Introduction
Leaders of the Elem Pomo Indian tribe in California begin a meal with an Elem greeting and prayer, translating to English so participants will understand, while informal conversations are solely in English (Ahlers Reference Ahlers2006). In Sri Lankan Tamil immigrant communities in North America, children are taught to recite Tamil hymns and speeches they do not understand (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2013b). In Cornwall, England, many public and private signs are written in Kernewek, a language that has not been transmitted intergenerationally since the nineteenth century but still holds symbolic significance (Harasta Reference Harasta2018).
In these diverse contexts, community members speak a dominant language, and leaders infuse the environment with elements of a different language, one with special resonance for the group. This article conceptualizes this phenomenon as ethnolinguistic infusion. I define the term, explain the metaphor, and enumerate several characteristics. I contextualize ethnolinguistic infusion among related theoretical constructs. Then I analyze ethnolinguistic infusion in American Jewish summer camps, based on research my colleagues and I conducted in 2012–2015 (Benor, Krasner, & Avni Reference Benor, Krasner and Avni2020), including observations at thirty-six camps diverse in location, size, religiosity, and political orientation; a survey of 103 camp directors; and interviews of 220 staff and campers. I offer empirical questions for future research, and I conclude by arguing for the utility of ethnolinguistic infusion, both for academic analysis and for language activism.Footnote 1
The phenomenon
Ethnolinguistic infusion occurs in or originates from immigrant, indigenous, religious, regional, and other minority groups that wish to foster a connection with a group language or language variety. It takes the form of some community members—often leaders or people with exceptional language knowledge—incorporating fragments of their group language, in which most members have little or no competence, in the context of a different dominant language of interaction. I refer to the language that has special group resonance as the ‘group language’ (akin to donor, contributing, source, or embedded language), and the primary language of communication—the language into which the group language is infused—as the ‘dominant language’ (akin to recipient, base, or matrix language). Ethnolinguistic infusion can be in-group or out-group directed. When group boundaries are fluid, an outsider may become an insider, even a group leader, and a practitioner of ethnolinguistic infusion.
I posit three definitional characteristics and nine common characteristics of ethnolinguistic infusion, based on my research on Hebrew use in American Jewish communities, as well as theoretical research on emblematic language use (Ahlers Reference Ahlers2006, Reference Ahlers2017; Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2013b), ethnolinguistic repertoire (Benor Reference Benor2010), postvernacularity (Shandler Reference Shandler2006), and metalinguistic communities (Avineri Reference Avineri2012).
Definitional characteristics of ethnolinguistic infusion
(i) Infused elements of the group language serve a symbolic function, potentially fostering ideological links among the individual, the group, and the language.
(ii) Most group members (or audience members in a given context) are not proficient enough in the group language to use it for day-to-day communication.
(iii) At least one group member is proficient enough in the group language to infuse elements of it, even if they do not fully understand the words they are using.
Common characteristics of ethnolinguistic infusion
• The language mixing generally occurs in particular domains, not throughout the community’s day-to-day interactions.
• Loanwords from the group language are incorporated into the dominant language—especially for culturally specific referents, greetings, closings, and evaluations—leading to an in-group register of the dominant language.
• Larger fragments of the group language are used in routinized ways, such as context-specific announcements, songs, prayers, and call-and-response sequences.
• Written elements of the group language are incorporated into the linguistic landscape and into written and computer-mediated communication.
• Infusion sometimes takes bivalent forms, including bilingual wordplay.
• Infusion involves metalinguistic practices, for example, translation, explicit teaching of select words, explanations about the fragments, or statements about the significance of the language for the group.
• There are hierarchical social structures stemming from (or sometimes resulting in) differential language abilities, ideologies, and/or practices.
• Community members demonstrate some degree of uptake, participating in language rituals and incorporating loanwords into their informal speech.
• The group holds conflicting language ideologies regarding authenticity, correctness, language varieties, and the importance of the language for group cohesiveness.
Empirical research is necessary to determine to what extent each of the common characteristics occurs in various situations of infusion.
Like language instruction, ethnolinguistic infusion is a language socialization practice (Ochs & Schieffelin Reference Ochs, Schieffelin, Shweder and LeVine1984), but instruction and infusion have different goals. Language instructors generally wish to increase students’ language proficiency, while those who initiate ethnolinguistic infusion do not generally expect group members to acquire productive language skills; instead, they may wish to strengthen group members’ connection to the language and/or to the group or to encourage group members to expand their ethnolinguistic repertoire. Alternatively, they may have no goals for socializing participants but simply feel it is appropriate or desirable to incorporate elements of the language into communal life.
Terminology
Why do I call this phenomenon ethnolinguistic infusion? The descriptor ethnolinguistic emphasizes the relationship between language and group, distinguishing this linguistic phenomenon from others unrelated to ethnicity. For example, a group convening around a hobby or profession might incorporate loanwords (e.g. Italian in orchestral music, Latin in medicine), but these words are associated with the activity and not the ethnic group.
The infusion metaphor is fruitful on several levels. Infusion is the incorporation of a flavor from one substance (e.g. berries) into another (e.g. water). The water is the primarily English environment, and the berries are elements of the group language that are incorporated. This metaphor highlights hybridity and simultaneity, concepts that have been analyzed in many situations of multilingualism (Bakhtin Reference Bakhtin and Holquist1981; Woolard Reference Woolard1999). It highlights limited access: just as someone drinking an infused drink cannot necessarily take a bite of the berry, a community member does not necessarily have access to the full language. The metaphor highlights intentionality: just as bartenders intentionally infuse drinks, communal leaders intentionally infuse the English environment with elements of the group language. And it highlights variation: just as there are gradations of liquid infusion (ranging from a hint of flavor to palpable pulp), there are gradations of ethnolinguistic infusion (just a few greetings to many loanwords, routinized code switches, and visual representations).
Related constructs
My conceptualization of ethnolinguistic infusion builds on several related constructs in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology.
Language socialization
The language socialization subfield of linguistic anthropology analyzes how novices, especially children and adult language learners, acquire the language practices of their community, as well as ideological systems, through interactions (Ochs & Schieffelin Reference Ochs, Schieffelin, Shweder and LeVine1984; Duranti, Ochs, & Schieffelin Reference Duranti, Ochs and Schieffelin2011). Several studies of language socialization have focused on communities that use multiple languages, including situations of language shift (Kulick Reference Kulick1992; Garrett Reference Garrett2005). Such research has pointed to the roles of peers, siblings, parents, schools, churches, and other institutions in socializing community members to value languages differently and to use—or avoid—the group’s ancestral language in certain contexts.
