This book questions assumptions about the nature of language and how language is conceptualized. Looking at diverse contexts from sign languages in Indonesia to literacy practices in Brazil, from hip-hop in the US to education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this book forcefully argues that a critique of common linguistic and metalinguistic suppositions is not only a conceptual but also a sociopolitical necessity. Just as many notions of language are highly suspect, so too are many related concepts premised on a notion of discrete languages, such as language rights, mother tongues, multilingualism, or code-switching. Definitions of language in language policies, education and assessment have material and often harmful consequences for people. Unless we actively engage with the history of invention of languages in order to radically change and reconstitute the ways in which languages are taught and conceptualized, language studies will not be able to improve the social welfare of language users.
Foreword by Ofelia Garcia Chapter 1 Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages - Sinfree Makoni and Alastair Pennycook Chapter 2 Then There were Languages: Bahasa Indonesia was One Among Many - Ariel Heryanto Chapter 3 Critical Historiography: Does Language Planning in Africa Need a Construct of Language as Part of its Theoretical Apparatus? - Sinfree Makoni & Pedzisai Mashiri Chapter 4 The Myth of English as an International Language - Alastair Pennycook Chapter 5 Beyond 'Language': Linguistic Imperialism, Sign Languages and Linguistic Anthropology - Jan Branson and Don Miller Chapter 6 Entering a Culture Quietly: Writing and Cultural Survival in Indigenous Education in Brazil - Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Souza Chapter 7 A Linguistics of Communicative Activity - Steven L. Thorne & James P. Lantolf Chapter 8 (Dis)inventing Discourse: Examples from Black Culture and Hiphop Rap/Discourse - Elaine Richardson Chapter 9 Educational Materials Reflecting Heteroglossia: Disinventing Ethnolinguistic Differences in Bosnia-Herzegovina - Brigitta Busch & Jurgen Schick Chapter 10 After Disinvention: Possibilities for Communication, Community, and Competence - A. Suresh Canagarajah
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