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In today's increasingly interconnected, knowledge-based world, language policy in higher education is rapidly becoming a crucial area for all societies aiming to play a part in the global economy. The challenge is double faceted: how can universities retain their crucial role of creating the intellectual elites who are indispensable for the running of national affairs and, at the same time, prepare their best-educated citizens for competition in a global market? To what extent is English really pushing other languages out of the academic environment? Drawing on the experience of several medium-sized language communities, this volume provides the reader with some important insights into how language policies can be successfully implemented. The different sociolinguistic contexts under scrutiny offer an invaluable comparative standpoint to understand what position can - or could - be occupied by each language at the level of higher education.
Singular and Plural develops a framework for analyzing ideologies of linguistic authority and illuminates the institutional and interpersonal politics of language in Catalonia. Drawing on ethnographic research across thirty years of political autonomy, Kathryn Woolard shows new relationships of Catalan language, identity, and politics in the new millennium.
Too small to be big, but also too big to be really small, medium-sized language communities (MSLCs) face their own challenges in a rapidly globalising world where multilingualism and mobility seem to be eroding the old securities that the monolingual nation states provided. The questions to be answered are numerous: What are the main areas in which the position of these languages is actually threatened? How do these societies manage their diversity (both old and new)? Has state machinery really become as irrelevant in terms of language policy as their portrayals often suggest? This book explores the responses to these and other challenges by seven relatively successful MSLCs, so that their lessons can be applied more generally to other languages striving for long term survival.
Too small to be big, but also too big to be really small, medium-sized language communities (MSLCs) face their own challenges in a rapidly globalising world where multilingualism and mobility seem to be eroding the old securities that the monolingual nation states provided. The questions to be answered are numerous: What are the main areas in which the position of these languages is actually threatened? How do these societies manage their diversity (both old and new)? Has state machinery really become as irrelevant in terms of language policy as their portrayals often suggest? This book explores the responses to these and other challenges by seven relatively successful MSLCs, so that their lessons can be applied more generally to other languages striving for long term survival.
L’objectiu de l’obra Catalan Sociolinguistics. State of the Art and Future Challenges és donar compte, de manera sumària, dels grans vèrtexs en què s’ha manifestat l’estudi de la relació entre llengua i societat en la comunitat lingüística catalana, la recepció que s’ha fet dels plantejaments internacionals i l’adaptació domèstica. Cada tradició sociolingüística ha interpretat la interacció esmentada amb plantejaments específics. La catalana, per exemple, ha apostat per una visió integradora de tot un seguit de treballs que arriben des d’àmbits temàtics diversos (economia, dret, ciència política, comunicació, ecologia, variació lingüística, antropologia,...
Many universities around the world are actively engaged in the process of the internationalization of their higher education systems, trying to become more competitive in all possible respects, especially in the areas of research and teaching. Language, naturally, plays a central role in this process, but this is not always explicitly recognized as such. As a result, key sociolinguistic challenges emerge for both individuals and groups of people. Most prominently, the question of whether English constitutes an opportunity or a threat to other national languages in academic domains is a controversial one and remains unresolved. The analysis featured in this book aims at addressing this question by looking at language policy developments in the context of Estonian higher education. Adopting a discourse approach, the book emphasises the centrality of language not only as a site of struggle, but as a tool and a resource that agents in a give field utilize to orient themselves in certain positions. The book will be of interest to language policy scholars, linguistic anthropologists, and critical sociolinguists. Education scholars interested in discourse studies will also find it useful.
This volume fills an important gap in exploring English in the domains of business and commerce through the prism of sociolinguistics and the sociology of language, as opposed to analyzing business genres or taking a linguodidactic approach. It expands the regional coverage of English in Europe, with several studies based in Central Europe, and also considers contexts which interact with Europe even though they are physically outside of it (Asia, Africa). It addresses English as just one of several languages at play in the ecology of the countries. It focuses not only on the position of languages as declared in documents of various organizations, that is, language policy, but also everyday l...
El present llibre posa a l’abast de la comunitat universitària i educativa en general un conjunt de textos i recursos que faciliten la reflexió sobre la promoció de l’ús i la identificació amb la llengua catalana. S’estructura en tres blocs temàtics. En primer lloc hi ha un capítol de caire teòric que planteja les bases psicològiques de la intervenció sobre els usos lingüístics. En segon lloc, s'inclouen quatre capítols que aborden diversos aspectes de la promoció de l’ús de la llengua en el sistema educatiu a quatre territoris catalanòfons, ordenats per la seva importància demogràfica. Finalment, tanquen el volum dos capítols que se centren en les ideologies i els discursos sobre la promoció del català i la diversitat lingüística entre els docents presents i futurs de Catalunya.
Like its predecessor and companion volume New Journeys in Iberian Studies, this volume gathers fresh and emerging research in a range of sub-fields of Iberian studies from an international range of established academics and early career researchers. The book provides rich evidence of the breadth and depth of new research being carried out in the dynamic field of Iberian studies at present. As the title suggests, a strong thread running through the collection is concerned with investigating the multiple spaces of tension between the centre and periphery that comprise the Iberian cultural system. Topically, the current situation in Catalonia naturally comes to the fore in a number of chapters and from a range of perspectives. However, in the revisiting of a range of cultural products and historical processes undertaken by the contributors, it can be seen that transoceanic postcolonial relations are not neglected and concerns with history, memory and fiction also weave their way through their work.
Diuen els investigadors que cada cop s’utilitza més el terme identitat, fet que s’explica per la necessitat d’observar i comprendre fenòmens reals -vells i nous- que s’estan donant entre els individus i que resten encara poc entesos i explicats. Un fet que no deu anar deslligat del contacte cultural entre els distints grups humans que tenen lloc amb els canvis socials experimentats en una societat cada cop més heterogènia...... En aquest marc, el Centre Universitari de Sociolingüística i Comunicació (CUSC) va acollir entre finals del 2005 i principis del 2006 la celebració del cicle de conferències "Llengua i identitat": conferències que, en la seva majoria, es recullen aquí i donen compte de la situació sociolingüística a territoris de parla catalana i a territoris d’altres llengües de l’estat espanyol i de l’estat francès i italià. .El lector hi trobarà un bon conjunt d’idees a càrrec d’autors de primera línia que certament el faran pensar i rumiar sobre les intricades i diverses relacions entre els fenòmens identitaris i els fenòmens lingüístics.