A Multilingual Nation

A Multilingual Nation PDF Author: Rita Kothari
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199095329
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
How does India live through the oddity of being both a nation and multilingual? Is multilingualism in India to be understood as a neatly laid set of discrete languages or a criss-crossing of languages that runs through every source language and text? The questions take us to reviewing what is meant by language, multilingualism, and translation. Challenging these institutions, A Multilingual Nation illustrates how the received notions of translation discipline do not apply to India. It provocatively argues that translation is not a ‘solution’ to the allegedly chaotic situation of many languages, rather it is its inherent and inalienable part. An unusual and unorthodox collection of essays by leading thinkers and writers, new and young researchers, it establishes the all-pervasive nature of translation in every sphere in India and reverses the assumptions of the steady nature of language, its definition, and the peculiar fragility that is revealed in the process of translation.

A Multilingual Nation

A Multilingual Nation PDF Author: Rita Kothari
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199095329
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book

Book Description
How does India live through the oddity of being both a nation and multilingual? Is multilingualism in India to be understood as a neatly laid set of discrete languages or a criss-crossing of languages that runs through every source language and text? The questions take us to reviewing what is meant by language, multilingualism, and translation. Challenging these institutions, A Multilingual Nation illustrates how the received notions of translation discipline do not apply to India. It provocatively argues that translation is not a ‘solution’ to the allegedly chaotic situation of many languages, rather it is its inherent and inalienable part. An unusual and unorthodox collection of essays by leading thinkers and writers, new and young researchers, it establishes the all-pervasive nature of translation in every sphere in India and reverses the assumptions of the steady nature of language, its definition, and the peculiar fragility that is revealed in the process of translation.

The Languages of Nation

The Languages of Nation PDF Author: Carol Percy
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 1847697801
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
This collection brings together research on linguistic prescriptivism and social identities, in specific contemporary and historical contexts of cross-cultural contact and awareness. Providing multilingual and multidisciplinary perspectives from language studies, lexicography, literature, and cultural studies, our contributors relate language norms to frameworks of identity beyond monolingual citizenship - nativeness, ethnicity, politics, religion, empire. Some chapters focus on traditional instruments of prescriptivism: language academies in Europe; government language planners in southeast Asia; dictionaries and grammars from Early Modern and imperial Britain, republican America, the postcolonial Caribbean, and modern Germany. Other chapters consider the roles of scholars in prescriptivism, as well as the more informal and populist mechanisms of enforcement expressed in newspapers. With a thematic introduction articulating links between its breadth of perspectives, this accessible book should engage everyone concerned with language norms.

Problems of Multilingual Nations

Problems of Multilingual Nations PDF Author: Chris U. Agbedo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Multiculturalism
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description


Multilingualism: A Very Short Introduction

Multilingualism: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: John C. Maher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191038075
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
The languages of the world can be seen and heard in cities and towns, forests and isolated settlements, as well as on the internet and in international organizations like the UN or the EU. How did the world acquire so many languages? Why can't we all speak one language, like English or Esperanto? And what makes a person bilingual? Multilingualism, language diversity in society, is a perfect expression of human plurality. About 6,500-7,000 languages are spoken, written and signed, throughout the linguistic landscape of the world, by people who communicate in more than one language (at work, or in the family or community). Many origin myths, like Babel, called it a 'punishment' but multilingualism makes us who we are and plays a large part of our sense of belonging. Languages are instruments for interacting with the cultural environment and their ecology is complex. They can die (Tasmanian), or decline then revive (Manx and Hawaiian), reconstitute from older forms (modern Hebrew), gain new status (Catalan and Maori) or become autonomous national languages (Croatian). Languages can even play a supportive and symbolic role as some territories pursue autonomy or nationhood, such as in the cases of Catalonia and Scotland. In this Very Short Introduction John C. Maher shows how multilingualism offers cultural diversity, complex identities, and alternative ways of doing and knowing to hybrid identities. Increasing multilingualism is drastically changing our view of the value of language, and our notion of the part language plays in national and cultural identities. At the same time multilingualism can lead to social and political conflict, unequal power relations, issues of multiculturalism, and discussions over 'national' or 'official' languages, with struggles over language rights of local and indigenous communities. Considering multilingualism in the context of globalization, Maher also looks at the fate of many endangered languages as they disappear from the world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Multilingual China

