27.1824, Review: Socioling: Heinrich, Smakman (2015)
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Subject: 27.1824, Review: Socioling: Heinrich, Smakman (2015)
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Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 16:07:15
From: Maria Assunta Ciardullo [ciardullomarie at gmail.com]
Subject: Globalising Sociolinguistics
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-2989.html
EDITOR: Dick Smakman
EDITOR: Patrick Heinrich
TITLE: Globalising Sociolinguistics
SUBTITLE: Challenging and Expanding Theory
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2015
REVIEWER: Maria Assunta Ciardullo, University of Calabria
Reviews Editor: Robert Arthur Cote
SUMMARY
“Globalising Sociolinguistics: Challenging and Expanding Theory” is a volume
edited by Dick Smakman and Patrick Heinrich containing essays that deal with
the sociolinguistic issues of less developed, developing, and developed
countries. The volume begins with a simple introduction, and continues with a
well-structured list of contents, a list of figures, a list of tables, some
notes on contributors, the preface, acknowledgements, a very useful map
concerning the places discussed, some conclusive remarks, and a final index.
The first section, ““Tings change, all tings change: The changing face of
sociolinguistics with a global perspective”, written by Miriam Meyerhoff and
James N. Stanford, is a highly theoretical paper that works as an introduction
to the field of sociolinguistics, making it very useful for readers new to the
field. It starts by mentioning seminal works (Weinrich et al. 1968, Gumperz,
1962, 1964, Labov 1969) and stresses the fact that sociolinguistics has
changed its epistemological principles due to social (demographic, urbanistic,
etc.) changes. Due to its kaleidoscopic nature, the aim and the macro-areas of
the volume are well-explained in this introductory paper. They are the
multilingual reality of people’s experience, the relationship between standard
languages, the concept of standard language itself and vernaculars, the
(socio-)linguistic role of native speakers, the theoretical explication of
what the third sociolinguistic wave truly is and, lastly, the importance of
cross-cultural collaboration as a tool for globalizing sociolinguistics. These
elements are at the core of the essays contained in this volume.
The second section in the introduction entitled “The westernising mechanisms
in sociolinguistics” and written by Dick Smakman describes the lack of
theoretical laziness in respects of non-Western models upon which more recent
sociolinguistic studies could be modeled. The discipline, whose golden age
started in the 1960s, has offered only Western perspectives most of the time.
Coulmas (2005, pp. 19-20) showed how Western sociolinguistic methodologies are
and how dangerous applying them to other realities is. The fact that many
researchers are not from the places they describe in their studies can have
both negative and positive effects. At first glance, it can be paradoxical
because they cannot rely on a deep knowledge of the place and because they may
apply their own cultural norms to sociolinguistic realities different from the
areas in which they were born but their biographies can unveil some advantages
as well by offering for example a more objective and naïve perspective. These
non-Western studies, unfortunately, did not have much of an effect on
mainstream theory for many reasons. First of all, the language of academia and
the internet is effectively a Western one, English, most of the time;
secondly, all of the essays written about non-Western sociolinguistic loci are
not available as traditional and Western Sociolinguistics papers are. There is
definitely the need of establishing free-access journals that can hail native
authors, their publications, and eventual collaborations with Western
researchers.
The first section, Part I, introduces places that belong to the low or
intermediate positions of the Human Development Index. They are characterized
by a deep multilingualism and people who speak more than a language and,
especially in the areas of the Sub-Sahara region, share a recent colonial
past. This section opens with the essay “‘Ala! Kumbe? Oh my! Is it so?’
Multilingualism controversies in East Africa”, written by Sandra Nekesa
Barasa. It deals with places in East Africa such as Kenya, Uganda, and
Tanzania. It begins with an historical perspective, mentioning German
missionaries who went there in the 18th century to bring Western values to the
natives via Bible translation and vocabulary, and then vividly explores
multilingualism and its causes.
