[Xmca-l] Re: Joshua Fishman, R.I.P.

Mon Mar 2 09:39:11 PST 2015

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/jar/SIL/Fishman1.pdf

Aria Razfar, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture
Director of Graduate Studies, Curriculum and Instruction
University of Illinois at Chicago
1040 W. Harrison St. M/C 147
Chicago, IL, 60607

Director of English Learning through Mathematics, Science and Action Research (ELMSA)
www.elmsa.org

Webpage: http://education.uic.edu/personnel/faculty/aria-razfar-phd
Tel: 312-413-8373
Fax: 312-996-8134

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Lake
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2015 11:25 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Joshua Fishman, R.I.P.

Thanks for sharing this Peter. Does anyone have an article of his to share with us?
Robert L.

On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

>
>
> From: Rosalind Horowitz [mailto:Rosalind.Horowitz@utsa.edu]
> Sent: Monday, March 02, 2015 11:34 AM
> To: Peter Smagorinsky
> Subject: Distribute to Listserv
>
>
>
>
> 2 March 2015
>
> Dear Colleagues.
>
> Language, Culture, and Social Science experts across the world mourn 
> the loss of Joshua Fishman, Professor Emeritus, Yeshiva University, 
> New York.
> He was at the forefront of Bilingualism, Multilingualism, Language 
> Preservation, Minorities and Language Shift and an advocate of 
> Languages and Culture as a mark of Human Values.
> The history of Professor Fishman’s life is a history of the Sociology 
> and Psychology of Language and human preservation of tradition and culture.
>
> Rosalind Horowitz
> Professor, The University of Texas—San Antonio
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Ofelia Garcia [ogarcia@gc.cuny.edu<mailto:ogarcia@gc.cuny.edu>]
>
>
> Joshua A. Fishman (1926-2015)
>
> A beloved teacher and influential scholar, Joshua A. Fishman passed 
> away peacefully in his Bronx home, on Monday evening, March 1, 2015.  
> He was 88 years old. Joshua A. Fishman leaves behind his devoted wife 
> of over 60 years, Gella Schweid Fishman, three sons and 
> daughters-in-law, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. But 
> he also leaves behind thousands of students throughout the world who 
> have learned much from him about sociology of language, the field he 
> founded, and also about the possibility of being a generous and 
> committed scholar to language minority communities. As he once said, 
> his life was his work and his work was his life.
>
> Joshua A. Fishman, nicknamed Shikl, was born in Philadelphia PA on 
> July 18, 1926. Yiddish was the language of his childhood home, and his 
> father regularly asked his sister, Rukhl, and him: “What did you do 
> for Yiddish today?” The struggle for Yiddish in Jewish life was the 
> impetus for his scholarly work. After graduating from the University 
> of Pennsylvania with a Masters degree in 1947, he collaborated with 
> his good friend, Max Weinreich, the doyen of Yiddish linguistics, on a 
> translation of Weinreich’s history of Yiddish. And it was through 
> Yiddish that he came to another one of his interests ––that of 
> bilingualism. In 1948 he received a prize from the YIVO Institute for 
> Yiddish Research for a monograph on bilingualism. Yiddish and 
> bilingualism were interests he developed throughout his scholarly life.
>
> After earning a PhD in social psychology from Columbia University in 
> 1953, Joshua Fishman worked as a researcher for the College Entrance 
> Examination Board. This experience focused his interest on educational 
> pursuits, which eventually led to another strand of his scholarly work 
> –– that on bilingual education. It was around this time that he taught 
> what came to be the first sociology of language course at The City 
> College of New York. In 1958, he was appointed associate professor of 
> human relations and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and 
> two years later, moved to Yeshiva University. At Yeshiva University he 
> was professor of psychology and sociology, Dean of the Ferkauf 
> Graduate School of Social Science and Humanities, Academic Vice 
> President, and Distinguished University Research Professor of Social 
> sciences. In 1988, he became Professor Emeritus and began to divide 
> the year between New York and California where he became visiting 
> professor of education and linguistics at Stanford University. In the 
> course of his career, Fishman held visiting appointments at over a 
> dozen universities in the USA, Israel, and the Philippines, and 
> fellowships at the Center for Advanced study (Stanford), the East West 
> Center (Hawai’i) the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and the Israel Institute for Advanced Study.
>
> Throughout his long career Joshua A. Fishman has published close to 
> one hundred books and over a thousand articles. He has not only been 
> prolific, but his original and complex ideas have been very 
> influential in the academy, as well as extremely useful to language 
> minorities through the world. His first major study of sociology of 
> language, Language Loyalty in the United States, was published in 
> 1964. A year later, he published Yiddish in America. In 1968, he 
> published the earliest major collection dealing with language policy 
> and management, Language problems of developing nations. In the same 
> year, he edited and published Readings in the sociology of language, a first attempt to define the new field.
>
> By the 1970s Joshua Fishman’s scholarship was recognized throughout 
> the world for its importance and its relevance about the language 
> issues prevalent in society. In 1973, he founded, and has since 
> edited, The International Journal of the Sociology of Language, a 
> journal of excellent international reputation. Joshua Fishman has also 
> edited a related book series published by Mouton, Contributions to the 
> Sociology of Language (CSL), with over 200 titles. In both of these 
> endeavors Fishman has encouraged young scholars to research, write and 
> publish, supporting and contributing to the academic careers of many 
> throughout the world, especially in developing countries. For years he 
> replied daily to letters and e-mails from students from all over the 
> world. His greatest motivation has been dialoguing with many about the 
> use of language in society and answering student questions. The world was his classroom.
>
> While conducting an impressive body of research, and being responsive 
> to the many who asked for advice, Fishman traveled extensively, 
> encouraging the activities of those seeking to preserve endangered 
> languages. He will be remembered by the Māoris of New Zealand, the 
> Catalans and Basques of Spain, the Navajo and other Native Americans, 
> the speakers of Quechua and Aymara in South America, and many other 
> minority language groups for his warmth and encouragement. For a 
> quarter-century, he wrote a column on Yiddish sociolinguistics in 
> every issue of the quarterly Afn Shvel. He also wrote regularly on 
> Yiddish and general sociolinguistic topics for the weekly Forverts. 
> Together with his wife Gella Fishman, he established the extensive 
> five-generational "Fishman Family Archives" at Stanford University 
> library. In 2004 he received the prestigious UNESCO Linguapax Award in Barcelona, Spain.
>
> Joshua Fishman’s prolific record of research and publication has 
> continued until today, defining modern scholarship in bilingualism and 
> multilingualism, bilingual and minority education, the relation of 
> language and thought, the sociology and the social history of Yiddish, 
> language policy and planning, language spread, language shift and 
> maintenance, language and nationalism, language and ethnicity, 
> post-imperial English, languages in New York, and ethnic, and national 
> efforts to reverse language shift.
>
> His scholarly work with minority groups and with others engaged in the 
> struggle to preserve their languages, cultures, and traditions has 
> been inspired by a deep and heartfelt compassion that is always 
> sustained by the markedly human tone of his most objective scholarly writing.
>
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>
> --
> Myrna Goldstein, B.S.J., MATESL
> Founder, Director
> Are You in Your English File?®
> Second Language Learning Research Center Eilat, Israel, formerly of 
> Milan, Italy
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-- 

*Robert Lake  Ed.D.*Associate Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading Georgia Southern University
Secretary/Treasurer-AERA- Paulo Freire Special Interest Group P. O. Box 8144
Phone: (912) 478-0355
Fax: (912) 478-5382
Statesboro, GA  30460