Includes bibliographic references and index.

"Through an innovative and interdisciplinary approach that combines critical sociolinguistic ethnography, multimodality, reflexivity, and discourse analysis, this groundbreaking book reveals the multiple (and sometimes simultaneous) ways in which individuals engage and invest in representations of languages and identities.

This timely work is the first to consider the significance of multilingualism and its relationship to citizenship as well as the development of linguistic repertoires as an essential component of language education in a global world. While, examining the discourses and interconnections between multiculturalism, globalization, and identity, the author draws upon a unique case study of the experiences, voices, trajectories, and journeys of Canadian youth of Italian origins from diverse social, geographical, and linguistic backgrounds, participating in university French language courses as well as training to become teachers of French in the urban, multicultural and global landscape of Toronto, Canada. In doing so, Byrd Clark skilfully illustrated the multidimensional ways that youth invest in language learning and socially construe their multiple identities within diverse contexts, while weaving in and out of particularistic and universalistic identifications. This invaluable resource will not only shed light on how and why people engage in learning languages and for which languages they interrelationships between multilingualism, identity, and citizenship. It will appeal to researchers in a variety of fields, including applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, language acquisition and linguistic anthropology." (Book Cover)

CONTENTS:

Preface: Multiculturalism, Citizenship, and Identity

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER ONE: Overlapping Identities, Symbolic Investments, and New Discursive Spaces

CHAPTER TWO: Exploring Discourse and Interconnections between Globalization, Multilingualism, Multiculturalism, and Identity

CHAPTER THREE: An ethnographie à géométrie variable: Theoretical and Methodological Consideration

CHAPTER FOUR: Voices of Youth and Symbolic Investment: A Unique Case Study

CHAPTER FIVE: Appropriating and Negotiating Symbolic Investment: Strategies across, between, and within Multiples Spaces

CONCLUSION: Implications and Future Directions for Interdisciplinary Research

APPENDIX: Linguistic Participant Profiles

Notes

Bibliography

Index