Everything about Joshua Fishman totally explained
Joshua Aaron Fishman (born
1926) is internationally renowned for his groundbreaking work in the
sociology of language,
language planning,
bilingual education, and
language and
ethnicity. His interdisciplinary scholarship, example, and advocacy have had and continue to have huge impact on educational access and equality for language minorities, both locally in
Yiddish communities of Philadelphia and New York, and globally in indigenous and immigrant communities throughout the world.
Life
Fishman, nicknamed Shikl, was born (
1926) 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 language along with a focus on literature, history, and social issues. He graduated from the academically rigorous Olney High School, where high standards in a variety of disciplines helped him develop an appreciation for the importance of multidimensional, multidisciplinary inquiry. From 1944 to 1948, he attended the
University of Pennsylvania on a Mayor’s Scholarship, earning B.S. (history) and M.S. (psychology) degrees. After graduating from Penn, he studied Yiddish with
Max Weinreich 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 at
Columbia University 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 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 in New York, where he'd also serve as dean of the Ferkauf Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities 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; Adjunct Professor of Multilingual and Multicultural Education, School of Education,
New York University; Visiting Professor of Linguistics,
City University of New York, 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 (Stanford, CA) and the
Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ).
Works
Fishman is a prolific author, having written over 1000 articles and monographs. Many of his works have been seminal, defining and advancing a wide range of intellectual activity:
multilingualism,
bilingual education and minority education, the sociology and history of the
Yiddish language,
language planning,
reversing language shift,
language revival,
language and
nationalism, language and
religion, and language and
ethnicity. Fishman is also the founder and editor of the influential International Journal of the Sociology of Language and the Contributions to the Sociology of Language (Mouton de Gruyter) book series.
Special honors
Fishman was honored in 1991 by two publications to celebrate his 65th birthday, 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.
Fishman was again honored September 10, 2006 by a one-day symposium at the University of Pennsylvania, 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, C., & Jones, S. P. (eds.) (1998). Joshua A. Fishman. In Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
- Chassie, K. et al. (eds.) (2006). Fishman, Joshua Aaron. In Who’s Who in the East. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who’s Who.
- Cooper, R. L., & Spolsky, B. (eds.) (1991). The Influence of Language on Culture and Thought: Essays in Honor of Joshua A. Fishman’s Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Berlin: Mouton.
- Fishman, J. A. (2006). Joshua A. Fishman. Retrieved on August 24, 2006 from http://www.joshuaafishman.com.
- García, Ofelia & Dow, James R. & 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 Benjamins.
- Spolsky, B. (1999). Fishman, Joshua A. (1926– ). In Spolsky, B. (ed.), Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Further Information
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