Language endangerment is a popular issue today in public and academic fields and is generally agreed upon as a well-identified, universal and objective phenomenon. This view, which often holds languages as homogenous and quantifiable as well as essentializing their link with culture and/or identity, is perpetuated not only by the media and different transnational and national organizations and institutions, but also by academics and certain speakers themselves to various means and ends (Duchêne & Heller 2007, Sayer 2009). However, language endangerment is a complex and politically charged issue situated within diverse political and socio-economic contexts; struggles articulated around language actually reflect deeper power struggles over material and symbolic resources in which each party holds vested interests (Duchêne & Heller 2007, Pennycook 2006). How and why actors in the struggle choose to present, position and express themselves vis-à-vis language endangerment are questions that are usually left unaddressed. This paper thus explores these questions through a discourse analysis focusing on the linguistic representations of members of a small ethnic community in India; this analysis elucidates ways in which these individuals resist the essentialized view discussed above. Linguistic representations are defined here as co-constructions of knowledge elaborated through discourse within contextualized social interactions, situated within a continuum between an individual and society (Petitjean 2009, Py 2000). These representations cannot be fully elucidated through content analysis; the discursive strategies used to construct the representations must also be examined. This study thus uses qualitative methodology originating in ethnography, sociolinguistics and social psychology to analyze linguistic representations via discourse analysis (Petitjean 2009, Calvet & Dumont 1999, Wodak 2006). This methodology is applied to semi-structured interviews conducted with members of the Kattu Nayaka community in the Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu, India. We then analyze various elements, including pronoun use, processes of denomination and categorization, and metaphors; the relationships and positions of the participants in the interaction, as co-constructors of the interaction, were also examined. The speakers interviewed are found to hold a more nuanced position than the dominant view, tending not to essentialize links between language and identity. References Calvet, L. - J., & Dumont, P. (Eds.). (1999). L'enquête sociolinguistique. Paris: L'Harmattan. Duchêne, A. & Heller, M. (Eds.). (2007). Discourses of endangerment: Ideology and interest in the defence of languages. London, New York: Continuum. Pennycook, A. (2006). Postmodernism in language policy. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy (pp. 60-76). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Petitjean, C. (2009). Représentations linguistiques et plurilinguisme. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Université de Provence : Aix-en-Provence, France. Py, B. (Ed.). (2000). Analyse conversationnelle et représentations sociales : Unité et diversité de l'image du bilinguisme. Travaux neuchâtelois de linguistique, 32. Neuchâtel : Institut de linguistique de l'Université de Neuchâtel. Sayer, D. (2009). Reversing Babel : Declining linguistic diversity and the flawed attempts to protect it. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Essex : Essex. Retrieved from http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/theses/2009/Sayers_ReversingBabel.pdf Wodak, R. (2006). Linguistic analyses in language policies. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy (pp. 170-193). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.