Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents

by Ben Rampton

Overview

Focusing on urban youth culture and language crossing, this foundational volume by Ben Rampton has played a pivotal role in the shaping of language and ethnic identity as a domain of study. It focuses on language crossing - the use of Panjabi by adolescents of African-Caribbean and Anglo descent, the use of Creole by adolescents with Panjabi and Anglo backgrounds, and the use of stylized Indian English. Crossing’s central question is: how far and in what ways do these intricate processes of language sharing and exchange help to overcome race stratification and contribute to a new sense of mixed youth, class and neighbourhood community?

Ben Rampton produces detailed ethnographic and interactional analyses of spontaneous speech data, and integrates the discussion of particular incidents with theories of discourse, code-switching, social movements, resistance and ritual drawn from sociolinguistics, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies.

Now a Routledge Linguistics Classic with a new preface which sets the work in its current context, this book remains key reading for all those working in the areas of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781351795449
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Series:	Routledge Linguistics Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Ben Rampton is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics at King’s College London. He is author of Language and Late Modernity: Interaction in an Urban School (2006), co-author of Researching Language: Issues of Power and Method (Routledge, 1992), and co-editor of The Language, Ethnicity and Race Reader (Routledge, 2003) and Language and Superdiversity (Routledge, 2016).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Transcription Symbols and Conventions Preface to the Routledge Linguistics Classics Edition Part I: Introductory Introduction Local Reports of Language Crossing Part II: Interaction with Adults: Contesting Stratification Stylised Asian English (i) Panjabi (i) Creole (i) Part III: Interaction with Peers: Negotiating Solidarity Stylised Asian English (ii) Panjabi (ii) Creole (ii) Part IV: Crossing and Performance Art Creole and SAE (iii) Panjabi (iii) Part V: Conclusions Crossing and the Sociolinguistics of Language Contact Crossing, Discourse and Ideology Educational Discourses on Language Appendix I Appendix II Bibliography Index Figures Numbered extracts, settings and main participants

Editorial Reviews

"The importance of this book for sociolinguistics cannot be overestimated."

C. Kramsch, 1998, Review, Language and Education

"Rampton’s book Crossing put the sociolinguistic study of style, and of interethnic styling in particular, on a new footing. […] The distinctiveness of Rampton’s work lies in its ethnographic depth, theoretical openness and empirical specificity."

N. Coupland, 2007, Review, Style

"Ben Rampton has produced a very important study, not only on language and ethnicity among adolescents… but on a range of sociolinguistic topics."

J. Blommaert, 1998, Review, Journal of Sociolinguistics

"A research monograph which manages to be empirically thorough, methodologically rigorous, and of practical and theoretical interest."

M. Heller, 1997, Review, International Journal of Bilingualism

Praise for Crossing, First Edition

"Published in 1995, Ben Rampton’s book Crossing put the sociolinguistic study of style, and of interethnic styling in particular, on a new footing. His work shares many assumptions and priorities with the studies I have been reviewing in this chapte and it has been an important stimulus to many of them. [...] The distinctiveness of Rampton’s work lies in its ethnographic depth, theoretical openness and empirical specificity" (N. Coupland, 2007, Review, Style 136-7)

"Ben Rampton has produced a very important study, not only on language and ethnicity among adolescents… but on a range of sociolinguistic topics" (J. Blommaert, 1998, Review, Journal of Sociolinguistics 2/1: 119)

"This is another wonderful contribution from Longman’s Real Language series, a research monograph which manages to be empirically thorough, methodologically rigorous, and of practical and theoretical interest" (M. Heller, 1997, Review, International Journal of Bilingualism 1/1: 71)

"The importance of this book for sociolinguistics cannot be overestimated" (C. Kramsch, 1998, Review, Language and Education 12/1: 74)

From the Publisher