Books by Sean O'Neill
In The Franz Boas Papers, Volume 1: Franz Boas as Public Intellectual: Theory, Ethnography, Activism, edited by Regna Darnell, Michelle Hamilton, Robert L. A. Hancock, and Joshua Smith, Pp. 129-162. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Cultural Contact and Linguistic Relativity Among the Indians of Northwestern California
"Examines the linguistic relativity principle in relation to the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk Indians
... more "Examines the linguistic relativity principle in relation to the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk Indians
Despite centuries of intertribal contact, the American Indian peoples of northwestern California have continued to speak a variety of distinct languages. At the same time, they have come to embrace a common way of life based on salmon fishing and shared religious practices. In this thought-provoking re-examination of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, Sean O’Neill looks closely at the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk peoples to explore the striking juxtaposition between linguistic diversity and relative cultural uniformity among their communities.
O’Neill examines intertribal contact, multilingualism, storytelling, and historical change among the three tribes, focusing on the traditional culture of the region as it existed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He asks important historical questions at the heart of the linguistic relativity hypothesis: Have the languages in fact grown more similar as a result of contact, multilingualism, and cultural convergence? Or have they instead maintained some of their striking grammatical and semantic differences? Through comparison of the three languages, O’Neill shows that long-term contact among the tribes intensified their linguistic differences, creating unique Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk identities.
If language encapsulates worldview, as the principle of linguistic relativity suggests, then this region’s linguistic diversity is puzzling. Analyzing patterns of linguistic accommodation as seen in the semantics of space and time, grammatical classification, and specialized cultural vocabularies, O’Neill resolves the apparent paradox by assessing long-term effects of contact."
Despite centuries of intertribal contact, the American Indian peoples of northwestern California have continued to speak a variety of distinct languages. At the same time, they have come to embrace a common way of life based on salmon fishing and shared religious practices. In this thought-provoking re-examination of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, Sean O’Neill looks closely at the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk peoples to explore the striking juxtaposition between linguistic diversity and relative cultural uniformity among their communities.
O’Neill examines intertribal contact, multilingualism, storytelling, and historical change among the three tribes, focusing on the traditional culture of the region as it existed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He asks important historical questions at the heart of the linguistic relativity hypothesis: Have the languages in fact grown more similar as a result of contact, multilingualism, and cultural convergence? Or have they instead maintained some of their striking grammatical and semantic differences? Through comparison of the three languages, O’Neill shows that long-term contact among the tribes intensified their linguistic differences, creating unique Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk identities.
If language encapsulates worldview, as the principle of linguistic relativity suggests, then this region’s linguistic diversity is puzzling. Analyzing patterns of linguistic accommodation as seen in the semantics of space and time, grammatical classification, and specialized cultural vocabularies, O’Neill resolves the apparent paradox by assessing long-term effects of contact."
Native American Placenames of the Southwest: A Handbook for Travelers, William Bright, edited with an Introduction by Alice Anderton and Sean O’Neill. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, forthcoming, Spring 2013.
This book is aimed at the general reader who may be curious about the origins of placenames in th... more This book is aimed at the general reader who may be curious about the origins of placenames in the American Southwest--Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona--an area that uniquely brings together American Indian, Mexican Spanish, and Anglo history.
The Collected Works of Edward Sapir XIV: Northwest California Linguistics, edited by Victor Golla and Sean O’Neill. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2001.
In the summer of 1927, Edward Sapir spent two and a half months on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reserv... more In the summer of 1927, Edward Sapir spent two and a half months on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in northwestern California, where he collected extensive data on Hupa (an Athabaskan language), including 77 narrative texts and a large lexical and grammatical file. He also collected a small amount of data on Yurok and Chimariko. Sapir's Hupa material has been the focus of Victor Golla's research for many years, and this volume contains his full edition of the texts, with complete linguistic and textual annotations. The texts are accompanied by an analytic lexicon - a complete inventory of all stems and derivational bases attesting in the corpus - and a detailed ethnographic glossary. Also included are a Hupa to English index, a short grammatical sketch, a place name guide, and an introductory essay on the position of Sapir's Hupa study in his overall plan of Atha-baskan linguistic research.
webpage by Sean O'Neill
Papers by Sean O'Neill
This article examines the language ideologies and socio-political realities associated with the h... more This article examines the language ideologies and socio-political realities associated with the highly localized oral traditions of Northwestern California, including both stories and songs, which are both connected in profoundly indexical ways to the distinctiveness of the languages. My findings suggest that the principle of linguistic relativity, whereby speakers of contrasting languages subscribe to different worldviews, often emerges from conscious choices of interpretation among community members, who actively strive to set their languages and worldviews apart from those of neighboring societies—in association with a pervasive ideology of localism. Today, as the languages undergo revitalization, this long-standing concern with local difference is receiving renewed attention in the context of the tribal language programs where speakers are
also striving to keep their languages, stories, songs, and worldviews distinct—both from the neighboring tribes as well as the English-speaking world. Today, as in the past, the distinctive languages continue to play an important role in the maintenance of identity, setting the communities apart in publicly accentuated ways and instilling language learners with a sense of pride in the uniqueness of their own traditions.
