Why cultural meanings matter in endangered language research

2013

1. OVERVIEW. This volume establishes a new perspective by bringing together scholars with a range of approaches to endangered languages, thus living up to its name: the very act of bringing these authors together provides a new perspective on the connections between documentation, sociolinguistics, and language revitalization. Specifically, it illustrates how language documentation can and should be informed by sociolinguistic considerations if it is to help promote language revitalization. The question, then, is what should documentation consist of? While the authors propose different answers to this question, there is a certain amount of consistency among them, and a picture emerges from this volume of the factors that are considered most relevant. summarizes the factors mentioned in each chapter. ('Mentioning' may consist of actual reporting on that factor for the community in question, or of recommendations that such factors should be considered.)

2000

Choice Reviews Online, 2012

Reviewed by Craig Soderberg Foundation for Endangered Languages This book will help the reader understand why languages die or become endangered and some possible ways of reviving dying languages or preventing their death. If you are interested in learning about language endangerment and/or language preservation, consider buying this book. This book is an edited volume of chapters contributed by multiple authors. There are three chapters devoted to studying the effects of educational policies (chapters 2-4). There are three chapters devoted to studying the effects of revitalization (chapters 5-7). Finally there are five chapters devoted to studying the effects of sociohistorical processes (chapters 8-12). Chapter One is an introduction and summary of the rest of the book.

A expressão de propriedades no Guató e no Wa'ikhana [Expression of properties in Guató and in Wa'ikhana]. Supervisor: Kristine Stenzel Funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Education's Program for Continuing Academic Development (CAPES/MEC).

Language endangerment, a global phenomenon, is accelerating and 90 percent of the world's languages are about to disappear in 21 st century, leading to the loss of human intellectual and cultural diversity. When Europe colonized the New World and the South, an enormous body of cultural and intellectual wealth of indigenous people was lost completely and it was appreciable only through the language that disappeared with it (Hale, 1998). This research deals with the problem of language loss in the world and seeks answer to critical questions: What does language extinction mean for humankind? What is to be done to save languages from loss? Some scholars suggest that linguists should find solutions whereas others disagree that it is linguists' responsibility to maintain and preserve the currently disappearing languages. Moreover, the research indicates that not only language specialists are participating in this process but also general public, particularly members of the communities whose languages are declining, are contributing their efforts in saving languages from loss.

The proposition 'When a language dies, a culture dies' gives a reason for preserving endangered languages, but raises valid questions in light of recent work on multilingual communities and on the conservatism of some aspects of language use in situations of language shift. It is claimed that these objections are met if the proposition is revised to say that interrupted transmission of an integrated lexical and grammatical heritage spells the direct end of some cultural traditions, and the unraveling, restructuring, and reevaluation of others. In support of this, it is argued that in situations of language shift, ancestral and replacing languages are not equivalent vehicles for cultural maintenance or expression. An extended empirical case is made on the basis of Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo demonstrative use.

Language & Communication, 2014

On the (re-)production and representation of endangered language communities: Social boundaries and temporal borders 1. Shifting concepts of language and community Conceptualizations of language and community have mirrored changes in anthropology and the social sciences more generally, shifting from notions of shared linguistic structures, norms, and values in specific regions to complex variation, diverse practices, and multifaceted ideologies across contexts. These evolving changes, of course, were not due solely to ongoing theoretical percolations but also to permutations and complications in the types of language communities that were receiving analytical attention. Once bounded and mostly homogeneous, language communities that began to be analyzed were increasingly in contact with the hybridizing forces of immigration, culture contact, national media penetration, and globalization. But the most recent challenge to the study of language communities comes from scholars attempting to understand the confluence of all these forces in processes of language endangerment. This special issue is dedicated to the exploration of the ways studying endangered language communities makes us rethink the notion of speech or language community both in terms of how those communities construct themselves and how they can be understood and represented by researchers. Since the 1930's, scholars in the language sciences have engaged in an increasingly sustained preoccupation with concepts that connect language and community. This began with Bloomfield's (1933) groundbreaking conceptualization of a "speechcommunity" as "a group of people who interact by means of speech" (p. 42), which he highlights as "the most important kind of social group" (p. 42). His description privileges speech over other forms of language-in-interaction, and does little to acknowledge the complexities of communities that have fragile connections to a common language. In his discussion, he emphasizes the varying sizes of speech-communities and the difficulty of making distinctions within and among these groups. One of his primary interests is in density of communication, recognizing that various members of these groups have more or less interaction with one another. He also discusses issues of standard language, native language, local dialects, immigration, and language attitudes. Bloomfield's important work laid the foundation for a variety of scholars' later instantiations of the concept. Building upon Bloomfield's work, Gumperz (1968, p. 43) defined speech community as "any human aggregate characterized by regular and frequent interaction by means of a shared body of verbal signs and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language usage". This more complex characterization also acknowledged the amount of interaction as a key component and the elements of what makes speech community members similar to each other and distinctive from others. However, Gumperz's focus on what is shared does not emphasize sufficiently the variation within speech communities, something that is especially relevant in communities around endangered languages. For example, later pioneering work by Dorian (1982) considered variability within speech communities, introducing terms such as low-proficiency "semispeaker" and "near passive bilinguals" in relation to Gaelic and English. This acknowledgment of complexity within a speech community, in particular one focused on an endangered language, is valuable. However, in many ways it still holds full fluency and native speakerness as implicit norms and goals. 1 In her editorial introduction to a Journal of Linguistic Anthropology special issue on language and community, Irvine (1996) notes, "the one language-one culture assumption persists in anthropology and elsewhere, both within and outside the academy, despite the long history of arguments against it" (p. 123). She highlights the "semiotic processes.linguistic phenomena and discursive practices" (p. 124) that are central to notions of community. In this way, she acknowledges previous moves toward a more complex understanding of language and community, and pushes the field forward in its conceptualizations. 1 For further discussion about how to represent "semi-speakers" and other types of intra-community linguistic variation, see such sources as Tsitsipis (1989) and Sallabank (2010).

Sociolinguistic Studies, 2008

2010

In this paper we show that much can be gained when speakers of an endangered language team up with linguistic anthropologists to comment on the documentary record of an endangered language. The Cherokee speakers in this study examined published linguistic data of a relatively understudied grammatical construction, Cherokee prepronominals.2 They commented freely on the form, usage, context, meaning, dialect, and other related aspects of the construction. As a result of this examination, we make the data of Cherokee prepronominals applicable to a wider audience, including other Cherokee speakers, teachers, language learners, and general community members, as well as linguists and anthropologists.