This revised second edition is a comprehensive overview of why we speak the languages that we do. It covers language learning imposed by political and economic agendas as well as language choices entered into willingly for reasons of social mobility, economic advantage and group identity.
1. Introduction
PART I: COMMUNITY AND THE ROLE OF NATIONAL LANGUAGE
2. From Language Continuum to Linguistic Mosaic: European Language Communities from the Feudal Period to the Age of Nationalism
3. Language Planning in State Nations and Nation States
4. Nation Building in the Wake of Colonialism: Old Concepts in New Settings
PART II: TRANSCENDENCE AND LANGUAGE LEARNING
5. Transcending the Group: Languages of Contact and Lingua Francas
6. French: The Rise and Fall of a Prestige Lingua Franca
7. English: From Language of Empire to Language of Globalisation
8. Lingua Francas for the New Millennium
9. Globalisation and Rethinking the Concept of Language
PART III: RENAISSANCE AND REVITALISATION IN SMALL LANGUAGE COMMUNITIES
10. New Discourse, New Legal Instruments and a New Political Context for Minorities and their Languages
11 . New Polities and New Nation Building
12 . Endangered Languages
13. Conclusion: Community and Transcendence
