Sociolinguists have been pursuing connections between language and identity for several decades. But how are language and identity related in bilingualism and multilingualism? Mobilizing the most current methodology, this collection presents new research on language identity and bilingualism in three regions where Spanish coexists with other languages. The cases are Spanish-English contact in the United States, Spanish-indigenous language contact in Latin America, and Spanish-regional language contact in Spain. This is the first comparativist book to examine language and identity construction among bi- or multilingual speakers while keeping one of the languages constant. The sociolinguistic standing of Spanish varies among the three regions depending whether or not it is a language of prestige. Comparisons therefore afford a strong constructivist perspective on how linguistic ideologies affect bi/multilingual identity formation.

This encyclopedia is divided into three sections: individual bilingualism; bilingualism in society and bilingual education. It includes many pictures, graphs, maps and diagrams. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography on bilingualism.

The present volume represents a variety of portraits of what happens when families attempt to raise children in Spanish while living in English-speaking societies. Aided by the foregrounding chapter by Suzanne Romaine about language and identity and the afterword by Carol Klee that ties together many issues brought up throughout the collection, the reader gains a more complete understanding of the variables that contribute to Spanish bilingualism in English-speaking societies, and by extension a more complete understanding of the dynamic nature of bilingualism in general. This volume, the first of its kind, brings together an impressive array of sociolinguistic environments while keeping the two languages constant. We hope that it marks the beginning of comparative analyses of bilingualism, acquisition outcomes, and identity construction across environments that share the same languages, but where important disparities exist in the sociolinguistic landscapes.

Written as an introductory text from a crossdisciplinary perspective, this book covers individual and societal concepts in minority and majority languages.

Bilingualism and Language Pedagogy brings an understanding of language as a social practice and bilingualism as the study of bidirectional transitioning to the examination of bilingual settings in the US, Europe, and the developing countries. Focusing both on bilingual linguistic competence and educational politics and practice, the volume provides valuable practical proposals and models for developing sociocultural and linguistic competencies among bilingual practitioners and students.

This is the first book-length study of identity constructions in relation to English as a contact language in advertising of non-English-speaking countries through a critical and interpretive lens. Instead of simply presuming the role of the English language may have in constructing identities within the multimodal advertisement, this book aims to explore ethnographically the ideological underpinnings of identity constructions in the context of local politics of English. It studies the varying degrees of the contribution of the English language and its possible roles in bilingual advertising, unravels the ideological dimensions of the language as well as identity and explains the sociocultural forms and meanings of identity. To this end, it develops a new critical-cognitive approach, bringing together recent advances in English as a global language, critical sociolinguistics, multilingual studies and multimodal discourse analysis. By delving into the cognitive process of identity constructions, it provides an evidence-based account of the roles of English, and it illustrates the interconnections between identities and local politics of English. This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to scholars and students in bilingualism, multilingualism, discourse analysis, English as a global language, multimodality, advertising and marketing.

In this book, I attempt to show how colonial and postcolonial political forces have endeavoured to reconstruct the national identity of Morocco, on the basis of cultural representations and ideological constructions closely related to nationalist and ethnolinguistic trends. I discuss how the issue of language is at the centre of the current cultural and political debates in Morocco. The present book is an investigation of the ramifications of multilingualism for language choice patterns and attitudes among Moroccans. More importantly, the book assesses the roles played by linguistic and cultural factors in the development and evolution of Moroccan society. It also focuses on the impact of multilingualism on cultural authenticity and national identity. Having been involved in research on language and culture for many years, I am particularly interested in linguistic and cultural assimilation or alienation, and under what conditions it takes place, especially today that more and more Moroccans speak French and are influenced by Western social behaviour more than ever before. In the process, I provide the reader with an updated description of the different facets of language use, language maintenance and shift, and language attitudes, focusing on the linguistic situation whose analysis is often blurred by emotional reactions, ideological discourses, political biases, simplistic assessments, and ethnolinguistic identities.

Like the first volume, The Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity, Volume 2 is a reference work on the interconnection between language and ethnic identity. In this volume, 37 new essays provide a systematic look at different language and ethnic identity efforts, assess their relative successes and failures, and place the cases on a success-failure continuum. The reasons for these failures and successes and the linguistic, social, and political contexts involved are subtle and highly complex. Some of these factors have to do with whether the language is considered a dialect, as in the cases of Bavarian, Ebonics, and Scots (considered to be dialects of German, American English, and British English, respectively). Other factors have to do with government policy, as in the cases of Basque and Navajo. Still other factors are historical, such as the way Canaanite was supplanted in present-day Israel by another classical language-Hebrew. Although the volume offers considerable sophistication in the treatment of language, ethnicity and identity, it has been written for the non-specialized reader, whether student or layperson. The contributors are an international group of well-known scholars in a range of fields. Fishman and García provide a detailed introduction that addresses the difficulty of assessing the success or failure of a language. They also present a conclusion that integrates the data presented in the volume.

The two volumes of this encyclopedia seek to explore myriad ways in which we define ourselves in our daily lives. Comprising 300 entries, the Encyclopedia of Identity offers readers an opportunity to understand identity as a socially constructed phenomenon - a dynamic process both public and private, shaped by past experiences and present circumstances, and evolving over time. Offering a broad, comprehensive overview of the definitions, politics, manifestations, concepts, and ideas related to identity, the entries include short biographies of major thinkers and leaders, as well as discussions of events, personalities, and concepts. The Encyclopedia of Identity is designed for readers to grasp the nature and breadth of identity as a psychological, social, anthropological, and popular idea. Key ThemesArtClassDeveloping IdentitiesGender, Sex, and SexualityIdentities in ConflictLanguage and DiscourseLiving EthicallyMedia and Popular CultureNationality Protecting IdentityRace, Culture, and EthnicityRelating Across CulturesReligionRepresentations of IdentityTheories of Identity

Bilingualism is a ubiquitous global phenomenon. Beyond being a language experience, bilingualism also entails a social experience, and it interacts with development and learning, with cognitive and neural consequences across the lifespan. The authors of this volume are world renowned experts across several subdisciplines including linguistics, developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. They bring to light bilingualism’s cognitive, developmental, and neural consequences in children, young adults, and older adults. This book honors Ellen Bialystok, and highlights her profound impact on the field of bilingualism research as a lifelong experience. The chapters are organized into four sections: The first section explores the complexity of the bilingual experience beyond the common characterization of “speaking multiple languages.” The next section showcases Ellen Bialystok’s earlier impact on psychology and education; here the contributors answer the question “how does being bilingual shape children’s development?” The third section explores cognitive and neuroscientific theories describing how language experience modulates cognition, behavior, and brain structures and functions. The final section shifts the focus to the impact of bilingualism on healthy and abnormal aging and asks whether being bilingual can stave off the effects of dementia by conferring a “cognitive reserve.”