduring yet evolving social process steeped in centuries of colonialism and capitalism-is central to linguistic anthropological approaches. This volume captures state-of-the-art research in this important and necessary yet often overlooked area of inquiry and points the way forward in establishing future directions of research in this rapidly expanding field, including the need for more studies of language and race in non-U.S. contexts. Covering a range of sites from Angola, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Italy, Liberia, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and unceded Indigenous territories, the handbook offers theoretical, reflexive takes on the field of language and race, the larger histories and systems that influence these concepts, the bodies that enact and experience them, and finally, the expressions and outcomes that emerge as a result"--

Why have 1500 separate languages developed in the Pacific region? Why do Danes understand Norwegians better than Norwegians understand Danish? Is Ebonics a language or a dialect? Linguistics tends to ignore the relationship between languages and the societies in which they are spoken, while sociology generally overlooks the role of language in the constitution of society. In this book Suzanne Romaine provides a clear, lively, and accessible introduction to the field of sociolinguistics and emphasizes the constant interaction between society and language, discussing both traditional and recent issues including: language and social class, language and gender, language and education, and pidgins and creoles. The text shows how our linguistic choices are motivated by social factors, and how certain ways of speaking come to be vested with symbolic value and includes examples drawing on studies of cultures and languages all over the world. This new edition incorporates new material on current issues in the study of gender as well as other topics such as the linguistic dimension to the ethnic conflict in the Balkans, and the controversy over Ebonics in the United States.

This Handbook provides a state-of-the-art account of research in language policy and planning (LPP). Through a critical examination of LPP, the Handbook offers new direction for a field in theoretical and methodological turmoil as a result of the socio-economic, institutional, and discursive processes of change taking place under the conditions of Late Modernity. Late Modernity refers to the widespread processes of late capitalism leading to the selective privatization of services (including education), the information revolution associated with rapidly changing statuses and functions of languages, the weakening of the institutions of nation-states (along with the strengthening of non-state actors), and the fragmentation of overlapping and competing identities associated with new complexities of language-identity relations and new forms of multilingual language use. As an academic discipline in the social sciences, LPP is fraught with tensions between these processes of change and the still-powerful ideological framework of modern nationalism. It is an exciting and energizing time for LPP research. This Handbook propels the field forward, offering a dialogue between the two major historical trends in LPP associated with the processes of Modernity and Late Modernity: the focus on continuity behind the institutional policies of the modern nation-state, and the attention to local processes of uncertainty and instability across different settings resulting from processes of change. The Handbook takes great strides toward overcoming the long-standing division between "top-down" and "bottom-up" analysis in LPP research, setting the stage for theoretical and methodological innovation. Part I defines alternative theoretical and conceptual frameworks in LPP, emphasizing developments since the ethnographic turn, including: ethnography in LPP; historical-discursive approaches; ethics, normative theorizing, and transdisciplinary methods; and the renewed focus on socio-economic class. Part II examines LPP against the background of influential ideas about language shaped by the institutions of the nation-state, with close attention to the social position of minority languages and specific communities facing profound language policy challenges. Part III investigates the turmoil and tensions that currently characterize LPP research under conditions of Late Modernity. Finally, Part IV presents an integrative summary and directions for future LPP research.