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61 results

Page 1 of 4

  • 1 - The Sounds and Sound Systems of Language

  • from Part I - Language and the Speaker
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 7-19

  • Summary

    One of the first things that one discovers, surveying the many hundreds of languages used throughout the world, is that many of them (perhaps a third or more of the world’s 7000 living languages) have no written form. And if one were to travel back in time to an earlier age, the proportion of languages having a written form would be far less. What this means for us is that written language is both secondary to spoken language and derivative of it. So, one might accurately state that all languages are spoken languages, but only some languages (albeit many of them) are also written languages. Thus, while this book will explore the nature of writing systems (in chapter 9) and the significant role that these indeed do play in language conflicts, it is essential that we first examine the properties of spoken language.

  • 13 - Intra-Linguistic (Dialectal) Minorities

  • from Part III - A Typology of Language Conflicts
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 284-309

  • Summary

    In this chapter, the reader will find discussion of cases involving dialect minorities. The two featured cases are Okinawan speakers in Japan and African-American English (AAE) speakers in the US. Each case presents the story of a groups’ speaking the “wrong” (i.e. stigmatized) variety of a language, and being punished (economically, socially, and politically) for doing so. The former case involves speakers of a language that is not Japanese (i.e. Ryūkyūan) being presumed to speak a (stigmatized) dialect of Japanese and being made to suffer for it. In the second case, we find the language variety of English spoken by African-Americans to be especially stigmatized on account of a generally negative disposition toward the minority group itself, rather than on account of any objective features of their dialect. In the end of chapter section on extra cases for further exploration, the reader will find synopses on: Occitan in France, Singaporean English and local Chinese dialects in Singapore, and Landsmål/Bokmål in Norway

  • 11 - Geopolitical Minorities

  • from Part III - A Typology of Language Conflicts
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 221-255

  • Summary

    This chapter presents cases in which language conflict and language rights issues have arisen in the aftermath of the creation of a geopolitical minority as a consequence of changed national boundaries. Some of these changes are the outcome of war, some result from political unification, and others stem from political dissolution. Each case, though, involves a linguistic group finding itself a minority in a country dominated by another linguistic group, without having moved anywhere. The cases featured in this chapter are Hungarians in Slovakia, Hispanics in Southwest US, and Kurds in Turkey. Three extra cases presented at the end of the chapter for the reader to explore are the Tetum in Timor Leste, the Amazigh (Berbers) in the Maghreb region of Africa, and the Tibetans in China.

  • 6 - Language and Cultural Identity: Language and Thought

  • from Part II - Language in the World
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 83-98

  • Summary

    Sapir recognized the role of language in determining social and cultural identity. asserting that “common speech serves as a peculiarly potent symbol of the social identity of those who speak the language”. It is well-established that language is a factor in social solidarity—traditionally one identifies most closely with those who speak the same language and further the same variety of that language. The idea that language and culture go hand-in-hand is thus intuitively appealing. In fact, so appealing is this idea, that many people take language as a proxy for culture, and what are presented as language conflicts are often in fact socio-cultural conflicts, as we will see in later chapters. This chapter examines the relationship between language and culture, asking whether language is simply emblematic of culture or whether there is a deeper, causal relationship.

  • 14 - Competition for Linguistic Dominance

  • from Part III - A Typology of Language Conflicts
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 310-345

  • Summary

    In this final chapter on the typology of language conflicts, the reader will find cases of “competition for linguistic dominance”, in which two groups each hold sway in some region of a country, and are struggling for dominance or independence, with language rights playing a part in the articulation of that struggle. The featured cases are (i) Flemish vs. Walloons in Belgium (where no resolution is in sight), (ii) Tamil vs. Sinhalese in Sri Lanka (where the former group was crushed in a civil war with the latter), and (iii) French vs. English in Canada (where legislation has achieved a more-or-less livable stasis). The extra case synopses presented at the end of the chapter are: French vs. Wolof in Senegal, Chinese, Cantonese, and English in Hong Kong, and Hebrew vs. Arabic in Israel.

