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Joshua Friedman将在Andrew Shryock博士的指导下，对意识形态与语言和文本保存的机构努力的物质实践之间的关系进行研究。研究人员将探索如何参与文本可能会发生变化，因为他们从以前的使用地点收集，并根据保存的制度动态重新具体化。这些过程以什么方式影响语言的传播和复制？它们是如何形成的，又是如何被语言所保存的意识形态所塑造的？这项研究将在美国进行，以意第绪语文本和语言保存为例。研究人员将重点关注“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，包括长期参与观察、结构化和半结构化访谈以及档案研究的方法。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)语言保存的实践如何塑造文本对象及其物质性的社会价值，以及如何被这些价值塑造；(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语言的速度消失。这个系统的案例研究将有助于阐明关于保存、拯救和拯救的不同话语和实践如何影响语言保存。因此，研究结果将为语言研究人员和政策制定者提供信息，以应对当代防止语言丧失的挑战和动态。资助这项研究也支持了研究生的教育。

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.