What Are We Trying to Preserve? Diversity, Change, and Ideology at the Edge of the Cameroonian Grassfields

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Di Carlo ◽  
Jeff Good
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Key Aspects

Losses associated with language endangerment need not be restricted to individual language systems but can also involve the disappearance of distinctive language ecologies. This chapter explores the language dynamics of the Lower Fungom region of Northwest Cameroon, which offers an extreme case of linguistic diversity, from an areal and ethnographically informed perspective. Key aspects of local language ideologies are explored in detail, and it is argued that in this area languages symbolize relatively ephemeral political formations and, hence, should not be taken as reflections of deeply rooted historical identities. This conclusion has significance both regarding how research projects in the area should be structured as well as for what it might mean to ‘preserve’ the languages of a region that historically appears to have been characterized by frequent language loss and emergence, conditioned by changes in territorial and political configurations.

Linguistic diversity in the international workplace: Language ideologies and processes of exclusion

Multilingua ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorte Lønsmann
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Essential Connection ◽  
Modern Workplace

AbstractThis article draws on a study of language choice and language ideologies in an international company in Denmark. It focuses on the linguistic and social challenges that are related to the diversity of language competences among employees in the modern workplace. Research on multilingualism at work has shown that employees may be excluded from informal interactions and from access to power structures on the basis of language skills in the company’s language(s). The data discussed here show that in the modern workplace, employees’ linguistic competences are diverse; international employees often have competence in the company’s lingua franca but lack skills in the local language while some ‘local’ employees lack competence in the corporate language (typically English). This can lead to the sociolinguistic exclusion of either group. In conclusion, the article relates these processes of exclusion to two language ideologies: one about an essential connection between language and nation and one about a hierarchy of English users.

Endangered Languages

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
National Languages

Over the few past centuries, and the last 65 years in particular, there has been a remarkable reduction in global linguistic diversity, as people abandon minority language varieties and switch to larger, and what they perceive to be more economically, socially and politically powerful, regional or national languages. In addition, governments have been promoting standardised official languages for use in schooling, media, and bureaucracy, often under a rubric of linguistic unity supporting national unity. The last two decades have seen a significant increase in interest in minority languages and language shift, endangerment, and loss, in academia and among language speakers and the wider public. There has also been growing interest from anthropological linguists and sociolinguists in the study of language ideologies and beliefs about languages. This volume brings together chapters on theoretical and practical issues in these two areas, especially the views of linguists and communities about support for and revitalization of endangered languages. The chapters thus go straight to the heart of ideological bases of reactions to language endangerment among those most closely involved, drawing their discussions from case studies of how language ideologies and beliefs affect language practices (and vice versa). Most of the authors conduct collaborative community-based research and take a reflective engagement stance to investigate (potential) clashes in ideological perspectives. This is one of the key theoretical and practical issues in research on endangered languages, and so has important implications for language documentation, support and revitalization, as well as language policy at local, national and international levels.

scholarly journals Translating German philosophy into English: The case of Martin Heidegger

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Martin Arndt
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Library Research ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Inherent Problem ◽  
New Perspective

Language endangerment and language loss have become of focal interest for linguists and cultural anthropologists who bemoan the loss of linguistic diversity. The coinage of the term “linguicide” indicates the inherent problem that is related to mondialisation, universalization, and urbanization, which in itself is a highly controversial subject. The recent discoveries of Martin Heidegger’s black notebooks cast a new perspective on his work, revealing his revulsion at universalist ideologies and his antimodernism – and, most fatefully, his antisemitism: Jews who are to him the incarnation of rootlessness, distance from the soil, and thus subversion. Heidegger was born in a rural provincial German – and for many remained so, walking in the countryside, hating TV, airplanes, pop music, and processed food that all conspire to distract us from the basic wondrous nature of Being, overwhelming us with information, killing silence, and never leaving us alone, and thus keep us away from the confrontation with “das Nichts” (the Nothing), which lies on the other side of Being, that is, however, unknown to the chatter (das Gerede), which can be perceived in the newspapers, on TV and in the cities Heidegger hated to spend time in. Although he was a Nazi to the end, this does not mean that nothing can be learned from him or problems connected to his work. This library research deals with the complexity of translating this German philosopher into the English language. It draws not only on typical examples from Heidegger’s path-breaking philosophical work Sein und Zeit and presents attempts at translating it, but also points out their shortcomings and drawbacks. Additionally, it presents solutions to the problems that emerge from Heidegger’s idiosyncratic language. Generally speaking, it reveals the almost unbridgeable language barriers that can only be overcome at the expense of depth and authenticity. Homogenization can be seen as a way of leveling down ideas and concepts that end in language death.

Language Endangerment in Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tucker Childs
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Diversity ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
African Languages ◽  
World Languages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Concomitant Reduction

As elsewhere in the world, languages in Africa are endangered. The estimates for language loss on a world scale likely hold for Africa as well. Although the particular group of factors at work in Africa may be unique, they come from a well-established inventory familiar elsewhere. The forces reducing African language diversity come from the combination of a set of macro socioeconomic factors and historical events, such as colonization and globalization, coupled with local factors such as military conquest and misguided government policies. Simple demographic factors, such as number of speakers, are also important: the less widely spoken languages are more severely threatened than are those spoken more widely. The shift from African languages is to both European languages and the more widely spoken languages on the continent. Shifts also occur to localized or appropriated versions of the two. Climatic factors, most notably global warming, have played and will continue to play a role as well; the correlation between biological and linguistic diversity has often been remarked. For example, with the growth of plantation economies and the destruction of rain forests, there is a concomitant reduction in linguistic diversity.

