Languaging Diversity: Identities, Genres, Discourses

Languaging Diversity: Identities, Genres, Discourses is a suggestive title for ‘another’ book in the field of linguistics, but what does it actually mean? By choosing to speak of Languaging Diversity and not just of difference, otherness, varieties, multiplicity, hybridity or alterity, the editors cover the whole range of meanings in the entire field of diversity. They do not wish to limit themselves by using such specific words with increasingly specialised connotations as Alterity or Other, but rather to allow an eclectic range of perspectives and issues to come to the fore. This volume brings together some of the manifold discourses emerging as bearers of the values of alterity, by exploring the thorny relationship between Language and Diversity. Drawing on the crucial assumption that speakers’ identities are dynamically negotiated as discourse unfolds, Languaging Diversity explores the wide theme of identity in discourse, an area of investigation which has become increasingly popular in recent years.

A key theme in assembling this volume was that the relationship between diversity and identity cannot be alienated from the factual distribution of material resources in society. All contributions in the volume – carefully selected and peer reviewed – at least partially react to such critical scenery in order to explore the topics surrounding the modes in which diversity is linguistically articulated by and in discourse. The various studies deal with how individuals draw on linguistic resources to achieve, maintain or challenge representations pertaining to their cultural, social, ethnic, sexual, gender, professional, or institutional identities.

The volume comprises six sections: In the News; In Politics; Constructing Identities; Across Generations and Genders; Ethnicities; and Popularising Ideas. Each section reflects the choice of the various topics through the employment of a variety of methodologies and a variety of theoretical frameworks. As such, this volume is an innovative attempt to challenge the present-day underpinnings of diversity studies.

Giuseppe Balirano has a PhD in English Linguistics, and is a tenured Senior Lecturer at the University of Naples L’Orientale. His current research and publications focus mainly on language, identity, and multimodality, varieties of English and humour. He is the founder of a research consortium, I-LanD, which investigates identity, language and diversity. His principal publications include Language, Theory and Society (co-edited with M. C. Nisco, 2015); Variation and Varieties in Contexts of English (co-edited with J. Bamford and J. Vincent, 2012); and Indian English on TV (2008).

Maria Cristina Nisco has a PhD in English Linguistics, and is a Research Fellow at the University of Naples L’Orientale. Her current research areas include the language of the press, media studies, and corpus-based discourse analysis, as reflected in her book Framing Agency in the 2011 UK Riots: A Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis of British Newspapers (2015). She has also researched and published on varieties of English, having authored The Routes of English: (Un)Mapping the Language (2010), and translation as intercultural communication.

"[This] is a very well-constructed and reasoned collection of essays dealing with the interesting and relatively new topic of languaging diversity, as the title clearly states from the very beginning. Its logical structure orders all the papers and their development in a consequential way so that every macro section tackles the key topic from an univocal point of view. [...] One of the most remarkable features of “Languaging Diversity: Identities, Genres, Discourses” is the interest for both synchronic and diachronic elements: in fact, the sociolinguistic studies collected in this volume present a good amount of diachronic corpora and examine contemporary contents (such as TV series, same-sex marriages, Boomer Women Speak forum discussions, multiethnicity, etc.) as well. [...] [M]any creditable and worthy features render “Languaging Diversity: Identities, Genres, Discourses” an essential reading for both researchers and students interested in language or languaging diversity."

Maria Assunta Ciardullo University of Calabria LINGUIST List 27.5048 (09.12.2016)

Paola Attolino

Giuseppe Balirano

Nailya Bashirova

Nicola Borrelli

Germana D'Acquisto

Luca D'Anna

Alison Duguid

Eleonora Esposito

Adriano Laudisio

Raluca Levonian

Silvia Masi