36.418, Books: Ainu of Japan Resisting the Suppression of Languages: Samata (2024)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-418. Sat Feb 01 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.418, Books: Ainu of Japan Resisting the Suppression of Languages: Samata (2024)

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Date: 01-Feb-2025
From: Rachel Bradshaw [rachel.bradshaw at bloomsbury.com]
Subject: Ainu of Japan Resisting the Suppression of Languages: Samata (2024)


Title: Ainu of Japan Resisting the Suppression of Languages
Subtitle: An All Obliterated Tongue
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
           http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/ainu-of-japan-resisting-the-suppression-of-languages-9781350448636/

Author(s): Susan Samata

Hardback: 9781350448636 £95.00

Abstract:

This volume shows that, by moving away from code models that foster
restrictive perceptions of language as learned words and rules, and
towards an ecolinguistics capable of integrating with concepts of
embodied cognition, it is possible to recognise a broad range of
connections with a language from which an individual or community has
become estranged.
Using the Ainu of Japan as an example and comparator, this book
reviews historical and contemporary suppression of languages as a
means of, or as a bi-product of, the suppression of their speakers.
Preservation of the Ainu language, which had no written form, has been
central to official culture promotion programs, but the language has
steadily declined in use. The Ainu experience has much in common with
that of communities taken over and suppressed by oppressive forces in
other countries and spans rural and urban contexts. Susan Samata
examines the historical, social and ecolinguistic contexts of Ainu,
with particular emphasis on presentation and perception in daily life.
She also considers how aspects of ecolinguistic theory may be mapped
onto museum practices, television and cinema, popular literature, and
the promotion of tourism. These are then compared to the
sociolinguistic situations of a selection of other languages and
cultures in China, North America and Scandinavia. By highlighting
points of similarity and dissimilarity, Samata demonstrates the
factors that operate in the suppression of people and their languages
and suggests ways in which the perspective described may support
resistance to suppression and assimilation, not least in language
teaching areas.

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     General Linguistics
                     Sociolinguistics




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