International Journal of the Sociology of Language

Published by De Gruyter Mouton

Volume 2017 Issue 246 - Special Issue: Indigenous Language Regimes in the Americas Issue Editor: Serafín M. Coronel-Molina

Issue of International Journal of the Sociology of Language

Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available June 6, 2017

Frontmatter

Page range: i-v

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June 2, 2017

Introduction: Indigenous language regimes in the Americas

Serafín M. Coronel Molina

Page range: 1-6

May 24, 2017

Indigenous Tewa language regimes across time: Persistence and transformation

Paul V. Kroskrity

Page range: 7-30

Abstract

This article attempts to trace and understand the historical development and transformation of the regimes of language Indigenous to the Village of Tewa (northeastern Arizona). It examines the social institutions and cultural practices that first cultivated a particular set of language ideologies and linguistic practices in the precolonial period. It also tracks more recent transformations involving contemporary Tewa adaptations to inclusion in the federally recognized Hopi Tribe and to the hegemony of the larger nation-state. Critical to my argument is the role of theocratic institutions and Indigenous social organization (e.g., clans and moieties) in providing a foundation for ideological production and elaboration. This account provides a better analysis of Tewa linguistic resistance to Spanish colonization than that of Edward Dozier, who attributed language contact outcomes to the historical circumstances of Spanish colonial oppression rather than to the expression of Indigenous language ideologies, including their regimes of temporalization and the crossing of temporal borders in subjective history.

May 18, 2017

Oppressed no more? Indigenous language regimentation in plurinational Bolivia

Bret Gustafson

Page range: 31-57

Abstract

Indigenous language regimentation in Bolivia is traced through historical legal documents and contemporary transformations. While state language policy is often fragmented and improvisational, non-state linguistic activist networks have taken an increasingly significant role in shaping state policy. Under the government of Evo Morales, explicit state measures to preserve and develop Indigenous languages are discussed as incipient shifts toward a more decolonizing mode of language regimentation. It remains to be seen whether the new state position will lay the groundwork for robust language revitalization at the level of Indigenous language communities.

May 24, 2017

On language regimes in the Americas: Mexicano illustrations

José Antonio Flores Farfán

Page range: 59-84

Abstract

In this article several heteroglossic expressions of language regimes will be presented. To this end, I will succinctly discuss a series of (socio) linguistic issues related to the use of one of the major Indigenous languages in Mexico – namely, Mexicano (Nahuatl) – in its political, ideological and pragmatic arenas. This includes a consideration of Mexicano political economies, entailing a dispute over the politics of representation of Mexicano verbal culture in different ambits in which language plays an outstanding role. Comparing different linguistic politics of interpretation will allow an understanding of antagonistic voices regarding competing (e.g., ethnographic, linguistic) approaches, including different linguists’ and anthropologists’ descriptions vis-à-vis varying actors’ contradictory perspectives on the same or similar facts. These will encompass political, ideological and pragmatic uses and ideologies, in both historical and contemporary domains, including the written and oral worlds.

May 17, 2017

Changing livelihoods and language repertoires: hunting, fishing and gold mining in the southeast Peruvian Amazon

Sheila Aikman

Page range: 85-108

Abstract

This article investigates how over the space of three decades the language repertoires of the Arakmbut people of the southeast Peruvian Amazon have shifted from being predominantly Harakmbut language based to Spanish language based. It asks not how one language has come to replace another in the daily lives of the Arakmbut, but what this shift represents in terms of changing lifestyles, social relations, desirable affiliations and the changing value Harakmbut and Spanish language resources have for them in furthering these relationships. Drawing on long term ethnographic research, it presents four scenarios over this period through which the changes in Arakmbut livelihoods from hunting and fishing to gold mining are discussed and what these changes mean in terms of their social, cultural and spiritual relationships with their territory. As their livelihoods have become more entwined with the gold economy and new national alliances and international networks, they have sought to reshape their communicative repertoires to respond to and ensure their continuing access to resources for their health and stability as a community in an intense and fast moving social, economic and cultural landscape.

May 16, 2017

Kib’eyal taq ch’ab’äl: Mayan language regimes in Guatemala

Judith Maxwell

Page range: 109-133

Abstract

Having survived a 36-year genocidal war, as well as 500 years of colonial and neocolonial domination, the Maya of Guatemala have developed strong and explicit strategies to maintain their languages and to define their own language communities. In this article, I explore how these language ideologies have changed over time from precontact interactions, colonial and republican eras into the early 1930s, through the violence of the civil war, into a period of paragovernmental interaction, and finally into a dichotomous era of standardization/revitalization and language shift. I explore the dynamic tensions between the national promotion of Mayan languages, through the Ministry of Education and the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala, and the neoliberal regime’s emphasis on economic advancement and social simplification. These national trends are compared with more local grassroots language movements, their ideologies, and language regimes.

Book Reviews

May 18, 2017

Teresa L. McCarty: Language planning and policy in Native America: History, theory, and practice

Mathew Bumbalough

Page range: 135-140

May 17, 2017

Regina Cortina: education of indigenous citizens in Latin America

Margaret Remstad Hook

Page range: 141-146

About this journal

The International Journal of the Sociology of Language (IJSL) is dedicated to the development of the sociology of language as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches – theoretical and empirical – supplement and complement each other, contributing thereby to the growth of language-related knowledge, applications, values and sensitivities.

Call for Submissions: Joshua A. Fishman Award
The Joshua A. Fishman Award recognizes outstanding unpublished PhD dissertations on a topic pertaining to the sociology of language. The award carries a cash prize and a nomination for publication in De Gruyter Mouton's Contributions to the Sociology of Language book series. The next deadline for submission is January 15, 2024, for details see the award website. Please note that dissertations will be independently evaluated by a Board of Reviewers and if you have any questions regarding the award selection process, please write to the De Gruyter Mouton team at fishman.award@degruyter.com

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