28.4586, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Pütz, Mundt (2016)

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Subject: 28.4586, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Pütz, Mundt (2016)

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Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2017 13:53:54
From: Meagan Dailey [daileymeagan at gmail.com]
Subject: Vanishing Languages in Context

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-2727.html

AUTHOR: Martin  Pütz
EDITOR: Neele  Mundt
TITLE: Vanishing Languages in Context
SUBTITLE: Ideological, Attitudinal and Social Identity Perspectives
PUBLISHER: Peter Lang AG
YEAR: 2016

REVIEWER: Meagan Dailey, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

SUMMARY

Vanishing Languages in Context: Ideological, Attitudinal and Social Identity
Perspectives is an edited volume (eds. Martin Pütz and Neele Mundt) of papers
from the 36th International Linguistic Agency, University of Duisberg (LAUD)
Symposium.  The volume is divided into three main sections: Section I Language
planning, linguistic inequalities and human rights; Section II Language
attitudes, discourse and ideology; and Section III Case studies of endangered
minority languages.  

Section I, Language planning, linguistic inequalities and human rights
discusses language shift and loss in Botswana, Nepal and Kenya, explores the
sociopolitical factors leading to linguistic inequality in these countries,
and evaluates the effectiveness of macro and micro language planning
activities. It collects three articles specifically looking at sociopolitical
contexts of the regions studied.

In “Micro language planning, minority language and advocacy groups” Modupe M.
Alimi compares the advocacy group model against several minority language
advocacy coalitions (RETENG: The Multicultural Coalition of Botswana, Kuru
Family of Organizations, and the Reformed Church).  Alimi also discusses the
policies leading to the marginalization of non-Swana languages, micro language
planning initiatives undertaken by the minority language advocacy coalitions,
and the effectiveness of these initiatives.

Contrastively, in “Linguistic rights and mother tongue education in post-civil
war Nepal,” Dӧrte Borchers discusses the macro language planning activities in
Nepal.  After the civil war, which ended in 2006, the Nepalese government
established a constitution which recognizes English and Nepali as official
languages of the state, and all other languages as national languages.  On
paper, the Nepalese government supports minority language and culture
education, but in practice, many indigenous people don’t know their linguistic
rights and send their children to English or Nepali medium schools for
socioeconomic reasons.  In communities which would prefer education in their
mother tongue, Borchers points out that there are caste issues whereby higher
caste Nepali teachers are preferred over lower caste non-Nepali teachers. 
Borchers advocates for better outreach on the part of the Nepalese government
in order to educate the general populace about their linguistic rights.

Finally, in “Devolution of governance and linguistic (in)equalities,” Hilda
Kebeya-Omondi and Fridah Kanana-Erastus show that linguistic inequalities
don’t just exist between majority and minority languages. Kebeya-Omondi and
Kanana-Erastus also argue that in the case of Kenya, linguistic inequalities
are exacerbated by the devolution of state power to district level
administration.  English and Swahili are the official languages named in the
Kenyan Constitution, whereas all other languages are declared to have
government support for promotion and protection.   However, there are
inequalities between English and Swahili as English is preferred in all
branches of government, education, commerce, and science.  This linguistic
inequality devolves to the county levels where one local variety is preferred
over all others and this can and does result in speakers shifting to the
preferred variety.  This is counter to language rights laid out in the Kenyan
constitution, and has led to the effective death of several minority
languages.  Kebeya-Omondi and Kanana-Erastus propose that to counter
linguistic inequality,  promote language maintenance and revitalization, and
to empower both minority languages and the people who speak them, several
goals need to be accomplished : documentation and orthography development
since written languages have more prestige; development of advocacy groups to
reverse negative attitudes; and the implementation of literacy programs to
grant speakers access to education without the need to become bilingual in the
school system.

Section II, Language attitudes, identity and ideology explores the
relationship between these three concepts, and their role in language
development and maintenance in Italy, Cameroon, Australia, Germany, the
Philippines, and Poland.  This section collects five papers which empirically
investigate specific languages with the goal of understanding influences and
practical realizations of language attitudes and identity.

