Epilogue: The traces and tracings of language ideologies

Abstract

This epilogue highlights and bundles some major points and perspectives that have been identified in the papers of this special issue and locates them in the wide field of language ideology research. By doing that, the epilogue sets out to sketch major trends in the past, present and (anticipated) future of the research field, thereby showing (sometimes hidden) traditions, achievements and challenges of language ideology research (and related fields). Particularly, the (re-)emerging interest in affectual dimensions, social positioning, institutional ideology brokerage, social inequality, and power, which are at the center of a number of papers each, are being highlighted and discussed. In a historical contextualization, the epilogue furthermore shows how these topics and interests can be traced back in the fields history and even further to long-standing engagements with language ideologies avant la lettre.