Paul V. Kroskrity

Kroskrity's interest in the ideological dimension of language use and their relationship to linguistic structure, cultural identity, and ethnohistory can be traced to the beginning of his career. When he started his dissertation research in the Arizona Tewa communities on the First Mesa Hopi Reservation (Northeastern Arizona) in 1973, Kroskrity was primarily interested in Tewa grammar and language contact, but the Tewa themselves kept reminding him of the importance of the link between language, culture, and religious ceremonies.[13] "My language is my life" is a popular saying in Tewa, which suggests a strong link between language and identity.[14][15] Language and identity became a central theme in Kroskrity's later work, interpreting Tewa cultural phenomena in the light of the emerging theory of language ideology.[13]

His early research concentrated on linguistic variation, language contact, linguistic borrowing, and areal influences in Tewa. The Tewa language presents unique data for the study of language contact because despite a history of about 300 years of contact with their Hopi neighbors and widespread multilingualism, the Arizona Tewa have adopted almost no loanwords from Hopi.[16] This is a common pattern in many Pueblo cultures, usually known as "linguistic conservatism".[17]

Kroskrity re-analyzed this pattern as an indigenous ideology of Linguistic purism. But rather than being a result of the rejection of foreign elements by the Tewa community, Kroskrity traces this ideology to the prominence of kiva speech, a type of ceremonial speech confined in its use to religious authorities.[18] Associated with the highly valued religious domain, kiva speech embodies four cultural preferences: regulation by convention, indigenous purism, strict compartmentalization, and linguistic indexing of identity.[19] These preferences are reflected in Arizona Tewa linguistic ideologies concerning non-kiva language as well, and turn kiva speech thus into a folk model for language in general.[14] Kroskrity has coined the term "dominant language ideology" to describe these underlying conceptions of language, where linguistic and cultural forms specific to one domain come to serve as a model for other forms.[13]

In relation to research on the relative metalinguistic awareness that speakers have of their language, Kroskrity points out that this dominant ideology is most influential on the Tewa lexicon, since lexical differences are most accessible to awareness[20] and therefore most easily controlled by the speakers.[21]

In addition to research with the Arizona Tewa, Kroskrity has also worked with the Western Mono communities of central California since 1980.[6] In stark contrast to the Arizona Tewa, linguistic purism was absent in the Western Mono communities. Kroskrity identifies three precolonial language ideologies: syncretism, the valorization of linguistic borrowings and hybridity; variationism, that dialectal variation is seen as the natural outcome of family and individual differences; and utilitarianism, the idea of language as tool or technology. These ideologies have most likely contributed to language shift toward English. In precolonial times among indigenous groups on the Pacific coast of the present-day United States, lexical borrowings between different languages were common and not perceived as dangerous to the vitality of any language, let alone ethnic identity. In this context, the adoption of English items into the lexicon of Western Mono was welcomed rather than condemned, partly because the Western Mono language was never indexical or iconic of a unified ethnic identity, owing to internal differentiation; and partly because in colonial and post-colonial society, English was becoming increasingly useful. These traditional language ideologies alongside educational politics proved to be detrimental to language maintenance.[22][23]

Kroskrity's work demonstrates the importance of language ideologies for understanding language maintenance and shift.[24] While in the case of the Arizona Tewa, a dominant language ideology of purism and an association of the Tewa language with ethnic identity has contributed to language maintenance, the traditional language ideologies of the Western Mono have contributed to rapid language shift. In light of these findings, Kroskrity has more recently called for "language ideological clarification".

Language ideological clarification is the process of identifying issues of language ideological contestation within a heritage language community, including both beliefs and feelings that are indigenous to that community and those introduced by outsiders (such as linguists and government officials), that can negatively impact community efforts to successfully engage in language maintenance and renewal. This process of identifying and raising consciousness about linguistic and discursive issues enables appropriate discourses to occur between community members, or between members and either linguists or government officials who have differing opinions. Ideally these discourses would promote actual resolution—a clarification achieved—or foster a tolerable level of disagreement that would not inhibit language renewal activities.[25]

Throughout his career Kroskrity has contributed through research to the agendas of the communities he studies. He conducted "collaborative research" with Tewa and Western Mono informants long before the term became fashionable in anthropology.[26] In 2002 he collaborated with Rosalie Bethel (Western Mono) to publish an interactive CD-ROM, contributing to Western Mono language revitalization activities.[27]