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Alf Hornborg

Alf Hornborg

Professor emeritus

Alf Hornborg

Theorising ethnolinguistic diversity under globalisation : Beyond biocultural analogies

Author

  • Alf Hornborg

Summary, in English

This paper seeks to advance our theoretical understanding of diversifying and homogenizing processes in human societies by exploring the sources of and threats to ethnolinguistic or cultural diversity. Invoking concepts such as ethnogenesis, schismogenesis, and structural transformations, it discusses the parallels as well as the divergences between biological and cultural theory. Models in historical linguistics risk importing unwarranted assumptions about diversification from biological models of speciation. A more pertinent theorization of ethnolinguistic diversity might build on anthropological perspectives such as those of Fredrik Barth, Gregory Bateson, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, all of whom recognized that such diversity reflects interaction rather than isolation. The empirical test of these considerations is the ethnography and history of language use among Indigenous peoples in Amazonia and the Andes. The conclusion is that premodern expansions of language families, in tolerating local cultural autonomy, multilingualism, and diglossia, did not threaten ethnolinguistic identities as has modern globalization.

Department/s

  • Human Ecology

Publishing year

2024

Language

English

Publication/Series

Globalizations

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Routledge

Topic

  • Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified

Status

Epub

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1474-774X