Metrolingualism Language in the City [Hardcover]

This book is about language and the city. Pennycook and Otsuji introduce the notion of metrolingualism, showing how language and the city are deeply involved in a perpetual exchange between people, history, migration, architecture, urban landscapes and linguistic resources. Cities and languages are in constant change, as new speakers with new repertoires come into contact as a result of globalization and the increased mobility of people and languages.

Metrolingualismsheds light on the ordinariness of linguistic diversity as people go about their daily lives, getting things done, eating and drinking, buying and selling, talking and joking, drawing on whatever linguistic resources are available. Engaging with current debates about multilingualism, and developing a new way of thinking about language, the authors explore language within a number of contemporary urban situations, including caf?s, restaurants, shops, streets, construction sites and other places of work, in two diverse cities, Sydney and Tokyo. This is an invaluable look at how people of different backgrounds get by linguistically.

Metrolingualism: Language in the city will be of special interest to advanced undergraduate/postgraduate students and researchers of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics.

Chapter 1 Morning markets and metrolingual multitasking

The Produce Market:Salamu alaykum mate

Languages of the market: lingo-ing in their own language

Multilingualism from below

Metrolingual multitasking in a restaurant

Beyond monolingualism: Niemand ist Einsprachig

Research notes and emergent themes

Chapter 2: Constructing affiliations and growing foreign vegetables

Gwai Lou Coi: Growing foreign vegetables

Metrolingualism, the rural and the urban

People are basicalllcC