Chapter 3. Language socialization and making sense of place
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Bambi B. Schieffelin
Abstract
From the time we are small, senses of place organize and give meaning to our everyday activities. Little is known, however, about the role language plays in how people come to inhabit or lose a sense of place. Using the theoretical paradigm of language socialization to examine these processes (inclusion and emplacement, and exclusion and displacement), this chapter uses ethnographic and linguistic data from Bosavi (Papua New Guinea) to demonstrate how young children’s everyday verbal activities include place-naming, identification, and representation to index on-going activities and relationships, establishing strong affective connections to place. In contrast, Christian missionization, with its sense of space, changed local meanings of place, and the ways in which Bosavi speakers talked about it and each other.
Abstract
From the time we are small, senses of place organize and give meaning to our everyday activities. Little is known, however, about the role language plays in how people come to inhabit or lose a sense of place. Using the theoretical paradigm of language socialization to examine these processes (inclusion and emplacement, and exclusion and displacement), this chapter uses ethnographic and linguistic data from Bosavi (Papua New Guinea) to demonstrate how young children’s everyday verbal activities include place-naming, identification, and representation to index on-going activities and relationships, establishing strong affective connections to place. In contrast, Christian missionization, with its sense of space, changed local meanings of place, and the ways in which Bosavi speakers talked about it and each other.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
-
Part I. Interpersonal relations, place, and belonging
- Chapter 2. The boundaries of belonging 17
- Chapter 3. Language socialization and making sense of place 27
- Chapter 4. Cité Duits 55
- Chapter 5. Us, them and all the others 89
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Part II. Parodic performances from the margins
- Chapter 6. Playing against peripheralization 115
- Chapter 7. The politics of place-making and belonging through language choice within center-periphery dynamics in Limburg, The Netherlands 125
- Chapter 8. Peripheral performances 149
- Chapter 9. What’s up in town 177
-
Part III. Agency in linguistic place-making
- Chapter 10. Language, place, agency 207
- Chapter 11. Place-making and dialect 213
- Chapter 12. Alternative place naming in the diverse margins of an ideologically mono-lingual society 239
- Chapter 13. Yooperisms in tourism 261
- Subject index 287
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
-
Part I. Interpersonal relations, place, and belonging
- Chapter 2. The boundaries of belonging 17
- Chapter 3. Language socialization and making sense of place 27
- Chapter 4. Cité Duits 55
- Chapter 5. Us, them and all the others 89
-
Part II. Parodic performances from the margins
- Chapter 6. Playing against peripheralization 115
- Chapter 7. The politics of place-making and belonging through language choice within center-periphery dynamics in Limburg, The Netherlands 125
- Chapter 8. Peripheral performances 149
- Chapter 9. What’s up in town 177
-
Part III. Agency in linguistic place-making
- Chapter 10. Language, place, agency 207
- Chapter 11. Place-making and dialect 213
- Chapter 12. Alternative place naming in the diverse margins of an ideologically mono-lingual society 239
- Chapter 13. Yooperisms in tourism 261
- Subject index 287
