Publications

Publication details [#61384]

Korne, Haley De and Miranda Weinberg. 2016. Who can speak Lenape in Pennsylvania? Authentication and language learning in an endangered language community of practice. Language & Communication 47 : 124–134.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
Elsevier

Annotation

Based on a three-year ethnographic case study, this paper examines the processes via which a group of learners at a Pennsylvania college got recognized as speakers of Lenape, an endangered language indigenous to the eastern United States. Using a communities of practice framework, it explores how language acquisition was eased and how community members' identities were negotiated and opposed via authentication processes. A community of practice view provides a handy framework for grasping how this effective learning community operated, and for distinguishing factors that may serve other language revitalization enterprises.