Case report
The Politics and Semiotics of Sounds – Mayan Linguistics and Nation-Building in Guatemala
Brigittine M. French
Abstract
This paper discusses the development Mayan linguistics as an authoritative field of
knowledge in Guatemala. In particular, it links missionary linguists’ and Maya linguists’
activities with shifting nationalist agendas from the 1920s in to the late 1980s. It
is argued that during the historical and intellectual moment that linguistics becomes
an authoritative epistemology, phonetic analysis functions as a creative index that constitutes
»expert« knowledge for particular semiotic and ideological reasons tied to competing
versions of the Guatemalan imagined community.
Keywords
Guatemala; Maya; missionary linguistics; semiotics
Hrčak ID:
27930
URI
Publication date:
24.6.2004.
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