Language Documentation in Diaspora Communities

2018 ◽  
pp. 398-418
Author(s):  
Daniel Kaufman ◽  
Ross Perlin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Ex Situ ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Endangered Language

Due to environmental, economic, and social factors, cities are increasingly absorbing speakers of endangered languages. In this chapter, the authors examine some of the ways that organizations can work with communities in an urban setting to further language documentation, conservation, and revitalization. They base their discussion on their experience at the Endangered Language Alliance, a non-profit organization based in New York City that facilitates collaboration between linguists, students, speakers of endangered languages, and other relevant parties. While ex-situ language documentation has not been given much attention in the literature, they argue that it has its own unique advantages and that diaspora communities need to be taken seriously, both to fully understand language endangerment and to better counteract it.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. xxviii-18
Author(s):  
Lyle Campbell ◽  
Kenneth L. Rehg
Keyword(s):  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Reference Volume ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Comprehensive Reference

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages’ purposes are (1) to provide a reasonably comprehensive reference volume for endangered languages, with the scope of the volume as a whole representing the breadth of the field; (2) to highlight both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it; and (3) to broaden understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, and, in so doing, to encourage and contribute to fresh thinking and new findings in support of endangered languages. This chapter introduces the thirty-nine chapters of this Handbook, which are addressed to the themes and approaches in scholarship on endangered language and to these objectives of the book. The authors introduce the criteria for determining whether a language is endangered and just how endangered it is, address the causes of language endangerment, review the reasons for why the language endangerment crisis matters, and discuss the variety of responses to it.

scholarly journals Review Article

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kruijt ◽  
Mark Turin
Keyword(s):  
Steady Increase ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Philanthropic Organizations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Seminal Article ◽  
Research Councils

In response to a crescendo of public and scholarly interest, over the last two decades there has been a noticeable and mostly welcome surge in publications that focus on language documentation, conservation, and revitalization. Early and high impact contributions in Hale et al. (1992) included a now seminal article by Michael Krauss which called for urgent action to prevent linguistics from going down in history as the ‘only science that presided obliviously over the disappearance of 90% of the very field to which it is dedicated’ (Krauss 1992:10). There then followed a discussion on the topic by Ladefoged (1992) and a prompt reply by Dorian (1993) that situated the issue of language endangerment as one deserving of sustained academic attention. Alongside swelling bookshelves that speak to the urgency of this work, major research programs funded by private philanthropic organizations and research councils were also being established at this time. The Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) was founded in 1995, followed a year later by the Endangered Language Fund (ELF). With the establishment of the Dokumentation Bedrohter Sprachen program (DoBeS) in 2000, the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project (HRELP) in 2002, and the Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) program funded by the US government in 2005, the last two decades bear witness to a steady increase in support, funding, and visibility for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages.

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Biocultural Diversity ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Reference Volume ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Comprehensive Reference

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in thirty-nine chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. Its purposes are (1) to provide a reasonably comprehensive reference volume, with the scope of the volume as a whole representing the breadth of the field; (2) to highlight both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it; and (3) to broaden understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, and, in so doing, to encourage and contribute to fresh thinking and new findings in support of endangered languages. The handbook is organized into five parts. Part I, Endangered Languages, addresses some of the fundamental issues that are essential to understanding the nature of the endangered languages crisis. Part II, Language Documentation provides an overview of the issues and activities of concern to linguists and others in their efforts to record and document endangered languages. Part III, Language Revitalization encompasses a diverse range of topics, including approaches, practices, and strategies for revitalizing endangered and sleeping (“dormant”) languages. Part IV, Endangered Languages and Biocultural Diversity, extends the discussion of language endangerment beyond its conventional boundaries to consider the interrelationship of language, culture, and environment. Part V, Looking to the Future, addresses a variety of topics that are certain to be of consequence in future efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages.

scholarly journals A long way from New York City: Socially stratified contact-induced phonological convergence in Ganluo Ersu (Sichuan, China)

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katia Chirkova ◽  
James N. Stanford ◽  
Dehe Wang
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
York City ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Field Recordings ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
World Languages ◽  
The Social ◽  
Phonological Change

AbstractLabov's classic study,The Social Stratification of English in New York City(1966), paved the way for generations of researchers to examine sociolinguistic patterns in many different communities (Bell, Sharma, & Britain, 2016). This research paradigm has traditionally tended to focus on Western industrialized communities and large world languages and dialects, leaving many unanswered questions about lesser-studied indigenous minority communities. In this study, we examine whether Labovian models for age, sex, and social stratification (Labov, 1966, 2001; Trudgill, 1972, 1974) may be effectively applied to a small, endangered Tibeto-Burman language in southwestern China: Ganluo Ersu. Using new field recordings with 97 speakers, we find evidence of phonological change in progress as Ganluo Ersu consonants are converging toward Chinese phonology. The results suggest that when an endangered language undergoes convergence toward a majority language due to intense contact, this convergence is manifested in a socially stratified way that is consistent with many of the predictions of the classic Labovian sociolinguistic principles.

