Skip to content
Home/ Politics of Language: Conflict, Identity, and Cultural Pluralism in Comparative Perspective
Politics of Language: Conflict, Identity, and Cultural Pluralism in Comparative Perspective

Politics of Language: Conflict, Identity, and Cultural Pluralism in Comparative Perspective

by Schmid, Carol L
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780195137767 Oxford University Press

Important aspects of the history of language in the United States remain shrouded in myth and legend. The notion of "one nation, one language" is part of the idealized history of the United States, although in its short history it has probably been host to more bilingual people than any other country in the world. Language is more than a means of communication. It brings into play an entire range of experiences and attitudes toward life. Furthermore, language is a potent symbolic issue because it links power and political claims of ownership with psychological demands for group worth. How people belonging to different language and cultural communities live together in the same political community and how political and structural tensions arise to divide them along language lines, are questions addressed in The Politics of Language. This book analyzes the historical background and recent controversy over language in the United States and compares it to two official multilingual societies: Canada and Switzerland. It's accessibility as a survey of this topic makes it ideal for courses in linguistics, political science, and sociology.

About the author

Product details

BrandOxford University Press
Pub dateMay 3, 2001
ISBN-100195137760
ISBN-139780195137767
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions8.9 × 0.7 × 5.9 in
Weight1 lb
Last updated 2026-04-06 02:31
$107.72
In stock — ships in 24 hours with free tracking
Delivery by Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Linguistics - Sociolinguistics
See all
Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language
Stavans, Ilan
$12.08
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
Montell, Amanda
$21.09
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
Montell, Amanda
$14.16
Like: A History of the World's Most Hated (and Misunderstood) Word
Reynolds, Megan C
$19.70
Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics (Revised)
<p><i>Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics, </i> <i>Second Edition </i>(COPE) is an authoritative single-volume reference resource comprehensively describing the discipline of pragmatics, an important branch of natural language study dealing with the study of language in it's entire user-related theoretical and practical complexity.</p> <p>As a derivative volume from <i>Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Second Edition</i>, it comprises contributions from the foremost scholars of semantics in their various specializations and draws on 20+ years of development in the parent work in a compact and affordable format. Principally intended for tertiary level inquiry and research, this will be invaluable as a reference work for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as academics inquiring into the study of meaning and meaning relations within languages. As pragmatics is a centrally important and inherently cross-cutting area within linguistics, it will therefore be relevant not just for meaning specialists, but for most linguistic audiences.</p>
$235.92
Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society
Trudgill, Peter
$11.39