Ethnolinguistic infusion has much in common with other situations of language socialization but also differs in important ways. In most situations of language socialization, children and adult novices are generally expected to become ‘masters’ themselves, following stages of peripheral participation, and eventually to socialize others (Lave & Wenger Reference Lave and Wenger1991; Wenger Reference Wenger1998). In ethnolinguistic infusion, participants are not socialized to gain productive competence or even comprehension of the group language. Only a select few community members will eventually become infusers themselves; most members are expected only to recognize the language, feel connected to it, and perhaps participate in specific language practices, like the use of select loanwords, songs, or call-and-response sequences. Classroom instruction has some similarities. Students are not expected to learn the language to the same degree as the teacher or a native speaker. But in most language classrooms, proficiency is the primary goal, even if promoting positive language ideologies is a secondary goal (Friedman Reference Friedman2006). A student cannot pass a Spanish, Mandarin, or Hebrew class only on love of the language and knowledge of a few songs.
Language ideology and indexicality
A hallmark of research on language socialization, as well as sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology more broadly, is a focus on language ideology (Silverstein Reference Silverstein, Clyne, Hanks and Hofbauer1979; Kroskrity, Schieffelin, & Woolard Reference Kroskrity, Schieffelin and Woolard1998; Irvine & Gal Reference Irvine, Gal and Kroskrity2000). In multilingual communities, desirable ideologies might include valuing one language over another or associating each language with different functions and roles. Language ideology is central to situations of ethnolinguistic infusion, as group members are expected to indexically link (Ochs Reference Ochs, Duranti and Goodwin1992; Silverstein Reference Silverstein2003; Eckert Reference Eckert2008) linguistic elements to a named language and that language to an imagined community (Anderson Reference Anderson1983; Avineri Reference Avineri2012), generally the (ethnic, religious, etc.) group. This socialization sometimes happens through metalinguistic practices, for example, talking about the language and its resonance for the group. But it also happens when group leaders use fragments of the language; even in the absence of metalinguistic discourse, participants who hear these fragments are expected to recognize them as the group’s special language. Often the infused elements become part of the group’s ethnolinguistic repertoire (Benor Reference Benor2010) and become enregistered (Agha Reference Agha2005) as a variety of the dominant language associated with the group. Language ideology also manifests in discourses about whether infusion and other hybrid practices are appropriate or authentic forms of linguistic expression (Jaffe Reference Jaffe1999; Bucholtz Reference Bucholtz2003; Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2013b; Heller Reference Heller, Lacoste, Leimgruber and Breyer2014; Woolard Reference Woolard2016; Bodó & Fazakas Reference Bodó2018; Davis Reference Davis2018).
Performance, stylization, and markedness
Another pertinent construct is high performance (Bauman 1975/Reference Bauman2001; Coupland Reference Coupland2007:146), with its defined roles for performers (community leaders) and audiences, as well as salience of the language used. Similarly, stylization is relevant, defined as ‘reflexive communicative action in which speakers produce specially marked and often exaggerated representations of languages, dialects and styles that lie outside their own habitual repertoire’ (Rampton Reference Rampton2009:149). Many instances of ethnolinguistic infusion are high performance and stylization, for example, a leader reciting a pre-meal blessing or leading a song during a ceremony. But infusion can also involve mundane performance (Coupland Reference Coupland2007:146), for example, a leader incorporating greetings in informal interactions. The infused elements tend to be marked in relation to the dominant language of communication; speakers and hearers likely notice them and know that they originate from a language with group resonance.
Language policy and management
Ethnolinguistic infusion is also a type of language policy (Spolsky Reference Spolsky2004) and language management (Spolsky Reference Spolsky2009), which can happen at national, municipal, institutional, classroom, and family levels. Community leaders establish explicit and implicit policies about when, how, and how much to infuse the group language, and these policies can be contested. One aspect of infusion is prestige planning or ‘image planning’ (Ager Reference Ager2005)—using the language in ways that may lead to positive associations. Language management is central to language revitalization (Sallabank Reference Sallabank, Austin and Sallabank2011), but it also happens in other contexts. A theoretical complication is that a language practice that is initiated through intentional language policy can become naturalized as a communal practice, and subsequent generations of families or communal leaders might not consider it language management. Even so, the practice can still be analyzed as ethnolinguistic infusion.
Language and group in an era of globalization
Infusion should be analyzed in the historical context of late capitalism and post-Cold War globalization, mobility, and superdiversity (Heller Reference Heller1994, Reference Heller2000; Makoni & Pennycook Reference Makoni and Pennycook2006; Blommaeart Reference Blommaert2010). In this era, the ‘languages’ previously seen as ‘belonging’ to particular groups are more fluid than in the past (Blommaert Reference Blommaert2010). Sociolinguists have embraced this change, analyzing hybridity and advocating broader understandings of competence and groups’ relationships to language (Moore Reference Moore2012; Blommaert & Backus Reference Blommaert, Backus, de Saint-Georges and Weber2013; Valdés Reference Valdés2017). The infusion approach aligns with this analytic shift. Another hallmark of the era is that ‘people can no longer be straightforwardly associated with particular (national, ethnic, sociocultural) groups’ (Blommaert & Backus Reference Blommaert, Backus, de Saint-Georges and Weber2013:13). Therefore, it might seem appropriate to avoid analysis at the group level, focusing instead on the individual (Johnstone Reference Johnstone1996; Blommaert & Backus Reference Blommaert, Backus, de Saint-Georges and Weber2013). The ethnolinguistic infusion approach does just the opposite—it highlights the group as an analytic unit. Following Benor’s (Reference Benor2010) theorizing of ethnolinguistic repertoire, this article calls for a renewed focus on social collectivities, in addition to individuals, while recognizing the increasing fluidity of communal boundaries.
Heritage languages
Ethnolinguistic infusion also builds on a rich research tradition regarding heritage languages. The group language might be analyzed as a heritage language using Fishman’s (Reference Fishman, Peyton, Ranard and McGinnis2001:81) broad definition, emphasizing a language’s ‘particular family relevance’, and Van Deusen-Scholl’s (Reference Van Deusen-Scholl2003:222) inclusion in the category ‘heritage learners’ of ‘non-speakers who may be generations removed, but who may feel culturally connected to a language’ (cf. more restrictive definitions, e.g. Valdés Reference Valdés, Peyton, Ranard and McGinnis2001). Borrowing from Creole studies, Polinsky & Kagan (Reference Polinsky and Kagan2007:371) discuss a continuum of heritage language speakers, ‘from rather fluent speakers, who can sound almost like competent native speakers, to those who can barely speak the home language’. In a situation of ethnolinguistic infusion, participants could be beyond the less competent pole of this continuum, as many are not even exposed to the ‘home language’ at home. Empirical research might compare the language competencies and ideologies of such heritage language speakers (He Reference He2010; Gardner Flores Reference Flores2012; Van Deusen-Scholl Reference Van Deusen-Scholl, Wiley, Peyton, Christian, Moore and Liu2014; Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2019) in situations where their group language is and is not infused in communal settings. See also Dean-Olmsted (Reference Dean-Olmsted2012) on ‘heritage words’.
