From attitudes to social representations in endangered language research: towards an interactional framework

Abstract

Many language endangerment researchers maintain that language is fundamentally linked to an identifiable ethnic community and identity. However, there is a dearth of in-depth sociolinguistic studies on speakers' own views of these links. Studying speakers' views is essential to understanding why a language is endangered. In this paper, I present a case study in South India focusing on speakers of an endangered language and their views, or social representations, of their linguistic and social reality. Through the use of discursive and conversation analysis techniques, I examine the way in which the participants in an interview jointly construct and position themselves in relation to essentialising social representations similar to those employed by many endangered language researchers. Speakers in the extract discussed use discursive strategies mainly to distance themselves from essentialising views of their linguistic and social reality, though the analysis also shows the dynamic and co-constructed nature of the social representations.