Abstract
This document presents published abstracts and summaries of the bibliographic references
of the concept paper ‘Language and superdiversity’ authored by Jan Blommaert
and Ben Rampton. The concept paper functions as the charter of the Working Group
Sociolinguistic Diversity (WG-SLD) and is published both as an MPG Working Paper and
as the opening article in the special issue Language and Superdiversities of the UNESCO
journal Diversities (13/2, 2011). The main reason for elaborating the bibliographic side
of the concept paper is that the latter expresses well the overall background, the basic
concerns, and the emergent research options of the WG-SLD. As for background, the
concept paper gives an excellent overview of the main trends and achievements of
sociolinguistics over the past four decades. To be sure, it presents a ‘selective tradition’
of ethnography-driven and ideology/power-sensitive sociolinguists like John Gumperz,
Dell Hymes and Michael Silverstein. More broadly, the social and cultural theory within
which this selective sociolinguistic tradition is embedded is that of Bakhtin, Bourdieu,
Foucault, Goffman, Hall and Williams. Qua expressing the basic concerns of the WG-SLD,
the work and ideas of many of its members can be found in the concept paper. As the
authors fully acknowledge, the WG-SLD charter indeed voices ideas and research sensitivities
which have been emanating and circulating among WG-SLD members for some
time – indeed, far longer than the existence of the Working Group which was created
in 2011. Therefore, the latter may be granted the production role of ‘animator’ (in Goffman’s
inspired terminology), which of course does not in any way misrecognize Jan and
Ben’s formidable authoring achievement.
Putting together a bibliography, locating published abstracts and writing summaries
is not the most arousing of academic tasks. For that reason I was relieved to receive the
help of the student assistants at the MPG and of all the members of the WG-SLD. Among
them Cecile Vigouroux, Piia Varis, Lian Malai Madsen, and Martha Karrebæk deserve
special mention as well as ‘member-elect’ of the Working Group, Jef Van der Aa (Babylon,
Tilburg University).
This bibliography is an elementary research tool as much as it is a static one; in its present
form it does not allow for regular updates. For that reason the WG-SLD has opted
to also develop other more flexible bibliographic instruments in the form of Endnote
libraries. These can also be found in the Publication section of the WG-SLD website
and will be updated every three months. Together with this basic bibliographic tool, the
WG-SLD keeps its members, its many stakeholders and the public at large posted on
both its fundamental sources of inspiration and its many publications. The latter attest
to the confrontation of longstanding ideas with new challenges in the form of the superdiverse
world, which the WG-SLD seeks to scrutinise.