Language contact and translanguaging
Also relevant is the subfield of language contact, with its various understandings of code switching and loanwords (Weinreich Reference Weinreich1953; Thomason & Kaufman Reference Thomason and Kaufman1988; Myers-Scotton Reference Myers-Scotton1993; Matras Reference Matras2009). Loanwords, or lexical borrowing, describes the use of one word within a matrix language, generally integrated phonologically and morphosyntactically. Using loanwords does not require the speaker to have proficiency in the source language. This contrasts with code switching or code mixing, which generally describes language use by speakers with varying degrees of proficiency in the two or more languages. In ethnolinguistic infusion, most people cannot produce novel sentences in the group language, and all code switching is routinized, such as quotes, prayers, or songs.
In the translanguaging paradigm (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2013a; García & Li Wei Reference García and Wei2014; Otheguy, García, & Reid Reference Otheguy, García and Reid2015), a sentence or conversation is analyzed not simply as one language with loanwords or code switches from another language but rather as a fluid mixture of resources from multiple reified entities conventionally known as ‘languages’ (Makoni & Pennycook Reference Makoni and Pennycook2006; Jørgensen Reference Jørgensen2008; Pennycook & Otsuji Reference Pennycook and Otsuji2015). Like translanguaging, infusion privileges hybridity over purism, understands language as a mobile resource (Blommaert Reference Blommaert2010), and critiques the ideology that one must be ‘competent’ in a language to use elements of it. However, infusion is premised on community members’ ideological constructions of two languages as distinct entities, one of which ‘belongs’ to the group, even as they mix the two (see Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2019). Scholarship on translanguaging, in contrast, analyzes an individual’s speech as a unified linguistic repertoire that draws from entities that have been ideologically constructed as separate languages by those who do not share this unified linguistic repertoire. Whereas many individuals and groups mix ‘languages’ without seeing the loanwords and code switches as distinct, ethnolinguistic infusion by definition involves ideological distinctions between the group language and the dominant language.
Diglossia
‘Diglossia’ describes the stable, societal use of two varieties of a language (Ferguson Reference Ferguson1959) or two languages (Fishman Reference Fishman1967; but see Hudson Reference Hudson2002) for distinct purposes. While Ferguson discusses diglossia according to ‘activity’, such as a mosque sermon (High), a university lecture (High), and a conversation with friends (Low), subsequent scholarship refers to these as ‘domains’ (Fishman Reference Fishman1967; Eckert Reference Eckert1980; Hudson Reference Hudson2002). Ethnolinguistic infusion adopts the concept of domain, highlighting that infusion generally occurs in particular domains, like summer camps and city signage. Infusion can involve bilingual diglossia: excerpts of the group language are recited in particular domains, while most communal interactions use the dominant language. However, infusion differs from other situations of diglossia in that most community members cannot generate new utterances in the group language and because it can occur not only on a national or regional scale but also within an institution or family.
Quasilect
Glinert’s (Reference Glinert and Glinert1993) ‘quasilect’ describes British Jews’ use of Hebrew prayers, songs, and scriptural recitation. Quasilect is a system ‘in which next to no one “knows” the language in the sense of being able to interpret or produce an infinite number of well-formed structures and in which the communication of meaning has come to play a fairly minor role’ (1993:249). This notion represents an aspect of infusion, as community leaders may recite prayers and sing songs in the group language with no expectation of comprehension. And, like quasilect, infusion highlights community members’ limited production abilities. But infusion also spotlights the use of loanwords, which are used to convey meaning.
Emblematic language use
Several studies have theorized emblematic language use in indigenous and immigrant contexts, including elements, or ‘linguemes’, as small as diacritics (Ivković Reference Ivković2015). Ahlers’s (Reference Ahlers2006, Reference Ahlers2017) research on indigenous languages in California discusses ‘native language as identity marker’ and as ‘semiotic resources’. Although most interactions are conducted in English and most participants are not proficient in the ancestral language, ceremonies include brief excerpts of Elem Pomo. Canagarajah (Reference Canagarajah2013b) focuses on Sri Lankan immigrants to North America. He finds that their children primarily use English but participate in ‘performative acts of emblematic Tamil’, such as kinship terms and other loanwords, prayers, and memorized speeches.
Not all analyses of emblematic language use are positive. In her research on Athabaskan language shift in Yukon, Meek (Reference Meek2010:xxi) argues that schools’ emphasis on Kaska ‘nouns, token expressions, and decontextualized scraps of cultural knowledge’ often work against the primary goal of language revitalization by repositioning the language from spoken at home to analyzed in a classroom. Many community members in various contexts (e.g. elders quoted in Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2013b) offer similarly negative evaluations of emblematic language use. If community members and scholars reanalyzed such language use as ethnolinguistic infusion—reframing their goal from intergenerational language competency to strengthening ideological links among the language, the group, and the individual—they might mitigate their critique.
Linguistic survivance
Several scholars of endangered languages have focused on emerging practices, such as translanguaging (Wyman Reference Wyman2012), younger speakers learning language snippets from elders and performing them publicly (Moore Reference Moore2012), and redefining who is considered a speaker (Davis Reference Davis2018; Keller Reference Keller2018). Based on her research on Yup’ik-English translanguaging and language shift in Alaska, Wyman (Reference Wyman2012:2) terms such practices ‘linguistic survivance’, defined as ‘the use of languaging or translanguaging to creatively express, adapt and maintain identities under difficult or hostile circumstances’. ‘Survivance’ is a concept from Indigenous studies that blends survival and resistance (Vizenor Reference Vizenor1994; see Valdés Reference Valdés2017). Ethnolinguistic infusion is a top-down form of linguistic survivance, generally enacted by community leaders.
Language recognition
In her research on Gallo, a marginalized Romance variety spoken in Brittany, France, Keller (Reference Keller2018) introduces the category ‘language recognizer’, someone who is not necessarily proficient in Gallo but feels a positive emotional connection to it and recognizes it as a language, rather than as ‘deformed French’. Keller argues that the socialization of individuals into the recognizer role plays an important part in the ongoing process of enregisterment. Language recognition is another way of describing the ideological links that are the goal of ethnolinguistic infusion.
