Standardizing Minority Languages

Standardizing Minority Languages PDF Author: Pia Lane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317298861
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781138125124, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. This volume addresses a crucial, yet largely unaddressed dimension of minority language standardization, namely how social actors engage with, support, negotiate, resist and even reject such processes. The focus is on social actors rather than language as a means for analysing the complexity and tensions inherent in contemporary standardization processes. By considering the perspectives and actions of people who participate in or are affected by minority language politics, the contributors aim to provide a comparative and nuanced analysis of the complexity and tensions inherent in minority language standardisation processes. Echoing Fasold (1984), this involves a shift in focus from a sociolinguistics of language to a sociolinguistics of people. The book addresses tensions that are born of the renewed or continued need to standardize ‘language’ in the early 21st century across the world. It proposes to go beyond the traditional macro/micro dichotomy by foregrounding the role of actors as they position themselves as users of standard forms of language, oral or written, across sociolinguistic scales. Language policy processes can be seen as practices and ideologies in action and this volume therefore investigates how social actors in a wide range of geographical settings embrace, contribute to, resist and also reject (aspects of) minority language standardization.

Standardizing Minority Languages

Standardizing Minority Languages PDF Author: Pia Lane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317298861
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book

Book Description
The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781138125124, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. This volume addresses a crucial, yet largely unaddressed dimension of minority language standardization, namely how social actors engage with, support, negotiate, resist and even reject such processes. The focus is on social actors rather than language as a means for analysing the complexity and tensions inherent in contemporary standardization processes. By considering the perspectives and actions of people who participate in or are affected by minority language politics, the contributors aim to provide a comparative and nuanced analysis of the complexity and tensions inherent in minority language standardisation processes. Echoing Fasold (1984), this involves a shift in focus from a sociolinguistics of language to a sociolinguistics of people. The book addresses tensions that are born of the renewed or continued need to standardize ‘language’ in the early 21st century across the world. It proposes to go beyond the traditional macro/micro dichotomy by foregrounding the role of actors as they position themselves as users of standard forms of language, oral or written, across sociolinguistic scales. Language policy processes can be seen as practices and ideologies in action and this volume therefore investigates how social actors in a wide range of geographical settings embrace, contribute to, resist and also reject (aspects of) minority language standardization.

Maintenance and Loss of Minority Languages

Maintenance and Loss of Minority Languages PDF Author: Willem Fase
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027241015
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
The papers in this volume describe a wide variety of language contact settings in which one or more languages are in a process of shift. In the first part of the book theoretical perspectives are presented, followed by linguistic, sociological and descriptive studies of languages and countries that have attracted the interest of researchers before, as well as less well known examples. Data are presented from: the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Israel, The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Morocco, Finland, Malaysia, Germany, USA, Ireland, India, Tanzania and Australia.

Variation in Indigenous Minority Languages

Variation in Indigenous Minority Languages PDF Author: James N. Stanford
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027218641
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
Indigenous minority languages have played crucial roles in many areas of linguistics - phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, typology, and the ethnography of communication. Such languages have, however, received comparatively little attention from quantitative or variationist sociolinguistics. Without the diverse perspectives that underrepresented language communities can provide, our understanding of language variation and change will be incomplete. To help fill this gap and develop broader viewpoints, this anthology presents 21 original, fieldwork-based studies of a wide range of indigenous languages in the framework of quantitative sociolinguistics. The studies illustrate how such understudied communities can provide new insights into language variation and change with respect to socioeconomic status, gender, age, clan, lack of a standard, exogamy, contact with dominant majority languages, internal linguistic factors, and many other topics.

Lesser-Known Languages of South Asia

Lesser-Known Languages of South Asia PDF Author: Anju Saxena
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110197782
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
The increasing globalization and centralization in the world is threatening the existence of a large number of smaller languages. In South Asia some locally dominant languages (e.g., Hindi, Urdu, Nepali) are gaining ground beside English at the expense of the lesser-known languages. Despite a long history of stable multilingualism, language death is not uncommon in the South Asian context. We do not know how the language situation in South Asia will be affected by modern information and communication technologies: Will cultural and linguistic diversity be strengthened or weakened as they become increasingly prevalent in all walks of life? This volume brings together areas of research that so far do not interact to any significant extent: traditional South Asian descriptive linguistics and sociolinguistics, documentary linguistics, issues of intellectual and cultural property and fieldwork ethics, and language technology. Researchers working in the areas of documentary linguistics and language technology have become aware of each other in the last few years, and of how work in the other area could be potentially useful in furthering their own aims. Similarly, the insights of documentary linguistics are making their way into descriptive linguistics and sociolinguistics. However, the potential for synergy among these areas of research is almost limitless. This volume provides the reader, not so much with a do-it-yourself recipe for applying modern technology to the problem of language shift in South Asia today, but rather with some basic knowledge about the problems involved and some directions from which solutions could be forthcoming, a toolbox rather than a blueprint, for helping to shape the linguistic future of South Asia.

