New: ‘Making English Official’ (book)

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Dear Colleagues,

I’m happy to share the publication of Making English Official: Writing and Resisting Local Language Policies, out today from Cambridge University Press. The book contributes to research on language policy, writing studies, rhetoric, sociocultural linguistics, applied linguistics, and the English language.

Description and Audience

Making English Official offers an inside look at the movement to make English the only official language in local communities around the US. Drawing on archives and interviews, this book tells the origin story of the English-only movement, as well as the stories of contemporary language policy campaigns in four Maryland county governments (including two that are connected by the bridge on the book cover), giving a rare glimpse into what motivates the people who most directly shape language policy in the US. It demonstrates that English-only policies grow from more local levels, rather than from nationalist ideologies, where they are downplayed as harmless community initiatives, but result in monolingual approaches to language remaining increasingly pervasive. With chapters on histories, policy writing processes and genre choices, language ideologies, and resistance strategies, I hope there will be something for everyone interested in language and literacy.

Accessing the Book

A few ways to read more:

  1. Use the 20% off coupon code MAENOF23 through Cambridge University Press

  2. Request that your library look into acquiring it (or, see if your library already has it as a Cambridge Core ebook)

  3. Order through Amazon, Blackwell’s, etc.

  4. See the front matter, the first ten pages of the Introduction, and the index for free

  5. Ask me if you’d like to see a particular chapter, or if you have issues accessing the book in general.

Long term, the book is part of the “Flip it Open” program, which means it is eligible to go Open Access after a certain point.

Direct any replies to me off list, please.

Thank you,

Katherine

Katherine S. Flowers

Assistant Professor of English

University of Massachusetts Lowell

katherine_flowers

https://www.uml.edu/fahss/english/faculty/flowers-katherine.aspx