In “Ideologies and expressed attitudes in Internet: Comparing ethnic
identities in two regional communities (Veneto and Sardinia),” Anna Ghimenton
and Giovanni Depau look at how language attitudes are expressed in
computer-mediated communication, specifically on Internet forums and in
YouTube comments.  Sardinian is officially recognized by the Italian
government as a minority language and is granted an amount of prestige as it
is an ‘archaic’ language due to its being a conservative offshoot of Latin. 
Ghimenton and Depau found that when people discuss Sardinian, they tended to
discuss the value of different varieties of Sardinian in the arts.  Commentary
tended to objectify the Sardinian language as an object of discourse, and was
often conducted in Italian.  Veneto, on the other hand, is not recognized by
the Italian government, and has a prestige linked to minority identity. 
Commentary on the language was mostly conducted in Venetan and served to
promote a sense of unity among geographically dispersed Venetan speakers. 
Ghimenton and Depau attribute this dichotomy to Veneto having a more recent
and accessible form of prestige, while Sardinian has a more historical
prestige.

In “Endangering indigenous languages: An empirical study of language attitudes
and identity in post-colonial Cameroon,” Neele Mundt presents the empirical
findings of interviews conducted in Yadouné, Cameroon among 85 individuals
training to be teachers.  Mundt investigates the post-colonial influences of
Cameroonian English and Cameroonian French on language attitudes towards the
official languages and local languages.  What emerge are strong ties and
positive attitudes towards local languages on the basis of ethnic and cultural
identity, but also a desire to continue to use the official languages to
access personal socioeconomic benefits.  This is due to Cameroonians having
two levels of identity: ethnic identity linked to home village and mother
tongue; and an anglophone/francophone identity that is the result of previous
colonial administration.  However, this contrasts with the Mundt’s data
showing that while the grandparent generation still predominantly use their
local language in most domains, the parent generation’s use of local languages
is restricted largely to interaction with the grandparent generation, which,
as Mundt points out, is an indicator of a larger language shift despite
positive attitudes towards Cameroons indigenous languages.

In “Language ideologies beyond ethnicity - Observing popular music styles and
their potential relevance for understanding processes of endangerment,” Britta
Schneider looks at the transnationalizing power of Spanish language salsa
music in Australian and German Salsa communities and the impact of Caribbean
Creole English Dancehall music.  Associations to the linguistic styles of
these genres of music have led to adoption and use among individuals who do
not associate themselves with the languages ethnically.  Schneider argues that
the transnationalizing power of music can help to raise attitudes and
awareness for minority languages.

In “Rap and resistance in Chabacano,” Eeva Sippola uses sociolinguistic and
ethnolinguistic methodologies to look at the use of rap in the endangered
language Chabacano as spoken in Ternate, Indonesia.  What Sippola found was
that in increasingly globalizing contexts where Chabacano is being abandoned
in favor Tagalog and English, rappers have adopted Chabacano for use in their
music to express their linguistic identities and open discourse about the
harsh realities of life in Ternate.  They have appropriated aspects of
American rap culture and technology, but transformed them to meet their own
needs and to disseminate their music quickly.  This has had the effect of
increasing positive attitudes towards Chabacano, and positioning it as a
covertly prestigious language among urbanized Ternate youth.

In “The Kashubian language at school: Facts and attitudes,” Danuta Stanulewicz
and Malgorzata Smentek investigate how Kashubian language and culture classes
at schools in Poland impact bilingual Kashubian-Polish students’ attitudes
towards Kashubian.  They compared two case studies of different classrooms in
Poland.  Study one focuses on students who have elected to take a Kashubian
language/culture class.  A survey administered to the class measured
engagement in Kashubian language use, literature, and cultural activities. 
Study two is a survey of Kashubian language use and cultural engagement among
students who elected not to take Kashubian classes.  Stanulewicz and Smentek
found that students who participated in the elective Kashubian course had
greater engagement in Kashubian social activities than students who chose not
to take the course.

Section III, “Case studies of endangered minority languages” presents a study
of language contact and linguistic diversity within the language endangerment
framework.  Case studies come from Latvia, Ireland, Nigeria, and Malaysia. 
The three papers included in this section focus on the diversification of
minority languages in contexts new to the speakers of the languages under
investigation.

In “Latgalian in Latvia: How a minority language community gains voice during
societal negotiations about the status of two major languages,” Heiko F.
Marten and Sanita Lazdina look at Latgalian, a marginalized language in
Latvia.  During Soviet control of Latvia, Latgalian was suppressed in favor of
Russian, leading to a decline in speaker numbers; but speaker numbers
increased when Latvia became independent.  However, the Latvian government
refused to recognize Latgalian as a distinct language.  Recent political
alignment of Latgalians with Russophones forced Latvian officials to give more
attention to Latgalian; this has led to Latgalian being used in more
prestigious contexts, including education, politics, and media.  But, since
these developments are so recent, Marten and Lazdina point out that it is too
soon to tell if the increased esteem and prestige towards Latgalian will last.

