Language and Social Justice - (Contemporary Studies in Linguistics) by Kathleen C Riley & Bernard C Perley & Inmaculada M García-Sánchez (Paperback)

About the Book

Explores how language both facilitates and undermines social justice in complex ways around the globe, through a broad range of international case studies.

Book Synopsis

Language, whether spoken, written, or signed, is a powerful resource that is used to facilitate social justice or undermine it. The first reference resource to use an explicitly global lens to explore the interface between language and social justice, this volume expands our understanding of how language symbolizes, frames, and expresses political, economic, and psychic problems in society, thus contributing to visions for social justice.

Investigating specific case studies in which language is used to instantiate and/or challenge social injustices, each chapter provides a unique perspective on how language carries value and enacts power by presenting the historical contexts and ethnographic background for understanding how language engenders and/or negotiates specific social justice issues. Case studies are drawn from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America and the Pacific Islands, with leading experts tackling a broad range of themes, such as equality, sovereignty, communal well-being, and the recognition of complex intersectional identities and relationships within and beyond the human world.

Putting issues of language and social justice on a global stage and casting light on these processes in communities increasingly impacted by ongoing colonial, neoliberal, and neofascist forms of globalization, Language and Social Justice is an essential resource for anyone interested in this area of research.

Review Quotes

A landmark in the emerging field of language and social justice studies. Long understood as merely something we think with, language is here recognized as the sociopolitical accomplishment that it truly is. The authors show us that from this key understanding, we can advance social justice reforms.

An important and timely book which offers new and thought-provoking insights into a range of topical language and social justice issues around the world.

In this climate of injustice, the publication of Language and Social Justice is timely and welcome. It makes an important contribution to a growing effort to explore the intersections of language and social justice.
Language in Society

About the Author

Kathleen C. Riley is Assistant Teaching Professor of Linguistic Anthropology at Rutgers University, USA.

Bernard C. Perley is Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

Inmaculada M. García-Sánchez isProfessor of Social Research Methodology and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of International Migration at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA.