Multilingualism: An insufficient answer to sociolinguistic inequalities

Abstract

Tracing the ways in which multilingualism has been understood and valued by scholars and beyond, Alexandre Duchêne shows how the work of sociolinguistics dramatically shifted the image of multilingual speakers and societies as a problem for nation-states to something to be celebrated, even as an indicator and contributor to social justice for minority language speakers. He then goes on to argue that this validation and recognition of multiple languages can divert attention away from broader inequalities, especially socioeconomic ones, that multilingualism is unable to address.