`A marvellous feat of culling major issues and synthesising complex arguments.'- Journal of Linguistics `This slender but meaty volume is a good, solid and current introduction.'-Language in Society
This book deals with creolization and pidginization of language, culture and identity and makes use of interdisciplinary approaches developed in the study of the latter. Creolization and pidginization are conceptualized and investigated as specific social processes in the course of which new common languages, socio-cultural practices and identifications are developed under distinct social and political conditions and in different historical and local contexts of diversity. The contributions show that creolization and pidginization are important strategies to deal with identity and difference in a world in which diversity is closely linked with inequalities that relate to specific group memberships, colonial legacies and social norms and values.
Featuring an international contributor list, this long-awaited and broad-ranging collection examines the key issues, topics and research in pidgin and creole studies. A comprehensive reference work exploring the treatment of core aspects of pidgins/creoles, focusing on the questions that animate creole studies Brings together newly-commissioned entries by an international contributor team Accessibly structured into four sections covering: the character of pidgins and creoles; the relation of pidgins/creoles to other language phenomena and other languages; issues in pidgin/creole genesis; and the role of pidgins/creoles in society Provides a valuable resource for students, scholars and researchers working across a number linguistic disciplines, including sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and the anthropology of language
This book presents the first comprehensive survey of the languages of the Pacific rim, a vast region containing the greatest typological and genetic diversity in the world. It includes the littoral regions of North and South America, Australasia, east and south-east Asia, and Japan, as well as the Pacific itself. As its languages decline and disappear, sometimes without trace, this rich linguistic heritage is rapidly eroding. In The Vanishing Languages of the Pacific Rim distinguished scholars report on the current state of the region's languages and provides a critical survey of the current state of the region's languages. They show what is currently known and recorded and what remains to be examined and documented. They consider which languages are the most vulnerable to extinction and what steps that can be taken to save them. Their analyses range from the regional to the local and focus on languages in a wide variety of social and ecological settings. Together they make a compelling case for research throughout the region, and show how and where this needs to be done.
The Guidebook to Sociolinguistics presents a comprehensive introduction to the main concepts and terms of sociolinguistics, and of the goals, methods, and findings of sociolinguistic research. Introduces readers to the methodology and skills of doing hands-on research in this field Features chapter-by-chapter classic and contemporary case studies, exercises, and examples to enhance comprehension Offers wide-ranging coverage of topics across sociolinguistics. It begins with multilingualism, and moves on through language choice and variation to style and identity Takes students through the challenges involved in conducting their own research project Written by one of the leading figures in sociolinguistics
Pacific Pidgins and Creoles discusses the complex and fascinating history of English-based pidgins in the Pacific, especially the three closely related Melanesian pidgins: Tok Pisin, Pijin, and Bislama. The book details the central role of the port of Sydney and the linguistic synergies between Australia and the Pacific islands in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the role of Pacific islander plantation labor overseas, and the differentiation which has taken place in the pidgins spoken in the Melanesian island states in the 20th century. It also looks at the future of Pacific pidgins at a time of increasing vernacular language endangerment.
"This multi-authored volume draws on the collective experiences of a team of researcher-practitioners, from three Oceanic universities, in an aid-funded intervention program for enhancing literacy learning in Pacific Islands primary education schools. The interventions explored here-in Solomon Islands and Tonga-were implemented via a four-year collaboration which adopted a design-based research approach to bringing about sustainable improvements in teacher and student learning, and in the delivery and evaluation of educational aid. This approach demanded that learning from the context of practice should be determining of both content and process; that all involved in the interventions should see themselves as learners. Essential to the trusting and respectful relationships required for this approach was the program's acknowledgement of relationality as central to indigenous Oceanic societies, and of education as a relational activity. Relationality and Learning in Oceania: Contextualizing Education for Development addresses debates current in both comparative education and international aid. Argued strongly is that relational research-practice approaches (south-south, south-north) which center the importance of context and culture, and the significance of indigenous epistemologies, are required to strengthen education within the post-colonial relational space of Oceania, and to inform the various agencies and actors involved in 'education for development' in Oceania and globally. Maintained is that the development of education structures and processes within the contexts explored through the chapters comprising this volume, continues to be a negotiation between the complexity of historically developed local 'traditions' and understandings and the 'global' imperatives shaped by dominant development discourses"--
The most comprehensive overview available, this Handbook is an essential guide to sociolinguistics today. Reflecting the breadth of research in the field, it surveys a range of topics and approaches in the study of language variation and use in society. As well as linguistic perspectives, the handbook includes insights from anthropology, social psychology, the study of discourse and power, conversation analysis, theories of style and styling, language contact and applied sociolinguistics. Language practices seem to have reached new levels since the communications revolution of the late twentieth century. At the same time face-to-face communication is still the main force of language identity, even if social and peer networks of the traditional face-to-face nature are facing stiff competition of the Facebook-to-Facebook sort. The most authoritative guide to the state of the field, this handbook shows that sociolinguistics provides us with the best tools for understanding our unfolding evolution as social beings.
Topics in this volume include: interlingual contact in the Pacific to the mid-19th century; the Sandalwood period; the Tok Pisin language; oceanic Austronesian languages; structures and sources of pidgin syntax; the pidgin pronominal system; and calquing - pidgin and Solomons languages.