Reproduction and Preservation of Linguistic Knowledge: Linguistics’ Response to Language Endangerment

Himmelmann, Nikolaus P.

doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.37.081407.085226

Cited by 51 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Forces of globalization, whether political economic or cultural, have the capacity to both promote language shift through the production and intensification of social inequality but they can also deliver discourses of language rights (Whiteley, 2003;Errington, 2003), models of language documentation (e.g. Himmelmann, 2008) and "best practices" of language revitalization (e.g. Hinton and Hale, 2001).…”

Section: Constructing Social Boundaries Crossing Temporal Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the (re-)production and representation of endangered language communities: Social boundaries and temporal borders

Avineri

Kroskrity

2014

Language & Communication

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EditorialOn the (re-)production and representation of endangered language communities: Social boundaries and temporal borders Shifting concepts of language and communityConceptualizations 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 wi...

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Section: Constructing Social Boundaries Crossing Temporal Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the (re-)production and representation of endangered language communities: Social boundaries and temporal borders

Avineri

Kroskrity

2014

Language & Communication

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“…Although some new works address the impending loss of many of the world's languages (Austin 2008; Harrison 2007), others focus on overturning past paradigms 7 . Nikolaus Himmelmann (2008) highlights the problems motivating the search for new models and methodologies, foregrounding ways that efforts to preserve linguistic knowledge reproduce structural limitations in how linguists conceptualize linguistic knowledge and understand (or ignore) the social realities of speakers of endangered languages. Shaylih Muehlmann offers an ethnographic case illustrating this broader trend: indigenous swear words, the author argues, form “a critique of the notion of language as a cultural repository popularized in recent linguistic anthropological literature on language endangerment” (2008:34).…”

Section: The Primaries: Evaluating the Conceptual “Candidates” For Rementioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic Anthropology in 2008: An Election‐Cycle Guide

Faudree

2009

American Anthropologist

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Loosely following the structure of the U.S. election cycle, I identify some of the more important institutions and events that have recently served as venues for field-building scholarly practices and processes in linguistic anthropology. I examine various trends and concerns animating recent publications on language and social life. I discuss the ongoing impact on the field of recent major works that attempt to codify methodological and theoretical approaches to the intersection of language and society. I also consider some of linguistic anthropology's emergent ventures, including new collaborative projects and new proposals for interdisciplinary work. Finally, I discuss some of the political implications of academic specialization, disciplinary boundaries, and impending "generational shift," both in the subdiscipline and the academy generally. I close by raising questions about future directions and possibilities for research in linguistic anthropology and other interdisciplinary enterprises. [Keywords: linguistic anthropology, interdisciplinarity, linguistic ideology, semiotic practices, linguistic variation]

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“…In a recent commentary on responses within linguistics to issues of language endangerment, Himmelmann (2008) remarks on the concentration of one such initiative, language documentation, upon the construction of reusable, permanent collections of primary linguistic data. Paralleling other definitional statements in the current literature on documentary linguistics (e.g., Himmelmann 1998, Woodbury 2003, Austin 2010, Himmelmann observes that…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corpus linguistics and language documentation: challenges for collaboration

Cox¹

2011

Corpus-Based Studies in Language Use, Language Learning, and Language Documentation

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Recent literature in corpus linguistics (e.g., McEnery & Ostler 2000) and language documentation (e.g., Johnson 2004) suggests both disciplines may share natural points of interaction, having in common an interest in the construction and use of permanent collections of diverse linguistic data. Although considerable benefit might be anticipated from close collaboration between these two areas, divergences in their respective purposes, practices, and products may render such an interaction more difficult to foster than might initially be expected. This paper considers points of commonality and difference between corpus linguistics and language documentation in four specific areas of practice, drawing upon examples from ongoing corpus construction and language documentation efforts centered on Mennonite Plautdietsch in Canada. Given the results of this comparison, this study proposes viewing corpora as descriptive applications of language documentation, to be built directly upon the permanent documentary record. By founding corpora upon documentary materials, such an approach opens language documentation more readily to the analytical and methodological contributions of corpus linguistics, while providing a solid empirical basis for future corpus construction.

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Reproduction and Preservation of Linguistic Knowledge: Linguistics’ Response to Language Endangerment

Cited by 51 publications

References 43 publications

On the (re-)production and representation of endangered language communities: Social boundaries and temporal borders

On the (re-)production and representation of endangered language communities: Social boundaries and temporal borders

Linguistic Anthropology in 2008: An Election‐Cycle Guide

Corpus linguistics and language documentation: challenges for collaboration

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