Multilingualism and the periphery

de Sari Pietikäinen, Helen Kelly-Holmes

This volume examines the complex processes and practices of multilingualism in a wide range of economically, culturally, politically, and geographically peripheral sites and spaces in different locations. Using approaches that draw on sociolinguistics, ethnography, and discourse studies, leading scholars investigate different peripheral minority language sites, ranging from Arctic territories to a busy airport in Wales. The colume brings together these different contects and approaches in order to explore what possible commonalities and differences might arise from processes of peripheralizing and centralizing in multilingual minority language sites. The volume aims to open up new ways of thinking and theorizing about multilingualism, about centres and peripheries, and challenges existing notions of straightforward power relations (e.g. majority-minority; center-periphery etc.). All of the contributors question assumptions about peripheries as less fortunate counterparts to prosperous centres, and suggest instead that peripheries are diverse, multilingual spaces, constructed by but, crucially, constitutive to centres. -- Book Jacket.