The Sociolinguistics of Globalization

In this book Jan Blommaert discusses the changes in human language in an age of globalization.

Jan Blommaert (Author)

9780521884068, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 April 2010

230 pages, 26 b/w illus. 1 table
23.9 x 15.5 x 1.6 cm, 0.49 kg

'… this book is very inspiring and thought-provoking, and forces the readers to think and to relate to language with social reality.' Jingyang Jiang, Language Problems & Language Planning

Human language has changed in the age of globalization: no longer tied to stable and resident communities, it moves across the globe, and it changes in the process. The world has become a complex 'web' of villages, towns, neighbourhoods and settlements connected by material and symbolic ties in often unpredictable ways. This phenomenon requires us to revise our understanding of linguistic communication. In The Sociolinguistics of Globalization Jan Blommaert constructs a theory of changing language in a changing society, reconsidering locality, repertoires, competence, history and sociolinguistic inequality.

1. A critical sociolinguistics of globalization
2. A messy new marketplace
3. Locality, the periphery and images of the world
4. Repertoires and competence
5. Language, globalization, and history
6. Old and new inequalities
7. Reflections.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Globalization [JFFS], Sociolinguistics [CFB]