33.1760, Review: Anthropological Linguistics: Bortone (2021)

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Subject: 33.1760, Review: Anthropological Linguistics: Bortone (2021)

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Date: Tue, 17 May 2022 16:58:51
From: Lelija Socanac [lelijasocanac at gmail.com]
Subject: Language and Nationality

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36791877


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-3387.html

AUTHOR: Pietro  Bortone
TITLE: Language and Nationality
SUBTITLE: Social Inferences, Cultural Differences, and Linguistic Misconceptions
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Lelija Socanac, University of Zagreb

SUMMARY

The relationship between language and nationality is very complex, partly
because the terms “language” and “nationality” can refer to various concepts.
The author analyses different ways in which the concepts of language and
nationality have been linked, both by expert linguists and by the general
public, highlighting a wealth of assumptions, prejudices, and preconceptions.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on relations
between language and identity, while the second discusses the main topic of
the book: language and nationality.

Chapter 1, “Language labelling us explicitly”, discusses personal names as the
most explicit “identity” label. Numerous authors have argued that a name does
not convey any information about its bearer (Bourdieu 1986).  In order to
challenge this view, examples of etymological meaning and cultural
connotations of names are provided. Thus, names can say a lot about our
background, personal characteristics, collective memberships, social
attributes, and “identity”.

Chapter 2, “Ways of speaking”, presents how our ways of speaking convey
information about us, such as class, ethnicity, age, gender, etc. It also
raises the question of how much a person’s linguistic characteristics are
innate and how much they are cultural conventions. Entire languages are often
perceived as enjoying higher or lower prestige, which counters the linguistic
view of languages as being inherently equal in their communicative value.
Nevertheless, language attitudes and stereotypes have repercussions in various
social, educational, legal, and employment contexts. 

Chapter 3, “Preference for the linguistically similar”, discusses language as
a social border dividing ‘us’ from ‘them’, and showing how languages can act
as distinctive markers of social groups, or principles of social inclusion and
exclusion.  The differences in the ways we use language are seen as ‘acts of
identity’ (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985:2). The linguistic choices by a
person or a group are guided by the cultural meaning that each linguistic
option carries. Speakers adjust their language style depending not on;y on the
situation, the topic, and the goal of their speaking, but also on the image
they want to project. Although adjustments in language use are typically
towards those who are socially dominant, nonstandard varieties may enjoy
covert prestige, signaling membership in a local community.

Since languages tend to be associated with specific cultural conventions,
multilingual speakers can play different roles through different languages.
The behavior and self-appraisal of bilinguals can vary according to language,
and many successful L2 learners exhibit a cultural shift following their
acquisition of a new language.

Chapter 4, “Linguistic diversity”, discusses whether languages can be regarded
as equivalent, having the same complexity and possibilities of expression. The
comparative study of languages shows that many concepts that one may imagine
to be universal are not so, which can be exemplified by color terms in
different languages (Wierzbicka 2005). The fact that there is a variable
degree of complexity in languages is also confirmed by diachronic changes
providing instances of either loss or accretion of complexity. There is
evidence that smaller, more isolated, tightly-knit communities tend to have
more complex languages. As to variations in vocabulary, even objects that
exist in all societies and cultures are not conceptualized and lexicalized in
all languages in the same way.

Chapter 5, “Culture hidden in the language”, explores the use of different
languages as governed by specific social conventions acquired together with
the language. In many cases, words have connotations that are known to native
speakers only; they may have overtones and associations that cannot be
rendered by simple translations. Even words whose meaning may seem to be
culturally universal may have applications that are culturally specific. Some
words with the same root and the same basic meaning exist in several languages
and yet their connotations differ. Culture-specific conceptual categories may
also function as cognitive frames: they lead one to interpret situations in
particular ways. The semantics of an utterance can rarely be understood
without pragmatics: meaning is shaped by verbal context, cultural conventions,
social dynamics, background history, the relationship between speakers, etc.
Even gestures may have different meanings in different cultures. Politeness
strategies differ widely between different languages and cultures (Brown and
Levinson 1987). 

