Divided Values, Shadow Languages: Positioning and Perspective in Linguistic Ideologies

Abstract

“Linguistic ideology,” a field of inquiry opened by Michael Silverstein, has become a major topic in semiotically oriented disciplines. This article focuses on an important aspect of ideology (linguistic or otherwise): its connection with social positioning, point of view, and differentiation. Two sets of examples, mainly from fieldwork in Senegal, are drawn upon to illustrate that connection. One set concerns people living in the same community but differing in the ideologized values and projects through which they interpret linguistic practices. The other set concerns people who are relative strangers, speaking languages that are not their native tongues—in ways that can reveal Whorfian effects from the native language that rests in the background. Although these two sets of examples are initially drawn upon to emphasize different points, the article argues that they differ more in degree than in kind. Both illustrate how social positioning is tied to differences in ideologized interpretation and, more generally, that where there is ideology, there is differentiation.