Joshua Fishman
Encyclopedia
Sociology of language
Sociology of language focuses on the language's effect on the society. It is closely related to the field of sociolinguistics, which focuses on the effect of the society on the language....
, language planning
Language planning
Language planning is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure, or acquisition of languages or language variety within a speech community. It is often associated with government planning, but is also used by a variety of non-governmental organizations, such as grass-roots...
, bilingual education
Bilingual education
Bilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.-Bilingual education program models:...
, and language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
and ethnicity.
Life
Fishman, nicknamed Shikl was born and raised in Philadelphia, where he attended public schools while also studying Yiddish at elementary and secondary levels. As he grew up, his father would ask his children at the dinner table, "What did you do for Yiddish today?" He studied Yiddish in Workmen’s Circle Schools, which emphasized mastery of the Yiddish languageYiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
along with a focus on literature, history, and social issues. He graduated from Olney
Olney, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Olney is a neighborhood in the North Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It is roughly bounded by the Roosevelt Boulevard to the south, Tacony Creek to the east, Godfrey Avenue to the north, and the railroad right-of-way west of Sixth Street to the west.Although...
High School. From 1944 to 1948, he attended the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
on a Mayor’s Scholarship, earning B.S. (history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
) and M.S. (psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
) degrees. After graduating from Penn, he studied Yiddish with Max Weinreich
Max Weinreich
Max Weinreich was a linguist, specializing in the Yiddish language, and the father of the linguist Uriel Weinreich, who edited the Modern Yiddish-English English-Yiddish Dictionary.- Biography :Max Weinreich began his studies in a German school in Kuldiga,...
during the summer of 1948. He took a position as an educational psychologist for the Jewish Education Committee of New York in 1951. The same year, he married Gella Schweid, with whom he shares a lifelong commitment to Yiddish. In 1953, he completed his Ph.D. in social psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
with a dissertation entitled Negative Stereotypes Concerning Americans among American-born Children Receiving Various Types of Minority-group Education.
He first taught the sociology of language at the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
while also directing research at the College Entrance Examination Board from 1955 to 1958. In 1958, he was appointed an associate professor of human relations and psychology at Penn. He subsequently accepted a post as professor of psychology and sociology at Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
in New York, where he would also serve as dean of the Ferkauf Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities
Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology
The Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology is a division of Yeshiva University. Along with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, it is located at the Louis E. and Doris Rousso Community Health Center on Yeshiva University’s Jack and Pearl Resnick Campus in the Bronx, New York.Lawrence J...
as well as academic vice president. In 1966, he was made Distinguished University Research Professor of Social Sciences and in 1988 he became professor emeritus. He later became affiliated with a number of other institutions: Visiting Professor and Visiting Scholar, School of Education, Applied Linguistics and Department of Linguistics, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
; Adjunct Professor of Multilingual and Multicultural Education, School of Education, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
; Visiting Professor of Linguistics, City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
, Graduate Center. He has held visiting appointments and fellowships at over a dozen institutions around the world, including the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is an American interdisciplinary research body in Stanford, California focusing on the social sciences and humanities . Fellows are elected in a closed process, to spend a period of residence at the Center, released from other duties...
(Stanford, CA) and the Institute for Advanced Study
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...
(Princeton, NJ).
Works
Fishman has written over 1000 articles and monographs on multilingualismMultilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
, bilingual education
Bilingual education
Bilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.-Bilingual education program models:...
and minority education, the sociology and history of the Yiddish language
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
, language planning
Language planning
Language planning is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure, or acquisition of languages or language variety within a speech community. It is often associated with government planning, but is also used by a variety of non-governmental organizations, such as grass-roots...
, reversing language shift, language revival
Language revival
Language revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language. If the decline is severe, the language may be endangered,...
, 'language and nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
', 'language and religion', and 'language and ethnicity'. Fishman is also the founder and editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
The International Journal of the Sociology of Language is a peer reviewed scientific journal, the main journal in the field of Sociology of language. It was founded by Joshua Fishman who is still its general editor...
and the Contributions to the Sociology of Language (Mouton de Gruyter
Walter de Gruyter
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG is a scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. Its origins date back to 1749 when it was given the right to print books by King Frederick II of Prussia. -De Gruyter Mouton:...
) book series.
Special honors
Fishman was honored in 1991 by two publications to celebrate his 65th birthdayFestschrift
In academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...
, each filled with articles by colleagues that followed his interests. One was a three volume collection of articles concerned with his interests, edited by Garcia, Dow, and Marshall. The other was a single volume edited by Cooper and Spolsky.
In 2004 he was awarded the Linguapax Prize
Linguapax Prize
The Linguapax Prize is awarded annually on International Mother Language Day by the Linguapax Institute to "to linguists, researchers, professors and members of the civil society in acknowledgement of their outstanding work in the field linguistic diversity and/or multilingual...
.
Fishman was again honored September 10, 2006 by a one-day symposium at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, commemorating his 80th birthday.
Archives
The Special Collections Section of the Stanford University Libraries established the Joshua A. Fishman and Gella Schweid Fishman Family Archives in 1994. The archive contains drafts of subsequently published books and articles, course outlines, lectures given, professional correspondence, family correspondence, photographs, audio-tapes, video-tapes, and other materials pertaining to Fishman's work. It also includes equally diverse holdings for Gella Schweid Fishman, veteran Yiddish teacher, teacher-trainer, and activist.Sources
- Baker, ColinColin BakerColin Baker is a British actor who is known for playing Paul Merroney in The Brothers from 1974 to 1976 and as the sixth incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who, from 1984 to 1986.- Background:Colin Baker was born in London, but moved north to...
, & Jones, Sylvia P. (eds.) (1998). Joshua A. Fishman. In Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters - Chassie, Karen et al. (eds.) (2006). Fishman, Joshua Aaron. In Who’s Who in the East. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who’s Who
- Cooper, Robert L., & Spolsky, Bernard (eds.) (1991). The Influence of Language on Culture and Thought: Essays in Honor of Joshua A. Fishman’s Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Berlin: Mouton
- Fishman, Joshua A. (2006). Joshua A. Fishman. Retrieved on August 24, 2006 from http://www.joshuaafishman.com
- García, Ofelia & Dow, James R.James R. DowJames R. Dow is a Professor Emeritus of German at Iowa State University with research interests in German Volkskunde , Old Order Amish of Kalona and Amana Colonists of Amana. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005 for A study and grammar of the Cymbrian language...
& Marshall, David F. (eds.) (1991). Essays in honor of Joshua A. Fishman: Volume 1: Focus on Bilingual Education; Volume 2: Focus on Language Planning; Volume 3: Focus on Language and Ethnicity. 3 Volumes (set). Amsterdam: John BenjaminsJohn BenjaminsJohn Benjamins Publishing Company is an independent academic publisher in social sciences and humanities with its head office in Amsterdam. Its North American office is in Philadelphia, United StatesIt is especially noted for its publications in linguistics... - Spolsky, B. (1999). Fishman, Joshua A. (1926– ). In Spolsky, B. (ed.), Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: ElsevierElsevierElsevier is a publishing company which publishes medical and scientific literature. It is a part of the Reed Elsevier group. Based in Amsterdam, the company has operations in the United Kingdom, USA and elsewhere....