|
|
|
REVIEWS
CULTURAL CONTACT AND LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY AMONG THE INDIANS OF NORTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA
|
by Sean O'Neill
|
| University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2008. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. 356 pages. $50.00 cloth. |
| Sean O'Neill's book stands as proof that the American School of Anthropology, as established at the beginning of the twentieth century by Franz Boas, still has much to tell us about the traditional cultures of Pacific Northwest Native peoples. Some suggestive observations on the lower Klamath River region by Edward Sapir, one of Boas's most influential students, provide O'Neill with his starting point. Here are speakers of three main languages — Karuk, Yurok, and Hupa — that almost could not be more different; yet all three ethno-linguistic groups share a regional culture so uniform as to make it "difficult to say what elements in their combined culture belong in origin to this tribe or that, so much at one are they in communal action, feeling, and thought" (Edward Sapir, Language, Harcourt-Brace, 1921, p. 214). It is fair to ask why these three languages have not become far more alike than they indeed are, considering their speakers' long history of close contact, intermarriage, and multilingualism. In pursuit of an answer to this question, O'Neill reviews recent research on the social dimensions of linguistic variation. These languages may have remained so different precisely because their speakers had become otherwise so alike, language offering one potent means among others for asserting a sense of local identity. |
1
|
|
Much of O'Neill's book is an extended exploration of the three languages' respective systems for classifying and structuring experience, with an emphasis on cultural references embedded in those systems. The perspective informing the study — the so-called "linguistic relativity hypothesis," which holds that language has an important role in molding thought — was pioneered by Sapir with one of his students, Benjamin Whorf. It is therefore not a little ironic that, viewed through O'Neill's magnifying glass, lower Klamath traditional culture begins to look far less uniform and far more locally diverse than Sapir's comment quoted above would lead us to expect. |
2
|
|
The linguistic relativity hypothesis has recently been undergoing a revival, as a new generation of scientifically oriented investigators apply themselves to experimentally testing the influence of language on thought. And here we come to the limitations of O'Neill's approach, which is firmly rooted in the Boasian way of doing anthropology. Boas and his students would typically seek out just one or a few exceptionally knowledgeable members of a group, in order to secure the most detailed possible descriptions of the group's unique cultural and linguistic heritage. Most of O'Neill's sources stand squarely in this tradition. As is typical in this kind of anthropology, the focus is on a bygone era reachable only through consultant memory. What is often missing is a detailed picture of language in daily life, which alone would permit the formulation of protocols for observing and testing linguistic relativity on the ground. |
3
|
|
My sense, though, is that the real value of O'Neill's approach is in pointing a way to making the most of the available record on local indigenous cultures. Thanks to the work of Boas and his students, the most exhaustively documented aspect of many of these cultures, by far, is language. As O'Neill observes, a people's culture is inevitably reflected in its language, leaving traces that may long outlive the lifeways that first gave rise to them. Much may yet be learned about the worldviews of local Native peoples through close attention to their languages' systems for giving meaning to experience. Contemporary experimental work appears to be confirming Sapir's hunches about the influence of language on thought, opening the door to a renewed focus on language — both as a repository for and as an expression of a unique cultural heritage. |
4
|
|
|
| HENRY ZENK
|
| Portland, Oregon |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|