“A sociolinguistic mosaic of West Africa: Challenges and prospects”, written
by Jemima Asabea Anderson and Gladys Nyarko Ansah, is the following paper. It
deals with the 15 countries that compose ECOWAS (Economic Community of West
African States). West Africa is one of the most ethnolinguistically diverse
areas in the world because, according to Ethnologue, around 890 languages
coexist within ECOWAS borders. Many of the sociolinguistic phenomena that
happen there are described in this chapter, including code-switching, creation
of pidgins and creoles, and language shift.
“Southeastern Asia: Diglossia and politeness in a multilingual context” is the
third essay of the section and was written by Aone von Engelenhoven and Maaike
van Naerssen. As the first part of the title suggests, it offers a
sociolinguistic profile of South China and East India. These territories were
subjected to Western colonisation (except for Thailand), which resulted in
strong cultural consequences. In this area, there are four different language
families (Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Tai and Sino-Tibetan) to which
centuries of colonisation have added many linguistic problems. A pragmatic
analysis is attempted, and the main result is that the Gricean model does not
apply to this context. An interesting peculiarity is the attention given to
the languages of the Philippines and East Timor; because they do not have a
written tradition, they rely only on oral linguistic productions.
The sixth essay of the book, “Towards a distributed sociolinguistics of
postcolonial multilingual societies: The case of Southern Africa” written by
Rajend Mesthrie, deals with the sociolinguistic situation of South Africa.
Southern African states are not represented by formal alliances (Cfr. previous
examples mentioned) but the SADC (Southern African Development Community) is
the one that best represents the corpus of this study. This area was explored
in the 15th century and then colonized in the 17th century; these historical
facts have lead to interesting linguistic outcomes. The main social causes are
linked to issues of prestige, power, and socioeconomic classes.
The second part contains essays related to less developed countries, i.e.
China, India, North Africa (so, an African sociolinguistic profile has been
completed) and the Caribbean islands. These places are still dealing with the
cultural effects of colonisation.
“Speech community and linguistic urbanization: Sociolinguistic theories
developed in China”, written by Daming Xu, is the essay that opens this
section. It deals with the sociolinguistic profile of the Chinese republic, in
which a huge socio-economic growth took place over these years. Many studies
have described this dynamic reality, both by applying old theories and
developing new ones. Theory of Speech Community (TSU) and Theory of Linguistic
Urbanization (TLU) have been proposed to analyze the use of Chinese language.
“Language variation and change: The Indian experience” was written by Shobha
Satyanath and deals with intraspeaker variation and style shift. Social,
religious, and stylistic factors influence language spoken in this area. Many
studies on Indian speech communities in Cherukunnam (Kerala), Silchar (Assam),
Calcutta (West Bengal), Delhi (Delhi), and Kohima (Nagaland) are discussed. It
is shown that style shift is motivated by the non-vertical nature of the
relationship between standard language and vernacular variants, and it is
hypothesized that style shift happens only in vertical societies.
The ninth essay, “Gender in a North African setting: A sociolinguistic
overview” was written by Reem Bassiouney and offers a theoretical overview
about North African sociolinguistics. The North African linguistic profile is
presented through considering three variables: gender, urbanisation, and the
symbolic function of language. Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria
share Standard Arabic as the official language, but many occasions of
diglossia occur as well. Standard Arabic is the language used by aristocracy
and educated people, whereas other forms are used in soap operas, cartoons,
and in conversations with family and friends. Many cases of code-switching
between these varieties happen, and many interesting linguistic outcomes are
presented.
The tenth article is “The Creole-speaking Caribbean: The architecture of
language variation”, whose author is Hubert Devonish. It deals with the
linguistic theories applied to the Creole-speaking Caribbean context and
explains how varieties spoken overlap among themselves. Even if diglossia
describes this area well by giving social purposes to specific varieties,
Haiti was originally excluded by Hudson’s review of this linguistic phenomenon
that he had published in a special issue of the International Journal of the
Sociology of Language (2002).
The third part, “Developed Countries”, deals with languages spoken in South
America, Slavic countries, Japan, and in Mediterranean Europe.
“Class in the social labyrinth of South America”, written by Elisa Battisti
and João Ignacio Pires Lucas, deals with the South American sociolinguistics.
