This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Sociolinguistic evidence is an undervalued resource for social theory. In this book, Jan Blommaert uses contemporary sociolinguistic insights to develop a new sociological imagination, exploring how we construct and operate in online spaces, and what the implications of this are for offline social practice. Taking Émile Durkheim’s concept of the ‘social fact’ (social behaviours that we all undertake under the influence of the society we live in) as the point of departure, he first demonstrates how the facts of language and social interaction can be used as conclusive refutations of individualistic theories of society such as 'Rational Choice'. Next, he engages with theorizing the post-Durkheimian social world in which we currently live. This new social world operates 'offline' as well as 'online' and is characterized by 'vernacular globalization', Arjun Appadurai’s term to summarise the ways that larger processes of modernity are locally performed through new electronic media. Blommaert extrapolates from this rich concept to consider how our communication practices might offer a template for thinking about how we operate socially. Above all, he explores the relationship between sociolinguistics and social practice In Durkheim and the Internet, Blommaert proposes new theories of social norms, social action, identity, social groups, integration, social structure and power, all of them animated by a deep understanding of language and social interaction. In drawing on Durkheim and other classical sociologists including Simmel and Goffman, this book is relevant to students and researchers working in sociolinguistics as well as offering a wealth of new insights to scholars in the fields of digital and online communications, social media, sociology, and digital anthropology.
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1. Sociolinguists as sociologists 2. Durkheim’s social fact 2.1 Norms and concepts 2.2 Integration and anomie 2.3 Durkheim’s impact and the challenge of 'Rational Choice' 3. Sociolinguistics and the social fact: Avec Durkheim 3.1 Language as a normative collective system: ordered indexicality 3.2 Language variation: dialects, accents & languaging 3.3 Inequality, voice, repertoire 3.4 Language, the social fact 4. What Durkheim could not have known: Après Durkheim 4.1 Preliminary: A theory of vernacular globalization 4.2 An indexical-polynomic theory of social norms 4.3 A genre theory of social action 4.4 A microhegemonic theory of identity 4.5 A theory of “light” social groups 4.6 A polycentric theory of social integration 4.7 Constructures 4.8 Anachronism as power 5. The sociological re-imagination References
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Blommaert's book is a theoretical tour-de-force, entertaining, challenging and immensely enlightening. It encompasses a wide swath of thinking about the relationship between language and society, both in history and now.
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Promotes a sociolinguistics for a new era, one that returns to its roots in sociology, acknowledges the changes in the nature of normativity and incorporates new forms of discourse.
Operates under the premise that sociolinguists are a specialized type of sociologist, observing society and social acts through the lens of language and interaction

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781350055186
Publisert
2018-07-12
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Vekt
141 gr
Høyde
198 mm
Bredde
129 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
136

Forfatter

Biographical note

Jan Blommaert is Professor of Language, Culture and Globalization and Director of Babylon, Center for the Study of Superdiversity at Tilburg University, the Netherlands.