Metalinguistic Communities

“Metalinguistic Communities: Case Studies of Agency, Ideology, and Symbolic Uses of Language offers readers a wide-ranging exploration of the many ways “language as object” serves as an important channel of symbolic communication. The diverse case studies highlight the variety of ways community members deploy “linguistic” markers in social semiotic domains to promote language reclamation, challenge hegemonic regimes, and assert language-based subjectivities. The chapters in this volume are timely examples of much needed contributions to language and social justice.”
-Bernard C. Perley, Director, Associate Professor, The Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, University of British Columbia, Canada

This edited volume brings together ten compelling ethnographic case studies from a range of global settings to explore how people build metalinguistic communities defined not by use of a language, but primarily by language ideologies and symbolicpractices about the language.  The authors examine themes of agency, belonging, negotiating hegemony, and combating cultural erasure and genocide in cultivating meaningful metalinguistic communities. Case studies include Spanish and Hebrew in the USA, Kurdish in Japan, Pataxó Hãhãhãe in Brazil, and Gallo in France. The afterword, by Wesley L. Leonard, provides theoretical and on-the-ground context as well as a forward-looking focus on metalinguistic futurities. This book will be of interest to interdisciplinary students and scholars in applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology and migration studies.

Netta Avineri is an Associate Professor of Language Teacher Education and Chair of the Intercultural Competence Committee at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, USA. An applied linguistic anthropologist, she is the author of Research Methods for Language Teaching: Inquiry, Process, and Synthesis, co-editorof Language and Social Justice in Practice, and Series Editor for Critical Approaches in Applied Linguistics (De Gruyter Mouton).

 Jesse Harasta is an Associate Professor of Social Science and program director for International Studies at Cazenovia College, USA.  A cultural and linguistic anthropologist, he studies the symbolic and political uses of language and language as an object (e.g. signage, font).  He researches Kernewek and other European lesser-used languages.