Ideologies in Action : : Language Politics on Corsica / / Alexandra Jaffe.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Linguistics and Semiotics 1990 - 1999
• VerfasserIn: Jaffe, Alexandra,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2013]; ©1999
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Language, Power and Social Process [LPSP] , 3
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (323 p.) :; 1 Kte

In Corsica, spelling contests, road signs, bilingual education bills and Corsican language newscasts leave language planners and ordinary speakers deeply divided over how to define what "counts" as Corsican and how it is connected with cultural identity. In Ideologies in Action Alexandra Jaffe explores the complex interrelationship between linguistic ideologies and practices on the French island of Corsica. This detailed exploration of the ideological and political underpinnings of three decades of language planning raises fundamental questions about what it means to "save" a minority language, and the way in which specific cultural, political and ideological contexts shape the "successes" and "failures" of linguistic engineering efforts. Jaffe's ethnography focuses both on the way dominant language ideologies are inscribed in the everyday experience of ordinary people, as well as how they shape the evolving strategies of language planners trying to revitalize the Corsican language. While Jaffe's analysis demonstrates the pervasive influence of dominant language ideologies on minority language speakers and language planners, she also draws on case studies from everyday discourse, educational practice and public and mediatized debates over language issues to develop an ethnographically-grounded perspective on levels of resistance. In the final part of the book she explores the emergence (and the limits) of "radical" genres of resistance found in forms of Corsican language activism and in examples of codeswitching and language mixing in bilingual radio practice. This book contributes to a growing literature on language ideology, and will be of interest to anthropologists, political scientists and linguists interested in the practical and theoretical dimensions of language contact, minority language literacy, bilingual education, and language shift.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Social space and place: models of identity -- Chapter 3. Language shift and diglossia: ideology, history and contemporary practice -- Chapter 4. Language Activism Part I -- Chapter 5. Language Activism Part 2 -- Chapter 6. Language learning: its social evaluation and meaning -- Chapter 7. Cracks in the public performance of Corsican literacy: the Second Annual Corsican Spelling Contest -- Chapter 8. Moving language off center stage: media and performance -- Chapter 9. Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Name index -- Subject index -- Backmatter