Goals in language revitalization/reclamation
Research and instruction on the revitalization of endangered and sleeping languages recognize that advanced linguistic competence by many/all community members may be an unattainable goal (Fishman Reference Fishman1991; Hinton & Hale Reference Hinton and Hale2001; Romaine Reference Romaine2007; Sallabank Reference Sallabank2013; Davis Reference Davis2018; Avineri & Harasta Reference Avineri and Harasta2021; Olko & Sallabank Reference Olko and Sallabank2021). Some scholarship recommends setting realistic goals, such as raising the status of the language within the community or encouraging loanword use. Leonard writes that the goals of Myaamia language reclamation efforts include ‘fostering a positive and informed myaamia identity, a connection to the larger Miami community, a cultural understanding of the language, and some linguistic proficiency. The goal is not full linguistic fluency by 100 percent of the Miami population’ (Leonard Reference Leonard2011:139). Most of this scholarship encourages day-to-day language use, for example, in immersion schools, summer camps, and master-apprentice programs. But several researchers also recommend activities that I would characterize as ethnolinguistic infusion, like using the language for greetings and closings, signage, games, ceremonies, and musical and theatrical performances. In addition, they point to the positive effects of classes and other activities in the language; even if they do not lead to widespread proficiency or intergenerational transmission of the language, they increase ideologies of pride and personal and communal ownership of the language (Luning & Yamauchi Reference Luning and Yamauchi2010). Ethnolinguistic infusion serves as a framework for analyzing goals and practices like these.
In Pérez Báez, Vogel, & Patolo’s (Reference Pérez Báez, Vogel and Patolo2019:465) survey of 245 language revitalization efforts around the world, the most common category of objective was language teaching, and the second revolved around ‘language and community’: ‘to generate interest and community support, to foster the engagement with the language, to generate new users, to generate community cohesion, to strengthen a language through the community and vice versa’. While this umbrella category includes several objectives, fostering ideological links is clearly important in many language revitalization efforts.
Postvernacularity
Shandler (Reference Shandler2006) offers the notion of ‘postvernacularity’: at Yiddish festivals and other events, participants enthusiastically use elements of Yiddish within English, even if they cannot speak or read Yiddish. The fact that something is said in Yiddish is more significant than what is said. Like postvernacularity, ethnolinguistic infusion emphasizes emblematic language usage, linguistic hybridity, and metalinguistic awareness, in contrast with vernacular or utilitarian language use. Postvernacularity applies in situations of language shift, especially language endangerment, but not all situations of infusion follow a period of vernacular language use within a few generations. Some communities may infuse elements of a language that they have not recently (or ever) used as a vernacular but still consider important for group identity, such as scriptural languages (e.g. Arabic in Islam, Hebrew in Judaism). Also, in immigrant and diasporic communities, the language they are infusing in postvernacular ways may still be used as a vernacular in the group’s homeland. Ethnolinguistic infusion expands postvernacularity to these additional contexts.
Metalinguistic community
Another construct that has heavily influenced my theorizing of ethnolinguistic infusion is ‘metalinguistic community’ (Avineri Reference Avineri2012, Reference Avineri2014; Avineri & Harasta Reference Avineri and Harasta2021). This notion, also based on research on Yiddish enthusiasts, analyzes the communities that form around a language among people who are not necessarily proficient in the language. Avineri defines ‘metalinguistic community’ as ‘positioned social actors engaged primarily in discourse about language and cultural symbols tied to language’ (Avineri Reference Avineri2012:2). Metalinguistic communities involve several aspects that also apply to ethnolinguistic infusion. Participants are socialized to have certain ideologies about the language and their relationship to it, including ‘nostalgia socialization’ (Avineri Reference Avineri, Bauckus and Kresin2018), and this is more of a priority than language competence. Participants see the language as part of a broader culture, encompassing song, dance, food, art, and so on. Age and language knowledge are important in the hierarchies of metalinguistic communities, as more linguistically competent people—generally older in situations of language shift—are considered experts. The language is used in a primarily pedagogical way and in specific contexts, for example, greetings/closings, assessments, and cultural terms. Ethnolinguistic infusion builds on this work, shifting the analytic unit from the community to the socialization practices that leaders bring to the community. Ethnolinguistic infusion also emphasizes that such socialization sometimes occurs in the absence of metalinguistic discourse, and it allows for out-group directed infusion.
Ethnolinguistic infusion builds on all of these concepts, forefronting three aspects: intentionality, hybridity, and the relationship between language and group. Communal leaders intentionally incorporate elements of the group language into the dominant language to strengthen group identity.
In-group-initiated, out-group-directed ethnolinguistic infusion
While ethnolinguistic infusion often occurs in an in-group setting, such as a church, tribal gathering, or summer camp, it can also be initiated by group members but oriented toward out-group members. An example is Greek restaurants in America using the word Opa! and Latin/English fonts emulating Greek letters (see Shandler Reference Shandler2006 on faux Hebrew/Yiddish lettering). Out-group-directed infusion can also be seen in mass communication (Androutsopoulos Reference Androutsopoulos and Heller2007), for example, video greetings from New Mexico and Northern Mariana Islands at the 2020 Democratic National Convention,Footnote 2 and tourist-oriented commodification of language or dialect features (e.g. Pittburghese: Johnstone Reference Johnstone2009; Franco-Ontarian, Acadian, Catalan: Heller, Pujolar, & Duchêne Reference Heller, Pujolar and Duchêne2014; Hebrew and Yiddish in Kazimierz, Poland: Burdin Reference Burdin2021; travel writing: Heller, Jaworski, & Thurlow Reference Heller, Jaworski and Thurlow2014). I consider such instances of in-group-initiated, out-group-directed language use to be ethnolinguistic infusion. They may have initially been intended primarily for group members and subsequently spread to broader audiences. In addition, they can have similar effects for both insiders and outsiders—strengthening ideological links among individual, group, and language. Both might involve translation of the commodified elements to facilitate comprehension and may generate metalinguistic commentary, including conflicting ideologies (e.g. Moriarty Reference Moriarty2014 on an Irish tourist town). However, out-group-directed infusion differs from the in-group-directed infusion that is the focus on this article, as it is consumed by outsiders. In addition, it is sometimes appropriated by outsiders who initiate infusion because they are involved in an activity originating from the group (e.g. Korean infusion in Taekwondo) or because they perceive the distinctive language as potentially lucrative. It may be difficult to determine who initiated a particular instance of infusion. For example, some of the creators of ‘Dora the Explorer’—a Spanish-infused English show directed not just to Latinx audiences—were Latinx (see also Leeman & Modan Reference Leeman and Modan2009’s analysis of linguistic landscape in Washington, DC’s artificially placed Chinatown). This phenomenon and its relationship to in-group-directed ethnolinguistic infusion deserve further theorizing.
