Language ideology

Concept of language having or being influenced by ideology

Language ideology (also known as linguistic ideology) is, within anthropology (especially linguistic anthropology), sociolinguistics, and cross cultural studies, any set of beliefs about languages as they are used in their social worlds. Language ideologies are conceptualizations about languages, speakers, and discursive practices. Like other kinds of ideologies, language ideologies are influenced by political and moral interests, and they are shaped in a cultural setting. When recognized and explored, language ideologies expose how the speakers' linguistic beliefs are linked to the broader social and cultural systems to which they belong, illustrating how the systems beget such beliefs. By doing so, language ideologies link implicit and explicit assumptions about a language or language in general to their social experience as well as their political and economic interests.

Scholars have noted difficulty in attempting to delimit the scope, meaning, and applications of language ideology. Paul Kroskrity, a linguistic anthropologist, describes language ideology as a "cluster concept, consisting of a number of converging dimensions" with several "partially overlapping but analytically distinguishable layers of significance", and cites that in the existing scholarship on language ideology "there is no particular unity . no core literature, and a range of definitions." One of the broadest definitions is offered by Alan Rumsey, who describes language ideologies as "shared bodies of commonsense notions about the nature of language in the world." This definition is seen by Kroskrity as unsatisfactory, however, because "it fails to problematize language ideological variation and therefore promotes an overly homogeneous view of language ideologies within a cultural group." Definitions that place greater emphasis on sociocultural factors include Shirley Heath's characterization of language ideologies as "self evident ideas and objectives a group holds concerning roles of language in the social experiences of members as they contribute to the expression of the group", as well as Judith Irvine's definition of the concept as "the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests."

The basic division in studies of language ideology is between neutral and critical approaches to ideology. Although such studies are often noted for their discussions of language politics and the intersection between language and social class, the crucial difference between these approaches to language ideology and neutral understandings of the concept is that the former emphasize the existence of variability and contradiction both within and amongst ideologies, while the latter approach ideology as a conception on its own terms.

Many scholars have argued that ideology plays a role in shaping and influencing linguistic structures and speech forms. Michael Silverstein, for example, sees speakers' awareness of language and their rationalizations of its structure and use as critical factors that often shape the evolution of a language's structure. In this instance, the accepted usage of the masculine pronoun as the generic form came to be understood as a linguistic symbol of patriarchal and male dominated society, and the growing sentiment opposing these conditions motivated some speakers to stop using "he" as the generic pronoun in favor of the construction "he or she." This rejection of generic "he" was rationalized by the growing desire for gender equality and women's empowerment, which was sufficiently culturally prevalent to regularize the change. Alan Rumsey also sees linguistic ideologies as playing a role in shaping the structure of a language, describing a circular process of reciprocal influence where a language's structure conditions the ideologies that affect it, which in turn reinforce and expand this structure, altering the language "in the name of making it more like itself." These speakers glottalized consonants in situations in places more competent speakers of Xinca would not because they were less familiar with the phonological rules of the language and also because they wished to distinguish themselves from the socially dominant Spanish speakers, who viewed glottalized consonants as "exotic." The use of Patwa by children is largely forbidden by adults due to a perception that it inhibits the acquisition of English, thus restricting social mobility, which in turn has imbued Patwa with a significant measure of covert prestige and rendered it a powerful tool for children to utilize in order to defy authority. while Michael Silverstein argued that the theory's ideas about language "acts" and "forces" are "projections of covert categories typical in the metapragmatic discourse of languages such as English."

Several scholars have noted that sites of cultural contact promote the development of new linguistic forms that draw on diverse language varieties and ideologies at an accelerated rate. According to Miki Makihara and Bambi Schieffelin, it becomes necessary during times of cultural contact for speakers to actively negotiate language ideologies and to consciously reflect on language use.

The establishment of a standard language has many implications in the realms of politics and power. Recent examinations of language ideologies have resulted in the conception of "standard" as a matter of ideology rather than fact, raising questions such as "how doctrines of linguistic correctness and incorrectness are rationalized and how they are related to doctrines of the inherent representational power, beauty, and expressiveness of language as a valued mode of action. ".

Governmental policies often reflect the tension between two contrasting types of language ideologies: ideologies that conceive of language as a resource, problem, or right and ideologies that conceive of language as pluralistic phenomena. According to Blommaert and Verschueren, this compromise is often reinterpreted as a single, unified ideology, evidenced by the many European societies characterized by a language ideological homogenism.

Purist language ideologies or ideologies of linguistic conservatism can close off languages to nonnative sources of innovation, usually when such sources are perceived as socially or politically threatening to the target language. Among the Tewa, for example, the influence of theocratic institutions and ritualized linguistic forms in other domains of Tewa society have led to a strong resistance to the extensive borrowing and shift that neighboring speech communities have experienced. According to Paul Kroskrity this is due to a "dominant language ideology" through which ceremonial Kiva speech is elevated to a linguistic ideal and the cultural preferences that it embodies, namely regulation by convention, indigenous purism, strict compartmentalization, and linguistic indexing of identity, are recursively projected onto the Tewa language as a whole. Alexandra Jaffe points out that language purism is often part of "essentializing discourses" that can lead to stigmatizing habitual language practices like code switching and depict contact induced linguistic changes as forms of cultural deficiency.

As defined by Rosina Lippi Green, standard language ideology is "a bias toward an abstract, idealized homogeneous language, which is imposed and maintained by dominant institutions and which has as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class." According to Lippi Green, part of this ideology is a belief that standard languages are internally consistent. Linguists generally agree, however, that variation is intrinsic to all spoken language, including standard varieties. Standard language ideology is strongly connected with the concepts of linguistic purism and prescriptivism. It is also linked with linguicism (linguistic discrimination).

Literacy cannot be strictly defined technically, but rather it is a set of practices determined by a community's language ideology. It can be interpreted in many ways that are determined by political, social, and economic forces. According to Kathryn Woolard and Bambi Schieffelin, literacy traditions are closely linked to social control in most societies. The Kaluli primers that were introduced by the missionaries promoted Westernization, which effectively served to strip the vernacular language of cultural practices and from discourse in church and school. Teachers display their language ideologies in classroom instruction through various practices such as correction or repair, affective alignment, metadiscourse, and narrative (see Razfar & Rumenapp, 2013, p. 289). The study of ideology seeks to uncover the hidden world of students and teachers to shed light on the fundamental forces that shape and give meaning to their actions and interactions.