Susan Gal
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195327359
- eISBN:
- 9780199870639
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195327359.003.0019
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This chapter discusses how naming or labeling a speech style and linking it to a social group is itself a political act, a creation of indexicality. As such, it allows for second orders of ...
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This chapter discusses how naming or labeling a speech style and linking it to a social group is itself a political act, a creation of indexicality. As such, it allows for second orders of indexicality to emerge, that is, characterizations of the kind of people who recognize and name such speech styles. The writing of this book is itself therefore a multiply performative and socially creative act. The chapter also highlights the importance of perspective ‐‐ such as insider vs. outsider ‐‐ in analyzing stereotypes and humor in the mass mediated messages discussed in the book.Less
This chapter discusses how naming or labeling a speech style and linking it to a social group is itself a political act, a creation of indexicality. As such, it allows for second orders of indexicality to emerge, that is, characterizations of the kind of people who recognize and name such speech styles. The writing of this book is itself therefore a multiply performative and socially creative act. The chapter also highlights the importance of perspective ‐‐ such as insider vs. outsider ‐‐ in analyzing stereotypes and humor in the mass mediated messages discussed in the book.
Yasir Suleiman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748637409
- eISBN:
- 9780748693924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637409.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter continues the exploration of the notions of construction, language symbolism, language conflict and language as proxy through an examination of paratexts and poetic compositions. ...
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This chapter continues the exploration of the notions of construction, language symbolism, language conflict and language as proxy through an examination of paratexts and poetic compositions. Paratexts, such as titles, dedications, epigraphs and jacket copies have received little or no attention in relation to studying Arabic in the social world. This chapter argues that since most encounters with texts are mediated through these thresholds, scholars of language in the social world must pay attention to them for the information they yield on language ideology and the deployment of culture to do politics in society. The same is true of poetic compositions. This chapter further identifies the most productive tropes of language ideology in the modern world, together with their constitutive metaphors, in order to shed light on issues of language conflict and language anxiety. The tropes of crisis, fossilisation and war act as shorthand codes for the promulgation and recursive circulation of Arabic language ideology in society. As a given of this world, Arabic language ideology does its work without drawing attention to itself. Although the terrain dealt with in this chapter is historically and intellectually different from the one dealt with in Chapter Two, the conceptual unities underlying these two terrains reveal infra-structural continuities in the study of Arabic in the social world across time.Less
This chapter continues the exploration of the notions of construction, language symbolism, language conflict and language as proxy through an examination of paratexts and poetic compositions. Paratexts, such as titles, dedications, epigraphs and jacket copies have received little or no attention in relation to studying Arabic in the social world. This chapter argues that since most encounters with texts are mediated through these thresholds, scholars of language in the social world must pay attention to them for the information they yield on language ideology and the deployment of culture to do politics in society. The same is true of poetic compositions. This chapter further identifies the most productive tropes of language ideology in the modern world, together with their constitutive metaphors, in order to shed light on issues of language conflict and language anxiety. The tropes of crisis, fossilisation and war act as shorthand codes for the promulgation and recursive circulation of Arabic language ideology in society. As a given of this world, Arabic language ideology does its work without drawing attention to itself. Although the terrain dealt with in this chapter is historically and intellectually different from the one dealt with in Chapter Two, the conceptual unities underlying these two terrains reveal infra-structural continuities in the study of Arabic in the social world across time.
Peter Mackridge
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199214426
- eISBN:
- 9780191706721
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199214426.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This book provides a history of the great language controversy that has occupied and impassioned Greeks — sometimes with fatal results — for over two hundred years. It begins in the late 18th century ...
