This short volume provides a comprehensive and synoptic view of Joshua A. Fishman’s contributions to international sociolinguistics from 1949 to the present. Readers will find in this volume the essential understandings of Fishmanian sociolinguistics in two short essays that integrate his life’s work. The first essay by García and Schiffman identifies the major theoretical contributions and the development of Fishmanian sociolinguistics, often echoing Fishman’s own words. The essay by Peltz then analyzes Fishman´s contributions to Yiddish scholarship, as well as the role of that scholarship in his general work. These essential understandings are then extended through Fishman’s own concluding sentiments, as well as by the comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography of over 1, 000 titles of Joshua A. Fishman’s work, compiled by his wife, Gella Schweid Fishman. Together, the contributions in this volume pay tribute to the life work of one of the world’s most prolific and original scholars in the field of sociolinguistics — the founder of what we refer to in this volume as Fishmanian sociolinguistics.
Table des matières
Foreword by Florian Coulmas
Part 1: Integrative Essays
Fishmanian Sociolinguistics (1949 to the present) by Ofelia García and Harold Schiffman with the assistance of Zeena Zacharia
The History of Yiddish Studies: Take Notice! by Rakhmiel Peltz
Part 2: Concluding Sentiments
A Week in the Life of a Man from the Moon by Joshua A. Fishman
Part 3: Bibliographical Inventory
Joshua A. Fishman’s Bibliographical Inventory Compiled by Gella Schweid Fishman
Index
A propos de l’auteur
Rakhmiel Peltz is Professor of Sociolinguistics and Director of Judaic Studies at Drexel University. His specialization is the social history of Yiddish language and culture. He holds two doctorates, one in Biological Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania and the second in Yiddish Studies and Linguistics from Columbia University, and has published extensively in both fields. His book, From Immigrant to Ethic Culture: American Yiddish in South Philadelphia (Stanford University Press, 1998), is the first book on spoken Yiddish in America and provides a fresh look at ethnic culture in the contemporary USA. He is now studying the private culture of the pre-World War II Jewish family in Eastern Europe.