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

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Peter,

Thanks for pointing this out; the "authenticity" business is extremely
elusive and complicated, and I actually started out to write something
about it, and realized it would have to be a book.  It gets into all that
stuff--Ethnicity,  Identity & Racism, and also purism, which is sort of
what piqued my fancy (Tamil, diglossia, etc. and Arabic language "purity"
(of the Koran) being equated with religious purity...)

If I ever write my book, I'll look at whatyou've suggested below.

Hal

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004, Patrick, Peter L wrote:

> Paul, Hal,
> thanks for suggestions for thinking about this. From another angle
> I approach this in my course on African Diaspora Englishes, for both
> AAVE and British AfroCaribbean English (BrACE), by looking at issues of
> Ethnicity & Authenticity, Identity & Racism, in vernacular speaking
> across
> racial boundaries by white and other speakers.
>
> We look at Hewitt 1986 on white teens' use of Creole in London, and
> Rampton
> 1995 on more general crossing in a Home Counties school (which includes
> approximation of Punjabi, Creole and Stylised Asian English);
>
> Sweetland 2002, Cutler 1999 and Jacobs-Huey 1997, on white production
> and
> black perception of AAVE by white (VAAC, but non-ASD, in John Baugh's
> terms) speakers;
> and Ronkin & Karn 1999, on white mis- (or should it be, dis-
> ?)appropriation of
> AAVE norms for racist discourse online, in the wake of the Ebonics
> storm, among others.
>
> I haven't added to this list lately (Sweetland 2002, the latest, is the
> published version of
> a paper Julie did for me as an undergrad), and would be happy to get
> other suggestions for it.
> (In the past I have also used Mary Bucholtz's work, and Renee Blake's
> Stanford PhD study of
> white and black Barbadian Creole speakers.)
> 	Films which raise these issues include White Man's Burden, Eight
> Mile, Barbershop
> and the Warren Beatty film I can't remember just now - Bulworth? - where
> he plays
> a Senate candidate having a cultural breakdown and ends up doing some
> very funny
> bad (meaning 'bad', not 'good'!) rapping. Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor,
> Chris Rock
> and other African American comedians, all construct white speech in
> comedy routines.
> Again, suggestions welcomed...
>
> 	-peter p-
>
> Peter L Patrick
> Dept of Language and Linguistics
> University of Essex
> Wivenhoe Park
> Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK
>
> E:  patrickp at essex.ac.uk
> Ph:  +44 (0) 1206 87.2088
> Web: privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu
> > [mailto:owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu] On Behalf Of Harold
> > F. Schiffman
> > Sent: 20 October 2004 21:45
> > To: Paul B. Garrett
> > Cc: linganth at cc.rochester.edu
> > Subject: Re: [Linganth] "other"/"authentic" languages in film
> >
> >
> > 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
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>