Abstract
The papers in this volume contribute to the increasingly interdisciplinary discussion about ways to address language endangerment by examining language reclamation strategies, or place-specific actions through which individuals and/or groups are countering forms of marginalisation experienced by minority language speakers and communities. Focused on such responses from the ground up, the papers illustrate practices through which linguists, educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders may contribute to or directly engage in initiatives that support the needs and goals of language communities. These ground-up strategies emerge from and respond to the pressures and opportunities of specific contexts, and represent some of the possible answers and actions aimed at shifting power imbalances in situations of language endangerment.
In taking this approach, the papers in this volume critically examine the movement to revitalise endangered languages, which is often associated with certain discourses and knowledge production practices that are characteristic of language documentation, categorisation, and ethnic essentialism – arguably the most publicly visible responses to language endangerment on a global scale. Common practices such as objectifying, counting, categorizing, and ‘purifying’ languages (or cultures) have been critiqued for promoting narrow perspectives on language use and knowledge that are potentially harmful to speech communities (Dorian 1994; Jaffe 2007; Moore, Pietikäinen & Blommaert 2010; Muehlmann 2012). While documentary and descriptive linguistics have long been viewed as part of the wider social response to language decline, the ways through which these disciplines actually contribute to improved vitality of language communities have remained unclear and underexplored (Dobrin, Austin & Nathan 2009; Austin and Sallabank 2017). These critiques point to the need to pay close attention to what is being said and done around endangered languages, and how these discourses and practices affect broader goals of achieving greater social justice for members of minoritised language communities.
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