Constructed Languages and the Sociolinguistics of Language Making

Constructed Languages and the Sociolinguistics of Language Making examines so-called "constructed" languages from the French Revolution to the present, challenging the assumption that they are linguistic curiosities or exceptions. Instead, the contributors approach them as no more artificial, and no less natural, than any other language. Read in their social and political contexts, constructed languages emerge as revealing efforts to negotiate historical tensions through language itself: tensions surrounding revolutionary ideals, the limits and injustices of the nation-state, and industrial capitalism, debates over socialism and liberal democracy, and the legacies of colonialism. Usually tied to modernist assumptions about achieving progress through technology and rational thought, they allow for the expression of sociopolitical visions of alternative, possibly better, worlds.

David Karlander is Assistant Professor at Uppsala University and a Pro Futura Scientia Fellow in the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS). He has previously held positions at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Freiburg. His research focuses on the history and sociology of linguistic thought and the interfaces of linguistics and politics, appearing in journals such as Language & Communication, Journal of Sociolinguistics, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, and Social Semiotics.

Monica Heller is Professor Emerita at the University of Toronto (Canada). She is a former editor of the Journal of Sociolinguistics, a past president of the American Anthropological Association and the Canadian Anthropology Society/Société canadienne d'anthropologie and a member of the Royal Society of Canada. She holds honorary doctorates from the Universität Bern, l'Université de Bretagne Occidentale and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. She has published widely in both English and French, in such journals as Language in Society, Langage et Société, the Journal of Sociolinguistics, Anthropologie et sociétés, and the International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Her books include Éléments d'une sociolinguistique critique (2023, 2nd edition), Critical Sociolinguistic Research Methods and Language, Capitalism, Colonialism: Toward a Critical History.