Language as Hope

Drawing on ethnographic data, this book illustrates what language can teach us about the practice, logic and feasibility of hope.

Daniel N. Silva (Author), Jerry Won Lee (Author)

9781009306522, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 February 2024

200 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg

'Through this account, Silva & Lee demonstrate how language provides a unique perspective to understand hope as both the reason and resource for social change. Their work teaches us about hoping in hopelessness and how researchers can trace this process through individuals' most intricate and high-stakes social pursuits.' Yunpeng Du, Language in Society

Although it feels like we live in a time of seeming hopelessness, this pioneering book illustrates what language can teach us about the practice, logic, and feasibility of hope in the twenty-first century. Silva and Lee highlight how people living in Brazilian urban peripheries, who have grown accustomed to unrelenting prejudice and violence on an everyday basis, use language to survive and imagine futures that are worth aspiring to. In so doing, this book foregrounds how language becomes a matter of survival for these communities. It provides a thorough theorization of how language can produce conditions of hope, moving away from the idea of language merely as a tool of communication and toward something that can meaningfully impact social realities. Innovative and engaging, it is essential reading for researchers and students in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Notes on the Text
Introduction
1. Language as Hope
2. 'País do Futuro' and Present-Day Communities of Hope
3. Hope in the Present
4. The Enregisterment of Hope
5. Scaling Hope
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Linguistics [CF]