Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:19:21.170Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language and culture in Transnational society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

Abram De Swaan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The modern world system also comprises a global constellation of languages, arranged in hierarchies and linked by multilingual individuals. The communication value of a language depends on the proportion of the people who speak it, multiplied by the proportion of multilingual speakers. The special characteristics of languages make them into hypercollective goods. In the West language is identified with state. A language of supercentral communication will permit the nations of the European Union to communicate and will exist in a dynamic, precarious balance with the indigenous languages.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Review , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1999 , pp. 507 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Wallerstein, Immanuel (1974) The modern world system (New York: Academic Press).Google Scholar
2.Casanova, Pascale (1999) La République mondiale des lettres (Paris: Éditions Du Seuil).Google Scholar
3.Goudsblom, Johan (1988) Vanachter de doorkijkspiegel. In Taal en sociale werkelijkheid (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff).Google Scholar
4.Parker, Ian (1983) The rise of the vernaculars in early modern Europe: An essay in the political economy of language. In Bain, Bruce (ed) The sociogenesis of language and human conduct (New York and London: Plenum); Sheldon Pollock (1998) India in the vernacular millennium: literary culture and polity, 1000–1500. Daedalus.Google Scholar
5.Parker, IanOgburn, (1922) Social change with respect to culture and original nature. New York: Viking,Google Scholar
6.Dorian, Nancy, ed. (1989), Investigating obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. MA Thesis AmsterdamGoogle Scholar
8. Abram de Swaan (1993) The evolving European language system: A theory of communication potential and language competition. International Political Science Review 14, 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9.de Swaan, Abram (1996) La Francophonie en Afrique; Une vision de la sociologie et de l'économie politique de la langue. In: Juillard, Caroline and Calvet, Louis-Jean (eds), Les Politiques Linguistiques, Mythes et Réalités (Montréal: AUPELF-UREF).Google Scholar
10.de Swaan, Abram (1999) Keynote address, Conference on Institutional status and use of national languages in Europe: Contributions to a European language policy(Brussels,24 March).Google Scholar