Circum-Atlantic and global linguistic flows: Language through time and space

Abstract

The current volume explores the geopolitical dimensions of circum-Atlantic and global linguistic flows. This introduction establishes why it is important to understand language within its historical and geospatial contexts, pointing to the many ways in which human communication shapes, and is shaped by, the physical and symbolic movements of individuals and institutions. This volume aims to contribute to sustained interest in linguistic flows while also providing a space to explore various interdisciplinary approaches to human communication. While part of the purpose is to complement ongoing developments in the study of the language and culture of globalization with a focus on linguistic flows as a frame of reference, this volume simultaneously represents an attempt to foreground questions of human communication, particularly transnational, transcultural, and translingual issues of language, within and across diverse geopolitical contexts including, but not limited to, the circum-Atlantic world.