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12003 results in Cambridge Handbooks

Page 548 of 601

  • 4 - A survey of language endangerment

  • from Part 1 - Endangered languages
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 66-77

  • Summary

    This chapter outlines the state of endangerment across the world's languages, based on two recent comprehensive surveys (Brenzinger 2007a, Moseley 2007). It discusses some widely used scales for endangerment including the current UNESCO standard. Various widespread issues are outlined using examples from the situation in China, Burma/Myanmar and Thailand, based on original language survey data, to show the limitations of wide-scale surveys and the need for more finely grained survey work using a consistent methodology. Languages displaced by long-distance migration as an outcome of colonialism or more recent events are not usually listed as endangered if they are not endangered in some community location. In some areas, available overview data is both more comprehensive and has been collected using a more consistent methodology. Finally, the chapter discusses the general strategies and procedures for surveying language endangerment.

  • 10 - Speakers and language documentation

  • from Part II - Language documentation
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 187-211

  • Summary

    Language shift can take place rapidly, over a generation or two, or it can take place gradually, but continuously, over several generations. Linguists are becoming increasingly alarmed at the rate at which languages are going out of use. Overviews of the study of language endangerment usually start with a list of statistics about the number of languages in the world, the proportion considered endangered, and so on. Politics also plays an important part in language differentiation. Following nineteenth-century philosophers such as Herder, language has been considered a crucial element of national identity, with 'one state, one people, one language' being seen as the ideal. But languages do not necessarily follow political boundaries. The causes of language endangerment can be divided into four main categories such as: natural catastrophes, famine, disease; war and genocide; overt repression; and cultural/political/economic dominance.

  • 7 - Language and culture

  • from Part 1 - Endangered languages
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 120-140

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses important strands of thought regarding the interrelation of language and culture, from the complementary perspectives of culture's influence on linguistic form and the role of linguistic form in social action and culture. It begins with a discussion of the conceptual relationship between the two elements of the dyad. The study of linguistic form can be surveyed either from the perspective of organizational components or in terms of identifiable theories, the study of the language-culture nexus defies comprehensive exposition based on such rubrics. The ethnography of communication (EoC) was the earliest effort to develop a framework for the description of linguistic behaviour in wider social and cultural contexts. Recent publications on language endangerment aimed at popular audiences implicate the shift from local languages to global ones in significant losses of cultural knowledge, especially detailed knowledge of local environments and resource use.

  • 5 - Language contact and change in endangeredlanguages

  • from Part 1 - Endangered languages
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 78-99

  • Summary

    This chapter presents some outcomes of language contact, and linguistic and social-psychological mechanisms operating in contact situations. It discusses notions of how contact-induced change is perceived by speaker communities and others, and the question of whether contact-induced change is inevitable. The chapter explains that new languages arising from contact might also be endangered and should be documented as valuable records of sociolinguistic processes. When languages come into contact and speakers of one language are learning another, a change in language use has already taken place. The prestige of a language may be viewed differently by different groups within the community; for example, younger versus older speakers, so use of a language or linguistic form may be evaluated differently among within-community groups. Speakers may be aware that their language is endangered but not aware of or confident about their own role in its maintenance.

  • 23 - Planning a language-documentation project

  • from Part IV - Challenges
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 459-482

  • Summary

    This chapter provides sufficient context to archival functions to help researchers and documenters create, deposit and use archival records. Effective archival management of endangered language documentation is dependent not only on the actions that archives take to acquire, preserve and provide access to records, but also on the foresight and contributions of the creators and prior custodians of those records. The chapter is organized around core archival functions: appraisal, accession, arrangement, description, preservation, access and use. When carrying out each of the core functions, the steps taken by an archive to preserve and provide access to documentation of endangered languages depend on the actions of creators and collectors of the material. In the past decade, several collecting repositories devoted primarily to language documentation have been founded. These archives are able to treat language documentation with subject-specific expertise and fuel progress on standards for metadata, citation and access.

  • 2 - Language ecology and endangerment

  • from Part 1 - Endangered languages
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 27-44

  • Summary

    The field of language ecology studies the interrelationships between speakers and their languages as situated in their full (contemporary and historical) context. In its strong version, a theory of language ecology likens competition between languages to the competition between species and provides mechanisms for accounting for the survival of the fittest (languages). Language planning should take into account the overall language ecology of any group, which can be seen as a framework or model for analysing the relationship between linguistic practices on the context, or milieu, in which they are situated, that is, their ecolinguistic niche. Most linguists would argue that it is possible to place language vitality along a continuum, with languages which are vital and in no way endangered (e.g. English, Mandarin, and Spanish) on one end, and extinct languages which have no speakers and have vanished without descendent or daughter languages on the other end.

