Last minute CFP for SLA AAA

Thu Mar 26 16:32:31 UTC 2009

We are looking for a couple of participants for our session - this is  
a follow on to work some of us have been thinking about for a long  
time.  We are opening the discussion to people working on spoken  
languages as well.  Please contact me lemaster at csulb.edu by Friday  
3/27/09 if you are interested.

Draft abstract (which may have to be shortened....)
Many linguists anticipate the loss or moribund status of the majority  
of languages within the next century. Clearly, documentation of  
endangered languages has become a priority. However, in the accounts  
of world languages in terms of their mapping across the globe and  
concern over their impending loss, how many of these languages are  
deaf signed languages? For example, on Crawford’s website (http://ourworld.compuserve 
.

com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/brj.htm) he mentioned “as many as half of the  
estimated 6,000 languages spoken on earth are “moribund”; that is,  
they are spoken only by adults who no longer teach them to the next  
generation. An additional 40 percent may soon be threatened because  
the number of children learning them is declining measurably.” We may  
ask whether there are identifiable socio-cultural factors that lead to  
the emergence, maintenance and/or loss of certain linguistic varieties  
over others; and whether some processes are universal, while others  
are culturally specific. We may ask about the role of community  
structure (about globalization, rural or urban communities) in  
language loss, particularly in terms of people’s relative integration  
with each other in their language communities.

Language loss occurs in contact situations usually described in the  
anthropological literature are described in terms of contact between  
two (or more) cultures or languages. We may ask a number of questions  
about contact communities. What kinds of communities are there?  What  
matters in terms of language use?  What is the role of globalization?  
Of an urban or rural setting? What language varieties exist in given  
communities, and what kinds of language accommodations so speakers of  
various languages or languages styles make?  What are the roles of  
globalization, urban or rural contexts in terms of speaker integration  
and in terms of language accommodation, maintenance, shift, loss? Is  
there or are there “critical agent(s)” which facilitate or serve as  
catalysts toward or away from the emergence, use, loss, or maintenance  
of any particular varieties? Is there a critical mass of people that  
leads to or against the emergence and/or maintenance of indigenous  
languages?

This session extends previous inquiries into this area that focused  
primarily on deaf-hearing contact communities and invites papers that  
explore these same general concepts among hearing communities using  
spoken (and/or signed) languages.  From limited data considered to- 
date, it appears that community structure (i.e., plentiful, or more  
restricted access to linguistic, economic, and social resources in a  
community) has a great affect on types of language accommodations made  
by both hearing and deaf people and that from these accommodation  
types, it may be possible to predict the kinds of community-level  
linguistic repertoires which will emerge. In particular, when there is  
high integration between hearing and deaf people in a community, the  
majority of hearing people in a community accommodate to deaf  
communicative needs, signed forms of spoken languages are rare, as is  
political deafness (cf. LeMaster 1990, Johnson 1991). Yet, when there  
is low integration between hearing and deaf people in a community,  
deaf people are expected to accommodate to hearing people’s  
communicative needs, resulting in the use of signed forms of spoken  
languages and oralism, as well as the emergence of political Deafness.  
Is there a parallel among hearing communities?

One characteristic which may apply universally to all deaf communities  
(whether rural or urban, nonindustrialized or industrialized) is that  
when “deafness” is normalized by society – usually through an emphasis  
on visual and/or gestural, instead of oral/aural, face-to-face  
interactions between deaf and hearing people (i.e., accommodation to  
the deaf body’s requirement for language reception) – then deaf people  
gain greater access (in general) to their community thereby lessening  
the need for political deafness (LeMaster 1990: 53-89 & 217-247,  
Johnson 1991: 471). Is there a parallel among hearing communities?

Some researchers have attributed the depoliticization of deafness to  
nonindustrial societies (Johnson 1991), others to rural and/or small- 
scale societies (LeMaster 1990) or to high integration between deaf  
and hearing people (LeMaster 1998). Certainly the nature of  
interaction among members of small-scale societies may make  
depoliticization of deafness more likely (Groce 1980, Johnson 1991).  
But even in large-scale societies, institutions of socialization (such  
as the residential deaf school) and other sub-organizational  
institutions may have the effect of small-scale societies on language  
and identity. On the other hand, LeMaster (1990) asserts that whenever  
deafness is stigmatized, and the emphasis on face-to-face  
communication is to mask the disability, then deafness will become  
politicized and greater language and modality variation will be  
present at the community-level linguistic repertoire.

This session begins this exploration of language contact outcomes at  
the level of linguistic repertoires for deaf-hearing contact  
communities in Ireland, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Solomon Islands, and the  
United States.

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Dr. Barbara LeMaster
Chair, Department of Anthropology
Professor, Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics
(CSULB) California State University, Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Boulevard
Long Beach, CA 90840
FO3-303
(562) 985-5037
(562) 985-4379 (fax)
http://www.csulb.edu/~lemaster
lemaster at csulb.edu
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