Language Ideologies at Work:Economies of Yupik Language Maintenance and Loss

• Published in: Sibirica
• Main Author: Schwalbe, Daria
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/FacultyOfHumanities; Faculty of Humanities; Chukotka; Russia; Siberia; Language ideologies; Language change; language attitudes; identities; identitetspolitik; sprogpolitik; Interaction; heritage language; Indigenous people; purism; post-soviet studies; Codeswitching; eskimo*; Sibirica; Yupik
• Online Access: https://curis.ku.dk/portal/da/publications/language-ideologies-at-work(63102633-745d-4dd6-8a8c-70f79be04c96).html; https://doi.org/10.3167/sib.2015.140301; https://portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/en/publications/6813ad74-c1e4-49da-b5c3-ff24dbc9642a

Using an ethnography of speaking approach, this article discusses the ideological aspects of language practices, as they are played out in a traditional Yupik (Eskimo) village in Chukotka, in the Far East of the Russian Federation. The article shows how local linguistic practices and language choices of individual speakers intersect with purist language ideologies, which frame certain beliefs about languages and ways of speaking, making them appear more normal and appropriate than others. Placing the “work of speaking” within the context of cross-cultural dynamics and purist language economies, this article challenges the basic assumption of linguistic purism about language and identity being intertwined.