CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

American Ethnic Practices in the Early Twenty-first Century: The Milwaukee Study is a work based on a twelve-year research project conducted in the greater Milwaukee area by Urban Anthropology Inc. The qualitative study examined the current strength of ethnicity and the contributions that ethnic practices have made to the wider society. Since Barth (1970), social scientists—especially sociocultural anthropologists—have moved toward deconstructing ethnicity by concentrating on the malleability of ethnic identity. This work takes a new approach by focusing on ethnic practices. The most prominent findings in The Milwaukee Study were the ways that community-building activities of ethnic groups contributed to the wider society; and how this, in turn, can help restore a needed balance between individualism and collectivism in the United States. Since the first edition of Habits of the Heart (Bellah et al, 1985), public discourse about ways to restore this balance has been ubiquitous. Most discussions have focused only on strengthening families, faith communities, or neighborhoods, and have ignored the activity and potential of ethnic groups, even though it was during this span of time that interest in multiculturalism in education and politics reached its peak.

Nothing is "pure" in America, and, indeed, the rich ethnic mix that constitutes our society accounts for much of its amazing vitality. Werner Sollors's new book takes a wide-ranging look at the role of "ethnicity" in American literature and what that literature has said--and continues to say--about our diverse culture. Ethnic consciousness, he contends, is a constituent feature of modernism, not modernism's antithesis. Discussing works from every period of American history, Sollors focuses particularly on the tension between "descent" and "consent"--between the concern for one's racial, ethnic, and familial heritage and the conflicting desire to choose one's own destiny, even if that choice goes against one's heritage. Some of the stories Sollors examines are retellings of the biblical Exodus--stories in which Americans of the most diverse origins have painted their own histories as an escape from bondage or a search for a new Canaan. Other stories are "American-made" tales of melting-pot romance, which may either triumph in intermarriage, accompanied by new world symphonies, or end with the lovers' death. Still other stories concern voyages of self-discovery in which the hero attempts to steer a perilous course between stubborn traditionalism and total assimilation. And then there are the generational sagas, in which, as if by magic, the third generation emerges as the fulfillment of their forebears' dream. Citing examples that range from the writings of Cotton Mather to Liquid Sky (a "post-punk" science fiction film directed by a Russian emigre), Sollors shows how the creators of American culture have generally been attracted to what is most new and modern. About the Author: Werner Sollors is Chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard University and the author of Amiri Baraka: The Quest for a Populist Modernism. A provocative and original look at "ethnicity" in American literature DTCovers stories from all periods of our nation's history DTRelates ethnic literature to the principle of literary modernism DT"Grave and hilarious, tender and merciless...The book performs a public service."-Quentin Anderson

This anthology examines how immigrants and their US-born children use media to negotiate their American identity and how audiences engage with mediated narratives about the immigrant experience (cultural adjustments, language use, and the like). Where this work diverges from other collections and monographs is the area is its intentional focus on how both first- and second-generation Americans’ complex identities and hybrid cultures interact with mediated narratives in general, alongside the extent to which these narratives reflect their experience. In a three-part structure, the collection examines representations, “zooms in” to explore the reception of these narratives through autoethnographic essays, and concludes in a section of analysis and critique of specific media.

This collection of articles examines the complex nature of identity in the Italian-American community. Sorrentino and Krase have constructed a volume that covers topics of diverse interest, such as the development of Italian-American literary studies and the integration of a uniquely Italian-American sensibility into a larger and dominant idea of European American culture. As an erudite examination of contemporary studies being done on one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, this work is an essential addition to the ongoing and contentious debates about the nature of ethnicity, identity, assimilation and acculturation in the United States.

This book explores the benefits and challenges of transnational history for the study of modern Ireland. In recent years the word "transnational" has become more and more conspicuous in history writing across the globe, with scholars seeking to move beyond national and local frameworks when investigating the past. Yet transnational approaches remain rare in Irish historical scholarship. This book argues that the broader contexts and scales associated with transnational history are ideally suited to open up new questions on many themes of critical importance to Ireland’s past and present. They also provide an important means of challenging ideas of Irish exceptionalism. The chapters included here open up new perspectives on central debates and events in Irish history. They illuminate numerous transnational lives, follow flows and ties across Irish borders, and trace networks and links with Europe, North America, the Caribbean, Australia and the British Empire. This book provides specialists and students with examples of different concepts and ways of doing transnational history. Non-specialists will be interested in the new perspectives offered here on a rich variety of topics, particularly the two major events in modern Irish history, the Great Irish Famine and the 1916 Rising.

Introduction: Ethnic heritage across the generations: racialization, transnationalism, and homeland -- History and the second generation -- The prewar Nisei: Americanization and nationalist belonging -- The postwar Nisei: biculturalism and transnational identities -- Racialization, citizenship, and heritage -- Assimilation and loss of ethnic heritage among third-generation Japanese Americans -- The struggle for racial citizenship among later-generation Japanese Americans -- Ethnic revival among fourth-generation Japanese Americans -- Ethnic heritage, performance, and diasporicity -- Japanese American taiko and the remaking of tradition -- Performative authenticity and fragmented empowerment through taiko -- Diasporicity and Japanese Americans -- Conclusion: Japanese Americans ethnic legacies and the future

The increasingly multicultural fabric of modern societies has given rise to many new issues and conflicts, as ethnic and national minorities demand recognition and support for their cultural identity. This book presents a new conception of the rights and status of minority cultures. It argues that certain sorts of `collective rights' for minority cultures are consistent with liberal democratic principles, and that standard liberal objections to recognizing such rights on grounds of individual freedom, social justice, and national unity, can be answered. However, Professor Kymlicka emphasises that no single formula can be applied to all groups and that the needs and aspirations of immigrants are very different from those of indigenous peoples and national minorities. The book discusses issues such as language rights, group representation, religious education, federalism, and secession - issues which are central to understanding multicultural politics, but which have been surprisingly neglected in contemporary liberal theory.

In this sweeping history, Alexander Kitroeff shows how the Greek Orthodox Church in America has functioned as much more than a religious institution, becoming the focal point in the lives of the country's million-plus Greek immigrants and their descendants. Assuming the responsibility of running Greek-language schools and encouraging local parishes to engage in cultural and social activities, the church became the most important Greek American institution and shaped the identity of Greeks in the United States. Kitroeff digs into these traditional activities, highlighting the American church's dependency on the "mother church," the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the use of Greek language in the Sunday liturgy. Today, as this rich biography of the church shows us, Greek Orthodoxy remains in between the Old World and the New, both Greek and American.