Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 16)

353 Pages·1998·23.08 MB·English

by  Bambi B. Schieffelin

LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES
OXFORD STUDIES IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS
William Bright, General Editor
Editorial Board
Wallace Chafe, University of California, Santa Barbara
Regna Darnell, University of Western Ontario
Paul Friedrich, University of Chicago
Dell Hymes, University of Virginia
Jane Hill, University of Arizona
Stephen C. Levinson, Max Planck Institute, The Netherlands
Joel Sherzer, University of Texas, Austin
David J. Parkin, University of London
Andrew Pawley, Australian National University
Jef Verschueren, University of Antwerp
Volumes Published in the Series:
1 Gunter Senft: Classificatory Particles in Kilivila
2 Janis B. Nuckolls: Sounds Like Life: Sound-Symbolic Grammar, Performance, and
Cognition in Pastaza Ouechua
o -^
3 David B. Kronenfeld: Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers: Semantic Extension from the
Ethnoscience Tradition
4 Lyle Campbell: American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native
America
5 Chase Hensel: Telling Our Selves: Ethnicity and Discourse in Southwestern Alaska
6 Rosaleen Howard-Malverde (ed.): Creating Context in Andean Cultures
7 Charles L. Briggs (ed.): Disorderly Discourse: Narrative, Conflict, and Inequality
8 Anna Wierzbicka: Understanding Cultures through Their Key Words: English, Russian,
Polish, German, and Japanese
9 Gerrit J. van Enk and Lourens de Vries: The Korowai of Irian Jaya: Their Language
in Its Cultural Context
10 Peter Bakker: A Language of Our Own: The Genesis ofMichif, the Mixed Cree-French
Language of the Canadian Metis
11 Gunter Senft: Referring to Space: Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages
12 David McKnight: People, Countries, and the Rainbow Serpent: Systems of Classifica-
tion among the Lardil ofMormngton Island
13 Penelope Gardner-Chloros, Robert B. Le Page, Andree Tabouret-Keller, and
Gabrielle Varro (eds.): Vernacular Literacy Revisited
14 Steven Roger Fischer; Rongorongo, the Easter Island Script: History, Traditions, Text
15 Richard Feinbcrg: Oral Traditions ofAnuta, a Polynesian Outlier in the Solomon
Islands
16 Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.): Language
Ideologies: Practice and Theory
LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES
Practice and Theory
Edited by
BAMBI B. SCHIEFFELIN
KATHRYN A. WOOLARD
PAUL V. KROSKRITY
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1998
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay
Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam
Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne
Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore
Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1998 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Language ideologies : practice and theory / edited by
Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathiyn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity.
p. cm. — (Oxford studies in anthropological linguistics; 16)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-19-510561-3; ISBN 0-19-510562-1 (pbk.)
I. Language and culture. 2. Ideology. I. Schieffelin, Bambi B.
II. Woolard, Kathryn Ann. III. Kroskrity, Paul V., 1949- .
IV. Series.
P35.L333 1998
400—dc21 97-23336
987654321
Printed in the United States of America
onaci1-free p<.per
PREFACE
Edited volumes, like all texts, have histories, and in this case it is a long one. This
book grows out of a full-day symposium on "Language Ideology: Practice and
Theory" organized by the present editors, sponsored by the Program Committee
of the American Anthropological Association, and held at the Association's an-
nual meeting in Chicago, November 1991. The premise of that symposium was
that language ideology stands in dialectical relation with—and thus significantly
shapes—social, discursive, and linguistic practices. Not merely an epiphenomenon,
but rather a crucial link mediating human acts and institutions, language ideology
merited more scholarly attention than it had thus far been given.
In that early attempt to bring an area of inquiry to the attention of the disci-
pline, we adopted a relatively unconstrained sense of "language ideology." We in-
cluded cultural conceptions not only of language and language variation but also of
the nature and purpose of communication, and its role in the life of social collec-
tivities. In order to build toward a general understanding of the cultural variability
of language ideologies and their roles in social and linguistic life, the symposium
brought together a broad spectrum of anthropologists. Some worked in more tra-
ditional societies, others in postindustrial settings; some focused more on linguis-
tic structure, others on social process.
Most of the papers presented in that symposium were expanded and appeared
in a special issue of Pragmatics on "Language Ideology" (1992, 2:235-453). Since
then, language ideology has increasingly coalesced as the focus of scholarly atten-
tion. Both the symposium itself and the special journal issue led to a number of
conversations and events organized around the proposition that language ideology
vi Preface
is a mediating link between social forms and forms of talk. In particular, a number
of the authors included here participated in the working group on Language and
Nation sponsored by the Center for Transcultural Studies in Chicago (1992-94).
That group produced another session at the American Anthropological Associa-
tion meetings (Washington, D.C., 1993) and a second special issue of Pragmatics,
"Constructing Languages and Publics," edited by Susan Gal and Kathryn Woolard
(1995, 5:129-282). Many of our authors also participated in the Advanced Semi-
nar on Language Ideologies sponsored by the School of American Research in Santa
