71 books match the query 'Language and culture' and 4 start with n

cover of Native American Language Ideologies: Beliefs, Practices, and Struggles in Indian Country

Native American Language Ideologies

Beliefs, Practices, and Struggles in Indian Country

Edited by Paul V. Kroskrity and Margaret C. Field

University of Arizona Press, 2009

Beliefs and feelings about language vary dramatically within and across Native American cultural groups and are an acknowledged part of the processes of language shift and language death. This volume samples the language ideologies of a wide range of Native American communities--from the Canadian Yukon to Guatemala--to show their role in sociocultural transformation.

These studies take up such active issues as "insiderness" in Cherokee language ideologies, contradictions of space-time for the Northern Arapaho, language socialization and Paiute identity, and orthography choices and language renewal among the Kiowa. The authors--including members of indigenous speech communities who participate in language renewal efforts--discuss not only Native Americans' conscious language ideologies but also the often-revealing relationship between these beliefs and other more implicit realizations of language use as embedded in community practice.

The chapters discuss the impact of contemporary language issues related to grammar, language use, the relation between language and social identity, and emergent language ideologies themselves in Native American speech communities. And although they portray obvious variation in attitudes toward language across communities, they also reveal commonalities--notably the emergent ideological process of iconization between a language and various national, ethnic, and tribal identities.

As fewer Native Americans continue to speak their own language, this timely volume provides valuable grounded studies of language ideologies in action--those indigenous to Native communities as well as those imposed by outside institutions or language researchers. It considers the emergent interaction of indigenous and imported ideologies and the resulting effect on language beliefs, practices, and struggles in today's Indian Country as it demonstrates the practical implications of recognizing a multiplicity of indigenous language ideologies and their impact on heritage language maintenance and renewal.
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cover of Natural Histories of Discourse

Natural Histories of Discourse

Edited by Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban

University of Chicago Press, 1996

Is culture simply a more or less set text we can learn to read? Since the early 1970s, the notion of culture-as-text has animated anthropologists and other analysts of culture. Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban present this stunning collection of cutting-edge ethnographies arguing that the divide between fleeting discursive practice and formed text is a constructed one, and that the constructional process reveals "culture" to those who can interpret it.

Eleven original essays of "natural history" range in focus from nuptial poetry of insult among Wolof griots to case-based teaching methods in first-year law-school classrooms. Stage by stage, they give an idea of the cultural processes of "entextualization" and "contextualization" of discourse that they so richly illustrate. The contributors' varied backgrounds include anthropology, psychiatry, education, literary criticism, and law, making this collection invaluable not only to anthropologists and linguists, but to all analysts of culture.

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cover of New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Approaches

New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South

Historical and Contemporary Approaches

Michael D. Picone

University of Alabama Press, 2015

The third installment in the landmark LAVIS (Language Variety in the South) series, New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Approaches brings together essays devoted to the careful examination and elucidation of the rich linguistic diversity of the American South, updating and broadening the work of the earlier volumes by more fully capturing the multifaceted configuration of languages and dialects in the South.
 
Beginning with an introduction to American Indian languages of the Southeast, five fascinating essays discuss indigenous languages, including Caddo, Ofo, and Timucua, and evidence for the connection between the Pre-Columbian Southeast and the Caribbean.
 
Five essays explore the earlier Englishes of the South, covering topics such as the eighteenth century as the key period in the differentiation of Southern American English and the use of new quantitative methods to trace the transfer of linguistic features from England to America. They examine a range of linguistic resources, such as plantation overseers’ writings, modern blues lyrics, linguistic databases, and lexical and locutional compilations that reveal the region’s distinctive dialectal traditions.
 
New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Approaches widens the scope of inquiry into the linguistic influences of the African diaspora as evidenced in primary sources and records. A comprehensive essay redefines the varieties of French in Louisiana, tracing the pathway from Colonial Louisiana to the emergence of Plantation Society French in a diglossic relationship with Louisiana Creole. A further essay maps the shift from French to English in family documents.
 
An assortment of essays on English in the contemporary South touch on an array of compelling topics from discourse strategies to dialectal emblems of identity to stereotypes in popular perception.
 
Essays about recent Latino immigrants to the South bring the collection into the twenty-first century, taking into account the dramatic increase in the population of Spanish speakers and illuminating the purported role of “Spanglish,” the bilingual lives of Spanish-speaking Latinos in Mississippi, and the existence of regional Spanish dialectal diversity.
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cover of Northwest Voices: Language and Culture in the Pacific Northwest

Northwest Voices

Language and Culture in the Pacific Northwest

Kristin Denham

Oregon State University Press, 2019

The Pacific Northwest has long been a linguistically rich region, yet there are few books devoted its unique linguistic heritage. The essays collected in Northwest Voices examine the historical background of the Pacific Northwest, the contributions of indigenous languages, the regional legacy of English, and the relationship between our perceptions of people and the languages they speak.

Although not often considered a bastion of diversity, linguistic or otherwise, in fact the Pacific Northwest has had a surprising number of influences on the English language, and a great number of other languages have left their mark on the region in a variety of ways. Individual essays examine the region's linguistic diversity, explore the origins and use of place names, and detail efforts to revive indigenous languages.

Written for both general readers and language scholars, Northwest Voices brings together research and perspectives from linguistics, history, and cultural studies to help readers understand how and why the language of our region is of utmost importance to our pasts, presents, and futures.

CONTRIBUTORS
Edwin Battistella
Kara Becker
Kathy Cole
Kristin Denham
Betsy Evans
Russell Hugo
Danica Sterud Miller
David Pippin
Allan Richardson
Jordan B. Sandoval
Alicia Beckford Wassink
Henry Zenk
 
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