Lise M Dobrin
Biographic Data
| ID | 187923 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lise M Dobrin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lise M |
| FAMILY NAME | Dobrin |
| SIGNATURE | DOBRIN L M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Virginia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8012-0111 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Training for ethical linguistics: A Model for Building "Responsible Conduct of Research" Into Department Culture
What aspects of a linguist's work should be covered in training for ethical linguistics? Are they specific to the study of language? Specific to the treatment of research subjects? Specific to the practice of research? Having a clear answer is a necessary first step in planning an effective ethics education program. Related questions are which institution(s) should take responsibility for it and what settings will be most conducive to ethical lea…
Missionization and Language
The history of Christian missionization is in many ways a history of Europeans' engagement with diverse languages and their speakers, which have been transformed as missionaries have interpreted and reshaped local speech practices and attempted to reduce speech to writing. The missionizing endeavor that proceeded alongside – and indeed enabled – Europe's maritime expansion brought non‐European peoples everywhere into contact with European languag…
The Legacy of Bernard Narokobi and the Melanesian Way
This special issue on the life and legacy of Bernard Narokobi documents and contextualizes Narokobi's life and thought. A central figure in Papua New Guinea's transition from Australian territory to independent nation, Narokobi was a jurist, philosopher, and poet who is best remembered for making ‘the Melanesian Way’ an important theme – if not the guiding ideological principle – in the discourse of independence in Papua New Guinea. In looking cl…
A ‘Nation of Villages’ and a Village ‘Nation State’: The Arapesh Model for Bernard Narokobi's Melanesian Way
Published writings by the Papua New Guinean politician and intellectual Bernard Narokobi present modern Papua New Guinea as a projection of village-based social relations; as he writes in Foundations for Nationhood, ‘We are a nation of villages’. This article explores Narokobi's idea of Papua New Guinea as a village writ large, showing how this conceptualization drew upon his experience of a particular historical and cultural place, the Arapesh v…
AAA Resources on Ethics and Professional Responsibility
"Free Speech" in Times of Conflict
The cultures of Native North American language documentation and revitalization
The reviewed books comprise an emerging ethnographic literature on endangered language documentation and revitalization in Native North America. Language loss and preservation are pressing concerns for tribal communities, galvanizing activists and researchers to develop classroom curricula and literacy traditions in hopes of producing new speakers. While the reviewed books show that this goal often goes unrealized, we nevertheless read them as gr…
Fortune, Reo
Ethnopoetic Analysis as a Resource for Endangered-Language Linguistics: The Social Production of an Arapesh Text
The focus of this article is a short narrative text that was recorded during the author's fieldwork on the endangered Papuan language Arapesh. An explication of the text following the principles of Hymesian verse analysis provides a rich source of evidence about the speaker's experience of cultural transformation as refracted in the research encounter. This comes across explicitly, through the text's remarkable content, and indexically through as…
The Truth in Anthropology Does Not Travel First Class: Reo Fortune's Fateful Encounter with Margaret Mead
The Truth in Anthropology Does Not Travel First Class":Reo Fortune's Fateful Encounter with Margaret Mead Lise M. Dobrin (bio) and Ira Bashkow (bio) The surest and most perfect instrument of understanding is our own emotional response, provided that we can make a disciplined use of it. Margaret Mead (1949:299) Introduction: Reo Fortune's "Reticence" In 1939, the anthropologist Reo Fortune published an article disputing the representation of Mount…
Arapesh Warfare: Reo Fortune's Veiled Critique of Margaret Mead's Sex and Temperament
In Sex and Temperament (1935), Margaret Mead depicted the Mountain Arapesh as a nurturing, peace-loving people. But Mead's second husband and fieldwork partner, Reo Fortune, disagreed with this in a 1939 article, "Arapesh Warfare," which presented evidence that before pacification Arapesh society countenanced warfare. Here we show that "Arapesh Warfare" also contains a submerged argument against Mead's personal integrity and ethnographic authorit…
Practical language development: Whose mission
The purpose of this paper is to explore academic linguistics' tacit reliance on a Christian missionary organization, SIL International, to develop technological infrastructure and offer service in local linguistic communities—areas that have generally been ignored by academic linguistics because they have been seen as falling outside its domain of professional responsibility. We refer to these kinds of activities as PRACTICAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT…
SIL International and the disciplinary culture of linguistics: Introduction
From linguistic elicitation to eliciting the linguist: Lessons in community empowerment from Melanesia
