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The introduction describes the field of material culture of multilingualism as a synthesis of two important provinces of human interest – "multilingualism" and "material culture". It starts with laying out some philosophical views on material culture from earlier times to the recent forays into the perception of materialities. The main thrust of the volume is the exposure of natural ties between language, cognition, identity and the material world. A special section of this chapter traces the gradual realization of applied linguists of the importance of "things' and "places' for the construction of meaning and communication. In putting forward the material culture of multilingualism as a distinct domain of scholarly interest, the author-editors call for encompassing the entire material culture realm, that is, the whole environment of multilinguals. They argue for going beyond geographical placement, to include private places and in-between spaces, in addition to public ones, traditionally considered with regard to language and for appreciating features of material culture as dynamic, changeable in time, space, form, and value thus linking languages with the physical environment where they are used. This introduction also contains a description of the rationale, scope and the objective of the volume, and gives a brief overview of the contributions in the volume.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-91104-5_1

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