European Francophonie: The Social, Political and Cultural History of an International Prestige Language

by Vladislav Rjéoutski (Editor), Gesine Argent (Editor), Derek Offord (Editor)

This volume examines the use of French in European language communities outside France from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. The phenomenon of French language usage is explored in a wide variety of communities, namely Bohemian, Dutch, medieval English, German (Prussian), Italian, Piedmontese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. Each chapter offers unique insight into the existence of francophonie in a given language community by providing illustrations of language usage and detailed descriptions of various aspects of it. The volume as a whole explores such sociolinguistic matters as bilingualism and multilingualism, the use of French as a lingua franca and prestige language, language choice and code-switching, variations in language usage depending on class or gender, language attitudes and language education. The sociohistorical and sociocultural matters considered include the association of a variety of language with the court, nobility or some other social group; the function of French as a vehicle for the transmission of foreign cultures; and the role of language in the formation of identity of various kinds (national, social and personal).

498 pages, Paperback

First published July 24, 2014

Reviews

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book written by the lesser kind of academic bureaucrats: the ones incapable to write an entire volume all alone, and the ones who can only deal with long dead and over analyzed facts, more precise the ones with intellects of around 5th grade who can do a essay, but not much more.