Scholar Dominique Ryon, best known for her work in linguistics and anthropology at the University of Louisiana, focuses the following article on the topic of Cajun French language loss or rather, language revival in Louisiana. Her article is based on the very concept of language loss and/or death studies. Due to the reasons she mentions later in her article, Ryon prefers to focus on language revival as she has noticed clear holes in the research evidence used in the study of language loss. Ryon uses the theories of many well-known theorists such as Foucault, Bourdieu and Lafont to challenge scholarly articles written on language loss in Louisiana. Ryon organizes her article into clear, concise components in order to support her two main objectives …show more content…
Secondly, by uncovering this unequal power relation in academia, she hopes to encourage the use of local knowledge “as a valid, necessary, and complementary resource for academic research” (p. 280).
Ryon’s main argument is divided into four major themes, all of which successfully support her two main objectives. In the first section, Ryon uses Foucault’s theory that knowledge equals power to show that “experts”, meaning scholarly authors have the power to change the way people look at the status of French in Louisiana. This is due to the amount of knowledge and therefore, power that they possess. In this section, Ryon critiques the work of a scholarly author named Jerah Johnson whose study concluded that Cajun French would
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Ryon effectively analyses the various texts by identifying that local knowledge shows evidence of a fight against language loss meanwhile, academic writings reveal the opposite. Ryon’s use of local knowledge in her article puts the ideas of her argument into practice by including unofficial forms of knowledge as evidence to support her argument. To make this statement even more clear and bold, Ryon should have included testimonies from local knowledge as evidence in the earlier three sections of her argument. It would have been beneficial to hear anecdotes from the French in Louisiana regarding their reaction to the ideas put forward by expert knowledge. In the first part of her essay, Ryon makes an assumption that the ideas put forward by expert discourse, primarily those that question the promotion of the language, is the reason why the “Louisinification” movement has not progressed very much since its introduction (p. 283). Ryon does not include anecdotes from the group involved in the creation of this movement to support this assumption; perhaps there is a lack of resources and not a lack of legitimization. There are also assumptions made on the reasons why the Cajun have chosen to assimilate to the dominant language stating that learning English for the Cajuns is a way for them,
“Standard English was imposed on children of immigrant parents, then the children were separated from native English speakers, then the children were labeled “inferior” and “ignorant” (Hughes 70) because they could not speak Standard English. In addition to feeling inferior about their second language skills, these students also felt inadequate in regard to speaking their own mother tongues” (qtd in Kanae)
To summarize the book into a few paragraphs doesn't due it the justice it deserves. The beginning details of the French and Ind...
Nous sommes Acadiens. (We are Acadians.) Some outsiders see us as a quaint, virtuous people, spending a great deal of time singing, dancing, praying, and visiting? (Conrad, 1978, p.14). Others see us as independent and unsophisticated. We see ourselves as fun-loving, carefree, happy, proud people who have a great love for our culture. The Acadians were French settlers of eastern Canada who were exiled from their land in the 1750?s. The Acadians are known to have settled in the southern bayou lands of Louisiana around that time. The Acadiana people acquired their nickname, ?Cajuns,? from those people who could not pronounce Acadians correctly. Due to the opinion that Cajuns were ?different?, they lived close together and became isolated from others in Louisiana. They have since developed their own distinct characteristics which make them unique and unlike no others in the bayou state. Family, music, housing, food, marriages, and ?traiteurs? were all a part of the simple but challenging lifestyle of the Cajuns.
“New France was not merely the settlement of a few fur traders; it was also a colony of Christ in the New World, even more a colony of Christ, or of the Church, than of France.” Due to the pious believers that inhabited New France, the country was run in a particular way, separating itself from France. Although falling under the jurisdiction of “New France,” the Acadians governed separately than the rest of the country and were a separate entity within New France. Today, “the Acadians are the French speaking population of the Canadian Maritime provinces,” and these are the Acadians that were not displaced during the expulsions, under British rule. Acadia’s beginnings, with the construction of Port Royal, could have marked the colony for success, but instead, led to a troubling conclusion for the European descendents. Through failed leadership, two major expulsions, and a takeover of the Acadian peoples’ French culture, the once-thriving group has been displaced primarily to Louisiana, taking on a new identity of Cajuns.
Monroe, Kristen, et al. "Gender Equality in Academia: Bad News from the Trenches, and some Possible Solutions." Perspectives on Politics 6.2 (2008): 215-33. Print.
Not Only English: Affirming America's Multilingual Heritage. 1990. The. ERIC. Web. The Web.
The impact that the geography, history and economic situation in the country has had on the sociolinguistics of the country is of great importance, and as such it is unavoidable to include the history of Haiti, Haitian people, as well as Haitian Creole in this essay. Here it will be attempted to describe the implications that the history, political turmoil and economical situation have had on the use and status of Haitian Creole today.
Even though the dominance of a language can allow for the loss of a culture, it can also bring awareness. In schools, local community centers and other various places, foreign languages are taught, not only do non-native speakers take on these languages but native speakers do as well to keep their culture. By doing so it “revitalizes cultures and cultural artifacts through foreign influences, technologies, and markets.” (Gerdes
“This is our language. It is the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, the sound of the wind in the pines, the rustle of the leaves in the autumn. It is the sound of the birds singing in the forest and the wolves howling in the distance. This is our language, from which we obtain life, our means of knowing who we are, this sacred gift, bestowed upon us by our creator.” As it was described by that quote by Gordon Jourdain, a member of the Lac La Croix tribe, language is the most valuable component of life for Native Nations, most of which are deeply rooted with and have close ties to nature. Language, as in many cases, is able to describe a group of people and often times their culture. This statement is no truer than in Native American
The statistics of those not speaking English could lead to the idea that English is diminishing in certain sections of the United States. An example of this is shown in the article “Why the U.S. Needs an Official Languag...
Nardo, Don. A. The French Revolution. San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1999. Print.
Social Power in the Information Age. Retrieved September 15, 2006 from http://mysite. verizon.net/ ambur/ French&Raven.htm. University of Maryland University College, MD.
Gutierrez-Jones, Carl. "Legislating Languages:The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez and the English Language Amendment." New York, NY: University of Minnesota Press.
—. Language: Readings in Language and Culture. 6th ed. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. Print.
To commence this discussion, it is first essential to establish an understanding surrounding the role of language in relation to national identity. Theoretically, the more power language has in this relation, the more powerful language planning may be when creating a national identity. However, the role language plays in this respect is somewhat problematic to define and has proven to be a debatable topic among nationalists, sociologists and sociolinguists. For instance, May demonstrates that ‘sociological commentators, unlike sociolinguists, have generally been loath to apportion a prominent role to language in the explanation of minority ethnic and national identity claims’ (2001: 8). Consequently emulating distaste from sociologists to credit language with significant power in a national identity. In a similar sense, de Vries notes that, in relation to a language community, ‘social scientists have generally ignored the systemic properties of language’ (1991: 39), thus, concurrently suggesting with May, a disagreement from the social sciences over the role of language in terms of identity and national identity. Similarly, circa the French revolution, the concept