Language Geographies

Abstract

The term “language geographies” involves the study of the changing geographical distribution and social usage of language, or of its constituent parts and variant forms, and of the ways in which language embodies and enables power and authority. Three main and related themes connecting the study of geography and language may be identified. The first includes the proper words we use to describe the world, geography's terminology included, and is evident in the associations among toponomy, cartography, and identity. The second, embracing the connections between language and geographical area, is variously termed “language geography” (language's areal differentiation over time and space), “linguistic geography,” “geolinguistics,” or “dialect geography” (the geographical differentiation of language's internal structures and lexicon). The third incorporates the study of language within geography as an academic discourse, and of language as a means to intellectual authority and cultural and political power.