Chapter 6, “The effects of language on cognition”, evaluates the theory that
our language lays down the limits of our thinking by presenting the well-known
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and its predecessors. The hypothesis has been contested
by scholars of different persuasions, starting from Chomsky with his theory of
language universals. However, there are numerous examples supporting close
links between language and culture. For example, an elaborate system of forms
of address points to a highly stratified society. Another example are
phonological distinctions that are obvious to speakers of one language but may
seem non-existent to speakers of another. Moreover, experiments have shown
that speakers of languages with more color distinctions are better at noticing
such colors than speakers of languages where such distinctions do not exist.
Also, there is evidence that grammatical gender can affect our
conceptualization of objects in ways that are irrationally linked to
biological sex. Thus, there is some evidential corroboration that each
language may slightly affect the speaker’s conception of the world. On the
other hand, experiments have confirmed that our mental categorization is not
guided only by language: human beings are capable of pre-linguistic and
extra-linguistic thinking.

The second part of the book focuses on the relationship between language and
nationality.

Chapter 7, “Let there be a nation”, discusses the concept of nation and
briefly outlines the history of the development of nation-states and their
ideologies. The question of when nations were first formed has received a
variety of responses, ranging from primordialists, who assert that nations are
a timeless feature of humanity, to modernists or constructionists, who see
nations as historically recent and often artificial entities, going no further
back than the eighteenth century. A nation is usually defined as a community
whose members share a culture, a name, a belief in a common origin, a
collective historical narrative, and a sense of belonging. The term nation
usually denotes a population that also constitutes a political entity, so that
it is often used as a synonym for state. In pre-modern societies, most people
were physically and culturally locally grounded, and so were their main
loyalties and solidarities. Thus, as late as the 19th century, there were
people with reputedly no concept of nationality. In most countries, the
national identity which is now taken for granted was developed and promoted by
a restricted circle of intellectuals. Most civilizations have received vast
inputs from elsewhere, and whatever is believed to constitute a national
identity is likely to have undergone profound transformations over time. 

Chapter 8, “Creating nations and languages”, considers the role of language in
promoting national identity. Insofar as nationalities are artificially created
to a large extent, they need to be actively recreated through discourse and
practice. Therefore, states take continual measures to determine, shape, and
control the national identity of their citizens and to provide a particular
interpretation of history and politics that legitimizes the nation and its
institutions. Symbols are central in a culture because they are used to
structure daily life, to frame thoughts, to trigger emotions, and to direct
behavior, but their influence often goes undetected. National symbols convey a
sense of spatial and temporal continuity and they provide a feeling of being
connected to something wider, more important, and more lasting than the
individual. Among the items believed to constitute a national heritage, a
special place is given to texts which formulate and pass on collective
memories and behavioral models, and which give a canonical form to the
language itself. Our view of languages as distinct entities is closely linked
to the existence and spread of writing. Writing defines and reifies languages,
makes them distinct, and presents their features as invariable across space
and time. 

Chapter 9, “Consequences of national languages”, discusses the selection of a
variety to provide the basis of a standard national language. Part of the
vision of a nation state is a shared idiom that can reach the whole nation and
bind it together. In order to reach the citizens, the state needs mass
communication and education. In this sense, a national language and a nation
can be said to be mutually constitutive. Many European nationalist movements
have equated language with nationality. Standardization has usually entailed
selecting and upholding a language variety as normative, curbing its
synchronic variations and downplaying its diachronic change. In Western
countries, linguistic and ethnic diversity have traditionally been regarded as
antithetical to the concept of a nation. Despite its drawbacks, there are also
advantages conveyed by the use of standard language. It promotes literacy,
enables communication on the supra-regional level, and develops abstract and
specialized vocabulary. As a result, it opens up new educational, social, and
professional opportunities. Standardizing and giving official status to (at
least) one local language gives it a status that helps protect it from being
ousted by powerful international languages. Although language normativity has
its negative aspects, the development and maintenance of rules and norms are
important for any language (Cameron 2012). Corrections, disapproval, and value
judgements are also part of language use, not just of a particular
prescriptivist approach. Diachronic change in language is partly due to social
attitudes and social changes. 