As an outsider, I would feel very uncomfortable if I were to advocate to a speech community that it ought to try to keep its language alive. It is entirely up to the community or to individuals within a community as to whether they want to put in the effort to develop new speakers for their language. Community members have the right to advocate within their community for the survival of their language; someone from outside the community does not.…
Saying Goodbye in the Field
Poster from the 2006 LSA annual meeting
Defining Morphology: A Principled Approach to Determining the Boundaries of Compounding, Derivation, and Inflection
From linguistic elicitation to eliciting the linguist: Lessons in community empowerment from Melanesia
As an outsider, I would feel very uncomfortable if I were to advocate to a speech community that it ought to try to keep its language alive. It is entirely up to the community or to individuals within a community as to whether they want to put in the effort to develop new speakers for their language. Community members have the right to advocate within their community for the survival of their language; someone from outside the community does not.…
Arapesh Warfare: Reo Fortune's Veiled Critique of Margaret Mead's Sex and Temperament
In Sex and Temperament (1935), Margaret Mead depicted the Mountain Arapesh as a nurturing, peace-loving people. But Mead's second husband and fieldwork partner, Reo Fortune, disagreed with this in a 1939 article, "Arapesh Warfare," which presented evidence that before pacification Arapesh society countenanced warfare. Here we show that "Arapesh Warfare" also contains a submerged argument against Mead's personal integrity and ethnographic authorit…
SIL International and the disciplinary culture of linguistics: Introduction
The Legacy of Bernard Narokobi and the Melanesian Way
This special issue on the life and legacy of Bernard Narokobi documents and contextualizes Narokobi's life and thought. A central figure in Papua New Guinea's transition from Australian territory to independent nation, Narokobi was a jurist, philosopher, and poet who is best remembered for making ‘the Melanesian Way’ an important theme – if not the guiding ideological principle – in the discourse of independence in Papua New Guinea. In looking cl…
The cultures of Native North American language documentation and revitalization
The reviewed books comprise an emerging ethnographic literature on endangered language documentation and revitalization in Native North America. Language loss and preservation are pressing concerns for tribal communities, galvanizing activists and researchers to develop classroom curricula and literacy traditions in hopes of producing new speakers. While the reviewed books show that this goal often goes unrealized, we nevertheless read them as gr…
Ethnopoetic Analysis as a Resource for Endangered-Language Linguistics: The Social Production of an Arapesh Text
The focus of this article is a short narrative text that was recorded during the author's fieldwork on the endangered Papuan language Arapesh. An explication of the text following the principles of Hymesian verse analysis provides a rich source of evidence about the speaker's experience of cultural transformation as refracted in the research encounter. This comes across explicitly, through the text's remarkable content, and indexically through as…
The Truth in Anthropology Does Not Travel First Class: Reo Fortune's Fateful Encounter with Margaret Mead
The Truth in Anthropology Does Not Travel First Class":Reo Fortune's Fateful Encounter with Margaret Mead Lise M. Dobrin (bio) and Ira Bashkow (bio) The surest and most perfect instrument of understanding is our own emotional response, provided that we can make a disciplined use of it. Margaret Mead (1949:299) Introduction: Reo Fortune's "Reticence" In 1939, the anthropologist Reo Fortune published an article disputing the representation of Mount…
Practical language development: Whose mission
The purpose of this paper is to explore academic linguistics' tacit reliance on a Christian missionary organization, SIL International, to develop technological infrastructure and offer service in local linguistic communities—areas that have generally been ignored by academic linguistics because they have been seen as falling outside its domain of professional responsibility. We refer to these kinds of activities as PRACTICAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT…
Training for ethical linguistics: A Model for Building "Responsible Conduct of Research" Into Department Culture
What aspects of a linguist's work should be covered in training for ethical linguistics? Are they specific to the study of language? Specific to the treatment of research subjects? Specific to the practice of research? Having a clear answer is a necessary first step in planning an effective ethics education program. Related questions are which institution(s) should take responsibility for it and what settings will be most conducive to ethical lea…
Defining Morphology: A Principled Approach to Determining the Boundaries of Compounding, Derivation, and Inflection
Saying Goodbye in the Field
Poster from the 2006 LSA annual meeting
From linguistic elicitation to eliciting the linguist: Lessons in community empowerment from Melanesia
As an outsider, I would feel very uncomfortable if I were to advocate to a speech community that it ought to try to keep its language alive. It is entirely up to the community or to individuals within a community as to whether they want to put in the effort to develop new speakers for their language. Community members have the right to advocate within their community for the survival of their language; someone from outside the community does not.…
