Joan Pujolar, Gender, heteroglossia and power: A
sociolinguistic study of youth culture. Berlin & New
York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2001. Pp. xiv, 352. Pb $29.95.
Keyword(s):
New York
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This fourth volume in the series “Language, Power and Social Process” is an excellent ethnographic and sociolinguistic study of youth culture in Barcelona. Joan Pujolar brings research on Catalan-Spanish bilingualism into the post-structuralist era without pretense or puffery. The book is a systematic exploration of bilingual practices in relation to the variable construction and performance of gender and class as well as ethnic identities. Drawing inspiration from Bakhtin, Pujolar has an acute – and, as far as I know, unerring – sensitivity to the voices of the Catalan context.