Overview

The Pacific is historically an area of enormous linguistic diversity, where talk figures as a central component of social life. Pacific communities also represent diverse contact zones, where between indigenous and introduced institutions and ideas; between local actors and outsiders; and involving different lingua franca, colonial, and local language varieties. Contact between colonial and post-colonial governments, religious institutions, and indigenous communities has spurred profound social change, irrevocably transforming linguistic ideologies and practices.Drawing on ethnographic and linguistic analyses, this edited volume examines situations of intertwined linguistic and cultural change unfolding in specific Pacific locations in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Its overarching concern is with the multiple ways that processes of historical change have shaped and been shaped by linguistic ideologies reflexive sensibilities about languages and language useheld by Pacific peoples and other agents of change. The essays demonstrate that language and linguistic practices are linked to changing consciousness of self and community through notions of agency, morality, affect, authority, and authenticity.In times of cultural contact, communities often experience language change at an accelerated rate. This is particularly so in small-scale communities where innovations and continuity routinely depend on the imagination, creativity, and charisma of fewer individuals. The essays in this volume provide evidence of this potential and a record of their voices, as they document new types of local actors, e.g., pastors, Bible translators, teachers, political activists, spirit mediums, and tour guides, some of whom introduce, innovate, legitimate, or resist new ideas and ways to express them through language. Drawing on and transforming metalinguistic concepts, local actors (re)shape language, reproducing and changing the communicative economy. In the process, they cultivate new cultural conceptions of language, for example, as a medium for communicating religious knowledge and political authority, and for constructing social boundaries and transforming relationships of domination.

Full Product Details

Author:   Miki Makihara (Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Queens College) ,  Bambi B. Schieffelin (Professor of Anthropology, Professor of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY, United States)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.30cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.349kg
ISBN:  

9780195324983

ISBN 10:   0195324986
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   11 October 2007
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

1: Miki Makihara and Bambi B. Schieffelin: Cultural Processes and Linguistic Mediations: Pacific Explorations 2: Christine Jourdan: Linguistic Paths to Urban Self in Post-Colonial Solomon Islands 3: Miki Makihara: Linguistic Purism in Rapa Nui Political Discourse 4: Kathleen C. Riley: To Tangle or Not to Tangle: Shifting Language Ideologies and the Socialization of Charabia in the Marquesas, French Polynesia 5: Rupert Stasch: Demon Language: The Otherness of Indonesian in a Papuan Community 6: Joel Robbins: You Can't Talk Behind the Holy Spirit's Back: Christianity and Changing Language Ideologies in a Papua New Guinea Society 7: Bambi B. Schieffelin: Found in Translating: Reflexive Language Across Time and Texts in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea 8: Courtney Handman: Speaking to the Soul: On Native Language and Authenticity in Papua New Guinea Bible Translation 9: Susan U. Phillips: Changing Scholarly Representations of Tongan Honorific Lexicon 10: J. Joseph Errington: Postscript: Making Contact Between Consequences

Reviews

Consequences of Contact contains great insight, and the depth of detail it is able to achieve by focusing exclusively on Pacific Societies makes it an important collection. Makihara and Schieffelin have compiled a volume indispensable for anyone seeking a deep and comprehensive understanding of modern Pacific language change. * Linguist List *

Consequences of Contact contains great insight, and the depth of detail it is able to achieve by focusing exclusively on Pacific Societies makes it an important collection. Makihara and Schieffelin have compiled a volume indispensable for anyone seeking a deep and comprehensive understanding of modern Pacific language change. --Linguist List<br>

<br> Consequences of Contact contains great insight, and the depth of detail it is able to achieve by focusing exclusively on Pacific Societies makes it an important collection. Makihara and Schieffelin have compiled a volume indispensable for anyone seeking a deep and comprehensive understanding of modern Pacific language change. --Linguist List<p><br>

Author Information

Miki Makihara is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Queens College, CUNY Bambi B. Schieffelin is Professor of Anthropology, New York University

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