Language ideology in American Jewish thought

This article establishes the existence of an American Jewish tradition of metalinguistic thought that stretches from the mid-twentieth century to our time. It demonstrates how American Jewish thinkers’ reflections on language implied a response to the claims made on their Jewish identity by their sy...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Asher, ʻOmri (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge 2022
In: Religion
Year: 2022, Volume: 52, Issue: 3, Pages: 384-408
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B USA / Judaism / Metalanguage / Jewish languages / Ideology / Hebrew language / English language / History 1945-2022
IxTheo Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
BH Judaism
KBQ North America
TK Recent history
Further subjects:B language ideology
B Jewish English
B homeland-diaspora relations
B American Judaism
B Israeli Hebraism
B metalinguistic thought
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:This article establishes the existence of an American Jewish tradition of metalinguistic thought that stretches from the mid-twentieth century to our time. It demonstrates how American Jewish thinkers’ reflections on language implied a response to the claims made on their Jewish identity by their symbolic homeland, Israel. In particular, thinkers rejected the questioning approach of Israeli intellectuals towards English as a medium for Jewish cultivation, and Israel’s fundamentally secular conception of Hebrew as a language and culture. The earlier, postwar thinkers challenged Israeli Hebraist assumptions by framing language as a ‘communicative tool’ that conveys (rather than embodies) religious identity. More recent thinkers took a different approach by suggesting that English is at present already a Jewish language, as it incorporates features based on Hebrew or Yiddish. Earlier and later metalinguistic thought implies continuity, but also a shift of emphasis, in how Jewish particularism could and should be expressed in America.
ISSN:1096-1151
Contains:Enthalten in: Religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2021.1994481