Abstract
In this chapter, I will explore the idea of bilingualism as a social construct by arguing that shifting notions of bilingualism are at base the outcome of competition among institutions, groups and individuals around questions of citizenship, language and the state. I will suggest that this claim is best advanced by way of a historical illustration that shows how the transformation of societies from colonial to postcolonial states not only reconfigured the relationship of actors and agents to state, market and civil society, but was simultaneously regulated through practices and ideas about languages and their interrelationships, that is, bilingualism.
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Stroud, C. (2007). Bilingualism: Colonialism and Postcolonialism. In: Heller, M. (eds) Bilingualism: A Social Approach. Palgrave Advances in Linguistics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596047_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596047_2
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