[Linganth] "other"/"authentic" languages in film

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Paul,

I have a page on this issue on my course website "Language and Popular
culture" that might give him some ideas:

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/popcult/handouts/authentic.html
I'm dealing in this course with use of language (foreign, non-standard,
etc.) in the media; I also have some images, and some links to film clips.
I know that Dances with Wolves, e.g., though the use of Lakota  appears to
be "authentic", is a case where my brother (who has worked with the
Lakota) tells me that they were very disappointed when DWW came out, and
found that their language samples were translated into English into
inappropriate ways...

Hal Schiffman

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004, Paul B. Garrett wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> In my seminar on Language Contact, I have a student from a
> Communications & Theater/Mass Media background who is interested
> in examining the use of "other" and "authentic" languages in
> film.  "Dances with Wolves," "Schindler's List," and "The Passion
> of the Christ" would be some recent examples; he'd also be
> interested in cases where authenticity is not exactly the issue,
> e.g. the use of Klingon in Star Trek movies, Esperanto in
> "Incubus," etc.  (Yes, he's well aware that "authenticity" is a
> highly fraught issue, and that some of these films are way off
> the mark in any case.)
>
> To my mind, one authority on this sort of thing is Harald
> Haarman; and I've pointed him in a few other directions to
> encourage him to problematize the whole matter and put it into
> broader perspective, e.g. Jane Hill on Mock Spanish, Basso on
> Western Apache imitations of the Whiteman, and Hall on phone-sex
> workers.  But I have a nagging feeling that there are some fairly
> obvious things that I'm not thinking of.  Can anyone else offer
> suggestions?  (Post either privately to me or to the list, as you
> see fit.)
>
> Thanks,
> Paul
>
>
>