Speech play and language ideologies in Navajo terminology development
Abstract
In this article we combine a concern with speech play and language ideologies to investigate contemporary Navajo terminology development. This article presents some recent cases of lexical elaboration in context, and argues that neologisms in Navajo are often fleeting, shifting, or humorous practices that reflect and recreate individual agency, intimate grammars, and local language ideologies. They also reflect an unexpected continuity in what is considered to be a context of rapid language shift. Such practices are one form of resistance to English and should be seen as a sociocultural, rather than purely referential, phenomenon.
Keywords:
Quick links
Bakhtin, M.M., and Michael Holquist
Basso, Keith H
Benally, AnCita, and Dennis Viri
Bodo, Fr. Murray
Bright, William
Brown, Cecil H
(1999) Lexical Acculturation in Native American Languages. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. BoP
Bunte, Pamela A
Fathers, Franciscan
Field, Margaret C
Field, Margaret C., and Paul V. Kroskrity
Hale, Ken
Hill, Jane H
Holm, Agnes, Wayne Holm, and Bernard Spolsky
House, Deborah
(2002) Language Shift among the Navajos: Identity Politics and Cultural Continuity. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. BoP
Hymes, Dell
Kari, James
Klain, Bennie, and Leighton C. Peterson
Krauss, Michael E., and Victor K. Golla
Kroskrity, Paul V
(1998a) Arizona Tewa kiva speech as a manifestation of a dominant language ideology. In Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 103-122. BoP
Lee, Tiffany, and Daniel McLaughlin
Lee, Tiffany S
Leonard, Wesley Y
Meek, Barbra A
Mitchell, Blackhorse, and Anthony K. Webster
Neely, Amber
Neundorf, Alice
Neundorf, Alyse
Peterson, Leighton C
(1998) Mass media and Broadcast Navajo: The role of radio in Navajo language maintenance. M.A. Thesis, Anthropology, Binghamton University (SUNY), Binghamton, NY.
(2006) Technology, ideology, and emergent communicative practices among the Navajo. Ph.D. Dissertation, Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin, Ausitn, TX.
Reichard, Gladys Amanda
Samuels, David
Sapir, Edward
Saville-Troike, Muriel
Schaengold, Charlotte C
(2004) Bilingual Navajo: Mixed codes, bilingualism, and language maintenance. Ph.D. Dissertation, Linguistics, Ohio State University, Columbus.
Sherzer, Joel
Spicer, Edward H
Spolsky, Bernard
Spolsky, Bernard, and Lorraine Boomer
Suslak, Daniel
Wall, C. Leon, and William Morgan
Webster, Anthony K
(2009b) The poetics and politics of Navajo ideophony in contemporary Navajo poetry. Language & Communication 29: 133-151.
BoP
(2010b) “Oh, that's a Navajo pun!” Paper read at SALSA XVIII (Symposium about Language and Society - Austin), March 27 2010, at Austin, TX.
Webster, Anthony K., and Leighton C. Peterson
Werner, Oswald, Allen Manning, and Kenneth Begishe
Whorf, Benjamin Lee
Witherspoon, Gary
Woodbury, Anthony
Woolard, Kathryn A
(1998) Introduction: Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-47. BoP
Young, Robert W
Young, Robert W., and William Morgan
Young, Robert W., William Morgan, and Sally Midgette