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This book provides a history of the great language controversy that has occupied and impassioned Greeks — sometimes with fatal results — for over two hundred years. It begins in the late 18th century when a group of Greek intellectuals sought to develop a new, Hellenic, national identity alongside the traditional identity supplied by Orthodox Christianity. The ensuing controversy focused on the language, fuelled by a desire to develop a form of Greek that expressed the Greeks' relationship to the ancients, and by the different groups'contrasting notions of what the national image so embodied should be. The purists wanted a written language close to the ancient. The vernacularists — later known as demoticists — sought to match written language to spoken, claiming the latter to be the product of the unbroken development of Greek since the time of Homer. The book explores the political, social, and linguistic causes and effects of the controversy in its many manifestations. Drawing on a wide range of evidence from literature, language, history, and anthropology, it traces its effects on spoken and written varieties of Greek and shows its impact on those in use today. The book describes the efforts of linguistic elites and the state to achieve language standardization and independence from languages such as Turkish, Albanian, Vlach, and Slavonic. The sense of national and linguistic identity that has been inculcated into generations of Greeks since the start of the War of Independence in 1821 has, in the last twenty-five years, received blows from which it may not recover. Immigration from Eastern Europe and elsewhere has introduced new populations whose religions, languages, and cultures are transforming Greece into a country quite different from what it has been and from what it once aspired to be.Less
This book provides a history of the great language controversy that has occupied and impassioned Greeks — sometimes with fatal results — for over two hundred years. It begins in the late 18th century when a group of Greek intellectuals sought to develop a new, Hellenic, national identity alongside the traditional identity supplied by Orthodox Christianity. The ensuing controversy focused on the language, fuelled by a desire to develop a form of Greek that expressed the Greeks' relationship to the ancients, and by the different groups'contrasting notions of what the national image so embodied should be. The purists wanted a written language close to the ancient. The vernacularists — later known as demoticists — sought to match written language to spoken, claiming the latter to be the product of the unbroken development of Greek since the time of Homer. The book explores the political, social, and linguistic causes and effects of the controversy in its many manifestations. Drawing on a wide range of evidence from literature, language, history, and anthropology, it traces its effects on spoken and written varieties of Greek and shows its impact on those in use today. The book describes the efforts of linguistic elites and the state to achieve language standardization and independence from languages such as Turkish, Albanian, Vlach, and Slavonic. The sense of national and linguistic identity that has been inculcated into generations of Greeks since the start of the War of Independence in 1821 has, in the last twenty-five years, received blows from which it may not recover. Immigration from Eastern Europe and elsewhere has introduced new populations whose religions, languages, and cultures are transforming Greece into a country quite different from what it has been and from what it once aspired to be.
Kathleen C. Riley
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195324983
- eISBN:
- 9780199869398
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195324983.003.0004
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
After a century and a half of French colonial rule, most adults in the Marquesan archipelago of French Polynesia now use both their Eastern Polynesian language 'Enana as well as a local variety of ...
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After a century and a half of French colonial rule, most adults in the Marquesan archipelago of French Polynesia now use both their Eastern Polynesian language 'Enana as well as a local variety of French, code-switching between them—sometimes intrasententially—across genres and contexts. This chapter explores the contradictions and effects of both official discourses and everyday socializing interactions in such a context of shifting languages. In particular, language socialization data from two families at two time periods a decade apart evidences the ways in which 'Enana are rejecting in practice the diglossic separation of their two codes, producing and reproducing instead the officially lamented but covertly prestigious charabia/sarapia to index their identities as both French and Polynesian.Less
After a century and a half of French colonial rule, most adults in the Marquesan archipelago of French Polynesia now use both their Eastern Polynesian language 'Enana as well as a local variety of French, code-switching between them—sometimes intrasententially—across genres and contexts. This chapter explores the contradictions and effects of both official discourses and everyday socializing interactions in such a context of shifting languages. In particular, language socialization data from two families at two time periods a decade apart evidences the ways in which 'Enana are rejecting in practice the diglossic separation of their two codes, producing and reproducing instead the officially lamented but covertly prestigious charabia/sarapia to index their identities as both French and Polynesian.
Yasir Suleiman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748637409
- eISBN:
- 9780748693924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637409.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter pursues the twin themes of language ideology and cultural politics by considering issues of textual identity and language choice in hybrid texts. As understood here, hybrid texts (prose ...
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This chapter pursues the twin themes of language ideology and cultural politics by considering issues of textual identity and language choice in hybrid texts. As understood here, hybrid texts (prose fiction) are texts written by authors of Arab origin – descent or heritage – not in Arabic, but in another language, such as French, English or Hebrew, among Palestinians in Israel. These texts are assigned to different cultural locations, which may be defined by the dominant language of the text, the background of the author or in a third space or twilight zone between these two worlds. One of the main arguments of this chapter revolves around the dialogic nature of these texts in the linguistic sphere, in the sense that the overt/present language of the text always recalls its covert/absent language. The interplay between languages, their ideologies and cultural politics is enacted through this dialogism. Language symbolism and language as proxy are used as the main tools for investigating the above issues. This chapter reveals that hybrid texts are another rich site for exploring language in the social world and never more so than when conflict, whether in reality or as memory, is simmering in the background.Less
This chapter pursues the twin themes of language ideology and cultural politics by considering issues of textual identity and language choice in hybrid texts. As understood here, hybrid texts (prose fiction) are texts written by authors of Arab origin – descent or heritage – not in Arabic, but in another language, such as French, English or Hebrew, among Palestinians in Israel. These texts are assigned to different cultural locations, which may be defined by the dominant language of the text, the background of the author or in a third space or twilight zone between these two worlds. One of the main arguments of this chapter revolves around the dialogic nature of these texts in the linguistic sphere, in the sense that the overt/present language of the text always recalls its covert/absent language. The interplay between languages, their ideologies and cultural politics is enacted through this dialogism. Language symbolism and language as proxy are used as the main tools for investigating the above issues. This chapter reveals that hybrid texts are another rich site for exploring language in the social world and never more so than when conflict, whether in reality or as memory, is simmering in the background.
