Overview

In Small-language Fates and Prospects Nancy C. Dorian gathers findings from decades of documenting an endangered Scottish Gaelic dialect, presenting detailed evidence of contraction and loss but also recording a positive role for imperfect speakers. Retention of language skills undervalued by linguists but positively viewed by the community has supported the survival of local Gaelic-English bilingualism well beyond early predictions. Nonetheless, potent factors that threaten small-language survival everywhere have also operated here. Negative social attitudes towards the minority population, loss of a traditional occupation, the increasing impact of majority-culture ideologies, are recurrent phenomena in small-language settings. Maintenance or revitalization efforts pose special challenges under these circumstances, as does fieldwork itself when adverse sociohistorical forces have left very few fluent speakers.

Full Product Details

Author:   Nancy Dorian
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   6
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.881kg
ISBN:  

9789004230514

ISBN 10:   9004230513
Pages:   476
Publication Date:   23 May 2014
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

Foreword Sources Introduction part 1 Language Change in an Obsolescent Language 1 Grammatical Change in a Dying Dialect (1973) 2 The Fate of Morphological Complexity in Scottish Gaelic Language Death: Evidence from East Sutherland Gaelic (1978) 3 Making do with Less: Some Surprises along the Language Death Proficiency Continuum (1986) 4 Negative Borrowing in an Indigenous Language Shift to the Dominant National Language (2006) part 2 Speaker Skills and the Speech Community in a Receding Language Context 5 The Problem of the Semi-Speaker in Language Death (1977) 6 Language Shift in Community and Individual: The Phenomenon of the Laggard Semi-Speaker (1980) 7 Defining the Speech Community to Include its Working Margins (1982) 8 Abrupt Transmission Failure in Obsolescing Languages: How Sudden the 'Tip' to the Dominant Language in Communities and Families? (1986) 9 Age and Speaker Skills in Receding Language Communities: How Far do Community Evaluations and Linguists' Evaluations Agree? (2009) 10 Linguistic Lag as an Ethnic Marker (1980) part 3 Language Shift and Language Maintenance 11 Language Loss and Maintenance in Language Contact Situations (1982) 12 The Value of Language-Maintenance Efforts which are Unlikely to Succeed (1987) 13 The Ambiguous Arithmetic of Language Maintenance and Revitalization (2011) 14 Purism vs. Compromise in Language Revitalization and Language Revival (1994) 15 Western Language Ideologies and Small-Language Prospects (1998) 16 Bi- and Multilingualism in Minority and Endangered Languages (2004) part 4 Language Use 17 Stylistic Variation in a Language Restricted to Private-Sphere Use (1994) 18 Telling the Monolinguals from the Bilinguals: Unrealistic Code Choices in Direct Quotations within Scottish Gaelic Narratives (1997) 19 Celebrations: In Praise of the Particular Voices of Languages at Risk (1999) part 5 Fieldwork: Methods, Problems, Insights 20 Gathering Language Data in Terminal Speech Communities (1986) 21 Surprises in Sutherland: Linguistic Variability amidst Social Uniformity (2001) 22 Documentation and Responsibility (2010) 23 The Private and the Public in Language Documentation and Revitalization (2010) Author Index General Index

Reviews

This book is essential reading for all students or researchers who deal with dying languages at any linguistic level, bilingualism, code-switching, field work, language policy, and variation and change. Many of the 23 articles in this volume have shaped these various fields and it is very sensible to have them in one location. All of Dorian's most important articles, save perhaps her 1994 article in Language, appear in this volume, and I assume it was left out due to its size. Marred by only a handful of typos, the book has much to recommend it. The layout of the book is straight-forward and clear and its copious index is appreciated. One editorial decision which is especially welcome is a bibliography after each article rather than a single larger one at the end of the book. This allows for an easier perusal of what were the foundational and contemporary sources for each particular article in the volume. Jean-Francois R. Mondon, Minot State University, on Linguistlist. The editors are to be congratulated for the production of this comprehensive, accessible and valuable volume. Nancy Dorian herself is a scholar of immense importance and this comprehensive collection is a fine summary of her work. - Wilson McLeod, University of Edinburgh, Journal of Celtic Linguistics.

This book is essential reading for all students or researchers who deal with dying languages at any linguistic level, bilingualism, code-switching, field work, language policy, and variation and change. Many of the 23 articles in this volume have shaped these various fields and it is very sensible to have them in one location. All of Dorian's most important articles, save perhaps her 1994 article in Language, appear in this volume, and I assume it was left out due to its size. Marred by only a handful of typos, the book has much to recommend it. The layout of the book is straight-forward and clear and its copious index is appreciated. One editorial decision which is especially welcome is a bibliography after each article rather than a single larger one at the end of the book. This allows for an easier perusal of what were the foundational and contemporary sources for each particular article in the volume. Jean-Francois R. Mondon, Minot State University, on Linguistlist.

Author Information

Nancy C. Dorian, Ph.D. (1965) University of Michigan, was Professor of Linguistics at Bryn Mawr College. Her books include Language Death (1981), Investigating Obsolence (1989) and Investigating Variation (2010). She edited the Small Languages and Small Language Communities section of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language for more than two decades.

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