Languages in a Globalising World: book review from the Linguist List

[Damien Hall]

Title: Languages in a Globalising World
			
Publication Year: 2003
Publisher: Cambridge University Press http://www.cup.org
			
Book URL: http://us.cambridge.org/titles/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521821738

Availability: Available

Editor: Jacques Maurais, Office of French Language of Québec
Editor: Michael A. Morris, Clemson University

Hardback: ISBN: 0521821738, Pages: 362, Price:  U.K. £: 47.50
Hardback: ISBN: 0521821738, Pages: 362, Price:  U.S. $: 65

Abstract:
			
Throughout human history, the fate of languages has been closely
linked to political power relationships. Political shifts in the
international system continue to affect linguistic patterns, which
today are still in a state of flux following the end of the Cold
War. This book considers the effects of present-day trends in global
politics on the relative status of languages, and the directions in
which the linguistic hierarchy might develop in the future. What are
the prospects for the continuing spread of English? Will other
traditionally prominent languages such as French and German gain or
lose influence? Will languages such as Arabic and Japanese increase in
international status? Will minority languages continue to lose ground
and disappear? The book assesses these prospects, looking at the major
world regions, and with its interdisciplinary approach it will appeal
to researchers and students of sociolinguistics and language planning
as well as of international relations.

1. Introduction Jacques Maurais and Michael A. Morris
Part I. Global Communication Challenges:
2. Toward a new global linguistic order?
   Jacques Maurais
3. The geostrategies of interlingualism
   Mark Fettes
4. Language policy and linguistic theory
   Douglas A. Kibbee
5. Babel and the market: geostrategies for minority languages
   Jean Laponce
6. Forecasting the fate of languages
   William F. Mackey

Part II. Major Areas:
7. Language geostrategy in Eastern and Central Europe: assessment and
   perspectives
   Ferenc Fodor and Sandrine Peluau
8. Languages and supranationality in Europe: the linguistic influence
   of the European Union
   Claude Truchot
9. Regional blocs as a barrier against English hegemony? The language
   policy of Mercosur in South America
   Rainer Enrique Hamel

10. Effects of North American integration on linguistic diversity
    Michael Morris
11. Sociolinguistic changes in transformed Central Asian societies
    Birgit N. Schlyter
12. Language and script in Japan and other East Asian countries:
    between insularity and technology Stefan Kaiser
13. Sub-Saharan Africa Roland Breton
14. Australasia and the South Pacific
    Richard B. Baldauf Jr. and Paulin G. Djité

Part III. Languages of Wider Communication:
15. The international status of the German language
    Ulrich Ammon
16. Arabic and the new technologies
    Foued Laroussi
17. Russian in the modern world
    Vida Io. Mikhalchenko and Yulia Trushkova
18. Geolinguistics, geopolitics, geostrategy: the case of French
    Robert Chaudenson
19. Toward a scientific geostrategy for English
    Grant McConnell
20. On Brazilian Portuguese in Latin American Integration
    Maria da Graçi Krieger
21. Conclusion: the search for a global linguistic strategy
    Humphrey Tonkin.			

Lingfield(s):   Sociolinguistics 	

Written In: English (Language Code: English)