Multilingual China PDF Author: Bob Adamson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000487024
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Multilingual China explores the dynamics of multilingualism in one of the most multilingual countries in the world. This edited collection comprises frontline empirical research into a range of important issues that arise from the presence of 55 official ethnic minority groups, plus China’s search to modernize and strengthen the nation’s place in the world order. Topics focus on the dynamics of national, ethnic minority and foreign languages in use, policy making and education, inside China and beyond. Micro-studies of language contact and variation are included, as are chapters dealing with multilingual media and linguistic landscapes. The book highlights tensions such as threats to the sustainability of weak languages and dialects, the role and status of foreign languages (especially English) and how Chinese can be presented as a viable regional or international language. Multilingual China will appeal to academics and researchers working in multilingualism and multilingual education, as well as sinologists keen to examine the interplay of languages in this complex multilingual context.

Multilingualism and Nation Building

Multilingualism and Nation Building PDF Author: Gerda Mansour
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 9781853591747
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
This book is interdisciplinary, drawing on the sociology and politics of language, African linguistics, African history and social history in general. It focuses on the various issues related to multilingualism in West Africa, but is also relevant to multilingual situations in Third World countries generally. Although the book is aimed at the educated general reader, it should also be of interest to language specialists and students of Third World politics.

Language, Nations, and Multilingualism

Language, Nations, and Multilingualism PDF Author: Ying-Ying Tan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429838123
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Language, Nations, and Multilingualism explores the legacy of Herder’s ideas about the relationship between language and nationalism in the post-colonial world. Focusing on how anti-colonial and post-colonial nations reconcile their myriad multilingualisms with the Herderian model of one language-one nation, it shows how Herder’s model is both attractive and problematic for such nations. Why then does the Herderian model have such valency? How has the Herderian ideal of one nation-one language continued to survive beneath the uncomfortable resolution struck by new multilingual nations as they create fictions of a singular national mother tongue? To what extent is Herder still relevant in our contemporary world? How have different nations negotiated the Herderian ideal in different ways? What does the way in which multilingual post-colonial nations deal with this crisis tell us about a possible alternative framework for understanding the relationship between language and nation? By approaching this investigation from diverse archives across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Language, Nations, and Multilingualism proposes answers to the aforementioned questions from a global perspective that takes into account the specificities of a range of colonial experiences and political regimes. And by extending the discussion backwards in time to offer a more historical reading of the making of modern nations, it allows us to see how multilingualism has always disrupted constructions of monoglot nations.

Language, Nation and State

Language, Nation and State PDF Author: T. Judt
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403982457
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This edited collection examines the role that language has played in forming modern European nations. With language an omnipresent issue within the European Union, the importance languages have played within the histories and present situations of member nations is a crucial topic. Drawing on an international cast of contributors, the book explores the issues of monolingualism vs. plurilingualism within individual nations, the revival of languages in nations such as former soviet republics, and concludes with a look at language in the electronic age.

Language, Education and Nation-building

Language, Education and Nation-building PDF Author: P. Sercombe
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137455535
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This volume tracks the complex relationships between language, education and nation-building in Southeast Asia, focusing on how language policies have been used by states and governments as instruments of control, assimilation and empowerment. Leading scholars have contributed chapters each representing one of the countries in the region.

Multilingualism within Nation States and the Danger of Separation

Multilingualism within Nation States and the Danger of Separation PDF Author: Gordon Wagner
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3640911482
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 12

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1,0, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), course: Language and Identity, language: English, abstract: Worldwide, there are almost 6,800 languages in 228 countries and approximately 200 languages that have more than one million native speakers. There are even less official nation states existing, according to various sources between 192 and 195. Obviously, not every single country or nation state exclusively contains citizens speaking only one language and we don’t need to seek out long, but instead take a look to member states of the European Union (EU) as there are countries like Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland that are officially tri- and/or bilingual. On one hand, this suggests the existence of a considerately strong movement of native speakers among the respective country’s citizens that are not willing to accept merely one mother language (as is the case in Ireland, where both Irish and English are officially recognized idioms). On the other hand, it might indicate the existence of a potential language conflict situation – and indeed there are multilingual nation states in which this proves to be the case. There are many such examples throughout the world, e.g. Belgium, Spain and its various autonomous communities) or the Canadian province Québec. In fact, established nation states are threatened to break in part due to their citizens speaking utterly different languages and instead of just one with varying accents and/or dialects. So how do countries deal with these issues? What are the possible consequences of using more than one official language among an established nation state and how might this shape the citizens’ perception and consciousness on a wider range?