In the midst of an international crisis in migration policy – widely referred to as a ‘refugee crisis’ – this book brings together timely analyses of the manifold and yet specific ways in which migration affects globalized societies, set against the background of the rise of nationalist and populist movements. The voices of migrants and refugees are rarely heard in this context: usually, they are debated about, summarized and reported but their agency is denied. Each contribution to this volume adds an empirical perspective to our understanding of how language relates to migration in a specific national context. The chapters use innovative combinations of multimodal, qualitative and quantitative analyses to examine a broad range of genres and data related to the voices of migrants and reporting about migrants.

Migration and the mobility of citizens around the globe pose important challenges to the linguistic and cultural homogeneity that nation-states rely on for defining their physical boundaries and identity, as well as the rights and obligations of their citizens. A new social order resulting from neoliberal economic practices, globalisation and outsourcing also challenges traditional ways the nation-state has organized its control over the people who have typically travelled to a new country looking for work or better life chances. This collection provides an account of the ways language addresses core questions concerning power and the place of migrants in various institutional and workplace settings. It brings together contributions from a range of geographical settings to understand better how linguistic inequality is (re)produced in this new economic order.

The impact of mobility and superdiversity in recent sociolinguistic research is well-established, yet very few studies deal with issues related to immobility. The chapters in this book focus on the sociolinguistic investigation of the dynamics between mobility and immobility as experienced by migrants, asylum seekers and members of minority or exploited groups. Central to the book is an exploration of how mobilities are affected by and in turn affect power relations and of the kinds of resources used by people to deal with (im)mobility processes. The book brings to light a new critical sociolinguistic imagination that is responsive to 21st century processes of (im)mobilities as socially, discursively and emotionally constructed and negotiated.

This book investigates our awareness and control of sociolinguistic features as they are embedded in social and grammatical systems.

This monograph presents an ecological perspective to the study of language maintenance and shift in immigrant contexts. The ecology incorporates past, present and future and treats spatial and temporal dimensions as the main organizing frames in which everyday language use and identity development can be explored. The methods combine a quantitative domain-based sociolinguistic survey with discourse analytic approaches. The novel approach is valuable for fellow researchers working in interdisciplinary fields of language maintenance, language shift, multilingualism andlanguage planning in migration contexts. The ecological perspective adds to sociolinguistic theories of globalization and responds to current dynamics of translocality in modern immigrant contexts. The research presents language use and language planning efforts in the Sudanese community of Australia. Language, culture, race and ethnic identity are explored in unique sociolinguistic contexts using an emic research lens and giving voice to the participants.

One of the most pressing issues in contemporary European societies is the need to promote integration and social inclusion in the context of rapidly increasing migration. A particular challenge confronting national governments is how to accommodate speakers of an ever-increasing number of languages within what in most cases are still perceived as monolingual indigenous populations. This has given rise to public debates in many countries on controversial policies imposing a requirement of competence in a 'national' language and culture as a condition for acquiring citizenship. However, these debates are frequently conducted almost entirely at a national level within each state, with little if any attention paid to the broader European context. At the same time, further EU enlargement and the ongoing rise in the rate of migration into and across Europe suggest that the salience of these issues is likely to continue to grow. This volume offers a critical analysis of these debates and emerging discourses on integration and challenges the assumptions underlying the new 'language testing regimes'.

Language policies are increasingly acknowledged as being a necessary component of many decisions taken in the areas of the labor market, education, minority languages, mobility, and social inclusion of migrants. They can affect the democratic control of political organizations, and they can either entrench or reduce inequalities. These are the central topics of this book. Economists, philosophers, political scientists, and sociolinguists discuss – from an interdisciplinary perspective – the distributive socio-economic effects of language policies, their impact on justice and inequality at the national or international level, as well as the connection between language choices and an inclusive access to public services. The range of social and economic issues raised by linguistic diversity in contemporary societies is large, and this requires new approaches to tackle them. This book provides new input to design better, more efficient, and fair language policies in order to manage linguistic diversity in different areas. Topics covered include: theoretical models of linguistic justice and linguistic disadvantage; the assessment of the socio-economic consequences of language policies; the evaluation of the costs, benefits, and degree of inclusion of language planning measures; the politics of migrants’ linguistic integration; as well as multilingualism and economic activities. These topics are discussed in different contexts, including the areas inhabited by linguistic minorities, cities receiving migrants, and supranational organizations.

With examples of conversation, this book is a lively account of social and intellectual import of everyday talk about language.

Nowadays the alternation between two languages which is known as code-switching is rather the norm than exception in many communities due to the fact that there are nearly seven thousand languages spoken throughout the world and more than half of the worlds’ population is estimated to be bilingual and engages in code-switching. Code-switching remains one of the central issues in bilingualism research. For a long time, code-switching has been considered as a lack of linguistic competence since it was taken as evidence that bilinguals are not able to acquire two languages or keep them apart properly. Nowadays it is the common belief that code-switching is grammatically structured and systematic and therefore can no longer be regarded as deficient language behaviour.The purpose of this essay is to explore the question why bilingual speakers engage in code-switching based on selected theories from a sociolinguistic perspective which looks beyond the formal aspects and concentrates on the social, pragmatic and cultural functions that code-switching may have.

AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLINGUISTICS The new eighth edition of An Introduction to Sociolinguistics brings this valuable, bestselling textbook up to date with the latest in sociolinguistic research and pedagogy, providing a broad overview of the study of language in social context with accessible coverage of major concepts, theories, methods, issues, and debates within the field. This leading text helps students develop a critical perspective on language in society as they explore the complex connections between societal norms and language use. The eighth edition contains new and updated coverage of such topics as the societal aspects of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), multilingual societies and discourse, gender and sexuality, ideologies and language attitudes, and the social meanings of linguistic forms. Organized in four sections, this text first covers traditional language issues such as the distinction between languages and dialects, identification of regional and social variation within languages, and the role of context in language use and interpretation. Subsequent chapters cover approaches to research in sociolinguistics—variationist sociolinguistics, ethnography, and discourse analytic research—and address both macro– and micro-sociolinguistic aspects of multilingualism in national, transnational, global, and digital contexts. The concluding section of the text looks at language in relation to gender and sexuality, education, and language planning and policy issues. Featuring examples from a variety of languages and cultures that illustrate topics such as social and regional dialects, multilingualism, and the linguistic construction of identity, this text provides perspectives on both new and foundational research in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Eighth Edition, remains the ideal textbook for upper-level undergraduate and graduate course in sociolinguistics, language and society, linguistic anthropology, applied and theoretical linguistics, and education. The new edition has also been updated to support classroom application with a range of effective pedagogical tools, including end-of-chapter written exercises and an instructor website, as well as materials to support further learning such as reading suggestions, research ideas, and an updated companion student website containing a searchable glossary, a review guide, additional exercises and examples, and links to online resources.