Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ideologies of Rescue and Material Practice in Institutional Endeavors of Language Preservation and Revitalization.

密歇根大学博士生约书亚·弗里德曼将在安德鲁·施赖克博士的指导下，研究语言和文本保存机构努力的意识形态和物质实践之间的关系。研究人员将探索与文本的接触如何改变，因为它们是从以前的使用场所收集的，并根据保存的制度动态重新具体化。这些过程对语言的传播和复制有哪些影响？它们可能会如何形成，又是如何被什么语言保存的意识形态塑造的？这项研究将在美国进行，以意第绪语文本和语言保存为例。研究者将重点研究“拯救”意第绪语的意识形态、话语和叙事之间的关系，以及美国不同犹太机构保存意第绪语文本的物质实践。研究人员将采用人种学方法，包括长期参与者观察、结构化和半结构化访谈和档案研究的方法。本项目将分析(1)意第绪语文物在保存过程中所经历的物质变化，以及这些变化对其话语、象征和社会意义的影响；(2)语言保存实践如何塑造赋予文本对象的社会价值及其物质意义；(3)意第绪语保存与犹太社区和机构更广泛的保存工作的关系。据估计，当今世界正在以每两周一种的速度丧失语言。这一系统的案例研究将有助于阐明不同的保存话语和实践--作为保存、作为拯救、作为拯救--如何影响语言保存。因此，研究结果将为语言研究人员和政策制定者提供信息，以应对防止语言丢失的当代挑战和动态。资助这项研究还支持研究生的教育。

University of Michigan doctoral student Joshua Friedman, with the guidance of Dr. Andrew Shryock, will undertake research on the relationship between the ideologies and the material practices of institutional endeavors of language and text preservation. The researcher will explore how engagements with texts may change as they are collected from previous places of use, and rematerialized according to institutional dynamics of preservation. In what ways do these processes influence the transmission and reproduction of language? How might they shape, and how are they shaped by, ideologies of what language preserves?The research will be carried out in the United States using Yiddish text and language preservation as a case example. The researcher will focus on the relationship between ideologies, discourses, and narratives of "saving" the Yiddish language, and the material practices by which Yiddish texts are preserved by different American Jewish institutions. The researcher will employ an ethnographic approach including methodologies of long-term participant observation, structured and semi-structured interviews, and archival research. This project will analyze (1) the material changes Yiddish language artifacts undergo as they are preserved, and the effect of these changes on their discursive, symbolic and social significance, (2) how practices of language preservation shape, and are shaped by, the social value given to textual objects and their materiality (3) the relationship of Yiddish language preservation to the broader preservation work by Jewish communities and institutions. It has been estimated that the world today is losing languages at the rate of one every two weeks. This systematic case study will help shed light on how alternative discourses and practices of saving -- as preservation, as rescue, as salvation -- affect language preservation. Thus research findings will inform language researchers and policy makers working to address the contemporary challenges and dynamics of preventing language loss. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.