scholarly journals Language Ideologies and Transnational Migration: A Study of Cape Verdeans in Galicia

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Nicola Bermingham
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Peripheral Region ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Cape Verdean ◽  
Language Identity ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Symbolic Resource

Changes to the global infrastructure have contributed to the growing (linguistic) diversity of large metropolises. However, there have been calls from scholars to explore “emerging superdiversity” (DePalma and Pérez-Caramés 2018) in peripheral regions in order to fully understand the complexities and nuances of the sociolinguistics of globalisation (Wang et al. 2014; Pietikäinen et al. 2016). This article, therefore, explores language ideologies among a purposive sample of five young adults of Cape Verdean origin living in the peripheral region of Galicia, Spain, and draws on interview data to examine the ways in which multilingual migrants engage with the language varieties in their linguistic repertoire. In studying immigration from a former African colony to a bilingual European context, we can see how language ideologies from the migrant community are reflected in local ones. The sociolinguistic dynamics of Cape Verde and Galicia share many similarities: both contexts are officially bilingual (Galician and Spanish in Galicia, Kriolu and Portuguese in Cape Verde), and questions regarding the hierarchisation of languages remain pertinent in both cases. The ideologies about the value and prestige of (minority) languages that Cape Verdean migrants arrive with are thus accommodated by local linguistic ideologies in Galicia, a region which has a history of linguistic minoritisation. This has important implications for the ways in which language, as a symbolic resource, is mobilised by migrants in contexts of transnational migration. The findings of this study show how migrants are key actors in (re)shaping the linguistic dynamics of their host society and how, through their practices and discourses, they challenge long-standing assumptions about language, identity and linguistic legitimacy, and call into question ethno-linguistic boundaries.

scholarly journals The tension of unity and conflict in multilingualism

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Ushuple Lucy Mishina
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Broad Definition

In our modern world, multilingualism is a common phenomenon. By broad definition, the term ‘multilingualism’ is the use of two or more languages, either by a person or by a group of speakers. Though there have appeared debates and countless studies along with the dominance of multilingualism in any given society. It is often agreed upon by many scholars that multilingualism can be both a problem and a resource. This research paper aims at illuminating the tension of unity and conflict in multilingualism and linguistic diversity. In doing so, this research focuses on multilingualism in Africa and possible implication for unity and conflict within the continent. This paper discovers that multilingualism can cause a crisis of identity, language loss, the death of a language. It can lead to violence and ethnic clashes. In some cases, it can help foster unity in a country.

scholarly journals A critical discussion of the use of film in participatory research projects with homeless young people: an analysis based on case examples from England and Canada

2020 ◽  
pp. 146879412096537
Author(s):  
Alastair Roy ◽  
Jacqueline Kennelly ◽  
Harriet Rowley ◽  
Cath Larkins
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Participatory Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Distinct Role

The focus of this paper is on the complex and sometimes contradictory effects of generating films with and about young people who have experienced homelessness, through participatory research. Drawing on two projects – one in Ottawa, Canada, and the other in Manchester, UK – we scrutinise two key aspects of participatory research projects that use film: first, how to appropriately communicate the complexity of already-stigmatised lives to different publics, and second, which publics we prioritise, and how this shapes the stories that are told. Through a theoretical framework that combines Pierre Bourdieu’s account of authorised language with Arthur Frank’s socio-narratology, we analyse the potential for generating justice versus reproducing symbolic violence through participatory research and film with homeless young people. In particular, we scrutinise the distinct role played by what we are calling first, second and third publics – each with their own level of distance and relationship to the participatory research process.

Language Ecologies: Ethics, Community, and Digital Affect

PMLA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hsy
Keyword(s):  
Language Loss ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Language Endangerment

The global linguasphere is in a state of ecological and humanitarian crisis. In a powerful meditation in pmla, simon gikandi notes that the loss of any language (and of a culture sustained by it) is worthy of mourning and that language death around the globe is a matter of urgent collective concern. Relating great emotion when the “UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger confronted me with the bleak reality of language endangerment measured in maps, graphs, and data sets,” he ponders the ethical and political stakes of widespread language loss (9). He ends by quoting (and translating) a poem by the anthropologist Miguel León-Portilla “captur[ing] what happens when a language dies” (13), and he builds to a stark closing dictum: “Letting a language die is an injustice, a denial of will to those who speak it” (14). In this forceful essay, metaphorical discourse of language death gives way to a poignant elegy that registers a strong affective and political investment in the sustainment of languages.

Multilingual speakers and language choice in the legal sphere

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Sebastian Angermeyer
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
The Common ◽  
Police Interrogations

AbstractThis paper explores the effects of linguistic diversity on equality before the law, by surveying sociolinguistic and applied research that investigates interaction between speakers of different languages in a variety of legal institutions, including genres such as courtroom talk, police interrogations, and asylum interviews. While the institutions have official languages that are used by agents working in them, many people who interact with them speak other languages and have limited or no proficiency in the official language. The paper examines how language choice is determined in such settings, considering factors such as legal statutes, language proficiency assessments, and language ideologies. It then investigates the indexical and pragmatic consequences of language choice for lay participants, whether they speak in the official language (their L2) or in another language (often their L1), but mediated by an interpreter. Demonstrating how interpreter-mediated interaction differs from interaction in the same language, the paper challenges the common assumption that competent interpreting can put a person in the same position as a speaker of the official language would be. Finally, alternative approaches to multilingualism in interaction and entextualization are explored, which address some of the disadvantages that speakers of non-official language face.

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