Multilingualism: a critical perspective,

摘要

This volume contributes a timely and thoughtful approach to a host of pressing issues around multilingualism in late modernity. It takes as its point of departure a critical stance on multilingualism that 'privileges language as social practice, speakers as social actors and [linguistic] boundaries as products of social action' (p. 56), rather than a more conventional preoccupation with language as system. The authors situate their exploration of late modern language use in the British complementary school system (specifically, Chinese, Gujarati, Bengali, Turkish and Bangladeshi classrooms), an institution that they characterise as 'a response to a historically monolingual ideology which ignores the complexity of multilingual England'. Complementary schools offer 'important multilingual environments in which to examine the interplay of linguistic practices, ideologies and identities in urban settings at the beginning of the twenty-first century' (p. 57).