John Benjamins Publishing Company
Studies in Bilingualism 3, 2008
Hardbound – 978 90 272 4148 1 Paperback – 978 90 272 4179 5 e-Book – 978 90 272 9043 4
Sociolinguists have been pursuing connections between language and
identity for several decades. But how are language and identity related
in bilingualism and multilingualism? Mobilizing the most current
methodology, this collection presents new research on language identity
and bilingualism in three regions where Spanish coexists with other
languages. The cases are Spanish-English contact in the United States,
Spanish-indigenous language contact in Latin America, and
Spanish-regional language contact in Spain. This is the first
comparativist book to examine language and identity construction among
bi- or multilingual speakers while keeping one of the languages
constant. The sociolinguistic standing of Spanish varies among the
three regions depending whether or not it is a language of prestige.
Comparisons therefore afford a strong constructivist perspective on how
linguistic ideologies affect bi/multilingual identity formation.