Home The politics of language contact in northwestern California: Maintaining diversity in the face of cultural convergence
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

The politics of language contact in northwestern California: Maintaining diversity in the face of cultural convergence

  • Sean O’Neill EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: June 14, 2016

Abstract

This article examines the language ideologies and socio-political realities associated with the highly localized oral traditions of northwestern California, including both stories and songs, which are both connected in profoundly indexical ways to the distinctiveness of the languages. My findings suggest that the principle of linguistic relativity, whereby speakers of contrasting languages subscribe to different worldviews, often emerges from conscious choices of interpretation among community members, who actively strive to set their languages and worldviews apart from those of neighboring societies – in association with a pervasive ideology of localism. Today, as the languages undergo revitalization, this long-standing concern with local difference is receiving renewed attention in the context of the tribal language programs where speakers are also striving to keep their languages, stories, songs, and worldviews distinct – both from the neighboring tribes as well as the English-speaking world. Today, as in the past, the distinctive languages continue to play an important role in the maintenance of identity, setting the communities apart in publicly accentuated ways and instilling language learners with a sense of pride in the uniqueness of their own traditions.

References

Ahlers, Jocelyn. 2006. Framing discourse: Creating community though native language use. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 16(1). 58–75.10.1525/jlin.2006.16.1.058Search in Google Scholar

Bakhtin, Mikhail Milosevic. 1981. The dialogic imagination: Four essays, translated by Emerson, C. & Holquist, M., Holquist, M (ed.), Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Search in Google Scholar

Barth, Fredrik. 1969. Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of cultural difference. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.Search in Google Scholar

Basso, Keith H. 1996. Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.Search in Google Scholar

Boas, Franz. 1966 [1911]. Introduction to Handbook of American Indian Languages, Preston Holder (ed.), Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Search in Google Scholar

Bright, Jane Orstan & William Bright. 1965. Semantic structures in northwestern california and the sapir-whorf hypothesis. American Anthropologist 67. 249–258.10.1525/aa.1965.67.5.02a00810Search in Google Scholar

Briggs, Charles. 1993a. Personal sentiments and polyphonic voices in warao women’s ritual wailing: Music and poetics in a critical and collective discourse. American Anthropologist 95. 929–957.10.1525/aa.1993.95.4.02a00080Search in Google Scholar

Briggs, Charles. 1993b. Theorizing Folklore: New perspectives on the politics of culture. Western Folklore 52(2,3,4). 109–400 (Special issue edited by Charles L. Briggs and Amy Shuman.)10.2307/1500082Search in Google Scholar

Buckley, Thomas. 2002. Standing ground: Yurok Indian spirituality, 1850–1990. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520936447Search in Google Scholar

Conathan, Lisa. 2004. Linguistic Ecology of northwestern California: Contact, Functional Convergence and Dialectology. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Linguistics, University of California at Berkeley.Search in Google Scholar

Fox, Aaron. 2004. Real country: Music and language in working-class culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.10.1515/9780822385998Search in Google Scholar

Gal, Susan & Judith Irvine. 2000. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Regimes of language, Paul Kroskrity (ed.), 35–84. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research.Search in Google Scholar

Goddard, Pliny Earle. 1904. Hupa texts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 1(2). 89–368.Search in Google Scholar

Haas, Mary R. Language and taxonomy in Northwestern California. American Anthropologist 69.3–4 (1967): 358–36210.1525/aa.1967.69.3-4.02a00080Search in Google Scholar

Herzog, George. 1939. Music’s dialects: A non-universal language. Independent Journal of Columbia University 6. 1–2.Search in Google Scholar

Hill, Jane H. 2000. Languages on the land. In J. Terrell (ed.), Archeology, language, and history, 257–282. Westport, CN: Bergin and Garvey.Search in Google Scholar

Hill, Jane H. & Kenneth. C. Hill. 1986. Speaking Mexicano: Dynamics of syncretic language in Central Mexico. Tucson, AZ: University Of Arizona Press.Search in Google Scholar

Hinton, Leanne. 1994. Flutes of fire: Essays on California Indian languages. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books.Search in Google Scholar

