Fishman & Garcia's (2010) Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity: Disciplinary and Regional Perspectives

Fishman, J., & Garcia, O. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of language and ethnic identity: Disciplinary and regional perspectives (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The editors present an expansive introduction to the study of language and ethnic identity. Joshua Fishman starts by distinguishing language-and-ethnic-identity as a triad that he well acknowledges. Ethnicity, in Fishman’s introduction of the book, is referred to as something “attitudinal and attitudinally complex”. Nevertheless, these are discussed in studies of practices across cultures.

            Current trends on research methodologies cover the first part of the book, including topical approaches in the field. Several studies include the contributions of established arts and sciences to language policy from the areas of psychology, politics, economics, and education. François Grin, a contributor of the section in economics, posits that there will always remain a debatable aspect of any language policy that adapts the sciences and arts of economics (p. 86), among other fields aforementioned (pp. 45, 66). The second part covers studies from locations around the world. Language and ethnic distribution, fragmentation, vitality, and integrity are some key concepts herein (see pp. 286, 535, 470). Across the studies in this book, it shows that certain approaches to language and ethnic identity are challenged by ‘globalization’ and ‘transnationalism’; it can change. Research, therefore, becomes more complex, but still deemed methodologically possible (p. 520).

 Similar to other sources, there has been a stark description of attributing “ethnicity” as an assignment by the contextually dominant group to the gradients below it; i.e. separate “peopleness”. Overall, this book can be considered as a research manual in the field of language and ethnic identity. It discusses approaches to current research in the field where ethnolinguistics remains employable and a new demolinguistic perspective is introduced. Finally, local and global influences to ethnicity and education are widely considered as strong factors to ‘make’ or ‘break’ ethnicity.