{"title":"“Living Fossils”: The Politics of Language Preservation in Huangshan, China","authors":"Britta Ingebretson","doi":"10.1111/jola.12332","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines the politics of language maintenance in Huangshan, China, home of the Huizhou topolects. I show how, under the guise of celebrating local heritage, local language documentation efforts encourage language demise through <i>preemptive eulogization,</i> the act of portraying a language or culture as being more moribund than it is. This has the effect of hastening language loss by portraying it as inevitable and already well underway. I argue that intentional or unintentional acts of preemptive eulogization may be quite prevalent in minority language efforts worldwide and may help explain the lack of success of language protection projects.</p>","PeriodicalId":47070,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Linguistic Anthropology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Linguistic Anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jola.12332","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
This article examines the politics of language maintenance in Huangshan, China, home of the Huizhou topolects. I show how, under the guise of celebrating local heritage, local language documentation efforts encourage language demise through preemptive eulogization, the act of portraying a language or culture as being more moribund than it is. This has the effect of hastening language loss by portraying it as inevitable and already well underway. I argue that intentional or unintentional acts of preemptive eulogization may be quite prevalent in minority language efforts worldwide and may help explain the lack of success of language protection projects.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology explores the many ways in which language shapes social life. Published with the journal"s pages are articles on the anthropological study of language, including analysis of discourse, language in society, language and cognition, and language acquisition of socialization. The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology is published semiannually.