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What shapes and magnitude can language loss have in East Asian endangered languages? How does it differ with regards to the languages' historical development and sociolinguistic environment? This book surveys a number of minority and, in most cases, endangered languages spoken in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Russia which all face, or have faced in their recent history, loss of language features. The contributions in this publication present you with different cases of obsolescence attested throughout East Asia and highlight how this process, though often leading back to common causes, is in fact a multifaceted reality with diverse repercussions on grammar and linguistic vitality.
The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the first comprehensive overview of the language revitalization movement, from the Arctic to the Amazon and across continents. Featuring 47 contributions from a global range of top scholars in the field, the handbook is divided into two parts, the first of which expands on language revitalization issues of theory and practice while the second covers regional perspectives in an effort to globalize and decolonize the field. The collection examines critical issues in language revitalization, including: language rights, language and well-being, and language policy; language in educational institutions and in the home; new methodologies and ven...
This book focuses on the historical construction of language norms and its relationship to actual language use in contemporary Japan.
Die Beiträge zum diesjährigen Schwerpunktthema „Grenzgänge – (De-)Konstruktion kollektiver Identitäten in Japan" zeigen in Form von Fallstudien im Verein mit theoretischen Überlegungen zum Diskurs über Differenz, Homogenität und Divergenz eine Möglichkeit auf, den Topos von der japanischen Gruppenorientiertheit, der u.a. ein zentrales Argument in der Nihonjinron-Debatte bildet, neu zu beleuchten. Zwar vermögen die sich vornehmlich mit marginalisierten gesellschaftlichen Gruppen befassenden Beiträge nicht alle Aspekte der Fragestellung abzudecken, die sich ja auch beispielsweise auf die Interdependenz mehrerer Gruppen bezieht. Oftmals aber konnten durch Schwerpunktthemen eines Jahrbuchs Anstöße zu weiterer Forschung gegeben werden, die dann bisweilen in späteren Ausgaben der Japanstudien dokumentiert wurden. Möge auch dieses Thema seine Fruchtbarkeit längerfristig unter Beweis stellen.
This book throws light on ideologies, practices and sociocultural developments currently shaping language use in Japan by departing from the more common investigation of language in private contexts and examining aspects of the language found in a range of significant public spaces, from the material (an international airport, the streets of Tokyo, the JSL classroom in Japan and courtrooms) to the electronic (television dramas, local government web pages and cyberspace). Through its study of the language encountered in such settings, the volume provides a deeper understanding of multifaceted aspects of linguistic diversity, both in terms of the use of languages other than Japanese and of issues relating to the Japanese language itself. The variety of theoretical approaches brought to bear by contributing authors ensures a substantial intellectual contribution to the literature on language in contemporary Japan. This book was published as a special issue of Japanese Studies.
This engagingly written textbook provides a unique 'hands-on' introduction to sociolinguistics, which equips readers with the tools to start their own sociolinguistic research project. The book begins by outlining the historical, theoretical and cultural space in which language use occurs, before delving into the key topics and concepts of today's field. It examines the choices speakers make in everyday life and assesses language and status across the world, by investigating variation in cultural norms. Sociolinguistic variables such as age and gender are surveyed, along with the socio-cultural context of second language acquisition. The second half of the book equips readers with the skills needed to undertake sociolinguistic research of their own. This is an ideal introductory text for students taking courses in sociolinguistics, language and society, language in use or language variation.
The Routledge Handbook of Translation and the City is the first multifaceted and cross-disciplinary overview of how cities can be read through the lens of translation and how translation studies can be enriched by an understanding of the complex dynamics of the city. Divided into four sections, the chapters are authored by leading scholars in translation studies, sociolinguistics, and literary and cultural criticism. They cover contexts from Brussels to Singapore and Melbourne to Cairo and topics from translation as resistance to translanguaging and urban design. This volume explores the role of translation at critical junctures of a city’s historical transformation as well as in the mundane intercultural moments of urban life, and uncovers the trope of the translational city in writing. This Handbook is critical reading for researchers, scholars and advanced students in translation studies, linguistics and urban studies.
Despite its monolingual self-image, Japan is multilingual and growing more so due to indigenous minority language revitalization and as an effect of migration. Besides Japan's autochthonous languages such as the Ainu and Ryukyuan languages, there are more than 75,000 immigrant children in the Japanese public education system alone who came to Japan in the 1980s and who speak more than a hundred different languages. Added to this growing linguistic diversity, the importance of English as the language of international communication in business and science especially is hotly debated. This book analyses how this linguistic diversity, and indeed recognition of this phenomenon, presents a wide range of sociolinguistic challenges and opportunities in fundamental institutions such as schools, in cultural patterns and in social behaviours and attitudes. This topic is an important one as Japan fights to re-establish itself in the new world order and will be of interest to all those who are concerned language change, language versus dialect, the effect of modern technology on language usage, and the way national and social problems are always reflected through the prism of language.
This book's chapters discuss discourses, educational practices, and local linguistic practices which call into question the accepted view of the language-citizenship nexus in lived contexts of both existing Japanese citizens and potential future citizens.
Japanese is definitely one of the best-known languages in typological literature. For example, typologists often assume that Japanese is a nominative-accusative language. However, it is often overlooked that Japanese, or more precisely, Tokyo Japanese, is just one of various local varieties of the Japonic language family (Japanese and Ryukyuan). In fact, the Japonic languages exhibit a surprising typological diversity. For example, some varieties display a split-intransitive as opposed to nominative-accusative system. The present volume is thus a unique attempt to explore the typological diversity of Japonic by providing a collection of grammatical sketches of various local varieties, four from Japanese dialects and five from Ryukyuan. Each grammatical sketch follows the same descriptive format, addressing a wide range of typological topics.