Political Economy and Sociolinguistics

This represents an important project which could both fill a gap and chime with the growing interest in political economy in language disciplines. Given that the author is a leading writer in the field, the book will undoubtedly sell well and may possibly become something of a landmark piece in the 'political economy' turn in sociolinguistics.

Vorwort
David Block explores how political economy intersects with sociolinguistics, specifically how neoliberalism, inequality and social class mediate language in society issues.

Autorentext
David Block is ICREA Research Professor in Sociolinguistics at the University of Lleida, Spain. His main interests are the impact of political economic, sociological, anthropological and geographical phenomena on multimodal practices of all kinds, including social movements, multiculturalism, bi/multilingualism and the acquisition and use of languages.

Klappentext

Shortlisted for the BAAL Book Prize 2019 This book explores how political economy intersects with sociolinguistics, specifically how neoliberalism, inequality and social class mediate language in society issues. After the preface, in which the author sets the scene for the content of the book, Chapter 1 is an extensive, though selective, review of sociolinguistics research which has been framed as political economic in orientation. The chapter concludes that such research generally contains little in the way of thorough and in-depth coverage of the key ideas and conceptual frameworks said to undergird it. With this consideration in mind, Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are organised around in-depth discussions of, respectively, political economy as a general disciplinary frame; neoliberalism as the variegated variety of capitalism dominant in the world today; and stratification, inequality and social class, as phenomena intrinsic to capitalism, which in the neoliberal era have come to the fore as key issues. Drawing directly on the background provide in Chapters 2-4, Chapters 5 and 6 explore two distinct political economy-informed lines of research, on the one hand, the 'neoliberal citizen', and on the other hand, 'discursive class warfare'. The book ends with an epilogue addressing issues arising around political economy in sociolinguistics.

Inhalt
Preface 1. A short history of political economy in sociolinguistics 2. Political economy: Background and approach 3. Neoliberalism: Historical and conceptual considerations 4. Stratification, inequality and social class 5. The neoliberal citizen: conceptualisations and contexts 6. Inequality, class and class warfare: Discourse, ideology and 'truth' Epilogue References Index