English and Ethnicity (Signs of Race) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312295995 ISBN 13: 9780312295998

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Synopsis

English and Ethnicity offers a scholarly but accessible exploration of the complex interaction between the English language and the (de) construction of ethnicity. Centered in applied (socio) linguistics, the volume's diverse essays demonstrate that the constructs of both English and ethnicity are contested sites of identity formation in the English- speaking world. They illustrate that while for some English use indexes ethnicity, for others its usage involves equally significant processes of de-ethnicization. English and Ethnicity enriches our understanding of the contemporary dialogue on heritage languages, language policy, and language maintenance.

About this title

Review:

'An important contribution to our understanding of language and ethnicity, this collection problematizes traditional social categories of class, race, gender and ethnicity. It reminds us that 'the circumstances of language maintenance are just as politicized as those of language spread, and just as likely to serve nefarious political and economic interests-and it is just as incumbent on linguists to study and call attention to them.' Most importantly, this volume underscores the value of approaches to the study of language and ethnicity that fall outside the traditional sociolinguistic focus on language variation.' - Guadalupe Valdés, Bonnie Katz Tenenbaum Professor of Education and Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Stanford University

About the Author:

JANINA BRUTT-GRIFFLER is Associate Professor of Foreign and Second Language Acquisition at The State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.

CATHERINE EVANS DAVIES is Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at the University of Alabama, USA. At the time of the symposium from which the current volume is drawn, she was director of the graduate programs in applied linguistics (the M.A.-TESOL Program, and the Applied Linguistics concentration in the English Ph.D.: Discourse, Culture, and English Language Studies).

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0312295995
• ISBN 13: 9780312295998
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 319
• Editor: Brutt-Griffler J., Davies C. Evans, Loparo Kenneth A.