Sociolinguistics & Status People, Politics, Power & Prestige

This book is intended to provide scholars and specialists alike a solid, in depth analysis of topics treating the domains of Sociolinguistics and Sociology of Language. The material in the book is generally designed to encourage additional discussion and research, in perhaps a classroom setting or in workshops.

To this end, several case studies and detail research are presented and analysed with a view to providing regionally specific data and then to examine convergence or lack thereof. It provides basic definitions and reviews all the fundamentals before branching out further afield into deeper, more complex, less traditional, more current developments and concerns in Sociolinguistics and a bit beyond.

For example, structuralism is explored, its strengths and weaknesses discussed. The reader will also find other pillars of linguistics as the book moves from Saussurian and Chomskian linguistics to William Labov’s sociolinguists. It deals with a wide range of topics and sub-topics which have been organized chronologically where possible to allow the reader to get a logical grasp of the various advances in the field.

The reader will find several well-known language controversies and numerous more situations which have not benefitted from the exposure they deserve, particularly as language spread, language domination and linguicde are topics which should interest us all.

A significant part of this work is dedicated to endangered languages and the process which led them to this precarious situation. It highlights language ecology and demonstrates how ecolinguistics relates to biodiversity examining the issues from a socio-historical angle.

The book concludes with more key facts about languages in general and particularly in order to highlight and underline the urgent language related issues outlined throughout the work. Readers should be left with a desire to act in order to re-establish healthy pre-Colombian status, and prestige to maringalized peoples and their languages.