We are thrilled to be referenced in this short paper by Ben Rampton, Professor of Applied and Socio Linguistics at King’s College
London entitled Building on worlds that pupils and teachers recognise (below).
Prof. Rampton draws on our work to get Cockney officially recognised as a minority language in the London borough of Tower Hamlets in respect of the call by the Coalition for Language Education for the development of the communicative capacities of individuals, groups and institutions and the range of languages and linguistic styles that they can draw on.
The Coalition’s founding statement goes onto say that:
Shared language is vital to social life, and in the UK, English plays a key role. But language diversity is also central, and it needs to be seen as a source of enrichment, not as a deficiency or threat
It has much in common with social capital theory and the importance for cohesive communities to go beyond multiculturalism and invest in opportunities for interculturalism.