Historically, it has been the soil on which colonialism and, par consequence,
many languages (mostly Spanish and Portuguese) developed. Class and
connections to languages are investigated through an interdisciplinary
dialogue between sociolinguistics and social sciences. At the end of the
essay, Brazilian researchers highlight how strongly the level of education
defines social classes, especially in the areas analyzed in this essay.
Marc L. Greenberg is the author of the following paper, “The Slavic area:
Trajectories, borders, centres and peripheries in the Second World.” Far from
the Western perspective, this essay briefly presents two case studies. The
first deals with the rise and fall of Russian as language of the empire and as
a mark of the non-Western world, and the second focuses on the Yugoslav
project, a political entity coming from the ex Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman
empires.
The thirteenth article of the book has the title of “The study of politeness
and women’s language in Japan” and was authored by Patrick Heinrich. It
presents all of the languages spoken in Japan; Standard Japanese is the
dominant one, but other dialects are spoken as well. The application of a
Western sociolinguistic perspective in Japan is deeply discussed.
“Positive politeness in the European Mediterranean: Sociolinguistic notions”
is the fourteenth paper and written by Irene Cenni. The essay presents a list
of all the Southern European countries close to the Mediterranean sea,
discusses languages spoken within their borders, and investigates the
pragmatic concept of politeness developed in these areas.
The fourth and last section is titled “Unstable multilingual communities” and
describes five examples of multilingual and/or diglossic communities.
The first essay of this section, “Nivkh writing practices: Literacy and
vitality in an endangered language”, was written by Hidetoshi Shiraishi and
Bert Botma. Nivkh is a language spoken in the lower reaches of the Amur River
and in the northern parts of Sakhalin Island, in the Russian Far East. It is
usually considered a non-written language; however, publications and other
works written in Nivkh are presented and analysed.
The next article, “The Jamaican language situation: A process, not a type”,
was written by Hubert Devonish and Kadian Walters. It presents Jamaican
diglossic situation with a Jamaican Creole predominance in coexistence with
English, the ex colonizer’s language. The paper describes the deliberate use
of these languages to represent specific social needs.
The seventeenth essay of the entire volume and the third of this section is
called “Nutemllaq yugtun qaneryararput: Our very own way of speaking Yugtun in
Alaska” and was written by Theresa Arevgaq John. As the subtitle suggests, it
deals with Yugtun, the language spoken by Yup’ik, a community of speakers
settled in the Toksook Bay in South Central Alaska, and explores its social
subordination to English, the predominant language. To prevent its loss, many
projects to revitalise the Yugtun language have been conducted including
education, dancing, literature, and so on.
“Variation in North Saami” is the eighteenth essay, and its authors are Ante
Aikio, Laura Arola, and Niina Kunnas. It discusses some issues about the
sociolinguistic variation and change happening in North Saami, a Finno-Ugric
language spoken in the North of Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Due to the lack
of consistent research, this article provides a good overview of North Saami
sociolinguistics.
The last essay of both this section and the entire volume is “Gaelic Scotland
and Ireland: Issues of class and diglossia in an evolving social landscape”.
It was written by Cassie Smith-Christmas and Tadhg Ó hlfearnáin and discusses
many linguistic aspects related to social class and diglossia in Scottish and
Irish Gaelic communities. This essay describes Scottish and Irish Gaelic
sociolinguistics very precisely.
EVALUATION
The volume “Globalising Sociolinguistics: Challenging and Expanding Theory” is
an essential book for both students and researchers who are interested in
sociolinguistics. The volume is well- organised, both in the paratextual and
textual structure. In the paratext, there is a map of the places discussed, a
list of contents, figures and other elements that assist the reader. Topics
are deeply developed, and the style used by the authors is clear and easily
understandable.
An important detail is represented by the biographic and academic profiles of
the authors, which help readers have a wider knowledge about the researchers’
backgrounds and fields of interest.
