Joshua A. Fishman

Language and ethnicity in minority sociolinguistic perspective

What is ethnicity and how is it linked to language? - phenomenological and socio-historical considerations language maintenance and language shift in ethnocultural perspective the ethnic dimension in language planning language and ethnicity in education - the bilingual minority focus elites and rank-and-file - contrasts and contexts in ethnolinguistic behaviour and attitudes ethnolinguistic homogeneity and heterogeneity - worldwide causes, consequences and aspirations.

The Sociology of Language

Man is constantly using language — spoken language, written language, printed language — and man is constantly linked to others via shared norms of behavior. The sociology of language examines the interaction between these two aspects of human behavior: the use of language and the social organization of behavior. Briefly put, the sociology of language focuses upon the entire gamut of topics related to the social organization of language behavior, including not only language usage per se but also language attitudes and overt behaviors toward language and toward language users.

Bilingualism and biculturism as individual and as societal phenomena

Abstract Just as diglossia is the stable, societal counterpart to individual bilingualism, so di‐ethnia is the stable, societal counterpart to individual biculturism. Di‐ethnia requires societal compartmentalization as well as institutionally protected functional specificity. These desiderata are hard to attain and to retain — both ideologically and structurally — under “modern”, interactive, mobile and individualistic urban industrial conditions. However, some groups have, intuitively or consciously, displayed a talent for exactly such arrangements. Much of bilingual education unknowingly leads to transitional rather than stable accommodations in the areas of language and culture.

What is reversing language shift (RLS) and how can it succeed

Abstract Several societal and social biases have conspired to make the study of language maintenance and language shift more advanced than the study of reversing language shift (RLS). RLS efforts have been confused with messianic (i.e. irrational) and past‐oriented (i.e. nativistic) movements, overlooking their rational, priority setting and modernising dirust. Even diose engaged in the study or practice of RLS, however, have tended to lack theoretical coherence and to be mesmerised by ‘activism’ rather than by the empirical relationship between any particular RLS efforts and die demonstrable intergenerational transmissibility of language‐imbedded behaviours, attitudes and beliefs. Where bilingualism with diglossia is all that can be realistically attained, RLS emphases must concentrate on family‐neighbourhood‐community building boundary‐setting efforts. Where largely monolingual cultural autonomy becomes realistically possible, more inter‐group confrontation RLS efforts should be undertaken, but their li...

Language modernization and planning in comparison with other types of national modernization and planning

The purpose of this review is two-fold. First of all, to move toward greater clarity with respect to a number of basic terms revealing less consensus in the language planning literature (e.g. planning, traditional, development, modernization, Westernization) than in the social sciences more generally. Secondly, but more importantly, to introduce into the language planning field a large number of concepts, questions and dimensions which have not yet found their way there from planning theory and planning research in other-than-language fields. In many (but not all) respects it would seem, on logical and impressionistic grounds, that language planning and other- than-language planning face similar burdens and benefit from related social and organizational circumstances.

Alternative Measures of Bilingualism.

A variety of techniques for the measurement and description of bilingualism, derived separately from the disciplines of linguistics, psychology, and sociology, were administered to the same respondents, 48 Spanish-English bilinguals who lived in a Peurto Rican neighborhood near New York, in order to assess the relationship among these measures and their relative utility as predictors of four proficiency criterion variables. A factor analysis, performed on the intercorrelations among 124 scores, indicated areas of interdisciplinary overlap as well as uniqueness. The best predictors of the criteria were obtained from retrospective reports of proficiency and usage. However, scores from other techniques provided significant increments in the cumulative prediction of the four proficiency criteria, a very high proportion of whose variance was explainable through multiple regression analysis.

Bilingual Education in Sociolinguistic Perspective.

One of the avowed purposes of bilingual education is the maintenance and development of linguistic and cultural diversity. The authors believe that realistic societal information is needed for realistic educational goals. This information, which goes beyond that normally available in school records and county census data, is here described and presented as an aid in deciding what kind of bilingual program to establish. Four broad categories of bilingualism (transitional, monoliterate, partial, and full) are defined and discussed in terms of their societal implications.

Critiques of language planning: A minority languages perspective

Neo‐Marxist and post‐structural critiques of classical language planning (lp) are examined for their relevance to lp on behalf of minority languages. The criticisms are: (1) lp is conducted by elites that are governed by their own self‐interest; (2) lp reproduces rather than overcomes sociocultural and econotechnical inequalities; (3) lp planning inhibits or counteracts multiculturalism; (4) lp espouses worldwide Westernisation and modernisation leading to a new sociocultural, econotechnical and conceptual colonialism; (5) only ethnography can save lp research from fostering the above‐mentioned evils.

The multilingual Apple : languages in New York City

Part 1 Introduction to the multilingual apple: New Yorks multilingualism - world languages and their role in a U.S. city, Ofelia Garcia. Part 2 The language of early arrivals - still encountered: Irish in 19th-century New York, Kenneth E, Nilsen German in New York, John R. Costello Yiddish in New York, Hannah Kliger, Rakhmiel Peltz. Part 3 The languages with vitality in the past and the present: Italian in New York, Hermann W. Haller Greek in New York, Chrysie M. Costantakos, John N. Spiridakis Spanish in New York, Ana Celia Zentella Hebrew in New York, Alvin I. Schiff. Part 4 The languages with the newest sounds and of newest faces: Chinese in New York, Shiwen Pan The languages of India in New York, Kamal K. Sridhar Haitian Creole in new York, Carole M. Berotte Joseph English Caribbean language in New York, Lise winer, Lona Jack. Part 5 Concluding observations to the multilingual apple: do ethnics have culture? and whats so special about New York anyway? Joshua A. Fishman.

Whorfianism of the Third Kind: Ethnolinguistic Diversity as a Worldwide Societal Asset. (The Whorfian Hypothesis: Varieties of Validation, Confirmation, and Disconfirmation II).

Two hypotheses associated with Benjamin Lee Whorf, W 1 , or the linguistic relativity hypothesis, and W 2 , or the linguistic determinism hypothesis, have overshadowed a third, W 3 , that champions ethnolinguistic diversity for the benefit of pan–human creativity, problem solving and mutual cross-cultural acceptance. With respect to W 3 , Whorf is a disciple of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) with whom he shares many themes and basic perspectives. It may be that different basic methodologies and philosophies of science, particularly those that distinguish linear, quantitative experimentalism from the reborn holistic and ethnographic stress on meaning, will ultimately make it just as difficult to conclude what has been empirically demonstrated with respect to W 3 as it already is with respect to W 1 and, particularly, W 2 . Nevertheless, W: 3 has a valuable humanizing and sensitizing effect on the language-related disciplines. Indeed, in that respect it may well have value above and beyond its scientific validity. (Whorfian hypothesis, Johann Gottfried Herder, multilingualism/multiculturalism, methodology–theory relationships in the language sciences.)