The Rise of Managerialism in the US: Whither Worker Control?

2020 ◽  
pp. 193-216
Author(s):  
Mimi Abramovitz ◽  
Jennifer Zelnick
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Human Service ◽  
Service Workers ◽  
Human Service Workers ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
The Us ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
The Impact

This chapter investigates the impact of managerialism on the work of non-profit human-service workers in New York City, drawing on survey data to paint a portrait of a sector that has been deeply restructured to emulate private-market relations and processes. It uses the Social Structure of Accumulation (SSA) theory to explain the rise of neoliberal austerity and identify five neoliberal strategies designed to dismantle the US welfare state. The chapter also focuses on the impact of privatization, a key neoliberal strategy; shows how privatization has transformed the organization of work in public and non-profit human-service agencies; and details the experience of nearly 3,000 front-line, mostly female, human-service workers in New York City. It argues that austerity and managerialism generate the perfect storm in which austerity cuts resources and managerialism promotes 'doing more with less' through performance and outcome metrics and close management control of the labour-process. Closely analysing practices for resistance, the chapter concludes that in lower-managerial workplaces, workers had fewer problems with autonomy, a greater say in decision making, less work stress, and more sustainable employment, suggesting that democratic control of the workplace is an alternative route to quality, worker engagement, and successful outcomes.

Plant-Knowledge Adaptation in an Urban Setting: Candomblé Ethnobotany in New York City

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabiana N. Fonseca ◽  
Michael J. Balick
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Plant Knowledge

Measuring the Impact of Various Dispatching Procedures on Response Time, Backlog, Availability and Patient Care in an Urban Setting

1985 ◽  
Vol 1 (S1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
David DeLucia ◽  
Emil Pascarelli
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Response Time ◽  
Patient Care ◽  
Large City ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Massachusetts Institute ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
The Impact

A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that in a large city, a minimum of eight ambulances per 500,000 population was desirable to assure a reasonable response time.How does a large city with less than this suggested minimum make best use of its available ambulance units ?A three week study was conducted in New York City to examine the impact of various dispatching procedures on response time, “backlog”, availability of “back-up” units and patient care.

“Will the Real Semi-Speaker Please Stand Up?” Language Vitality, Semi-Speakers, and Problems of Enumeration in the Canadian North

1969 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daria Boltokova
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Standard Methods ◽  
The Real ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Canadian North ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Linguistic Practices ◽  
Language Revitalisation

This article reassesses categories used in language revitalisation efforts and critiques some enumeration practices that language activists use to measure language endangerment and vitality. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Dene Tha settlement of Chateh in northwestern Alberta, Canada, I argue that the practices of speaker enumeration are often premised on idealised notions of who counts as an endangered language speaker. Standard methods for counting endangered language speakers fail to capture the heterogeneous linguistic practices of partially fluent “semi-speakers,” who often constitute the majority of young speakers in endangered language communities. To correct this oversight, I propose shifting the discourse of language endangerment toward one of language vitality, enabling semi-speakers to be recognised and counted as rightful, valid speakers of endangered languages.

Culture, equity and social wellbeing in New York City

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J. Stern ◽  
Susan C. Seifert
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Social Wellbeing

This chapter examines how the capability approach has been applied to cultural policymaking in New York City using a multidimensional index of social wellbeing for the city's neighbourhoods. The project was conceived based on the belief that cultural engagement is a core capability in its own right and that it can facilitate the achievement of other capabilities, the so-called ‘fertile functionings’. The chapter first provides an overview of the political context within which the current research has taken place before outlining three conceptual contributions to the discussion of capability-promoting policies: culture as a capability, the importance of neighbourhood context, and the tension between social justice and democratic decision making. It then describes a measure of cultural engagement based on the presence of institutions (non-profit and for-profit cultural resources), artists and cultural participants in a neighbourhood. Finally, it explains how capability-promoting cultural policy can be used to address long-term social inequality.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document