Negotiating Linguistic Identity

This book addresses the themes of language, identity and linguistic politics in Europe, drawing on approaches and methodologies from a range of disciplines from socio- and contact linguistics to cultural history, psychology and policy studies. It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the linguistic landscape of today's Europe.

This collection represents contemporary perspectives on important aspects of research into the language in the public space, known as the Linguistic Landscape (LL), with the focus on the negotiation and contestation of identities. From four continents, and examining vital issues across North America, Africa, Europe and Asia, scholars with notable experience in LL research are drawn together in this, the latest collection to be produced by core researchers in this field. Building on the growing published body of research into LL work, the fifteen data chapters test, challenge and advance this sub-field of sociolinguistics through their close examination of languages as they appear on the walls and in the public spaces of sites from South Korea to South Africa, from Italy to Israel, from Addis Ababa to Zanzibar. The geographic coverage is matched by the depth of engagement with developments in this burgeoning field of scholarship. As such, this volume is an up-to-date collection of research chapters, each of which addresses pertinent and important issues within their respective geographic spaces.

The nine papers collected in this volume examine recent trends in language use in mainland China, and the associated social, economic, political, and cultural manifestations.

Who Defines Me: Negotiating Identity in Language and Literature is a collection of insightful articles that represent an interdisciplinary study of identity. The articles start from the premise that identity is, and always has been, unstable and mutable; which is to say that identity is constructed and deconstructed and reconstructed – only to be deconstructed and reconstructed again, in turn to be deconstructed and reconstructed (and so on ad infinitum). Time and place are variables. So, too – as Who Defines Me underscores – are ethnicity, religion, politics and power, race and color, nationality, gender, culture, language, and socio-economic status. With all of these variables in mind, Who Defines Me focuses on language and literature as the portal through which identity is explored. The overarching rubrics under which the explorations are conducted are Arabs and Muslims, race identity in America, and language identity.

This edited book examines modern foreign language teachers who research their own and others’ experiences of identity construction in the context of living and teaching in UK institutions, primarily in the Higher Education sector. The book offers an insight into a key element of the educational and socio-political debate surrounding MFL in the UK: the teachers’ voices and their sense of agency in constructing their professional identities. The contributors use a combination of empirical research and personal reflection to generate knowledge about MFL teachers’ identity that can enhance how they are perceived in the social and educational establishments and raise awareness of key issues affecting the profession. This book will be of particular interest to language teachers, teacher trainers, applied linguists and students and scholars of modern foreign languages.

This volume highlights the role of language ideologies in the process of negotiation of identities and shows that in different historical and social contexts different identities may be negotiable or non-negotiable.

In this volume, researchers in sociolinguistics, language politics, diaspora and identity studies explore contacts between languages and cultures in the post-Soviet world. The book presents a range of perspectives on the effects of migration among groups and individuals for whom Russian is a language with instrumental and/or symbolic prominence.

This volume presents a comprehensive introduction to the study of second language learning, multilingualism and gender. An impressive array of papers situated within a feminist poststructuralist framework demonstrates how this framework allows for a deeper understanding of second language learning, a number of language contact phenomena, intercultural communication, and critical language pedagogy. The volume has wide appeal to students and scholars in the fields of language and gender, sociolinguistics, SLA, anthropology, and language education.

Bringing together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism and white linguistic supremacy, this book provides ethnographic snapshots of how Black students navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts. By highlighting the counterstories of Black students, Baker-Bell demonstrates how traditional approaches to language education do not account for the emotional harm, internalized linguistic racism, or consequences these approaches have on Black students' sense of self and identity. This book presents Anti-Black Linguistic Racism as a framework that explicitly names and richly captures the linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization Black Language-speakers endure when using their language in schools and in everyday life. To move toward Black linguistic liberation, Baker-Bell introduces a new way forward through Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, a pedagogical approach that intentionally and unapologetically centers the linguistic, cultural, racial, intellectual, and self-confidence needs of Black students. This volume captures what Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy looks like in classrooms while simultaneously illustrating how theory, research, and practice can operate in tandem in pursuit of linguistic and racial justice. A crucial resource for educators, researchers, professors, and graduate students in language and literacy education, writing studies, sociology of education, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, this book features a range of multimodal examples and practices through instructional maps, charts, artwork, and stories that reflect the urgent need for antiracist language pedagogies in our current social and political climate.

This state-of-the-art exploration of language, culture, and identity is orchestrated through prominent scholars’ and teachers’ narratives, each weaving together three elements: a personal account based on one or more memorable or critical incidents that occurred in the course of learning or using a second or foreign language; an interpretation of the incidents highlighting their impact in terms of culture, identity, and language; the connections between the experiences and observations of the author and existing literature on language, culture and identity. What makes this book stand out is the way in which authors meld traditional ‘academic’ approaches to inquiry with their own personalized voices. This opens a window on different ways of viewing and doing research in Applied Linguistics and TESOL. What gives the book its power is the compelling nature of the narratives themselves. Telling stories is a fundamental way of representing and making sense of the human condition. These stories unpack, in an accessible but rigorous fashion, complex socio-cultural constructs of culture, identity, the self and other, and reflexivity, and offer a way into these constructs for teachers, teachers in preparation and neophyte researchers. Contributors from around the world give the book broad and international appeal.