Sociolinguistic variation and the public interest

Although the disparity between sociolinguistic knowledge and popular beliefs about language diversity is well documented, little proactive attention has been given to changing public misconceptions. How can programs about linguistic diversity be presented when the prevailing public language ideology is largely fueled by the principle of linguistic subordination and interpreted in terms of a correctionist model? The approach to dialect awareness presented here is based on the underlying assumption that the public is inherently curious about language differences and that this intrigue can be transformed into public education venues. It connects the legacy of language variation to legitimate historical and cultural themes that are intrinsically interesting to the public, and assumes that the most effective and permanent education takes place when learners discover truths for themselves. It further presumes that positively framed presentations of language differences in socioculural and sociohistoical context hold a greater likelihood of being received by the public than the direct confrontation of seemingly unassailable ideologies. The presentation considers three quite different venues to exemplify engagement: (1) an extended, long-term engagement commitment in a small, historically isolated research community; (2) language documentaries in public education; and (3) the role of activist linguists on university campuses. The presentation demonstrates that the public rhetoric on linguistic diversity can, in fact, be reconciled with a linguistically informed perspective and that language-awareness programs can serve a range of audiences utilizing a variety of venues

Reconstructing the History of AAVE: New Data on an Old Theme

Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Aspect (2000

On the (In)Significance of English Language Variation: Cherokee English and Lumbee English in Comparative Perspective

The Eastern Band of Cherokee in the western mountains of North Carolina and the Lumbee Indians in the eastern sand hills of North Carolina represent two of the most significant American Indian groups east of the Mississippi River, but the symbolic role of English language variation differs dramatically. Descriptive sociolinguistic and perceptual studies demonstrate the uniqueness of Lumbee English as an ethnolinguistic repertoire. The English spoken by the Cherokee is strongly influenced by vernacular Southern Appalachian English, complemented by some substrate features from Cherokee that results in a variety of “Cherokee English.” The narrative analysis of more than 20 hours of video footage in terms of space, place, and identity indicates that the groups share the construct of “Talking Indian” but in contrastive ways. For the Lumbee, an ethnicized repertoire of English is embraced as “Indian Talk” whereas the Eastern Band of Cherokee define this construct exclusively as a discrete, endangered heritage language that erases variation in English. The analysis indicates that “place as location” and “place as meaning” are integrated and interactive. Meaning may be emplaced in physical region but it can also supersede it. The comparison further illustrates that a dynamic, critical historical perspective and interactive discourse are critical to the perspective of Heimat in language variation, and that interpretive forms of ethnographic study are complementary to the quantitative study of language variation

Security, ethnicity, nationalism

In this article, I ask which aspects of ethnicity and nationalism that may be brought into sharper focus if we read these two phenomena with a view to how they have been shaped by security concerns. The first part of the article clears up some problems inherent in such exercises in diachronic concept analysis, and establishes the temporal area of validity for the analysis. The second part argues that the very emergence of the concept of ethnos (and its Roman translation, gens) was immersed in security thinking. It emerged as a way in which Greeks and Romans imposed order on what was outside that was not there before. Ethnic groups became ethnic by being interpellated by a stronger polity, and the process was driven first and foremost by security concerns. The third part illustrates this with a case study of the emergence of Slavic ethnicity. The fourth part of the article discusses how, with the advent of nationalism, there is an inversion. If ethnicity was imposed on subaltern groups, then European empires attempted to deny nationalism to such groups by insisting that they did not have the history to deserve it. Once again, security concerns played a key role, for as rightly seen by empires, nationhood could be an important anti-colonial resource. The paper ends by noting how nationalism invariably underlines the vitality of the Self, and juxtaposes it with the decrepitude of Others. With reference to present-day Russia, I note how the use of such organic metaphors in and of themselves securitize the relationship between nations, for the implication is that the old should disappear for the new to live, and that highlights security concerns on both sides of the relationship