The Study of Language and the Politics of Community in Global Context, 1740-1940

by David L. Hoyt (Editor), Karen Oslund (Editor)

In an age of rising nationalism and expanding colonialism, the science of language has been intimately bound up with questions of immediate political concern. Taken together, the essays in this volume suggest that the emergence of language as an autonomous object of discourse was closely connected with the consolidation of new and sometimes competing forms of political community in the period following the French Revolution and the global spread of European power. This is the common thread running through the seven individual studies gathered here. By deliberately juxtaposing the European, academic configuration of modern linguistic research with the more practical, extra-European activities of missionaries, colonial officials, or East Asian literati, the authors explore the tensions between forms of linguistic knowledge generated in different geopolitical contexts, and suggest ways of thinking about the role of social science in the process of globalization.

266 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Since 2013 David L. Hoyt has been one of the people behind the "Jumble" that has appeared in newspapers since 1954.