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Language, water, power / Alastair Pennycook.

Cambridge eBooks: Frontlist 2026 Available online

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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Pennycook, Alastair, 1957- author.
Series:
Cambridge elements. Elements in language and power
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Creoles.
Sociolinguistics.
sociolinguistics.
Physical Description:
1 online resource.
Place of Publication:
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2026.
Summary:
"This Element is about language, water and power. It challenges the terracentric bias of much scholarship in language studies, suggesting instead that oceans and rivers should be central in investigations of language, history, culture, society and politics. Working through different engagements with water – swimming, surfing, sailing and diving – this Element explores how thinking in and with water can transform our understandings of justice, power and language. By taking water seriously as both a social and material category, hydrosocial perspectives draw attention to the ways modern water and language are controlled, restricted, standardized and contained. A hydrocolonial lens focuses on the centrality of water in colonial regimes, the oceanic origins of creoles and the need to decolonize control and conceptions of water. For critical hydrosocial language studies language is entangled in an inequitable watery world, and language study from below is a form of spiritual, material and embodied engagement."-- From Cambridge Core.
Contents:
From bottled water to water languaging
Swimming laps: modern water and filtered languages
Bodyboarding at Bronte: language and embodiment
Sailing through the heads: hydrocolonial relations
Watching weedies 20 meters down: other worlds
Critical hydrosocial language studies.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references.
Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed May 26, 2026).
Other Format:
Print version : Pennycook, Alastair, 1957- Language, water, power.
ISBN:
9781009736480
1009736485
9781009736510
1009736515
OCLC:
1585500033
Publisher Number:
CIPO000365870
CIPO000381814
Access Restriction:
Restricted for use by site license

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