Description
Book SynopsisJoshua Fishman is perhaps best known and loved for his pioneering and enduring work in language loyalty and reversing language shift. This volume brings together a selection of his recent writings on these topics and some of his personal perspectives on the field of sociolinguistics, along with an interview dialogue with the editors in which Fishman reflects on his lifetime’s work
Trade ReviewJoshua Fishman needs to be read and re-read by future generations. His reverence for the small languages and peoples of this world, the holiness of his international humanity, and his fight for language freedoms, make him one of the world's most remarkable scholars. His mountain-top view of downtrodden ethnic groups and dying languages creates a universal vision of a new land. Those who work at the sharp end of top-down and bottom-up language planning know that Fishman is a prophet in his own time. In his writing there is a condensation of wisdom, a vision composed in one century but even more relevant in the next. The book contains an excellent recent selection of his deep insights and vast understandings that need inter-generational transmission. While his writings continue, this collection is a priceless legacy that needs preservation and re-presentation to future generations.
-- Colin Baker * From the foreword *
Joshua Fishman needs to be read and re-read by future generations. His reverence for the small languages and peoples of this world, the holiness of his international humanity, and his fight for language freedoms, make him one of the world's most remarkable scholars. His mountain-top view of downtrodden ethnic groups and dying languages creates a universal vision of a new land. Those who work at the sharp end of top-down and bottom-up language planning know that Fishman is a prophet in his own time. In his writing there is a condensation of wisdom, a vision composed in one century but even more relevant in the next. The book contains an excellent recent selection of his deep insights and vast understandings that need inter-generational transmission. While his writings continue, this collection is a priceless legacy that needs preservation and re-presentation to future generations. – From the foreword by Colin Baker This collection of Joshua A. Fishman’s essays is well organized, providing just the right amount of breadth for an introduction. The organization of the book makes it highly readable, and allows the reader to skip directly to the section that he/she might like. When finished with this short volume, the reader will certainly be left with the desire to read more of Joshua A. Fishman’s essays and books.
-- Iris Flannery, Haas School of Business * Linguist List 18.703 *
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Colin Baker
1. Introduction by Nancy H. Hornberger and Martin Ptz An Interview with Joshua A. Fishman
Section 1: Personal Perspectives on Sociolinguistics
2. My life through my work: My work through my life In K. Koerner (ed) (1991) First Person Singular, Vol. 2: Autobiographies by North American Scholars in the Language Sciences (pp. 105-124). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
3. Bloomington, Summer 1964: The birth of American sociolinguistics In C. Bratt-Paulston and G.R. Tucker (eds) (1997) The Early Days of Sociolinguistics: Memories and Reflections (pp. 87-95). Dallas, TX: The Summer Institute of Linguistics.
4. Putting the ?Socio? back into the sociolinguistic enterprise International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 92, 127-138 (1991).
5. Diglossia and societal multilingualism: Dimensions of similarity and difference International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 157, 93-100 (2002).
Section 2: Loyalty, Shift and Revitalization
6. What is Reversing Language Shift (RLS) and How can it Succeed? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 11, 5-36 (1990).
7. Reversing Language Shift: Successes, failures, doubts and dilemmas. In E. Jahr (ed) (1993) Language Conflict and Language Planning, 69-81.
8. Language revitalization H. Goebel, P. H. Nelde, Z. Stary and W. W”lck (eds) (1996) Kontaktlinguistik/Contact Linguistics/Linguistique de Contact, Vol. 1 (pp. 902-906). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
9. Good conferences in a wicked world: On some worrisome problems in the study of language maintenance and language shift In W. Fase, K. Jaspaert, S. Kroon (eds) (1995?) The State of Minority Languages: International Perspectives on Survival and Decline (pp. 311-317).
10. Prospects for Reversing Language Shift (RLS) in Australia: Evidence from Aboriginal and immigrant languages In J. A. Fishman (1991) Reversing Language Shift (pp. 252-286). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Section 3: Globalization, power and the status of threatened languages
11. ?English Only?: Its ghosts, myths, and dangers International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 74, 125-140 (1988).
12. On the limits of ethnolinguistic democracy In T. Skutnabb-Kangas and R. Phillipson (eds) (1995) Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination (pp. 49-61). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
13. Language spread and language policy for endangered languages In (1987) Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (pp. 1- 15). Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
14. ?Business as usual? for threatened languages (On planning economic efforts for the greater benefit of Reversing Language Shift, or ?Keeping your eyes on the ball?) He Pukenga Korero: A Journal of Maori Studies, 5 (2), 16-20 (2000). Section 4: Yiddish language and culture
15. The Holiness of Yiddish: Who says Yiddish is holy and why? Language Policy, 1, 123-141 (2002).
16. ?Holy languages? in the context of societal bilingualism In L. Wei, J. Dewaele, A. Houston (eds) (2002) Opportunities and Challenges of Bilingualism (pp. 15-24). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
