· 2015· Book chapter
Polylanguaging in Superdiversity
- 419citations
- 2015year
Short summary
Sociolinguistics must analyze observed language use, not abstract 'languages,' showing that linguistic features, not languages, are the better unit of analysis in superdiverse societies.
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Key points
- Traditional linguistic categories ('languages') are sociocultural abstractions that do not accurately represent actual language use.
- Observed language use in superdiverse societies is better analyzed at the level of linguistic features rather than entire languages.
- The concept of 'polylanguaging' focuses on the use of linguistic features as the basis for understanding language in practice.
- Features and languages are socioculturally linked to values, meanings, and speakers, enabling analysis of these connections.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Human beings use language to achieve their goals, and with a few exceptions by using language to other human beings. It is a widely held view that language as a human phenomenon can be separated into different ‘languages’, such as ‘Russian’, ‘Latin’, and ‘Greenlandic’. This chapter is based on the recently developed sociolinguistic understanding that this view of language cannot be upheld based on linguistic criteria. ‘Languages’ are sociocultural abstractions that match real-life use of language poorly. This means that sociolinguistics must apply another level of analysis with observed language use. The first part of this chapter is based on analyses of observed language use among young languagers in superdiverse societies. We show that the level of feature is better suited as the basis for analysis of language use than the level of language. In the second part of this chapter, we present our concept of languaging, in particular polylanguaging. We use the level of (linguistic) features as the basis for understanding language use, and we claim that features are socioculturally associated with “languages.” Both features individually and languages are socioculturally associated with values, meanings, speakers, etc. This means that we can deal with the connection between features and languages. In this chapter, we do so.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source., 2015 · DOI ↗
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Field: Linguistics and Language
Linguistics and LanguageSocial Sciences