Omschrijving
"In this volume renowned sociolinguist Colin H. Williams offers a fascinating exploration of Official Language Regimes. Drawing on decades of comparative research across diverse contexts, he analyses their evolution, challenges, and opportunities in Canada and for minority languages like Irish, Welsh, Basque, and Catalan. He provides fundamental insights into managing language diversity, addressing power relations, and democracy, offering proposals for improvement of language equality among new challenges like migration, information technology, and artificial intelligence.."
—Prof. Durk Gorter, Professor Emeritus at University of the Basque Country
“This volume is another tour de force from Colin Williams who examines current developments in official bilingual language regimes with a detailed comparative analysis of the ideology, capacity and policy interventions of government agencies from Canada, Ireland and Wales to the Basque Autonomous Community and Catalonia. This excellent book will be essential reading for language policy makers, postgraduates, researchers and language planning practitioners.”
—Dr Katheryn Jones, Iaith: Center for Language Planning
This volume has two aims: first, to interpret long-term structural/systemic transformations in the maturation of a specific type of language regime (those with a majoritarian state language and an officially designated minority language); and secondly, to identify and evaluate instances of good practice policy interventions which strengthen the promotion, protection and regulation of selected target languages in Western Europe and Canada. The interviews and documentary analysis within the book were carried out in eight jurisdictions ranging from Canada to Catalonia together with several international organisations and networks, and together they provide an authoritative set of insights into the process of constructing and managing such regimes. This book will be of interest to readers in a variety of fields, including Sociolinguistics, Language Policy, Human Geography, Multilingualism, Regional Development Planning, Celtic and European Studies.
Colin H. Williams is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University and VHI Senior Research Associate at St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge, UK.