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This article reviews Variation, versatility and change in sociolinguistics and creole studies Hardback £95/EUR 94.35/US $104.00

This chapter explores language ideologies in the colonial context of Arabic in Egypt. After achieving independence in the second half of the twentieth century, Egypt, like all Arab countries, followed a policy of Arabization. In order to understand the implications of such policies for colonial linguistics, it is essential to explore the ideology of Egypt as one community, an ideology that was propagated negatively first by the colonizers and then by Egyptians. The nation-state as an imagined community, built on ideologies and perceptions that are emergent in discourse and dependent on it, is in the focus of the chapter, which describes the role of Standard Arabic vis-à-vis Egyptian local varieties in constructing ideas about Egyptians as an imagined community.

International audience

International audience

International audience

International audience; Research employing early quantitative sociolinguistic methods was instrumental in shedding light on the makeup of linguistic varieties in creole communities and the linguistic aspects of variable patterns. However, it did not provide a comprehensive analysis of the micro-social aspects of variation because it focused on macro-level relationships and inferred social meanings from statistical correlations of linguistic and macro-social categories. It was the greater use of qualitative methods, including ethnographic investigation of the social context and attention to language ideologies through discourse-based analysis of monolingual and multilingual variable practices across different types of social domains and interactional contexts that opened up more detailed insights into the linkages between language and micro-social practices. As in non-creole contexts, language and social ideologies and changes in both play a crucial role in motivating language variation and change, both its occurrence and directionality, but changes are rarely uni-directional and linguistic practices are seldom associated to just one social or interactional meaning. Variable linguistic practices and contact patterns are important indices of ideological processes, but an understanding of their indexical work requires close attention to both people’s practices and discourses.The papers in this special issue explore variation in a range of Creoles and represent different approaches to researching variation. Two of the papers follow a typical quantitative sociolinguistic approach. They focus on one linguistic feature, or variable, and correlate its distribution with independent linguistic factors (Riccelli’s paper) and with linguistic and social factors (Cardoso and Costa’s paper) to uncover the constraints that govern the distribution of that variable. Evans’ paper differs from these studies in that it investigates variation in legal translations from English to Kwéyòl. It attempts to establish the degree of pragmatic and legal equivalence in the interpretations of on sight translations of an important English legal phrase, the pre-trial right to silence or police caution, and the social factors that condition this variation. The other two papers in the special issue follow a linguistic anthropological approach to variation in that they investigate types of variable linguistic practices, rather than single variables, and speaker’s discourses about them, in order to understand how speakers conceptualize these practices (Schneider) and how these conceptualisations feed into identity formation (Jourdan & Angeli).

This paper draws on my experiences with language in English and non-English-speaking universities, minority language education research (Migge et al. 2010) and on a survey-based research project on linguistic diversity at a major Irish university (Lucek & Migge ms). • Universities worldwide are under pressure to internationalise but there is a lack of clarity about what it means. • Internationalisation is interpreted to mean exposure to diversity.• Universities generally try to achieve internationalisation by encouraging students to spend one or more semesters at a foreign institution and by hiring foreign staff. • In terms of language, internationalisation is generally limited to discussions about access to English and the role of English. • Local academic staff and students are traditionally not seen as playing an integral role in internationalisation when at home. • Recommendation: a socially sustainable approach to internationalisation requires a bottom up approach: it must involve raising awareness about local and global diversity & its multifaceted origins through the core curriculum. • Recommendation: language is a central ‘tool’ for raising awareness about diversity and experiencing diversity.

International audience; A comprehensive survey of Ireland's place in Europe, providing a detailed narrative of a cultural relationship that began with Irish missionaries bringing Christianity and learning to the continent. How have Ireland and her people and culture been perceived and represented in Europe? Twenty-two internationally renowned experts address this question through contributions on film, music, art, architecture, media, literature and European Studies.With contributions from: David Clark, Fiorenzo Fantaccini, Anna Fattori, Joachim Fischer, Paul Gillespie, Anne Karhio, Linda King, Joanna Kosmalska, Marieke Krajenbrink, Brigid Laffan, Fergal Lenehan, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, Edward Moxon-Browne, Lynda Mulvin, Anna Ní Ghallachair, Éamon Ó Ciosáin, Thomas O’Connor, Mervyn O’Driscoll, Finola O’Kane, Harry White.

International audience

International audience

A comprehensive survey of Ireland's place in Europe, providing a detailed narrative of a cultural relationship that began with Irish missionaries bringing Christianity and learning to the continent. How have Ireland and her people and culture been perceived and represented in Europe? Twenty-two internationally renowned experts address this question through contributions on film, music, art, architecture, media, literature and European Studies.With contributions from: David Clark, Fiorenzo Fantaccini, Anna Fattori, Joachim Fischer, Paul Gillespie, Anne Karhio, Linda King, Joanna Kosmalska, Marieke Krajenbrink, Brigid Laffan, Fergal Lenehan, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, Edward Moxon-Browne, Lynda Mulvin, Anna Ní Ghallachair, Éamon Ó Ciosáin, Thomas O’Connor, Mervyn O’Driscoll, Finola O’Kane, Harry White.

International audience