Language and Culture Shifting Boundaries in a Postmodern World

This special issue of Ethnologies explores the interrelated themes of language and culture, and particularly how language and culture contribute to self-definition in local, regional, national and global contexts. The contributors approach these themes from the perspectives of ethnomusicology, Canadian studies, cultural anthropology, and linguistics. Their topical foci range from Celtic, Métis and Iroquoian music, to minority language issues affecting French and Ukrainian Canadians in Alberta and Muslims in Northern Ireland, the feminization of job titles in Québec and France, and language ideologies among Muinane of the Colombian Amazon. The authors use ethnographic, ethnohistorical and archival methods to obtain their data, and exegetical analysis of key texts and cultural performances to derive insights into patterns of language use and identity formation. They contextualize these patterns within particular communities, make comparisons with other communities and use theoretical frameworks which are broadly sociolinguistic and postmodern. A recent review article by Duranti (2003) identifies three paradigms in scholarship pertaining to the relationship of language and culture. The first — associated primarily with Boas (1911, 1942), Sapir (1924, 1949) and Whorf (1956) — has roots stretching back at least to German Idealism and Romanticism (Chomsky 1966) and focuses on the relationship between grammar and worldview. The second grows from the work of Gumperz and Hymes (1964) on the ethnography of communication and emphasizes pragmatic aspects of language use. The third and most eclectic paradigm explores the role of language in identity formation. Butler’s (1990) work on performativity, Woolard and Schieffelin’s (1994) study of language ideology, and Trechter and Bucholtz’s (2001) analysis of hegemony and race are all examples of the third paradigm. The contributors to this volume nearly all fall within the eclectic third paradigm. However, as Duranti remarks, “paradigms do not die” and “researchers have had no difficulty moving back and forth from one paradigm to another” (2003: 333-334). Indeed, by its very nature, the third paradigm transcends the boundaries between grammar and pragmatics that are implicit in the other two paradigms. Thus, it is no surprise that the following articles are ultimately a mix of all three paradigms, seeking what Spitulnik characterizes as “a breakthrough into a different kind of relationship” (2003: 339). This relationship between language and culture is integrative, local and counter-hegemonic, yet embedded in an increasingly global discourse. Two of the contributors to this issue have explored the issue of francophone minorities in Canada. Their research is highly original, departing from the tendency of our mainstream press to continually juxtapose the language policies of Québec with those of the rest of Canada. In her exploration of the tensions between the desire to foster athletic performance versus francophoneness at the Alberta Francophone Games (AFG), Christine Dallaire observes “[o]rganizers generally acknowledged that the sport agenda was dominating the process of staging the AFG.” Reasons for this included organizers’ desire to gain credibility from sports funding agencies that target funds based exclusively on athletic performance, to attract high-performance bilingual and monolingual English athletes from the dominant (Anglophone) community, to depoliticize and dehistoricize the event, and to focus on technical management issues rather than confronting the problem of how to reverse the ongoing decline in the number of francophones in Alberta. In this way, “the focus of the AFG slid from promoting francophoneness to the staging of a large competitive sporting event.” Nevertheless, Dallaire ends her article on a positive note. She suggests that by expanding the number of certified francophone coaches and sports officials in Alberta, AFG organizers may one day resolve the apparent contradiction between sporting excellence and francophoneness in their province. In her research note on Protestant francophones in Québec, …