BOOK REVIEW
Christopher Stroud and Mastin Prinsloo (Eds.). Language, literacy and diversity: Moving words. London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2015. Pp. vii - 224. ISBN 9781138062832
Reviewed by Diogo H. Jasmins, CEL-UÉ - University of Évora (PT)
Language, literacy and diversity: Moving words brings together scholars who believe that language and culture are not static, because speakers disseminate diverse languages across the globe while interacting in different contexts. This interest in languages and mobility has been tackled in the scope of several disciplines, in the authors’ stance, such as sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics, underpinning the notions of “native speaker, semilingualism and multilingualism” (p. x). This volume ponders whether mobility is indeed the natural state of language.
The first chapter, “Truly Moving Texts” (by Kroon, Jie and Blommaert), explores the sociolinguistics of globalization, focusing on features such as the flow of “people, goods, images and messages across nation-state boundaries" (p.1). In this section it is claimed that some change is at the core of the language system, one which is understood as a paradigmatic shift, emphasized as dynamic and unstable.
Collins and Slembrouck explore in their chapter, “Classifying Migrants in the Field of Health: Sociolinguistic Scale and Neoliberal Statecraft”, data drawn “from ethnographic studies of migrants and health care provision in Flanders / Belgium” (p.17). They focus, appropriately, on the spread of migration-affected multilingualism and on the related processes occurring under neoliberal forms of governance.
Chapter 3, “Negotiating Mobile Codes and Literacies at the Contact Zone: Another Perspective on South African Township Schools” (by Canagarajah) is said to adopt a “holistic orientation to classroom literacy” (p. 38) following Blommaert’s (2005) framework. The data for this study is provided by teachers and their class material, for example, observation notes and audiotapes. In the chapter the scholar argues that in a globalized world, all social spaces are contact zones which renegotiate the norms and that students can move in-between scale levels.
Park and Wee’s chapter, “English as a Lingua Franca: Lessons for Language and Mobility”, reconsiders our assumptions about language, heavily influenced by a globalized world and cunningly raised by the debate on English as a lingua franca (ELF). This chapter further ponders that the English language is used for a practical purpose and shaped by non-native speakers.
Chapter 5, “Ariadne’s Thread: Literacy, Scale and Meaning-Making across Space and time”, titled with a metaphor by Latour (1987), which relates to a “network of practices and instruments, of documents and translations” (p. 72), questions the role of scale in the movement between the global and the local. The chapter is developed within the theoretical fields of “New Literacy Studies (NLS), sociolinguistics and social geography” (p.73).
Vigouroux contests the way “One Reads Whom and Why: Ideological Filtering in Reading Vernacular Literacy in France” in that it is claimed that the way “we interpret and evaluate a text is influenced by whom we think we read” (p.92). Through the analysis of collections of marabouts’ (i.e., African clairvoyants) flyers, the author challenges the stereotype about Africans likely to be perceived as “poor speakers of French” (p.111) being often ridiculed.
Bhatt, in his chapter, “Script Choice, Language Loss and the Politics of Anamnesis: Kashmiri in Diaspora”, aims to show how Kashmiris respond to new shifts in “power and domination between languages in contact” (p. 114). The scholar also posits questions on identity in a dependent and unequal system.
Chapter 8, “Language Shift, Cultural Practices and Writing in South African Indian English”, scrutinizes, in the scope of sociolinguistics, the consequences of transnationalism and migration. Although the language spoken is not recognizable as Standard English, the author claims that “Indians in South Africa have had to make sociolinguistic compromises but have not given up on a rich cultural heritage” (p.147). The author further explores the hybridity found in speech, creative writing, flyers, and decorative cards.
In Chapter 9, “Superdiversity and Social Class: An interactional Perspective”, Rampton scrutinizes an interview of a businessman in West London to reach conclusions on social cohesion while considering migration and mobility issues. The author puts forward that traditional categorization such as host/migrant can “no longer account for the emerging splits and alignments” (p.149). Like chapter 7, this one illustrates challenges to identity and goes further, showing how traditional forms of sociology can also be challenged.
Ana Deumert discusses in “Mobile Literacies and Micro-Narratives: Conformity and Transgression on a South African Educational Site” a “multilingual, digital literacy initiative in South Africa” (p. 167) dubbed m4lit. The initiative enables the access to reading materials in both isiXhosa (an official South African language) and English, directly to mobile phones through a specially developed website. This chapter posits itself relevant for educators, who might want to explore the potential of digital media in education.
The last chapter of the book, “Early Literacies and Linguistic Mobilities”, advances that the increased migration moves of the last fifty years has had serious consequences upon “schooling, literacy and employment in increasing diverse (sometimes ‘superdiverse’) cities” (p. 187). Much in harmony with the theme of the volume, this chapter determines that mobility “is the norm” (p. 188) and further draws a conceptual distinction between “movement and mobility” (p. 188). This movement is held to be the norm for island communities, used to travelling between islands.
All issues considered; this book leads the reader to ponder on the concept of linguistic stability in independent communities who reject the outside influence (Labov 1972). Rather on the contrary, the scholars in this volume argue and illustrate that mobility should be considered the norm in a globalized world. Furthermore, this book should be useful for scholars who aspire to explain the impact of migration and new media on language variation or change, or all those whose interests lay on exploring the role and impact of languages like English spoken by non-native speakers.
References
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A critical introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
How to cite this article: Jasmins, D. H. (2022). Christopher Stroud and Mastin Prinsloo (Eds.), Language, literacy and diversity: Moving words. London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2015. Pp. vii - 224. ISBN 9781138062832. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 15(3), 245-248. doi: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2022.15.3.15
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