The Belgian Election of December 1979: The Limits of Language-Community Politics?

This chapter explores the history of maternalist mobilization and women’s community politics in the United States. It argues that both “maternalism” and “community” have proved to be highly flexible mobilizing frames for women. Building on the insights of intersectionality theory, the authors suggest that women’s maternal and community politics is shaped by their social locations within multiple, intersecting relations of domination and subordination, as well as their political ideologies and historical context. The chapter begins by discussing the politically contradictory history of maternalist mobilization within the United States from the Progressive era to the present. It then explores other forms of women’s community politics, focusing on women’s community volunteerism, self-help groups, and community organizing. It discusses how these frames have been used both to build alliances among women and to divide or exclude women based on perceived differences and social inequalities based on race, nativity, class, or sexual orientation.

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Assamese vowels and vowel harmony

Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics ◽

10.1515/jsall-2019-2010 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 151-183

Author(s):

Diana B. Archangeli ◽

Jonathan Yip

Keyword(s):

Physical Properties ◽

Principal Components Analysis ◽

Principal Components ◽

Vowel Harmony ◽

Language Community ◽

Acoustic Data ◽

Apparent Loss ◽

Root Position ◽

Components Analysis ◽

Open Question

AbstractBased on impressionistic and acoustic data, Assamese is described as having a phonological tongue root harmony system, with blocking by certain phonological configurations and over-application in certain morphological contexts. This study explores physical properties of the patterns using ultrasonic imaging to determine whether the impressionistic descriptions match what speakers actually do. Principal components analysis (PCA) determines that most participants produce a contrast in tongue root position in the appropriate contexts, though there is less of an impact on tongue root with greater distance from the triggering vowel. Analysis uses the root mean squared distance (RMSD) calculation to determine whether both blocking and over-application take effect. The blocking results conform to the impressionistic descriptions. With over-application, [e] and [o] are expected; while some speakers clearly produce these vowels, others articulate a vowel that is indeterminant between the expected [e]/[o] and an unexpected [ɛ]/[ɔ]. No speaker consistently showed the expected tongue root position in all contexts, and some speakers appeared to have lost the contrast entirely, yet all are considered to be speakers of the same dialect of Assamese. Whether this (apparent) loss is a consequence of crude research methodologies or accurately reflects what is happening within the language community remains an open question.

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The speakers of minority languages are more multilingual

International Journal of Bilingualism ◽

10.1177/13670069211023150 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 136700692110231

Author(s):

Nina Dobrushina ◽

George Moroz

Keyword(s):

Empirical Data ◽

Design Methodology ◽

Language Evolution ◽

First Language ◽

Large Body ◽

Mixed Effects ◽

Minority Languages ◽

Language Community ◽

Second Languages ◽

Research Questions

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The paper tests the hypothesis that the larger the population of language speakers, the smaller the number of second languages mastered by these speakers. Design/methodology/approach: We match the size of the population of 29 Dagestanian languages and the number of second languages spoken by the speakers of these languages from 54 villages, and run a Poisson mixed effects regression model that predicts the average number of second languages spoken by speakers from first-language communities of different size. Data and analysis: Data for this study comes from two sources. The information on the population of Dagestanian languages is based on the digitalized census of 1926. The information on the number of second languages in which the residents of Dagestan are proficient is taken from the database on multilingualism in Dagestan (4032 people). Findings/conclusions: The study supports the hypothesis that the size of language population is negatively correlated with the multilingualism of the language community. Originality: The paper is the first to test the correlation between the size of language population and the level of multilingualism of its speakers using statistical methods and a large body of empirical data. Significance and implications: Population size is a factor that could have influenced patterns of language evolution. The population is interrelated with other factors, one of which is long-standing multilingualism. The methodological lesson of this research is that there is a difference in the level of multilingualism within a range of populations where the largest was about 120,000 people. Limitations: The data is limited to one multilingual region. The revealed correlation probably does not hold for areas where language communities do not interact with their neighbors and even speakers of minority languages can be monolingual, or for the territories where many people migrated and the area where a language is spoken was discontinuous.

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John Bohstedt. Riots and Community Politics in England and Wales, 1790–1810. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1983. Pp. viii, 310. $37.50

The American Historical Review ◽

10.1086/ahr/89.2.429 ◽

1984 ◽

Keyword(s):

Harvard University ◽

Community Politics ◽

England And Wales

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Afrikaans as universiteitstaal: Onlangse ontwikkelinge in historiese en internasionale perspektief

Literator ◽

10.4102/lit.v15i1.650 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 33-58 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

J. C. Steyn

Keyword(s):

South African ◽

Political Power ◽

Language Community ◽

Language And Culture ◽

The Past ◽

South African Universities ◽

History Of ◽

Official Status

A study of the history of South African universities from 1918 to 1948 showed that six factors influenced the use of a particular language as a language medium at a university, namely economic and political power, as well as the number of people in the language community (which determines matters such as the official status of the language and the availability of money for universities), lecturers' and students ’ knowledge of the language, its position as scholarly language, language loyalty and attitudes toward other languages and the support enjoyed by language and related ideologies. Whereas these factors were reasonably favourable for Afrikaans universities in the past, they currently pose a threat to the survival of Afrikaans-medium universities. The standpoint is defended that retaining Afrikaans as educational and scholarly language should be an important factor when making decisions on universities. The tension between internationalisation and retention of the own language and culture is also topical in Europe, and steps have been taken to try to protect the retention of Dutch as language medium at Dutch and Flemish universities.

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