Announcing the publication of Official Language Regimes: Transformation and Innovation by Colin H. Williams (Palgrave/ MacMillan, 2025)
This volume is derived from work undertaken during William’s Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship, which was awarded in 2022 to conduct a research project on the Transformation of Official Language Regimes in selected jurisdictions in Europe and Canada. The project builds on William’s extensive work in the field of official language policy.
About the book by Colin H. Williams
This volume has two aims: first, to interpret long-term structural/systemic transformations in the maturation of a specific type of language regime (those with a majoritarian state language and an officially designated minority language); and secondly, to identify and evaluate instances of good practice policy interventions which strengthen the promotion, protection and regulation of selected target languages in Western Europe and Canada. The interviews and documentary analysis within the book were carried out in eight jurisdictions ranging from Canada to Catalonia together with several international organisations and networks, and together they provide an authoritative set of insights into the process of constructing and managing such regimes. This book will be of interest to readers in a variety of fields, including Sociolinguistics, Language Policy, Human Geography, Multilingualism, Regional Development Planning, Celtic and European Studies.
Colin H. Williams is Emeritus Professor, School of Welsh, Cardiff University, where he was previously Research Professor of Sociolinguistics and he established the Centre for Language, Policy and Planning. Formerly a Senior Research Associate of the Von Hügel Institute and a Visiting Fellow of St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge, Williams contributed to research projects on post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation in war-torn societies. His main scholarly interests are Sociolinguistics and Language Policy, Bilingual Education, Ethnic and Minority Relations and Political Geography. He is a former Fulbright Scholar in Residence and Visiting Professor, The Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University, 1982–83, a SSRC/SHFR Exchange Scholar (1982) and Scholar (1988) at the Centre for the Study of International Conflicts, University of Lund, and Adjunct Professor of Geography, University of Western Ontario, 1994–2023. In 2002 he was a visiting fellow of Mansfield College and Jesus College, Oxford University and a visiting fellow of Mansfield College again in 2010. In 2009 he was a visiting professor at the Department of Political Science, the University of Ottawa in connection with the SSHRC sponsored ARUC project on language rights in Canada. He has advised government agencies in Europe and North America on minority issues and language policy and was a member of the former Welsh Language Board, School of Welsh, Cardiff University and St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, UK.
