Metalinguistic Communities Case Studies of Agency, Ideology, and Symbolic Uses of Language

This edited volume brings together ten compelling ethnographic case studies from a range of global settings to explore how people build metalinguistic communities defined not by use of a language, but primarily by language ideologies and symbolic practices about the language.  The authors examine themes of agency, belonging, negotiating hegemony, and combating cultural erasure and genocide in cultivating meaningful metalinguistic communities. Case studies include Spanish and Hebrew in the USA, Kurdish in Japan, Pataxó Hãhãhãe in Brazil, and Gallo in France. The afterword, by Wesley L. Leonard, provides theoretical and on-the-ground context as well as a forward-looking focus on metalinguistic futurities. This book will be of interest to interdisciplinary students and scholars in applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology and migration studies.

Chapter 1. Exploring Agency, Ideology, and Semiotics of Language across Communities (Netta Avineri and Jesse Harasta).- Part 1: Language Defining Belonging.- Chapter 2. Contested Hebrew: Ethnolinguistic Infusion and Metalinguistic Communities in U.S. Jewish Complementary Schools (Netta Avineri, Sarah Bunin Benor, and Nicki Greninger).- Chapter 3. “Anyone who speaks just a little bit of Náhuat knows she's only babbling...”: Metapragmatic discourses on proficiency in the Náhuat language revitalization El Salvador (Quentin Boitel).- Chapter 4. Intimate Politics and Language Revitalization in Veneto, Northern Italy (Sabina Perrino).- Chapter 5.Metalinguistic discourse and ‘Grenglish’ in narratives of return migration (Jennifer Sclafani and Alexander Nikolaou).- Part 2:  Language as a Tool Against Erasure.- Chapter 6. Where the Language Appears, We Also Appear: Tehuelche Language Reclamation in Patagonia (Javier Domingo).- Chapter 7. Utilization of Ethnolinguistic Infusion in the Construction of a Trifurcated Metalinguistic Community: An Example from the Kernewek (Cornish) language of Britain (Jesse Harasta).- Chapter 8. Retaking Hãhãhãe: Revitalization and Reindigenization in a Context of Indigenous Erasure (Jessica Fae Nelson).- Part 3: Language Mediating Relations with the State.- Chapter 9. ’I didn't know it was a language back then’: The ideological value of recognition among Gallo advocates in Brittany (Sandra Keller).- Chapter 10. Raciolinguistic Ideologies of Spanish Speakers in a California Child Welfare Court (Jessica López-Espino).- Chapter 11. The historical tie that binds: Deploying Kurdish to index ownership, authenticity, collective memory, and distinction within Kawaguchi’s Kurdish metalinguistic community (Anne Schluter).- Chapter 12. Reclamation and Metalinguistic Communities (Wesley Y. Leonard).

Netta Avineri is an Associate Professor of Language Teacher Education and Chair of the Intercultural Competence Committee at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, USA. An applied linguistic anthropologist, she is the author of Research Methods for Language Teaching: Inquiry, Process, and Synthesis, co-editor of Language and Social Justice in Practice, and Series Editor for Critical Approaches in Applied Linguistics (De Gruyter Mouton).

Jesse Harasta is an Associate Professor of Social Science and program director for International Studies at Cazenovia College, USA.  A cultural and linguistic anthropologist, he studies the symbolic and political uses of language and language as an object (e.g. signage, font).  He researches Kernewek and other European lesser-used languages.