Patrick Stevenson and Jenny Carl
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748635986
- eISBN:
- 9780748671472
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748635986.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This book explores the dynamics of language and social change in central Europe. One of the outcomes of the profound social transformations that this region has witnessed since the Second World War ...
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This book explores the dynamics of language and social change in central Europe. One of the outcomes of the profound social transformations that this region has witnessed since the Second World War has been the reshaping of the relationship between particular languages and linguistic varieties, especially between ‘national’ languages and regional or ethnic minority languages. Previous studies have investigated these changed relationships from the macro perspective of language policies, while others have taken an ethnographic approach to individual experiences with language. This book brings together these two perspectives for the first time, with a focus on the German language, which has a uniquely complex and problematic history in this region. By drawing on a range of theoretical, conceptual and analytical approaches – language ideologies, language policy, positioning theory, discourse analysis, narrative analysis and linguistic ethnography – and a wide range of data sources (from European and national language policies to individual language biographies) the authors show how the relationship between German and other languages has played a crucial role in the politics of language and processes of identity formation in the recent history of central Europe.Less
This book explores the dynamics of language and social change in central Europe. One of the outcomes of the profound social transformations that this region has witnessed since the Second World War has been the reshaping of the relationship between particular languages and linguistic varieties, especially between ‘national’ languages and regional or ethnic minority languages. Previous studies have investigated these changed relationships from the macro perspective of language policies, while others have taken an ethnographic approach to individual experiences with language. This book brings together these two perspectives for the first time, with a focus on the German language, which has a uniquely complex and problematic history in this region. By drawing on a range of theoretical, conceptual and analytical approaches – language ideologies, language policy, positioning theory, discourse analysis, narrative analysis and linguistic ethnography – and a wide range of data sources (from European and national language policies to individual language biographies) the authors show how the relationship between German and other languages has played a crucial role in the politics of language and processes of identity formation in the recent history of central Europe.
Miki Makihara
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195324983
- eISBN:
- 9780199869398
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195324983.003.0003
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This chapter examines language ideologies and political discourse of the bilingual, indigenous Polynesian community of Easter Island, Chile, where the local Rapa Nui language has in the past been ...
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This chapter examines language ideologies and political discourse of the bilingual, indigenous Polynesian community of Easter Island, Chile, where the local Rapa Nui language has in the past been considerably marginalized by Spanish. It details how Rapa Nui speakers came to challenge this situation, first by pushing syncretic Rapa Nui–Spanish speech styles into public and political domains, and more recently, by constructing purist Rapa Nui speech styles. The chapter argues that the Rapa Nui deploy syncretic and purist speech styles as linguistic registers in political discourse to perform stances, and are voicing different but complimentary sets of values—those of democratic participation, and those of primordialism and ethnic boundary construction. The case study illustrates the ways in which the users of an endangered ethnolinguistic minority language have contributed to revalorizing and maintaining their language by establishing new linguistic registers, increasing the linguistic heterogeneity of their language.Less
This chapter examines language ideologies and political discourse of the bilingual, indigenous Polynesian community of Easter Island, Chile, where the local Rapa Nui language has in the past been considerably marginalized by Spanish. It details how Rapa Nui speakers came to challenge this situation, first by pushing syncretic Rapa Nui–Spanish speech styles into public and political domains, and more recently, by constructing purist Rapa Nui speech styles. The chapter argues that the Rapa Nui deploy syncretic and purist speech styles as linguistic registers in political discourse to perform stances, and are voicing different but complimentary sets of values—those of democratic participation, and those of primordialism and ethnic boundary construction. The case study illustrates the ways in which the users of an endangered ethnolinguistic minority language have contributed to revalorizing and maintaining their language by establishing new linguistic registers, increasing the linguistic heterogeneity of their language.
Tadhg Ó hIfearnáin
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780197265765
- eISBN:
- 9780191771958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265765.003.0002
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Language Families
Since gaining independence in 1922, the Irish Government’s pro-Irish language policy has gone through several stages of development, moving from openly coercive maintenance strategies in designated ...
