Description
Book SynopsisThere are around 5,000 languages spoken across the world today, but the languages that coexist in our multilingual world have varied functions and fulfil various roles. Some are spoken by small groups, a village or a tribe; others, much less numerous, are spoken by hundreds of millions of speakers.
Trade Review"A treasure-trove addition in the realm of ecolinguistics ... of interest not only to professional linguists – it is also a highly recommended textbook for students of linguistics."
Jan Blommaert and Pan Lin, Journal of Sociolinguistics
"This is an important book, original in its conception, provocative in its argument, accessible in its content. Given the growing interest in language diversity, the publication of this book in English will be of great value for students and scholars alike."
Humphrey Tonkin, University of Hartford
"Calvet’s ideas are great, and are as relevant today as ever."
David Crystal, University of Wales
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
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- INTRODUCTION: practices and representations
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- 1. The ecology of languages
- The need for identity and its linguistic
- manifestations: endogenous and exogenous
- relexifications
- The graphic environment
- Dramatic change in a specific linguistic ecology: the example of Australia
- The political frontier and the ecolinguistic system
- The influence of the horse on European languages 98
- A false conception of linguistic ecology: Bickerton's
- simulation project
- Conclusions
- 2. The galaxy of languages
- Constellations of languages
- The galactic model and linguistic policy:
- the example of the European Community
- The Hindi constellation
- The Bambara constellation
- The galaxy of writing systems
- Conclusions
- 3. Regulation and change: the homeostatic model
- An example of internal regulation: vernacular variants of French
- Of ships and languages: from Christopher Columbus to lingua franca
- Vernacularization as ecological acclimatization:varieties of French in Africa
- African argots and the ecolinguistic niche; the example of Bukavu
- Conclusions: acclimatization and acclimatation
- 4. Linguistic representations and change
- Linguistic insecurity and representations: a historical approach
- Some theoretical problems: a first approach
- Some problems of description
- Conclusions
- 5. Transmission and change
- The transmission of first languages and the myth of the mother tongue
- The case of creoles: upheaval in the ecolinguistic niche and linguistic change
- The transmission of gravitational systems
- Conclusion: evolution and revolution
- 6. Five case studies
- One name for several languages: Arabic schizoglossia Several names for one language: the example
- of Kituba
- One, two or three languages? The example of Serbo-Croat
- Kraemer: the invention of French in the socioprofessional context
- An ecological niche: the Island of St-Barthélemy
- CONCLUSION: Inventing language, giving it a name
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
