Language Ideology and Semiotic Negotiation in Mongolian Use
As Owen Lattimore points out, the right to move and the right to settle mark an
ecological-cum-ideological division between nomadism and agriculturalism in
Inner Asia. Though marketization has brought the Chinese Mongols and the Han
ever closer, the need for ideological negotiation remains, which is best reflected in
the discourse of Mongolian language use in Inner Mongolia and beyond.
Language ideology is more about “reason” while semiotic negotiation takes
place along the three dimensions of sign (representaman), object, and interpretant,
a Peircean triadic division I adopt in this chapter. Language use involves
reasoning as much as materiality.