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Since gaining independence in 1922, the Irish Government’s pro-Irish language policy has gone through several stages of development, moving from openly coercive maintenance strategies in designated areas (Gaeltacht) and obligatory Irish-medium schooling throughout the country, to a contemporary stance where the state sees Irish speakers as customers who require services. Policy for the majority Anglophone population is now based on a heritage role for Irish. Despite the evolution of state and community policies, some early ideological stances have remained at the core of decision-making. In the first decade of the twenty-first century the state has further reassessed its positions. The power of ideologically driven state language policy has inevitably produced mismatches which may paradoxically have further endangered the future of Irish as a community language. This chapter focuses on the stance of the monolingual English-speaking minority and inactive Irish speakers in Gaeltacht regions.Less
Since gaining independence in 1922, the Irish Government’s pro-Irish language policy has gone through several stages of development, moving from openly coercive maintenance strategies in designated areas (Gaeltacht) and obligatory Irish-medium schooling throughout the country, to a contemporary stance where the state sees Irish speakers as customers who require services. Policy for the majority Anglophone population is now based on a heritage role for Irish. Despite the evolution of state and community policies, some early ideological stances have remained at the core of decision-making. In the first decade of the twenty-first century the state has further reassessed its positions. The power of ideologically driven state language policy has inevitably produced mismatches which may paradoxically have further endangered the future of Irish as a community language. This chapter focuses on the stance of the monolingual English-speaking minority and inactive Irish speakers in Gaeltacht regions.
Susan U. Philips
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195324983
- eISBN:
- 9780199869398
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195324983.003.0009
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
Language ideology about Tongan lexical honorifics, or lea faka 'eiki, “chiefly language”, has changed over the past 200 years. The number of levels of honorification described, and some of the ...
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Language ideology about Tongan lexical honorifics, or lea faka 'eiki, “chiefly language”, has changed over the past 200 years. The number of levels of honorification described, and some of the specific lexical items associated with each level, have remained stable. However, under the impact of British colonization through Methodist missionization, the conceptualization of who is indexed by the use of honorifics has changed significantly. Most notably, the Tui'i Tonga, who was both a sacred and a secular leader, has been replaced by the King as the target of the higher level of honorification. The honorific system was caught up ideologically in a shift from a Tongan traditional hierarchy to a Tongan secular modern nation state hierarchy. Ideologically, this shift was heavily influenced by the European Protestant concern, to create a separation of church and state, which happened elsewhere as well—e.g., Korea and Japan.Less
Language ideology about Tongan lexical honorifics, or lea faka 'eiki, “chiefly language”, has changed over the past 200 years. The number of levels of honorification described, and some of the specific lexical items associated with each level, have remained stable. However, under the impact of British colonization through Methodist missionization, the conceptualization of who is indexed by the use of honorifics has changed significantly. Most notably, the Tui'i Tonga, who was both a sacred and a secular leader, has been replaced by the King as the target of the higher level of honorification. The honorific system was caught up ideologically in a shift from a Tongan traditional hierarchy to a Tongan secular modern nation state hierarchy. Ideologically, this shift was heavily influenced by the European Protestant concern, to create a separation of church and state, which happened elsewhere as well—e.g., Korea and Japan.
Richard J. Watts
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195327601
- eISBN:
- 9780199893539
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195327601.003.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
The opening chapter sets the scene with respect to ways in which language ideologies evolve discursively. The argument is sociocognitive. At the bottom of all discursive activity lie conceptual ...
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The opening chapter sets the scene with respect to ways in which language ideologies evolve discursively. The argument is sociocognitive. At the bottom of all discursive activity lie conceptual metaphors of language and other related abstract concepts such as the “nation-state”. Possible statements derived from these conceptual metaphors form the stuff of which culturally valid myths are constructed, and these drive the construction of hegemonic discourses on language. As no discursive formations can be free of ideology (in the political and nonpolitical sense of the term), hegemonic discourses will eventually lead to the formation of discourse archives, in which certain things may be said (i.e., are “true”) and others not, and it is through the power of archives to shape our construction of the language worlds in which we live that canonical “histories” appear. A further argument here is that canons, linguistic or literary, must be challenged.Less
The opening chapter sets the scene with respect to ways in which language ideologies evolve discursively. The argument is sociocognitive. At the bottom of all discursive activity lie conceptual metaphors of language and other related abstract concepts such as the “nation-state”. Possible statements derived from these conceptual metaphors form the stuff of which culturally valid myths are constructed, and these drive the construction of hegemonic discourses on language. As no discursive formations can be free of ideology (in the political and nonpolitical sense of the term), hegemonic discourses will eventually lead to the formation of discourse archives, in which certain things may be said (i.e., are “true”) and others not, and it is through the power of archives to shape our construction of the language worlds in which we live that canonical “histories” appear. A further argument here is that canons, linguistic or literary, must be challenged.