Out-group-initiated language mixing
When people who are clearly not group members initiate language mixing, incorporating loanwords and other linguistic features associated with a group into the dominant language, I would classify this not as ethnolinguistic infusion but as an adjacent phenomenon. This includes crossing in adolescent social groups (Rampton Reference Rampton1995) and politicians’ linguistic pandering (Benor Reference Benor, Dashefsky and Sheskin2022:43–46, 59–60), which may be directed toward in-group members. And it includes stereotypical artistic portrayals (Lippi-Green Reference Lippi-Green2012) and other mock language (Hill Reference Hill1995, Reference Hill1998; Chun Reference Chun, Alim, Rickford and Ball2016), which tend to be directed toward broader audiences. These linguistic practices may have the effect of fostering ideological links between the language and the group, among both group members and outsiders. In some cases, the initiator might intend this ideological effect to reinforce negative stereotypes (e.g. ‘Hollywood Injun English’: Meek Reference Meek2006; neo-Nazis’ mocking use of Jewish English: Benor Reference Benor, Dashefsky and Sheskin2022:56–61; McCullough Reference McCullough2023). Resistance to such out-group language use can also strengthen ideological links—and ethnic boundaries (Zentella Reference Zentella and Sommer2003; Chun Reference Chun, Alim, Rickford and Ball2016; Rosa Reference Rosa, Alim, Rickford and Ball2016). Even so, these examples do not meet the definition above of language mixing that ‘occurs in or originates from’ the group. However, a deeper understanding of ethnolinguistic infusion can refine the questions we ask about out-group language mixing.
Hebrew infusion at Jewish summer camps
To illustrate ethnolinguistic infusion, I offer data from contemporary American Jewish summer camps, where the dominant language is English, and the (primary) group language is Hebrew. See Benor and colleagues (Reference Benor, Krasner and Avni2020) for methodological details, historical analysis of how Jewish summer camps came to infuse so much Hebrew, and contemporary analysis of interactional data, demonstrating how infusion is enacted, received, and contested. There we also discuss how the infused elements are enregistered, perceived as indexing Jewishness and particular practices and subgroups, and congeal into a new domain-based variety of Jewish English that we call ‘Camp Hebraized English’.
Hebrew was the language of Israelites/Jews in antiquity and was documented in the Tanakh (Old Testament) and other ancient literature and inscriptions. Between the Babylonian conquest in the sixth century BCE and the nineteenth century, Hebrew was maintained primarily as a written, studied, and recited language through the sacred texts of the Tanakh, liturgy, and rabbinic commentaries (collectively, Textual Hebrew). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Textual Hebrew was revernacularized (Spolsky Reference Spolsky and Chapelle2013) as Modern Hebrew, a new language of day-to-day communication, primarily in Israel. There is much overlap between Textual Hebrew and Modern Hebrew, but the latter is heavily influenced by Yiddish, Arabic, and other languages spoken by early adopters (Zuckermann Reference Zuckerman2003; Doron Reference Doron2015). Despite this distinction, many Jews conflate Textual and Modern Hebrew in their metalinguistic discourse, and distinguishing them is difficult. Therefore, this article uses ‘Hebrew’ as an umbrella term.
Hebrew use among American Jews might seem an unusual starting point for the formulation of a theoretical construct regarding language and ethnicity. Americans tend to discuss Jewishness as a religious rather than ethnic category, even if many Jews identify as secular (Phillips Reference Phillips2010) or base their Jewishness on tradition more than religiosity (Kelman, Belzer, Horwitz, Hassenfeld, & Williams Reference Kelman, Belzer, Horwitz, Hassenfeld and Williams2017). And aside from Israeli immigrants and their descendants, American Jews today generally do not relate to Hebrew as indigenous and immigrant groups relate to their ancestral languages; immigrant languages like Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic are more comparable (see Benor Reference Benor, Blake and Buchstaller2019 on Ladino infusion at Sephardic Adventure Camp). Finally, American Jews currently tend to have relatively high socioeconomic status and political power, in contrast to many other indigenous and immigrant groups; they have the resources to run many residential summer camps, and their Hebrew use is, for the most part, generally not stigmatized or holding them back socioeconomically. Despite these differences, the Hebrew practices and ideologies at American Jewish summer camps have much in common with immigrant and indigenous groups and can inform a theory of ethnolinguistic infusion.
Definitional characteristics of ethnolinguistic infusion
Infused elements of the group language serve a symbolic function, potentially fostering ideological links among the individual, the group, and the language
With only a few exceptions, camps’ dominant language is English, and elements of the group language, Hebrew, are infused. Camp leaders recognize that this infusion will not lead to campers attaining Hebrew proficiency. A survey of 103 directors of Jewish camps found that only a few have goals regarding proficiency in Hebrew conversation or reading (Benor, Krasner, & Avni Reference Benor, Krasner and Avni2016). About half want campers to learn select Hebrew words, songs, and prayers and feel a strengthened connection to Hebrew. Almost all camp directors hope to strengthen campers’ personal Jewish identity and connections to Israel and the Jewish people. Hebrew infusion at camp is intended to foster ideological links (‘connection’) among individual Jews, Hebrew, and various collectivities: the imagined community of the Jewish people, Jews with ties to Israel, Jews of a particular religious orientation (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform), Jews of a particular subgroup (Jews of Color, Sephardic Jews, eco-Jews), and so on. As ‘Jacob’ (names are pseudonyms), an educator who advises Jewish Community Center camps, says: ‘Hebrew serves mostly a symbolic function at camp. They want kids to be comfortable with Hebrew. It’s an expression of our connection to the Jewish people, … our connection to Israel’. As Canagarajah (Reference Canagarajah2019) argues in his practice-based analysis, both heritage languages and dominant languages mixed with elements of heritage languages can be ideologically linked to a group, indexing distinct identities. Among Jews, this is the case for Hebrew, Camp Hebraized English, and Jewish English more broadly—English with an ethnolinguistic repertoire of distinctly Jewish features.
Most group members (or audience members in a given context of infusion) are not proficient enough in the group language to use it for day-to-day communication
Communicative competency is a debated construct (Hymes Reference Hymes, Pride and Holmes1972; Blommaert Reference Blommaert2010; Blommaert & Backus Reference Blommaert, Backus, de Saint-Georges and Weber2013). But in situations of ethnolinguistic infusion, most community members do not communicate in the group language. The vast majority of American Jewish campers and staff members have limited exposure to Hebrew outside of camp. When they recite Hebrew in synagogue and home rituals, they generally do so with little comprehension (Glinert Reference Glinert and Glinert1993). When they speak to Israelis, they generally use English. Jewish day schools have some Modern Hebrew instruction (Pomson & Wertheimer Reference Pomson and Wertheimer2017), but most American Jews attend part-time Jewish schools, where Hebrew instruction is usually limited to decoding and recitation of Textual Hebrew, plus some ethnolinguistic infusion (Benor, Avineri, & Greninger Reference Benor, Avineri and Greninger2024). At (most) American Jewish camps, communicative competency in Hebrew is not required to be full participants in the camp community. Campers are socialized to be proficient not in Hebrew but in Camp Hebraized English—a result of historical and contemporary decisions to practice ethnolinguistic infusion.
