Research Articles

Personhood and linguistic identity, purism and variation

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Abstract

Linguistic ideology can be defined as that cluster of beliefs that a particular speech community holds about the form and function of language. Speech communities vary in size and network density, and this can be linked to variations in linguistic ideology, a good example being the contrast between most educated laypersons' general prescriptive beliefs about language, e.g. the standard language is best and to be emulated, with variations from this stigmatised, versus professional linguists' descriptivist views, which value all varieties equally and attempt to describe each without prejudice. It is important to understand that ideological beliefs are not theories per se, but rather the background of largely unexamined assumptions that guide the construction of specific theories, be they folk theories or scientific ones. This paper has investigated the cluster of beliefs that surround language and the language practices and policies that result from these beliefs in three regions: Europe, the American Southwest and the Middle Sepik of Papua New Guinea. The case studies in this paper present a powerful argument for the central role ethnography must play in any comprehensive description and documentation of a language.

Keywords: linguistic ideology, assumptions, prejudices, politics, policy, ethnography, language documentation and description, Europe, American Southwest, Middle Sepik, Papua New Guinea

How to Cite:

Foley, W., (2005) “Personhood and linguistic identity, purism and variation”, Language Documentation and Description 3, 157-180. doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/ldd280