Durkheim and the Internet : on sociolinguistics and the sociological imagination / Jan Blommaert.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blommaert, Jan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Durkheim, Émile, 1858-1917.

Durkheim, Émile.

Sociolinguistics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (137 pages) : color illustrations

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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 Émile 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.

Contents:

Sociolinguists as sociologists

Durkheim's social fact

Sociolinguistics and the social fact: avec Durkheim

What Durkheim could not have known: après Durkheim

The sociological re-imagination.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9781350055209

1350055204

9781350055223

1350055220

9781350055216

1350055212

OCLC:

1008768172