  • 4 - Language Change and Variation: Languages versus Dialects

  • from Part I - Language and the Speaker
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 48-61

  • Summary

    As language can change (in quite similar ways) across time and space, this chapter addresses both phenomena together. We will first examine variation through time, also called “language change”. We will then observe ways in which language differs across space, inclusive of physical space, social space, ethnic and cultural space, and gender space. This study is, generally, referred to as the study of “language variation”.

  • 2 - Words and Word Structure

  • from Part I - Language and the Speaker
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 20-33

  • Summary

    When we think of language, the first thing that most people think of is words. That is, we tend to think of words as what are sometimes referred to as the “building blocks” of language. Looked at this way, language is a collection (or a store) of words, and we use language by putting those words together to form sentences (to express thoughts). When we look closely at words, though, we can immediately see that they themselves have structure, and that it is the units of word structure rather than the words themselves, which carry the meaning. Just as chemical compounds consist of elements, which themselves can be combined in various ways and proportions to form other chemical compounds, so is it the case that many words can be broken down into smaller, meaningful elements.

  • 10 - Indigenous Minorities

  • from Part III - A Typology of Language Conflicts
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 195-220

  • Summary

    This chapter presents cases of indigenous minority language conflict, that is to say, ethnolinguistic conflicts which involve the fate of some indigenous people at the hands of a dominant group that has settled in and appropriated their territory. The fully developed cases presented here are those of the Sámi in Norway, the Ainu of Japan, and the Native Americans in the US. Additional cases for the reader to explore are: Māori in New Zealand, Aboriginals in Australia, and the Basque in Spain and France.

  • 15 - Endangered Languages: Taxonomy, Ecology, and Ownership

  • from Part IV - Language Endangerment, Extinction, and Revival
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 357-369

  • Summary

    This chapter will first introduce issues that need to be fully apprehended before one can even begin to discuss the practical matters of specific language preservation or revival. Specifically, it will discuss how one can usefully identify as autonomous, languages that are endangered or in need of preservation. It is also important, given the frequent comparisons between ecological and linguistic diversity, to understand what it means to consider intellectual and cultural diversity on the same level as biological diversity, as well as what are the limitations on such comparisons. Finally, since languages are part of human groups’ cultural expression and ethnic heritage, we must consider whether languages are to be considered belonging to the commonwealth of the human race or whether they are cultural property of the people and societies who speak them.

  • Introduction

  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 1-4

  • Summary

    This book is intended to provide a fundamental understanding of the issues surrounding language rights and how these are integral to human rights in general, as well as an individual’s definition of personal and cultural identity. It then explores language conflicts in a variety of nations, and shows how those conflicts have affected the rights of certain groups to use their own language, the groups’ efforts to secure those rights, and efforts to deny those rights through legislation and other actions. Through careful and linguistically informed presentations of these matters, the book critically examines the significant intellectual issues underlying what can be an extremely emotionally-charged subject.

  • Introduction to Part III

  • from Part III - A Typology of Language Conflicts
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 191-194

  • Summary

    The intrduction to Unit 3 lays out the typology of language conflicts that forms the basis of chapters 11 through 15, which are named after the five categories of language conflict that comprise the typology. The categories of language conflicts we present are as follows: (i) indigenous minorities , (ii) geopolitical minorities, (iii) migrant minorities, (iv) dialect minorities, and (v) competition for linguistic dominance. The disparate natures of these categories are mostly apparent from their names, but it is still worth spelling out what they mean in the context of this book.

  • 8 - The Role of Writing Systems

  • from Part II - Language in the World
  • William D. Davies, University of Iowa, Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina
  • Book:
    Language Conflict and Language Rights
    Published online:
    02 August 2018
    Print publication:
    09 August 2018, pp 132-160

  • Summary

    It is the relative permanence of written language and its link with the past that helps explain why written languages—and actually the standard languages on which they are based (cf. chapter 5 regarding ‘standard languages’)—are often held up as the ‘standard’ by which people’s spoken language is judged. Given the centrality of written language to human communication, and given the elevated status accorded to it, it is important to examine the origin and role of orthography (that is, writing systems) in the world’s languages. This chapter will describe the major types of writing systems humans have developed over the past 5,000-8,000 years, as well as some theories regarding the genesis of Western alphabetic writing.

Page 1 of 4