In “The case of Cant: The Irish Travellers and their linguistic repertoire in
the context of a changing cultural identity,” Maria Rieder looks at the
ongoing cultural change in Irish Travellers Cant, or Shelta, resulting from a
move away from nomadic traditions. Using a framework of ethnology in
communication, Rieder spent two years with Travellers at a now defunct
Traveller center immersed in the culture.  Older generations no longer
consider Cant to be representative of secretive Traveller culture as
Travellers become more settled and Cant words have spread to settled
communities, while younger generations actively set themselves apart (in
appearance) from non-Travellers and treat Cant as an identity marker, guarding
it from outsiders.  However, younger generations struggle to balance Traveller
identity with a desire to adapt to mainstream culture and do not view
code-switching into Cant to be a real use of it.  Children no longer recognize
Cant as being a secretive, contextual code, and instead lump it in with Irish
slang.  As Travellers become more settled, there is no longer a cultural need
to distinguish themselves as Other, and thus Cant is not being passed on to
new generations.

In “Non-native speaker mother, personal family efforts and language
maintenance: The case of Ogu (Nigeria) in my family,” Esther Senayon discusses
her experiences as a non-speaker of Ogu, an endangered language spoken in
Nigeria, who has married into an Ogu family and is committed to raising her
children to speak Ogu in a Yoruba speaking area. Senayon describes the
difficulties of this endeavor as Yoruba and English are societally dominant
languages, and there were pressures from speakers of these languages,
including being asked to provide a Christian name for church, or teachers
Yoruba-izing her children’s names.  Despite this, Senayon has taught her
children to be proud that they know Ogu, and this has had effects on the
families around Senayon’s.  She reports that several Ogu families have adapted
her ideas to teach their own children, and non-Ogu friends and extended family
members have learned Ogu in order to communicate with her children.  This is
significant, and Senayon shows that commitment to the ancestral language in
just one family can have a ripple effect into the greater community.

In “Language endangerment in Northern Nigeria: the case of Igala,” Gideon
Sunday Omachonu gives an overview of language endangerment in Northern
Nigeria.  Omachonu focuses specifically on Igala, but concludes for Northern
Nigerian languages in general that for now the situation is relatively stable.
 However, the author gives several suggestions to maintain or improve the
current situation including recommendations for community and government
involvement.

In “Linguistic diversity and endangerment in Malaysia: The case of Papia
Kristang,” Eileen Lee gives an overview of Papia Kristang, a Portuguese
creole, in Malaysia, focusing on the Portuguese Settlement in Malacca, contact
with other languages, and bilingualism trends in Malaysia in general.  Lee
gathered recorded data from the Portuguese Settlement in a variety of
different contexts to assess the linguistic ecology of everyday language use. 
What Lee found was that Papia Kristang use is on the decline, but rather than
it being a case of language shift to a more dominant language, speakers
instead opt to code mix between Papia Kristang, English, and Malay.

EVALUATION

Overall, “Vanishing Language in Context: Ideological, Attitudinal and Social
Identity Perspectives” is an excellent introduction to sociolinguistic
understanding of language endangerment in various globalizing and multilingual
contexts, particularly in Europe and Africa.  It logically opens with an
assessment of language planning activities in Section I, moves on to empirical
studies of language endangerment in specific languages in Section II.  Several
papers in Section III could have been logically incorporated into the previous
section, but seem to be set apart in this section to highlight the theme of
perspectives in cultural and linguistic adaptation to changing linguistic
ecologies.

The introduction is essential in understanding the division of the included
sections, and give a thematic link between each section and the volume as a
whole.  The editors set the goal of the volume as “an invitation to contribute
to the promising avenues for future research into the many
“Endangerment-of-languages” issues raised within” (16), and, given the big
picture nature of the book, they have succeeded by collecting a variety of
papers employing different methodologies  to investigate language endangerment
from a sociolinguistic perspective. 

Methodologically speaking, the majority of the articles investigate topics
through a combined discourse analysis and language endangerment theory
framework.  The other studies focused on quantitative surveys administered to
speakers.  Many of these studies looked at the connection between historical
context and synchronic expression in politics, media, youth culture, computer
mediated communication, and gender based contexts.

Given the accessible and broad nature of papers presented in “Vanishing
Language in Context: Ideological, Attitudinal and Social Identity
Perspectives”, this volume is quite approachable to students of language
endangerment and minority language planners alike.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

I am a Ph.D. student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa interested in
language endangerment, documentation, and contact in Mirconesia. My primary
research focus is language contact and sociolinguistic issues in Micronesian
migrant communities.





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