Jansen S (2026)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Journal article, Original article
Publication year: 2026
Book Volume: 11
Pages Range: 9-84
Article Number: e1760
Journal Issue: 215
URI: https://energeia-online.org/article/view/10062
DOI: 10.55245/energeia.2026.001
Open Access Link: https://energeia-online.org/article/view/10062
This contribution argues that language, as well as individual languages, are not autonomous
objects merely described by epistemic practices. Rather, they are social phenomena brought
into being – in other words, ontologized – through such practices. In the case of European
standard languages, this is reflected in the process Auroux (1994) calls grammatisation, which
was driven by professional language ontologizers and speakers alike and has contributed to the
perception that languages are internally structured systems with fixed rules. To the extent that
speakers orient to these ontologizations in their linguistic behavior, languages move closer to
how they are imagined, through so-called “looping effects.” Based on three case studies from
tradition-oriented Romance linguistics in German-speaking academia (canonical structuralist
analysis, the immediacy–distance continuum, and discourse traditions under the two-historicity
approach) it is argued that, while the system ontologization has dominated linguistics since its
inception, it suffers from three pitfalls: naïve realism, the essentialist fallacy, and performativity
blindness. To illustrate how alternative ontologizations can not only offer more realistic,
situated accounts of language by building looping effects into the model, but also have more
positive real-world effects for speakers, two alternatives drawn from the wider social sciences
are presented, namely the practice and the assemblage ontologizations. These are further
illustrated in two case studies – the Real Academia Española’s position on gender-inclusive
language, and the revitalization of the Katsakati language in the Ecuadorian Amazon – that
allow us to see how problematic real-world effects of the system ontologization can be
mitigated under a practice and an assemblage framework, respectively. Altogether, this shows
the importance of maintaining a critical stance towards our epistemic practices, for which
interdisciplinarity and epistemic plurality are especially helpful.
APA:
Jansen, S. (2026). Ontologizing (not: describing) language through epistemic practices: a case for critical epistemic pluralism. Energeia, 11(215), 9-84. https://doi.org/10.55245/energeia.2026.001
MLA:
Jansen, Silke. "Ontologizing (not: describing) language through epistemic practices: a case for critical epistemic pluralism." Energeia 11.215 (2026): 9-84.
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