#MondayReading: Language, Borders and Identity

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This week we would like to introduce you to the world of Language, Borders and Identity, three terms that form the title of our new #MondayReading suggestion written by Dominic Watt and Carmen Llamas, both lecturers at the University of York.

Monday reading 03.04.2017

This book might be of interest for those passionate about research in the fields of sociolinguistics and sociology of language. The text offers a wide variety of reflections around the ideas of regional vs. local borders, political borders dividing monoglossic and heteroglossic territories, symbolic and linguistic borders, language policy and language planning. Authors coming from different backgrounds provide an insight into these topics through case studies and examples taking a multi-disciplinary approach, that includes sociolinguistics together with human geography, anthropology and social psychology.

The table of contents is the following:

  1. “Language and Identity on the Scottish/English border”, by 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”, by David Britain
  3. “Borders in North American English”, by Charles Boberg
  4. “Spanish language variation and ethnic identity in New Mexico: internal and external borders”, by Neddy A. Vigil and Garland D. Bills
  5. “Language use and attitudes as stimuli for phonological change in border Uruguayan Spanish”, by Mark Waltermire
  6. “Religion on the border: The effect of Utah English on English and Spanish use in the Mexican Mormon colonies”, by Wendy Baker-Smemoe and Breana Jones
  7. “Borders within borders: Contexts of language use and local identity configuration in southern Galicia”, by Jaine Beswick
  8. “Perceptual ideology across the Scottish/English border”, by Chris Montgomery
  9. “Wales and Welsh: Boundedness and peripherality”, by Nikolas Coupland
  10. “The political border and linguistic identities in Ireland: What can the linguistic landscape tell us?”, by Jeffrey L. Kallen
  11. “Multilingual Luxembourg: Language and identity at the Romance/Germanic language border”, by 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”, by Michel Bert and James Costa
  13. “Constructing national and international deaf identity: Perceived use of American Sign Language”, by Elizabeth S. Parks
  14. “Borders, variation and identity: Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin (LADO)”, by Kim Wilson and Paul Foulkes

Language, Borders and Identity is a perfect reading for those rethinking the “borders of language” as well as “linguistic borders”, including sign language, and is also ideal for those readers willing to explore the tensions between essentialist and constructionist approaches to identity. We invite you to find out more about it. Enjoy the reading!


Written by Doris Fernandes del Pozo – Journalist, Translator-Interpreter and Communication Trainee at the Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament. She is pursuing a PhD as part of the Communication and Contemporary Information Programme of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain).

Sources:

  • Oxford University Press (n.d.) Language, Borders and Identity. Available at: http://bit.ly/2n3xiCT (Accessed 03 April, 2017)
  • Watt, Dominic. & Llamas, Carmen (eds.) (2014) Language, Borders and Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press