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Languages and Culture in History

About the Book Series

Co-founding editor: Willem Frijhoff, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands †

The series studies the role foreign languages have played in the creation of linguistic and cultural heritage, at the individual, communal, national and transnational level.

At the heart of this series is the historical evolution of linguistic and cultural policies, internal as well as external, and their relationship with linguistic and cultural identities.

The series takes an interdisciplinary approach to a variety of historical issues: the diffusion, the supply and the demand for foreign languages, the history of pedagogical practices, the historical relationship between languages in a given cultural context, the public and private use of foreign languages – in short, every way foreign languages intersect with local languages in the cultural realm.

Editorial Board: Alice Burrows, University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle, Federico Gobbo, University of Amsterdam, Gerda Hassler, University of Potsdam, Aurélie Joubert, University of Groningen, Douglas A. Kibbee, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, Utrecht University, Joep Leerssen, University of Amsterdam, Nicola McLelland, The University of Nottingham, Despina Provata, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Vladislav Rjéoutski, German Historical Institute, Paris, Valérie Spaëth, University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle, Javier Suso López, University of Granada, Pierre Swiggers, KU Leuven

To submit proposals, please contact the Editor at Routledge, Dorothea Schaefter ([email protected]).

19 Series Titles


Policies and Practice in Language Learning and Teaching 20th-century Historical Perspectives

Policies and Practice in Language Learning and Teaching: 20th-century Historical Perspectives

1st Edition

Edited By Sabine Doff, Richard Smith
December 01, 2025

This book brings together studies from Georgia, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, and the UK which explore links between policy and practice in language teaching in the twentieth century. The 14 contributions set out to expand the remit of ‘grounded history’ within the field ...

The French Language in Russia A Social, Political, Cultural, and Literary History

The French Language in Russia: A Social, Political, Cultural, and Literary History

1st Edition

By Derek Offord, Vladislav Rjéoutski, Gesine Argent
December 01, 2025

With support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK and the Deutsches Historisches Institut Moskau , The French Language in Russia provides the fullest examination and discussion to date of the adoption of the French language....

The History of Grammar in Foreign Language Teaching

The History of Grammar in Foreign Language Teaching

1st Edition

Edited By Simon Coffey
December 01, 2025

Taking a broadly chronological approach, this volume of original essays traces the origins of the concept of ‘grammar’. In doing so, it charts the social, moral and cultural factors that have shaped the development of grammar from Antiquity, via the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modern Europe, to ...

Two Centuries of English Language Teaching and Learning in Spain 1769-1970

Two Centuries of English Language Teaching and Learning in Spain: 1769-1970

1st Edition

By Alberto Lombardero Caparrós
December 01, 2025

This book provides an exhaustive historical account of how the English language was taught and learnt in Spain over two centuries. Since its origins back in 1769 with the publication of San Joaquín de Pedro's 'Gramática inglesa' until 1970, a key year in European and World affairs. A period of time...

Accented Speech in Literature, Art, and Theory Melodramas of the Foreign Tongue

Accented Speech in Literature, Art, and Theory: Melodramas of the Foreign Tongue

1st Edition

By Tingting Hui
July 16, 2025

In our globalized world, a unique type of intercultural encounter has emerged: that between the speaking body and the foreign language. From Vladimir Nabokov and Maxine Hong Kingston to Yoko Tawada, writers have vividly captured the tensions and possibilities of this encounter—where tongues are “...

Francophonie and the Orient French-Asian Transcultural Crossings (1840-1940)

Francophonie and the Orient: French-Asian Transcultural Crossings (1840-1940)

1st Edition

By Mathilde Kang
September 03, 2018

Based on transnational France-Asia approaches, this book studies Asian cultures once steeped in French civilisation but free of a colonial mode in order to highlight the transliterary examples of cultural transfer. This book is a pioneering study of the Francophone phenomenon within the context of ...

Francophonie en Orient Aux croisements France-Asie (1840-1940)

Francophonie en Orient: Aux croisements France-Asie (1840-1940)

1st Edition

By Mathilde Kang
October 27, 2017

This book offers a pioneering study of Asian cultures that officially escaped from French colonisation but nonetheless were steeped in French civilisation in the colonial era and had heavily French-influenced, largely francophone literatures. It raises a number of provocative questions, including ...

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