Multilingualism and Wellbeing

Cover Photo Credits

Andreu van Hooft

The Multilingual Experience

Ansah, Anderson, Smakman 

The Multilingualism of Sociolinguists

Smakman, Anderson, Ansah

Part I. Speaking Multiple Languages and Feeling Good 

1. Wellbeing and Multilingualism

Ameka & Parafita Couto 

2. Multilingualism and Happiness

Coulmas     

3. The Wellbeing of Being Multilingual in Bulgaria

Mitsova, Padareva-Ilieva, Smakman

Part II. Multilingualism and Healthcare 

4. Multilingualism in Ghana’s Healthcare: A Neglected Barrier 

Dankyi & Ansah

5. Multilingualism: Happiness and Wellbeing in South-Western Nigeria and Greater Accra, Ghana

Akin Odebunmi, Anderson, Amfo

6. Multilingualism and  Wellbeing: Reflections from Ghana

Anderson, Agyemang, Parimah 

7. Multilingualism as a Tool for Destressing: Evidence from Northern Ghana

Anderson, Ayira, Ayaawan  

Part III. Multilingualism and Minority Languages   

8. The Impact of State Language Knowledge on Georgian Ethnic Minority Student’s Wellbeing

Shabashvili, Tsereteli  

9. Conceptualization of Wellbeing: Kuleana ‘Responsibility’, Revitalization, and Reclamation of the Hawaiian Language

Ohara  

10. Multilingualism and Social Wellbeing: The Sierra Leone ‘Wan pot’ – The Official, the Lingua Franca, and the Indigenous

Denison-George 

11. The Language Chameleon: Between Happiness and Worries about Being Bilingual in Catalonia

van Hooft 

Part IV. Multilingualism and Migration   

12. Linguistic Wellbeing in Multi-ethnic The Hague

Tieken-Boon van Ostade  

13. Rethinking Migrants’ Wellbeing in Germany through a Multilingual Lens

Wang  

14. Multilingualism and Economic Wellbeing of Female Migrants in Accra

Orfson-Offei, Ansah, Osei-Bonsu 

15. Verfremdung

Van Arnhem  

Part V. Multilingualism and Coexisting Autochthonous Languages 

16. Sweet Sounds of Melancholy: Brabantish as a Language of Culture

Swanenberg

17. Multilingualism and Wellbeing in Japan: The Case of Yomitan Village in Okinawa

Heinrich & Nespoli

18. The Relation between Degree of Multilingualism and Experiences of Wellbeing in Catalonia

Van Hooft, Lapresta-Rey, Van Meurs 

19. Multilingualism and Wellbeing in Timor-Leste

Van Engelenhoven

Biography

Dick Smakman works as a Sociolinguist for Leiden University, the Netherlands. This is his third co- edited volume, in which special attention is given to contributions on lesser- known sociolinguistic contexts, particularly those outside the Anglo- Western realm. The first two volumes in this series were Globalising Sociolinguistics: Challenging and Expanding Theory (Smakman & Heinrich, Routledge, 2015) and Urban Sociolinguistics: The City as a Linguistic Process and Experience (Smakman & Heinrich, Routledge, 2018).

Jemima Asabea Anderson is a Sociolinguist at the Department of English, University of Ghana, Legon.

Gladys Nyarko Ansah works as Associate Professor with the Department of English, University of Ghana. She is a cognitive/applied linguist with many research interests including the sociolinguistics of multilingualism. She co-authored a chapter on “A sociolinguistic mosaic of West Africa: challenges and prospects” in Smakman and Heinrich’s 2015 book Globalising Sociolinguistics: Challenges and Expanding Theory.

'The volume Multilingualism and Wellbeing, edited by Dick Smakman, Jemima Anderson, and Gladys Ansah, offers a refreshing new outlook on multilingualism by focusing on its psychological and emotional impact, and by positively associating it with the well-being of multilingual speakers. It provides a new perspective in the study of multilingualism, moving beyond the well-trodden paths of research into language choice, identity construction, power, and functionality. This is definitely a book I would like students in my Sociolinguistics class to read.'

Nadia Shalaby, Professor of Linguistics, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

 

'This book is a ground-breaking contribution to multilingualism research, moving beyond questions of social identity and towards the felt experience of language. Multilingualism, the authors argue, is essential for the well-being of speakers and is thus closely linked to affect. The message is as simple as it is important: multilingualism makes us happy and brings us pleasure.'

Ana Deumert, Professor of Linguistics, University of Cape Town, South Africa