English and Ethnicity - (Signs of Race) by J Brutt-Griffler & C Evans Davies (Hardcover)

About the Book

This volume examines the complex interaction between the English language and the construction of ethnicity in the global English-speaking world. The essays demonstrate that the constructs of both "English" and "ethnicity" are contested sites of identity formation.

Book Synopsis

This volume examines the complex interaction between the English language and the construction of ethnicity in the global English-speaking world. The essays demonstrate that the constructs of both English and ethnicity are contested sites of identity formation.

Review Quotes

'An important contribution to our understanding of language and ethnicity, this collection problematizes traditional social categories of class, race, gender and ethnicity. It reminds us that 'the circumstances of language maintenance are just as politicized as those of language spread, and just as likely to serve nefarious political and economic interests-and it is just as incumbent on linguists to study and call attention to them.' Most importantly, this volume underscores the value of approaches to the study of language and ethnicity that fall outside the traditional sociolinguistic focus on language variation.' - Guadalupe Valdés, Bonnie Katz Tenenbaum Professor of Education and Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Stanford University

About the Author

JANINA BRUTT-GRIFFLER is Associate Professor of Foreign and Second Language Acquisition at The State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.

CATHERINE EVANS DAVIES is Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at the University of Alabama, USA. At the time of the symposium from which the current volume is drawn, she was director of the graduate programs in applied linguistics (the M.A.-TESOL Program, and the Applied Linguistics concentration in the English Ph.D.: Discourse, Culture, and English Language Studies).