More than 40 percent of the world’s estimated 7,100+ languages are in danger of disappearing by the end of this century. As with the decline of biodiversity, language loss has been attributed to environmental degradation, developmentalism, and the destruction of Indigenous communities. This book brings together leading experts and younger scholars across the humanities and social sciences to investigate what global language justice looks like in a time of climate crisis. Examining the worldwide loss of linguistic diversity, they develop a new conception of justice to safeguard marginalized languages.Global Language Justice explores the socioeconomic transformations that both accelerate the decline of minoritized languages and give rise to new possibilities through population movement, unexpected encounters, and technological change. It also critically examines the concepts that are typically deployed to defend linguistic diversity, including human rights, inclusiveness, and equality. Contributors take up topics such as mapping language communities in New York City or how Indigenous innovation challenges notions of linguistic purity. They demonstrate the need to reckon with linguistic diversity in order to achieve a sustainable global economic system and show how the concept of digital vitality can push language justice in new directions. Interspersed with their essays are multilingual works by world-renowned poets and artists that engage with and deepen the book’s themes. Integrating ambitious theoretical exploration with concrete solutions, Global Language Justice offers vital new perspectives on the place of linguistic diversity in ongoing ecological crises.
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This book brings together leading experts and younger scholars across the humanities and social sciences to investigate what global language justice looks like in a time of climate crisis.
Poems and ArtworksAcknowledgmentsIntroduction. The Lifeworld of Languages: Rethinking Logos, Oikos, and Techné, by Lydia H. Liu and Anupama Rao1. Equality or Diversity: Language, Rights, Justice, by L. Maria Bo2. Global Language Justice Inside the Doughnut: A Planetary Perspective, by Suzanne Romaine3. The Asylum Trial: Translating Justice at the Borders of Europe, by Tommaso Manfredini4. Challenging “Extinction” Through Modern Miami Language Practices, by Wesley Y. Leonard5. Indigenous Languages Between Erasure and Disinvention, by Daniel Kaufman and Ross Perlin6. Linguistic Democracy and the Algerian Hirak, by Madeleine Dobie7. Digital Vitality for Linguistic Diversity: The Script Encoding Initiative, by Deborah Anderson8. Language Justice in the Digital Sphere, by Isabelle a. Zaugg9. Exit: An Interview, by Laura Kurgan and Charlotte A. SilvermanContributorsIndex
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In a beautiful assemblage of theory and poetry, this volume addresses one of the most difficult problems of our planetary age, caught between the intensity of cultural wars and the uncertainties of the digital revolution: Which futures, rights, and institutions exist for the world’s many languages, inherited from history and recreated in everyday life? It clarifies the struggle for concrete universalism with striking vigor and originality.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780231210386
Publisert
2023-11-21
Utgiver
Vendor
Columbia University Press
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet

Biographical note

Lydia H. Liu is Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where she teaches in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.

Anupama Rao is professor of history at Barnard College and professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies and director of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University.

Charlotte A. Silverman is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University.