At least one group member is proficient enough in the group language to infuse elements of it, even if they do not fully understand the words they are using
If no group members had any knowledge of the group language, infusion could not occur. Infusers have either language skills or access to a dictionary or to a bilingual person. At most Jewish camps, a few people have strong Hebrew skills: visiting Israeli staff members and campers, Israeli-Americans (for whom Hebrew is a heritage language), and American Jews with intensive Jewish education, including rabbis and educators (who learn Textual Hebrew and sometimes Modern Hebrew in Jewish day schools, rabbinic seminaries, and study abroad programs in Israel). Most of the infusion at Jewish camps is initiated by members of these groups. In some cases, the staffers leading songs, games, and so on, are not from these groups and do not understand many of the words they are saying. Camps where staff members have more conversational Hebrew ability tend to infuse more Hebrew (Benor et al. Reference Benor, Krasner and Avni2016; see Benor et al. Reference Benor, Krasner and Avni2020 on a continuum of Hebrew richness). The role of select individuals in ethnolinguistic infusion aligns with survey findings that 71% of language revitalization efforts around the world are each organized by ten or fewer people (Pérez Báez et al. Reference Pérez Báez, Vogel and Patolo2019).
Common characteristics of ethnolinguistic infusion
The language mixing generally occurs in particular domains, not throughout the community’s day-to-day interactions
Some Jewish leaders who are especially committed to Hebrew may infuse Hebrew into any setting, medium, or interaction. But, in general, Hebrew infusion tends to be limited to specific domains, especially schools, youth groups, and summer camps. Sleepaway camps are conducive to more intensive infusion because they have distinctive locations, activities, and roles that need to be named, and the twenty-four-hour timeframe encourages camp tradition—including cheers, songs, skits, and other ritualized language—from wake-up to bedtime. Removed from family and everyday life, sleepaway camps are also prime loci for ideological socialization (Benor et al. Reference Benor, Krasner and Avni2020:7).
The Hebrew infused at camp includes not only ‘camp words’, which are generally limited to the camp setting (e.g. nikayon ‘cleaning’, chadar ochel ‘dining hall’), but also ‘Jewish life words’, loanwords used in other Jewish institutions and at home (e.g. tefillah ‘prayer’, Shabbat shalom ‘peaceful Sabbath’). Some loanwords likely originated as camp words and became Jewish life words (e.g. ruach ‘spirit’, sheket b’vakasha ‘quiet please’). In other words, the words community leaders infused eventually crystalized as part of the community’s ethnolinguistic repertoire.
Loanwords from the group language are incorporated into the dominant language—especially for culturally specific referents, greetings, closings, and evaluations—leading to an in-group register of the dominant language
Loanwords are a significant aspect of the Hebrew infusion at Jewish summer camps. During visits to twenty-four camps, my colleagues and I heard a total of 1,006 unique Hebrew loanwords or phrases, 247 additional words taught or posted, eighty-six words used as division names, and dozens more as bunk names. Many of these loanwords have culturally specific referents, like aspects of Judaism (e.g. Birkat Hamazon ‘Grace After Meals’, aron ‘Torah case’) or camp roles, activities, and locations (madrichim ‘counselors’, peulat erev ‘evening activity’). But many are not culturally specific; greetings and closings are common (boker tov ‘good morning’, layla tov ‘good night’), and evaluations are sometimes used, especially by Israeli staff (yofi ‘nice’, nachon ‘correct’). Hebrew words are generally integrated phonologically into English, with the addition of [x], represented orthographically as <ch>, <kh>, or <ḥ>. Morphologically, they are sometimes integrated and sometimes maintain their source-language plural suffixes (e.g. both chugs and chugim ‘electives’). At some camps, loanwords are so widespread that Camp Hebraized English sentences like this are common: Chanichim [‘campers’], go to your tzrifim [‘bunks’], get your bigdei yam [‘swimsuits’], and go to the brecha [‘pool’] for schiya [‘swimming’]. This is more heavily infused with Hebrew than Jewish English in other in-group settings like synagogues and schools (Benor Reference Benor2011, Reference Benor, Sokoloff and Berg2018).
Larger fragments of the group language are used in routinized ways, such as context-specific announcements, songs, prayers, and call-and-response sequences
Like Sri Lankan-American children’s Tamil speeches (Canagarajah Reference Canagarajah2013b), traditional songs in Ainu, and Michael Jackson songs in Quechua (Olko & Sallabank Reference Olko and Sallabank2021), American Jewish summer camps feature routinized Hebrew recitation. This includes songs, prayers, blessings, and call-and-response sequences, especially at meals, Shabbat services, and morning and evening gatherings. A hallmark of Ramah camps is Hebrew translations of musical theater, like Annie, Grease, and Frozen. At Camp Gilboa, Michael, Jessica, and Sarah led a call-and-response sequence, shown in (1) below.
Long description
The table presents a scripted dialogue in Hebrew with English translations for a Shabbat gathering at Camp Gilboa. Leaders open with “Shabbat shalom, Machane Gilboa,” translated as “Good Sabbath, Camp Gilboa.” The camp responds with “Shabbat shalom” addressed to named individuals, translated as “Good Sabbath” to those people. Leaders then conduct roll call for two groups, Nitsanim and Sayalim, asking whether everyone is present. Each group replies “Kulanu po,” translated as “We’re all here.” The content is instructional rather than numerical, showing the same attendance confirmation response for both groups.
Some camps, especially in Zionist networks, make announcements in Hebrew, but most are structurally simple and routinized (e.g. safsalim al hashulchanot ‘benches on the tables’, Kochavim l’migrash kadursal ‘Stars [age group] to basketball court’ at Ramah). New campers can infer the requisite information by observing more veteran campers and listening for their group and their next location or activity. Only a few camps make Hebrew announcements that require more receptive competency to be full participants in the camp community. More common is for announcements to be delivered in English but heralded by a Hebrew word, such as hakshivu ‘listen up (pl.)’ at Camp TEKO.
Written elements of the group language are incorporated into the linguistic landscape and into written and computer-mediated communication
The linguistic landscape of Jewish summer camps often includes murals, signs, and labels with Hebrew writing, sometimes in Hebrew letters, sometimes transliterated, sometimes accompanied by English translation. Murals with biblical and liturgical quotes are especially common in Orthodox camps, for example, ‘רוח סערה עשה דברו’ ‘a storm wind performing His word’ (Psalms 148:8) at Camp Sternberg. Some camps use decorative Hebrew signs to label locations and buildings around camp or signposts pointing toward camp locations (or toward other cities, e.g. at Beber Camp). Another type of written language is pedagogical signs, such as a label taped to a chair—‘כִּיסֵא CHAIR (key-seh)’—and a glossary of Hebrew foods and utensils in Camp Gilboa’s dining hall. Hebrew loanwords, sometimes italicized and translated, are included in computer-mediated communication, such as websites, social media, and parent email updates.
