Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality

by Richard Bauman, Charles L. Briggs

Overview

This study asserts that conscious development of new ways of thinking about language had a crucial role in modern history, particularly the discovery of how differences between languages legitimated social inequalities. It claims that savages and ancients were judged alike because they used language similarly, in contrast to modern Europeans who used disciplined language in scientific, philosophical and legal projects.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521810692
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/03/2003
Series:	Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language , #21
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Richard Bauman is Distinguished Professor of Communication and Culture, Folklore, and Anthropology at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Charles L. Briggs is Professor of Ethnic Studies and Director, Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, University of California, San Diego.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Making language safe for science and society: from Francis Bacon to John Lock; 3. Antiquaries and philologists: the construction of modernity and its others in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England; 4. The critical foundations of national epic: Hugh Blair, the Ossian controversy, and the rhetoric of authenticity; 5. Johann Gottfried Herder: language reform, das Volk, and the patriarchal state in eighteenth-century Germany; 6. The Brothers Grimm: scientizing, textual production in the service of romantic nationalism; 7. Henry Rowe school craft and the making of an American textual tradition; 8. The foundation of all future researches: Franz Boas, George Hunt, Native American texts and the construction of modernity; 9. Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

"...an extremely useful guide to the intellectual history of the modern era"-Canadian Journal of Sociology Online

"...A unique and singular book. Richard Bauman and Charles Briggs have crafted a wide-ranging and far-reaching work based on years of meticulous research that should be read closely be anyone with an interest in the emergence of "the folk," "folklore," and "folkloristics" in modernizing Europe...It has a prominent place in my library, is it should in anyone's." -David Samuels, University of Massachusetts, Amherst: Journal of American Folklore

From the Publisher