Book: Language and nationalism in Europe

[McGinnis, Scott]

Title: Language and Nationalism in Europe
			
Publication Year: 2002
Publisher: Oxford University Press
           http://www.oup-usa.org/		
			
Book URL: http://www.oup-usa.org/isbn/0198236719.html
			
Editor: Stephen  Barbour, University of East Anglia, Norwich
Editor: Cathie  Carmichael, Middlesex University

Paperback: ISBN: 0199250855, Pages: 336 pp, Price: $ 24.95
			
Abstract:

This volume examines the role of language in the present and past
creation of social, cultural, and national identities in Europe,
considering the way in which language may sometimes reinforce national
identity (as in England) while tending to subvert the nation-state (as
in the United Kingdom).

The book describes the interactive roles of language, ethnicity,
culture, and institutions in the character and formation of
nationalism and identity throughout Europe. A select team of
international contributors consider various questions drawing on
evidence from the majority of European countries.

The book concludes with a consideration of the current relative status
of the languages of Europe and how these and the identities they
reflect are changing and evolving.


"Each chapter is full of fascinating sociolinguistic and historical
facts but together the volume provides a wide-ranging set of
approaches to language and nationalism so dense that it defies
summarizing, and no brief review can do justice to the wealth of
information and arguments in this volume. Barbour, Carmichael, and
their colleagues have given a wide interdisciplinary readership a very
interesting, informative, and readable volume."--Michael Clyne,
University of Melbourne