The politics of language acquisition: language learning as social modeling in the northwest Amazon. From: Women and Language | Date: March 22, 2004| Author: Chernela, J.M. | COPYRIGHT 2004 George Mason University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Abstract: This paper considers language acquisition within the greater context of gender-associated norms and practices among Amerindian speakers of Eastern Tukanoan languages in the northwest Amazon, where descent and language are viewed as manifestations of one another. There, an ideology links linguistic performance to patrilineal descent and prohibits marriage between speakers of the same language. This paper argues that: through linguistic modeling in the northwest Amazon, one...