Dr. Marie-Eve Bouchard, Assistant Professor of French at UBC, edited a special issue for the Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics that addresses how language ideologies and attitudes are constructed in multilingual and language contact settings, and how they create and maintain unequal relations of power between groups.
Through several empirical studies involving languages from Central America (Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize), the Caribbean (Bonaire, San Andrés, Providence), South America (Bolivia), Europe (Spain and France), and the United States, this issue aims to bring new ideas to address the possible outcomes of language ideologies and attitudes in multilingual and postcolonial settings, to explore how ideologies and attitudes are tied to power relations, and to rethink sociolinguistics in postcolonial and decolonial frameworks by decentering the groups in power. It aims to contribute to the body of scholarship that commits to social justice, the understanding of privileges and inequalities, and the deconstruction of the colonial legacies that are often taken for granted.
