Global issues and local findings from Greek contexts

Any glo bally circulating piece of research that flags up a particular national-language context as its centre of attention is bound to raise a twofold expectation in this day and age: To discuss a specific state of affairs in a particular language/society, and to use this as a case in point to cast light on wider theoretical, methodological or empirical issues. The contributions to this issue take their cue from recent sociolinguistics and discourse studies to address aspects of Greek language and discourse, culture and identity in Greece, Cyprus, and the Greek diaspora. In reflecting on the preceding four papers, I shall be asking what they tell us as about Greek and Greekness, whether this Greekness is made relevant as discursive process or interpretive motif, and also how these Greek cases may contribute to our understanding of wider processes of language, society, identity and communication technologies.