Toward an Interdisciplinary Perspective on Language Movement and Change

Abstract

This chapter begins the multidisciplinary conversation that will continue through the volume, beginning with the perspectives of political science and history on language movement and change. Political scientists view language alternatively through the lens of policy, as a variable affecting other outcomes, as a product of history and individual choice, or as a normative right. Historians view language as an entity and an identity, as well as a repertoire of speech and belonging. These varying but intersecting approaches demonstrate that adopting an interdisciplinary perspective forces scholars to hold multiple views at the same time: language as an object and a subject for research, speakers as victims and agents, and language as fixed and fragmented. The volume is organized around this latter tension. Common themes that run through the volume are the counting of data, the construction of boundaries, the pace of change, and the impact of power.