The volume offers four thematic sub-sections that help the reader to find
linguistic details linked to a specific area. The choice of splitting the
nineteen essays into four sections has a clear aim: as stated in the Preface,
the editors did not want to offer a geographical/regional perspective because
it was too reductive and did not take into account all of the vivid cultural
realities living within the same national borders. Additionally, they did not
want to base the sociolinguistic analyses on a Western model, an evident
outcome of the colonial history. The epistemological criterion upon which the
subdivisions were made were essentially socio-economic. In fact, economics
generally affects social differences and, par consequence, sociolinguistic
outcomes. Linguistic areas were classified on the basis of the Human
Development Index (http://countryeconomy.com/hdi), and it is possible to find
also a logical geographical motivation. All of the places are presented from
the furthest to the closest to the Western socio-economic model.
The most represented areas belong to the African and Asian continents. This is
due to the great amount of sociolinguistic situations that coexist together
and, at the same time, within their continental borders.
Another good aspect of the book is the presence of two introductory essays at
the very beginning and the prosaic summary put to explain the content of each
part in which the volume is divided. They introduce the reader to the topics
and the different linguistic realities he/she is going to encounter.
To sum up, “Globalising Sociolinguistics: challenging and expanding theory” is
a well-written book that contains essays that clearly describe languages
spoken in areas that have now come to the fore thanks to their
(socio-)linguistic vivacity. The volume is suitable for both students and
researchers because its reading is not difficult even if the topics described
here may be.
REFERENCES
Bamgbose, Ayo. 1991. Language and the nation: the Language question in
Sub-Saharan Africa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Cardona, George and Dhanesh Jain (eds.). 2003. The Indo Aryan languages.
London: Routledge.
Christie, Pauline. 2003. Language in Jamaica. Kingston: Arawak Publications.
Coulmas, Florian. 2005. Sociolinguistics: the study of speakers’ choices.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cram, David. 1986. Patterns of English-Gaelic and Gaelic-English
Code-Switching. Scottish Language 5: 126-30.
Dejan, Yves. 1993. An overview of the language situation in Haiti.
International journal of Sociology of Language 102: 73-83.
Dorian, Nancy C. 1981. Language death: the life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic
dialect. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.
Fienup-Riordau, Ann. 2005. Wide words of the Yup’ik people: we talk to you
because we love you. (translations from Yup’ik by Alice Rearden). Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press.
Grant, Bruce. 1995. In the Soviet house of culture: A century of pereistrokas.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Grenoble, L. A. 2003. Language policy in the Soviet Union. Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
Guan, Lee Hock and Leo Suryadinata (eds.). 2007. Language, nation and
development in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asia studies.
Gumperz, John (1962). Types of Linguistic communities. Anthropological
Linguistics 4: 28-40.
Heinrich, Patrick and Christian Gaan (eds.). 2011. Language life in Japan:
transformations and prospects. London: Routledge.
Herbert, Robert K. (ed.). 1993. Foundations in Southern African Linguistics.
Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Jansson, Annika. 2005. Sami language at home and at school: a fieldwork
perspective (= Studia Uralica Upsaliensia 36). Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.
Labov, William. 1969. The logic of Nonstandard English. In: Georgetown
monograph on Languages and Linguistics (Vol. 22). James Alatis (ed.), 1-44.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Leite, Yvonne and Dinah Callou. 2002. Como falam os brasileiros [How
Brasilians speak]. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar.
Mariottini, Laura. 2007. La cortesia [Politeness]. Roma: Carocci editore.
Mbabu, Ireri. 1996. Language policy in East Africa: A dependency theory on
perspective. Nairobi: Educational research and publications.
Suleiman, Yasir. 2011. Arabic, self and identity: a study in conflict and
displacement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weinrich, Uriel, William Labov and Marvin Herzog. 1968. Empirical foundations
for a theory of Language change. In: Directions for Historical Linguistics.
Winifred Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel (eds.), 95-188. Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Xu, Daming. 2006. Urban language survey. Journal of Chinese Sociolinguistics
2: 1-15.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Maria Assunta Ciardullo is a Ph.D. student in Linguistics at the University of
Calabria and a visiting researcher in many English Universities. Her Ph.D.
project is inscribed within the fields of Forensic Linguistics and
Sociolinguistics, dealing with wiretapped voices - sociolinguistically
pinpointed - and the ways in which they are transcribed. Her research
interests include Forensic Linguistics, Forensic Phonetics, Gender Studies and
Sociolinguistics.
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