TheMultilingual Citizen

In this ground-breaking collection of essays, the authors develop a notion of Linguistic Citizenship, highlighting practices whereby vulnerable speakers themselves exercise control over language, and detailing ways in which alternative voices can be inserted into processes and structures that often alienate those they were designed to support.

Lisa Lim is Associate Professor and Head of the School of English, The University of Hong Kong.

Christopher Stroud is Director of the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research and Senior Professor of Linguistics, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, and Professor of Transnational Multilingualism, Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University, Sweden.

Lionel Wee is Provost Chair Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore.

Lisa Lim is Associate Professor and Head of the School of English, The University of Hong Kong.

Christopher Stroud is Director of the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research and Senior Professor of Linguistics, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, and Professor of Transnational Multilingualism, Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University, Sweden.

Lionel Wee is Provost Chair Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore.

This important book challenges received notions about language, agency, and multilingualism through the lens of 'linguistic citizenship', a process of engagement that opens doors for respectful and deconstructive negotiations around language forms and practices. This book is required reading for anyone interested in learning how the systematic creation of 'otherness' can be creatively engaged with – and hopefully overcome – through a better understanding of linguistic practices of resistance and hope 'on the ground' in diverse contexts, globally.

Here is a book that helps us think hard about language rights and linguistic citizenship for minoritized populations. Interweaving theoretical argumentation and commentary with empirical accounts primarily from Southeast Asia and Africa, this is a compellingly multi-voiced exploration of tensions, complementarities and affordances of rights and citizenship frameworks as engines for long-overdue educational and social change.