Autorentext

Dick Smakman is a Sociolinguist for Leiden University, the Netherlands.
Jemima Asabea Anderson is a Sociolinguist at the Department of English, University of Ghana, Legon.
Gladys Nyarko Ansah is an Applied/Cognitive Linguist for the University of Ghana, Legon.

Klappentext

Multilingualism and Wellbeing is an innovative text that combines sociolinguistic, psychological and philosophical approaches to explore multilingualism as a source of wellbeing. It challenges the "monolingual bias" and the common assumption that multilingualism is solely driven by utilitarian, formal, or identity-based motivations.

Across nineteen carefully edited chapters, contributors illustrate the enduring vitality of multilingualism across the globe through personal and empirical accounts, investigating diverse motivations behind its persistence. Authors present compelling evidence for multilingualism's positive impact on a person's sense of mental, social and cultural wellbeing. With a distinctive global reach, this volume showcases multilingual experiences from regions including West Africa, the Netherlands, Georgia, Japan, and Indonesia, while also examining governmental policies that promote multilingualism-despite the practical challenges involved-offering a nuanced and balanced perspective.

This groundbreaking work is essential reading for advanced students and researchers in multilingualism, language acquisition, language learning and applied linguistics, as well as for those in related fields of sociology, psychology and philosophy.

Inhalt

Part A: 1. Wellbeing and Multilingualism 2. Multilingualism and Happiness 3. The Wellbeing of Being Multilingual in Bulgaria Part B: 4. Multilingualism in Ghana's Healthcare. A Neglected Barrier 5. Multilingualism, Happiness and Wellbeing in South-Western Nigeria and Greater Accra, Ghana 6. Multilingualism and Wellbeing: Reflections from Ghana 7. Multilingualism as a Tool for Destressing-- Evidence from Northern Ghana Part C: 8. The Impact of State Language Knowledge on Georgian Ethnic Minority Student's Wellbeing 9. Conceptualization of wellbeing: kuleana 'responsibility', revitalization, and reclamation of Hawaiian language 10. Multilingualism and Social Wellbeing - The Sierra Leone 'wan pot'1: The official, the lingua franca and the indigenous 11. The language chameleon: Between happiness and worries about being bilingual in Catalonia Part D: 12. Linguistic wellbeing in multi-ethnic The Hague 13. Rethinking migrants' wellbeing in Germany through a multilingual lens 14. Multilingualism and Economic Wellbeing of Female Migrants in Accra 15. Verfremdung Part E: 16. Sweet sounds of melancholy. Brabantish as a language of culture 17. Multilingualism and Wellbeing in Japan. The Case of Yomitan Village in Okinawa 18. The Relation between Degree of Multilingualism and Experiences of Wellbeing in Catalonia 19. Multilingualism and Wellbeing in Timor-Leste