ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how poststructuralist approaches to the analysis of language, diaspora, and migration can critically reframe understandings of linguistic practices and social identities. It identifies some of the ways that poststructural approaches to the analysis of language and diaspora can contribute powerfully to broader efforts toward denaturalizing stereotypes that equate linguistic patterns, social categories, and geographical contexts. The chapter demonstrates that conceptualizations of language and diaspora have far-reaching implications within academic circles and wider publics. It examines conceptualizations of the dynamic semiotic processes through which diasporas coalesce, as well as various populations that have come to be viewed as diasporic. It focuses specifically on language as it pertains to political legitimation and recognition, and transnational practices of communication and consumption. The chapter analyzes the ways that language ideologies and linguistic practices shape and are shaped by ethnoracial, religious, and other such cultural diasporas, as well as the potential for the emergence of linguistic diasporas.
