Durkheim and the Internet: On Sociolinguistics and the Sociological Imagination

Description

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Sociolinguistic evidence is an undervalued resource for social theory. In this book, Jan Blommaert uses contemporary sociolinguistic insights to develop a new sociological imagination, exploring how we construct and operate in online spaces, and what the implications of this are for offline social practice. Taking Emile Durkheim's concept of the 'social fact' (social behaviours that we all undertake under the influence of the society we live in) as the point of departure, he first demonstrates how the facts of language and social interaction can be used as conclusive refutations of individualistic theories of society such as 'Rational Choice'. Next, he engages with theorizing the post-Durkheimian social world in which we currently live. This new social world operates 'offline' as well as 'online' and is characterized by 'vernacular globalization', Arjun Appadurai's term to summarise the ways that larger processes of modernity are locally performed through new electronic media. Blommaert extrapolates from this rich concept to consider how our communication practices might offer a template for thinking about how we operate socially. Above all, he explores the relationship between sociolinguistics and social practice In Durkheim and the Internet, Blommaert proposes new theories of social norms, social action, identity, social groups, integration, social structure and power, all of them animated by a deep understanding of language and social interaction. In drawing on Durkheim and other classical sociologists including Simmel and Goffman, this book is relevant to students and researchers working in sociolinguistics as well as offering a wealth of new insights to scholars in the fields of digital and online communications, social media, sociology, and digital anthropology.

Jan Blommaert is Professor of Language, Culture and Globalization and Director of Babylon, Center for the Study of Superdiversity at Tilburg University, the Netherlands.

Blommaert's book is a theoretical tour-de-force, entertaining, challenging and immensely enlightening. It encompasses a wide swath of thinking about the relationship between language and society, both in history and now. * Internet Pragmatics * Once again, Blommaert challenges sociolinguists to reflect on our discipline in new and exciting ways. While we have long devoted much energy to the linguistic half of the sociolinguistic equation, here Blommaert makes a compelling argument for engaging more fully with the social half, and for the relevance of classical sociology to understanding the new ways language is being used in the age of globalisation and digital communication. * Rodney H. Jones, Professor of Sociolinguistics, University of Reading, UK * In this concise but absorbing book, Blommaert provides a highly persuasive argument for why sociology should engage seriously with research into language. In doing so he details the profound and wide-ranging benefits that the study of communicative interaction can offer for a theorization of society in general. The book is likely to become essential reading for both sociolinguists, sociologists, and those interested in the ways that digital media are transforming the modern world. * Philip Seargeant, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, The Open University, UK *