New Perspectives on Endangered Languages
Bridging gaps between sociolinguistics, documentation and language revitalization
Editors
Understanding sociolinguistics as a theoretical and methodological framework hopefully could attempt to promote change and social development in human communities. Yet it still presents important political, epistemological, methodological and theoretical challenges. A sociolinguistics of development, in which the revitalization of linguistic communities is the priority, opens new perspectives for the emerging field of linguistic documentation, in which the societal aspects of research, stressed by sociolinguistics, have frequently been marginal. The need to focus on the documentation of linguistic communities to contribute to the revitalization of these communities requires an in-depth revision of a number of different perspectives. Especially regarding the links between commonly separated fields of enquiry such as sociolinguistics, documentation and revitalization. Instead of creating mere museum pieces of academic contemplation for the future, as has been the major trend up to now in language documentation and even sociolinguistics, there is a growing concern to join forces to revitalize the actual use of endangered languages in order to place languages as a main focus of a community’s development which constitutes a major challenge for both scholars, civil society and speakers alike.
[Culture and Language Use, 1] 2010. v, 156 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Exploring links between documentation, sociolinguistics and language revitalization: An introductionJosé Antonio Flores Farfán and Fernando F. Ramallo | pp. 1–12
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Table of contents | pp. i–vi
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The social life of a language: Will Manambu survive?Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald | pp. 13–28
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The private and the public in documentation and revitalizationNancy C. Dorian | pp. 29–48
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Bridging linguistic research and linguistic documentation: The Kuikuro experience (Brazil)Bruna Franchetto | pp. 49–64
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Language vitality and revitalization in the ArcticLenore A. Grenoble | pp. 65–92
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The demise and attempted revival of Uchumataqu (Uru): Values and actorsPieter Muysken | pp. 93–118
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Linguistic vitality in the Awetí indigenous community: A case study from the Upper Xingu multilingual areaSabine Reiter | pp. 119–146
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Linking three agendas: Opening a debate and directions for the futureFernando F. Ramallo and José Antonio Flores Farfán | pp. 147–150
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Subject index
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Author index
“New Perspectives on Endangered Languages fulfills the promise of its title, and makes a genuinely new contribution to this field of study and practice. The papers focus especially on the impact of researchers and research projects on communities that use endangered languages, at the same time that they emphasize the agency of community members in moving forward projects of documentation and revitalization. The authors include several of the most prominent international figures in work on endangered languages, who discuss both errors and successes with stunning honesty. The case studies all present fascinating and detailed new materials. The theoretical sociolinguistic perspectives taken in these papers is sure to be influential.”
Jane Hill, University of Arizona
“By bringing the impact of language documentation on speech communities into the discipline of sociolinguistics, this book opens up the vista of reconnecting field linguists' documentary and descriptive activities with the aspirations of fragile speech communities to strengthen their languages in a new and theoretically interesting way.”
Nick Evans, Australian National University
Cited by
Cited by 5 other publications
Avilès González, Karla Janiré
Comajoan-Colomé, Llorenç & Serafín M. Coronel-Molina
Grin, François
2018. Chapter 11. On some fashionable terms in multilingualism research. In The Politics of Multilingualism [Studies in World Language Problems, 6], ► pp. 247 ff.
Perez, Danae
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFB: Sociolinguistics
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General