Practical language development: Whose mission
The purpose of this paper is to explore academic linguistics' tacit reliance on a Christian missionary organization, SIL International, to develop technological infrastructure and offer service in local linguistic communities—areas that have generally been ignored by academic linguistics because they have been seen as falling outside its domain of professional responsibility. We refer to these kinds of activities as PRACTICAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT…
SIL International and the disciplinary culture of linguistics: Introduction
The Truth in Anthropology Does Not Travel First Class: Reo Fortune's Fateful Encounter with Margaret Mead
The Truth in Anthropology Does Not Travel First Class":Reo Fortune's Fateful Encounter with Margaret Mead Lise M. Dobrin (bio) and Ira Bashkow (bio) The surest and most perfect instrument of understanding is our own emotional response, provided that we can make a disciplined use of it. Margaret Mead (1949:299) Introduction: Reo Fortune's "Reticence" In 1939, the anthropologist Reo Fortune published an article disputing the representation of Mount…
Arapesh Warfare: Reo Fortune's Veiled Critique of Margaret Mead's Sex and Temperament
In Sex and Temperament (1935), Margaret Mead depicted the Mountain Arapesh as a nurturing, peace-loving people. But Mead's second husband and fieldwork partner, Reo Fortune, disagreed with this in a 1939 article, "Arapesh Warfare," which presented evidence that before pacification Arapesh society countenanced warfare. Here we show that "Arapesh Warfare" also contains a submerged argument against Mead's personal integrity and ethnographic authorit…
Ethnopoetic Analysis as a Resource for Endangered-Language Linguistics: The Social Production of an Arapesh Text
The focus of this article is a short narrative text that was recorded during the author's fieldwork on the endangered Papuan language Arapesh. An explication of the text following the principles of Hymesian verse analysis provides a rich source of evidence about the speaker's experience of cultural transformation as refracted in the research encounter. This comes across explicitly, through the text's remarkable content, and indexically through as…
Fortune, Reo
The cultures of Native North American language documentation and revitalization
The reviewed books comprise an emerging ethnographic literature on endangered language documentation and revitalization in Native North America. Language loss and preservation are pressing concerns for tribal communities, galvanizing activists and researchers to develop classroom curricula and literacy traditions in hopes of producing new speakers. While the reviewed books show that this goal often goes unrealized, we nevertheless read them as gr…
"Free Speech" in Times of Conflict
AAA Resources on Ethics and Professional Responsibility
Missionization and Language
The history of Christian missionization is in many ways a history of Europeans' engagement with diverse languages and their speakers, which have been transformed as missionaries have interpreted and reshaped local speech practices and attempted to reduce speech to writing. The missionizing endeavor that proceeded alongside – and indeed enabled – Europe's maritime expansion brought non‐European peoples everywhere into contact with European languag…
The Legacy of Bernard Narokobi and the Melanesian Way
This special issue on the life and legacy of Bernard Narokobi documents and contextualizes Narokobi's life and thought. A central figure in Papua New Guinea's transition from Australian territory to independent nation, Narokobi was a jurist, philosopher, and poet who is best remembered for making ‘the Melanesian Way’ an important theme – if not the guiding ideological principle – in the discourse of independence in Papua New Guinea. In looking cl…
A ‘Nation of Villages’ and a Village ‘Nation State’: The Arapesh Model for Bernard Narokobi's Melanesian Way
Published writings by the Papua New Guinean politician and intellectual Bernard Narokobi present modern Papua New Guinea as a projection of village-based social relations; as he writes in Foundations for Nationhood, ‘We are a nation of villages’. This article explores Narokobi's idea of Papua New Guinea as a village writ large, showing how this conceptualization drew upon his experience of a particular historical and cultural place, the Arapesh v…
Training for ethical linguistics: A Model for Building "Responsible Conduct of Research" Into Department Culture
What aspects of a linguist's work should be covered in training for ethical linguistics? Are they specific to the study of language? Specific to the treatment of research subjects? Specific to the practice of research? Having a clear answer is a necessary first step in planning an effective ethics education program. Related questions are which institution(s) should take responsibility for it and what settings will be most conducive to ethical lea…
Sociology (11 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Political science (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Linguistics (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · History (5 works) · Anthropology (4 works) · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture (4 works)