WOTU LANGUAGE IN ENDANGERED PHASE: SOLUTION FOR REVITALIZING WOTU LANGUAGE

This paper explores the sociolinguistics practices of members of a minority language in East Luwu South Sulawesi, the Wotunese Community. The concern of this paper is to construct the way out of saving the Wotu language from the death language phenomenon. The data collected on the language use and the determinant factors are taken as basic idea in constructing the way out of saving the Wotu language from the death language phenomenon. The findings on language choice and language use show clear evidence of the endangerment of Wotu language. The Wotunese, mostly the young generation tend to use other languages than wotu language. This means that a real language shift is happening in Wotu district.. Then, there are some solution that the researcher suggests how to revitalize the Wotu language which is in endangered phase, those are : (1). The commitment of Wotu language speech community especially the Family domain. (2). Cultural activities should be supported. (3). The role Education Institution (4). Media (5). Local government Support (6). Positive Language attitude should be developed. Then the researcher also suggest some important things as follows: It is very important to do some real actions related to the efforts to revitalize the Wotu language.The stakeholders such as local government, public figure of Wotunese and also the linguist should have a good commitment to make the language planning of Wotu language successful

Understanding Language Death in Czech-Moravian Texas

Based on several decades of personal interaction with Texas speakers of Czech, the author's article attempts to correlate social change with some specific stages of language obsolescence and language death. Many instances of language change in that community, as well as cultural and social change, may be explained by the linguistic model known as the wave theory. One hundred and fifty years passed between the introduction of Czech and the death of that language in Texas. From the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century, the Czech-Moravians represented a closed community in which individuals defined their identity primarily by the Czech language, ethnicity, and culture. In the final five decades of the twentieth century, as the social template representing Texas speakers of Czech disintegrated, spoken Czech ceased to function as a living language, and much of the ancestral culture connected with the language was lost. Today some among the elderly, described as semi-speakers, terminal speakers, or "rememberers" of language, retain a limited knowledge, but the ancestral language now has only a symbolic function

INTRODUCING TRANSLATION ACTIVITY: AN IMPLEMENTATION OF LANGUAGE MANTAINENCE IN CLASSROOM

Multilingual communities have language shift. This ‘shift’ can change the plurality of languages in those communities; it favors the more dominant language and pushes the minority to its death or loss (Holmes: 2001). And when one language dies or losses, this world also losses one of its treasures. Translation activity in schools, in the spirit of language maintenance, helps to mantain minority language over the presure from the dominant language. It also helps students appreciate values of both languages. This paper discusses how important introducing translation in language teaching as part of language maintenance

Conceptualising Food as Death: A Radical Environmentalist Politics of Food

Research into the politics of food cannot assume universal acceptance of what is meant by the term \'food\' which has multiple meanings and significantly different associations. A semiotic approach demonstrates the meaning and value of this point. Food has variously been conceptualised as process and as commodity, nature or culture. None of these tropes are value neutral, but are associated with opposing priorities and conflicts of interest. Drawing from ecocentric and anthropocentric environmental philosophies, an alternative trope, that of food-as-death, can be developed, which challenges other, more dominant, tropes. Semiotics denies the notion that language \'mirrors\' reality. Rather, language creates reality. Semiotics, then, can be useful in developing alternative realities. To conceptualise food as death is more than using death as a metaphor. Where food is prioritised as commodity, commercial/industrial food practices promote death: death of the body through malnutrition or over-consumption; death of communities through the power of transnationals and commercial interests; death of the natural world through the prioritisation of these human food provision systems. Food-as-death is a trope which privileges the destructive aspect of food over others such as pleasure, identity and nurturing. Power is invested in those whose trope gains the greatest acceptance. The challenge for environmentalism is to demonstrate the validity of food-as-death. The essential task therefore, is to demonstrate that food for humans can be organised in a way which affirms the well being of humans, communities and nature. This trope will be food-as-life.Food, Death, Conceptualisation, Semiotics, Environmental Philosophies

Death Under Control: The Portrayal of Death in Mass Print English Language Magazines in Canada

The purpose of this article is to discuss the portrayal of death in modern North American society in the highest circulating English language magazines available in Canada and published either in the United States or in Canada, in 1991, 1996, and 2001. The prevailing underlying frame/discourse of which there were a number of sub-variants, was the notion of the control of death. Stories focused on people taking control of death by 1) passive and active euthanasia, 2) suicide with political and social motivations and messages, 3) suicide deaths among celebrities and the families of celebrities, 4) dramatic murders, 5) issues in the “right to die movement,” and 6) new techniques and technologies for life extension. There was a very small minority of articles on miscellaneous issues such as death rates and their variation across geographic region, social class, environmental condition, and cause. The article ends with discussion of the ways that this portrayal of death obfuscates the real lack of control most North Americans, particularly those who are poor or “racialized,” have over the timing, or circumstances of death. In addition, as a critical discourse analysis, it discusses the interests that are served by this perspective