  • 17 - Lexicography in endangered languagecommunities

  • from Part III - Responses
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 337-353

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses important strands of thought regarding the interrelation of language and culture, from the complementary perspectives of culture's influence on linguistic form and the role of linguistic form in social action and culture. It begins with a discussion of the conceptual relationship between the two elements of the dyad. The study of linguistic form can be surveyed either from the perspective of organizational components or in terms of identifiable theories, the study of the language-culture nexus defies comprehensive exposition based on such rubrics. The ethnography of communication (EoC) was the earliest effort to develop a framework for the description of linguistic behaviour in wider social and cultural contexts. Recent publications on language endangerment aimed at popular audiences implicate the shift from local languages to global ones in significant losses of cultural knowledge, especially detailed knowledge of local environments and resource use.

  • 16 - Orthography development

  • from Part III - Responses
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 312-336

  • Summary

    This chapter addresses structural aspects of language endangerment from two perspectives: the contributions that the study of endangered languages make to typology and linguistic theory, and the structural consequences of language endangerment, including the kinds of changes that can take place in the phonology, morphology and syntax of endangered languages. Typology is closely associated with the study of linguistic universals, which can be understood as the common characteristics of the world's languages, usually with the goal of providing insight into the fundamental nature of human language. Though there are various ways in which languages can become extinct, the most typical is through language shift when a language gradually comes to have fewer and fewer speakers who use it in ever fewer domains until finally no one is able to speak it in any context. This process is sometimes called language obsolescence.

  • 19 - The role of information technology in supportingminority and endangered languages

  • from Part III - Responses
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 371-400

  • Summary

    The fundamental scalability of information technology (IT) can be thought of as a great equalizer which puts the powerful resources developed for major world languages into the hands of minority language communities. This chapter describes two broad types of technologies which may support endangered languages. The first is products which are created by a group of developers or authors for a specific user community or audience. The second type consists of online technologies such as email listservs which foster communities of language learners and language users. For the most part, the technologies described in the chapter foster individual language learning. But IT can also play a role in developing and fostering a language community. One important difference between major or world languages and minor or endangered languages is that the latter almost by definition lack thriving language communities.

  • 11 - Data and language documentation

  • from Part II - Language documentation
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 212-234

  • Summary

    This chapter presents a brief outline of the relationship between data and language documentation. Three kinds of resources have long been given a special place in descriptive linguistics: texts, dictionaries and grammars. It has become standard practice for linguists documenting under-resourced languages to consider ways in which their work can result in outputs not only for use in academic spheres, but also community ones. The chapter explores the notion of an underlying data structure and introduces general aspects of the problem of encoding that structure in machine-readable format. It covers specific issues relating to the encoding of language data on a computer. Most of the documentary objects requiring metadata can be arranged in a hierarchy from more general to more specific using the categories project, corpus, session and resource. The chapter concludes with a discussion of linguist's responsibilities for navigating the relationship between their data and new technologies.

  • 14 - Language policy for endangered languages

  • from Part III - Responses
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 277-290

  • Summary

    This chapter outlines the state of endangerment across the world's languages, based on two recent comprehensive surveys (Brenzinger 2007a, Moseley 2007). It discusses some widely used scales for endangerment including the current UNESCO standard. Various widespread issues are outlined using examples from the situation in China, Burma/Myanmar and Thailand, based on original language survey data, to show the limitations of wide-scale surveys and the need for more finely grained survey work using a consistent methodology. Languages displaced by long-distance migration as an outcome of colonialism or more recent events are not usually listed as endangered if they are not endangered in some community location. In some areas, available overview data is both more comprehensive and has been collected using a more consistent methodology. Finally, the chapter discusses the general strategies and procedures for surveying language endangerment.

  • 20 - Endangered languages and economicdevelopment

  • from Part IV - Challenges
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 403-422

  • Summary

    The spread of writing to vernacular languages, along with ideologies of language standardization and practices of manuscript curation, constituted language documentation on an enormous scale over a millennial time frame. This chapter considers how a broad, inclusive idea of endangered-language documentation might be framed in order best to realize its potential, avoid pitfalls, and meet its challenges. It also considers the context and development of endangered-language documentation in academic research. But the stakeholders in documentation include the communities in which endangered languages are spoken. The chapter focuses mainly on documentation and community stakeholders and has little to say of wider publics except as they may form part of the community context of endangered-language documentation. Linguists must be flexible and inventive about how and when to accomplish traditional linguistic agendas, and training takes centre stage as projects involve many people, with different expertise, roles and levels of training.

  • 6 - Structural aspects of languageendangerment

  • from Part 1 - Endangered languages
  • Edited by Peter K. Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Julia Sallabank, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 March 2011, pp 100-119

  • Summary

    This chapter addresses structural aspects of language endangerment from two perspectives: the contributions that the study of endangered languages make to typology and linguistic theory, and the structural consequences of language endangerment, including the kinds of changes that can take place in the phonology, morphology and syntax of endangered languages. Typology is closely associated with the study of linguistic universals, which can be understood as the common characteristics of the world's languages, usually with the goal of providing insight into the fundamental nature of human language. Though there are various ways in which languages can become extinct, the most typical is through language shift when a language gradually comes to have fewer and fewer speakers who use it in ever fewer domains until finally no one is able to speak it in any context. This process is sometimes called language obsolescence.

Page 548 of 601