Sustaining Linguistic Diversity

Sustaining Linguistic Diversity PDF Author: Kendall A. King
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1589014162
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
In the last three decades the field of endangered and minority languages has evolved rapidly, moving from the initial dire warnings of linguists to a swift increase in the number of organizations, funding programs, and community-based efforts dedicated to documentation, maintenance, and revitalization. Sustaining Linguistic Diversity brings together cutting-edge theoretical and empirical work from leading researchers and practitioners in the field. Together, these contributions provide a state-of-the-art overview of current work in defining, documenting, and developing the world's smaller languages and language varieties. The book begins by grappling with how we define endangerment—how languages and language varieties are best classified, what the implications of such classifications are, and who should have the final say in making them. The contributors then turn to the documentation and description of endangered languages and focus on best practices, methods and goals in documentation, and on current field reports from around the globe. The latter part of the book analyzes current practices in developing endangered languages and dialects and particular language revitalization efforts and outcomes in specific locations. Concluding with critical calls from leading researchers in the field to consider the human lives at stake, Sustaining Linguistic Diversity reminds scholars, researchers, practitioners, and educators that linguistic diversity can only be sustained in a world where diversity in all its forms is valued.

The Cambridge Handbook of Language Standardization

The Cambridge Handbook of Language Standardization PDF Author: Wendy Ayres-Bennett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108640079
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1013

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Book Description
Surveying a wide range of languages and approaches, this Handbook is an essential resource for all those interested in language standards and standard languages. It not only explores the standardization of national European languages, it also offers fresh insights on the standardization of minoritized, indigenous and stateless languages.

Minority Languages and Group Identity

Minority Languages and Group Identity PDF Author: John Edwards
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027288682
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
The central concern in this book is the relationship between language and group identity, a relationship that is thrown into greatest relief in ‘minority’ settings. Since much of the current interest in minority languages revolves around issues of identity politics, language rights and the plight of ‘endangered’ languages, one aim of the book is to summarise and analyse these and other pivotal themes. Furthermore, since the uniqueness of every language-contact situation does not rest upon unique elements or features – but, rather, upon the particular weightings and combinations of features that recur across settings – the second aim here is to provide a general descriptive framework within which a wide range of contact settings may be more easily understood. The book thus begins with a discussion of such matters as language decline, maintenance and revival, the dynamics of minority languages, and the ecology of language. It then offers a typological framework that draws and expands upon previous categorising efforts. Finally, the book presents four case studies that are both intrinsically interesting and – more importantly – provide specific illustrations of the generalities discussed earlier.

Minority Languages and Dominant Culture

Minority Languages and Dominant Culture PDF Author: M Kalantzis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780850006292
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Language Standardization and Language Variation in Multilingual Contexts

Language Standardization and Language Variation in Multilingual Contexts PDF Author: Nicola McLelland
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 180041157X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
This important contribution to the sociolinguistics of Asian languages breaks new ground in the study of language standards and standardization in two key ways: in its focus on Asia, with particular attention paid to China and its neighbours, and in the attention paid to multilingual contexts. The chapters address various kinds of (sometimes hidden) multilingualism and examine the interactions between multilingualism and language standardization, offering a corrective to earlier work on standardization, which has tended to assume a monolingual nation state and monolingual individuals. Taken together, the chapters in this book thus add to our understanding of the ways in which multilingualism is implicated in language standardization, as well as the impact of language standards on multilingualism. The introduction, Chapter 6 and Chapter 8 are free to download as open access publications. You can access them here: Introduction: https://zenodo.org/record/5749388#.YaiwuNDP3cs Chapter 6: https://zenodo.org/record/5749522#.Yaiw-9DP3cs Chapter 8: https://zenodo.org/record/5749586#.Yai0RNDP3cs

The Minority Language as a Second Language

The Minority Language as a Second Language PDF Author: Jasone Cenoz
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003817270
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This innovative collection is the first of its kind to showcase global perspectives on learning minority languages as second languages, offering unique insights into their acquisition and specific characteristics and raising greater awareness around other languages and contexts where SLA occurs. The volume examines how minority languages are acquired as second languages across a range of geographic settings where these languages are unique minorities; that is, they are spoken in one or more states where they have a minority status. International case studies explore particular features of these languages as well as the challenges of teaching and learning them, including standardization, legal recognition at all educational levels, the dissemination of printed and digital materials and more or less limited language use in the local community. Highlighted languages include Ashaninka, Basque, Frisian, Hawaiian, Irish, Isthmus Zapotec, Quechua Chanka, Tonga and Welsh. Each chapter adopts a consistent structure, with a brief introduction to the sociolinguistic landscape, followed by sections on language use in education, research studies, reflections and discussions related to the learning of minority languages as second languages and the implication of these processes for the revitalization of minority languages. Breaking new ground in second language acquisition research, this book is an indispensable resource for advanced students and researchers in SLA, multilingual education, bilingualism and sociolinguistics.