Saying and Doing in Zapotec

Saying and Doing in Zapotec
Author: Mark A. Sicoli
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2020-09-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1350142182

A multimodal ethnography of language as living process, this book demonstrates methods for the integrated analysis of talk, gesture, and material culture, developing a fresh way to understand human language through a focus on jointly achieved social actions to which it is part. Based on findings from a participatory, multimedia language documentation project in a highland Zapotec community of Oaxaca, Mexico, Mark A. Sicoli brings together goals of documentary linguistics and anthropological concern with the everyday means and ends of human social life with theoretical consequences for the analysis of linguistic and cultural reproduction and change. This book argues that resonances emergent in the whole of multiparticipant, multimodal interaction, are organizational of human social-cognitive process important for understanding both the shape linguistic utterances take in interaction (dialogic resonance) and the relationships built between distinct sign modes (intermodal resonance). In this way, Saying and Doing in Zapotec develops a new theory, characterizing the logic of resonance in human interaction as semiotic process that connects and juxtaposes interactional moves into assemblages of relations, resonances and collaborations that build an emergent lifeworld for a language.

Connected

Connected
Author: Roberto J. González
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2020-08-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520344200

This is the true story of how, against all odds, a remote Mexican pueblo built its own autonomous cell phone network—without help from telecom companies or the government. Anthropologist Roberto J. González paints a vivid and nuanced picture of life in a Oaxaca mountain village and the collective tribulation, triumph, and tragedy the community experienced in pursuit of getting connected. In doing so, this book captures the challenges and contradictions facing Mexico's indigenous peoples today, as they struggle to wire themselves into the 21st century using mobile technologies, ingenuity, and sheer determination. It also holds a broader lesson about the great paradox of the digital age, by exploring how constant connection through virtual worlds can hinder our ability to communicate with those around us.

Zapotec Deviance

Zapotec Deviance
Author: Henry A. Selby
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2014-09-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1477302964

Henry Selby's ethnographic study of the Zapotec Indians of a small community in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, reveals that the notion of the social basis of deviance is implicit in Zapotec thinking. Zapotecs recognize that crime and deviance arise out of society, and their methods of reducing criminal behavior are based on social networks and their dynamics. Professor Selby's consideration of witchcraft and deviant sexual behavior among the Zapotecs demonstrates how a deeper understanding of the rules upon which their society is based is necessary to an understanding of Zapotec ideas of deviance. The intent of this study is to show how in a contemporary traditional community the logic of the interactionist approach to the understanding of deviance has been borne out in detail. The transcultural comparisons, in many instances, can lead us to reexamine our own ideas about law and order.

The Politics of Language

The Politics of Language
Author: David Beaver
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2023-11-07
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691242747

A provocative case for the inherently political nature of language In The Politics of Language, David Beaver and Jason Stanley present a radical new approach to the theory of meaning, offering an account of communication in which political and social identity, affect, and shared practices play as important a role as information. This new view of language, they argue, has dramatic consequences for free speech, democracy, and a range of other areas in which speech plays a central role. Drawing on a wealth of disciplines, The Politics of Language argues that the function of speech—whether in dialogue, larger group interactions, or mass communication—is to attune people to something, be it a shared reality, emotion, or identity. Reconceptualizing the central ideas of pragmatics and semantics, Beaver and Stanley apply their account to a range of phenomena that defy standard frameworks in linguistics and philosophy of language—from dog whistles and covert persuasion to echo chambers and genocidal speech. The authors use their framework to show that speech is inevitably political because all communication is imbued with the resonances of particular ideologies and their normative perspectives on reality. At a time when democracy is under attack, authoritarianism is on the rise, and diversity and equality are being demanded, The Politics of Language offers a powerful new vision of the language of politics, ideology, and protest.

Zapotec Weavers of Teotitlán

Zapotec Weavers of Teotitlán
Author: Andra Fischgrund Stanton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 144
Release: 1999
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Written from the perspective of Teotiteco merchants, a guide to the artistry of Zapotec Indian weaving in the Mexican valley of Oaxaca showcases the wide range of beautiful colors, designs, and techniques found in the textiles of a culture whose traditions extend back to the colonial era.

