Comments on: The devil’s handwriting

By: Laura

Laura — Sat, 07 Apr 2018 01:59:42 +0000

In reply to Ingrid Piller. There’s always the option of writing another post! Would love to read one on this

By: Alexandra Grey

Alexandra Grey — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 07:29:26 +0000

Fascinating-sounding book! Today, I also happened upon this quotation from Hymes (in Rampton’s 2007 Journal of Sociolinguistics 11/5 article, p.584-5): “If our interest is to know what happened . . .[o]ur history must become a history, not only of great men, but of
circles, and not only circles, but also of institutions, governments, rulers, wars”. Rampton and Hymes are talking in the context of knowing what happened in the history of linguistics as an academic discipline, which is relevant to many Language on the Move readers, but it struck me also as relevant to knowing history and the current world in general. I like the Reading Challenge because it is encouraging us to read up on more “circles” (or social close-ups) and institutions and wars, from varied writers’ perspectives, not only so we can better understand where “Sociolinguistics” comes from but how language is perennially important in how people conceive of, interact with and represent individuals and groups beyond their immediate circles. Hence the wide array of good books beyond Dewey 400 (i.e. the Language shelves) in the library!

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 02:06:39 +0000

In reply to Gegentuul.

Thank you, Gegentuul! You are right about the “peripheral” people – I very much wanted to write about the book’s exploration of attitudes to intermarriage and “racial mixing”, too, but couldn’t fit it into the blog post 😉 … Basically, intermarriage and “racial mixing” were opposed everywhere but to different degrees; again, it was only in Qingdao that such opposition waned in the later colonial period …

By: Gegentuul

Gegentuul — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 01:31:07 +0000

Thanks Ingrid for this intriguing post! Just started to read this book this week. So far, I find it interesting that even those early writers and missionaries in the 18th and 19th century Southwest Africa had diverse opinions and inclinations during different periods towards different tribes. What impressed me most is the idea of mimicry. It is those in-between groups of people, who somewhat fall on the spectrum of “half-civilzed and half-barbarian”, aroused the strongest distaste of colonisers. This fear, vacillation and distaste towards people who are on the margin of both “civilisations”, who are “hybrid” are still working in our present world.
By the way, one of the famous spots for wedding photos in Qingdao is situated in former German style villas lying along the coast ; )