[KS] Variable Romanization of ?(?) in McCune-Reischauer

[Frank Hoffmann]

Thank you, Ross. I will follow your lead here (with your infos).
(My question was aimed at any "major" later responses as, obviously, I 
am not a linguist willing to read through hundreds of pages of any of 
the minor related topics or criticism. Anyway, the Silverstein paper 
*is* very useful!)

What I find interesting and highly important is how exactly 
modernization and reforms in the material and non-material world happen 
within a "conservative" (or "neo-conservative") environment? And Korea 
was certainly just that in the late 19th century, and I would possibly 
call it this today also (but the terminology gets messy here, if 
talking about today). Primarily, for my interest, I am not concerned 
with language, but somehow the very issues we talked about here 
regarding language and writing systems do fit in there for sure. 
Silverstein in his 1981 paper has this wonderful part right at the 
beginning: 
   "(...) metalanguage, for the analyst of culture, is as much a 
   part of the problem as part of the solution. As is readily 
   apparent, all our efforts to differentiate 'conscious native 
   models' from 'anthropologist's models,' or 'ethno-theories' 
   and 'ideologies' from 'objective social reality,' are 
   attempts to come to grips with the metalanguage vs. language 
   relationship, or its more general form, (meta-)language vs. 
   action."
That insight already helps me to make the ends meet when it comes to 
questions of "development," "inventions," and general "modernization" 
in a conservative environment. What I am saying is that we -- me at 
least -- have lots of models in our head about modernization processes, 
and the social and political environments that these happen in (or why 
they do happen or not happen). Yet, when you follow up in very concrete 
terms, looking at the facts, then these models clash with the facts 
(again, I can only speak for myself, but I suppose I am not alone 
here). My own ideologies and pre-conceptions are in the way of 
understanding while at the same time giving me an orientation. That is 
obviously how our brains work. So, since language is so essential, 
since understanding requires language and terminology, these issues 
relate in very direct ways to the issues we have talked about here. 
------ cut -------
I cut it here, had tried to explain the problem as I see it in more 
detail with a concrete example, but see I do get into an area that is 
so complex that it would make more and more explanations necessary. 
.... may later get back to this when it makes more sense (if and when 
we have a concrete case 'on the table').

But again thanks for the hints.... 

Frank


On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:58:49 +0000, King, Ross wrote:
> Hi Frank:
> 
> Silverstein's work has huge influence in the fields of language 
> ideology more generally, and linguistic anthropology more 
> specifically. If you're asking about research responding specifically 
> to the 'limits of awareness' idea, there is a lot, and it is probably 
> easiest found by google scholar-ing 'Silverstein' + 'limits of 
> awareness'; certainly there is work on honorifics that uses it, on 
> women's language, on ideophones, on clicks in Bantu-Hottentot 
> language contact (Judith Irvine and Susan Gal have written a lot), 
> etc. If you are more interested in the ways in which metalinguistic 
> awareness can loop back into language change, there, too, there is a 
> substantial literature, depending on what exactly you are looking 
> for. 
> 
> Ross
> 
>> (...)
>> certain cases where the linguistic phenomenon in question is somehow
>> more salient or accessible to lay speakers--see Michael Silverstein's
>> work on 'the limits of awareness').
> 
> 
> Very nice! Thanks Ross!
> Was there any other *major* article/book after Silverstein's "The
> limits of awareness"???
>  (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED250941.pdf)
> I mean, any major paper that would have moved that discussion further?
> 
> 
> Frank
> 

--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreanstudies.com