Chapter 10, “More consequences of national languages”, discusses prejudicial
effects of a standard national language, such as distorted perceptions of what
languages are and a diminished respect and tolerance for minority languages
and regional variation. The desire for one’s national language to be distinct
and “pure” has resulted not only in misrepresentations of its nature,
development, and usage, but also in interventions in the language itself. In
many cases, the mixed origins of the national language have been denied, false
reconstructions of its history have been produced, synchronic differences
between the national language and similar languages have been overstated,
linguistic diversity in a country has been downplayed and even legislated
against, regional varieties have been presented as subordinate and defective,
and speakers of those varieties have been treated as socially and even
mentally inferior. Individual bilingualism has been discouraged, while
societal multilingualism has been proclaimed disruptive or seditious.
Nationalism and language history are not only intertwined but can shape each
other. The most symbolically laden form of language alteration is purism:
removal of foreign elements, especially from the lexicon. The presence of a
strong foreign influence may be felt as an affront to national dignity because
it is seen as a symptom of collective subordination. An eagerness to keep
languages distinct is reflected in traditional attitudes to code-switching,
which was condemned for a long time, and code-switching has only recently been
recognized as pragmatically rule-governed, serving a number of sociolinguistic
and metalinguistic functions. The fact that, for bilingual speakers, the two
language systems are not separate highlights the fact that the concept of
language as a discrete entity can be seen as an abstraction and a political
and cultural construction. The idea that multilingualism prevents unity and
leads to conflict has a long history in Western thought. Linguistic
differences are not per se what matters; what matters is the meaning
attributed to those differences.

Chapter 11, “Language and nationality, a hasty equation”, discusses the link
between language and nationality and its merits, problems, and consequences.
There seems to be a general consensus that linguistic groups correspond to
self-identified communities with language-based identities, allegiances, and
political interests. Nowadays the friction between different ethnic or
national groups in various European countries is often focused on language.
Treating language, biological descent, appearance, history, and culture as
naturally and inevitably co-occurring traits, and nationality as a whole
cluster of such features, helps xenophobic nationalist discourse. The
association of a language with a culture, while true in a few subtle ways,
should not be considered automatic nor should it be given an excessive
symbolic value. Many countries with the same language have significantly
different cultural, social, and political orientations.

“Epilogue” summarizes the contents of the book and brings together various
strands discussed in previous chapters. The author concludes that the link
between languages and national affiliations, identifications, and loyalties is
highly complex. The use of language as a signal of group membership is
flexible, and so is the construction of a nation and the criteria for
membership. Both language and nationality are, ultimately, abstract concepts,
and the realities to which they refer change over time and vary across space,
as well as the social and political meaning of the relationship between them. 

The book provides a very extensive bibliography.

EVALUATION

A short summary can hardly do justice to the wide scope of this book, which
provides insights into a number of topics related to language and nationality.

The author is highly successful in discussing complex issues in a simple way,
and in providing a wealth of examples from a wide range of different
languages. The book challenges some of the widely held (but false) assumptions
identifying language and nationality. 

Although this is definitely an academic book, the author avoided using
specialist terms which could have made it a difficult read for wider
audiences. The book is clearly written and very well organized, providing
summaries and links between individual chapters and ending with a general
overview of the whole book. In addition to discussing intricate linguistic
issues, it also draws from disciplines other than linguistics, ranging from
classics to social sciences. 

Overall, this is a highly relevant and excellently researched book, one which
will certainly inspire future research. It is an important contribution to the
multidisciplinary research on language and nationality and will be an
invaluable resource both for linguists and social scientists with an interest
in language policy and planning, language standardization, language attitudes,
multilingualism, and related topics.

Due to the complexity of its approach, the book will be of interest to
academics and subject specialists, while thanks to its clear language and
style it is also accessible to readers without previous specialist knowledge. 

REFERENCES

Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities – reflections on the origin and
spread of nationalism. London/NY: Verso.

Bourdieu, P. (1986). ‘L’illusion biographique’. Actes de la recherche en
sciences sociales 62-63, 69-72.

Brown, P. and Levinson, S.C. (1987). Politeness: some universals in language
usage. Cambridge University Press.

Cameron, D. (2012). Verbal hygiene. London: Routledge.

Le Page, R.B and Tabouret-Keller, A. (1985). Acts of identity: creole-based
approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Prof.Dr. Lelija Socanac is a retired professor at the University of Zagreb,
Croatia. She used to be the head of the Center for Language and Law at the
Faculty of Law, Zagreb. Her research interests include legal linguistics,
historical sociolinguistics, language policy and planning, (critical)
discourse analysis, contact linguistics and multilingualism.





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