Infusion sometimes takes bivalent forms, including bilingual wordplay
At Camp Tel Yehudah, counselors Yair and Seth performed a skit for campers. Yair mentioned a tik, Hebrew for ‘bag’. Seth thought Yair was talking about a tick, a disease-transmitting insect, and became anxious. Alon, portraying ‘Hebrew Person’, entered the room wearing an Israeli flag cape and explained that tick in English is a parasite and tik (pronounced teek) in Hebrew is a bag. The campers went wild with cheers. Homophonous skits like these are so common that when I mention my research on Hebrew at camp, many former campers recall a visceral image from a popular skit, ‘There’s a fork in ma’s leg!’ (mazleg means ‘fork’). Such skits offer mnemonics for participants to remember a few words from the group language, and they highlight similarities between the group and dominant languages, while pointing to miscommunication that can stem from their differences. Wordplay is also common in prayers and songs, such as when campers point to their ears at the phrase ir hakodesh ‘holy city’. Camps create clever blends of Hebrew and English words, such as t’floptions (tefillah ‘prayer’ options) at Camp Newman, and hitbodebooth (a solitude booth where one can speak to God, from hitbodedut, a solitary spiritual practice) at Eden Village. We also see bivalent writing, such as a sign at the Chabad Camp Emunah: שיחnow, where the mem of the Hebrew word Moshiach ‘Messiah’ is also the N in the English word now. Such hybridity is a common phenomenon in bilingual settings (Heller Reference Heller1994; Woolard Reference Woolard1999). In ethnolinguistic infusion, bivalence helps to naturalize the group language within the dominant language, strengthening group members’ ethnolinguistic links.
Infusion involves metalinguistic practices, for example, translation, explicit teaching of select words, explanations about the fragments, or statements about the significance of the language for the group
A metalinguistic practice found at most camps is Hebrew word presentations, in which a staff member, usually Israeli, teaches one Hebrew word, often introduced by a Hebrew-word-of-the-day jingle or presented in a song or skit (including the homophonous skits described above). A metalinguistic practice we often heard is translation: many Hebrew loanwords and routinized code switches are translated into English, sometimes in a ritualized way. At Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute, counselors often said loanwords using what they call the ‘sandwich method’, for example, ‘We’re going to the agam, lake, agam [clap]’ (hands form a Hebrew-English-Hebrew sandwich). Some translation was more informal, such as a Gilboa counselor telling a new camper, ‘Let’s make a big circle. Maagal means circle’, after the leader chanted ‘A big maagal with everybody in it!’. Her metalinguistic comment was an act of language socialization, helping the camper to understand the infused Hebrew element. While such interactions are common, we heard only a few conversations about why Hebrew is used or its historical and contemporary significance. But the campers we interviewed told us about Hebrew’s importance for visiting Israel, participating in Jewish ritual, and feeling connected to Israelis and Jews around the world. Clearly, their Jewish camps, schools, and/or families had conveyed these ideologies, likely through their ubiquitous ethnolinguistic infusion.
There are hierarchical social structures stemming from (or sometimes resulting in) differential language abilities, ideologies, and/or practices
In situations of language shift, elders who are proficient in the group language might be accorded high status—not only because of their language ability but also because of their age or knowledge of group culture and history. This also applies in language revitalization contexts, where first-language and new speakers are seen as core community members, such as in the Chickasaw Nation (Davis Reference Davis2018). At Jewish camps, in which there is no shift from Hebrew to English, status is not based on age, and, at most camps, Hebrew skills play no role in the selection of leaders. Rabbis, Israelis, and others with Hebrew skills serve as experts in ethnolinguistic infusion: creating or approving Hebrew signage, performing Hebrew word skits, and teaching songs and prayers.
An exception is the Ramah camp network, where many announcements are in Hebrew, and some Hebrew ability is expected for promotion to division head and, especially, head staff. At a Ramah camp staff meeting, a counselor asked a question about the ‘boys’ area’. A head staffer responded, ‘I believe you mean migrash banim, but that’s OK, you’re new here’. A few counselors interjected jocularly, ‘Meah Milim!’ referring to the program encouraging staffers to say certain words only in Hebrew. A minute later, another counselor made a comment including the word ‘bunk’, and several corrected him to tzrif. These interactions of language socialization not only reinforce hierarchies based on language, they also highlight the local importance of particular Hebrew words and demonstrate uptake among staffers.
Community members demonstrate some degree of uptake, participating in language rituals and incorporating loanwords into their informal speech
While some campers resented and even resisted the Hebrew infused at their camps, most campers we observed enthusiastically sang songs, participated in call-and-response sequences, and used Hebrew words like ohel ‘tent’, edah ‘division’, and mifkad ‘lineup’. At Camp Bechol Lashon, the curriculum includes ‘visiting’ a new international Jewish community every few days. The ritual to introduce the country involves several clues, after which campers chant, Eifo Eliyahu baolam? ‘Where in the world is Elijah?’. During announcements (hodaot) at Camp Solomon Schechter, whose tagline is ‘where Judaism and joy are one’, staffers and campers often interject translations with playful intonation: HOdaO-oT (capital letters indicate high pitch; lowercase indicates low pitch). A leader told us that he often makes similar interjections at the beginning of a session, and the campers ‘catch on and start doing it themselves’. Indeed, by day two, individual campers were spontaneously inserting Hebrew and English translations beyond the routinized word hodaot, shown in (2) below.
Long description
The table presents a short transcript of a leader and camper exchange. The leader reports that someone found a white bag, and the camper repeats the key word as “laVaN,” followed by a separate line showing “white” and an ellipsis indicating omitted speech. Later, the leader says they will have “zman tzrif,” glossed as “cabin time,” and the camper echoes it as “CAbin tiME.” The main pattern is immediate repetition by the camper with changed capitalization to suggest altered stress or intonation. Because the excerpt is brief and includes omissions, it may not represent the full interaction or typical speech patterns.
Like in other situations of language socialization, peer socialization is common at camp. At a Ramah camp, where prayerbook page numbers are announced in Hebrew, a ninth-grade new camper did not understand when the prayer leader said, “Shva esrey” ‘seventeen’. She asked her bunkmate, ‘What page?’. Instead of answering in English or showing her open book, her friend repeated the number, ‘shva esrey’, and then said the more familiar component numbers: “sheva” ‘seven’, “eser” ‘ten’. She knew these numbers and found the page. Exchanges like these strengthen campers’ sense of the local importance of Hebrew—and demonstrate uptake and language hierarchy.
