"An accessible, linguistics-focused account of language teaching, learning, and change in a Native American community"--Provided by publisher.
The author explores language shift among the Northern Arapaho of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, looking at daily linguistic practice and shifts at the micro level, in addition to connections to macro level changes occurring in Arapaho society over the last 150 years. He contends that Arapaho views of sacred, or more-than-human, power determine ideologies of knowledge in the society, as well as the form of human relationships. He describes the Wind River Reservation and its vicinity over the last 150 years, Arapaho language shifts since World War II, and different communities of practice on the reservation, then specific linguistic domains and how they have changed: important metaphors that occur in Arapaho speech and their effects on thought and behavior, particularly metaphors with moral content, and descriptions of language endangerment and loss; how the process of homelanding can be understood as having a linguistic component, how the process has changed over time in Arapaho society, and how competing communities of practice engage in alternative homelanding practices; Arapaho-language personal names and naming and changes that have occurred in the last few decades; aspects of folk etymology and language purism; and neologisms and the politics of language maintenance. Annotation ©2018 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
Naming the World is an ethnography of language shift among the Northern Arapaho. It focuses on the often subtle continuities and discontinuities in the society produced by the shift, as well as the diversity of community responses.
Naming the World examines language shift among the Northern Arapaho of the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming, and the community’s diverse responses as it seeks social continuity. Andrew Cowell argues that, rather than a single “Arapaho culture,” we find five distinctive communities of practice on the reservation, each with differing perspectives on social and more-than-human power and the human relationships that enact power.
As the Arapaho people resist Euro-American assimilation or domination, the Arapaho language and the idea that the language is sacred are key rallying points—but also key points of contestation. Cowell finds that while many at Wind River see the language as crucial for maintaining access to more-than-human power, others primarily view the language in terms of peer-oriented identities as Arapaho, Indian, or non-White. These different views lead to quite different language usage and attitudes in relation to place naming, personal naming, cultural metaphors, new word formation, and the understudied practice of folk etymology.
Cowell presents data from conversations and other natural discourse to show the diversity of everyday speech and attitudes, and he links these data to broader debates at Wind River and globally about the future organization of indigenous societies and the nature of Arapaho and indigenous identity.