Fe (April 1994) and a related session at the American Anthropological Associa-
tion meetings (Atlanta, 1994). Paul Kroskrity organized that seminar and session,
and has edited the forthcoming volume of papers from them, Regimes of Language.
The volume in hand is a fully revised version of the 1992 Pragmatics special
issue, with contributions reworked and expanded to reflect thoughts developed in
those extended discussions and in the advancing literature. This book also reflects
repeated (endless, some contributors feared) rounds of commentary and exchange
between authors, between authors and editors, and especially between authors of
primary articles and authors of the three commentaries. We have difficulty identi-
fying which is the call and which the response in some of the highly collaborative
textual artifacts that have resulted. As editors, we found it necessary to break into
a lively ongoing dialogue so that it could be aired. Nonetheless, although we have
updated, refined, and expanded the volume, we have also tried to retain its original
character as the first in a series of exchanges, the foundational collaborative effort
in a line of inquiry that we hope will continue.
Over the years of its evolution, many people beyond the immediate authors
contributed to this volume. We particularly thank the other participants in the 1991,
1993, and 1994 AAA sessions and in the working group on Language and Na-
tion: Dick Bauman, Don Brenneis, Susan DiGiacomo, Sandro Duranti, David
Gegeo, Bill Hanks, Monica Heller, Ben Lee, Hy Van Luong, Jacqueline Urla, Karen
Watson-Gegeo, and Mike Willmorth. We are also grateful to the International
Pragmatics Association and the editors of Pragmatics, to the Center for Trans-
cultural Studies and Ben Lee as its director, to Douglas Schwartz and the School
of American Research, to our series editor Bill Bright, to our colleague Rob Moore
for all kinds of support, and to David Valentine whose assistance in the proofing
stage made all the difference.
Organization of the Volume
This book attempts to reposition the anthropology of language in a research agenda
addressing the social-historical processes that link face-to-face communities to
national and transnational spheres. The collection is framed by an introduction to
language ideology as an area of inquiry. In it, Woolard discusses motivations for,
potentials of, and problems with the ideology concept, and she reviews the princi-
pal literatures relevant to language ideology. The remaining chapters are organized
into three parts, each followed by a commentary (chapters by Michael Silverstein,
Susan Philips, and Susan Gal). The three parts highlight by juxtaposition certain
Preface vii
aspects of multifaceted papers, which could as easily have been grouped differently.
However, the divisions are not simply arbitrary, but rather allow us to bring out
certain analytic themes that deserve emphasis.
Part I, "Scope and Force of Dominant Conceptions of Language," focuses on
the propensity of particular cultural models to affect linguistic and social behavior,
and on the range or scope of social phenomena over which they exert influence.
Ideologies that develop in relation to one kind or domain of speech activity can
become elaborated as key ideas and play a structuring role in other domains of
activity, shaping a variety of institutions and linguistic structures. The exportation
of such models from one social group to another is as much a concern as is expor-
tation from one area of human activity and communication to another.
Part II, "Language Ideology in Institutions of Power," continues the exami-
nation of the force of specific language beliefs, but narrows the scope to the central
role that language ideologies play in the functioning of particular institutions of
power such as schooling, the law, or mass media. All of the cases in Part II are
drawn from state societies and/or institutions of the state, but it is not our design
to limit the investigation of institutional language ideology to such settings.
Part III, "Multiplicity and Contention among Ideologies," reconsiders some
of the assumptions that may underpin our emphases in the first two sections. While
in looking at the scope and force of ideological tenets we tend to focus on ideolo-
gies taken to be dominant, the chapters in the final section emphasize multiplicity,
contradiction, and contention among ideologies within particular societies.
Unintended intellectual divides have sometimes emerged between linguistic
and sociocultural anthropologists and even among anthropologists of language
themselves, whether on grounds separating traditional and complex societies,
Western and non-Western, linguistic and social foci, or "macro" and "micro." The
topic of language ideology may be one much-needed bridge between work on lan-
guage structure and language politics, as well as between linguistic and social theory
more generally. But more than just a unifying force, we hope that attention to lan-
guage ideology remains as a fresh and productive reformulation of problems in lin-
guistic and social life.
New York B.B.S.
San Diego K.A.W.
September 1997
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Contributors xi
1. Introduction: Language Ideology as a Field of Inquiry 3
KathrynA. Woolard
Part I: Scope and Force of Dominant Conceptions of Language
2. Ideologies of Honorific Language 51
Judith T. Irvine
3. "Today There Is No Respect": Nostalgia, "Respect," and Oppositional Discourse
in Mexicano (Nahuatl) Language Ideology 68
Jane H. Hill
4. Anger, Gender, Language Shift, and the Politics of Revelation in a Papua
New Guinean Village 87
Don Kulick
5. Arizona Tewa Kiva Speech as a Manifestation of a Dominant Language
Ideology 103
Paul V. Kroskrity
6. The Uses and Utility of Ideology: A Commentary 123
Michael Silverstein