Professional Documents
Culture Documents
235-249
InternationalPragmaticsAssociation
Kathrvn A. Woolard
1. Introduction
1 The symposiumwas organizedby the three guesteditorsof this issueand sponsoredby the
Program Committee of the American AnthropologicalAssociation.We thank Jill Brody, Michele
Dominy, and membersof the ProgramCommitteefor enablingus to bring such a large number of
participantstogether.This introductorypaper would have been even sketchierwithout the positive
influenceof the symposium'scontributorsand discussants, and I thank them. Thanks also to Paul
Kroskrity and Bambi Schieffelinfor commentsand encouragement. I am grateful to the National
Endowmentfor the Humanitiesfor support of my work on languageideology,although all opinions
expressed here are my own.
236 Kathryn A. Woolard
2. Why ldeolory?
a Whether the contradictionlies in the conceptualmodel of the world, or in the world which
is accuratelymodeled,is one point of somedebate.
Language ideologt: issuesand approaches 239
4. Approachesto languageideolory
Searle'sspeech act theory; Verschueren's 1985 effort to use folk language theory to
givefirmer grounding to speechact theory) and sociologicaland sociolinguisticmethods
(Briggs 1986). These studies cover the range from "unconscious"ideology seen as
implicit in speechpractices,through the most conscious explanationsto outsidersof
appropriatelanguagebehavior.
Recently, there has been a booming reconsideration of specific western
ideologiesof language,fueled in large part by Foucaultian and post-Gramscianinterest
in discourse in the humanities and social sciences. Historians, literary theorists,
sociologists,anthropologistsand educationistsare among those who have examined the
ideologyof languageassociatedwith the "will to truth," the rise of scientific discourse,
Protestant religious discourse, mass literacy, and universalistic school curricula.
Dominant French, English, and Anglo-American ideologies of language have been
particularly subject to a wave of rediscovery and revision (see, e.g., Bourdieu 1982;
Balibar 1985, 1991; Crowley 1989; Finegan 1980; various contributions to Joseph &
Taylor 1990; Milroy and Milroy 1985). Historians such as Smith (1984) and Cmiel
(1990)offer a wealth of material from 17th-19thcentury languagedebateswhich would
repay close analysisfrom a more linguistically-centeredperspective.
One other development has drawn a number of professional students of
languageto grapple with languageideologynot as a theoretical issue,but out of a sense
of personal and professional responsibility. Here I am thinking of the English-only
movement in the U.S., and similar policy conflicts in other countries (see, e.g.,Adams
and Brink 1990).This pragmatic involvement with a phenomenon still viewed as too
peripheral to merit systematicanalysisin the disciplineshas led to some paradoxesfor
those involved and, as Silverstein (1987) points out, at times some seemingly naive
pronouncements.
6. Agenda
There are several things I hope might develop out of this attempt to define a field of
inquiry.The first is to enablea more systematicand groundedapproachto comparison,
which in turn should allow sounder characterizationsof languageideology in particular
societies.Comparison can help reveal the ideological (i.e., distorted or partial)
dimension of whatever language process we're looking at, and it can also make
problematic any too-easy claims about "the languageideology of the x." Verschueren
(1985) has noted that English speakers and other Westerners can be seen to hold
ideologiesrather similar to Rosaldo'sllongots,dependingon the kind of data we look
at. In explicitly comparative work, Rumsey (1990) also encountered difficulty in
generalizing about English-languageideolory, finding contradictions between high-
cultural and folk forms. In advancingcharacterizationsof the languageconceptions or
ideologyof the people we study, we need to addressthe relation of the different kinds
of ideologyI reviewed earlier, from the overt, organizedsystem,through the covert, gut
level of the habitus,to the "lived" ideologicalimplicationsof linguisticpractice itself.
Given the fate of various earlier claimsthat languageis the exemplarysubject
or model for social or cultural analysis,I will not make that assertion.Nonetheless,if
not the exemplar,languageideologycan certainlybe a very productive empirical area
for the renewedpursuit of an adequateunderstandingof the relation of ideology and
practicein sociallife. This vexed problem is deservedlythe subjectof renewedinterest
in a number of fields, particularlysocialand intellectualhistory.
It is important to note that an interestin languageideolory in no way entails a
surrenderto macrosocialinterestsand an abandonmentof linguisticstructureas a topic
of inquiry. Silverstein argues that a grasp of language ideology is essential to
understandingthe evolution of linguistic structure. Participants in the symposium
underlinethat proposition,as well as arguingfurther that a graspof languageideology
is equally essentialto understandingthe ways in which many social institutions are
sustained.
What are some of the specific issuesthat need to be explored? Both the
linguistically-orientedand those whose principal concernslie more with
social practice might pursue the question of the propensity of language for
misrecognition. In politicizedcontestsover the "true" nationallanguage,standards,etc.,
which linguisticfeaturesare seizedon, and through what semioticprocessesare they
interpretedas representingthe collectivity?Is there a hierarchy of linguisticfeatures
open to such ideologization?Are all aspectsof communicativeand linguisticpractice
equallyripe for distortion,and why or why not? Are they the same areasfor different
languagesand societies?Rumsey suggestsnot, and Errington's idea of pragmatic
saliencepoints one direction in which the analysismight proceed.
As Rumseyhas asserted,"An adequatediscussionof these matters would have
to consider,for each social formation, whose interests are served by the linguistic
ideology'staking the form that it does,thus relatingSilverstein'suse of ideology'to its
244 KathrynA. Woolard
exportationof such models from one area of human activity and communication to
another,as well as from one socialgroup to another, is a topic of concern.
The secondset of papers narrows this focus on the force of languagebeliefs,
looking more closelyat how languageideology plays out a central role in particular
institutionsof power in society.The last group of papers reconsider some of the
assumptions that may underpin our emphasisin the first two sections.While in looking
at the "scopeand torce" of ideologicaltenetswe tend to focus on dominant ideologies,
most of the papers in the final section emphasizemultiplicity, contradiction, and
contentionamong ideologieswithin particular societies.
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