KEYWORDS: Language ideology; linguistic relativity; language contact; oral literature; poetics.
also striving to keep their languages, stories, songs, and worldviews distinct—both from the neighboring tribes as well as the English-speaking world. Today, as in the past, the distinctive languages continue to play an important role in the maintenance of identity, setting the communities apart in publicly accentuated ways and instilling language learners with a sense of pride in the uniqueness of their own traditions.
KEYWORDS: Language ideology; linguistic relativity; language contact; oral literature; poetics.
Sapir Whorf Hypothesis
The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, 3 Volume Set. Karen Tracy (Editor), Cornelia Ilie (Associate Editor), Todd Sandel (Associate Editor)
The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis holds that language plays a powerful role in shaping human consciousne... more The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis holds that language plays a powerful role in shaping human consciousness, affecting everything from private thought and perception to larger patterns of behavior in society—ultimately allowing members of any given speech community to arrive at a shared sense of social reality. This article starts with a brief consideration of the philosophical insights that inspired the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis or the “principle of linguistic relativity,” as it is more often known today. Toward the end of the article current empirical research is reviewed. This explores everything from human universals to the cross-cultural differences in the construction of gender, color, space, and other creative practices associated with language, such as storytelling, poetry, or song.
Journal of Folklore Research, Special Triple Issue, Ethnopoetics, Narrative Inequality, and Voice: The Legacy of Dell Hymes, edited by Paul V. Kroskrity and Anthony K. Webster, 50(1-3):217-250., 2013
This article is about translating oral literature in indigenous societies, especially in multilin... more This article is about translating oral literature in indigenous societies, especially in multilingual and multicultural areas such as Northwestern California, where shared, regional material becomes ethnically marked when seemingly small changes are introduced. A case in point is the profound symbolic effects that accompany a shift in languages. Though Dell Hymes was deeply concerned with questions of translation, he rarely applied his analytical framework to translations within indigenous cultural settings; more often, he focused on the subtleties of translating oral literature into English, with emphasis on faithfully representing aspects of the structure and style. One way to build on Hymes’s legacy would be to apply his careful attention to matters of structure and style to a discussion of translation within indigenous traditions, where this approach can tease out minor differences that take on great symbolic significance. Translation is a practical, daily matter in much of the world, and in this sense Hymes’s groundbreaking work on the poetics of translation continues to shed light on the subtleties of creating meaning and ethnic distinction in multilingual areas. A commentary to this essay by Charles L. Briggs appears later in this special issue.
The case of Northwestern California has long attracted attention as an area of staggering linguis... more The case of Northwestern California has long attracted attention as an area of staggering linguistic diversity, where speakers have actively maintained profound differences in grammar and vocabulary, even in the face of widespread cultural convergence, intermarriage, and multilingualism (see Sapir 1921:214; Kroeber 1925:5; Bright and Bright 1965; Haas 1967; O’Neill 2008). Slightly subtler than the striking differences among the area’s languages are the many small-scale differences in the local oral traditions. Though the speakers of the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk languages often tell similar stories based on common themes from folklore and mythology, these shared tales frequently undergo radical transformation—even inversion—when passing from one speech community to the next. To take one example, consider the story of the Mourning Dove, who is male in the Yurok tradition, though female among the Hupas; though this difference may seem slight to outsiders, such distinctions are considered very significant within the region, where they potentially serve as badges of ethnolinguistic identity or indexes of community membership, much like the languages themselves. Today, as the languages undergo renewal, this long-standing concern with local difference is receiving renewed attention in the context of the tribal language revitalization programs. In this emerging context, the distinctive Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk versions of these stories continue to play an important role in the maintenance of social identity, setting the neighboring speech communities apart in publicly accentuated ways and instilling language learners with a sense of pride in the uniqueness of their own traditions. This chapter examines the language ideologies and socio-political realities associated with the highly localized storytelling traditions of Northwestern California, which have been actively maintained alongside the distinctiveness of the languages.
Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian literary critic, semiotician, and philosopher is widely recognized as on... more Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian literary critic, semiotician, and philosopher is widely recognized as one of the central figures in social theory, with an influence that has been felt in fields as diverse as anthropology, history, psychology, sociology, communications, rhetoric, comparative literature, and the philosophy of language. In looking closely at the social foundations of language, Bakhtin identified a short list of major of philosophical principles that are now standard in the social sciences and humanities, including dialogism, voice, heteroglossia, ideology, speech genres, the utterance, polyphony, double-voiced discourse, intertextuality, the chronotope, and the carnival. A central image that recurs throughout Bakhtin’s work is that of the simple act of engaging in face-to-face dialog. Staying close to the interactive source of discourse, the utterance occupied a place of central importance in social theory for Bakhtin—as an instantiation of language use, or a given person’s word, as it is embedded in a particular context, including the submerged ideologies used by the actors to interpret those words. Just as recognizable ideologies and voices permeate spoken discourse, the utterance is composed of familiar speech genres, based on expectations for the structure and style of the utterance.
The so-called “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis” holds that language plays a powerful role in shaping thoug... more The so-called “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis” holds that language plays a powerful role in shaping thought, perception, and action, especially in relation to the worldview of an associated culture. Both Sapir and Whorf strongly asserted that vocabulary provides a key to worldview, in so far as a speaker’s choice of words not only reflects a given perspective but also encourages one. This principle was earlier articulated by Boas who noted that vocabulary is often developed in areas of cultural interest, such as specialized religious knowledge. Sapir himself went on to consider the relationship between language and thought in actual social circumstances, especially in relation to expressive culture. Sapir also noted that language is more than a conceptual system, since words evoke emotions; many words convey a feeling tone and cast an evaluation. Returning to the Boasian sense of language as a conceptual system, Whorf came to view language as an instrument of thought—capable of conveying whole cosmological systems or even leading speakers astray with misconceptions. While Sapir and Whorf worked through cross-cultural comparison, observing language use in social settings, the recent trend has been to test the effects of language on perception in non-linguistic settings—leading to observations of what is now called the Whorfian effect. A parallel line of inquiry focuses on the role of language in facilitating the play of perspective in social interaction.
Although current discussions of linguistic relativity tend to concen- trate on obligatory grammat... more Although current discussions of linguistic relativity tend to concen- trate on obligatory grammatical categories, the original architects of this school of thought, including Boas, Sapir, and Whorf, all argued strongly for the role of vocabulary in guiding human perception, especially in the culturally charged situations of everyday life. Taking the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk languages of northwestern California as a case study, this article demonstrates the im- portance of vocabulary in conveying pervasive cultural ideologies, such as those associated with mythology, religion, folklore, or geographical systems of spatial orientation.Although current discussions of linguistic relativity tend to concen- trate on obligatory grammatical categories, the original architects of this school of thought, including Boas, Sapir, and Whorf, all argued strongly for the role of vocabulary in guiding human perception, especially in the culturally charged situations of everyday life. Taking the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk languages of northwestern California as a case study, this article demonstrates the im- portance of vocabulary in conveying pervasive cultural ideologies, such as those associated with mythology, religion, folklore, or geographical systems of spatial orientation.
In this paper we show that much can be gained when speakers of an endangered language team up wit... more In this paper we show that much can be gained when speakers of an endangered language team up with linguistic anthropologists to comment on the documentary record of an endangered language. The Cherokee speakers in this study examined published linguistic data of a relatively understudied grammatical construction, Cherokee prepronominals. 2 They commented freely on the form, usage, context, meaning, dialect, and other related aspects of the construction. As a result of this examination, we make the data of Cherokee prepronominals applicable to a wider audience, including other Cherokee speakers, teachers, language learners, and general community members, as well as linguists and anthropologists.
Biography in terms of linguistic contributions based on phenomenology.
Biography examining contributions to linguistics and anthropology.
Biography in relation to contributions made to anthropology and linguistics, alongside philosophy.
Book Reviews by Sean O'Neill
Noam Chomsky is one of the intellectual giants of our times. His work in linguistics, including h... more Noam Chomsky is one of the intellectual giants of our times. His work in linguistics, including his pathbreaking anthropological theories about the birth of language and its influence on human evolution, has transformed the discipline. But he is perhaps better known for his voluminous writings on current political events. Anthropologists, for our part, have hardly had that kind of public impact since the days of Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, and perhaps Claude Lévi-Strauss. Yet somehow Chomsky has been largely ignored by anthropologists—sometimes willfully so—in protest against the spirit of his work in linguistics, which characteristically eliminates the social side of human life to pursue the deeper cognitive essences that reside in the human brain.