IYIL 2019 – The International Year of the Indigenous Languages ALECLA 2019 - The 2nd Annual Lecture on Exile in Comparative Literature and the Arts
Keynote Speach Two Types of Polyfunctionality (and their Relevance for Endangered Languages) Senior Lecturer Dr. Alan Reed Libert University of Newcastle, Australia
1. Introduction In this talk I will discuss the linguistic notion polyfunctionality and possible connections between it and endangered languages. I would like to stress that my remarks will be speculative and impressionistic, based on my years of looking at various languages, rather than being precise and statistically-based. In theory, polyfunctionality is a simple matter: it is the property of having more than one function (or use). Many everyday objects are polyfunctional, although probably usually not by design (i.e. they were designed with only one use in mind). Take, for example, forks. Their usual use is to pick up food, but they could be used as a weapon, if one were attacked and had nothing better to fight back with. Or, for a less violent example, towels are usually used to dry oneself or something with, but one could put them in the gap between a door and the floor to keep cold or noise out.
2. Language Polyfunctionality (Sociolinguistic Polyfunctionality) Polyfunctionality comes up in linguistics in two senses. One of these is in sociolinguistics, which is, very roughly, the study of language in societies, and I will look at this sense first, as it is the more obviously relevant one if we are concerned with endangered languages, as linguists often are. In this sense it refers to the use of a language (or dialect) in a range of contexts. For example, Langston and Peti-Stantić (2014:29) say the following: Another important feature of a fully developed standard language is its polyfunctionality. A standard language must be able to fulfill communicative functions in all spheres of human activity, ranging from scientific texts to routine daily interactions relating to basic human needs, and it must allow its users to express complex and/or abstract ideas in a precise manner. This pertains primarily to the lexicon, which must be enlarged through the
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