The Sociolinguistics of Globalization

Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact

by Jan Blommaert

Human language has changed in the age of no longer tied to stable and resident communities, it moves across the globe, and it changes in the process. The world has become a complex 'web' of villages, towns, neighbourhoods and settlements connected by material and symbolic ties in often unpredictable ways. This phenomenon requires us to revise our understanding of linguistic communication. In The Sociolinguistics of Globalization Jan Blommaert constructs a theory of changing language in a changing society, reconsidering locality, repertoires, competence, history and sociolinguistic inequality.

Genres: Linguistics, Sociology, Language, Nonfiction

230 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2010

Reviews

[Yasamin Rezai]

To be honest, I wish could give 6 stars to this marvelous collection of thoughts and notions.

[Rick]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I hadn't read this book until this week. I will definitely use some of the information in it.

One of my favorite quotes: "The mobility of certain sociolinguistic resources -- think of English -- resides in their invocative qualities: they invoke different histories of meaning and function, and intertextually project these historical features onto current acts of communication" (151).

[Alfonso Jimenez]

A very interesting perspective on the effects of globalized language and the semiotic processes that work to develop the different levels of stratification in society, and yad yada yada

[livewugreactions]

This book cleared up a lot of concepts regarding indexicality and orders of indexicality and a lot of other linguistic concepts that I feel like hadn't been connected to each other in other literature. I uh read this a few months ago so a lot of the details are escaping me, but expect many quotes of it to end up in my research.

[Bookshire Cat]

Chapter 1 and 2 read for class.

[versarbre]

Full of life! This is the sort of books showcasing the charm of analytical clarity!!

[Casey]

Great work but some dense linguistics theory that is not for the faint of heart.