The group holds conflicting language ideologies regarding authenticity, correctness, language varieties, and the importance of the language for group cohesiveness
Ideological conflicts regarding language are common around the world. Such conflicts tend to be heightened in situations of ethnolinguistic infusion because of the fragmented language use, for example, Guernesiais and Jèrriais in the Channel Islands (Sallabank Reference Sallabank2013). Is bilingual hybridity authentic, or must any use of the language emulate how it once was used monolingually? At Jewish camps, many leaders embraced infusion, but others offered critiques. At camps that historically cultivated a more immersive Hebrew environment, this opposition partly reflected a nostalgic stance. But in many cases, opposition to infusion reflected either an ideology of language purism (Dorian Reference Dorian1994)—what Canagarajah (Reference Canagarajah2013b:152) calls ‘monolingualist ideologies’—or a concern about ‘incorrect’ language acquisition. Their notion of correctness was based on Israeli Modern Hebrew, and they evinced what I call ‘sociolinguistic projection’ (Benor et al. Reference Benor, Krasner and Avni2020), individuals evaluating their language through others’ (metaphorical) eyes. This projection was influenced not only by Israelis’ comments, but also by Americans’ expectation of how actual or hypothetical Israelis might react. Several American interviewees criticized bivalent and otherwise innovative forms, especially clippings like meltzing ‘waiting tables’ (backformation from Hebrew meltzar ‘waiter’). A few made comments like this, from a visiting Hebrew educator at Ramah Rockies: ‘A language is not just a noun; … you can only learn how it behaves… if you hear its flow, if you hear its intonation, if you hear its rhythm. And if you say, I’m going to the brecha [‘pool’], what is that?… They’re giving camp a flavor [of Hebrew]’. Indeed, that is the effect of ethnolinguistic infusion.
Empirical questions
In any situation of ethnolinguistic infusion, there are several diachronic and synchronic questions we might ask. Answering these questions can improve our understanding of the specific situation and community and the phenomenon of ethnolinguistic infusion.
• Initiation: Historically, how was ethnolinguistic infusion initiated? By whom? Elders? Immigrants? People with strong language proficiency or ideologies about maintaining the group language or identity? What were these initiators’ intentions? How was the initial infusion perceived?
• Historical change: How have the production and perception of infusion changed over time? Have the group language fragments become routinized as part of broader community activities? Has the intentional incorporation of loanwords crystalized into a language variety or register associated with the group or a domain? Did loanwords and routinized code switching that began as marked evolve to be unmarked in a given context?
• Intentionality: Synchronically, why do people infuse the group language? Are they merely continuing tradition, or do they have language socialization goals? Do they intend to teach the language? To entice group members to pursue further language education? To create or strengthen ideological links between language and group? To build community?
• Pedagogical and metalinguistic orientation: To what extent do leaders teach words explicitly, translate, or speak about the language? To what extent are infused elements marked, for example, prosodically, with metalinguistic comment, or—in writing—with quotes or italics? Are ideological links between group and language discussed explicitly? Do face-to-face or online metalinguistic communities convene?
• Language policy and management: How consistent is the infusion? Is the infusion policed, for example, do some leaders scold others for not framing a ceremony with the group language or for using a dominant-language word instead of a group-language loanword? Is infusion incentivized, for example, are people praised or rewarded for reciting a poem?
• Uptake: Does the infusion spread beyond select leaders? To what extent do community members participate in routinized recitation? Use infused elements in particular domains? In everyday communication?
• Perception: How aware are group members of the infused elements? To what extent do they perceive ideological links between the language and the group? How does their sense of self connect to the language and the group?
• Contestation: How do individuals and subgroups react to the infusion? Are there ideological conflicts regarding language status (how often and in which contexts the language is infused), corpus (which variety and which elements of the group language are infused and how they are integrated into the dominant language), and acquisition (how much formal language instruction is emphasized)?
Once we answer these questions about individual situations of ethnolinguistic infusion, we can begin to analyze variation in the phenomenon. We might compare communities of different types (immigrant/diasporic, indigenous, religious) and languages of different types (at various stages of vitality, endangerment, and dormancy; languages with and without writing systems; with and without sacred texts). Are ideological tensions more likely in communities with a robust group of native speakers than in situations of language dormancy? Are religious groups more accepting of language hybridity than diasporic groups?
We can also compare various situations of language contact, asking what factors lead to various outcomes: translanguaging, situational code switching, shift to the dominant language with organic influences from the group language, ethnolinguistic infusion, metalinguistic communities, and complete shift to the dominant language. Political power and socioeconomic status likely influence these outcomes.
We might also ask broader questions. To what extent do outgroup participants in infused activities—for example, Taekwondo with its Korean loanwords, Capoeira with its Portuguese loanwords—perceive ethnolinguistic links? Is ethnolinguistic infusion merely a recent historical phenomenon due to colonialism and globalization? Historical sociolinguistic research may find evidence of infusion after many migrations and empire changes.
Conclusion
In recent centuries, language shift has become more common due to globalization and government policies that disfavor indigenous and immigrant languages (see Hill Reference Hill2002 and Davis Reference Davis2017 on the dangers of erasing colonial agency). Communities react in diverse ways to such developments. Some do not see language loss as a threat to their group identity and feel their ancestral language holds them back socially or economically. Other communities (or factions or individuals) see their group language as important or essential to group identity and continuity. A common response within this type of community is to initiate language revitalization efforts, such as documentation, immersion schools, and master-apprentice programs. However, many recognize that such efforts are time consuming and expensive and that the chances of successfully reversing language shift (Fishman Reference Fishman, Peyton, Ranard and McGinnis2001) are low. And, as Avineri & Harasta (Reference Avineri and Harasta2021:3) warn, ‘language ideologies that insist upon unattainable standards for fluency can, intentionally or unintentionally, serve as handmaids of annihilation’. An alternative (or additional) response is the phenomenon described in this article. Ethnolinguistic infusion, influenced by post-structuralist analytical frameworks that center language hybridity, enables communities to have their cake and eat it too. As Canagarajah (Reference Canagarajah2013b:152) writes, regarding Sri Lankan-Americans’ emblematic Tamil use, ‘They are able to address their personal interests of socioeconomic mobility by constructing hybrid identities, without abandoning affiliation with their heritage language and ethnic community’.
Ethnolinguistic infusion can be a useful construct for conceptualizing and analyzing language use in immigrant, indigenous, and religious contexts. Beyond its academic utility, I believe infusion has practical potential for community leaders who want to strengthen ethnolinguistic links. They might apply the practices discussed above in various institutions, for example, mosques, churches, synagogues, temples, preschools, primary schools, camps, youth groups, and community/tribal centers. Ethnolinguistic infusion can be a valuable tool of language reclamation, even if it does not ‘revitalize’ the language by increasing the number of speakers or domains of fluent language use. Often infusion can spark (or be sparked by) other language revitalization efforts, and often metalinguistic communities convene. Even in the absence of these other practices, infusion can strengthen group members’ three-way ideological links connecting the individual, the group, and the language.
Infusion aligns with Leonard’s (Reference Leonard2017) call for an ecological approach to language reclamation (in contrast to language revitalization), one that links language with the environment and lives of the people who ‘claim’ the language. If language is infused in the context of communal activities—ceremonies, meals, games, performances, crafts, and so on—community members will likely feel the language is part of their lives. And if the primary goal of language reclamation efforts is reconceptualized as strengthening ethnolinguistic links, leaders and participants will be more likely to feel they have succeeded.
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