Zapotecs on the Move

Zapotecs on the Move
Author: Adriana Cruz-Manjarrez
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2013-05-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0813560721

Through interviews with three generations of Yalálag Zapotecs (“Yaláltecos”) in Los Angeles and Yalálag, Oaxaca, this book examines the impact of international migration on this community. It traces five decades of migration to Los Angeles in order to delineate migration patterns, community formation in Los Angeles, and the emergence of transnational identities of the first and second generations of Yalálag Zapotecs in the United States, exploring why these immigrants and their descendents now think of themselves as Mexican, Mexican Indian immigrants, Oaxaqueños, and Latinos—identities they did not claim in Mexico. Based on multi-site fieldwork conducted over a five-year period, Adriana Cruz-Manjarrez analyzes how and why Yalálag Zapotec identity and culture have been reconfigured in the United States, using such cultural practices as music, dance, and religious rituals as a lens to bring this dynamic process into focus. By illustrating the sociocultural, economic, and political practices that link immigrants in Los Angeles to those left behind, the book documents how transnational migration has reflected, shaped, and transformed these practices in both their place of origin and immigration.

Red Ants

Red Ants
Author: Pergentino José
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Total Pages: 61
Release: 2020-08-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1646050185

A literary triumph by one of Mexico's most promising young authors, Red Ants is the first ever literary translation from the Sierra Zapotec. This vibrant collection of short stories by Pergentino José updates magical realism for the 21st century. Red Ants paints a candid picture of indigenous Mexican life -- an essential counterpoint to cultural products of the colonial gaze. José's fantastical stories tackle themes of family, love, and independence in his signature style: unapologetically personal, coolly emotional, and always surprising.

Decolonizing Primary English Language Teaching

Decolonizing Primary English Language Teaching
Author: Mario E. López-Gopar
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2016-06-10
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1783095784

This book tells the story of a project in Mexico which aimed to decolonize primary English teaching by building on research that suggests Indigenous students are struggling in educational systems and are discriminated against by the mainstream. Led by their instructor, a group of student teachers aspired to challenge the apparent world phenomenon that associates English with “progress” and make English work in favor of Indigenous and othered children’s ways of being. The book uses stories as well as multimodality in the form of photos and videos to demonstrate how the English language can be used to open a dialogue with children about language ideologies. The approach helps to support minoritized and Indigenous languages and the development of respect for linguistic human rights worldwide.

Aztec, Mixtec and Zapotec Armies

Aztec, Mixtec and Zapotec Armies
Author: John Pohl
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
Total Pages: 54
Release: 1991-11-28
Genre: History
ISBN:

Looks at the military organisation, weaponry, and tactics of the Indians of Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, and describes the various wars they fought between themselves. Suggested level: secondary.

Words of the True Peoples/Palabras de los Seres Verdaderos

Words of the True Peoples/Palabras de los Seres Verdaderos
Author: Carlos Montemayor
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2014-07-03
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0292744749

As part of the larger, ongoing movement throughout Latin America to reclaim non-Hispanic cultural heritages and identities, indigenous writers in Mexico are reappropriating the written word in their ancestral tongues and in Spanish. As a result, the long-marginalized, innermost feelings, needs, and worldviews of Mexico's ten to twenty million indigenous peoples are now being widely revealed to the Western societies with which these peoples coexist. To contribute to this process and serve as a bridge of intercultural communication and understanding, this groundbreaking, three-volume anthology gathers works by the leading generation of writers in thirteen Mexican indigenous languages: Nahuatl, Maya, Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, Tabasco Chontal, Purepecha, Sierra Zapoteco, Isthmus Zapoteco, Mazateco, Ñahñu, Totonaco, and Huichol. Volume 1 contains narratives and essays by Mexican indigenous writers. Their texts appear first in their native language, followed by English and Spanish translations. Frischmann and Montemayor have abundantly annotated the English, Spanish, and indigenous-language texts and added glossaries and essays that trace the development of indigenous texts, literacy, and writing. These supporting materials make the anthology especially accessible and interesting for nonspecialist readers seeking a greater understanding of Mexico's indigenous peoples. The other volumes of this work will be Volume 2: Poetry/Poesía and Volume 3: Theater/Teatro.