Article
Review: Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: a sociolinguistic ethnography by Monica Heller
Linguist List
(2008)
Abstract
This second edition of Heller's ethnography of L'École Champlain, a French-language school in Ontario, Canada, is an important contribution to a wide variety of discourses, is timely, and will be useful for scholars interested in the intersection between language use and power in a context which Heller, following Giddens (1990), refers to as hypermodernity. Based on fieldwork carried out from 1991-95, the volume is part of an important body of work based on participant-observation in and around the school (as exemplified in such classics as Eckert 1989; Heath 1983; Philips 1983; Willis 1977). As a sociolinguistic ethnography, the book is of interest to linguistic and cultural anthropologists more generally, and could easily be incorporated into upper division courses. It will be of interest, as well, to those concerned with the future of linguistic nationalism, the impact and process of bilingual education,linguistic capital and the value of language as commodity, and the use of language as a tool for constructing identity.
Keywords
- Socioloinguistics,
- Ethnography
Disciplines
Publication Date
June 18, 2008
Citation Information
Judith M.S. Pine. "Review: Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: a sociolinguistic ethnography by Monica Heller" Linguist List Iss. 19.1934 (2008) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/judith-pine/8/