Synopses & Reviews
Identifying and examining political, socio-psychological and symbolic borders,
Language, Borders and Identity encompasses a broad, geographically diverse spectrum of border contexts, taking a multi-disciplinary approach by combining sociolinguistics research with human geography, anthropology and social psychology. The book illustrates a representative range of methodological approaches used by researchers in the field and examines regional and local borders alongside the political borders that divide monoglossic and heteroglossic territories.
Using international case studies and examples throughout, this book also looks to symbolic borders, which are often encoded in the semiotic manipulation of the linguistic landscape. It further assesses the linguistic implications of the presence of borders in applied contexts, including language planning and policy (e.g. in multilingual education or for the protection of minority languages) and border control.
By casting its net wide, Language, Borders and Identity develops and refines models of how language is used to construct borders, and to indicate on which side of border speakers situate themselves. This book brings into focus the dual reactive and proactive functions that language serves in this respect, exploring the tensions between essentialist and constructionist approaches to identity, and offers a valuable resource for advanced students and researchers in sociolinguistics and the sociology of language.
Synopsis
This book sets out to encompass a broad, geographically diverse spectrum of border contexts, and to illustrate a representative range of methodological approaches used by researchers in the field. Political borders that divide monoglossic and heteroglossic territories are examined, as are regional and local borders. Symbolic borders, which may for example be encoded in the semiotic manipulation of the linguistic landscape, are also considered. We assess the linguistic implications of the presence of borders of the preceding kinds in applied contexts such as language planning and policy (e.g. for multilingual education; protection of minority languages) and border control (via the chapter on language analysis for the determination of origin, 'LADO'). Each border is unique to itself, making generalisations about how language functions in 'borderlands' difficult to formulate. Casting the net as wide as we intend will, however, equip us to develop and refine models of how language is used to construct borders, and to indicate on which side of a border speakers situate themselves. The dual reactive and proactive functions that language serves in this respect are brought into focus, and the interface and tensions between essentialist and constructionist approaches to identity are explored. The book will place particular emphasis on the last of these topics.
About the Author
Dominic Watt is Lecturer at the University of York.
Carmen Llamas is Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at the University of York.
Table of Contents
Introduction, Dominic Watt and Carmen Llamas
1. Language and Identity on the Scottish/English border, Dominic Watt, Carmen Llamas, Gerry Docherty, Damien Hall and Jennifer Nycz
2. Where North meets South?: Contact, divergence, and the routinisation of the Fenland dialect boundary, David Britain
3. Borders in North American English, Charles Boberg
4. Spanish language variation and ethnic identity in New Mexico: internal and external borders, Neddy A. Vigil and Garland D. Bills
5. Language use and attitudes as stimuli for phonological change in border Uruguayan Spanish, Mark Waltermire
6. Religion on the border: The effect of Utah English on English and Spanish use in the Mexican Mormon colonies, Wendy Baker-Smemoe and Breana Jones
7. Borders within borders: Contexts of language use and local identity configuration in southern Galicia, Jaine Beswick
8. Perceptual ideology across the Scottish/English border, Chris Montgomery
9. Wales and Welsh: Boundedness and peripherality, Nikolas Coupland
10. The political border and linguistic identities in Ireland: What can the linguistic landscape tell us?, Jeffrey L. Kallen
11. Multilingual Luxembourg: Language and identity at the Romance/Germanic language border, Daniel Redinger and Carmen Llamas
12. What counts as a linguistic border, for whom, and with what implications? Exploring Occitan and Francoprovençal in Rhône-Alpes, France, Michel Bert and James Costa
13. Constructing national and international deaf identity: Perceived use of American Sign Language, Elizabeth S. Parks
14. Borders, variation and identity: Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin (LADO), Kim Wilson and Paul Foulkes