Hymes, Dell. 1981. In vain i tried to tell you: Essays in Native American Poetics. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.10.9783/9781512802917Search in Google Scholar

Keeling, Richard. 1992. Cry for luck: Sacred song and speech among the Yurok, Hupa, and Karok Indians of northwestern California. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520311206Search in Google Scholar

Kroeber, A. L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Washington, DC: Bureau Of American Ethnology, 78.Search in Google Scholar

Kroeber, A. L. 1976. Yurok Myths. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kroeber, A. L. & E. W. Gifford. 1980. Karok Myths, edited by Grace Buzaljko, with linguistic index by William Bright. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520319264Search in Google Scholar

Kroskrity, Paul V. 1993. Language, history, and identity: Ethnolinguistic studies of the Arizona Tewa. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kroskrity, Paul V. 2000a. Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities, Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.), Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research.Search in Google Scholar

Kroskrity, Paul V. 2000b. Language ideologies in the expression and representation of Arizona Tewa ethnic identity. In Paul Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of Language, 329–359. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research.Search in Google Scholar

Kroskrity, Paul V. 2012. Telling stories in the face of danger: language renewal in Native American communities. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Search in Google Scholar

Levinson, Stephen C. 2003. Space in language and cognition: Explorations in cognitive dive sity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511613609Search in Google Scholar

Lucy, John. 1992. Grammatical categories and cognition: A case study in the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511620713Search in Google Scholar

McCarty, Teresa L. & Ofelia Zepeda. 1999. Amerindians. In Joshua Fishman (ed.), Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity, 197–210. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195124286.003.0014Search in Google Scholar

Nettle, Bruno. 2005. The study of ethnomusicology: Thirty-one issues and concepts. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Search in Google Scholar

O’Neill, Sean. 2002. Northwest California ethnolinguistics: A study in drift. In Lisa Conathan & Teresa McFarland (eds.), Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, 64–88. Berkeley, CA: Department of Linguistics, University of California.Search in Google Scholar

O’Neill, Sean. 2006. Mythic and poetic dimensions of speech in northwestern California: From cultural vocabulary to linguistic relativity. Anthropological Linguistics 48(4). 305–334.Search in Google Scholar

O’Neill, Sean. 2008. Cultural contact and linguistic relativity among the Indians of northwestern California. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Search in Google Scholar

O’Neill, Sean. 2012. The politics of storytelling in northwestern California: Ideology, identity, and maintaining narrative distinction in the face of cultural convergence. In Paul Kroskrity (eds.), Telling stories in the face of danger: language renewal in Native American communities 60–89. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Search in Google Scholar

Powers, Stephen. 1877. Tribes of California. Contributions to North American Ethnology 3. Washington, DC: U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region. [Reprinted by University of California Press], 1976Search in Google Scholar

Samuels, David. 2004. Putting a song on top of it: Expression and identity on the San Carlos Apache reservation. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.Search in Google Scholar

Sapir, Edward. 1921. Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and CompanySearch in Google Scholar

Sapir, Edward. 1929. The status of linguistics as a science. Language 5. 207–214. Reprinted in Sapir 1949, 160–166.10.2307/409588Search in Google Scholar

Sapir, Edward. 2001. In Victor Golla & Sean O’Neill (eds.), The collected works of Edward Sapir XIV: Northwest California linguistics. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar

Scollon, Ron & Suzanne Scollon.1979. Linguistic convergence: An ethnography of speaking at fort Chipewyan, Alberta. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar

Scollon, Ron & Suzanne Scollon. 1981. Narrative, literacy, and face in interethnic communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.Search in Google Scholar

Urban, Greg. 1991. A discourse centered approach to culture: Native South American myths and rituals. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Search in Google Scholar

Waterman, T. T. & A. L. Kroeber. 1934. Yurok marriages. Berkeley, CA: University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 35. 1–14.Search in Google Scholar

Webster, Anthony. 2009. Explorations in Navajo poetry and poetics. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.Search in Google Scholar

Whorf, Benjamin Lee. 1956. In John B. Carroll (eds.), Language, thought, and reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2016-06-14
Published in Print: 2016-07-01

©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton

Downloaded on 19.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/ijsl-2016-0015/html
Scroll to top button