Evaluating Evidence of Childhood Abuse as a Function of Expert Testimony, Judge’s Instructions, and Sentence Recommendation

In the current study we examined how jurors utilize evidence of childhood abuse as a function of expert testimony and sentence recommendation. We also varied the specificity of instructional language in the context of mitigating circumstances. We predicted jurors who impose a life sentence would rate evidence of childhood abuse as significantly more important in determining sentence compared to jurors who impose the death penalty. Furthermore, we expected this effect to be moderated by expert testimony. Testimony of childhood abuse increased importance ratings of non-statutory mitigating circumstances. This effect was more evident for jurors who imposed a life sentence compared to those who imposed the death penalty. In addition, specific instructional language influenced how jurors considered circumstances related to the defendant’s life

On Evolution of God-Seeking Mind: An Inquiry Into Why Natural Selection Would Favor Imagination and Distortion of Sensory Experience

The earliest known products of human imagination appear to express a primordial concern and struggle with thoughts of dying and of death and mortality. I argue that the structures and processes of imagination evolved in that struggle, in response to debilitating anxieties and fearful states that would accompany an incipient awareness of mortality. Imagination evolved to find that which would make the nascent apprehension of death more bearable, to engage in a search for alternative perceptions of death: a search that was beyond the capability of the external senses. I argue that imagination evolved as flight and fight adaptations in response to debilitating fears that paralleled an emerging foreknowledge of death. Imagination, and symbolic language to express its perceptions, would eventually lead to religious behavior and the development of cultural supports. Although highly speculative, my argument draws on recent brain studies, and on anthropology, psychology, and linguistics

Fiancées and widows: women’s encounters with death in the silent films of Fritz Lang

Kłys Tomasz, Fiancées and widows: women’s encounters with death in the silent films of Fritz Lang. “Images” vol. XXV, no. 34. Poznań 2019. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Pp. 155–162. ISSN 1731-450X. DOI 10.14746/i.2019.34.10. In the silent Weimar films of Fritz Lang, the heroines have sudden encounters with Death, conceived both as an allegorical figure and as an unexpected violent end of the life of their fiancé, husband or loved one. The nameless Maiden, the main heroine of Der müde Tod (The Weary Death, known in English-language countries as Destiny, 1921), while looking for her fiancé, who was kidnapped by Death, tries three times to regain his life and finally, overcome by Death, commits suicide. Two queens of Burgundy in Die Nibelungen (The Nibelungs, 1924), Kriemhild and Brunhild, motivated by resentment and vengeance, as well as by unfulfilled love, finally appear to be zombie-like self-destructive monsters, destroying the social and political order, and the lives of many human beings. The paper, with the use of the psychoanalytic concepts of melancholy and the mourning “not-worked-out” by the persons who have lost their loved ones, analyses the ambiguous attitudes and self-destructive acts of these “women in black”..Kłys Tomasz, Fiancées and widows: women’s encounters with death in the silent films of Fritz Lang. “Images” vol. XXV, no. 34. Poznań 2019. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Pp. 155–162. ISSN 1731-450X. DOI 10.14746/i.2019.34.10. In the silent Weimar films of Fritz Lang, the heroines have sudden encounters with Death, conceived both as an allegorical figure and as an unexpected violent end of the life of their fiancé, husband or loved one. The nameless Maiden, the main heroine of Der müde Tod (The Weary Death, known in English-language countries as Destiny, 1921), while looking for her fiancé, who was kidnapped by Death, tries three times to regain his life and finally, overcome by Death, commits suicide. Two queens of Burgundy in Die Nibelungen (The Nibelungs, 1924), Kriemhild and Brunhild, motivated by resentment and vengeance, as well as by unfulfilled love, finally appear to be zombie-like self-destructive monsters, destroying the social and political order, and the lives of many human beings. The paper, with the use of the psychoanalytic concepts of melancholy and the mourning “not-worked-out” by the persons who have lost their loved ones, analyses the ambiguous attitudes and self-destructive acts of these “women in black”.

Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death

We analyze the dynamic properties of 10^7 words recorded in English, Spanish and Hebrew over the period 1800--2008 in order to gain insight into the coevolution of language and culture. We report language independent patterns useful as benchmarks for theoretical models of language evolution. A significantly decreasing (increasing) trend in the birth (death) rate of words indicates a recent shift in the selection laws governing word use. For new words, we observe a peak in the growth-rate fluctuations around 40 years after introduction, consistent with the typical entry time into standard dictionaries and the human generational timescale. Pronounced changes in the dynamics of language during periods of war shows that word correlations, occurring across time and between words, are largely influenced by coevolutionary social, technological, and political factors. We quantify cultural memory by analyzing the long-term correlations in the use of individual words using detrended fluctuation analysis.Comment: Version 1: 31 pages, 17 figures, 3 tables. Version 2 is streamlined, eliminates substantial material and incorporates referee comments: 19 pages, 14 figures, 3 table