Discourses of Endangerment: Ideology and Interest in the Defence of Languages

Description

Current academic discussions and public debates about language frequently focus on the importance of defending languages against various kinds of dangers. Many of these current debates attach great importance to linguistic diversity. The debates focus on defending institutionalized languages against multilingualism, or conversely defending minority languages against the incursion of larger ones, especially the spread of English. In both cases, languages are constructed as autonomous wholes, held to need defending against attack. This book challenges such a view of language, to argue that the discussions in question are not in fact about language itself. The internationally renowned contributors claim that we are witnessing ideological struggles which are taking place on the terrain of language. Discourses of Endangerment addresses such questions as: * What does language represent in discussions of multilingualism? * Why is it constituted as an organic whole?* In whose interest does it lie to construct language in this way?* Who has an interest in taking various positions for or against official languages?* In what way is the linguistic order tied to the social order? The book addresses these issues through a set of case studies which locate the terms of the discussion in broad discourses of language, identity and power. Covering a wide-range of languages including Catalan, Swedish, Corsican, Ukrainian and French, from different sociolinguistic perspectives, this book is essential reading for students and academics interested in language endangerment and sociolinguistics.

Alexandre Duchene is Professor in Sociology of Language and Multilingualism at the University of Teacher Education, Fribourg, Switzerland. Monica Heller is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Canada.

This volume is a useful contribution to the growing scholarship on language endangerment... This collection begins to attack some of the questionable assumptions which have been shaping popular discussions on language endangerment, and encourages more critical approaches to the varied settings in which one can observe language varieties under real or imagined threat * The Linguist List * The volume is useful for those interested in understanding more aspects of the development of the language endangerment discourses of the last few decades * The Linguist List * "Discourses of Endangerment constitutes interesting reading for students and scholars working in the areas of language politics, language ideologies and multilingualism, and it is essential reading for anyone concerned with 'endangered' or 'minority' languages, not least because these labels ar frequently employed unquestioningly, which in turn masks what lies at the heart of the matter: power relations between real people" , -- Kristine Horner * Language Policy, June 2008 * "Following in the wake of a number of recent books about language endangerment or language death, this work, with its discourse-analytic perspective, turns a critical eye on the received wisdom in linguistics concerning the endangerment of human linguistic diversity. Some of the authors state that their intention, however, is not to question the reality of the threats to language diversity but merely to analyze the ways language endangerment ideologies are discursively constructed. The 13 chapters, each with its own endnotes and bibliography, stand alone well and can be read in any order, but the book coheres nicely around its central perspective, first developed by Heller and Duchene's opening chapter...Readers concerned about current predictions of the loss of much human linguistic diversity are unlikely to have their minds changed by this work, but it does a fine job of reasking important questions and of shedding light on how these linguistics issues have been presented to the public." -- -- Kevin J. Rottet * Studies in Second Language Acquisition * To sum up, the editors have assembled a splendid collection of state-of-the art essays on language endangerment discourses written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and covering a wide range of languages ... The best of the essays are truly trailblazing. Linguistic anthropologists, sociolinguists, applied linguists, discourse analysts, and anyone else interested in language ideologies and language endangerment issues would do well to read this volume. * Discourse and Communication * "A most stimulating work ... whose contributions in terms of knowledge, theoretical ideas and analyses are indispensible to begin to understand the evolution of the present-day situation of our world's languages." -- -- Gabrielle Varro * Education et Societes plurilingues, 25 * "this book is the most recent contribution to the growing literature on language endangerment" "the editors have assembled a splendid collection of state-of-the-art essays on language endangerment discourses written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and covering a wide range of languages" "all of the essays are of a very high quality. The best of the essays are truly trailblazing. Linguistic anthropologists, sociolinguistics, applied linguists, dicourse analysts, and anyone else interested in language ideologies and language endangerment issues would do well to read this volume" -- * Discourse & Communication * "...the real contribution of these papers comes when they are taken together, as they present a complex, multifaceted view of the discourse of endangerment and language ideology in modern times." -- * Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development * "Through a wide-ranging collection of scholars and contributions the volume presents a unique critical analysis of the discourses on language endangerment, how these discourses have been constructed, and which strategies they rely on. The degree of complexity is great since these discourses are embedded in multiple power relations and power struggles, where several interests are at stake." "On the whole, although the range of authors presented is wide, the volume represents a close unit that fulfils its declared aims through a comprehensive and well presented analysis of several different cases. The book aims to interrogate current practices of linguistic expertise and therefore represents a significant contribution to the field and recommended reading for linguists and other actors called upon to provide expert discourse on language endangerment in order to gain some purchase towards understanding the consequences of their actions." -- Multilingua -- Maja Mezgec, Slovene Research Institute, Slovenia ...the volume's co-editors argue persuasively...an especially compelling set of questions...authors [are] very skilled in reading ideologies from their data...As a critique of discourses of endangerment, the volume makes significant strides not merely in questioning the rhetorical strategies used to discuss language extinction but also in disclosing conflicts of interest underlying these approaches...this volume takes a major step in offering a language ideological interpretation of how political-economic interests have shaped two very different kinds of threats - one rather real, the other quite imagined...it is a critical complement to such works for scholars interested in language ideological construction of "endangerment". * Language in Society, 2009 *