Between Convergence and Divergence: Reformatting Language Purism in the Montreal Tamil Diasporas

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Between Convergence and Divergence: Reformatting Language Purism in the Montreal Tamil Diasporas
Abstract
The author examines how ideologies of language purism are reformatted by creating interdiscursive links across spatial and temporal scales. She traces convergences and divergences between South Asian and Québécois sociohistorical regimes of language purism as they pertain to the contemporary experiences of Montreal's Tamil diasporas. Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Tamils in Montreal emphasize their status differences by claiming that the former speak a modern "vernacular" Tamil and the latter speak an ancient "literary" Tamil. She argues that the segregation and purification of these social groups and languages depend upon the intergenerational reproduction of scalar boundaries between linguistic forms, interlocutors, and decentered contexts.
Publication
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
Volume
Vol. 18
Issue
no. 1
Pages
1-23
Date
June 2008
Language
en
Citation
Das, Sonia Neela. “Between Convergence and Divergence: Reformatting Language Purism in the Montreal Tamil Diasporas.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology Vol. 18, no. 1 (June 2008): 1–23.
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