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Journal Article 4.1 Kromidas, M. (2012). Affiliation or appropriation? Crossing and the politics of race among children in New York City. Childhood, 19(3), 317–331. DOI: 10.1177/0907568212441036
Abstract: Based on ethnographic research in a diverse New York City neighborhood, this article examines issues surrounding the practice of crossing from children’s perspectives. Crossing refers to the use of language varieties to which one does not have conventional access, practices that could be disparaging or affiliative. The author explores how children distinguished the two types through the principle of authenticity, itself derived by means that went beyond the usual determinants of blood, birth, and bodies. While playful, the author argues that crossings were one way for children to participate in the everyday politics of difference and critique the existing racial order.

Journal Article 4.2 Collin, R. O. (2013). Moving political meaning across linguistic frontiers. Political Studies, 61, 282–300. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00965.x
Abstract: Diplomacy, international commerce and the academic study of international relations are all based on the assumption that we can cross linguistic borders with very complicated words and concepts in our cognitive luggage. This article studies the complexities of communicating political words and concepts from one language/culture to another, noting that traditional political science has shown little interest in this process or its dangers. From linguistics, however, come two opposing theories: the effability principle defends universal translatability, while the linguistic relativity/Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that meaning (particularly abstract conceptual thinking) is locked within the grammatical and semantic structure of individual languages and can be transmitted with difficulty or not at all. After considering these rival positions, we conclude that the translation of political ideas from culture to culture can be more problematic than we have commonly believed.

Journal Article 4.3 Demont-Heinrich, C. (2005). Language and national identity in the era of globalization: The case of English in Switzerland. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 29(1), 66–84. DOI: 10.1177/0196859904270001
Abstract: This article engages the intersection of language, national identity, nation state, English and discourses of (global) modernization, progress, and the transcendence of the national vis-à-vis an instructive case: Switzerland. It examines the rise of English in multilingual Switzerland and its potential impact on Swiss collective (national) identity. It reflects, as well, on the ways in which English’s spread might influence the ethic of multilingual reciprocity in the Swiss and global contexts. It is contended that despite significant shortcomings, multilingualism has survived and, to a large extent, even thrived in Switzerland precisely because that nation state has legally and normatively codified the protection of linguistic particularism and established multilingualism as a basic component of its national identity. Yet even state-sanctioned and officially codified multilingualisms deeply embedded in national mythology, such as in Switzerland, are potentially threatened by an incessant drive to modernize, globalize, and “Englishize.”